Episode 2: Credit Where Credit’s Due
This one starts with Veronica telling Wallace about her (boring) plans for the weekend. Wallace shows her a coded flyer advertising a 09er party (09ers are the kids who live within the fancy 90909 ZIP Code). Veronica interprets the coded flyer, telling Wallace where and when the party will be before reminding him why the flyer is in code in the first place … to keep undesirables like them away. At the party, Duncan Kane brings an old friend (Troy Vandegraff, playing by Aaron Ashmore who’s been in every show I’ve reviewed so far … I swear that
dude is stalking me),who’s just enrolled at Neptune High because of a recent move, to check out the festivities. Duncan introduces Troy to Logan and his current girlfriend Caitlin (played by Paris Hilton, which I’m sure was quite a stretch for her). Weevil and some of his bikers show up to give the rich kids shit for throwing a party on their turf. Logan makes fun of Weevil because Weevil’s grandma is the Echolls’ maid. Before Weevil (or his cousin, Chardo) can start anything, Sheriff Lamb shows up to bust up the party. The kids scatter and Lamb tells his deputy to grab the kegs … barbecue at his place tomorrow!
The next day, Weevil and Chardo are hanging out at home when the cops come by with a warrant. Bit it’s not for Weevil, it’s for his grandma, Letitia. Somebody took pre-approved credit card applications from the garbage at the Echolls place and opened a bunch of fake accounts, charging up a bunch of shit in the Echolls name. Since Letitia is the maid, she’s the prime 
suspect, but Sheriff Lamb tells Weevil that only a real asshole would let a sweet old lady do his time for him. Later, Letitia’s lawyer (Cliff, the same guy who gave Veronica the strip club assignment last episode) talks to Keith Mars about the case. Cliff figures Letitia is innocent, since the credit card charges are for stuff like video games, limo rides, and motorcycle gear. Cliff doesn’t think Letitia would suddenly start stealing after ten years of loyal service to the Echolls, but the stuff was sent to her PO box and she was wearing a diamond pendant bought with the phony credit card. Veronica doesn’t think Weevil is guilty either (since he helped her recently), but her father points out Weevil has been in trouble with the law for years. He asks Veronica to take the lead on the investigation, since she knows Weevil.
Veronica goes to Weevil’s place, but he’s not happy to see her, even though she’s trying to help his grandma. She mentions Weevil’s bad rep and he reminds her she has a rep too (of being a slut, after she was raped). Weevil tells Veronica she’s not the big outsider she thinks she is … she’s really still
one of the popular kids. The next day, Veronica and her dad are out for breakfast when Sheriff Lamb comes by to give Keith shit. Keith mentions a guy who recently escaped from police custody and Lamb throws the Lilly Kane murder in Keith’s face, reminding him how he lost the Sheriff’s job after accusing Lilly’s grieving father of killing her. Keith points out how weird it is that Lamb got an anonymous tip leading him to the “real” killer, but the tipster never came forward to claim the $100,000 reward. Lamb comes right back with the fact that the entire Kane family had eyewitness and phone record alibis for the night of Lilly’s murder. Keith doesn’t have a comeback for that.
Veronica stops by the office at school and runs into Troy, who’s definitely interested in her. She finds out Wallace is helping in the office and asks him 
to copy Weevil’s attendance records for her. She goes to see the faculty adviser for the school paper (Ms. Dent), after being told by the guidance counselor she lacks direction and focus. Veronica says she’s good with a camera and demonstrates her knowledge after pulling out her own kick-ass camera instead of taking the crappy one belonging to the school. Ms. Dent says she wants a story on a Neptune student who’s a top surfer; she introduces Veronica to the guy writing the story, but it turns out she already knows him … it’s her ex, Duncan Kane.
Wallace gets copies of Weevil’s records and Veronica notices a lot of the stuff was bought online during fourth period, when Weevil was in auto shop class. Since there’s no internet connection in auto shop, she figures Weevil is innocent. But when she takes the evidence to show her father and Cliff
after school, she’s too late. Letitia has been released from jail because Weevil confessed to making the phony credit card purchases. The next day, Logan and Caitlin are talking about his parents firing Letitia. Veronica reminds them that 90% of identity theft is done by family members. Caitlin gets all snotty and Veronica tricks her into admitting that she and Logan have computer science classes in fourth period. Veronica checks the browser history and finds that Logan has a thing for naked Alyssa Milano, but doesn’t seem to have made any of the phony purchases. She does notice that Logan visited the website for the Neptune Grand Hotel and there was a charge on the fake card for the honeymoon suite there.
After school, Veronica’s ready to head out to Gold Coast for the surfing story, but her car “mysteriously” has a flat tire … the second one since school started. Troy comes by and offers to help change the tire, which makes Logan and Caitlin wonder if Troy’s heard the gossip about Veronica. 
