Veronica Mars S02 E16 – Town of Indeterminate Size

Previously: Cordelia visited Aaron Echolls in jail and wanted a favor in exchange for his monies.
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The Rapes of Graff

Sweeney: The previouslies are loaded with Troy flashbacks, so, you know, that’s a thing to prepare for. I have the vague feeling that I don’t like this episode, but it wins a lot of points for continuity porn, which this show is full of and generally does quite well. Bringing back a character we haven’t seen in 30 episodes is neat because it’s a show’s way of saying, “Yes, we know that when characters leave our immediate scope, they continue existing and being people!”

Marines: “And we realize that real people often have multiple interactions with more than 5 people.” Good job, show. You are right.

Democracy Diva: For the resident Snow, these callbacks are often confusing, but even I remembered Troy as… uh… someone Veronica dated who did something fucked up to her? Right? Maybe? It’s been a LONG TIME since Season 1, you guys. I know I’m supposed to hate him, I just don’t totally remember why.

Sweeney: That’s good. A vague feeling of disdain is about all you need to remember.

In Mrs. Murphy’s 3rd period English class (what up, informative chalkboard!) she’s explaining to our class, conveniently loaded with title credits characters (like hell Dick Casablancas shares an English class with the valedictorian, but whatever) that Mayor Steve Guttenberg is having an essay contest. The best essay on FREEDOM will get the winner some junior mayoral time and the opportunity to push the big boom button at the demolition of the old stadium. You know, the full blown stadium in this town so small it’s unincorporated. (M: A+)

Outside the class, Veronica asks Logan how it feels to have his case dismissed. Veronica jumps a little too quickly to asking about his new girlfriend, whom Logan did not say anything to. Veronica gears up for a big speech about not being a douchebag, but Logan’s saved by Wallace coming up so he can skulk away. Wallace says Logan’s like a cat. “You mean useless and selfish?” V replies. Included mostly for Mari’s benefit, on account of her treasured Snark Squad cat tag. (M:  It’s a service to humanity. People need to know cats will eat you.) (D: I didn’t know about this tag until now and it’s bringing me endless joy.)

Wallace, of course, meant “nine lives.” Wallace, meanwhile, is looking over a pamphlet for Hearst, the magical university sprung from the ether to keep the gang together for a new season. Wallace is fretting about the average SAT score being 1280 (Buffy could have gone to Private Contrivance U instead of State Contrivance U!) which is higher than his 1140. Veronica sees skipping “get to know Hearst weekend” as a blessing. Wallace has his eyes on a basketball scholarship, though. Veronica says she’s only going to this as an excuse to skip school, not because she’s actually planning on going to school in Neptune. This show was forever on the brink of cancellation, so her university choice was really always in the newly-formed CW’s hands.

Elsewhere on campus, Hannah excitedly comes to congratulate Logan on his charges getting dropped, wondering at how hard he was to find when she got to school. Logan says nothing, so Hannah keeps talking, gushing about how her track teammates are jealous that she gets to follow up their next meet by going sailing with this totally hot, sociopathic senior. Logan finally cuts her off, saying they can’t see each other any more because while she’s a sweet girl, he’s not a sweet guy.

Hearst College for Pitching a Third Season (filmed mostly at SDSU which is where my brother went to school!) Veronica and Wallace are in a prospective student group led by Michael Cera, playing the campus tour guide version of himself. (M: Does Michael Cera ever play anything other than “himself”?) (D: Nope. Never.) The students are instructed to pair off with someone they don’t know, sending Wallace to a pretty girl and leaving Veronica in a callback to many an Isolated Veronica moment. In the end, V’s about to paired off with Michael Cera for Two Truths and a Lie (I play this game when I facilitate programs with 9th graders. They roll their eyes at me as much as you’d expect.) We are cheated out of continued adorable Veronica/Michael Cera interactions when a straggler shows up: none other than Troy Vandergraff. Michael Cera asks if they know each other, because that’s not how the activity works. “Nope, I don’t know him at all,” V says, unable to resist the opportunity to snark, even it when it likely goes against her own self interest.

