Prodigal Thug

Although I have enjoyed the last couple of weeks, I was starting to get worried about Veronica Mars. It has been as funny and clever as ever, but some things were troubling, and they go far beyond my dread at having to hear all the gushing should Logan and Veronica get together. No, I was starting to wonder if perhaps the writers didn’t have a plan. You know, perhaps, they were too busy putting a bunch of twists and “gotchas” into the episodes that the wonderful mystery of all the conspiracies would come tumbling down because there wasn’t enough to keep them all going at once. Oh how very wrong I was. It looks like the writers had a great plan, and the only thing I am worried about now is whether I’ll feel worse having to wait three more episodes for it all to wrap up, or the fact that after those three episodes, I will have to wait another four or five months for them to get started again. But enough about that because I have already taken too much away from this week’s episode, which was, as I used to say when I was a kid (and to be honest still do), so f-ing dope.At the beginning of the episode, Veronica is giving a deposition in the relating to the Aaron Echolls murder case. Being a big fan of Basic Instinct, I liked the little shout out they gave to that very famous interrogation scene. Veronica was being asked to describe what she saw on tape between Lilly Kane and Aaron Echolls. For those of us who have watched Season 1 (and if you haven’t, go out and get the DVD – you can thank me later), it was not hard to see that Aaron Echolls having sex with her or had discovered an accurate way to tell body temperature with his penis. Although Aaron’s lawyer attempted to question Veronica’s ability to judge a sex act without actually seeing copulation, she assured him that she had not only passed Sex Ed, but watched enough Animal Planet to know what sex looked like.

The only thing really difficult about the deposition was when the lawyer asked if she was still keeping in touch with Duncan Kane. Veronica didn’t have to answer, of course, but it did seem to ruffle her up a little bit.

Returning home, Veronica learned that her father discovered something that would really blow her mind. For the last month, we have been fed a lot of clues that Woody Goodman was involved in the crash. Last week, we learned of a few more scenarios that were possible, some including Woody, but others that fingered the Fitzpatricks and even Weevil. This week, we learn that Richard Casablancas was using the life insurance policies of his sons as a tax shelter, but more interesting than that was the payout. If both children died at the same time, Kendall Casablancas would be the beneficiary. Now the only thing left to prove is that Kendall Casablancas was smart enough to pull this off and not get caught.

The next day at school, Clemmons is doing one of those “random locker searches” in order to catch all sorts of various paraphernalia considered dangerous or disruptive at school. Unfortunately, Mac was a victim of one of the searches. She had purchased a cell phone interceptor so she could listen on Cassidy Casablancas’ phone conversations, putting her a few dangerous steps closer to official crazy ex-girlfriend psycho bitch territory.

Veronica is more than happy to help her friend, but quickly learns that Clemmons has changed his locks. This means Veronica is going to have to act a little more creative, and so she asks Clemmons’ son Butters whether he will help her out. Butters agrees, but only because he needs a prom date. This was perhaps a little bit more than Veronica wanted to sacrifice to help out her friend, but when she learns that Butters wants to go with Mac, she agrees to the deal. Unfortunately, Veronica neglects to tell this to Mac, leaving her very confused as they are in Clemmons office and Butters is telling her that he is a good dancer. When he asks what sort of dress she is wearing because he doesn’t want to look like an idiot and buy the wrong corsage, Mac figures is out. By that time, Veronica had found Mac’s cell phone interceptor, and decides that it is best to leave before Mac stars asking Butters questions like, “Can you please shut up about the prom?” or “Do you want me to kick you in the nuts?”/

Smell It Bitch!

Among the items confiscated, a few caught Veronica’s eye, like the fake vomit and an ironic t-shirt, although I am not sure how it is ironic. Oh, and the Anarchist’s Cookbook, which was found in Weevil’s locker, but confiscated many years ago. For those of you too young to remember, the Anarchist’s Cookbook is a real document that contains instructions on various methods to get back at the government for various wrongs they may have committed. Some methods include making explosives to get back at the evil capitalist pigs that run the government, while others include making drugs which you would take to make yourself to debilitated to fight for the capitalist pigs or too wasted to get jobs and make money for the capitalist pigs. With the advent of the Internet, the cookbook got a little more traction because it became more widely available, and there are still places where it is banned. The only problem is that it was written in the 1970s, so many of it’s method probably aren’t useful, especially since most of the drug recipes are for substances kids no longer take to piss of their parents.

