Veronica Mars S02 E21 – Magical law breaking

Previously: Lucky is arrested for stalking Gia’s house and meanwhile Woody has a hooker problem.
—

Happy Go Lucky

Democracy Diva: We begin in court, with Aaron Echolls’s testimony, which of course references his career highlight of being Sexiest Man Alive. Whatever, dude – we all know that the real sexiest men alive refuse that honor repeatedly because they’re too serious for that shit. (I’m talking about you, Ryan Gosling.) Aaron begs for sympathy by bullshitting about how hard it is for men to age in the film industry. Hilarious, when films constantly pair twenty-something year old women with fifty-year-old love interests and no one bats an eye. But Aaron pretends that men don’t get better roles as they age, because that makes all the idiots in this courtroom feel for him. Anyway, that’s when Lilly entered his life and started worshipping him. He gives the Bill Clinton “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” defense. Hate to break it to you, Aaron, but even blow jobs with underage girls are illegal. Aaron describes the day Lilly was killed: she came to Aaron’s house, looking for attention, but he wanted to end things between them. When she left, Aaron realized she stole his Oscar, so he went to her house to get it. She yelled at him and refused to hand it over and threw an ash tray at him. Then Duncan came out in a rage, acting like Aaron wasn’t even there. Throughout this, we cut to the “this is complete bullshit” reactions of Veronica and Logan. Aaron admits that he probably shouldn’t have left Lilly alone with Duncan in his rage blackout, but he freaked and ran. And that was the last time Aaron saw her alive.

Marines: This is the best kind of bullshit, too. He infuses it with just enough truth about his relationship with Lilly, the Oscar statue, the ash tray, and even Duncan and his rage blackouts. Much, much better (for Aaron) than say a, “Lilly? Lilly who?” defense.

Sweeney: The way it flirts with plausibility and is just self-deprecating enough to explain how he ever became implicated is certainly a stroke of evil genius making it all the more gross and painful to watch.

Diva: It actually reminds me of Tyrion’s trial on Game of Thrones in that way – all the lies about him are filled with half-truths, making them all the more believable and thus devastating to the audience, who knows what really happened.

Cut to Veronica and Keith, walking out of the trial with dozens of fans holding “WE <3 AARON” signs, because everything is the worst. Keith reminds her that it’s all about the tapes- if the jury believes that she and Logan saw Aaron having sex with Lilly, they’ll convict him. Keith warns her that they’re going to pull up a lot of bad shit in order to “rile” her. But she insists, adorably, that she’s un-rilable.

She gets serious and intense and says she wants to see that smirk wiped off Aaron’s face when he realizes he’s going to jail forever. Me too, girl. Me too.

Sweeney: It’s a reminder of how personal this all is for her. That for as jaded and badass as she is, that’s the man who murdered her teenage best friend. This whole little conversation featured some glorious Kristen Bell acting, too.

Diva: This whole episode was A+ Kristen Bell acting, from the serious moments to the adorable ones.

Neptune High lunch tables. Gia gives Veronica cupcakes for saving her life, and V cracks a bad joke and awkwardly thanks her. She insists she’s not mad at Gia, but she has to study for all the tests. They agree to have a study date at Gia’s house. Jackie and Wallace come over to steal some cupcakes and distract Veronica. Wallace got his scholarship and his grades are good enough that he doesn’t really have to try for his finals. Veronica is all, well, bully for you, but I have to ace everything to get that Kane scholarship. Jackie wonders why Veronica doesn’t just stay in Neptune, (S: DON’T YOU WANT A THIRD SEASON, GIRL?) and also explains to Wallace that she might be staying in Neptune too while her dad’s still in this mess. Yeah, running away to Paris would kind of be a dick move right now. Or maybe the best thing for her, I’m not sure. Guess it kinda depends on who blew up that goddamn bus. (M: SOON, GIRL. Only one episodes left.)