Mari: I love snark, but girl, you come first.

Sweeney: COME ON NOW, SUGAR!

Troy tries to make nice with Veronica, insisting that private school and getting off drugs reformed him. Veronica isn’t having any of his, “I’ve changed” bullshit. As Michael Cera calls the tour to continue, Veronica says he’s just “water under the bridge,” adding, to herself, “duplicitous, evil water.”

Back at Neptune High, Logan goes into his locker to find a cake Hannah left him before she got dumped. It’s an elaborate Monopoly Get Out Of Jail Free Card cake, because she’s adorable and better than this whole situation. (M: But like a “happy you aren’t in jail” cake is weird.) Logan doesn’t get to brood, though, because Dick is also newly single and he comes to bro out about an upcoming bro weekend.

Hearst College for Ghosts of Seasons Past and Future. Veronica’s at some giant dorm party, happening in the middle of the day, for prospective freshman, because TV stereotypes are easier to trade on than stuff that resembles reality. This hallway also looks identical to when she went to SDSU back in S1, you know, before they decided to make up Hearst. She’s getting hit on by a gross guy assigning her a point system, she responds about as well as Lindsay in yesterday’s OC. Only better because she’s Veronica. She dumps the guys drink on her and he retaliates.

Things get ugly, and Troy tries to come to her rescue. He gets punched for his trouble. He gets up, telling Veronica that he was trying to show her he’s a good guy now. Veronica’s not having it, but a girl standing nearby is and drags him off for a drink. This girl, awesomely, is this episode doubling down on its Arrested Development actors: it’s Alia Shawkat, aka Maeby Funke.

Diva: At first I wrote, “Oh my God! It’s Quinn from Scandal!” But then I realized that’s totally not who that is. But then I was happy, because Maeby Funke is way, WAY better than Quinn.

Sweeney: Veronica finds Wallace, who is having fun. Michael Cera comes to awkwardly tell them how great it is that at college parties people don’t just hit on each other, they have deep! intellectual! conversations! about stuff like gross fuckability point systems. Veronica’s ready to go, but on their way out, she sees Troy leaving with Maeby. She also overhears the tremendodouche who ranked her ranking some other girl, backed into a corner, so she tases him as she leaves.

Mari: Last episode it was a casual car B&E and this episode it’s a walk-by tase. She’s getting fast and loose with these Veronica-isms.

Diva: YOU CAN’T JUST CASUALLY TASE PEOPLE, VERONICA. EVEN IF THEY’RE ASSHOLES. THIS IS NOT OKAY.

Sweeney: I originally wrote, “This is one of those weird sociopathic things Veronica does that I could never do because I’m not a sociopath but also I’m glad she does it,” but deleted it because I feared your judgement. I don’t know why I’m outing myself now, but there you have it. We can’t just go around casually tasing assholes, but sometimes I wish we could.

Keith, meanwhile, is on the phone in a hotel. He opens a hotel room door and we see that he was talking to none other than Cliff! Cliff, unfortunately, his handcuffed to a bedpost. He has no keys, but managed to “acrobatically” call Keith, who picks the lock on the handcuffs. Cliff backs up and explains that last night was a big OBGYN convention, and since they’re the most sued medical profession, he likes to come by and pass his card around. While there, he met “Daphne” at the bar. She invited him to her room, and after cuffing him to the bed, she made off with his briefcase.

Mari: The handcuff-and-run is a bit of a TV trope. People of TV: don’t let strangers handcuff you, maybe?

Diva: Or at least keep a spare key handy.

