October 20, 2013

Veronica Mars Watch-Along Week 23

[Graphic designed by the lovely Judith of Paper Riot]
So, how does this work, super sleuths? Go check out the Watch-Along kick off post for the skinny. I'll give you a second just in case...

All caught up? Good.

In case you already know the basics and just forgot what episodes are up today, here's the list:
[AKA: THE END OF SEASON 2]
  • "Happy Go Lucky"
  • "Not Pictured"
And for NEXT WEEK:
[AKA: THE BEGINNING OF SEASON 3]
  • "Welcome Wagon"
  • "My Big Fat Greek Rush Week"

Okay. Are you guys ready for Gillian to wrap up season 2? ARE YOU?

Good.

--

Hello, guys, it's Gillian! I'm quite touched that Gaby has bestowed on me the great honor of allowing me to finish off season 2 for you guys, and I can only hope that I don't let her down, especially since "Happy Go Lucky" and "Not Pictured" are two very complicated episodes.

"Happy Go Lucky",

Aaron Echolls, Lilly-murderer and Veronica-almost murderer, is on trial for being a horrendous douchebag who sleeps with and murders as many of his son's blonde girlfriends as he can. While we know that Papa Echolls is Satan incarnate, the mostly female jury does not, and is totally eating up the sob story he's feeding them. His lawyer is THE ULTIMATE WORST, constantly manipulating the evidence and all out lying. Sleazeball. He basically gets Aaron to imply that Duncan is the murderer and it's eeeeevil.

Veronica, outside the courthouse and seething: "So, apparently, if you're handsome and famous enough, you can just lie under oath, and that's cool."

V, who claims to be easygoing about this whole murder trial thing and not worried about her upcoming testimony, says that all she wants is to be there for the moment Aaron receives his guilty sentence so she can she his face. She and Keith continue to be the most adorbs.  Back at school, V's all stressed because she has to ACE all of her finals if she hopes to win the Kane scholarship. Clueless Gia Goodman, bearing cupcakes, gets V to agree to a study date at the Goodman House of Horrors. Wallace and the Heinous Jackie appear just to torment me. Jackie says something about her father but like who cares. Then Weevil approaches their table and asks Veronica to tutor him in algebra so he can graduate for him grandma's sake, and I squeal AWWWW because an earnest Weevil is an adorable Weevil. V is swamped, though, and I saw AWWWWW, because a disheartened Weevil is an adorable Weevil.


THEN LUCKY SHOWS UP IN THE QUAD WITH A GUN AND IT'S HORRIBLE. The school has just fired him, for obvious reasons, so he's a bit messed up right now, and it's so frightening. Especially when he sings out Gia's name. It's horrifying. Because Jackie is the utter worst, she pulls out her cell. Lucky sees her, point his gun at her, and Wallace LEAPS INTO THE AIR and tackles Lucky. My heart stops beating as Lucky shoots at Wallace, but surprise! He's packing blanks. Then the security guard shoots Lucky dead. Not-so-lucky. I guess it wouldn't be a normal day at Neptune High if something completely traumatizing didn't happen.

Keith breaks into Lucky's apartment and steals his emails to Slimeball Mayor Woody Goodman, but their attachments have been deleted. "If only I could go to the Goodman House of Horrors and see the emails there!" V, being awesome and also stupid, is all, "I'm going to study with Gia, I'll do it!" Also, you really don't want to know what Woody Goodman's password is.*


blah blah Jackie blah father blah

Aaron, in the clink, tries to coerce Our Lord and Savior Logan Echolls to lie about destroying the Lilly-Aaron-not-so-sexy-times tapes, couching it by pretending to care about Logan's future, as he'll be admitting to destroying evidence. OLaS Logan is more concerned with the part where his papa destroyed his girlfriend, and looks all sad and wounded that his daddy is so poopy. But he looks like he might be considering it.

While studying with Gia at the Goodman House of Horrors, studying V fakes a laptop crash and scuttles off to go through Goody's emails. She pulls up five emails from Lucky and also sees another with the subject "kill incorporation or else". In it is an audio file with a strange conversation between two boys and some French-ness in the background. And what do they say in this taped conversation? Things like :"We have to tell people what Woody did to the three of us" and "Things like this don't stay secret" and "Woody's a pervert. He's sick" and "We were just kids".


Woody appears like the GIGANTIC CREEPER HE IS and Veronica flees like there's an orange child molester looming in the doorway and watching her with his pedophile eyes. Raise your hand if you'll never be able to watch It Takes Two again. V shows the recording to her dad, and they figure out that there's a third speaker edited out and that the mention of "the Sharks" indicates something to do with Lucky being a bat boy.

