Thursday, August 03, 2006
Mars Attacks!
Veronica Mars, Living TV, 8.00pm
Previously on Veronica Mars: Keith lost the sheriff's election, and the anonymous caller who witnessed Logan's ill-fated battle with Felix and the PCHers on the bridge came forward at Lamb's victory party. The bus went boom and left Meg in a coma - leaving her little sister Lizzie in something of a tizzy with regard to Meg's super-secret laptop with all her private emails on it - thankfully Mac got the data downloaded onto a Jump drive and left Meg in the clear. Veronica tailed Kendall Casablancas under suspicion of her cheating on Large Penis, only to discover that Large Penis was running shady business deals - and when Beaver called the authorities, Big Penis blew town (snigger). Also, Keith investigated the wreck of the bus and found a dead rat taped underneath one of the seats. Weevil told Veronica that the Fitzpatricks wouldn't have blown up the bus, as the money Cervando hustled from them was small fry and more deserving of a baseball bat in an alleyway than the deaths of several innocent people. Veronica babysat for the various batshit crazy families of Neptune in order to discover which of Meg's babysitting clients was emotionally abusing their children. Surprisingly, it wasn't the creepy-ass Goodman family, but in actual fact Meg's own parents locking her little sister in a cupboard. Dick and Beaver came into their inheritance early, and working for Logan, Veronica identified Lamb's informant as plastic surgeon Dr Tom Griffith.
Sorry folks - in this week's episode, there's still no indication of the significance of that damn rat. But we do find out more about the bus crash. Hooray! We begin with the formerly comatose Meg, looking angelic and bathed in an eerie white light, talking directly to the camera. The camera in this case is clearly Duncan, and Meg wants to know if Duncan ever really loved her, and if he knows that he can save her. Unfortunately, Meg can get no answers from The Donut, for she is interrupted by Dominatrix!Veronica, who is not in the mood for taking shit. Meg enquires what Dominatrix!Veronica has that Meg herself doesn't, and Dominatrix!Veronica charismatically responds by gagging Meg and pointing out that she, at least, is conscious right now. She then turns her attention to Duncan and tells him to grow up, before smacking him soundly across the chops. Hooray! Except not, because it turns out Duncan was just dreaming. Bah. In the next room, Logan and Veronica are comparing notes about the cigar store that Dr. Griffith visited which may or may not be a drugs ring, and Logan suggests that Dr. Griffith is supplying them with prescription drugs. Veronica is sceptical, but promises to check it out. She also discovers that Dr. Griffith was rapped on the knuckles by the medical council recently for an illegal offsite practice on one Danny Boyd. Meanwhile, Duncan pulls a woobie face and pulls out Meg's Top Secret Letter Of Great Portent that Veronica doesn't know about and stares at the envelope.
At school, a snot-nosed 09er asks Weevil where his drugs at, yo. Weevil is naturally nonplussed by this, and the snotty 09er kid, now minus a few shirt buttons after being roughhoused by Weevil, claims he paid "one of you biker guys" for drugs, and hasn't got the goods yet. Weevil is, shall we say, not best pleased. Keith, meanwhile, is being visited by the parents of Marcos Oliveres, who died in the bus crash. They claim that since they launched a lawsuit against the school for Marcos's death, someone has been harassing them by leaving toy buses around their house, spraying Marcos's cologne everywhere while they're out, etc. They believe they know who's harassing them - the school board, wanting the suit dropped - and want Keith to prove it.
Logan and Veronica pull up outside Danny Boyd's house, and Veronica instructs Logan to remain behind as this situation needs her more subtle approach. Ah, hubris. Veronica raps on the door and claims to be a prospective patient of Dr Griffith's, wanting to check his credentials by asking what operation he performed on Danny. Danny, a little blindsided, informs Veronica that she doesn't need much work doing "besides the obvious" (indicating her boobs - heh) and takes her round the back, ending up in the River Stix - the hangout of the previously-mentioned-on-this-show Fitzpatrick family, who are one shady bunch. Danny shows Veronica his own bloodstain on the pool table, and then shows her where Dr. Griffith sewed him up. The decidedly-imposing Liam Fitzpatrick gets all up in Veronica's grill, wanting to know what she's doing there, and Veronica's line about being called Laurie and wanting advice on Dr. Griffith's surgical skills falls apart somewhat when young Molly Fitzpatrick pipes up: "her name's not Molly - she's Veronica Mars. She goes to my school. She's Keith Mars's daughter." Ohhh, busted. Veronica tries to escape by tasering Danny, but Liam knocks over a pile of crates that take Veronica with them, and easily overpowers her. Lifting Veronica onto the pool table, he gets all set to tattoo a clover onto her cheek until she gives him some answers (and Veronica at this point is in no state to even answer her own name correctly, given that a needle is about an inch away from her face) when Logan walks in, informing everyone that he's dialled 911 and that they'll be tracing his ankle monitor. The Fitzpatricks don't seem too phased by this, but then Logan pulls out a gun, and they back off. A clearly wigged Veronica manages to struggle free and she and Logan exit. Dudes, that was a terrifying scene, I don't mind telling you. We're barely past the opening credits, and we've already had more action than in an entire series of Lost, though that's hardly difficult.