Sweeney: Mars Apartment. Veronica is woken up by the phone ringing. She calls out to her dad to correct this problem. It’s an adorably child/parent response to this crisis. He does not respond so she gets up, spotting a note from Keith as the machine picks up a call from a very anxious Troy, begging her to pick up. She does and we get a “You’re where?” before we cut to Neptune Sheriff’s Department. Once there, Troy says he’s there because Maeby Funke got roofied and raped – and had her head shaved afterward. Veronica shows us that she’s being trying out incrementally angrier versions of her One Angry Veronica face, as Troy insists that he didn’t do it.

After a Not Break, they stand in the hallway, and he insists that this is next level sick in the head. Troy is the last thing that Maeby Funke remembers, everybody saw them leave the party together, and they did fool around. Troy swears that she passed out before it went anywhere, though, so he tucked her in and went to the 24-hour laundry to wash his only change of clothes. (As in, he only had the clothes he was wearing? What was he wearing while he did laundry at a public place?) Doing laundry at odd times is a surefire way to get yourself accused of crimes in Neptune. (M: Like being around shovels in Rosewood.) Veronica is suspicious, but agrees to look into it. The only other thing Troy remembers is getting glared at by another guy who was flirting with Maeby Funke.

Mars Investigations. Keith became buddies with security guys at the Neptune Grand back when Veronica was spending all that time in Billionaire Bros Bungalow. He called up his old pals and got elevator camera footage, which he is reviewing with Cliff in search of “Daphne.” Cliff rattles off the general nothingness in his briefcase before nonchalantly throwing in that it also contains all of the Logan Echolls murder case files, as well as a key to a storage locker with everything that wasn’t in the briefcase. COOL. They keep watching and we see Daphne gets back in the elevator with Cliff’s briefcase and have some interaction with Lamb. A bit later, we also see Lamb hooking up with some other woman. Veronica conveniently pops by at this time to look up an address so that she can see the screen and recognize (even though I sure as hell couldn’t) that the girl in the elevator is none other than Madison Trip to the Dentist Sinclair. Sorry, that noise you hear is my dry heaving. (M: +1) (D: Agreed.)

The address V was looking for was for a frat house called Pi Sig. It’s a hot mess and it’s the address of Gordon Peters, the guy with the points. I think. Or maybe a guy matching the description Troy gave. I don’t know and I don’t think it matters. A frat guy comes out to tell Veronica that she can’t be there, and to reveal that Gordon Peters is a dead end of a lead because he ended up in the hospital getting his stomach pumped. Informative Frat Bro tells Veronica he’s going to be additionally punished by the frat later and asks her to leave him a message on their whiteboard.

Elsewhere on campus, Michael Cera continues the tour. Why is this a two-day campus tour nonsense? Veronica finds Troy, who probably shouldn’t be hanging out on campus while he remains accused of raping a student there. Veronica comes to share that Troy’s other guy was definitely out of commission that night. Troy remembers that he left his name and number on Maeby Funke’s door message board, which he doesn’t think a rapist would do. I don’t know, the rape + head shaving combo is the kind of psychotic behavior that defies basic logic. Regardless, Veronica’s going to look into it.

Rich Boy Penthouse. Logan and Dick are playing video games. Logan is underwhelmed by this hangout – he had hoped for something more exciting to celebrate their new single status. We get a lot of shots of the many, many beers they have consumed, which are inconsistent with their sobriety. Dick cuts into Hannah’s cake and is confused when he finds a file baked into it. Clever but dangerous, Hannah.

Diva: I didn’t understand this. She gave him this cake at school, right? Did she expect him to, like, wait the months until he actually got into prison, and bring it with him, and then eat it, find the file, and escape? Or was this a joke? And if it was a joke, that’s a really weird fucking joke. “Haha, hope you don’t choke on this file I left in your cake because you’re like totes a criminal!”

Sweeney: I think it was a joke. It was a really fucking weird joke.

