Veronica Mars S02 E01 – Who does she think she is? A Laker girl?

Previously: Mysteries were solved! Keith Mars IS the father and Shitbag Echolls is Lilly’s killer.
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Normal is the Watchword

Sweeney: We start at that restaurant where Carrie Bishop worked. Veronica is now the hostess, and she opens her monologue just shy of a title star: “Normal – that’s the watchword.” I’m feeling the generous glow of a new season and am willing to go ahead and give her that gold star anyway:

Lorraine: Does this extend into real life? Should people start asking favors of you while you bask in the new season glow? I’m asking for a friend.

Democracy Diva: Unrelated, but I am wary of a season that begins with our badass blonde heroine working in the food service industry. It did not go well for Buffy.

Sweeney: You’ve learned important lessons from your history of TV watching.

School starts the next day and the Veronica Voice Over catches up on the summer: she’s got a BFF, boyfriend, and best-friend-murderer behind bars. She’s also got a shiny normal girl job, too. (D: The mystery meat is vegetables!) A kid shows up looking for her help, rather than a table, and she has to assure him that Veronica doesn’t do that any more. Or, like, she stopped doing that when it was summer break it’s best to start your new season off with some contrivance explanation for why THE GAME NEEDED ME! Calvin’s plea for Veronica to resolve his impossibly-failed-drug-test is not sufficient. He does, however, touch a nerve when he takes her refusal as confirmation that Veronica went and got herself another rich boyfriend, returning her to 09-erdom and out of her year-long project of slumming it. He also sets up growing class divides in Neptune, noting that “picking sides” is all the more necessary now than it was before the break.

VVO assures us (and herself) that she’ll sleep just fine because Calvin’s a bully. V’s co-worker calls her over to watch her dad being interviewed on TV news. (D: I may have squee-ed.) VVO explains that he wrote a book and pretty much had to do the whole book and book tour thing to pay his medical bills, what with his deadbeat wife stealing the Duncan Kane money and also being a probably uninsured man in ‘Murica. (Sidebar: reminds me of that comic about what Breaking Bad would have been in Canada/pretty-much-anywhere-in-Europe. Non-existent, basically, because YAY health care!)

Enrico Colantoni has this amazing moment where we’re watching him act two screens deep, but his reaction when asked about rescuing his daughter from the flames is just heart breaking.

Lor: Agreed. I can’t imagine that having to relive that any amount of times would be particularly fun for Keith, and Enrico plays that perfectly.

Diva: YES. I was almost worried we were going to have to see Keith sell out his family’s tragedy and play up his hero role for the money, but I forgot I was watching the greatest TV parent since Sandy Cohen.

Sweeney: This is a teenager show, though, with three months worth of ground to cover, so Veronica flashbacks (I’m so sad that we’re now done with Lillybacks) (D: SAME) to the events immediately following the finale. It’s 3am and we learn that the Veronica , “I was hoping it would be you,” was for Logan. Unfortunately, the smile quickly disappears when we see that Logan has been beaten nearly to death.

Diva: I said “Oh my God” out loud, twice, when Logan’s face was revealed. Also, I assumed his father had beaten him up, because so much happened in the Season 1 finale that I totes forgot his whole scene on the bridge with the PCH-ers never got resolved.

Sweeney: Inside, he explains that he had been on a bridge, walking along the edge, drunk, when Weevil and the PCHers found him, ready to tear him to bits. He clarifies for Veronica and anyone in the audience who has forgotten, that he’d recently been arrested and dumped by his girlfriend who accused him of murdering his ex-girlfriend. Weevil threatens Logan and Logan kicks him in the face, knocking him out instantly. We cut to the rest of the PCHers kicking Logan on the ground.

Back in her apartment, Veronica tells him that he’s lucky he’s alive. He says that’s one way of looking at it. His story’s not done: he wakes up to find somebody asking him to put the knife down. In his hand he now has a bloodied knife and Weevil’s best friend Felix Tombs is dead beside him. Logan swears he didn’t stab him. He did, however, do the very guilty-seeming person thing of throwing the knife in the water and running. Veronica tries to figure out how to drop the additional bad news on Logan, but he’s already heard on the radio. He sobs. Not really his night. (L: Or, like, year.)