Duncan comes by and offers Veronica a ride, which she reluctantly accepts, not wanting to blow her first assignment. On the way to the beach, a song on the radio reminds Veronica of a conversation she had with Lilly before she was killed. She asked Lilly why her mother hated her so much and Lilly said she’d hate anyone she thought Duncan might love as much as her, then warned Veronica to be careful because her mom would break Veronica and Duncan up if she could. As they get close to the beach, Veronica sees Weevil picking up garbage by the roadside with the other convicts.
After getting the surfing story, Veronica and Duncan are heading back to town when the cops pull them over. Apparently the car (which was Lilly’s) has a bunch of outstanding tickets and a moving violation … from the day Lilly was killed. Duncan calls his dad (Jake Kane, local tech billionaire and
Neptune’s most beloved citizen), who squares things with the Sheriff. Veronica calls her dad to pick her up, which is awkward since the last time Keith and Jake Kane were together was when Keith tried to sweat a confession out of Jake for killing his own daughter. Jake used the press to crucify Keith and he was turfed out of the Sheriff’s office. Veronica’s so-called friends started freezing her out when she chose to stand by her father, and now she can’t help wondering if Keith was wrong the whole time and she gave up her entire social life for nothing.
On the way home, Veronica asks her dad to help her at the Neptune Grand Hotel. They run a con on the desk clerk (pretending Veronica is pregnant and needs details on the father) and manage to get info about the room that was charged to the phony credit card. Turns out Logan’s girlfriend Caitlin signed for room service. When Veronica mentions that to Logan at school 
the next day, he just laughs and tells her to prove it, but he looks a bit confused. At the police station, Keith brings in the fugitive the cops let get away, which pisses Sheriff Lamb off to no end. At school, Troy invites Veronica to a party and she reminds him she’s persona non grata with the rich kids. Troy says if she admits she was wrong, everyone might just forget about the past. Veronica says she’ll think about it, but tells Wallace she’s going to nail Logan for the credit card fraud. Meanwhile Logan is grilling Duncan about Troy, asking all kinds of questions about what kind of guy he is; I think Logan suspects Troy and Caitlin are screwing around.
While Veronica runs down the phone numbers from the hotel bill, Logan goes through Caitlin’s cell and finds a strange number, which he calls. It turns out to be Weevil’s cousin, Chardo, and it sounds like he knows Caitlin
really well. Before Logan has a chance to do anything, Veronica grabs Chardo and pushes him into the bathroom. Having gotten the same info on the phone number from her father, she confronts Chardo with the fact he and Caitlin are the ones who took out the phony credit cards and let Letitia and Weevil take the rap. Chardo admits it but says he and Caitlin are in love and are going to run away together. Once they’re gone, he’ll send a confession to exonerate Weevil. Veronica says there’s no way in hell Caitlin will ever run away with him; banging him was just her way of living dangerously. But Chardo won’t listen.
Veronica goes to see Letitia, who knew Chardo was guilty (since he’s the one who gave her the pendant), but Chardo’s eighteen with a record, while Weevil’s only seventeen, so she figured she was saving Chardo from some 
hard time. Veronica tells her Chardo spent all that money on Logan’s spoiled girlfriend. That pisses Letitia off and she calls the cops and tells them everything she knows. Weevil is released and thanks Veronica for clearing him. She tells him the cops and Logan are both after Chardo’s ass, so Weevil might want to find him first. Naturally, Chardo is at Caitlin’s place, expecting her to ride off into the sunset with him. But she set him up and Logan and his posse of rich dudes is waiting to pound Chardo.
Weevil and the other bikers show up and it looks like we’re about to see a fight between the Socs and the Greasers. But Weevil and Logan talk and Logan tells his friends to let Chardo go. The rich guys leave and the bikers head down by he beach. Chardo thanks Weevil for saving his ass, but Weevil
tells him they’re no longer family and he out of the motorcycle club. That means a shit-kicking for Chardo (I think it used to be called getting “jumped out”, but I don’t know if anyone still uses that term). Weevil lets his boys do a number on Chardo, but tells his second in command not to let it go too far. Later, Veronica asks her father why he suspected Jake Kane of killing Lilly, but he doesn’t give her a straight answer.
She goes to the Sheriff’s office with a fake ID in Lilly’s name (she and Lilly made the Ids not long before Lilly was killed) and cons the clerk into giving her the original speeding ticket on Lilly’s car. It turns out Lilly was caught 
on a video radar camera two hours after she supposedly died. So now none of the Kane family’s alibis hold up, which means Veronica’s father might be right after all. Troy asks Veronica why she didn’t come to his party and she says she didn’t feel like apologizing since she doesn’t think she was in the wrong. Veronica notices Logan and his friends have frozen Caitlin out like they did to Veronica; I guess that’s the rich kids’ version of getting jumped out, except the shit-kicking is social instead of physical. Veronica, Wallace, and Troy head off to play some mini-golf.