Veronica Mars Reviews: Season 2, Episode 19

Veronica Mars S01 titleEpisode 19: Never Mind the Buttocks

This one starts with Veronica testifying in a deposition about the sex tape featuring Aaron Echolls and Lilly Kane. Now that the tape has conveniently (or inconveniently, depending on whose side you’re on) disappeared, everyone who viewed it has to be deposed. Aaron’s lawyer tries to undercut Veronica’s testimony, but she holds it together pretty well. At home, Keith tells her Kendall is the beneficiary of the life insurance DickMac asks for help Sr. took out on his sons and if they both die at the same time, she gets over ten million bucks. That certainly gives her motive to crash the bus, so Keith figures he should try to pin down her whereabouts that day. At school, Mac asks Veronica to get her cell phone interceptor back from principal Clemmons after it was confiscated in a random locker search. Apparently Mac has been listening in on Beaver’s cell phone calls; yeah, it’s a bit stalkery … she even refers to herself as the “psycho ex-girlfriend”.

When Veronica tries her key to Clemmons’s office, she finds out the locks Vincent making Prom planshave been changed. She talks to Vincent (aka Butters), Clemmons’s son and asks if he can get her into the office. When she mentions it’s for Mac, Vincent agrees but says he wants to take Mac to the Prom. Veronica says that’s fine, but forgets to tell Mac. So after school when Vincent lets them into the office, he’s asking Mac a bunch of questions about what she wants to do for Prom and she has no clue why (although she soon catches on). Veronica finds the cell phone interceptor, plus a copy of the Anarchist Cookbook belonging to Weevil, which she also takes.

She confronts Weevil outside, asking why he’d have a bomb-making manual. She suggests he put the rat on the bus to force the rich kids off, hadconfronting Weevil about bomb making Cervando place the bomb in Dick’s goody bag, not knowing Dick would give the bag to Betina and blow up the bus instead of the limo. Weevil says he wouldn’t go to all that trouble for a bunch of rich punks, but Veronica reminds him that Logan was supposed to be on the bus and he was suspected of killing Felix at that point. She hints that she knows Weevil killed Thumper, so it’s not a stretch to believe he might’ve wanted to take Logan out before he knew Thumper was Felix’s real killer.

The next day, a guy named Harry talks to Veronica at school, asking her to Harry talks about his dead dogfind out who killed his dog. He says some asshole drove right up on his lawn, ran over the dog, and took off, but Harry only saw the car’s rear end briefly. After looking at some car photos, they figure out it was a green Cuda, but there aren’t any registered locally. She says she’ll keep looking and starts by taking out an ad in the school paper about the car. Jackie asks Veronica to get her a job at the coffee house, since her family’s assets are frozen after her dad’s arrest. Veronica begs her boss to give Jackie a shot and the boss agrees, but says if Jackie sucks, Veronica will have to fire her.

At home, Keith mentions phone calls between Kendall and Logan and Veronica tells him they were banging. He asks her to find out if Logan was with her at the time of the crash, so she asks him the next day. Logan says Kendall kicked him out long before the crash happened, so she could still be a suspect. Veronica runs into Gia, who tells her she saw the green Cuda … onGia tells Veronica about the Cuda the day the bus crashed. The Cuda blew by the limo on the highway just a few minutes before the bus crashed (which Gia remembers because her dad called to make sure she’d be home in time to pick up her brother). Gia says someone in the car mooned her and she remembers a sticker on the window. Wallace is still trying to get Jackie to go out with him again and tells her it’s been two weeks since Jane dumped him, so she doesn’t have to worry about being a man-stealing bitch now. He shows his sensitive side when he points out that Jackie is already the girl whose father blew up the bus, so her rep can probably survive dating him. Yeah, Wallace can be a dick sometimes.

Veronica goes to ask Harry about the sticker on the car window and finds Harry's marksmanshiphim practicing with his compound bow. Harry’s a really good shot and he’s really pissed off at whoever killed his dog … probably not a good combination. At the garage, Hector comes to see Weevil to ask if he’ll help the gang against the Fitzpatricks. Weevil not inclined to help the guys who kicked the shit out of him and tossed him aside for a bunch of dope dealers, but Hector says the Fitzpatricks are leaning on them pretty bad and somebody will probably end up dead if he doesn’t help. At the office, Keith shows Veronica an old yearbook that proves Kendall isn’t really Kendall.

Yeah, her real name is Priscilla Banks and she was involved in a car crash where the real Kendall (who was a few years younger) died. Veronica makesPriscilla Banks yearbook photo a joke about how some women will do anything to shave a few years off their age, which is extra funny because Charisma Carpenter is playing Kendall, a character six years younger than her actual age. Turns out Priscilla did time, so that could explain why she was eager to trade places with a dead girl. Veronica gets a response to her ad about the Cuda, so she can’t stick around to praise Keith’s detective abilities.

