Episode 16: The Rapes of Graff
This one starts in English class, where the teacher tells her students they have to write an essay on freedom for Mayor Woody Goodman. Sounds like something for ten-year-olds, but the winner gets a short internship (which will look good on college applications) and they get to push the plunger to blow up the old baseball stadium. Veronica talks to Logan afterward and we find out that the charges against him for killing Felix have been dropped after the witness (Dr. Griffith) recanted. Veronica asks if Logan has held up his end of the deal and stopped
seeing Griffith’s daughter Hannah, but he hasn’t gotten around to dumping her yet. Wallace shows up with a recruiting pamphlet from Hearst College inviting him for a three-day tour (Veronica got one too). Wallace is excited about checking out the college and hopes he can get in on a basketball scholarship. Veronica is less enthused, since her plans involve getting as far away from Neptune as possible, not going to the local university. But checking out Hearst would involve missing school and Veronica does like that idea.
Outside, Logan finally does drop Hannah, and gives her no explanation as to why. He actually seems bothered by it, so maybe he’s not quite as callous as 
he’d like to think. At Hearst, Wallace and Veronica meet their tour guide Dean (played by Michael Cera, doing pretty much the same character he always does), who tells everyone to pair off with a tour buddy. Since they aren’t allowed to pair up with someone they already know, Wallace latches onto a cute girl, leaving Veronica as the only one without a partner. Dean pairs up with her and everyone plays two truths and a lie, which Veronica doesn’t take too seriously. She does manage to figure out Dean’s lie (“it’s all in the eyes”) and he finds her another partner, a guy who showed up late for the tour. Unfortunately, it’s Troy Vandegraff, the asshole we last saw in “You Think You Know Somebody”.
Troy claims he’s become a decent person after a year of private school, therapy, quitting drugs, and dumping his asshole girlfriend, but Veronica’s
not convinced. She pretends not to care, but we all know how she is with a grudge. Back at school, Logan finds a “Get Out of Jail Free” cake in his locker from Hannah. Dick shows up to tell him he’s better off being single. Apparently Madison Sinclair dumped Dick for someone “more mature”, which is a pretty broad category. But Dick’s cool with it and tells Logan they’re better off single so they can party their asses off this weekend.
At Hearst, Veronica kinda likes the school, but the drunken antics of the 
students isn’t really a big draw. One guy corners her to tell her how many points she’d be worth in a sexual scavenger hunt his frat has going on, then asks if she’s down to fuck. After she dumps a couple beers on him, he grabs her and Troy shows up and tells the guy to back off. Troy gets decked and the frat dude walks away. Veronica shows Troy her stun gun and says she had it covered, but his unsuccessful attempt at chivalry does get him something … a cute girl comes over and offers to buy him a beer.
Veronica and Wallace hang out and Wallace says he loves Hearst. After talking to Dean again, Veronica’s ready to leave. On the way out, she notices
Troy and his new friend kissing and heading into a room together. As an afterthought, Veronica tases the frat dude who hit on her, saving another girl from his bullshit. Back in Neptune, Keith gets a call from Cliff, who’s handcuffed to a bed in a hotel room. He got jacked by some babe named Daphne at a medical convention. She got him up to her room, handcuffed him, and stole his briefcase.
Veronica gets a call from Troy, who’s at the police station. The girl he was with (Stacy) was roofied, raped, and had her head shaved. Troy swears he’s 
innocent and asks Veronica to help him prove it. Troy is the last thing Stacy remembers before passing out, lots of people saw them going into her room, and his hair was all over her. Plus, his clothes were freshly laundered. Troy says he and Stacy made out a bit (explaining the hair), she puked all over him, and he put her to bed and went to an all-night laundry to wash his clothes, since he didn’t bring a change of clothes with him. Veronica still isn’t sure about Troy, but thinks he might be telling the truth. She says if she ever believes he’s guilty, all bets are off. She asks if anyone else was hanging around and he mentions a dude with long hair and a frat sweater that Stacy had rejected earlier.
At the office, Cliff tells Keith about how Daphne got him drunk and lured him to her room. He says his briefcase had case files in it, including the files
on Logan’s murder case, but that was dismissed anyway. They check out elevator security tapes and see Cliff and Daphne making out. Later, Sheriff Lamb gets on the elevator and he’s making out with a young girl. As Daphne leaves with the briefcase, Lamb greets her like he knows her. Veronica comes in to use the computer and tells them Lamb’s girlfriend is Madison Sinclair. I guess he’s the “mature” guy she dumped Dick for; not really much of a trade-up.
Veronica goes to the Pi Sigma Sigma fraternity to snoop around. The place looks like Animal House and Veronica finds pictures of the dude she tased 
(Andrew) and the guy with long hair that Troy mentioned (Gordon). She meets a dude named Chip and asks about Gordon, but he apparently spent the night in hospital having his stomach pumped after 18 vodka shots. Sounds like Chip and the other the frat boys aren’t too impressed with Gordon anyway. Veronica tells Troy about Gordon being innocent and Troy points out that he’s already getting the dirty looks and whispering. Veronica says he may have to get used to it if he can’t remember anything else. Troy mentions that he left his name and number on the message board on Stacy’s door, hardly the action of a rapist.
