Episode 20: The Bitch is Back
This is the last episode of the original run of Veronica Mars and it mainly has to do with Veronica trying to figure out who taped her and Piz (almost) getting it on. The story begins right where it left off last episode, with a bloody and battered Logan showing up at the office to tell Veronica about the video. She doesn’t believe him and he gives her a DVD with the video on it. She notices his condition and Logan admits he and Piz fought. Veronica gives him shit and tells him to get lost, then watches the video. She heads to Piz’s
dorm, where Piz (who’s really beat to shit) needs help from Wallace just to walk. Veronica mentions the video and Piz says he didn’t put the camera up. Wallace is ready to go after Logan, but Veronica tells him to let her handle things. At Logan’s hotel suite, Parker shows up to give him shit for caring more about Veronica than about her. Logan tries to explain about the sex tape, but Parker doesn’t care and dumps him. On the way out, she runs into Veronica and says she’s welcome to Logan, even though Veronica insists she has no interest in getting back with him.
Veronica gives Logan shit, saying Piz had nothing to do with the video and reminding Logan it wouldn’t really be his business anyway. Logan says he 
was acting as a friend, but Veronica says their attempt at being just friends is obviously not working and she officially cutting him out of her life. Veronica knows Dick showed Logan the video, so she checks Dick’s computer and finds out who emailed it to him. (Of course, Dick has already forwarded it to everyone on his contact list, so all of Hearst has probably seen it by now.) Turns out it was Chip Diller, Veronica’s old nemesis from the frat house, who sent the video to Dick.
The next day, Weevil (who’s seen the video) offers any kind of help she wants tracking down whoever did this … and getting revenge on them. In the cafeteria, everyone’s laughing and pointing at Veronica, so it’s like she’s back in high school again. She confronts Chip and threatens to unleash her wrath on him, which scares him enough that he tells her a dude
named Dominic sent him the video. Veronica goes to ask Dominic where he got it from, but he’s not very cooperative. He changes his mind within a day, after Veronica ruins his credit and has Weevil boost the wheels off his car, all while he’s on a date with a really hot girl. Dominic finally tells her he got the video from a guy named Gorya, who also turns out to be very uncooperative. Gorya won’t tell her whether he planted the camera or not (and he isn’t intimidated by her threats), but she’s already made her next move against him.
While in Gorya’s room, Veronica plants a bug and listens in on his conversations. She hears him telling someone on the phone to put something in a newspaper kiosk on campus for a bunch of pledges to pick 
up, so she stakes out the kiosk and takes photos of everyone who gets a paper. She’s surprised to see Wallace is one of them, but he plays it cool, pretending nothing’s going on. Obviously, this has something to do with the Castle, the campus secret society that tried to recruit Wallace last episode. Veronica has to drop off some clean pants for her dad at the Sheriff’s office (Keith spilled salad on his pants), so Wallace comes by her place later to let her know what’s going on.
Wallace apologizes, telling Veronica he really didn’t think the Castle had anything to do with the video, but now he’s not so sure. He says he blew off some girl he wasn’t really into by lying and saying he had to study at a professor’s house. This morning, that professor gave him an envelope
addressed to Wallace that was left at the prof’s place. Obviously, the Castle knew where Wallace was supposed to be … so they must be the ones who bugged his and Piz’s room. Wallace is ready to say to hell with the Castle, but Veronica asks him to play along so she can find out who they are and expose them. Wallace agrees and she gives him a pen with a miniature camera in it. Wallace shows her an article he found about the Castle, written by Veronica’s old frenemy, Nish.
Veronica meets with Nish, who says joining the Castle is a ticket to wealth and power … as long as you’re a man. Some women tried to sue for discrimination, but couldn’t get far since nobody knows who the members even are. That night, Wallace is taken (in the trunk of a car) to a warehouse 
where he’s directed into an empty storage room that has a camera set up on a tripod. He’s made to strip to his underwear and put on a shock collar. In a twist on the Milgram experiment, the shock collars are hooked up so that if Wallace lies, another pledge (in a neighbouring room) will get a shock, while Wallace will get shocked if one of the other pledges lies. A voice tells Wallace he’ll be fine as long as he doesn’t lie and asks him about his deepest secrets, including what happened when Rashard ran over the homeless dude in Chicago. Wallace tells the truth and the voice points out that Wallace’s father broke the law for him. Wallace confirms that, but when the voice asks about the pen he was carrying, Wallace lies and hears screams from an adjoining room.
Veronica is waiting outside (having followed when Wallace was picked up) and takes Wallace home. He tells her the Castle knew about the camera in the pen somehow and kicked him out when he lied. Wallace has an idea who
one of the other pledges might be because the voice (which had been referring to him by his basketball number) called him “2400” once. Wallace recalls a newspaper story about a dude who scored 2400 on his SATs (a perfect score) and when Veronica shows him the photos from the kiosk, he picks the guy out. In the cafeteria the next day, Veronica has to endure more comments from assholes and she’s pretty much at her breaking point.