Weevil pulls Veronica aside because he needs her help… With algebra. He needs to get a B to graduate so his grandma doesn’t die before he dons that cap and gown. Veronica says she’s too busy and Weevil saunters off like a sad puppy. Suddenly shots ring out and my heart stops and everyone ducks. Lucky the janitor stands on a table, waving his gun in the air. He was fired and wants to take it out on basically everyone. He mentions the bus crash, and asks where his girl Gia is. He points the gun at Jackie, who was dialing on her phone. She cries, and suddenly someone tackles him to the ground – IT’S WALLACE. Superhero!Wallace knocks the gun out of Lucky’s hand, but Lucky gets it back. He shoots right at Wallace’s chest, and I SCREAM, but the gun is filled with rubber bullets. Suddenly a shot rings out from a security guard – a real shot – and kills Lucky.

Mari: Not the first time I’ve seen this scene and even so, it was so intense. I realized afterwards that I actually had my hand over my mouth like a TV character. I’d say that this is extra timely to me right now because of the recent shooting at Florida State, but the sad truth is that this will just continue to be timely until we understand gun control in the US a little better… But I digress.

Diva: Absolutely. And as horrific as watching this scene was, I AM SO GLAD I AM RECAPPING THIS SUPER-INTENSE EPISODE. C’MON NOW SUGAR!

Sweeney: I’M SO GLAD YOU ARE TOO. This is truly the best recapper-episode matchup in the series. Still, I’m a little jealous because this episode was so overwhelming that there are parts where I just had to look away and check my email and stuff.

Diva: Mayor Woody gives a press conference about Lucky. He was disturbed after his tour in Iraq. The press ask what Woody’s relationship with Lucky was. He says we didn’t really have one – he worked for the team when he was young and was fired after the players complained about his performance. He doesn’t know why Lucky attacked his family, and now they never will. How convenient!

V and Keith are watching this press conference on TV. Keith wishes he could form a protective bubble around her, but she reminds him that “nobody likes a blonde in a hamster ball.” Keith got into Lucky’s apartment (by magic? or by more law-breaking?) (M: Magical law breaking) and he sent lots of emails to Woody, all from different accounts. Keith is hoping to unlock the files at Woody’s place. Keith knows his password because he saw him type it in over Woody’s shoulder. Good, more privacy violations! Veronica says sorry, but the house won’t be free for you to do that, because me and Gia are having a study date. Veronica says it’s better that she do the privacy-violating law-breaking, since she was invited over anyway. The password is “Mr. Goodwood.”

Jackie visits her father in the hospital and talks about what a hero Wallace was, tackling the gunman. Terrence is upset because he’s supposed to be there to keep her safe and make sure her life isn’t a disaster. I’m not sure he did much of that when he was a free man, but okay. She tells him he’s crazy, and that her life has never been better.

Logan visits his father in prison. With no preface, Logan hits him with the epic line, “If you had given Lilly the performance you gave today, she might have given you the Oscar.”

Aaron bullshits that it’s in Logan’s best interest not to tell what he saw on those tapes. Also, Aaron Echolls is making me need to use “bullshit” as a verb A LOT in this episode. Anyway, Aaron reminds Logan that he’ll be admitting to the destruction of evidence once he mentions those tapes. Aaron insists he’s going to get away with it either way, so Logan shouldn’t ruin his life because of this. Logan is all, thanks for the advice, father! And leaves.

Neptune High. Someone scratched “AMBER IS A BITCH” into Cassidy’s car. But it was an accident – they keyed the wrong car. Some little guy is weird to Veronica and insists that he hasn’t said a thing. I don’t really know what that’s about.

Mari: It’s about continuity porn, that’s what! Little Hart there is the guy who had footage of Lisa Rinna jumping off a bridge way back in season 1. Weevil threatened him so he’d keep his mouth shut, and he has. And dear Veronica has forgotten about him, but again, so have we. (I had to look it up.)

Sweeney: High school character continuity porn is my favorite. B plot characters should be less disposable on high school shows because HEY WE ALL GO TO THE SAME SCHOOL but so often shows discard them the same as they do on adult shows. Aside from it’s special reality star guests, this show does a great job of throwing in things like this.

Diva: And I do a terrible job of understanding them!