At Logan’s place, he and Dick are hanging out and Dick is still trying to convince him he’s better off without Hannah. Dick digs into the cake Hannah made and finds a file in it. Logan decides Dick is right and vows to
drink his face off. Veronica checks Stacy’s door and finds part of Troy’s name and number there, but part is rubbed out where someone wrote “CCC”. Stacy comes out and is understandably pissed off about what happened. Veronica knows just how she feels and tells her eventually it’ll start to suck a little less. There’s a box beside the door and when Stacy opens it, it’s full of hair. Stacy says the hair isn’t hers, but before Veronica can digest that, another girl comes by and recognizes Veronica as Troy’s friend.
Veronica figures the hair left at Stacy’s door might be from a previous victim, so she checks out wig shops, spinning a tale about her sister being in 
chemo and running away. She almost gets the info she wants, but it turns out the other girl was Hawaiian, so the store owner knows she wasn’t Veronica’s sister. Veronica asks Dean about Hawaiian students and learns they have an informal group that hangs out on weekends. She notices the letters “CL” n a door and asks Dean about it. He tells her about the Pi Sigma sex hunt and how they score girls they bang, which she kinda already knew. Dean says there’s a rumour of a big scoreboard in the basement of the frat house and he mentions that pledges who fail to meet the minimum score have their heads shaved.
Keith and Cliff ask Sheriff Lamb about Daphne, showing him the photo of Lamb talking to her in the elevator. Lamb claims not to know her, so they show him the photo of him and Madison making out in the elevator. Lamb says Madison is eighteen, but to avoid any scandal he admits that “Daphne” is an escort and tells them how to get in touch with her. At Hearst, Wallace
pretends he wants to join Pi Sigma and gets a tour of the frat house, allowing him to unlock a window for Veronica. She sneaks into the basement and takes photos of the sex scoreboard (which has some dude named Bird Dog claiming he banged her). She finds a guy named Iceman who scored 300 points and figures he might be the one who raped Stacy. She gets caught by Iceman (who turns out to be Chip) and Gordon (who no longer has his long hair), accusing each of them of raping Stacy. Turns out Iceman got his 300 points for banging the Dean’s wife (wow, it is Animal House) and Gordon says Stacy was just a tease who basically deserved what she got. Bird Dog comes in and it’s the guy Veronica tased. She tells the others he was lying about scoring her and tells them to start shaving his head.
Veronica figures out which Hawaiian student (Dawn) bought a wig lately (after pissing off another girl who dyed her hair pink) and mentions Stacy’s 
rape. Veronica gets Stacy, Dawn, and the Dean of Student Affairs together to let them know what’s going on. Since Dawn was raped and had her head shaved a month ago (when Troy was still in private school), Troy isn’t the rapist … which means whoever did it is still out there. Veronica tells Stacy the box of hair was from Gordon, who was pissed off about having his head shaved because she didn’t fall for his bullshit. Veronica gives the Dean the photos of the scoreboard at Pi Sigma.
The next day, Dean bids everyone farewell and Wallace is excited about possibly going to Hearst next year, although Veronica’s still not too stoked. Dean lets Veronica know the Pi Sigmas got a year’s probation with some pretty strict rules and Wallace tells her she’ll feel right at home at Hearst
since she’s already made enemies. Troy thanks Veronica for helping him and says goodbye, although she’s still not 100% convinced he’s a good guy. Stacy goes to the frat house to return Gordon’s hair and tosses it into the ceiling fan, which blows it all over the place. At school, Logan admits he used Hannah to get her dad to drop his testimony, but he says he’s sorry and wants her back … and she seems to be falling for his charms again.
At home, Veronica’s early arrival interrupts Keith’s meeting with Daphne 
the hooker. Keith and Cliff ask her about the briefcase and she says she was paid triple to pick Cliff up and get the briefcase. She doesn’t know who the guy was who hired her, so she isn’t much help. At Logan’s place, he and Hannah are about to bang (to a Tegan and Sara song) when her dad shows up. He drags Hannah out, telling Logan that he’ll never see her again. Keith tries to talk Veronica into going to Hearst, but she’s still not interested. She asks him about plastic explosives and he mentions they’re used in demolition. The next day, Wallace finds out he got the scholarship to Hearst and Logan finds out Hannah’s dad sent her to
boarding school in Vermont. Veronica checks out the old baseball stadium, which is scheduled to be demolished, and finds out they’re using C-4 … which is what she saw in the locker at Terrence’s hangar. She also sees Danny Boyd working at the demolition site and wonders if the Fitzpatricks had something to do with framing Terrence … or crashing the bus. So, the real rapist isn’t caught, but that’ll be resolved in Season 3 when Veronica is a student at Hearst. My money’s on Dean; his clean-cut, helpful nerd thing is a little too good to be true.