You’re A Rascal Veronica Mars!

We know that Veronica Mars is smart, fearless, resourceful, and combines all of that into one smoking hot, petite package, but one of the great things about her is that she still has a mean streak. That’s not to say that she goes around and tries to pick fights with people, of course. Veronica is very nice to her friends, whether it means baking them snickerdoodles for the big game, introducing them to the parents they never met, or solving their murder. It’s just that our girl has made plenty of enemies, and she has no trouble getting back at her enemies with a vengeance. And while the people she decides to take down a notch might not always deserve it (surely Meg would have been happier if Veronica had been slightly more forgiving), Veronica does so much good, we can certainly understand why she may be inclined to do some things out of pure spite. And while it may not be in line with the holiday spirit, sometimes spite feels so good.We open the episode with Veronica and Duncan in sex education class. This is kind of disturbing because I used my only half way decent sex ed joke a few weeks back. Damn! Luckily, Mrs. Hauser is a pretty good joke herself, at least judging by her taste in men. You would think that after she saw how her first child turned out, she would be a little bit pickier about the men she shacked up with than Deputy Sacks, no? Perhaps Sacks is a gentleman, but Mrs. Hauser seemed pretty hot to trot, and seems to dig a man in uniform, but once again, she knows the consequences.

While Mrs. Hauser knows the consequences, the students of her class most definitely do not, and so she is very excited to have everybody split up into pairs for a chance to see what comes after the sex and the venereal diseases. No, I’m not talking about a hangover and a hasty exit while the other person gets up to use the bathroom, I am talking about a baby. When the children of Sunnydale were given eggs to learn responsibility, that didn’t really work out in the end, so I am sure the kids of Neptune are happy that they have babies that, while are assuredly going to be a pain in the ass, aren’t going to end up possessing their bodies. I was surprised at how comfortable Veronica was about the whole thing, saying, and “aren’t we supposed to have a tequila shot first”. If Duncan wasn’t so stiff, he might have said something back like “or some rohypnol, ha, ha, remember when I had sex with you even though I thought you were my sister? ha ha. This relationship isn’t awkward at ALL!”

I’m sure Duncan was just getting warmed up, so he didn’t get a chance for a comeback before Veronica was called to Vice Principal Clemmons office. Usually the Vice Principal is trying to bust her on not so random locker suspensions that don’t usually work, and he has asked Veronica for help a few times as well. Let’s face it, Veronica is usually in trouble, and this was the case again, and Clemmons might have had something that might actually get Veronica a little worried. He asked Veronica for her keys, and among the keys that opened filing cabinets and started Vespas was one that fit perfectly into Clemmons’ office door. Clearly Mr. Clemmons wanted to stop Veronica before she found his gimp suit and ball gag.

Although it was a long time ago, Clemmons wanted to know how she got those drug test results, even though they were faked, and even though Veronica saved his ass, he said that this was something that not only warrants a suspension, but possible police involvement. Veronica can handle the police, but if she is suspended, she can say goodbye to that Kane scholarship, meaning she won’t be able to go to Stanford, having given away all of her money to help her mom into rehab. Clemmons does have a heart, and he says that Veronica can opt for detention instead, which she gladly accepts, although she really didn’t have choice.

Waiting for her sentence, Veronica overhears on the intercom that Trina Echolls (Alyson Hannigan) is coming back to be a celebrity director for the school’s production of Hamlet. The Principal seemed very eager to welcome back one of their own, but Veronica knew the only reason why she was there was probably because she was booted off of the Surreal Life. You know the writers just have to get bonus points for mentioning other Viacom properties. It turns out that Veronica’s penance will be sorting through a bunch of old school records. It’s either sheer stupidity or cruel irony that Clemmons would have Veronica sorting through school records since that is what she got busted for, but it’s going to be a lot of work nonetheless, and it turns up a few surprises, some even better than when you wash your pants and find an extra $20 that made it through the wash.

As we all know, Veronica’s mom went to Neptune high school as well. She used to go with Jake Kane before Celeste moved in, although we aren’t sure their flame ever really died down. Veronica happens upon her mom’s personal file, and she’s surprised to find that her mom was suspended, along with Deborah Phillipina Drummond, who would later go on to be Deborah Phillipina Hauser, for spreading rumors. Clemmons catches her sifting through the records, although what did he expect her to do in a dark room with all of those files? So what if she reads some old file, she can’t cause that much trouble, right?

