Episode 5: Blast From the Past
After meeting his birth father (Nathan Woods) last episode, Wallace comes in the house and gives his mom (Alicia) shit for hiding the truth from him. She explains that Nathan was an undercover detective and they were married for a short time, but Nathan got way too involved in a case and ended up down the rabbit hole, coming home high and stashing guns and dope under the bed. She divorced him, met and married Hank Fennel, and put his name on Wallace’s birth certificate. She looks for the certificate, but it’s missing. She
tells Wallace that Hank was his father in every way that counts. At school, Veronica notices that Wallace is feeling crappy, but she’s not sure why. She nominates him for Homecoming King, hoping to cheer him up. In another class, someone nominates Veronica for Homecoming Queen; a lot of students are in favour, since Veronica’s helped them at various times, but Logan and Jackie are both unimpressed.
At lunch, Wallace is still in a crappy mood, which Jackie doesn’t seem to notice … she’s too busy going on about the Homecoming Dance. Wallace 
goes to tell Veronica about meeting his biological father and Jackie gets pissed off (again) that they’re so close. At her dad’s office, Veronica discusses his run for Sheriff and Keith exults in the fact he has a twelve point lead in the latest polls on Sheriff Lamb. Meanwhile, Jackie goes to see a psychic, who gives her the usual bullshit and afterwards tells her the credit card she used has been declined. You’d think the psychic would’ve seen that coming. Jackie doesn’t seem too worked up about it … in fact, it gives her some kind of idea.
In school the next day, Jackie asks Veronica for help. She claims her credit card was stolen and maxed out, possibly by her friend Cora. Jackie’s not worried about the charges, but she hopes Veronica can prove Cora is innocent, since she’s the only friend Jackie has. The charges include lip
enhancers, a leather jacket, scented candles, and something called Consolidated Elemental industries. Veronica says the first thing to do is figure out if Cora has any of the things on the list. Alicia stops by Keith’s office to get back the birth certificate he lifted from her house. He asks why she lied and she says she was trying to protect Wallace. She tells Keith the way he’s raised Veronica has just invited chaos into the household. He points out that she’s basically done the same thing, her chaos was just delayed for 18 years.
Nathan stops by the store where Wallace works and (after being treated to an impromptu version of “Papa Was a Rolling Stone”) admits that he was 
pretty screwed up back in the day. Wallace wonders why it took him so long to look for him and Nathan says he didn’t even know Alicia was pregnant until her mother told him. He shows Wallace a bundle of letters that Alicia’s mother passed on to her, all of which have “Return to Sender” written on them. At school, Wallace is among the nominees for Homecoming King (along with Duncan), but Veronica isn’t nominated for Queen. Logan and Jackie both find that funny, and Logan seems like he might be interested in her.
Veronica “runs into” Cora and admires her brand-new jacket. Cora says she got it at an outlet mall outside of town that nobody knows about. Veronica asks if they can go shopping together for Homecoming dresses and Cora agrees. Veronica tells Jackie she may have a lead but wants to be certain before Jackie accuses her friend of stealing her credit card. Outside, Duncan
reaches out to Logan, suggesting thy hang out and play video games. Logan’s up for it, so I guess that bromance is back on. Downtown, Keith and Sheriff Lamb (who’s running under the moniker “The Exterminator”) are having a spirited town hall debate. Keith talks about the polarization of the community, especially since the bus crash. Lamb springs something on Keith … back when Keith was a deputy, he stopped Ed Doyle (the bus driver) for DUI but let him go without charges. If Keith had charged him (which would’ve been proper procedure), Ed wouldn’t have been hired by the school district. Of course, that assumes Ed really was responsible for the bus crash, which Lamb seems to believe (or wants to believe because it’s simple), but Keith and Veronica aren’t convinced.
Veronica spills juice on her shirt so she has an excuse to raid Cora’s closet before they go to the outlet mall. She doesn’t find any of the clothes charged 
on Jackie’s card, but she does find a chicken costume. No, Cora’s not into weird furry fetish stuff, she works at a chicken restaurant. After they get back from the mall, Veronica checks Cora’s work hours and finds out she couldn’t have made the charges on Jackie’s card. At Duncan’s hotel, he finally asks Veronica to Homecoming (he was just kinda assuming they were going together) and she asks him to get her some Kane Software stationery. I think he’s so used to her bullshit now, it barely even fazes him.
At home, Veronica reads a newspaper article about Keith losing his lead in the Sheriff’s race and being in a dead heat with Lamb now. He notices a silver scarab beetle in Lucite and he says it’s her biology project. Wallace
confronts his mom with the letters from Nathan she sent back and she freaks out. Wallace isn’t impressed, pointing out she lied about giving Nathan the choice between his job or fatherhood. At school, Wallace tells Veronica about his mom’s latest lies and she reminds him that a cop would’ve been able to track Wallace down a lot sooner if he really wanted to. She reminds him of her own absent mother and says the one who sticks with you is the one who cares.