Anyway, Veronica and Gia are inexplicably studying in the dark at her house. Veronica’s computer “crashes,” so she asks to borrow one. Gia sends her to the guest room. She reminds Gia to get off Myspace (LOL) and study.  Veronica creeps into the dark guest room and logs into Woody’s account. She looks for obvious email addresses from Lucky – “mr clean” is one of them, but some are just “anonymous” and a lot of numbers. Man, he should have at least come up with normal, non-suspicious names. Anyway, one email says “kill incorporation or else.” The attachments are audio files. On them, Lucky insists that things like this don’t stay secret. Woody is sick and what he did to them was wrong – they were just kids and he was a pervert. OH MY GOD. I know Woody creeped me out from the beginning, but OH MY GOD.

Then the door to the guest room opens and Woody creepily asks Veronica what she’s doing there. Of course, she’s still on his account and the emails are sending painfully slowly. Woody asks how it worked out for her – the practice test she claims she was taking. He wants to know if she’s as smart as she thinks she is. “I hope so,” Veronica says, and she scampers away. He sits down at the computer. Veronica goes looking for Gia but grabs her stuff and gets ready to bolt, faking a headache. Woody creeps in the shadows behind her, and insists it’s the computer screen giving her those migraines and it can’t be good for her.

Mari: Uh, neither can the way you are standing in the murder-y shadows, sir. GOOD DAY.

Diva: At home, Veronica and Keith listen to the recordings Lucky sent to Woody. People might be speaking French in the background. Lucky mentions that there were three victims of Woody’s abuse. Another speaker was edited out of this recording. A lot of the content of Lucky’s emails is stream of consciousness ranting about war, and Veronica wants to help go through it, but he sends her to bed. She’s got a big day tomorrow.

Cut to the trial, and Veronica Mars being sworn in. The first question is about whether she finds wealth and fame seductive. WE’RE ALREADY GETTING SLUT-SHAMEY AND IT’S THE FIRST GODDAMN QUESTION.

Evil Slut-Shaming Defense Attorney points out Veronica’s rich/famous ex-boyfriends and best friend. He asks if she propositioned Aaron – like, with sex – in exchange for the tapes. She’s like, uh, no, he hid in the backseat of my car like a creepy murdery statutory rapey monster. Evil Attorney mentions her current treatment for an STD and the prosecution is all, OBJECTION, YOU FILTHY ANIMAL. The  judge will allow it, even though there is no way the lawyer got that information through legal means, but I’ll save those rants for our How to Get Away With Murder recaps.

Mari: This slut shame-y moment is one of the things I remember most about season 2 and part of the reason why I put off watching this episode for so long. IT JUST UPSETS ME SO MUCH. And I feel so bad for Veronica.

Sweeney: Same. Every single one of these court room scenes gives me physical, unpleasant reactions.

Diva: I was basically just cringing for 45 minutes straight.

Veronica says she’s completed her STD treatment, thank you very much. She walks outside and awkwards about it with Keith. To his credit, he asks if she’s okay, and then he hugs her. SANDY COHEN EYEBROWS FOR YOU. NO SLUT-SHAMING OUR DAUGHTERS HERE, NO SIR-EE. Anyway, Lamb leers at Veronica grossly and gets called into a different judge’s office. This Judge is laughing with Mr. Lobo, who now says he was with Terrence Cook when the bus crashed, so there’s no way T could be responsible for it. Lamb asks if he’s sure, or if he needs another few months to think about that. He says his memory isn’t what it used to be. But then he saw a documentary about sharks, which reminded him of THE Sharks, which reminded him of Terrence, which reminded him to check his datebook and see when their last rendezvous was. Yeah, sure, that sounds plausible. Lamb says if Lobo testifies, he’ll go down for his own crimes, but Lobo introduces his corporate attorney and CFO. They were also with Terrence that night.

