Tonight’s episode of ‘Veronica Mars’ was kind of surprising. Rather than summing up the mystery-of-the-week by the end of the episode, it left off with a murder unsolved and Veronica in handcuffs. Titled “Postgame Mortem”, the episode also focused on Logan’s broodiness. Veronica and Keith took time off from trying to solve the dean’s murder so they could focus on a more recent murder. The victim? Another member of the Hearst College staff. Wallace’s basketball coach gets shot and his wife hires Keith to clear her son Josh’s name. Mac, Parker and Piz weren’t in the episode but that was fine because Wallace was back, if only for a few minutes.
Wallace is back on the basketball team and managed to get a starting position despite having taken time off last semester to get his grades up. He and the rest of the team are in the locker room getting grilled by the coach. Coach Barry is coming down especially hard on a player named Josh. When Josh has had enough he yells back at the coach and it’s then that we learn that Josh is the coach’s son. He quits the team, tosses his father his jersey and walks out. Wallace recants all of this to Veronica and also mentions that he and his friend Mason aren’t speaking much these days. Mason is bitter because the coach wont start him, yet Wallace gets to start.
The next day Veronica arrives at her dad’s office to see Josh and his mother in Keith’s office. Coach Barry was shot the night before and Josh is the Sherriff’s chief suspect because he was the one who found his father’s body on the cliff. To make matters worse, Josh didn’t call the cops when he found his father. Instead he went straight home and showered so his autistic brother wouldn’t see him covered in his father’s blood. Josh goes on to say that the sheriff saw that he was wearing his father’s school ring but he claims his father left it for him outside the showers in the locker room and that he thought it was some kind of peace offering. This is what made him go out to the cliffs to find his father and talk to him.
Keith asks them about anyone who might have had a reason to go after his father. The PCH gang comes up because Coach Barry’s car appears to have been stolen. Veronica hires Weevil to get her in touch with the current head of the PCHers. Weevil sets up the meeting and they head out to some remote area to meet them. The bikers pull up and it turns out the new head of the PCH gang is a kid Veronica caught mugging pizza delivery guys last season. The kid tells her they wouldn’t kill a man to steal his junker station wagon. He then explains that they usually steal BMWs by causing them to get flat tires then hijacking the car once the driver’s replaced the tire. No guns necessary for that kind of job.
Veronica and Josh go out to the cliff where he found his father’s body. There are tracks leading over the cliff and it doesn’t take a genius to realize the car was pushed over the edge, into the ocean. When Veronica and Josh return to his house, the sheriff is there to arrest him. Mason told the sheriff that he saw Josh and his father arguing by the cliffs when he was on his way to San Diego to visit his girlfriend.
Meanwhile, Keith checks out another possible suspect: a rich man who is a big benefactor to Hearst College. The man is pretty up front with Keith about the situation. He doesn’t really care that Barry got killed because at least it means they can get a better coach for the team. His alibi checks out that he was on a plane when the murder took place.
Josh tells Veronica that he thinks Mason might have done it because he hasn’t been allowed to start and it’s made him pretty angry towards the coach. He tells Veronica that Mason has a gun that he once showed off. Veronica goes to talk to Mason. Mason repeats the story he gave to the sheriff. He also rather convincingly laughs off the idea that he would kill his coach for not letting him start. I don’t know about anyone else but I believed him. Either way, Mason’s alibi also checks out. He was with his girlfriend that night.
Veronica bakes Josh some cookies and hides them in a book. She wants him to believe she believes him but she’s not sure that she does. He is grateful for the gesture and after she leaves, eats some of the chocolate cookies.
At the end of the episode, Veronica is in Landry’s class when the sheriff walks in. He arrests her for aiding and abetting Josh’s escape from jail. This is how the episode ends.
Now onto the other stuff:
Keith decides to tell Mindy that he’s off the O’Dell murder case because she lied to him about the car (the one he found egg on in the last episode). She frantically denies that she took the car out the night he was murdered and swears she never left the hotel. Veronica and Keith go to the Neptune Grand and talk to the desk clerk. The woman, who knows Veronica from all the time she spends at the hotel, tells them that the night Landry was in the room they ordered room service and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang on Pay-Per-View. Veronica talks to the room service guy, Ratner about the night. He says he went to the room to drop off the dessert but heard two men fighting so he left and came back later.