There’s another knock at the door. This time it’s Deputy Leo, there for Logan. He saw Logan’s SUV out front and assures V that this will be better for everyone. Reluctantly agreeing, she opens the door and lets Leo enter and read Logan his Miranda rights. Probably calling an ambulance would have also been a good idea somewhere in here. VVO wraps this up by snarkily noting that she’s got loads of material for her “What I Did This Summer” essay that every TV show ever likes to imply is a thing but actually isn’t. (L: Outside of grade school, specifically.)

Diva: Can I just call bullshit on V’s earlier remark that almost dying in the fire was just the beginning of her night? Because this is all really intense, but not more intense than BEING INCINERATED ALIVE IN A REFRIGERATOR BY YOUR BEST FRIEND’S MURDERER. Just saying. Priorities.

Sweeney: PRIORITIES INDEED. I get that this shipper shit is important, V, but come on.

The much discussed first day begins and Veronica cracks jokes with Wallace about their status as seniors. He’s not in a laughing mood: he failed his drug test and is barred from athletics for the year. This, unlike Calvin’s professed innocence, Veronica knows to be impossible. Weevil rattles off several others who probably had false positives, as well as at least one known false negative. More to the point, no 09ers failed the drug test. None but one: Meg Manning. With that, the game does, in fact need her.

COME ON NOW, SUGAR!

(Just so I can get my airplane tag in this post: resisting the urge to do my whole title credits dance for the sake of my fellow passengers was the hardest thing ever. YOU’RE WELCOME, PEOPLE OF THIS AIR FRANCE FLIGHT. YOU’RE ALL WELCOME.)

Lor: Having never seen this dance, I cannot confirm the “you’re welcome.” I’m inclined to think you should apologize for depriving them, but that’s just me.

Diva: Agreed.

Sweeney: After the credits, Wallace runs Veronica through the foolproof testing system and also drops the tragic news that in the interest of having an actually well-rounded education, Wallace did not sign up to be an office aide this semester. Fortunately, he planned ahead and made a copy of the master key. She’s turned him into a proper criminal before graduation. Veronica’s first tactic is to try to find the link between all the people who failed the test. Wallace doesn’t really have any enemies (besides The Klan) short of all the many people who hate her.

Diva: Important interruption: CHARISMA CARPENTER’S NAME JUST APPEARED IN THE CREDITS. I am beyond excited.

Sweeney: Patience, Diva Snow. Patience. (But as a VM-before-Buffy watcher, this is how I knew her first.)

Wallace also asks about V’s boyfriend and heads off, giving her a chance to lay some more backstory on us. Her boyfriend is off visiting his dad, though neither Wallace nor Veronica really get why. She VVOs that she misses her secret relationship days, but knows they’re long behind her.

A blue summer flashback shows her at work with Duncan being seated in her section. Duncan explains that his parents ran up to Napa to hide from the press, leaving him to stay in The Presidential Suite at The Neptune Grand so he can finish out his senior year in Neptune. Their catching up is interrupted by Logan’s arrival. Back in the present, VVO informs us that these two bros are no longer talking – a consequence of dating the best friend’s ex. All of this, of course, stated in ambiguous, nameless terms. I WONDER WHY. It’s a bit painfully heavy handed.

Lor: And more so when it’s all recapped out, too. Sorry, Diva. We try to keep you Snow-y, but DAMN. The vague is strong.

Diva: It was not remotely heavy-handed to me. I was fucking FLOORED by that reveal. #dumbsnow

Sweeney: Oh, well that’s good to know! I guess it’s that all of this shit makes the reveal feel like more of a GOTCHA than a plot/character development.

Having dispensed with shipper baiting, the show moves back to its mystery of the week. Veronica goes to Calvin first, who is all smug about the fact that Wallace is in trouble too. It makes me glad she wouldn’t help him for his own sake. Calvin insists that people love him, except that he “calls a geek a geek.” The only person he can think of is a kid he pantsed in gym class. Veronica snaps a photo of him and then moves through the other victims, hearing their stories. A girl whose parents are being sued by an 09er parent-run company called Boatloads O Fun Corp. A tennis player whose 09er nemesis stages a crazy rich kid temper tantrum when he lost the #1 singles spot.

VVO informs us that she’s also lost her former go-to 09er resource: Meg Manning. Duncan dumped Meg and Meg blamed Veronica. Veronica tries to talk to Meg about the drug test situation. Meg’s bitter enough about her situation to be snarky about that for a minute before zeroing back in on Veronica: she does know of one person, a former friend, who would lack the reservations and have the talent for this trick. “Let me know if you have any luck tracking her down,” Meg snarks and then walks away. Meg’s hair is also looking a little less shiny and braided by cartoon birds than it used to.

