Previously: Lots of possible scenarios for how Lilly was killed, and also Ken Marino was great.
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Weapons of Class Destruction
Democracy Diva: We begin with Deputy Mumbler’s tongue in Veronica’s mouth. He basically asks if he can come inside the Mars apartment and have sexytimes with her, but she’s like, nuh-uh. She also mentions that their age difference is 29 months, which is a few years less than I had been estimating. Are there really nineteen-year-old cops? I mean, I guess if you can be a soldier at 18, you can be a cop at 19, but I can’t pretend I’m comfortable with the idea of teens in the police force.
Lorraine: Girl, sometimes I see teens serving me fries at McDonalds and I hit them with a, “are you qualified for this?” eyebrow. It’s part of being an adult, right?
Diva: Absolutely. But while this might be bad news for the security of the greater Neptune area, it’s good news for this not being statutory rape in California, since Deputy Mumbler isn’t well into his twenties like I’d assumed he was. (S: Total retcon. I think you have 19 year old cops when you live in a town with a plot that wants teenagers dating said cops without seeming creeptacular.) (D: Word.) Anyway, they say goodbye and Veronica goes inside to catch Keith pretending not to spy on her. She puts on a ridiculous southern accent and says, “He’ll come up with the dowry to marry me, just you wait,” and I giggle forever. Keith sits Veronica down for a SRSBSN talk and says he’s met someone, and has feelings for her, and it’s… WALLACE’S MOM ALICIA. It is hilarious how angry both Veronica and Wallace are as the camera cuts between their identical reactions.
At school, it’s awkward between potential soon-to-be step-siblings Wallace and Veronica. She tries to joke about dressing him up like a doll, but he is not amused and storms off. She notices graffiti on the table that reads “killemall.net.” In journalism class, Veronica is wondering how to write to Seventeen magazine and ask whether the cute boy in her class killed his sister. Then the new journalism teacher addresses the class, and it’s the amazing Joey Lauren Adams from Chasing Amy. I mean, we were all a little bit gay for her after that movie, right? No? Just me? Okay then. Anyway, Chasing Amy tells the class to write about happy things for the school newspaper, and Logan keeps snarking in response. Veronica smiles and giggles at every joke he makes and doesn’t realize she’s giving him major puppy-dog eyes.
For some reason, there’s lots of fire drills happening, and Chasing Amy gives Veronica permission to write about that for the paper. Veronica’s just mad that Ms. Dent “got herself knocked up” and thus they’re all stuck with a former cheerleading coach who is now their substitute journalism teacher.
Sweeney: Ms. Dent was supposed to be a bigger character but Ms. Portier had other shit to do. This is a bummer, but only kind of because I love this Chasing Amy character.
Diva: Samezies. Most of the authority figures in this town are terrible, but somehow all the awesome people end up as Neptune High journalism teachers.
Principal’s office. Veronica asks him why there’s been three fire drills this week, and he insists it’s just to keep up with district regulations. Chasing Amy tells Veronica to call the assistant supersomethingorother Ms. Rauche if she wants to know what the regulations actually are. Lo and behold, the raspy-voiced Ms. Rauche tells her there’s only one required drill per semester, so Veronica realizes the Principal straight-up lied about why these drills are happening. The Principal’s phone rings and it’s allegedly Ms. Rauche, but I think now it might actually be Veronica doing an impression of her because it’s an ever-so-slightly more ridiculous rasp than before. And of course, then we see Veronica doing her best Harvey Fierstein impression, because she is the best and the Principal is a moron. She gets the Principal to confess that there have been bomb threats and the school has gone so far as to bring in the bomb squad. This sounds like a euphemism for something awesome, but it’s not.
Sweeney: He’s actually just the vice principal at this point, and I’m wondering what the fuck the actual principal is doing during all of this.
Lor: Is the principal a dude? Maybe he knocked up Mrs. Dent.
Diva: In my high school, the vice principal did all the punishing and the dirty work, and the principal just smiled a lot and pretended he wasn’t flirting with the cheerleaders, so this matches up with my experience. But yeah, totally thought that dude was the principal. Whatever.
