Episode 9: My Mother the Fiend
This one starts in Ms. Hauser’s Health class. Having moved on from VD, she’s now teaching the joys of parenthood, giving one of those crying baby dolls to each pair of students to illustrate what a pain in the ass a kid can be. These dolls have pretty sophisticated microchips, so nobody will be able to slack off. Before Veronica and Duncan even get their doll, Veronica is summoned to Vice Principal Clemmons’ office. He asks to see her keys—all of them—and says he knows she broke into the school to check the results of the (fake) drug tests. She’s forced to admit she has a master key for the school (and several others, including ones for certain filing cabinets and all Vespas).
Clemmons threatens to call the cops (which would kill her chances of winning the Kane scholarship), but says he’ll be happy with detention. In the computer lab, Beaver asks Mac to do a web site for his new company, Phoenix Land Trust, and she agrees. After school, Clemmons takes Veronica into the Records Room—which is a complete mess—and tells her he wants it all organized alphabetically. (Veronica says, “I can’t use magic, right?” which I’m pretty sure is a Sabrina reference.)
Veronica’s good at organizing, so she gets on pretty well, but she’s also good at snooping. She can’t help reading her mom’s (Liane Reynolds) file 
and finds out Liane was once suspended for spreading false and malicious rumours about another student. Most of the pertinent info has been blacked out, but it mentions a disciplinary hearing Liane went to with another student, who Veronica realizes is Deborah Hauser, her Health teacher. At the garage where Weevil works, the power goes out and when he goes outside to reset the breaker, he gets jumped by Logan and a pack of his rich friends.
The next day, Veronica asks Ms. Hauser about her and Liane getting suspended and Ms. Hauser says Liane was the one talking shit about another student and she just repeated it. She says Liane didn’t know how to keep her mouth shut and maybe Veronica should learn something from that. Veronica is surprised (and amused) to see Weevil (beaten and stripped)
tied to the flagpole in the school quad, which is kind of poetic since that’s Weevil’s preferred form of humiliation. Veronica asks Clemmons about her mom and who might’ve known her back then. Clemmons says he was just the science teacher, so he didn’t know anything about Liane’s rumour-mongering. He says Principal Moorehead was the vice principal back then, and Ms. Hauer was a student, as was Mary Mooney. Veronica doesn’t know who Mary Mooney is; she turns out to be the lunch lady, who’s deaf.
Veronica knows the sign language alphabet, but she’s pretty rusty, so she has a hard time trying to communicate with Mary. Mary finally gets what she’s saying and signs that Liane was a “fiend”, which Veronica figures is 
about right. I’m thinking she actually said “friend” and Veronica missed a letter, but that doesn’t seem to occur to her. Of course, after Liane pissed away all her college money at rehab, went back to drinking, and stole Veronica’s reward money, it’s understandable Veronica would have a low opinion of her. She asks Principal Moorehead about her mom and he says he can’t remember specifics, but that Liane got into a lot of trouble back then … and she was kind of “vicious”.
In the Drama Room, Veronica runs into Trina (Logan’s sister), who Moorehead has talked into directing the school play. (I guess her status as a semi-famous failed actress makes her more than qualified.) Trina mentions
the adaptation of her father’s sordid story (with Evan Rachel Wood playing Veronica’s character) and goes back to playing auteur for her cast. At Duncan’s place, Kendall drops by for some hot innuendo … and to try and sell her husband’s Maserati for half price. I’m still not sure if she and Duncan banged last episode; she says she’s been “in his bed”, but he pushes her off his lap, so maybe she just meant she was in his bed when she stripped down and tried to seduce him.
Logan and Trina come in and Kendall tries to put the moves on him, as well as trying to sell him the Maserati. Logan introduces Trina and Kendall (“Rode hard, meet put away wet.”) and we get some prime Willow/Cordelia 
cattiness as the two trade insults. Veronica scours her mom’s yearbook and finds a salutation from someone named Patty Wilson. Veronica meets with her and Patty says she and Liane used to gossip up a storm in science class. She mentions Liane dating Jake Kane and how they broke up because a girl Jake met over the summer—his eventual wife, Celeste—told him she was pregnant. That turned out not to be true, but Veronica wonders if Liane got dumped because Celeste claimed to be pregnant, or Liane claimed Celeste was pregnant because she got dumped.
Veronica asks her father about Liane (and mentions she might have gotten suspended for lying about Celeste’s pregnancy) and Keith tells her to forget Liane’s recent assholery and remember the good person she was when Veronica was a kid. Veronica asks him if he’ll check the county birth records
to see if Celeste did have a kid 25 years ago, but he’s not too keen on that idea. At school, Trina is directing a rehearsal of the play (I think it’s Hamlet), when she slips on a skull and knocks herself out. At the coffee shop, Beaver meets with Kendall and offers her a job as the public face of his real estate company. She’s not thrilled with the idea of working for a living, but he says she’s basically in sales anyway … she just wouldn’t be selling herself this time. She’s still not keen on the idea, but can’t afford to turn down the money he’s offering.