But enough with the history lesson. Veronica knows that Weevil likes rats, as evidenced by how much he enjoyed feed her homeroom’s pet snake, and the cookbook might give him enough knowledge to pull off the bus crash like her imaginary friend Cervando told her in her dreams last week. Without pulling any punches, Veronica basically accuses Weevil of causing the bus crash. She says that he and Cervando wanted to take out the limo full of rich kids, but didn’t know that Dick had given his goodie bag to Betina. When Weevil says it wouldn’t have been worth the effort, Veronica reminds him that Logan Echolls was supposed to be on the bus at the time, and if the incident with Thumper is any indication, he was willing to go to great lengths to get the guy who killed Felix.

On top of all of this, a fellow student, Harry Greene, asks Veronica if she can help find his dog. A few years back, Veronica busted up a ring of dog thieves, but this student’s dog wasn’t dognapped, it was run over by a car. The car actually came up over the curb, but by the time Harry was outside, the car was gone. He couldn’t see the license plate, but remembered what it looked like. With Veronica’s help, Harry identified it as a Plymouth Barracuda, but since no green Barracudas were registered in Neptune, Veronica was going to have to be a little more creative in her search. Strangely enough a green muscle car plays an important role in the story line of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which makes me wonder if Veronica will later use a double-ended dildo to kill off corrupt cops, but for some reason, I don’t think that will happen.

Harry has some anger issues

Keith Mars, who has been on and off about this bus crash investigation, is really starting to get into it now. He tells Veronica that Kendall made three calls to Logan on the day of the crash, which is surprising to him until Veronica lets him know that Kendall and Logan were having a little “coitus sordidus” several times a week. Keith asks Veronica if she can find out if Logan was with Kendall at the time of the accident, and so she reluctantly agrees to do so the next day. After trading their normal barbs with each other, Veronica finds out that Kendall kicked him out early that day, and, oh, he made a townie girl moan without using his hands. I am a little confused about this because technically, he is a townie guy, depending on who you ask, but maybe that’s what Logan calls the poor girls. Second, when I heard her tell the story she said “I faked an orgasm with this penis head 09er and then he told all of his friends”.

With no alibi, maybe Kendall did have more to do with this than we imagined, even though Logan, who admittedly spent a lot of time with her, doesn’t think she has the intellectual muscle to pull such a scheme off. But then Veronica hears the strangest news of the day; Gia Goodman has seen that green Barracuda before. When she got no leads with the DMV, Veronica put an ad in the student newspaper. Gia saw that car, because she noticed that somebody from that car mooned the rich kids limo moments before the bus crash. She remember because her father called to ask her where she was a short time before that because he needed her to pick up her brother from a piano lesson.

Obviously, the hints on the bus crash are coming fast and furious, and now the plot thickens once more regarding Kendall Schiflitt. Keith dug up some of her old high school yearbooks and found that Kendall Schiflitt was blonde and had a thing for perms back in 1994. The person we actually thought was Kendall is actually named Priscilla Banks, and her name change may have something to do with her criminal record. She spent six months in jail for wire fraud, which might not have kept her out of the Laker Girls (my ex-NBA dancer friend tells me that as part-time employees, the cheerleaders and dance teams don’t always warrant background checks) but it probably would have put a few more hundred pages into that pre-nup she signed when she married Richard Casablancas.

As interesting as all of that may have been, Veronica believed that she was much closer to the mystery of the bus crash. If somebody needed to be close to the bus to set off the explosion, the owner of that green Barracuda fit the description. An anonymous source gave Veronica the location of the car although I’m not sure how great her plan was. Walking up to the house and saying something like “Hey, did you blow up a bus full of kids” isn’t going to get you far, but she’s the precocious high school investigator and I am but a lowly blogger, so I’ll let her call the shots.

