Episode 7: Of Vice and Men
This one starts with Veronica collecting some clothes and stuff from home and trying to sneak out. No, she’s not shacking up with Logan, she’s just being all judgmental about her dad banging Harmony (who’s married) and doesn’t want to live with him right now. (Veronica is mad at Logan too, since he swears Mercer has an alibi for the third rape, but refuses to tell her where they were or what they were doing.) She tells her dad she’s crashing in Wallace’s dorm room while Wallace and Piz are holed up in a motel studying their asses off. But Piz comes back early
since Wallace was driving him nuts, so Veronica figures she’ll have to find somewhere else to stay. Piz surprises her by telling her she can stay there with him; I guess his crush on her is still alive and well. Moe drops by with a girl named Meryl who’s looking for her boyfriend, Sully. Sully’s room is right next door and Meryl says she came down from Sacramento and Sully was supposed to pick her up but never showed. She’s worried that something happened to him and Veronica says she’ll do what she can to find him.
They check out Sully’s room but there’s nothing strange there. Veronica finds a credit card receipt and says she’ll check it. Meryl decides to hang out 
in Sully’s room in case he shows up. In Professor Landry’s class, he gives out the term paper assignment … planning the perfect murder. Veronica’s not impressed with Landry since she found out he’s been banging the Dean’s wife and her opinion gets even lower when he says he’s recommending her for an internship at the FBI, which means she won’t have to do the term paper. She figures this is a bribe to keep her mouth shut about Landry’s dalliances. She runs into Logan, who still won’t say what Mercer’s airtight alibi is. Veronica wonders what they hell they were doing if Mercer would rather stay in jail than use the truth to clear himself.
Veronica checks at Sully’s room but he still hasn’t shown up. There was no activity on his credit card, so Veronica gets Sully’s cell phone PIN from Meryl. Other than multiple messages from Meryl, there’s one from a girl
named Scarlett (whose photo was circled in a Freshman Face Book in Sully’s room) about meeting him in the cafeteria tonight. Veronica goes to see Mercer in jail and he won’t tell her where he and Logan were during the third rape either. He says someone’s setting him up and claims the GHB found in his cash box wasn’t his. He says some people who gamble at his ersatz casino owe him big, including the head of Sigma Pi frat and Dean O’Dell, who likes betting on boxing but is terrible at picking winners.
Veronica goes to see Meryl again, who has some crazy idea that maybe Sully 
invented some killer tech and is being chased by “sinister forces”. Veronica says it’s way more likely that Sully just wants to dump Meryl and doesn’t have the guts to do it in person, so he’s ghosting her like crazy. Sully’s roommate (Glen, who’s a surfer dude) comes in and says he has no clue where Sully is. He claims Sully told him he was going surfing, but Meryl says Sully doesn’t surf. Glen mentions a huge argument Sully and Meryl had over the phone the other night, which Meryl apparently forgot to tell Veronica about.
At the office, Harmony drops by to see Keith, who tells her he can’t see her anymore. Harmony says she’s tired of her loveless marriage and wants to leave her husband (and her daughter too, I guess). She invites Keith to go to
palm Springs with her and leaves him to think about it. Vinnie Van Lowe comes in and tells Keith he’s been working for the Fitzpatricks, who really want to know where the money is that Kendall got. Keith says he has no idea, so Vinnie pulls out some photos of Keith banging Harmony. Vinnie says Harmony’s husband is paying him to prove she’s cheating, but if Keith doubles Chase’s fee, Vinnie will keep his mouth shut.
Veronica and Meryl go to the cafeteria to check out Scarlett and Meryl immediately wants to talk to her. Meryl still believes Sully might be in 
trouble, but Veronica’s sure he’s screwing around. Scarlett claims she and Sully were supposed to study together and is concerned when she learns he’s missing. Veronica notices Scarlett is dressed pretty sexy for studying, but she says she’s going out clubbing later. Veronica sees Professor Landry and tells him she’d rather do the term paper than take his bribe. Landry says he isn’t trying to bribe her, he really thinks she’s his best student and wants her to do well. He doesn’t care who she tells about his affair with Mrs. O’Dell and urges her to consider submitting for the internship. Veronica is stunned and then is stunned again when she sees Scarlett hugging Meryl.