Logan drives Veronica back to Mars Investigations, and it all catches up with Veronica, who bursts into tears. Her anger's directed mainly at Logan, because he's carrying a gun and is going to get himself killed. They bicker, they snark, they continue to conceal their love (or indeed the LoVe), and Veronica slams her way into the office. Keith asks Veronica what she knows about Marcos Oliveres, and she knows nothing - which seems odd, given that he was on the bus and it would seem like the least she could do to get a passenger list if she genuinely thought she was the target of the bomb. Veronica promises to ask around at school, but it turns out that nobody's heard of him. One kid in his class said that Marcos kept himself to himself, and that was it. At home later, Veronica gets an e-mail - not from Wallace, who's still missing and keeping in scant contact, but from an anonymous friend of Marcos's, who wants to say how cool Marcos was, and how they had to remain anonymous because they had a jealous boyfriend who mustn't find out about their crush on Marcos. 
At home, Keith hands Veronica an MP3 player he found taped under Mrs Oliveres car, which was transmitting recordings of Marcos's voice to her car stereo, and which was apparently paid for by the school district, so Veronica offers to do some investigation - first by approaching Vice-Principal Clemmons (who can't say anything without the principal's say-so and is thus referred to as a "powerless factotum" by Veronica) and then by approaching Principal Moorehead, who informs her that they're taking the case very seriously - if the Olivereses get everything they ask for, it'll slash the school budget and eliminate the cash for the band and several extra-curricular activities. Veronica's next stop involves talking to Mac. Hooray for Mac! We love Mac, just in case you couldn't tell. Veronica wants to know if Mac can tell when the file was recorded, but Mac can go one better - she recognises the voice as Cap'n Krunk, one half of the hosting duo of Ahoy Mateys!, a Neptune pirate (geddit?) radio station. She helpfully informs Veronica that Cap'n Krunk and his sidekick, Imitation Crab, talk smack about the kids at Neptune High, and you do not want to get on their bad side. She downloads a show for Veronica to listen to, and Veronica notices a gap of four weeks in the transmission dates at one point. A somewhat deflated Mac admits that the show went off air, and came back as a "bastardised sub-par version" without Cap'n Krunk, and she stopped listening.
Listening to the transmission, Veronica realises that Cap'n Krunk talked smack about almost everyone in Neptune, and wonders if there's anyone at all who wouldn't have had it in for Marcos if they found out his secret identity. An impatient Logan asks if there's any update on his investigation, since he really doesn't want to be sharing a cell with "Fisty McRapesalot" and man, there are some brilliant one-liners in the show this week. Veronica takes a brief moment to pout that Duncan is ignoring her (the rest of us would consider that a good thing) and then sets off for a few words with Weevil. She asks him if he's working with the Fitzpatricks, since the key witness in Felix's murder trial is in their pockets. Clearly, Weevil did not know about this and in some shady location, he lectures the other PCHers about whether he's still in charge, since they seem to be so keen on running drug rackets and getting in with the Fitzpatricks. The hilariously-named Thumper stays behind to talk to Weevil, and we're treated to a subjective flashback of That Night On The Bridge, which implies that Logan stabbed Felix, but is all based on hearsay and it turns out that no one seems to have really seen what happened that night.
