Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Veronica Mars: “The Bitch Is Back” – airdate 05/22/07

Logan tells Veronica what he saw, handing her a disk. When she insists that she has not had sex with Piz, he says, “You were naked, I just assumed.” Shaken, she throws him out and watches the video. She gets to Piz and Wallace’s room just as they are returning from the infirmary. Piz is in bad shape (cracked ribs, face a swollen mess) and Wallace is seething. Veronica asks Piz if he recorded them. Piz - “I’m sorry, I’m on some morphine here … what?!” - denies it. Wallace wants to kick Logan’s ass; Veronica says she’ll deal with him. My theory: it’s The Castle who set up a bug to record Wallace and when they got bonus Veronica/Piz footage, they ran with it. At the hotel room, Parker is a wreck: nothing says you’re still in love with your ex like beating up your ex’s current boyfriend. She stands as if she’ll splinter if she moves, and breaks up with Logan. Me, I don’t care, and Logan scarcely notices that she’s in the room. Veronica gets off the elevator as Parker gets on. Parker sniffles, “He’s all yours.” Veronica snarls, “Trust me – not why I’m here.” She is furious with Logan, saying that Piz is having trouble breathing. Logan is incredulous and reminds her what he’s learned with her over and over: that someone always has to pay ... and this time it shouldn’t be him. Veronica spits that they cannot be friends with each other – he is out of her life forever. Logan looks shattered, as he always does when his best intentions backfire. He can’t believe that he fucked up again.

Veronica corners Dick and finds out that Chip Diller sent him the email with the video. Ryan Hansen is really fantastic in these final episodes. As Veronica stalks across campus with everyone pointing and laughing at her (“and I’m back in high school,” she voice-overs), Weevil offers his help. She says she’ll probably accept. Chip is easily intimidated by her and tells her he got the video from Dominick. Veronica finds Dominick (who looks like he’s about 45); he doesn’t know her and foolishly is not intimidated. She cuts off all his credit cards and gets Weevil steal his rims. Chasened, Dominick gives her another name: Gorya Sorokin. This guy (who only looks 32) is not only not intimidated by the tiny blonde, but is pretty lewd and scary in his own right, and she settles for bugging his room. A-ha! I was right: The Castle is behind this.

Ack -another side ponytail. Veronica grills Wallace a little and he ‘fesses what he knows about The Castle (not much). She asks him to go undercover and get some pictures for her. She then talks with Nish (the former school newspaper editor/strident feminist) who had written an article about The Castle –the members are said to be the richest and most powerful men in the country - and who is involved in an attempted lawsuit for discrimination: The Castle won’t admit women. When Wallace is picked up, Veronica follows the car to a self-storage warehouse. Wallace goes inside, is told to strip down and put an electric dog collar on. In front of a video camera, he is grilled about the incident in Chicago when the homeless man was killed. When he tries to lie, another pledge in another room is zapped by the collar. The screams are pretty awful.

Veronica gathers Wallace up when he finally staggers out. Although he didn’t get her any pictures, he’s deduced the identity of another pledge, and she plans to follow this kid until he leads her to The Castle. In the food court, Veronica and Piz are heckled; Piz tells her to let it go and that karma will take care of those guys. Veronica: “Oh yeah – I’m going to run him over with my karma.” Hee. Dick congratulates Logan on the magnificent beating he gave to Piz. Logan says that Piz wasn’t the bad guy and looks sad. At night, Veronica follows the pledge to a mansion; she scales the wall and sneaks in through the dog door to try for a money shot. She is startled to see an enormous (and icky) portrait of Lilly Kane on the wall.

The mansion is Jake Kane’s and he is the putative leader of The Castle. Gorya gives Jake the recorded confessions from the storage units and Jake transfers them to a hard drive on his desk. Our girl is almost caught, but steals the hard drive. The next morning, Keith is at the mansion as Jake tells him that the stolen hard drive contains five years of research and intellectual property worth gazillions. Clarence Weidman is there and he’s still scary. Keith finds a thread caught in the dog door. The neighbor has security footage of the backyard and, as Keith recognizes his daughter as the thief, he collects the DVR as evidence. On his way out, Keith asks the security guard for a list of license plates; the guard is one of the fired deputies and refuses to help. [See? What did I tell you about the continuity?] Unfortunately, the guard does not have a grudge against Weidman and gives him the list. Mac and Veronica use a supercomputer on campus to try to decipher the hard drive’s password. Keith finds Veronica’s snagged sweater in her laundry. When he confronts her, she is too embarrassed to explain what is going on and runs out. Jake Kane has a full-on hissy fit when Weidman tells him Veronica took the hard drive. It seemed a little over the top, actually, but I suppose he still holds a grudge for helping Duncan escape with his love child. As Keith is giving a pre-election interview, Jake, Weidman and the DA burst in and accuse Keith of hiding evidence against Veronica. The reporter is quite interested by all this. Back at the lab, Mac and Veronica are still trying to break the password. Keith tries to call Veronica; when he can’t reach her, he goes into the Evidence Room and erases the DVR with the Veronica footage. He looks so sad.

When Mac finally breaks the password, the hard drive contains dirt on about eighty years of Castle members: business leaders, congressmen, etc. They watch a bit of Gorya’s “confession” and realize his family has Mafia ties; Veronica thinks she may just let him keep his secrets. She does, however, give the list of Castle members to Nish. Nish says, “You’re going to make some very powerful men very unhappy.” Won’t be the first time, says Veronica. In the food court, Logan tries to apologize to Veronica, but she’s not having any of it. Gorya comes up and says some really nasty things. When Veronica doesn’t react, Logan moves to go after him. She stops him, saying that Gorya is “connected.” Logan muses that he wondered why she didn’t rip him a new one. He watches Gorya walk off a ways and then beats him up anyway. Pretty much all Logan has gotten to do in the last 80 minutes is beat people up. Veronica has a little half-sad, half-satisfied smile on her face. Logan apologizes, fairly sincerely, to Piz as he leaves; Piz looks from Veronica to Logan and back again, and there are some really complicated emotions swirling among the three of them. At the Kane mansion, Weidman lets Veronica in (“So you’re the butler now?”) and she returns the hard drive to Jake. He says he’ll have her arrested; she retorts that if he does, the members’ confessions will go public. “And leave my dad out of it.” Jake bemusedly he tells her it’s too late for that.

Veronica goes home. Keith has made gumbo and asks her no questions. They are both melancholy but it’s clear how much they love each other. In the morning, the front page of the paper says that charges have been filed against Keith for tampering with the evidence. Veronica cries, and goes to vote for her dad for sheriff.

Damn you, CW.

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