Ladyghosts of Television Past: Veronica Mars Episode 2

Welcome back to my re-watch of Veronica Mars.  We’re on to episode 2 now and the characters we were introduced to last time are starting to get fleshed out a little more.  The mystery of the week is why Weevil’s grandmother was accused of credit card fraud.  Weevil lives with his grandmother, who cleans house for the Echols family.  Remember Logan Echols, Neptune High’s resident psychopath?  Apparently a credit card went missing at his house and of course the housekeeper is the prime suspect.  Logan, btw, is a huge snob about going to school with the grandson of his housekeeper.  No surprise there.  But just looking at Mrs. Navarro you know that she is Weevil’s beloved abuelita and wouldn’t have committed the crime.  Well to be honest, no one really believes Weevil’s abuelita did it.  Get ready to start recognizing patterns, viewers, because Weevil is going to be accused time and time again.  Anyway,  Mars Investigations to the rescue!  Well, Mars Investigations and Neptune’s Only Public Defender and Bus stop Ad Lawyer, Cliff McCormack.  (Fun facts, the actor who plays Cliff is also the voice of Cosmo on The Fairly OddParents, my favorite cartoon).  Cliff had looked at the charges on the credit card and they were for a bunch of motorcycle parts and stuff that your typical abuela doesn’t buy, so now not only does poor Weevil have stupid Sheriff Lamb on his case, but he also has Cliff and Keith Mars’ PI senses tingling.  Keith tells Veronica to investigate the case because he likes giving her cases that involve her peers.  It’s not super appropriate if you ask me.

Later, Keith and Veronica are having dinner and Sheriff Lamb stops by.  As far as I can tell his whole purpose here is to be an asshole.  This is what I’m saying about them fleshing out the characters a little.  He was already a jerk about basically accusing Weevil of the credit card fraud while arresting his grandma and now he stops by to ruin the Mars family dinner.  He makes some comment about how it’s been a year since Lilly’s murder and tries to rub it in Keith’s face that Lamb is sheriff now.  They go back and forth being snarky to each other and Keith says he doesn’t believe that the guy they have in jail was the actual murderer because he was turned in by an anonymous tipster.  Sheriff Lamb says it couldn’t have been Lilly’s dad because his records show he wasn’t near the house at the time Lilly was murdered.  Why is Sheriff Lamb divulging information about an ongoing case? Who knows.  And then he leaves.  I’m just going to let you know now that Sheriff Lamb doesn’t get a whole lot more multi-dimensional.  He’s a bumbling jerk for the whole series.  So don’t get your hopes up that he is really trying to fight for the common good or something.

So the next day at school Veronica learns that her BFF Wallace works in the attendance office.  Cue a long string of “favors” that Wallace ends up performing for Veronica using his access to school records.  In this case it’s Weevil’s attendance records which he copies for her.  Then Veronica heads off to the guidance counselor.  She has to go there because she has a bad attitude.  Guess who else is there? Special Guest Star Paris Hilton! Playing Caitlin, some bitchy blond girl.  Very suspicious.  Is this a Law and Order style crime? Guest star of the week is the criminal? Who knows.  So the guidance counselor is also the journalism teacher, I guess and Veronica ends up being the photographer for the school paper.  Like last week set up all the characters for us, this week is setting up the plot devices, like how Veronica is always going to have unfettered access to school records and how she’s going to be able to go around with a camera with high-range zoom without looking like a total creep.

With Weevil’s school records in hand, Veronica realizes that a bunch of the credit card purchases were made online during the school’s fourth period.  You have to suspend disbelief here a little and assume that she actually has credit card statements showing the time of purchase.  But Weevil was always in school during 4th period! He’s saved! But no. It turns out he already turned himself in to cover for his abuelita.  Keith Mars has more or less given up on poor Weevil at this point, but Veronica knows that Weevil has a heart of gold.  She continues her investigation anyway.

So this part was a little boring, to be honest.  She goes to school and sees Caitlin flirting with Logan.  Then she’s going to go to the beach and sees that a tire on her car was slashed, again.  So she has to catch a ride with ex-boyfriend Duncan.  This is basically just more of the plot device set-up.  Because while they are in the car (which used to be Lilly’s.  Remember Duncan and Lilly were brother and sister) they get pulled over because there are a bunch of unpaid tickets on the car, the last of which was the day that Lilly died.  Suspicious.  Anyway, Duncan’s dad and Veronica’s dad have to come pick them up, which Veronica’s voice over tells us is the first time they’ve been together since Keith may or may not have erroneously accused Jake Kane of killing his daughter.  Uncomfortable.  This is all basically just a set-up for a flashback to show Keith getting shamed out of office for accusing Jake Kane.  So they all go home.

Later, we see Keith bring in an escaped fugitive that the sheriff’s department under their current leadership, were too bumbling to manage correctly.  Who was paying Keith to trail this guy? Who knows. Probably not the sheriff.  Sometimes the Mars family just trail people for kicks.

Then Veronica accuses Logan of stealing his dad’s credit card – pay attention to the pattern here because Veronica often accuses people wrongly! Oops! So it wasn’t him. Who was it? Caitlin a la Law and Order? NO! It was Weevil’s cousin who we’ve hardly seen all episode who was DATING Caitlin, while she was putting up a front of dating an acceptable rich white boy.  Veronica takes this info to Abuela who knew all along and let Weevil take the fall!! WTF??  The only reason Weevil wants to graduate high school is because he promised his grandma and bitch is gonna play him like that?!  But then when Mrs. Navarro learns that it was because the cousin was dating bitchy-ass Caitlin, who apparently refuses ice cubes made with tap water, she gets pissssedd.  So Weevil gets set free and gives Veronica a hug (<3).  More plot set-up because Weevil is going to feel indebted to Veronica forever.  Weevil kicks his cousin out of the biker gang and I guess Caitlin was shamed out of Neptune because we never see her again.

In the final plot-set up, Veronica asks Keith what made him suspect Jake Kane in Lilly’s murder, but he won’t say.  Get ready for a lot more of that.  Veronica then goes down to the police station and impersonates Lilly (suspend disbelief here too. Supposedly she goes on a weekend because the staff are new and don’t recognize her as Keith’s daughter.  But they wouldn’t recognize that she is using the name of the daughter of the town’s billionaire who was murdered a year ago? Are they new to town too?  Do they not watch Investigation Discovery?).  Anyway, she confirms that Lilly got a speeding ticket two hours before her death, which supposedly invalidates the alibis of the entire Kane family even though we don’t yet know what they are.  Plot set up! Momma Kane, Poppa Kane and Brother Kane are now all under suspicion of being involved with Lilly’s murder.  They are going to spend the whole season doing this, FYI, so get geared up!