Veronica and Mac, meanwhile, are tracing the signal of the latest Ahoy Mateys! broadcast, and unwittingly find themselves knocking on Vice Principal Clemmons's door. After paying homage to The Rocky Horror Picture Show by asking to use the phone (they're both in a bit of a hurry, y'know), Veronica totally sets Mac up by pretending that Mac has a crush on Butters (the son of VP Clemmons, for those who've forgotten), and is rewarded with suitable "you will die soon, Mars" glances from her friend. Clemmons knocks on Butters' door (and Butter's hilariously protests "it's private basement time!", like that doesn't sound dodgy). Having discovered the entirely ineptly-hidden transmisison equipment, Mac and Veronica out Butters as Imitation Crab, but Veronica's other theory (that VP Clemmons allowed Butters to keep doing the show if he hassled the Olivereses) is way off, apparently - Clemmons has no idea that his son's bitching out the students on a weekly basis. Butters does explain Marcos's absence as the time he went to camp, and apparently "must've been thrown by a pony, 'cause he came back all weird."
Keith tells Mr Oliveres about Marcos's secret identity, but Mr O refuses to believe that childish pranks are behind his harassment. Keith goes to sit in the Oliveres house while they're out bowling in the hope of catching the guilty party, while Veronica checks out the credit card statements. While we were deeply disappointed to learn that Mr Oliveres did not use his plastic in Unicornucopia this month, Veronica finds a charge to Camp Selfquest - which a quick googling reveals to be a degayification centre. At the Oliveres house, Keith mistakenly apprehends a neighbour who was just coming in to innocently steal a beer (his wife won't have it in their house), but who knows nothing about the harassment. Keith does, however, find a toy school bus in the fishtank and the Olivereses' alarm code scrawled on the back of some headed notepaper - from the school district's lawyer.
We then get to a bizarre and disturbing scene that I don't want to recount in too much detail, suffice to say that Logan is bundled into a van and forced at gunpoint by people in masks to answer questions for "the judge", who observes via cellphone. After threatening to shoot Logan's hand twice and his kneecap once, they eventually bail him out in a deserted area. They're pretty shabby kidnappers, though, because Logan stole one of their phones and calls the judge - whom he instantly recognises as Weevil, and there is verily talk of the OH, IT IS ON variety.
Veronica quizzes Butters about Marcos's alleged homosexuality (with some amusement, it has to be said), but Butters scoffs at the idea, referring to Marcos as a "Playboy-lovin' booty hound". Ew. He does reveal, however, that Marcos almost got his ass kicked once by a girl's jealous boyfriend, so Veronica sets a honeytrap of the "free concert tickets!" variety to her anonymous e-mail tipster from earlier. Meanwhile, Keith meets with the Olivereses, who want him to testify against the schoolboard, but Keith's mad detective skillz spotted fresh fish food on top of the fish tank when he found the toy bus, meaning that he knows Mr Oliveres planted this final clue and scrap of paper himself in the hope that Keith would, well, testify against the schoolboard. Long story short, Keith refuses to testify and the Olivereses have to settle.
Having tracked down her anonymous e-mailer - who called but hung up - via the phone book, Veronica finds Roxy, a girl Marcos made fun of in a broadcast. But Roxy knows nothing about Marcos, and it's only when Veronica spies Roxy's brother Ryan - aka the kid from Marcos's class earlier who spoke to Veronica - that she twigs (incidentally, they've had two on-screen gay characters in the series so far, and they were called Seth and Ryan. Is this a dig at The OC and its veritable levels of HoYay?). Ryan admits he was in love with Marcos and that they were fooling around, though Marcos was "sexually on the fence" and remained so despite Ryan's best efforts to push him into Homoland. Then Marcos's parents caught Ryan giving him a backrub and sent Marcos off to "Camp Homophobe", then forced him to do normal things on his return - like going on class trips. Ryan blames them for Marcos's death, and Veronica points out that what he did really hurt the family, but Ryan is unrepentant. Ouch. Meanwhile, back in stories that we only barely care about, Duncan is in bed with someone we're clearly meant to initially think is Veronica, but turns out to be Meg - again begging him to save her. Duncan then wakes with a start and roots around for Meg's Top Secret Letter Of Great Portent, before finally opening the damn thing and exhaling "oh my God!"
Phew! That was a long one, wasn't it? Congratulations if you made it to the end; you get a cookie. This week on the show: Trina Echolls is back in town, which means another guest appearance for Alyson Hannigan, and a much better one this time. Meanwhile, Veronica's trying to find out something positive about her drunken deadbeat mother. Yeah, good luck with that one, V.
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