Moving into school, we see that Neptune High now has metal detectors, because tensions in Neptune are the highest they’ve ever been. The rich kids in public school only made sense when you assumed that all their money made it a really great public school. The second it became the kind of school that requires metal detectors at the entrance, the 09er families would have pulled their kids out of there faster than you can say trust fund baby.

This is passing information, though. The important thing, in this characteristically info-dumpy premiere, is that the eye of the storm is none other than Logan Echolls. The motorist who probably saved Logan’s life called 911 and then left the scene. (D: He also witnessed Logan holding the knife, and told him to drop it.) The knife that killed Felix was never found. Logan’s expensive lawyers easily crushed the PCHers on the stand – they had gone there to attack Logan, and he had the wounds to prove it. The DA didn’t have enough to convict and the town went nuts, outraged that another rich (white) kid was walking free.

Diva: Wow. I thought the show was exaggerating earlier about everyone having to pick sides in this “war,” but yup, this definitely has the makings of a race riot.

Sweeney: Worth sidebarring right now to add an, “Oh the difference a week-and-a-half makes,” because this post was essentially finished before shit exploded in Ferguson.

Back at Veronica’s bedroom-turned-drug-test-HQ. Wallace is freaking out about the consequences this is going to have for his permanent record. (College. Teenagers, the only people who will ever care about whatever things your high school threatens to hold over your head are college admissions officers. The “permanence” of that record is a lie.) Veronica mentions the thing about the kid Calvin pantsed. I can’t keep typing “pants” as a verb. It’s weird too look at. (L: On the bright side, we just have to look at the word and not the actual pantsing.) Wallace knows the incident – he was there and so were a bunch of other athletes, possibly including Meg. Wallace confesses that he was among the people laughing.

Diva: Wallace, you better watch it. It was not that long ago that you were duct-taped naked to a flagpole. 

Sweeney: As Wallace is on his way out, Keith is on his way in. There’s some cute banter about the dating parents and Wallace runs off when it starts to get sappy. With Wallace gone, Keith and Veronica bring the father/daughter banter that is the show’s true A game.

The next day at school, Veronica begins her investigation on the victim of the pants incident. He’s a bitter, angry teenager, which is probably closer to the natural condition of teenagers than TV would have you believe. His name is Vincent, not Butters, thankyouverymuch and he doesn’t really fear Calvin’s wrath because he says hello to his father in the halls: Vice Principal Clemmons.

That night Veronica and Wallace sneak into school after hours. This B&E seems surprisingly easy, given that they have metal detectors in there now. (L: They spent all their money on those! Maybe an alarm system next year.) Inside, Veronica has a big ring of keys which apparently go to a wide variety of filing cabinets. That’s very shady thing to have. If you have such a key ring, you are probably a very suspicious character. But also a character I’d like to be friends with, based on my TV watching. What’s up, shady new friend? What’s your favorite color?

Veronica skips that, though, realizing the key is probably in a desk drawer. Sure enough, it is, and she jokes about the lack of security. She pulls out Wallace’s file and he pulls a few others so that she can try to compare the results, looking for evidence of forgery. A bit later, Veronica says she’s got nothing. Different color inks, full sentences, hand-signed by the lab tech (Jim Chimery). Ruling out forgery, Veronica moves on to her new theory: they were drugged. Just enough to show up but not enough for them to really notice. Wallace confirms that they did get spirit boxes with cookies just before the test and he, of course, ate six of them because cookies are delicious. Veronica tells him to meet her at her place in 20 minutes while she runs to the drug store, but he says he’ll just follow her because she doesn’t want to go out alone. The sad reminder that things are bleak.

VVO tells us that after Logan’s case was dropped, Neptune changed. In a blue summer flashback, she’s making out with Logan in his SUV when they hear motorcycles outside. They’re fortunately lying down when a shot is fired through the back window.

In Veronica’s bedroom/home office, she’s impatiently waiting for Wallace outside the bathroom, which she now has in her room. There was some interesting remodeling going on up in there. Keith wanders in to try to do some quick detective fathering, knowing that Veronica’s actual explanation “health class assignment!” is bound to be a lie. This is weird, too. Surely Alicia’s been told by now and if that’s happened, Keith would know and also probably be up to pitch in. Regardless, Wallace tests negative, ruling out the it’sVincentthankyouverymuch theory.

Diva: My theory is that the CUPS THEMSELVES are laced with drugs. Or made of hemp. I don’t know, I’m not a scientist.