At the dorm room, Piz is surprised to find Meryl asleep in his bed. Veronica tells him she had to give Meryl the drowsy kind of cold medicine to get her
to forget about Sully and fall asleep, then informs Piz that he’ll be sleeping on the floor tonight. Piz says he’s covering mercer’s DJ slot while he’s in jail and Veronica tags along to check the logs at the radio station. Turns out Mercer had a show the nights of the rapes, so he must be innocent. She briefly wonders if Mercer might’ve pre-recorded his shows, but Piz says it’s a call-in request show, so that’s impossible. Veronica goes to tell Logan she can clear Mercer, but insists he tell her where they were that night.
Logan’s not happy about being blackmailed by his girlfriend, but he has no choice. He and Mercer were partying in Tijuana and Mercer accidentally set 
the motel on fire. Instead of hanging around to see if everyone was okay, Logan and Mercer took off and now they can’t tell the truth without getting in a lot of shit. Veronica’s pissed off that Logan just left the fire like that, but she tells him the logs at the radio station will clear Mercer. In the dorm, Meryl wakes Veronica to play a message from Sully. He sounds wasted and Meryl says when she tries to call back the phone just rings then goes to voicemail. Veronica realizes they can track the phone as long as it’s turned on.
She goes to the office to get the cell phone tracker and runs into her dad. He tries to tell her he and Harmony have something special and that she’s leaving her husband, but Veronica says that’s the same line of bullshit all
the cheating spouses they’ve ever seen use. Keith is surprised at how jaded she sounds and Veronica says her one shining example of decency has recently let her down. Veronica and Meryl track Sully’s phone to the River Styx, the bar run by the Fitzpatricks. Veronica ran Sully’s credit cards again and found a bunch of weird charges for booze, smokes, and porn. Veronica has history with the Fitzpatricks, so she wants to call the cops, but Meryl is so worried about Sully she just heads right in.
Veronica goes in after her and runs into Danny, who recognizes her. He claims to know nothing about Sully, but some of the stuff from Sully’s 
credit card is sitting right there and when Veronica calls Sully’s phone, it rings. Liam Fitzpatrick comes in and grabs Veronica, threatening to fuck her up. Vinnie (who’s hanging out at the bar) stumbles over and takes a photo of Liam and Veronica with his phone. Vinnie sends the photo to Keith and Liam lets Veronica go, not wanting to piss Keith off any more than he already has. Outside, Vinnie doesn’t look so drunk any more and tells Veronica and Meryl that Sully stumbled into the Styx last night, totally wasted. Danny took him on a spending spree and dumped him somewhere; Vinnie tells them to check the drunk tank.
Veronica and Meryl go to the jail and Sheriff Lamb tells them Sully was picked up last night so drunk he couldn’t remember his own name, but this morning he still couldn’t remember anything. Turns out he had a big bump
on his head, so the memory loss and “drunken” behaviour was probably due to head trauma suffered while surfing. Veronica apologizes to Meryl for being so cynical about everything and Meryl says if she hadn’t been in love, she might not have believed it either. As soon as Sully sees Meryl, his memory comes back. Veronica runs into Mercer, who thanks her for clearing him, but Lamb isn’t too fond of Mercer, so he’s holding him as long as he can.
At the office, Keith tells Harmony he can’t go with her and she’s pretty disappointed. Logan calls and Keith tells him Veronica’s been staying at Wallace’s dorm. In the cafeteria, Veronica listens to some contrite messages 
from her dad and Logan. She takes back some food (leaving her drink unattended) and when she drinks it, she realizes it was drugged. Logan stops by the dorm looking for Veronica and Piz says he doesn’t know where she is. Veronica stumbles out of the cafeteria to the parking lot knowing she’s been drugged (since it has happened before), and before she can get in her car, she feels herself passing out. She sets off her alarm, knowing the rapist is probably stalking her. Sure enough he shows up and shuts off the alarm with her key fob, but not before Logan notices the alarm. We don’t see who the rapist is, but he takes out some hair clippers. Luckily, he only manages to shave off one chunk of hair before Logan shows up and scares him off.