Episode 18: I Am God
This episode is a bit weird, as it contains multiple flashbacks and dream sequences. I guess they’re supposed to represent Veronica’s subconscious as she pieces together clues about the bus crash, so the confusion we feel as spectators probably mirrors her own. We start with a quick dream sequence where Veronica is on the bus with several other students. She’s woken by her teacher and sent to the guidance office for sleeping in class. The guidance counselor (Rebecca James) asks why Veronica has been falling asleep at school and why she tore down a memorial photo display for the dead students. Veronica admits she’s been having nightmares about some
of the dead students, like they’re trying to tell her something. (She slips in a Ghost Whisperer joke, but Ms. James doesn’t get it.) She hands over the photos and goes over each person who’s haunting her dreams: Cervando, the smart biker; Betina, Dick’s ex fuck buddy; Rhonda, who left her friend a message just as the bus crashed; Marcos, of pirate radio fame; Peter, who was pretty open about being gay and promised to out someone else; and of course Meg, Veronica’s former friend who gave birth to Duncan’s baby. Veronica asks Ms. James if she knows anything about a janitor named Lucky, who Meg apparently wrote about in her emails.
Yeah, Veronica read Meg’s emails looking for clues and she’s feeling pretty guilty about it. Apparently Meg’s parents thought Lucky was great because 
he went to church regularly and acted very nice around them, but Meg says he was just some loser who bought beer for guys like Logan so he could relive his glory days of high school. Veronica mentions the girl who set up the photo display (Michelle, the same girl Rhonda called just as the bus was crashing) is trying to raise money for a big yearbook spread for the dead students. Veronica tells Ms. James that in addition to the message at the time of the crash, Rhonda had called Michelle’s house a few minutes earlier and left a message there too. In that message, everyone on the bus was laughing at something. When Veronica listened to that message, she heard Dick’s voice … but Dick wasn’t on the bus.
Veronica told her dad about everything and admitted she snuck onto the bus to get a CD out of the player. That CD had a recording of Dick’s voice, which
explains why she heard it over the phone message. Veronica also showed her dad a photo she took of one of the bus seats with hand-drawn graffiti on it … a drawing of nine tombstones and the words “I Am God”. The bus was brand new and there was no other graffiti, so she figures whoever drew it must’ve been on the bus when it crashed. There were only eight victims, but Veronica assumes she would’ve been number nine if she hadn’t been left behind at the gas station.
Veronica asks Logan about Lucky and he reminds her that she met him once, back when she and Logan were dating. Lucky, Dick, and Logan went out to cause some shit with the Hispanic community during last summer’s 
racial tensions. In physics class, Mr. Wu unveils his big experiment, one of those egg-drop things where you have to drop an egg from a certain height without breaking it. The experiment counts for a big chunk of their grade and whoever has the best results is excused from the big exam. Wu gets tired of Dick being a dick and assigns him to work with Angie Dahl, a smart (and hot) overachiever who wants to win so she won’t have to take Wu’s exam. Logan and Wallace are paired off and Wallace says he needs to get a passing grade so he doesn’t blow his scholarship to Hearst.
Veronica asks Dick about Betina and he admits he was banging her, even though she was “white trash”. Veronica tells him Betina played his messages to her on the bus so everyone could have a laugh. Dick says Betina had nothing to be pissed off about since he’d just given her a premium
Sharks baseball ticket package in his gift bag from the stadium that day. Veronica reminds him that he didn’t win the raffle for the tickets and Dick says he saw Peter toss them in the garbage, so he took them and gave them to Betina to get back on her good side. Veronica talks to Betina’s friend and learns Dick treated her like crap (big shock), but she seemed to like it. Betina apparently planned on getting knocked up with Dick’s baby so she’d be set for life. (Earlier, Dick told Veronica that Betina was on the pill.)