Sweeney: #science #notmydepartment (We don’t even have a science department in Traumaland. I think Lorraine’s couple semesters as a biology major make her our entire science department.)

Wallace looks at the photos on the board and notes that this year is going to suck for Neptune athletics – these people are all starters. Veronica asks if Wallace knows who their new replacements will be and indeed he does – save for Meg – Veronica helpfully supplies Shelly Pomroy (host of the roofie party) as getting bumped up from JV in Meg’s absence.

Veronica recalls the first name Wallace gives her – Steve Wacker – from the girl whose parents are getting sued by Boatloads of Fun Corp. She calls her dad back in to ask if there’s a way she can look up a company’s shareholders. He deadpans that they sure get crazy homework in health class and Veronica gets him to promise not to tell Alicia before confessing to what they’re up to. He backs away, all gaggy, when she waves Wallace’s clean drug test in his face. Keith mostly just smirks at them and sits down at her computer to pull up a “letmegooglethatforyou” page. Or, just, like, actually google it for her, like a helpful father. (L: A+ parenting! Because it’s called the Internet, V. Learn about it.) Sure enough, the new starters parents are the shareholders – along with the father of the stoner QB who mysteriously passed.

Neptune Journalism Room for Unsurpervised Class Time. (This is actually pretty legit – the newspaper and yearbook kids at my school had pretty free reign, not the least because those are the kinds of things that require a whole lot of additional hours outside of class time.) Veronica explains that she thinks this was only possible if they off somebody at the testing facility. Her brilliant plan is to try to scare all the parents with emails saying that “Jim Chimery” wants to meet about a new financial arrangement. This is interrupted by a random teacher asking V if she has a permission slip.

AMAZING/SAD ANECDOTE: Remember that one time Paris Hilton dropped by in S1? That was only the beginning of this show’s desperate pleas for ratings. (PLEAS IT SHOULDN’T HAVE HAD TO MAKE BECAUSE IT’S SUCH A GOOD SHOW AND EVERYONE IS STUPID.) This chick right here is one of two or three America’s Next Top Model contestants to make appearances after winning the acting challenge on that show. And Paris Hilton and ANTM aren’t all you’ll see in the way of bottom feeding reality stars on this glorious show, forever dragged down by being on UPN and then The CW.

Lor: I immediately recognized this chick as well. And remembered the episode of ANTM. #sadconfessions

Diva: It took me a few minutes to figure out why she looked so fucking familiar, but then I realized why I knew her, and was ashamed. I feel so much better knowing all the Snark Ladies recognized her. I think that episode of ANTM might have actually been the reason I wasn’t interested in watching Veronica Mars when it was actually on TV. Also, she is a TERRIBLE actress. She makes Paris Hilton look like Meryl Streep. 

Sweeney: Anyway, shameful confessions aside, Veronica gives ANTM Journalism Teacher a permission slip for a field trip to the fictional baseball team’s stadium. Veronica assures Wallace that there is nothing AT ALL strange about her willingly hanging out with her peers all day, because she’s a totally normal teenage girl. Wallace then steps up to claim that gold star for realsies: “Right, normal is the watchword.”

You go, Wallace! I love when people I like get the star. I’m sure I’ve said that before, but whatever. I’m saying it again.

In the halls, V’s next NORMAL activity is a slow motion glare-by with Weevil. VVO says that you do, indeed, have to choose sides in Neptune these days. Blue Summer Flashback shows Veronica hanging out with Logan while he was in summer school. They reach the parking lot to find Dick and Cassidy loading cans of gasoline into Logan’s trunk. Veronica asks what that’s for and Logan lies that they’re going to spell out “Pan Sucks” in the Pan High football field. Because Logan is clearly the school spirit type. Back in the present, VVO finishes the story by telling us that the next day the community pool – aka, poor kid pool – was torched. It was shut down for the rest of the summer. What in the actual fuck, Logan & the Brogans? I think I kind of glossed over the part where Logan reverted to his psychotic, entitled, torturing-the-poor ways.

Lor: That’s a really specifically evil plan. I’m impressed, in the bad way.