Veronica has issues with her mom, to say the least. Her mom is an alcoholic, and even though Veronica used all of her college savings to put her into rehab, Leann couldn’t find a way to stick through the whole thing. That would have been hard enough if Veronica already wasn’t harboring resentment to her mom for leaving her and her dad when it was their time of need. Sure Leann was running away from a little more than a life of a social outcast, and Veronica still wants to find some of the good in her, so when she saw that her mom was spreading rumors, she wanted to find what it was all about. Like she said, she had thought that if she had known her mother when she was in high school, they would have been good friends, and so she asks Mrs. Hauser what it was all about the next day at school.

Mrs. Hauser didn’t really want to talk about the past, even denying that she was ever friends with Leann, saying that whatever was blacked out in the record of her mom’s suspension was just a rumor, not a juicy story. She said that she didn’t understand how people could be hurt by what she did, and suggested Veronica might learn from her mom’s mistake. Before Veronica gets a chance to get too introspective, she wants to see what all of the hubbub is in front of the school. Did somebody get duct taped to the flagpole? I know the kids of Neptune are all bad ass, but shouldn’t some of them be a little more creative than doing things to the flagpole? What did the flagpole ever do to them? Why must it constantly be subjected to bondage with naked adolescents and Geo Metros?

Yes, somebody did get duct taped to the flagpole, but it wasn’t the usual suspects involved, or should I say the usual suspects were not involved in the usual way. Weevil was taped to the flagpole, giving all of us and Veronica’s baby a very important lesson – what goes around, comes around. That message probably one that Weevil wasn’t going to forget. A bunch of 09ers ambushed him the night before in retaliation for his gang scaring the piss out of Logan (literally) in his little off the record interrogation. Logan had promised a whole world of hurt, and it looks like Weevil found out the hard way that even penis heads can have friends, not to mention pack quite a punch.

Having been rebuffed by Mrs. Hauser, Veronica goes on to ask a few more people about her mom, including vice principal Clemmons, who was teaching at the time. He told her to do more alphabetizing and less cold case. She tried principal Moorehead, who was vice principal at the time, but he told her that her mom was quite vicious. She even asked Mary Mooney, the lunch lady, who happened to be deaf, and also was at Neptune in 1980. Veronica’s mom had a deaf aunt and had taught Veronica to sign a little bit, so Veronica tried to find out from Mary how her mom treated her, and Mary said Leann was a fiend. In other words, she couldn’t find anybody who could say anything nice about her mom.

One mother that people speak nicely of, as long as she is talking dirty to them is Kendall. She was at Duncan’s apartment offering a little “turn on” service. Although Kendall has been in both of their beds, Duncan doesn’t want her there, and when she offers to give him a little lesson in driving with a stick. Sounds salacious, but she is looking to sell big Dick’s Maserati for the bargain price of $75,000, about half of what it would cost new. OK, so she also wants to sleep with him for money, but before getting a chance to proposition him more, Logan walks in, with his sister Trina in tow. Kendall acts excited to see Logan, and says that she wanted to bring something for the two guys to share, or take turns. Logan likes Duncan, but they clearly can’t share the same girl, and it would be a problem for them both having sex with Kendall as well. She is talking about the car (we think), but Trina can’t stand it, and decides to leave after exchanging a few words with Kendall, who was alternately joking about the size of Logan’s penis and the d-list celebrity children Trina hangs out with in her spare time.

Veronica is still on the search of people who knew her mom, and she found Patty Wilson, who seemed to think her mom was very nice, but also said that she was a gossip. Patty said that the whole thing about the suspension had to do with Leann’s relationship with Jake Kane. There was another girl who wanted Jake, and said that she was pregnant in order to break up Jake and Leann. We know this evil bitch as Celeste Kane, and although Veronica can’t be sure if the pregnancy broke them up or if it was her mom who made the story of the pregnancy after they broke up, it’s another reason for her to go after Celeste.

Since Trina is such a celebrity, her directing Hamlet was a big deal, and Veronica was assigned to do pictures. The day before she met Trina, who was very happy to see Veronica, and treated her very nicely, but when your father tried to kill the girl you’re talking to, I guess you would try and be nice when you see the person. Trina is excited to tell Veronica that Evan Rachel Wood (now legal!!) is playing Veronica in the Aaron Echolls story, and wants Veronica to try out for Hamlet. What Trina lacks in brains, she makes up with all that enthusiasm she brings, but not even enthusiasm is going to help her when she slips on a prop skull and falls over, knocking her unconscious and sending her to the hospital.

Light as a feather, stiff as a board….Drops like a rock.