Veronica goes to the address the tipster gave her and is surprised to find a Veronica finds the Cudablind old lady owns the Cuda. She says it was her late husband’s car and it’s not moving from the garage until she dies. Naturally, Veronica snoops in the garage and finds the Cuda. There’s no sticker on the window, but there is some gummy residue. Some chalk reveals the outline of the sticker … a leprechaun. Veronica plants a bug in the car and finds a gun in the glove box. At the office, Keith makes some calls and talks to Priscilla’s dad, who says the last he heard from her was a card sent from Neptune.

At the office, Weevil asks Veronica to get him into Clemmons’s office to getWeevil at the office Thumper’s paddle, on which he engraved license plate numbers of the Fitzpatricks’ dope clients. Weevil tells her how the Fitzpatricks are leaning on the bikers and admits he was following the bus to look out for Cervando, who had been bragging about how he hustled Liam Fitzpatrick at pool. Veronica tells him Clemmons changed his lock, but shows Weevil the photo she took of Thumper’s paddle and says she can help him figure out who the license plates belong to.

At the coffee shop, Jackie is doing great for someone who’s never had a job before. Wallace apologizes for being an asshole and asks her out again. Jackie tells Wallace she's leaving soonJackie admits she likes him, but she’s going to the Sorbonne right after graduation, so why should they date for five weeks and then break up? Veronica’s bug indicates that the Cuda is moving, so she asks Jackie to cover her shift and takes off after it. Veronica follows the car to a house where a woman gets in and tells the driver someone is prowling around inside her house. The driver takes the gun from the glove box and heads inside. Veronica calls her dad and when he hears the address of the house, he tells her to pull up outside and get ready to take off as soon as he comes out.

Yeah, the prowler is Keith and the guy heading inside with the gun is Liam Fitzpatrick. Veronica’s freaking out, but she does what Keith said. Inside, Liam finds Keith and tries to shoot him, but the gun is empty. Keith jumps him and they start fighting. Outside, the woman in the car turns out to beKeith and Liam come through the window Kendall (or Priscilla, if you prefer), who asks Veronica what the hell she’s doing there. Keith and Liam come crashing through the window and Keith knocks Liam down long enough to get to Veronica’s car. They take off, leaving Kendall and Liam to wonder what Keith was doing snooping in her house. Liam says he can go after Keith, but Kendall says that’ll just make things worse. In Veronica’s car, Keith mentions Liam’s gun being empty and Veronica says she’d unloaded the gun when she first found it in the garage. Keith shows her what he managed to get from Kendall’s place … her hard drive.

They get Mac to crack the hard drive and print out Kendall’s emails (though Billy about to get a beatingMac is still pissed off about Veronica volunteering her to be Vincent’s Prom date). The Fitzpatricks meet the bikers in an alley and get pissed off when their take is lower than expected. Liam (who’s still bleeding from his fight with Keith) decides to motivate them by stringing up one of the younger bikers—who also happens to be Harry’s brother Billy. Liam says they’ll pound him until the bikers cough up some more cash, but before he gets too tenderized, Weevil shows up.

Weevil tells Liam the bikers are out of the dope business and shows him the list of all his big name clients, which would tank his whole dope business ifWeevil lays down the law for Liam it got out. Weevil says he made plenty of copies and if anything happens to him the list goes public, so Liam better make sure he stays healthy. Liam has no choice but to back down, which the bikers love. They thank him, but Weevil tells them they’re on their own now and leaves. At the office, Veronica finds out the blind old lady is Liam’s grandmother. She wonders if Liam’s grudge against Cervando might’ve led to him blowing up the bus.

Keith finds out Kendall and Cormac Fitzpatrick (Liam’s brother) were Wallace tells Jackie he still wants to dategrifting partners and Kendall’s prison time saved Cormac from getting a stiffer sentence, which means the Fitzpatricks owe her big. So if Kendall wanted to blow the bus for the insurance (not knowing Dick and Beaver were in the limo), Liam might’ve been her eyes, telling her when to make the call to trigger the bomb. At the coffee shop, Wallace tells Jackie that five weeks together is better than nothing, so they might as well have some fun while they can. She agrees to go to Prom with him.

A TV report tells of another twist in Aaron’s murder case; the cops (who previously assumed the ashtray found in the pool was the murder weapon) found Aaron’s Oscar statue buried near the scene of the crime … unfortunately, it had Duncan Kane’s hair on it. I guess we know why Kendall was collecting hair from Duncan’s shower. Veronica goes by Harry’s placeBilly asks Veronica to lie to Harry and runs into his little brother Billy, who’s looking pretty beat up after his encounter with the Fitzpatricks. Veronica puts two and two together and gives Billy shit, since he obviously knew all along that Liam ran over the dog. Billy begs her not to tell Harry the truth, saying Harry will put an arrow through Liam’s throat and spend the rest of his life in prison. Veronica knows what a scumbag Liam is, that he might’ve caused the bus crash, and that he tried to kill Keith; she figures Liam will be taken care of if she tells Harry the truth and he’ll deserve it … but in the end, she lies and tells Harry she doesn’t know who killed his dog. Such a marshmallow.