Veronica sends the scarab beetle to Lamb (I assume it’s a bug, in more ways than one) with a note on Kane Software stationery wishing The Exterminator luck in his campaign, signed Jake Kane. Veronica tracks down 
Consolidated Elemental Industries, which turns out to be the psychic Jackie went to. Veronica visits and finds the scented candles that were on Jackie’s credit card. When Veronica tells Jackie, she admits that she’s the one who used the card at the psychic’s place. Jackie says her grandma died a couple years back and even someone like Madame Sophie pretending to be her is comforting. Since Jackie shared her secret shame with Veronica, Veronica reciprocates, telling Jackie she once bought some stuff called Mammomax (a cream that’s supposed to give you bigger tits) off an infomercial.
Jackie has an idea how to get back at Madame Sophie by going on her TV show. Madame Sophie has a local access show which everyone at Neptune High watches (except Veronica, apparently). They check it out and see Madame Sophie “helping” a girl whose friend died in the bus crash. That pisses Veronica off and she wants to get Madame Sophie back for exploiting
people’s tragedies. Jackie’s dad (Terrence) comes in and mentions that Sheriff Lamb stopped to talk to him about emceeing the department’s bachelor auction. Veronica and Jackie make plans to expose Madame Sophie as a fraud, but since she knows Jackie, Veronica will have to go on the show. Veronica goes home and checks the bug she sent Lamb. She gets some juicy stuff about Lamb blackmailing Jackie’s dad into donating a pile of money to the department’s charity. It seems Terrence has racked up about $3 million in gambling debts and if that got out (or if people thought Terrence had thrown games for money), he’d really be in shit.
At school, Veronica talks to Michelle, the girl she saw on Madame Sophie’s show. She asks about whether anyone pumped her for information before the show and finds out another audience member had a casual chat with her 
before the show and Michelle told her exactly who she was hoping to contact. Michelle admits she feels better after Madame Sophie “contacted” her friend, since she’s been feeling guilty for not answering her phone call the day of the crash. When Veronica realizes Michelle has a voicemail from the time of the bus crash, she listens to it (hearing what could be an explosion) and forwards it to herself.
At Duncan’s hotel, he and Logan are playing some kind of weird video golf game; seriously they couldn’t find anything better than that to play? On Madame Sophie’s show, Veronica feeds the audience plant a bunch of crap
about her fake dead uncle, so she can expose Sophie as a fraud when she starts going on about him. But Sophie surprises her by saying she’s getting a message from someone named Lilly, who says Veronica should’ve stayed away from her boyfriend. Duncan and Logan are watching the show and are both shocked. Wallace and Jackie are watching too, though I think Jackie is much less shocked. Sophie gives Veronica another message from Lilly about not needing to use Mammomax. That tells Veronica exactly who’s behind this little stunt.
Later at home, Veronica burns a CD of Lamb talking to Jackie’s dad about his gambling debts and plans to give it to the DJ at Homecoming so everyone can hear it. Wallace comes by and asks her not to retaliate against Jackie. 
She’s not too keen on that idea and Wallace gets pissed off, pointing out that his whole world has been falling apart lately and she hasn’t even tried to comfort him, even though he’s always been there for her to lean on. Wallace goes home and calls Jackie to give her shit. She says she just wanted to take Veronica down a notch and swears Madame Sophie came up with all the stuff about Lilly on her own. Wallace tells Jackie he’s going to Homecoming (because he’s nominated for King), but he isn’t going with her. So, I guess they’re broken up now. Jackie takes a bottle of pulls out of her drawer and stares at them.
At home, Veronica plays the voicemail of the bus crash for Keith and suggests he release it to the newspapers to wipe out Lamb’s campaign. Keith refuses, saying he won’t use a tragedy to score political points. Veronica reminds him Lamb has closed the case and the only way the real
killer will be put away is if Keith wins the election. The argument is interrupted when Duncan arrives to pick her up; she decides to leave the incriminating CD about Jackie’s dad behind. At the dance (where the real-life band the Faders appear as themselves) Jackie and Logan start getting busy on the dance floor. Veronica sees them and freaks out on Jackie (who seems kinda wasted). Jackie figures Veronica’s jealous about Logan and when Wallace sees the argument, he walks out of the dance.
Keith takes the bus crash voicemail to Lamb, who’s skeptical about Keith’s motives. Keith points out that if he wanted to screw Lamb over, he would’ve 
taken the recording to the news. Keith notices the scarab beetle on Lamb’s desk and realizes Veronica must’ve sent him a bug, so he swipes it when Lamb isn’t looking. Later, Alicia calls Keith to ask if he’s seen Wallace, who never came home. Keith goes out looking for him and the next morning tells Veronica he’s missing. She calls Wallace to apologize for being so selfish, but he lets it go to voicemail and we see Wallace is with Nathan, heading away from Neptune.