NEXT DAY, V is on the witness stand! It goes predictably terribly. V tries to tell the truth, the lawless lawyer reveals to the entire court, Veronica's father, and OLaS Logan Echolls that she has chlamydia. It's a fine moment for the reputation of the legal profession.

Blah blah Billy Black blah Jackie's dad blah lying about his whereabouts to Sheriff Lamb blah. I'm sorry if you're really interested in this plot line, but there's Logan coming up later, and this is a really plot-heavy episode. Lol, Beaver is tutoring Weevil (I wrote that initally as Beavil is tutoring Weever) and it's going as terribly as one would expect. The Magnificent Mac sweeps in to the rescue, and aw, she and the Beaver are so cute.


Keith and Veronica realize, though the pilfered emails, that Lucky might have put bombs in Woody's house. There's an awesome scene where Keith lets Woody know that he knows that Woody is a vomitous sack of urine. Woody refuses to believe he's in danger, because, you know, he's made of urine.

BLAH BLAH JACKIE'S DAD BLAHHHHH

LOGAN AND VERONICA SCENE LOGAN AND VERONICA SCENE. V approaches him at his locker and asks if he's been to any good murder trials lately. HEH. Our Lord and Savior leans all sexily against  the lockers since apparently he doesn't think I need my loins anymore and prefers that they be reduced to ash. V asks him if Lucky ever mentioned baseball. Logan recalls a "weird, semi-baseball-related incident" involving a catcher's mask and semi-naked foot bleaching which I will spare you.


The Lawless Lawyer continues his shenanigans, twisting Keith's testimony to make V seem even more unreliable. OMG THERE'S SO MUCH PLOT. SKIPPING. Anyhoodle, V figures out the two of the boys who died on the bush crash were WOODY'S VICTIMS AND WERE ALSO ON HIS LITTLE LEAGUE TEAM, THE SHARKS!!!! (Then why did we have to see Lucky bleaching his feet whywhywhy). The police find a bomb under Woody's car, Keith is vindicated, blahhhh. JACKIE DADDY BLAH BLAH EVEN YOUR DAD DOES NOT WANT YOU. The bush-crash- and Woody-perversion-victims are the two kids on the incriminating tape. Keith and V put together that the boys must have been planning to come forwards about their molestation, and so Woody must have blown up the bus to silence them. Neptune, California is the worst place to be alive in the world. You'd be happier in Riverdale or Mystic Falls or Antarctica, I think.

Our Lord and Savior Logan Echolls testifies against his perfidious papa, and it is perfect. I cry tears of love. Weevil passes his algebra final, WOOHOO. BUT OH NO two boys at the police station just identified him as the killer of somebody I can't remember. Wallace and V have and ADORABLE SCENE WHERE I DIE OF CUTENESS because high school is ending!

Wallace: "I just wanted to say, it was worth getting taped to a flagpole. I'm gonna miss you."

BLAH BLAH JACKIE IS GONE BLAH. Sheriff Lamb has put an APB out of Woody the child-molesting-kid-exploder, who has fled

V hunkers down for her final final (heh), which she MUST PASS OR NO FUTURE, and then gets a text that the Aaron Echolls verdict is in, because fate is a bitch. She bail on the final and hightails it to the courthouse... just in time to hear Aaron voted NOT GUILTY!!!!!!!!!!!!


 Notable quotables:

"What do I have to do for a pie?"

"Elementary, my dear Wallace."

"Nobody likes a blonde in a hamster ball."

"How's Amber gonna know she's a bitch?"

"If this is your idea of terms I'll understand, I'm gonna kill you. Or myself."

 "After a week of forced smiles and the occasional 'hey,' it's time for business as usual. Ain't epic love grand?"

"Are you saying you're smarter than me?"
"No, here's what that would have sounded like: I'm smarter than you."

*It's "Mr. GoodWood". I TOLD YOU YOU DIDN'T WAN'T TO KNOW.


I THINK THAT WAS THE LONGEST EPISODE OVER MY GOD

"Not Pictured"

I will keep this short and not-so-sweet because OMG THIS EPISODE WHHHHHAAAAAT.

Aaron's all WEEE, I AM A FREE MAN, and Veronica tries to murder him with her brain like Carrie. Keith and Veronica decide they will not wallow in despair but will perservere like... things that perservere! Keith will focus on catching Woody Not-so-Goodman, and V will work on identifying all the kids in the photo of Woody's little league team so they can figure out who the third voice on the tape is. VINNIE VAN LOWE makes an appearance, BUT NO TIME FOR THAT, SORRY VINNIE.