Neptune High. Cassidy is tutoring Weevil, which is adorable. Weevil yells the sentence, “DO I LOOK LIKE SOMEONE WHO KNOWS QUADRATIC EQUATIONS?!” and I want him to get an Emmy for the fucking hilarious delivery of that line. Cassidy gets flustered, but Weevil’s all, teach me or your car will read “AMBER IS A BITCH” forever. Cassidy tries to dumb the problems down by making them about car parts and oil, and Weevil wants to kill him, or possibly himself. Finally Weevil gives up, until Mac turns around and explains FOIL – First Outside Inside Last. That’s basically all of algebra. She helps teach Weevil, and gives Cassidy a cute smile.

Keith in his office, trying to reach Rick Pickett, a freshman at NYU with a really silly name. He joke-asks if she can fly to New York and find this kid and figure out whether Woody molested him or not. Keith talks aloud about the case and Veronica says she’s not having any luck translating Lucky’s rants into English. Keith recalls a rant about presents, and that reminds Veronica of what he said to Gia in the closet – that he had a scar from one of the “presents” the insurgents left. He called roadside bombs “presents.”

Mari: Related: Lucky had no idea what presents are.

Diva: Keith runs right to Woody’s office and insists they need to talk. There’s a woman standing next to Woody going over paperwork with him, and Woody tries to blow off Keith. Keith insists Woody will want to keep this conversation private, so the lady leaves. Keith directs Woody to get his family out of his house and call the bomb squad, explaining about the emails. Woody insists that it’s over, because Lucky is dead, and asks how Keith saw those emails – oh, Veronica! Woody sasses him for letting his daughter do espionage, and Keith comes right back with his accusation that Woody is a child molester. The smirk is wiped right off his face. Woody orders him to leave, but Keith doesn’t back down. Woody smiles creepily and says Keith is wrong, and he will ruin Keith and his family.

GAHT DAMN, YOU GO, KEITH!

<

Mari: This is why we forgive him for all his evidence stealing and breaking and entering. YOU GO, KEITH MARS.

Sweeney: MORE CAPSLOCK CHEERS FOR KEITH MARS!

Diva: Cook house. Jackie and Wallace walk in flirting, but Terrence yells for her from the next room. She runs over and hugs him and he says they let him go- he’s free. Everyone is happy.

After the not-break, Terrence says a witness came forward saying T couldn’t have been on the phone at the time of the bus crash, and they had to let him go. Wallace smiles and Jackie BEAMS. Wallace offers to go, but Jackie insists that he stay. She opens the door, and it’s Mr. Lobo. He’s not surprised that Terrence already has a “sweet young thing” waiting on him. Terrence is all, this is my DAUGHTER, you creep. Lobo says she should probably leave – Wallace offers that they’ll start dinner. When the kids exit, Lobo wants to know if Terrence wants to thank or repay Lobo for setting him free. That was a business investment, you see – Terrence’s career is ruined, but Lobo set him free to basically enslave him. Lobo tells him, you go wherever I tell you, and maybe in a decade your debt will be paid off. Terrence looks miserable and shuts the door.

Veronica and Logan at school. They do that quiet-flirting thing that isn’t really flirting but sort of is because it’s them. She asks if Lucky ever told him about being on the Sharks or about Woody. He never mentioned the Sharks. But he says one time last summer, Logan walked into the closet and saw Lucky pouring bleach on his feet and wearing a catcher’s mask. Which is, you know, not normal behavior.

Trial. Keith is testifying about the night Aaron tried to murder him and his daughter. His tale is that Keith arrived, saw his daughter fooling around Aaron Echolls on the porch, and started to fight him. That’s what both Aaron and the homeowner said happened. Prosecution objects and says that’s hearsay because that homeowner disappeared and hasn’t responded to subpoenas. Sustained, because this show knows a little bit about laws sometimes. Lawyer asks if Veronica ever lies to Keith. Keith admits that she might occasionally fib, but that he and his daughter are very close. He would expect to hear the truth about her on the “big issues.” Evil Lawyer asks if he knows the following: she was caught breaking into the Mannings house, and she manipulated her way into the records room when Deputy Leo was on duty. Keith admits that they dated. The lawyer notes that Keith was the one hired to oversee that case, where he claimed that Logan was able to get the tapes because of Leo’s negligence. Evil Lawyer says her daughter sexually manipulated Leo (like Lilly did to Aaron, but he doesn’t use their names) into giving them to Logan, and having all her “boyfriends” do illegal shit for her. He keeps doing those little air quotes around the word “boyfriend” with his fingers and coming closer and closer.  Suddenly Keith snaps, grabs him by the tie, yanks his neck towards him and threatens to break his fingers if he keeps using those air quotes. Judge orders Keith taken away but the lawyer insists he’s fine. KEITH. WHAT THE FUCK. YOU’RE BETTER THAN THIS. YOU KNOW YOU CAN’T DO THAT. YOU KNOW THAT IS HELPING LITERALLY NO ONE. EXCEPT AARON ECHOLLS. STOP THIS NOW. Sorry for the caps lock, but it was necessary.