When Veronica gets to the house, the person inside admits to owing a green barracuda, but there is not much chance that this person could have been the person who crashed the bus. First, the person in question is an old woman, and while you don’t know how crazy she was, Gia mentioned that one of the people in the car gave a pressed ham, i.e. mooned them and pressed their ass against the window. It’s one of the greatest tricks in the books, but I doubt grandma would have taken all that trouble to drop her Depends; she might have broken a hip or something. And she couldn’t have been the driver because she was, you know, blind from cataracts.

The lady was upset and insinuated that the car was her late husband’s and it will never leave her garage until she is in a pine box. Veronica left her to her Pat and Vanna, but wondered how the blind got enjoyment out of Wheel of Fortune. Well, maybe the same way they get enjoyment out of baseball and the biathalon Veronica. She didn’t ask you personal questions!

Alas, Veronica knew that somebody was probably taking advantage of this disabled woman, who probably wouldn’t notice if somebody took her car while she wasn’t looking. Veronica goes into the garage, and there is the green Barracuda. She uses some chalk line dust and finds the imprint of a decal. Gia mentioned that she thought they were college kids because of some mascot decal on the side of their car, but what college where they from? I thought the imprint looked like an outline of a pirate logo, but if it was a pirate, wouldn’t Gia have recognized her own school mascot? More importantly, what were these kids doing with a gun in the glove box?

Veronica placed a tracking device in the car and went back to her father’s office (speaking of father’s office, Father’s Office has some great burgers if you are ever in Santa Monica, not to mention a kick-ass microbrew collection). Not long after she got there, Weevil came in and asked a favor. Hector came to Weevil’s uncle’s shop begging for him to help the PCH. Without Thumper, they were increasingly being abused by the Fitzpatrick’s. Arturo, who Weevil wouldn’t let in the gang, but found his way in after that string of pizza delivery boy robberies, even got a lighter to the face. Weevil didn’t want to go back, but he hated the Fitzpatrick’s more than he was hurt that his old hermanos betrayed him.

When he fingered Thumper for the robbery of the school carnival (I *really* hope they actually go to Magic Mountain), Weevil noticed that Thumper had a paddle with a bunch of numbers on it. He figured that they were license plate numbers of some influential customers that Thumper made as sort of an insurance policy. He knows Veronica has access to Clemmons’ office, so he wants to get in and get the paddle. Veronica’s key doesn’t work, but that doesn’t mean that she can’t use it to get some answers from Weevil, like why he was following the bus. The answer was easy enough. Cervando was book smart, but street stupid and was telling everybody how he had duped Liam Fitzpatrick. Like I said last week, we all know how much Liam hates when people talk, and so did Weevil. He heard that Liam was out to get Cervando, and wanted to watch his back.

Hmm, I guess that theory is out the window. Veronica gives Weevil the key, tells him that it doesn’t work anymore, but isn’t cruel enough to hold back the copies that she made of the paddle. He wants to run some of those numbers and figure out exactly who was buying from the Fitzpatricks.

Veronica got a signal that the Barracuda was on the move while she was doing a shift at Java the Hutt. Fortunately, Jackie was there to cover for her. Yes, you heard me right, Jackie, as in Jackie Cook. She needed a job and asked Veronica to vouch for her because she had no other experience and needed some income since her father’s assets were all frozen. Veronica didn’t really want to vouch for her and was taking a little risk, especially when the manager said if Jackie sucks, Veronica would have to fire her. The gamble paid off and Jackie’s ballet lessons paid off into some real grace working all of those tables.

Having a job at the Hutt meant Jackie was easier to find, and Wallace was still pursuing her. He knew she didn’t want to be seen as a bitch, but Jane already had a date to prom, and it had been two weeks, an eternity in high school time. One problem hampering their reconciliation was when Wallace told Jackie that she shouldn’t worry about her reputation because it can’t get any worse than your dad blew up a school bus. Sounds kind of harsh, but the words came out a bit wrong. Wallace gets a table in Jackie’s section, and when she comes over, tells her that he hopes she can work through the issues she has with her reputation, but he doesn’t care about that. He has feelings for her, but if she says she doesn’t have feelings for him, he’ll back off. Jackie says that is just the opposite, but she just got accepted tot he Sorbonne (I wonder if she knows Taylor Townsend) and she leaves right after graduation. She doesn’t want to get attached only to find out their or no happy endings out there for them. If she can’t find a happy ending, maybe she just needs to spend more time in Koreatown. Ha! I’ve been waiting to use that one for a long time folks.