Diva: LOL ARSON IS SUCH A GOOD PRANK

Sweeney: As VVO reminds us that all the 09ers have pools, we cut to Logan & the Brogans in Dick’s backyard. We get a callback to the mother-ogling in An Echolls Family Christmas when out struts Dick’s stepmom in a bathing suit. His stepmom is none other than CORDELIA CHASE. My favorite thing forever and ever. This scene serves no purpose other than to show us that Logan’s playing hooky and that Charisma Carpeter is really hot. (And that her character, Kendall Casablancas, is a former Laker Girl! This is also irrelevant.) (L: Except if you tie it back to that Cordelia line, “Who does she think she is? A Laker girl?“) (S: AMAZING.) Cassidy rightly points out that Dick is slightly twisted for ogling his father’s new wife.

Normal is the Watchword Restaurant. A couple arrives, saying that they’re there to meet with someone named Chimery. She seats them at a table with several other agitated parents. We hear that this conversation is being bugged as Veronica asks if someone has heard enough. Vice Principal Clemmons says that he believes he has.

But we’ve still got 12 minutes of episode/season-starting-plot-twists left: Veronica’s co-worker informs her in a sing-songy voice that her boyfriend is there. Said boyfriend is not Logan, who has never been referred to by name as such in this episode, but Duncan.

Diva: BOOOOOO DUNCAN SUCKS. Sorry, at some point I full-on started trolling this episode.

Sweeney: After a Not Break, VVO tells us that her love life got complicated this summer, but sorted itself out nicely. Just as Duncan and Veronica greet each other to board the bus for the field trip, Logan sits by to snark and brood. Duncan is surprised Logan is going on this field trip, since he figured he “and the other Jets would be rumbling with the sharks.” Logan is not, after all, going on this field trip. He pointedly tells Veronica that he’s gonna miss her.

On the bus we meet another awesome S2 addition: KRYSTEN RITTER. She doesn’t really do anything yet besides sweetly ask Veronica to get out of the way because her flashbacks are once again leaving her annoyingly in the way in public places.

In this final flashback, we learn that Veronica finally broke up with Logan because she couldn’t sit by any longer while Logan & the Brogans waged class warfare. Logan insists that since somebody already did get killed, it’s ultra important that he stick with The Brogans. He gets indignant and defensive when she says that it seems like he’s having fun. He smashes things in the apartment and starts shouting at her about how hard things have gotten for him. Keith walks in just then, and pushes Logan up against the wall, telling him to never talk to Veronica that way and also to get the fuck out. In my headcanon he’d been standing just outside for a little longer than that, trying not to come in because he could tell what he’d be walking in on. Awkward.

Lor: But oddly satisfying when he finally did barge in.

Diva: Yay Keith, but I hate that things have taken this turn. It took me SO FUCKING LONG to be on Logan’s side. And now they hand me this.

Sweeney: On the bus, Dick whines to the teacher about a foul smell on the bus, which ANTM Journalism Teacher can’t really help him with. (D: Because that smell is poor people.) He also exchanges googly eyes Krysten Ritter.

Logan, meanwhile, is skipping school. He goes to the Casablancas house and Kendall answers. He follows her inside and she quickly throws off her robe. In the same way that most of the age things didn’t properly register with me at 18 or 19, I don’t think it ever really hit me just how disturbing this relationship is. Both because it’s creepy and gross on her part, but also because of how haunting and sad it is on Logan’s part. His father is now in prison for having murdered his girlfriend because she was going to out him for fucking her.

The show just threw that scene at us with sexytimes music, but HOLY DEEP PSYCHOLOGICAL ISSUES, BATMAN. His relationship ended because in the wake of this latest tragedy he once again fell on psychotic jackass – this time at an even higher level before – and now he’s essentially mirroring the behavior that was the catalyst for the whole awful year and a half he’s had up to this point. So, that’s a thing that’s happening. It bothers me that the show is treating this so lightly.

Diva: Again: I hate this. I am very disappointed in this. Cordelia, I was so excited to see you, and then you had to go and do this? Why is everything the worst?!

Sweeney: It’s a new season. It’s time for everything to be the worst because plot.

Shark’s Stadium Field Trip! Fun fact: you can CLEARLY (especially where I happened to pause this) see that the grass says “Petco Park” in the stadium. (Petco Park = home of the San Diego Padres.) That was me stalling because the actual big thing that everyone else was noticing right now was the arrival of STEVE GUTTENBERG. This is his second most important role in my heart. The first is playing the dad in It Takes Two.

Lor: Oh, this is a close one. I’m giving the #1 spot to 3 Men and a Baby,knocking his VM role down to #3.