Veronica brings the story to Chasing Amy, who hesitates but ultimately allows her to publish it. When the paper goes to print, the entire school freaks out over the news that their may be a bomber in their midst. Veronica sees “killthemall.net” scrawled on a locker during all this madness. She and Chasing Amy get called into the Vice Principal’s office for stirring up all this shit. He wonders who Veronica’s source was, and she does the raspy Ms. Rauche voice and says it was actually him who told her everything she needed to know. The VP orders them to stop writing about this, and tells Chasing Amy he may have made a mistake promoting a pep squad advisor to substitute journalism teacher. Chasing Amy gets a look on her face like, “Just because I’m blonde and adorable doesn’t mean you can fuck with me, honey.” And that’s also an expression we see on Veronica quite a bit!
Sweeney: Veronica – who had been all aboard the make-fun-of-Chasing-Amy train before – gets all sorts of feels for her at this point, too, which is cute.
Diva: Some kid named Ben is acting up in class. He looks kind of like a really broody Jonathan Taylor Thomas, so I googled him and discovered that he is, in fact, Jonathan Taylor Thomas. There are so many excellent 90s stars with three names in this episode, you guys! Anyway, he basically tells his teacher that he’s not reading Dostoyevsky because they’re all going to die. I haven’t read much Dostoyevsky, but I’m pretty sure JTT’s nihilistic point of view actually means he would get quite a kick out of Dostoyevsky’s work.
Sweeney: The kind of irony that’s always lost on pretentious high school students with images to maintain.
Diva: Wallace and Veronica are spying on Alicia and Keith’s date. They’re both uncomfortable with this new relationship, but Veronica says it doesn’t matter, since her mom will be back once she’s done with rehab. Wallace is all, uh, what about my mom? Veronica doesn’t answer and Wallace gets fed up. She asks him to do her a favor and not tell his mom about Lianne. Wallace says he’s fed up with this shit.
It’s been eighteen episodes so, yeah, seems about time for that.
Lor: What better reminder that Veronica is still just a teenaged girl, all said and done, than to have her be all, “WHEN MY MOM COMES HOME…” It’s naive and heartbreaking and she’s being so blind to Wallace’s feelings.
Diva: It made me a little weepy that she was SO SURE her mom was going to come home after rehab, even as I was frustrated with her for ignoring Wallace’s feelings.
Wallace makes his mom leave even though they haven’t finished their movie. Outside, she tries to get him to be mature about her new relationship. Wallace tries to tell Alicia about Lianne, but Alicia says she’s finally happy and doesn’t want it ruined yet. Wallace reluctantly agrees to keep his mouth shut and let his mom have this one.
Back in the journalism classroom, Mac is having some sort of computer-related debate with a nerdy kid named Pete. (S: We’ve seen him before! He was “Younger Hopeful” on the Firefly episode Shindig, which I remember mostly because at the time I wasn’t sure if I recognized him more from this one appearance on VM or from being the vastly superior love interest on What I Like About You.) I can understand maybe one in ten of the words they are saying. Veronica passes off her computer to Mac for some assistance, and assures her that everything important is password-protected. Because she read our recap of the last episode! Pete tells Veronica that he saw JTT and his friend Norris throwing exploding tennis balls at stray cats. First of all, WHAT? And second of all, WHY?
Veronica asks Wallace if he meant what he said last night about Veronica being his best friend. He’s like, DUH, and then calls her out on wanting him to get JTT’s file from her. She insists that he’s “total bomb threat material,” though I can’t see what she’s basing that on besides the fact that he acts and speaks a lot like Christian Slater in Heathers.
Sweeney: 1430.
Lor: And A+.
Diva: Oh, and the exploding cats, but that’s still unsubstantiated at this point. He also wore a killemall.net shirt to school, because he’s not good at keeping his Christian Slater-esque tendencies on the DL, I guess. (S: It was actually his friend, but being friends with people in KILL THEM ALL shirts is also not good for keeping that a secret.) (D: Truth.) Veronica goes to the site and finds a countdown – 46 hours until something happens. Probably something bad, considering the excessive amount of pentagrams on this site.
Lor: Plus that BWAHAHAHAHA soundtrack. That’s key.
Diva: Duncan’s girlfriend Meg sees Veronica sitting alone and drags him over to keep her company. Veronica tells her imaginary friends to make room for them, and it’s as adorable and funny as it is sad. Meg wants to know if these bomb threats are real; meanwhile, Duncan can’t even look at Veronica. As Veronica is telling Meg about a case where someone made up a new identity, Duncan walks away without a word. Meg tells Veronica Duncan’s been weird all day. I think his weirdness has gone on a bit longer than a day, but all right.