Hearst. Veronica goes to investigate and finds that Troy’s name and number were left, though it’s been partially erased and a “CCC” has been written where the rest of it would have been. Maeby opens the door while V is standing there. Veronica hesitates but introduces herself, saying she was at the party. She’s not, as Maeby guesses, there to drop of pamphlets. “A pamphlet’s not going to cover it. It’s just gong to suck, and then it will suck less.” As Veronica’s leaving, Maeby asks if they caught the guy from the party. Veronica pauses and says it’s complicated and they’re trying to get facts straight. Maeby just wants some biblical justice. She notices a shoebox by her door, which Veronica says was just there. Maeby picks it up and sees that it’s full of hair. Maeby looks at it and sees that it’s not her hair. As Maeby freaks, a girl comes to check on her and rats out Veronica, saying that Veronica was at the party with Troy and is only there to help him get off the hook. Veronica says nothing, hopefully feeling some measure of self-doubt and ill at ease with herself.

After a Not Break, Veronica Voice Overs that if the hair wasn’t Maeby’s, then there’s likely another wig-adorned victim on campus, and Veronica’s going to go test out her acting chops at a nearby wig shop, because I guess there’s only one of those in this town of indeterminate size. (M: Neptune: A stadium and college, ONLY ONE WIG STORE.) Veronica tells the shop lady that a girl with cancer ran away and is refusing treatment. Veronica bumbles through inexplicably not having her name, and the orchestra of feels swells as she begs, adding that the girl was her sister. (D: Oof. That is some terrible karma you are putting out into the world, Ms. Mars.) Wig Shop Lady’s suspension of disbelief hits its limit because the girl was Hawaiian. WHATEVER, there are plenty of reasons sister could not look like each other, lady. Calm down. But Veronica gives up and leaves, content to solve her case with that information alone.

She goes to Michael Cera’s dorm room to ask about Hawaiian student organizations at Hearst, and he helpfully suggests a lunch date thing. On her way down the hall, she notices a circled CL written on a whiteboard across the hall from Michael Cera’s dorm. She asks him about it and he explains that it’s a score in Roman numerals. Apparently everyone on campus not only knows about this Pi Sig scoring thing but also about the rumor that they have a giant scoreboard in their basement and frat brothers whose score isn’t high enough are punished. An appropriately repulsed Veronica heads off, making a phone call.

Sheriff’s Department. Keith and Cliff stop Lamb as he’s on his way into his office. Keith holds up a photo of “Daphne” and Lamb says he doesn’t know her. He also acts nonchalant about about a photo of him and Madison standing in the elevator, until Cliff and Keith pull him off to the side to show him a racier picture of them. Lamb, ever the classy fella responds, “She’s 18 – that’s legal.” (D: If that’s the first thing you have to say, you should probably rethink your life choices.) Because the inept police forces of Traumaland wouldn’t be complete without officers hooking up with high school students like creeps. Keith, awesomely has already photoshopped his rebuttal to that statement, saying it sounds like a swell campaign slogan for the next election as Cliff pulls out another picture:

I love that he was so prepared. Ridiculous and wonderful.

Mari: It totally looks like the kind of thing those two put together in five minutes. On Word.

Diva: Veronica is cringing right now. “Dad, I could have made a WAY better-looking poster for you to blackmail Lamb with! You’re so lame!”

Sweeney: Anyway, Keith asks Lamb to just clarify who “Daphne” is – she’s an escort who hires out as “Sugar Jones.”

Pi Sig House. Wallace gets himself a tour as an interested frat brother, allowing him to discreetly unlock a window for Veronica, who climbs in and makes her way down to another one of these highly unusual Southern California basements. She spots the gross scoreboard and begins taking pictures, trying to see if anyone claims the “CCC” score she saw on Maeby’s door. She sees that someone falsely claimed her. She spots that someone named “Ice Man” has the CCC score just as she is caught by one of the brothers who very conveniently calls out for Ice Man to come address the situation. Ice Man comes downstairs and we see that it’s Informative Frat Bro from earlier.