At Logan’s place, he and Wallace successfully drop an egg four feet without breaking it, which guarantees they’ll get a passing grade. Wallace isn’t all that fond of Logan (and vice versa), but they both need the grade, so they’ve 
put aside their differences to that end. At home, Veronica asks Keith if he was at school earlier. She’s sure she saw him there, wearing the suit he always wears on dates. She wonders if he’s seeing Ms. James again, but he refuses to confirm or deny anything. He gives her a letter from Stanford and she’s thrilled to find out they accepted her. At school, Veronica finds out her main rival for the Kane scholarship (Angie) has pulled ahead because she took some special course over the summer that cost a ton of money. Veronica tells Ms. James about Angie screwing her over and how her dreams of going to Stanford are all but over. Veronica tells Ms. James she hasn’t figured out who did the drawing on the bus yet. She also hints about Ms. James and Keith, but Ms. James says they aren’t seeing each other.
Wallace tells Veronica that Rhonda and her sister (Natalie) were both total hell-raisers, always getting in trouble. Veronica finds that intriguing. In physics class, Wallace and Logan pass with their project and Wu tells them
they can try to get an even higher grade if they can drop an egg from a higher height. When they find out Angie has gotten into Stanford, they decide to try and win the egg drop competition so she won’t and Veronica will have the edge for the scholarship. Wallace points out Natalie after school, but instead of being poor white trash, she’s now rich white trash, even driving a brand-new Corvette. Veronica calls Keith (who seems to be going on a series of internet dates) to check financial records on everyone who died in the crash.
At home, Keith tells Veronica that none of the families got any insurance money from the bus crash, but Rhonda’s family did get a couple million dollars in an earlier lawsuit against Woody Goodman; something about 
finding a finger in a sandwich at Woody Burger. The next day, Veronica sneaks into the principal’s office to check the files on the dead students. She hides in the closet when she hears someone coming. It turns out to be Principal Clemmons and her dad. Apparently, Clemmons hired Keith to look into a bunch of students coming down with General Anxiety Disorder, which he suspects is a load of crap since they all have notes from the same doctor. The students (all from rich families) are getting extensions on assignments, test delays, and other perks, which is driving the teachers crazy. Keith goes to get his coat from the closet and finds Veronica hiding there, but says nothing.
Keith goes on more dates, one of which just happens to be with the office manager for a local doctor. Hell of a coincidence, isn’t it? Veronica finds something strange in Peter’s file and knows from his postings on the gay
forum that he had the hots for Mr. Wu. Veronica talks to Wu, who denies being gay, but says Peter did once tell him he had feelings for him, but they worked everything out. Veronica has another dream and ends up wondering why Peter was even at the baseball stadium the day of the crash, which seems like she’s buying into the stereotype of gay guys not liking sports. Veronica also found something about Cervando and Beaver in the files. Beaver tells her that Dick ruined Cervando’s brand-new jeans, so Cervando decided to make Beaver pay for them. He says it’s typical … Dick pulls some shit and he pays for it.
Keith talks to Clemmons, giving him a tape of the medical office manager offering to hook Veronica up with a diagnosis of General Anxiety Disorder for $1000. At school, Angie’s egg survives a twelve-foot drop, but Wallace 
and Logan’s doesn’t, so Angie wins the exemption from the exam. Veronica runs into Logan and gives him shit, but Wallace blows her mind by defending him. Clemmons announces that there will be no more extensions or exemptions for General Anxiety, so Angie has to take an exam she hasn’t studied for. Veronica has another dream where Cervando points out that whoever sabotaged the bus must’ve known when it was beside the cliff, so they had to be within sight of it to know when to make the phone call that triggered the bomb. Weevil was hanging around the gas station and was not far behind the bus, but I assume Veronica would’ve noticed if he’d had a cell phone out.
Veronica hears a song on the radio and realizes “I Am God” is the name of an album and the gravestones are the cover art. That night, Keith mentions that the people on the bus were all poor kids, while all the rich kids were in the limo behind the bus. He says Dick Sr. took out a huge insurance policy
on Dick and Beaver just after he married Kendall, so they’re worth more dead than alive. Afterwards, Veronica has another dream where she goes back to blaming herself for the crash. She sees the gift bag Dick gave Betina beside her on the seat and is handed a cell phone that just keeps ringing and ringing … So Veronica still doesn’t know exactly what happened, but I think maybe she (and we) have the clues we need to figure it out. They’re still throwing out red herrings and false leads (like the graffiti), but the idea that whoever set off the bomb had to be within sight of the bus is a major clue. I’m sure it isn’t Weevil, but the limo passengers were definitely within sight of the bus, so there’s a whole bunch of new suspects right there.