Veronica and Keith begin to become more suspicious of Mindy and Landry. Mindy’s cell phone records indicate that a call was placed late at night from her cell phone to the room. Mindy says she called Landry from the gift shop downstairs to ask him what toothpaste he preferred. Landry confirmed this story. The valet service was able to tell Keith that someone took Mindy’s car out of the hotel a half an hour before the time the dean was murdered and returned it a half an hour after the shots were heard. Keith takes all of this information to Mindy. He questions her about the movie but she said she’s never seen it. Landry on the other hand, definitely did see it (Veronica confirmed this earlier). Mindy becomes angry that he basically accused her of at least being a suspect in her husband’s murder and she fires him. Keith tells her he doesn’t have to work for her to stay on the case.
Keith’s newfound desire to find the dean’s killer came from a letter of recommendation that the dean wrote for Veronica for the FBI internship. Landry showed Veronica the letter, telling her that she got through the first part of the application process. He said he posted a notice for the staff when she applied, requesting a letter of recommendation for her. The dean wrote a glowing letter basically saying that Veronica was the brightest student he’d ever come across in all of his years of academia. Veronica and Keith were so touched by the letter that it inspired them to search for his killer even if Mindy wasn’t paying them to do it.
Finally, Logan has been living in filth for the past couple of weeks. It got so bad that the hotel staff were complaining that Logan wasn’t letting them into the room to retrieve the room service carts, dishes, salt & pepper shakers, etc. Dick shows up, locks Logan out on the balcony and lets the hotel staff in to retrieve the dinnerware. In an effort to cheer Logan up, he tells him that a hot girl he met and her sister are coming over to hang out. Logan, unshaven and unshowered is uninterested in meeting a girl.
Despite his protests, Dick invites them over. The hot girl’s sister is 11. Dick and his girl leave Logan with the 11-year-old sister, Heather. Dick calls Logan the next morning and tells him he’s in Vegas and wont be home for a while. Logan ends up spending the weekend hanging out with the girl. Dick calls in to announce that he and this girl got married. He plays the “you slept with my only long-term girlfriend” card to convince Logan to stick it out in watching Heather for the rest of the weekend.
Heather asks him a lot of questions and they play some video games. Eventually Logan gives her the brief version of what happened with Veronica. Heather tries to convince him to just say he’s sorry and then it’ll be ok. When that doesn’t work she calls a radio station and puts a request in from Logan to Veronica. The radio station plays the dedication and request (which was Nick Lachey’s “What’s Left of Me”).
Veronica was in the hotel at the time checking up on the room service thing for the dean’s murder. She hears the dedication but turns the radio off. Heather convinced Logan to take her somewhere else in the hotel. Logan, still dirty and unshaven, leaves wearing a robe over his dirty clothes. Of course Veronica and Ratner end up on the same elevator as Logan and Heather. Heather recognizes Veronica from a picture she saw and tries to get Logan to talk to her. He’s probably feeling mortified by having her see him the way he looks. He won’t even look at her. Eventually Heather (who is wearing Veronica’s clothes, I should mention) speaks up and tells Veronica that Logan is sorry and that he still loves her. Both Logan and Veronica are visibly pained by this but neither says anything to the other.
Afterwards Logan yells at Heather for not knowing anything about real love. Dick calls from the road. He and his new wife aren’t hitting it off and Dick needs a lawyer. The girl tells Logan that Heather’s been weirdly chipper since their dad split and to make sure she’s taking her Prozac (she only mentions this now??). Logan goes and asks Heather if she wants some ice cream. They go out and have a good time. All is forgiven and the two set up an online Mario Kart Double Dash play date for Fridays at 4.
The weekend was just what Logan needed. He returns to class showered and shaven the next day.
That about covers it. I can’t believe how much happened in tonight’s episode. Veronica getting arrested wasn’t entirely a shock as they showed it in last week’s previews. I really wish The CW would be a bit more subtle and less spoily with the previews, to be honest. It kind of ruined the cliffhanger.
What did you think of the episode? Do you think Josh killed his father? How did Veronica unknowingly help him escape? My guess is that maybe he’s allergic to chocolate or something in the cookies and intentionally ate them so he’d get sick and have to leave the cell. Any other theories?