Veronica gets into the LeBaron and follows the Barracuda until it stops in front of a house. Using a listening device, Veronica hears a woman’s voice. She tells whoever is in the car that there is somebody inside, and the guy in the car asks for his gun. Veronica calls her dad to let him know that something bad is about to go down and gives him the location. Keith tells Veronica to wait outside and if anybody other than him comes outside, to drive off as fast as she can. But wait? That means that…Keith is inside of the house?!

Keith is a damn good investigator, and it looks like he is going to be able to get out except some noisy floorboard ruins his plans. He turns around and comes face to face with Liam Fitzpatrick, who happens to be pointing a gun at his face. It just so happens to be a nightmare scenario for Keith. He is another person’s home, essentially breaking and entering, so although Liam doesn’t exactly have just cause, it will be much easier to argue self-defense. I am not familiar with California gun law, but if he were to argue self-defense, he would probably need to be in immediate danger. Entering the house when you know somebody is in there, especially if it’s not your own, probably voids that immediate danger thing

It probably would have done Keith no good to explain any of that, so instead he tries to plead with Liam that he has a daughter. Liam is unapologetic and now I am wondering how in the hell Keith is going to get out of this. Liam pulls the trigger, but the gun is empty. Phew! The two of them begin fighting, crash through the front window, and Keith is able to get away. He runs into the car with Veronica, who at the time was wondering what Kendall Casablancas was doing with Liam Fitzpatrick, but didn’t wait to find out. As they sped Away, Kendall asked Liam what Keith Mars was doing in there. Liam said that he didn’t know, which Kendall said was bad, but said it would be worse if Liam were to track him down. I knew that Kendall was more than just a pretty face; she’s got a great set of boobs as well. Just kidding, she is more than just boobs; she has a great ass as well. OK, OK, this joke is old. She is more than just T&A, she obviously knew a lot more than she let on, and I started going through the past episodes in my head, Usual Suspects style, trying to figure out what it could be.

Anyway, Veronica saved Keith, but how did she know? For one, it might not be a bad idea to remove bullets from any loaded gun she sees, but apart from that, there were a few hints that it might have been a Fitzpatrick car. Obviously, it’s green, but if you go back and look at that decal impression on the window, doesn’t it look a light like the Fighting Irish logo? Like close enough that a character in a TV show could figure out what it was, but not close enough for the producers to get sued?

Close? or no cigar?

Keith was a little banged up, but he did get a nice little piece of information, namely Kendall’s hard drive. Mac came over, and although she was still mad at Veronica because of the whole Butters/prom thing (he asked if he should get a hotel room for after the prom), she had no problem helping Keith. She did a little repair on the hard drive and ten printed out ever document that was on it, including e-mails.

Losing a fight to a balding, middle-aged, pudgy private investigator must have really pissed off Liam, and so when he went to collect from the PCH, you knew he wasn’t going to be in the mood for any excuses. Hector told him that they don’t have a lot of money because there wasn’t enough of demand. Liam told them that they were told to “push it” for a reason, and not because they liked Salt and Pepa (and don’t forget Spinderella!). To emphasize his point, he hung one of them up on a chain and told his boys to beat him up until the rest of the crew emptied their pockets and made up what was missing from the weekly drop.

Things were looking bleak, but soon, another man in a green vintage car came to the rescue. Yes, it was Weevil, and he told Liam that the PCH won’t work for the Fitzpatricks any more? His leverage? That list of license plates turned up a lot of famous people, who probably wouldn’t like it if their dealer exposed them. Weevil gave Liam the list, and said he made copies. Just in case something should happen to Weevil, the story would still get out. Liam backs down, and Weevil’s entire gang is chanting his name, but instead of becoming the prodigal thug that returned to run his crew, Weevil said he didn’t want back into the PCH. A mild surprise, and one that makes you wonder what gave Weevil this change of heart.