Trina’s injury is about the last thing on Veronica’s mind; Veronica is still looking for information on her mother’s scandal. Keith tried to tell Veronica that she shouldn’t be so concerned with what happened with Leann and Jake because if those two didn’t split, Veronica might never have been born, and she wouldn’t have her wonderful loving father, and she might not have turned out the be the great girl that she is now. Keith also knows how convenient it is that exonerating Leann also means taking down Celeste. He does help her by looking up some information about babies born in 1980, but there was nothing to prove it was Celeste that was pregnant, but a Jane Doe baby was delivered to the Balboa County Hospital the night of the Neptune prom.

It’s ironic how all of this unwanted and abandoned baby talk comes when the kids are carrying around their Animatronic Parental Lifestyle Simulators, don’t you think? I also think I would never want a teenage Veronica as my mom. Veronica either wasn’t paying attention when Mrs. Hauser said the fake babies had a chip to record everything that happened, or Veronica didn’t care, because the baby often cried when it was in her care. At first she seemed sorry that the baby would have a 1 in 4 chance of being an alcoholic (obviously Veronica hasn’t been taking population genetics), but was content most of the rest of the time to let it cry unless the crying was pissing other people off. She is more than happy to give the baby back to the father, and when she gets to Duncan, she sees that he is ready for a night out.

Duncan told Veronica that he was going out to dinner and wouldn’t be able to take the kid. She was kind of worried who he was seeing because, you know, who else is there that he wants to see besides her? Well, Duncan was going out with the one person she never wants to see Duncan with, and I am not talking about Morgan or Caitlin. Celeste was back in town, and with all of the stuff Veronica had just learned about Celeste; she wasn’t about to back down to the older woman putting her down. While Duncan had a few words with his mom, Veronica went to Duncan’s room where Celeste’s housekeeper, Astrid, was folding his laundry. It turns our Astrid was 25, not a natural blonde, and she was working for Celeste because she wanted to pay for grad school. A ha! It was so easy! Celeste felt guilty about leaving the baby, so she hires her abandoned daughter to work for her and pays for her grad school to make it seem like she is doing a good thing.

Since the time Weevil was strung up, I was waiting for him to get his revenge, and he manages to find Logan in the bathroom alone, and uses a stopper to keep the door closed behind him. By the way, I wish the producers had done a little bit more work to make it look like the guy’s bathroom was different from the ladies besides putting a urinal on one of the walls. Logan has been waiting for what was going to happen, but he wasn’t prepared for what Weevil was offering. Weevil said that he only did what he did to Logan because he wanted to know if Logan killed Felix, and if the threat permanent of disfigurement couldn’t make Logan change his story, than maybe it was all true.

Now Logan still thinks that he owes Weevil a bigger beating, but Weevil wants to work with Logan to find who killed Felix, because if it Logan, than something is wrong with the story Hector was telling the cops. The only problem is that Weevil has to show that he’s no chump, and if Logan leaves the bathroom without some serious damage, his reputation is shot. Logan’s not just going to take a beating, however, and so the two of them start fighting until Clemmons and a security guard can break it up. I have to say, it will be interesting to see these two team up, but if all of their strategy meetings end up like this first one, they may have to think about a conference call instead.

Weevil might have had big plans for a partnership between him and Logan, but it is Cassidy Casablancas that actually has a chance of making his plan work. Remember that Cassidy was quite the stud at making money for his fake company during the future business leaders of America meetings, so why not try and do it with a real company. Now although I think going from a business simulation to an actual business and thinking you are a CEO would be like playing SOCOM and thinking you are a SEAL or getting the Virtual Sex With Jenna DVD and thinking that you are a porn star. Then again, Cassidy doesn’t need boot camp or a big penis to get things started; he just needs some money, a logo, and an adult to be his puppet.

We know Cassidy has the money, because his mom opened up his trust, and he asked Mac to help him with his website and logo. Mac was very excited to help Beaver, and she even tried to drop some hints on him when she showed him some prototypes, but I guess he wants the power first, and then the bitches, and not the other way around. Still, if Cassidy is looking for some play with a girl who isn’t passed out or in Mexico, Mac would be an option. Anyway, the only person Beaver needs is an adult to be the face of the company. He knows Kendall is desperate, having sold his dad’s $15,000 watch for $5000, and although she makes fun of him for being young and naive, the $1000 a week plus commission is something she can’t turn down, and it’s better than having to sleep with little Dick or wear that ridiculous maid’s outfit he bought for her.

Will they, or won’t they?