That night, Veronica follows the guy whose photo Wallace picked out to a big-ass mansion. She sneaks onto the grounds but can’t get a good look through the windows, so she squeezes in through the doggy-door. As she’s 
sneaking around inside, she gets a shock when she sees a huge portrait of her dead best friend, Lily Kane. There’s another portrait of Lily’s brother (and Veronica’s ex) Duncan, and she realizes the mansion belongs to Lily and Duncan’s father, tech billionaire Jake Kane. Figures he’d be a member of the Castle. Veronica hides in Jake’s office and overhears him talking to Gorya about the new pledges and all their juicy confessions. Gorya also mentions Wallace washing out and shows Jake the pen. Jake puts the confessions onto a DVD-Rom and tells Gorya it’s the only copy. When they leave, Veronica steals the hard drive from Jake’s computer.
The next day, Jake calls Keith to report the theft and Keith notices a piece of thread on a screw in the doggy-door, something even Jake’s head of security (Clarence Wiedman) missed. Keith checks with Jake’s neighbour,
who has cameras in his yard, and sees a familiar-looking blonde girl sneaking over the fence. Keith tells the neighbour he needs to take the surveillance footage, then Keith asks the security head for the estate (Jake lives in a gated community, naturally) about strange license plates last night. But the security guard is ex-deputy Gills, who Keith fired a couple episodes back, so he won’t tell Keith shit.
Veronica asks Mac if she can crack the password on Jake’s computer, but Mac says the only computer on campus capable of cracking the password in 
a decent amount of time is in the Physics Lab. At home, Keith turns Veronica’s room upside-down until he finds a sweater with a rip in it that matches the thread he found at Jake’s house. Meanwhile, Wiedman is conducting his own investigation and gets the license plate from the security guards, as well as finding out about the video Keith took from the neighbour. Weevil lets Veronica and Mac into the Physics Lab so they can decrypt the hard drive password.
Veronica gets home and finds her room trashed and Keith asks if she’s the one who broke into Jake’s place. She feigns ignorance (and indignation), but he doesn’t buy it. She doesn’t want to tell him about the sex tape, so she just
leaves. Wiedman tells Jake that Veronica is the one who stole the hard drive and Jake is ready to kill her, but Wiedman has a better idea. They show up at the Sheriff’s office (with the county prosecutor) right when Keith is giving an interview to a reporter and lay out the case against Veronica. Keith pretends to be surprised and when the prosecutor asks for the video Keith took from Jake’s neighbour, Keith tells him to get a judge’s writ, playing his reluctance to cooperate off as a refusal to kowtow to the rich.
Keith tries to call Veronica, but she ignores it. She and Mac are still waiting on the password crack at Hearst. Keith realizes he has to do something drastic, so he goes to the evidence room and uses a magnet from some 
stolen stereo speakers to erase the video footage of Veronica. When the prosecutor comes back with a judge’s order, Keith happily turns over the DVR. At Hearst,the cracking program finally works and Veronica and Mac see that Jake’s hard drive has info on all the Castle members since the beginning back in the 1930s, including audio and video confessions for later decades. Veronica realizes the Castle keeps all this to protect themselves; members don’t dare spill the Castle’s secrets for fear of having their own come out.
Veronica watches Gorya’s confession, which is about his father and uncle cutting up a dead body; yeah, Gorya sounds like he’s in the Russian mob, so Veronica decides she’ll forego any revenge on him. She does give Nish the
list of Castle members’ names, to help with the discrimination suit. In the cafeteria the next day, Logan tries to apologize, but Gorya drops by to return the bug he found in his room. He mouths off to Veronica and Logan’s ready to pound him, but Veronica warns him that Gorya is seriously connected. Naturally, Logan doesn’t listen and kicks the shit out of Gorya right there in the cafeteria. Logan apologizes to Piz and takes off.
Veronica drops by Jake’s place to return the hard drive, but lets him know she has all the info on it, so if he tries to get her in trouble, all the Castle’s 
secrets will be revealed. She asks Jake to lay off her father too, but Jake says it’s too late for that. At home, Keith acts like nothing’s wrong, but the next morning Veronica sees a story in the paper about the prosecutor filing charges against Keith for “losing” the evidence against Veronica. She goes downtown and votes for Keith for sheriff, although he has no chance of winning now, and walks off into the rain. So, everything comes full circle, with Veronica and her father being pariahs but always having each other to count on.
And that’s it for Veronica Mars. Overall, I liked it, although Veronica’s her
own worst enemy sometimes. But Kristen Bell was great as always and the other actors were all good too. I may check out (and review) the movie some day, but it won’t be anytime soon, and I don’t think I’ll bother with Season 4. Come back next week to see what my next TV review will be; it’s one I’ve been thinking about for a while and finally decided to do. I hope you’ll join me.