Mari: This is why no one calls you Easy Going Keith Mars, dude.

Diva: Cut to the Mac, Cassidy, and Weevil show, a spinoff I for one am very excited about. Cassidy and Mac bicker and banter and flirt. Weevil just shakes his head at them. He basically tells them to go fuck in a closet, come back, and teach me algebra. Mac and Cassidy giggle and it’s cute.

Veronica gets home and talks to her father about the Woody case. In the video Lucky sent to Woody, there’s a painting behind the table of a catcher’s mask. The camera also pans across the wall and the pictures of Woody’s little league team… who were also called the Sharks. Meanwhile, Keith makes a call about the painting. Veronica shows him two of the boys who died in the bus crash, who were on Woody’s Little League Team. OH MY GOD. I kind of had this thought earlier in the episode – that Woody was murdering his victims so they wouldn’t speak out against him – but I really didn’t want to be right.

Woody’s mansion, swarmed by the bomb squad. The whole family is standing outside in bathrobes. Woody asks how long this sweep will take, and Lamb explains that there was a bomb under Woody’s car. The house is clear, but someone clearly wants to hurt him. (M: Not hard to imagine…) (S: I kind of want to hurt him…) (D: Cosign.)

Cook mansion. Jackie is sweet and tells Terrence he deserved to go out and have a late night last night, but he grumbles that he was working. She asks about his new job and he’s mean and says it’s just the kind of work he has to do, and he can’t make any plans right now. She says that’s fine; she’s decided to stay here and not go to Paris yet. He says that’s a bad idea. He’s going to be working and traveling nonstop and it’s not fair to either of them, so she should just go to France. She nods but looks devastated, and I have more Jackie feels. (S: Endless. Jackie. Feels.)

Lamb’s office. Keith and Veronica play the recordings for him and says the other two mentioned on Lucky’s tape were bus crash victims. They verified the voices. Woody molested Marcos and Peter, and they were going to come forward about it, so he killed them, along with everyone else on the bus. Lamb wonders why was there a bomb planted on Woody’s car if that’s true. Lucky had to have planted that, and also wasn’t at work on the day of the crash. Lamb doesn’t want to look like an asshole by arresting the mayor, and Keith accuses him of making the murder of eight people about him. Keith warns him to act on this now, or Woody will use all his power to disappear. Don’t let a child molester and mass murderer get away.

Trial. Logan is on the stand. He describes the tapes, truthfully, completely, and emotionlessly. I like that Logan recalls how Aaron smiled at the camera, because that gross detail always stuck with me, too. Logan knows that destroying them was a felony. And yes, he was granted immunity in exchange for this testimony. No further questions from Aaron’s evil lawyer. Guess there’s no point in trying to slut-shame Logan, since, you know, he’s a guy and the jury will just want to pat him on the back for his exploits.

Mari: I mean, Aaron sat their and gained sympathy because of the attentions of a 16-year-old girl. Veronica was bashed because of her boyfriends. ANGRY NOISES.

Sweeney: By Logan’s testimony I was out of my chair and pacing around the room it all made me so sick. So, yeah.

Diva: +1 to all the hulksmashy rage.

Exam time. Weevil is yawning and kisses his crucifix necklace for luck.

Cut to a woman and her sons in the sheriff’s office. The boy in the paper, who went missing (we see the picture is Thumper) – her kids saw someone attacking him. Lamb brings them back into his office.