There is only one last step for Veronica to bring down Celeste, and that is to get confirmation from somebody at the adoption agency about the identity of the prom baby. Adoption agencies are kind of a tough nut to crack, but Veronica asks one of the baby’s temporary step parents, and she is not playing Haylie Duff (you know, “Our Lips Are Sealed”). Pretending to be a PI, Veronica says that her clients are the baby’s real parents, and they want to pay her monetarily, but don’t want publicity, but the woman tells Veronica that the baby went to a wealthy local family, but just when Veronica thought the woman was going to tell her how the Kane’s took her in, she instead hears how the woman hear that prom baby had a really tough year. Her adoptive mother committed suicide, and her father was in jail for murder.

WHOA!

It now all makes sense. Trina has the red hair, but why would Celeste give her up? Was she that embarrassed? You would have thought that learning Trina was the baby in question would have meant Veronica would hold back, but she wanted Celeste to go down for too long to give up now. Her plan is to videotape Trina making a plea from her hospital bed that she needs a marrow transplant. Veronica goes in, convinces Trina she simply needs to practice for her Hamlet audition, and secretly taped Trina saying things in the script she was practicing, which of course was about a girl who need a bone marrow transplant, but was adopted and needed to find her real parents. The plan was to send the tape to the Tabloids, but Veronica didn’t want to ambush Trina like that. She tells Trina the plan, and Trina thinks it’s great. Even after Veronica tells her that she isn’t getting Punk’d, Trina still likes the idea. The Kanes are worth billions, and if she was Celeste’s bastard child it meant she got a piece, and it’s not like she had slept with Duncan and made things weird.

The next day, Trina was out of the hospital, and her mother saw her story on the evening news, and couldn’t keep quiet about it any longer. She wanted to donate marrow if it would save Trina’s life. Trina’s mom came up to Veronica before she was about to begin heating up the tater tots. That’s right; Trina’s real mom was Mary, the lunch lady. At first, it looks like Trina was upset that her mom was poor and failure, but when she saw how happy her mom was to see her, she returned the love back. Besides, now she could hire her mom to be the housekeeper!

Way back when Veronica was asking Mary what she thought of Leann, she missed a very important part of Mary’s message. She was trying to say Veronica’s mom was a friend, not a fiend. Leann knew sign language and would always sit with Mary at lunch, which was enough for Mary to consider Leann the sweetest, coolest, girl at school. In fact, it was her friendship with Mary that got Leann in trouble. Mary was having an affair with a faculty member. Leann wanted her friend to speak out, and but when she told Mrs. Hauser (or Ms. Drummond actually) what was going on, Mart got scared and so Leann shut up in order to protect her friend, who didn’t want anybody to know she was pregnant with vice principal Moorehead’s baby.

That’s right, Trina was the baby of Mary and Moorehead, which sounds like some nativity scene in Van Nuys. Mary was sweet, always gave her extra cupcakes when she was in school, and came out as soon as she heard Trina may be in trouble. Moorhead, on the other hand, was more worried about his reputation than Trina’s health and stated silent, but it was too late. Veronica blew the story open and Moorehead was fired, and we finally knew why Clemmons wanted Veronica to sort through those records. He knew Veronica would search and find the answers to expose the principal, putting Clemmons in line for the main job. He denied it all, of course, but Veronica seems to appreciate that Clemmons, like herself, knows just when it’s time to take the gloves off.

I thought this was a great episode. Lots of action, lots of twists, and with an ending like no other. Weevil and Logan working together, and we saw that Hector has a little attitude about the way Weevil is handling things. Veronica found the rat from the bus…in her freezer. Her dad took it, and it gave her another excuse to blame herself, because the rat was there as a message to her, or at least she thought. We have Cassidy looking to make money, burn up his trust fund, or bilk some more investors, and last but not least, Meg is pregnant!

A Coma Built for Two

That’s right! At the end of the episode, Veronica gets a call to go to the hospital to get Abel Koontz’s things. While she is there, she sees Meg, who is still in her coma, but for some reason has two heart monitors. One for Meg, and one for her baby. Veronica is shocked to see it, and suddenly so many things come into place. Duncan visiting Meg, Meg being so upset about her and Duncan, and Meg’s parents upset at the both of them. Oh, and just as Veronica is leaving, Meg wakes up!

But as exciting as that ending was, I believe the alternate ending was even better. Normally, I don’t like gimmicks like this, but the viewers were given a chance to see an alternate ending online and vote for their favorite. In the alternate, all of the same things happen, except when Veronica goes to see Meg, Meg’s mom walks in. Veronica hides, and she soon hears the hear monitor registering a flat line. She walks in to see a pillow over Meg’s face. She takes it off right away, but not before a nurse can catch her red handed. We’ll see the results of what the viewers decided were best next week.

What did you think of the episode? Is Hector betraying Weevil? Will the Weevil and Logan reunion work out? Which ending did you like bette?