Sweeney: Steve Guttenberg is the one sponsoring this little field trip – he owns The Sharks, is running for mayor, and is father to Krysten Ritter, who he made move to public school to appeal to voters. This field trip is also to help her (Gia) make friends. She weirdly announces that her fashion choice is not a statement, but a desperate attempt to blend in at a new school. It’s weird, but also she’s so charming that it’s adorable.

Later, Duncan and Veronica are at the buffet discussing Steve Guttenberg and the Kane parents’ aversion to their future politician/potential-sister-murderer playing little league, as one does on a school day. Steve Guttenberg eagerly introduces everyone to a very exciting special guest, who is a former player named Terence Cook who we are meeting for no reason other than that he might be relevant later and also so that Veronica can fangirl over him on Keith’s behalf.

Diva: I did not know whether this was an actual real-world famous athlete or just an actor playing an athlete. I am not good at sporty things.

Sweeney: Sports: another department we don’t really have.

Also: the 09ers have decided that the rich kids can avoid the smelly public school bus by securing teacher permission to call a limo. Veronica was going to join them, but passes when she sees that Meg will also be opting out and Duncan going in the limo will be a prime opportunity for her to try to talk things out again with Meg.

On the bus, this is not quite the case. Veronica tries to talk about Meg being back on the squad and Meg bitterly suggests that Veronica’s fishing for cash. Veronica gives up and Meg moves to the back of the bus.

Veronica gives on one last blue summer flashback as The Delays “Long Time Coming” plays, making it clear that Veronica was the pursued, not the pursuer. He hung out at the restaurant/coffee shop where she works every day that summer, occasionally busing tables when Veronica was swamped. Back on the bus, VVO says she heard he dumped Meg on the last day of school, but as she was with Logan at the time, she has no idea whether that had anything to do with Jake Kane not being her father. The mention of the time they were maybe siblings isn’t a good way to sell this to the audience. The song is buying your relationship a lot of good will because it’s sweet, so maybe check the hypothetical incest references at the door? (L: Leave them there with the pedolationships, kaythanks…)

Anyway, they didn’t get together until her 18th birthday, weeks after she and Logan broke up. Duncan left her a fortune cookie present. She saw the fortune and made out with him and now she has no regrets.

Diva: And yet I have so many.

Sweeney: ANTM Journalism Teacher continues her awful performance, telling everyone they have five minutes to run inside at the gas station they’re stopping at. Veronica gets distracted by the sound of Lilly’s voice, which leads her to Weevil, who happens to be there too. Back on the bus, ANTM asks everyone if they’re all there, without taking actual role or anything. Meg sees Veronica outside, but says that yes, everyone is there.

Diva: Why is there like, no one on this bus? Did they pack 35 rich kids into Dick’s limo? Doesn’t that make it… kind of like a school bus?

Sweeney: The bus wasn’t particularly full at the outset – it’s only the high school journalism staff, which you figure wouldn’t be more than 30-ish kids at most. More importantly, it’s a limo school bus, and thus a school bus containing all the necessary entitlement.

Veronica and Weevil are having it out – he basically regards her as a traitor and she accuses him of jumping to insane, unfounded conclusions.  Weevil insists that Logan definitely killed Felix, and Veronica calls bullshit – Logan couldn’t have done it and Weevil was out cold so he can’t know. Weevil scoffs at the idea that one of his boys could have done something without his knowing. She asks if he knew about the shotgun blast that almost killed her and Logan over the summer. “You sure you’re still in charge?” With that, the bus rides off and Weevil does too. As Veronica is getting out her phone and calling Wallace, Weevil comes back to get her.

They ride along the water and it’s all very scenic and magical. That’s cut short when they come upon some sort of commotion. Weevil pulls over behind the 09er limo, now empty. Gia’s hysterical, exclaiming that the bus just rode off the cliff – didn’t even stop – and their classmates are now surely dead. Duncan’s crazy relieved when he sees Veronica. As she looks down the cliff at the ruins of the destroyed bus, VVO calls back to an earlier moment in the episode: “This is Neptune – nothing happens accidentally.” End credits.

Diva: WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK. Also, is this show ever going to address the how or why of Aaron and Lilly’s affair? I’m really not done with that storyline yet. I need a lot more information on what the fuck was happening there. Is there a trial happening? Won’t all our favorite characters be called in as witnesses? Sorry, I know my lawyer is showing, but so much happened in this episode, yet none of it answered any of the Snow’s lingering questions.

Sweeney: AND SO ANOTHER SEASON BEGINS.

 

Next time on Veronica Mars: Veronica investigates the bus driver in the wake of the accident in S02 E02 – Driver Ed.