Veronica Voice-Over about JTT and his buddy Norris. Norris was a big bad bully in middle school, but he once protected Veronica from an evil spit-baller and then gave her like a quarter of a smile, so she doesn’t think he’s necessarily all bad. She approaches their table and pretends she’s taking a poll for the school paper about what they’d do if World War III began and they could only bring three people into their bunker. JTT says he doubts he’d survive long enough to make it into the bunker, and Norris names three dead people. Thanks for your help, guys.
Later that day, Wallace tells Veronica that there’s no file on JTT, but he did manage to grab Norris’s file. It’s got a lot of punishments for violent behavior, but none since high school started. He’s either turned over a new leaf, or he’s planning something terrible and doesn’t want to seem suspicious. Veronica thanks Wallace and says that he’s her best friend too. D’AWWW.
Journalism classroom. Duncan is brooding in front of a computer screen. When Veronica approaches, he says Logan told him everything about her investigation of his murder. Duncan wants to know if Veronica has a file on him, and what it says. She admits to knowing about his epilepsy and medication and violent outbursts. He asks how she knows, and she insists it’s not important. Yeah, not important to you, Veronica, because you’re not the one who’s privacy is being constantly invaded without your knowledge or consent.
Duncan tells her to give up – Lilly is dead and her killer is in jail. But Veronica insists that Abel Koontz didn’t do it – he was paid to confess to a murder he didn’t commit. Duncan realizes that Veronica thinks he killed Lilly and his family covered it up, and starts to freak out. When she tells him to calm down, he screams, “Why? Because you think I’ll have another ‘episode’ and kill you too?” Then Duncan sort of comes back to himself and looks confused, like he doesn’t even know how he got there, and runs off.
Outside at the tables, JTT and Norris are fighting. JTT storms off, and Veronica decides to follow him, first to a motel, and then to pick up an excessive amount of fertilizer. She sees him take a massive fucking machine gun out of his car, in broad daylight, in a fairly crowded parking lot, because of what I said before about JTT being really shitty at keeping this shit secret. (S: GET IT TOGETHER, JTT.) While Veronica is watching JTT do suspicious things, Logan calls her to warn her that Duncan knows about her file on him. She’s like, yeah, no shit, because you told him. He says he had to – Duncan is his best friend. She can’t argue with that logic, because she’s doing all of this for her best friend, Lilly. (Sorry, Wallace, but you can’t compete with Lilly.) (L: At least not in season 1!)
Suddenly, JTT jumps into Veronica’s car, points a gun at her, and tells her to drive to the motel she followed him to earlier. Logan is still on the phone during this exchange. As JTT leads Veronica to the motel at gunpoint, she insists that armed people will be looking for her if she doesn’t come home soon. JTT says, “I know you think you’re being a hero, but a lot of people might die because of you.” Before he can get Veronica into the motel room, though, Logan arrives and PUNCHES JTT IN THE FACE!
Sweeney: Logan’s got some sneaky skills too! Also punching skills.
Lor: Like around the corner, perfectly timed punching skills. Impressive if you like the violent thing.
Diva: I don’t like the violent thing and it’s STILL impressive.
Logan actually gets in three punches before Veronica finds JTT’s badge and realizes he’s a federal agent, going undercover at Neptune High to investigate the bomb threats. He wants Logan to leave the room so he can talk to Veronica alone, but Logan refuses to leave her alone with JTT. (S: Valid – have you seen the mullet on that guy?) (D: Truth. Beware of mullets.) Veronica convinces him to go, but even then, he insists that she leave the door open.
Once Logan leaves, JTT tells Veronica that he’s been investigating Norris, who has kept a website and emails with lots of “red flag words” relating to bomb threats. Veronica asks about the cat-killing, but JTT has no clue what she’s talking about. He’s not surprised that Norris would kill cats, though, since torturing animals is pretty common for young sociopaths. Veronica asks why JTT hasn’t arrested Norris yet if he’s such a danger. JTT brags that he’s never failed to make an arrest before and he won’t this time. It’s just that if they arrest him now, they have to charge him or release him within 48 hours. So before JTT can arrest Norris, he needs some hard evidence. And to get that evidence, he needs Veronica to get close to Norris.
Veronica for some reason does not find it at all suspicious that a federal agent would ask an underage girl to get close to someone he suspects is planning a mass murder. Since Norris has a crush on Veronica, it’ll be easy for her to get close to him. “Your government needs you,” JTT tells her, and I’m like, dude, she’s seventeen and you’re trying to get her to pussy-whip a sociopath. BACK THE FUCK OFF, AGENT JONATHAN TAYLOR THOMAS.