But really, we should think about Kendall, and for reasons other than she makes it a party in my pants. The old woman, Mary McDonald, was Liam’s maternal grandmother, so she probably didn’t have anything to do with it. Veronica best guess was to go on what Weevil said. The Fitzpatricks really wanted to get back at Cervando, but that doesn’t tie any of them to Kendall.

Keith has been doing the PI thing a little longer than Veronica, and although he doesn’t have all the answers, he is getting close. He found 65 e-mails from Kendall to Cormick Fitzpatrick, older brother to Liam. They were drifters that worked the long con. Keith thinks that Kendall did that time to prevent Cormick from having that third strike that would send him to prison for life. To a crime family, that prison time would be a badge of honor, and Liam could have easily followed the bus for Kendall. Oh my, oh my. That’s pretty good, and you know we still have three more episodes for the writers to drop bombs on us.

Veronica only had one more thing to do. When she went over to Harry’s house before, he had been taking target practice on a deer and I’m sure she could only imagine what would happen if Harry knew who killed his do. Once again, Harry’s younger brother Billy answered the door. He was a little beaten up before, but he really had his face smashed in this time. Veronica [not Tyra, thanks zoobabe] noticed that he had a motorcycle in the front yard, and if you were paying attention, he was the one the Fitzpatricks strung up the night before and were beating senseless until Weevil showed. Liam probably killed the dog because Billy was late on his payments, and Billy was too scared to tell his brother.

Billy pleaded with Veronica to not tell his brother about Liam, because he didn’t want him to get hurt, not because of what the Fitzpatricks might do, but because his brother would be sent to jail for killing Liam with a razor tipped arrow to the neck. All he would need is a grassy knoll. As Veronica walked upstairs, she had a tough choice. She could effectively get rid of the person that tried to kill her father and all she would need to do is tell the truth, or she could hold back some information and save at least one distraught person from making another mistake that would throw their life away. Veronica chooses the latter and tells Harry that she could never track down the owner of the car. He looks disappointed, but fifty or sixty hours of paintball should cheer him up right away.

I thought this was a great episode. We had enough misdirection with Weevil, and we were obviously about to reveal some more crazy shit with Kendall and the Fitzpatricks down the road. I like that Mac apparently has to beat off the guys with a stick now and I’m really glad that Wallace pulled his head out of his ass. He told Jackie that if they only have five weeks, it should be the best five weeks of their lives.

Still, the crazy shit is with Kendall. I normally don’t like to talk about what happens during the previews for next week, but it looks like Woody is having an affair with Kendall, which could say some very interesting things for his involvement in the bus crash. Did he blow up the bus to help out Kendall? Or did he warn Gia only after he heard what Kendall was planning? Maybe Kendall found out he likes young boys or girls and forced him to do something? Too many theories to talk about, so please be sure to share your own in the comments section.

And let me not forget to mention another little thing. The murder weapon in the Lilly Kane murder case was found. I know what you’re thinking, “But they already had the ash tray!”. Well, when the new residents of the Kane house were digging up their pool, they found Aaron Echolls oscar statue. It had Lilly’s blood on it, but also Duncan’s hair. Wow. This whole time I thought Kendall placed something in Duncan’s shower, but she was obviously taking hair samples out in order to plant evidence. This was supposed to make her money, but I don’t know how they are going to use it, or if it will be Veronica who exposes it, or if it even exposed this year. Who knows, if Kendall needed some leverage with the DA, saying you fabricated evidence for Aaron Echolls might get you a deal if it gets them a conviction. Not that it matters because he’ll still be in jail for three counts of assault and two for attempted murder, right?

What did you think of this episode? What is Kendall’s involvement in the crime? Was she playing Logan as well as Richard Casablancas? Why wouldn’t Weevil get back with the PCH? Will Aaron Echolls go free?