Welcome to my viewing diary for Veronica Mars. I will cover each TV episode (and eventually the film), several days a week; this will conclude just as the revival (which I will also cover) premieres on Hulu. I have never seen this series before so there will be NO spoilers.
Story (aired on April 18, 2006/written by Phil Klemmer; directed by Jason Bloom): Harry Greene (Tommy Snider) just wants to find the green Barracuda that ran over his dog. A hulking, brutish but exacting high schooler who shoots arrows with pinpoint precision in his backyard, the bloody vengeance-minded Harry liked his dog a lot - indeed, he likes all animals aside from plastic deer - but does he like people? Veronica has to wonder when Harry's brother Billy (Matt Bush) greets her at the Greene door with a black eye, but eventually we - and finally she - learn the real source of his injury and, as it happens, the family pet's no-so-random slaying. Billy is in the PCH gang and the Fitzpatricks have been beating, torturing, threatening, and otherwise tormenting the young dealers for late or insufficient payments. For their part, Hector (Patrick Wolff) begs Weevil to come back and lead them, but Weevil only returns for one final stand: confronting Liam with Thumper's license-plates-on-wooden-plank client list and threatening to expose all of their elite customers if they don't release the PCHers from their grasp. Billy is horrified when he realizes why Harry hired Veronica, and he begs her not to reveal the truth: not to save his own skin, and not even because he's worried for his brother's safety, but because he's certain Harry will successfully exterminate Liam and spend the rest of his life in prison. Veronica complies with Billy's wish but it's hard to resist her professionl duty, and not just for abstract reasons of justice. If Harry took care of Liam, he would also be eliminating a threat to Veronica and her father, not to mention the likely orchestrator of the bus accident - well, one of them.
Keith's discovery of the Casablancas insurance policy leads to an, um, explosive discovery (sorry). Long before she was a Casablancas, Kendall wasn't even a Kendall - she assumed a dead classmate's identity after a prison stint served alongside Liam's brother and now they're working together. It turns out the car that killed Harry's dog, seemingy a very smallscale mystery, passed Gia and the 09er limo (with someone inside mooning them) just minutes before the bus went over the cliff. So Kendall and Liam could have worked together to kill several birds with one detonator: collecting a hundred million dollars from the tax shelter disguised as insurance policy for which Kendall was the benificiary while, on a much more minor note, punishing the loudmouth Cervando (whom Weevil was worried about, hence his tailing of the bus). Keith finds Kendall's secret second home (no doubt tied in with her and her husband's real estate scams) only for Liam to threaten him inside, but fortunately Veronica already removed the bullets from his gun so her father escapes in classic action film fashion through a giant plate-glass window.
Oh, and also Wallace and Jackie get back together (despite her impending overseas departure), Veronica gets Jackie a job at Java the Hut, and Veronica sets Mac up on an unwanted prom date. Not every initially quiet story ends up in million-dollar heist/gang warfare territory! On the other hand, we find out why Kendall retrieved one of Duncan's hairs from the hotel room. A new murder weapon has been dug up at the burnt-out Echolls estate and this time it implicates Duncan rather than Aaron.
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