Veronica leaves the motel room and sees Logan, still waiting there for her. She gives him a peck on the lips and starts to walk away, but he pulls her back in for a major makeout session.
Sweeney: I know his being 19 makes that slightly less weird, but I’m always a fan of more age-appropriate love interests, so a total +1 completely independent of my other Logan/Veronica feels.
Diva: Anyway, they stare at each other all lovey-dovey, and then all awkward like WHAT DID WE JUST DO, and then Veronica runs away. Been there, girl. Been there.
Sweeney: Also: when you first learned the Logan/Veronica spoiler, you sent us some capslocky, “FUCK LOGAN!” emails and I knew you had this episode so I have been DYING to see how you’d react. I’m so glad you flailed a little.
Lor: I said this exact thing a line higher before I saw this comment, Sweeney. I think it’s at least a credit to the storyteling that regardless of how you feel about Logan, this development was a thing that made sense.
Diva: The wound of Logan’s homeless fight club was still quite fresh when I first learned of this spoiler, so angry capslock emails were necessary. But now, this development does actually make me happy! I think that means I’m growing as a person, you guys. Or at the very least, Logan is!
Norris’s House of Exploding Cats. He shows off his antique weapons collection to Veronica, pulls up a website about dragons, talks about Braveheart, and is generally quite sweet and not particularly psychotic. Even the weapons seem more Ren Faire than violent sociopath. She looks around for evidence of a bomb, but only finds porn. They go into the garage to practice with some rubber throwing stars, and he invites her to a Japanese movie with him that weekend, and it’s kind of cute. Before she leaves, Veronica logs into Norris’s wireless network from his driveway. She calls Mac and asks if a person planning an apocalypse on a Friday would ask someone out for Saturday night, and Mac’s deadpan response is perfect.
Veronica leaves some nervous voicemails for Norris, because she’s only got 18 hours left until the countdown ends. When she sees him at school the next day, she tells him that JTT isn’t who he says he is, and he thinks that Norris is the one behind the bomb threats. Just as she’s warning him, a bomb squad car pulls up behind Norris. Veronica tells JTT he has the wrong guy, but they open Norris’s trunk and find the fertilizer and machine gun we saw in JTT’s trunk earlier. Veronica realizes JTT used her to set Norris up, knowing that if she went over to Norris’s, that would distract him enough for JTT to be able to stash the fertilizer and gun in his car.
Veronica finally puts two and two together and calls Pete, accusing him of manipulating Norris’s internet to make it look like Norris is planning a bomb, but there actually is no bomb. She knows it’s Pete because he lives within 100 yards of Norris’s wireless network and lied about the exploding cats. (So no cats were actually blown up? HOORAY!) Pete tries to deny it, but Veronica remembers that Norris bullied the shit out of Pete in junior high. Pete finally confesses why he did it: Norris stole his lunch money every day for two years. When Pete’s dad told him to be a man and punch Norris, he did; Norris put him in the hospital as a result. After Norris beat the shit out of him, Pete’s dad told him he wished he had a son, because he is apparently Tywin Lannister levels of evil, fucked-up parenting. He is the opposite of Sandy Cohen, and I can think of no worse insult in the world.
In the hallway, Meg is crying and asks Veronica if she’s seen Duncan. His parents think he ran away – Duncan withdrew $10,000 in cash from the bank yesterday and hasn’t been seen since. Meg doesn’t know why he would do that, and she’s distraught. It took me awhile to realize that Duncan had heard Veronica talking about an identity fraud case, and how creating a new identity requires a lot of cash. So maybe stick to keeping all your case information confidential next time, V.)
Veronica tells Chasing Amy the story of how JTT planted the fertilizer and rifle on Norris so he could arrest him. Veronica offers to take the story to the local news, or post it online, but Chasing Amy insists they publish it in the school paper, knowing what it means for her career. In journalism class, Logan and Veronica eye one another awkwardly. Chasing Amy announces that Norris is being released because of their story, but she herself is also being fired because of it. She walks out of the classroom and smiles, because it was worth losing her job to help free an innocent kid, and also because no one asked her to have a threeway with Ben Affleck and Jason Lee.
I'm a J.D. by day/blogger by night who directs her snark and judgment primarily towards celebrities and their many red carpet mishaps. Blogging from the style capital of the world (just kidding - I live in DC), I rant and rave over the best and worst in fashion and pop culture.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