Weevil goes to the teacher and waits for his test back. HE GOT A B!!!!!!!!!!!!! He is so happy and so am I. But of course, back at the station, the kids point to a photo of Weevil as the guy who was attacking Thumper the night he disappeared. Meanwhile, Keith shows Lamb evidence that Lucky was in a padded cell at the VA hospital the day of the bus crash – that’s why he wasn’t at work. Lamb calls Sachs over, and tells Keith he’s going to arrest Woody. Sachs announces that the jury has reached a verdict in the Echolls case.

Cut to Veronica and Wallace in the halls. He’s done with exams and thrilled; she’s not done and bitter. Wallace gets serious and gives Veronica this epic speech:

They giggle and I have feels and this is sweet. He walks away, insisting this feels chat never happened.

Mari: I was not a fan of high school and I still had graduation goggles. I would never go back for anything, but thinking about those graduation goggles makes me feel feels. I loved this scene because this felt pretty true to life. And I loved this scene because THOSE TWO.

Sweeney: +1 to all of that.

Diva: Same.

Veronica sits down for her test and out the door, sees Wallace cleaning out his locker. Her phone vibrates and she sees that the Echolls verdict is in. Veronica wisely decides to ignore this message and focus on her test. But suddenly, she stops, grabs her backpack, and leaves. Because she needs to be there, to see his face.

Sweeney: I get that, but also WTF is Keith doing texting her when he knows she’s at school. I feel like he had to know she would do this and texting her was a questionable parent move. I love him all the same but this strikes me as a bad call.

Diva: You’re absolutely right – I even yelled, DON’T DO IT, VERONICA! at my screen as she left. But yeah, this one is kind of on Keith.

Wallace knocks on Terrence’s door. He’s picking up Jackie, but Terrence says that Jackie already left for France this morning. She wanted Terrence to give him a letter, which Wallace takes, devastated and confused.

Trial. Lamb tells Keith that Woody disappeared in a private plane, with no flight plan on record. The jury foreman says they’ve reached a verdict. On the charge of second-degree murder, they found Aaron Echolls… not guilty. Aggravated assault? Not guilty. Statutory rape? Not guilty. Everyone celebrates except the Marses and Logan, who look miserable. But I’m confused, because wouldn’t Keith and Veronica have needed to go to the hospital after that night that Aaron tried to murder them? Remember how they were ON FIRE? Wouldn’t there be medical records of those injuries? Even if they couldn’t convict him of the rape/murder without those tapes, they ABSOLUTELY could have gotten him on aggravated assault with those medical records and other evidence from that night. You know, like all the BURNING STUFF. COME THE FUCK ON, SHOW. But also, thank you, because I’ve been waiting for this plot line last season’s finale, and I’m so glad I got to see it all go down, even if it didn’t end with that horrific smirk getting wiped off Aaron’s face. Frustrating and fury-inducing, but a damn great pre-finale.

Mari: Agreed. It just hurts me, especially those final tears filling Veronica’s eyes as the verdict didn’t go her way, but also because she walked out on that final for this. For disappointment. 

I think it’s a credit to this show how much it hurts to see Veronica and Keith discredited on the stand. Most of what Evil Lawyer was saying wasn’t strictly wrong; Veronica does a lot of bad things. But we love her and excuse her and so much of what season 1 built up was her alienation and the ways she wasn’t like other people. That settled a little this season, with the Lilly murder behind her, but here it is again in full force and again tied to the murder. It’s not hard to imagine how people removed from Veronica would perceive her, her STD and range of infractions and list of boyfriends. It added up. Logan erased the evidence tapes. It added up.

This is also a good pre-finale because things seem so sad and hopeless. Everyone, in their own ways, is kind of free-falling.

Diva: A satisfying episode, particularly for me, who only ever wanted more solving-the-Lilly-murder stuff. I am SO READY for this finale.

 

Next time on Veronica Mars: It’s graduation day at Neptune High and season finale time for the rest of us in S02 E22 – Not Pictured.