Nerdy aside: this Ice Man bit is funny (if you can get past the part where it’s part of a super gross plot) because the face of Aaron Ashmore (Troy Vandergraff) most likely looks familiar to people because he has a twin brother, Shawn, who played Iceman in the X-Men movies. VVO even says, “of course his name is Ice Man.” THE MORE YOU KNOW.

After a Not Break, they’re trying to shoo her out the door but she stops them with her accusation. Ice Man insists that the 300 points weren’t for Maeby and the other guy adds that it was for the dean’s wife, because the other guy is an idiot who doesn’t know when to stop talking. We also learn that this other guy is the hospitalized frat boy who hit on Maeby – his head newly shaved. He bitterly says he doesn’t care about her – “She’s a total tease. She was coming on to me all night and then she blew me off for some other dude who called her bluff.” Tase him, tase him! But she doesn’t on account of the B&E, which is wise. On her way out, the guy she did tase appears in the basement and she makes a big show of how he’s about to lose his hair too, on account of his points for her being falsely claimed, correcting her own score because he “undercounted the sass.”

Veronica spots the Pacific Islander lunch date and approaches a pink-haired girl to ask about where she can buy wigs for a play. The girl is offended because it’s her actual hair and Veronica looks like an asshole, you know, for being an asshole. In spite of this, as she walks away shamed, she’s stopped by a girl visibly wearing a wig, who suggests a place called Tori’s. After the friends disperse, Veronica singles out wig girl to ask if they can chat about a girl who was recently raped and had her head shaved.

We cut to Maeby approaching an older woman, saying she received a message that this woman had more information on her case. Veronica walks up with the Hawaiian girl, saying she sent the message, and Maeby is rightfully pissed, not having V’s defense of Troy. Veronica explains that the same thing, down to the head shaving, happened to someone else and the Hawaiian girl steps forward, removing her wig and confirming this. It happened a month ago, when Troy was on the other side of the country. Veronica says that Maeby does deserve justice, but the guy who did it is still on campus and that’s the real issue. She also speculates that the box of hair came from the Pi Sig she didn’t fuck – but who seriously deserved to get tased. (D: While I agree that they deserve tasering, because they are despicable, I still object to Veronica actually doing the tasering, because her flippant attitude towards rules and laws in general worries me.) (S: As it should.) The woman standing there listening to this teen sleuthing is apparently the Dean of Student Affairs, and Veronica adds that she’s got some pertinent “student affairs” to show her, handing over photos of the Scoreboard of Misogny.

Later, Michael Cera is saying goodbye to his prospective students. Wallace is still giddy about Hearst because he hasn’t spent the last couple days investigating a campus rape. Troy comes up to thank Veronica for getting his case dropped. She’s not quite ready to call them friends, though, so he runs off back into we-used-to-be-friends obscurity. (M: A+) Cera also stops to tell Veronica Mars that her photo successfully got the Pi Sig’s a semester’s probation. She doesn’t feel like that was quite enough. Neither do I, V, but also it sounds tragically plausible.

Diva: For how terrible American colleges are at dealing with sexual assault, that outcome was probably, sadly, a best-case scenario.

Sweeney: In 2014 I got a front row seat to watching a very liberal university handle a rape case (complete with written confessions!) in a similarly appalling and underwhelming fashion. So, yes, agreed.

Pi Sig house. Maeby stops by to give the crusted jizz stain frat brother his hair back. He says he doesn’t want that, so she tosses it expertly at a fan, ripping the plastic and sending flying about the room, laughing as he calls her crazy.

Neptune High School. Hannah is returning from her track meet and finds Logan waiting for her. He confesses that her dad dropped the testimony so that he would quit seeing her. She says she figured as much and asks if he asked her out for that reason too. He confesses that he did. In spite of that, Hannah’s willing to forgive him. She was willing to put aside all the other reasons he’s terrible, so the I-used-you-and-then-fell-for-you business seems relatively easy to overlook.

Mari: Hannah, girl, you deserve to bake cakes for better guys for better reasons.