Veronica has a dream about what her graduation would have been like if Lilly had never died, and it's oh-so-sad: her hair is long, her mother is present, her dad is sheriff, and she is naive and trusting. She is also dating LOGAN BECAUSE THEY ARE FATED AND EPIC AND PERFECT. But she never made friends with Wallace (sad), and V's personality is all weird and not awesome, and Lilly went to Vassar and experimented with her sexuality.

RealGraduation is not so sad. Except for the part where Weevil gets arrested by Lamb before he can cross the stage. Mac confides in V that she and Beaver will be DOING THE DEED tonight in a room at the Neptune Grand. V graduates amidst deafening cheers from her classmates and has a cute moment with the Principal. Keith leaves to track down the Goodmonster, and Wallace leaves to go track down the heinous Jackie in Paris. EVEN THOUGH SHE IS NOT THERE BECAUSE SHE'S A HORRIBLY LYING LIAR. She's in Brooklyn, with her CHILD. V calls her and forces her to tell Wallace the truth in his layover in JFK. And then we are finally rid of the heinous Jackie halle-fricking-lujah.


 After Veronica does some awesome Gia-impersonating (and discovers that Wood was treated for chlamydia), Keith catches a wife-beater-wearing Woody in a lodge in Nevada, tases, the mofo, and stuffs him back onto Woody's private plane. Veronia tracks down a picture of Woody's little league team with the names of all the kids on it and figures out that the kid on the recording is... CASSIDY "BEAVER" CASABLANCAS!!!!!!!!!!!


Mac and the Beav ditch the grad party at the Neptune Grand to have some sexytimes in their room... which doesn't happen because Beaver's beaver fails to beave (I'M SORRY FOR THAT). As Mac takes a shower, V frantically texts her that Beaver is a killer and she should get away from him. Beaver intercepts that, is understandably quite put out, and texts V to meet him on the roof. THEN HE PULLS OUT A GUN. V gets in the elevator and runs into Satan Incarnate Aaron Echolls, who creeps all over her and talks about how much he enjoyed bashing that ashtray into Lilly's head. He's so good at elevator small-talk.

A gun-toting Beaver is, obvs, waiting for V on the roof, and BAD THINGS HAPPEN. Namely, the truth is revealed. Beaver blew up the bus. Beaver was molested by Woody and wanted to stop the two boys on board from telling on Woody, since he didn't want his secret to come out. Beaver killed Curly because Curly figured it out and wrote V's name on his hand. AND BEAVER IS THE ONE WHO RAPED VERONICA. WHICH IS HOW SHE GOT CHLAMYDIA. FROM HIM. AND FROM WOODY NOT-SO-GOODMAN. AND I JUST. GAHHHHHHHH!!!!! Oh, also, Cassidy put bombs on Woody's plane, and proceeds to blow it up right before V's eyes. And Keith is on board. And it's horrible.

She manages to shoot a text off to Our Lord and Savior (emphasis on savior) Logan Echolls, who zooms to her rescue, and together they manage to disarm the Beav. Logan convinces a heartbroken and grief-crazed V not to shoot Cassidy despite all he's done. Which might include raping Mac.


V lowers the gun, and Logan HUGS HER AW BUT THEN... Cassidy wanders towards the edge of the roof. Logan yells at him not to jump, and Cassidy says, "Why not?" And poor Logan cannot think of one thing to say, and it's heartbreaking. He looks so crushed about it. Cassidy says, "Yeah. That's what I thought" and steps right off. Disbelief and tears fill Logan's eye, and he hugs a sobbing Veronica tightly.

Clarence Wiedman, on Duncan's orders, shoots Aaron Echolls after he finishes sexing Kendall Casablancas. DUNCAN YOU DID SOMETHING RIGHT I'M SO PROUD. Logan takes V home and they cuddle on the couch and then SURPEISE, KEITH IS NOT DEAD, YAYYYY! He didn't get on the plane, yayyyy!!! Woody is dead, which causes grief to no one, I am sure. Aaron too, obviously.


Logan and V are together and ADORABLE. This is necessary:


Kendall inherits millions of dollars from Beaver's real instate bets against incorporation, and then scoots on over to show Keith something in a briefcase that causes him to ditch Veronica and his trip to New York. And I am officially exhausted.

Notable quotables:

Dick: "Put on your dancing shoes, Mars, 'cause tonight we're gonna up-chuck the boogie to the rhythm of the boogie to beat!"

Mac: "It's liquid, it's courage, it's liquid courage!"

Logan: "I won't see you for a week, that's like, a month."

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How do you think Gillian did with the recap? Personally, I'd like to hire her to take over. (Or at least have her back one more time before this wraps up.) Be sure to let he know how much you love her in the comments below!