At the office, Keith tells Veronica there was no baby born in 1980 under Jake or Celeste’s names, so Veronica figured Celeste must’ve lied. Keith asks why 
this is so important and Veronica says she wants to prove Liane wasn’t one of those girls who makes life miserable for everyone else. Keith wonders if fucking Celeste over while exonerating her mom might be a bonus for Veronica. He tells her a baby was found in the bathroom at Neptune High prom and registered as a Jane Doe and Veronica immediately assumes it was Celeste’s baby, which means Keith is probably right about her motives.
Veronica takes the doll to Duncan’s place but he says he has dinner plans. Turns out it’s with his mom and Veronica and Celeste immediately get into it. Duncan tries to talk to his mom and Veronica gets to know Celeste’s assistant, Astrid. Astrid says Celeste is hard to take, but she’s paying her pay
through grad school next year. When Veronica finds out Astrid is 25 and a natural brunette, she assumes she’s Celeste’s illegitimate prom baby. The next day, Weevil corners Logan in the bathroom and tells him he doesn’t believe he killed Felix. Weevil says they’ll have to work together to find out the truth, but they can’t let anyone suspect, so they start beating the shit out of each other. Even though they’re (technically) faking it, they really fuck each other up and by the time the teachers get there, both of them are pretty beat up … although Weevil’s homeboys figure he should’ve killed Logan when he had the chance.
Mac finishes the website for Beaver and it seems like the two of them kinda have a thing for each other. Veronica invites a foster mother to the office where she pretends to be a fully-licensed detective so she can grill her about the baby found at the dance back in 1980. The foster mother remembers the 
so-called Prom Baby and tells Veronica she was adopted by a rich local family … the Echolls. So the Prom Baby is Trina. Veronica still thinks Celeste is Trina’s mother—and still wants to see Celeste humiliated—so she goes to see Trina in hospital and comes up with a story about wanting to audition for the play. She tapes herself and Trina (mostly Trina) reading some melodramatic crap about needing a bone marrow transplant. Naturally, Trina hams it up, begging for bone marrow from her real mother, which is just what Veronica needed. Trina points out the irony that she actually is adopted, which Veronica claims she didn’t know.
Veronica wonders if she’s the asshole now, since shaming Celeste will also make Trina into a public spectacle. She comes clean with Trina, telling her how she’s the Prom Baby and Celeste is probably her mom and how Veronica wanted to use the tape to smoke her out. Trina’s actually kinda
stoked, since the Kanes are billionaires, and likes Veronica’s scheme, figuring they can get the tape on TV that same night. (Trina says “It’s the least Big Pat can do for me after leaving all those pervy messages on my voicemail”, which is a reference to Pat O’Brien’s drunken voicemail antics back then, the victim of which was never identified.) The story is in all the tabloids the next day and Veronica and Trina are admiring their handiwork in the Drama Room when Mary Mooney comes in, signing frantically.
Turns out she’s Trina’s mother and wants to donate her bone marrow to save Trina’s life. Trina’s disappointed at not being an heir to billions, but she actually does seem happy to know her real mom. Veronica talks to Mary (using a computer to type on, so there’s no misunderstandings) and finds 
out she and Liane were friends. Mary says Liane was the nicest person she ever met and tells Veronica the whole story of her pregnancy and how Liane got in trouble, which Veronica later tells Trina. Apparently, Mary got knocked up by a teacher and told Liane about it. Liane asked Deborah (Hauser)’s advice and Deborah was the one who blabbed it all over school. When Liane and Deborah were called to the principal’s office, Mary begged Liane not to tell who the father was, so Liane recanted and claimed she’d made it all up … hence the reprimand for spreading malicious gossip.
Trina’s a little pissed off that Mary just dumped her in the bathroom, but Veronica says Mary actually left her on her father’s doorstep and he freaked out and brought the baby to the dance, knowing everyone would assume it
belonged to a student. And guess who that stand-up guy was? It’s former Vice Principal (now Principal) Moorehead, who Trina interrupts in the middle of a staff meeting, letting everyone know what he did. At the office, Veronica finds a dead rat in the freezer and Keith tells her he found it on the bus. She assumes it was a message meant for her, but Keith says it could’ve been for someone else.
At school, Veronica goes to see Clemmons and congratulates him for his Machiavellian manipulation, giving her detention so she’d see her mom’s file and expose Moorehead. Clemmons gives away nothing, but after she 
leaves he pulls out a nameplate with “Principal Clemmons” engraved on it. He must’ve had it made up ahead of time, so it looks like Veronica is right. She’s called to pick up Abel Koontz’s stuff at the hospital and decides to go see Meg, since it’s after hours and there’s no one to stop her. Veronica gets a shock when she finds two machines monitoring Meg’s vitals … yup, Meg is pregnant, and pretty far along judging by the baby bump. No wonder her parents wouldn’t let Veronica or Duncan in to see her. A few seconds after Veronica leaves, Meg opens her eyes.