Diva: Hannah, you’re a very sweet girl, but you might actually be the dumbest thing on earth right now.

Sweeney: Mars Apartment. There’s a knock on the door and Keith tries to answer it ahead of Veronica, but she beats him to it – it’s “Daphne.” Veronica goes to her room and as Daphne takes a seat on the couch, Cliff emerges. With an exasperated eye roll Daphne explains that she was offered triple rate to pick up Cliff and steal the briefcase. Unfortunately she has no idea who the guy is and she just gave him the briefcase in the garage and left.

Rich Boy Penthouse. Tegan & Sara play as Logan and Hannah commence sexytimes. We cut back and forth between them and the elevator rising. Just as Logan’s about to take off Hannah’s pants, the door busts open – it’s Dr. Griffith. He reminds Logan of their deal and Logan refers to the deal as a past tense thing, saying that there’s nothing he can do to keep Logan away from Hannah. Dr. Griffith is equal to that challenge. Also, this man must be very, very tall, because Jason Dohring is 6’0 and this guy TOWERS over him. It plays well in their few scenes together and was a solid casting choice. Anyway, Dr. Griffith grabs Hannah’s arm and drags out of the hotel room.

Mars Apartment. Veronica and Keith discuss Hearst. Veronica reminds him that she wants to go far, far away. She spots the info on that FREEDOM! essay and asks her dad about plastic explosives. One of the known uses Keith rattles off includes demolition.

Neptune High. Wallace excitedly comes to tell Veronica that he got that Hearst scholarship he was after. As they are glowing about this we cut to an anxious Logan asking some of Hannah’s friends whether she came to school that day. Random Friend informs Logan that she was shipped off to boarding school in Vermont.

Demolition Pending Shark Stadium (PETCO PARK!), Veronica is in her pinkest outfit, using her most affected California girl accent, pretending to interview a demolition guy for the school paper. She spots the C4, which is definitely the same stuff she saw in Terrence Cook’s hangar. She also notices none other than Danny Boyd among the construction workers. VVO wonders if this means that the Fitzpatrick’s are responsible for framing Terrence – or crashing the bus.

Mari: So, what do you say Sweeney? Still don’t like this episode? I feel like a fair bit of knowing the future frames it a bit differently, though doesn’t completely erased the kind of “dropped in” feeling the episode has.

Diva: For me, this felt hard to watch without the added bonus of being supremely compelling television (unlike the episodes at the end of last season, which dealt with very heavy shit but made for great TV). The ending was unsatisfying – I know it’s not reasonable to expect a rape case to be neatly solved, but this is fiction, and I wanted a little more of a resolution. 

Sweeney: I appreciated the episode more on this watch, mostly because it’s such epic continuity porn. I’m also not quite sure how to respond to that last comment without a spoiler, but I think this one’s OK: there’s not more of a resolution, partially because we’re not done with this case. This episode was about shoehorning Hearst in and I think that is where it failed, more than anything else.

Continuing with the lack of resolution, though: it’s also part of S2 gradually making things a lot darker darker. S1 was dealt with gruesome things but ultimately uplifting because Veronica and Keith saved the day and fixed things in the end. But the world doesn’t always work that way and this season has had more of the justice-isn’t-always-served stories. It also means a lot more of Veronica behaving badly herself, in the face of that. I get what they’re trying to do, but I’m not sure they execute it in a particularly watchable fashion.

I think think that as a mystery of the week, it was fine enough, if a bit miserable to watch at times. I have a hard time evaluating this. The episode really failed in its introduction of Hearst. Nothing about this episode translated to, “Gee, she sure should go to school there next year!” College Visit episodes on high school shows are always awkward out-of-their-element moments, and this was better than most, but still suffered the usual failings.

I’m just very conflicted.

Next time on Veronica Mars: Weevil asks Veronica for help trying to figure out who killed Felix in S02 E17 – Plan B.