We just found out in the (last

OPEN CASE: Veronica Mars

VM 3X09

Aired: 11/28/06

Spit and Eggs: Mystery Cracked

Review By Fotada

This episode was packed with exciting ingredients, a veritable omelet of entertainment. Rob Thomas handled writing and directing duties like a delicate soufflé. My brain was nearly scrambled from all these plot twists:

On the heels of his recent affair with a married a woman, Keith is asked to look into the fidelity of the dean’s wife.

As a result of the investigation, Dean O’Dell happily learns that his wife is not having an affair with her co-worker Wally. But hold on, she is having an affair with Prof. Landry.

Mercer was recently cleared of rape charges—with Veronica’s help! And yet in this episode we discover that he is, in fact, the rapist.

The episode opens mid-frat party, then skips back two days, where not only is there no Pi Sig party, the fraternity itself is being booted off campus. Then just as suddenly, an influential former Pi Sig brother shows up and convinces Cyrus to reinstate them.

Piz informs his radio audience that the dean has never taken him up on the offer to be a guest on his show. But moments later, the dean appears and uses the show as a forum to announce the Pi Sigs’ restored status.

When Piz and Wallace come across a spiked drink marked “Kim Kaiser,” they believe she is the next victim, but Veronica discovers that it is really her little sister Carrie.

After pulling out a gun, Dean O’Dell confronts his wife and Landry in a hotel room. But ironically, it is the dean that is found shot in the head.

And finally, in a total flip of last season’s “Not Pictured,” in which Beaver was the sweet, victimized, put-upon little brother surprisingly exposed as a rapist and mass murderer, this arc reveals Mercer: the arrogant, illegal casino-running, hard-partying in Tijuana, setting fires and fleeing jerk wad. He wore the cologne that Parker recognized, he had the shaver, and he had the GHB. The clues were there all along!

Under the yoke of all this, “Spit and Eggs” covered:

The break up of Logan and Veronica,
The solution to the rape mystery, and
The introduction of two new mysteries

Logan and Veronica

Logan and Veronica have two key scenes together, but both conversations are prefaced by the white noise of Logan’s friends, first Dick, then Mercer. In both scenes Veronica and Logan are focused chiefly on each other. In the first instance Dick announces that he’s leaving, but neither acknowledges him, and so Dick jokes, “Okay. Don't try and stop me.” In the second, Mercer is the one that greets Veronica when she walks up to Logan and him at the party, but she doesn’t spare him a glance when she responds. She only has eyes for Logan. And while at that point the relationship is technically fractured, their body language shouts that they are still very much a couple. Mercer is a bit more astute than Dick, and doesn’t need convincing that they want to be left alone.

Logan decides to end his relationship with Veronica:

LOGAN: I think we have a choice. And I think we can take a tough but survivable amount of pain now...

Logan pauses, staring at her.

LOGAN: Or stay together and deal with unbearable pain later.

LOGAN: But I'm always here...if you need anything.

He steps forward, puts his hands on either side of her neck and kisses her on the forehead.

LOGAN: [resigned] But you never need anything.

(Source: vmtranscripts.com)

Later, when Veronica tells her dad about the break up, Keith unknowingly mimics Logan by kissing her on the forehead. Understandably, she breaks down soon after, albeit in the privacy of a shower.

Logan wants Veronica to need him as much as he needs her, but Veronica’s first instinct is to put up a barrier. He tells her that when he’s with her, he feels like something less than what she wants him to be. He is a disappointment. But Logan might not realize that he’s sending out mixed signals. He may want to be a man for Veronica, but he rarely acts like one. He doesn’t appear to take school very seriously, and he hangs out with ne’er-do-wells like Dick and Mercer. Can we blame Veronica if she doesn’t give all of herself to him?

But when Logan insists that he be the one to help save the girl at the party, Veronica acquiesces though it goes against her nature to do so. She came to the realization that she’ll push Logan away permanently if she doesn’t give him a chance to participate in her life. Unfortunately, his quest is in vain. He “saves” the wrong girl. When the ordeal is over, Logan keeps his distance from Veronica, but he is incapable of standing on the sidelines. In his own unique way, he helps exact punishment. He maneuvers himself into the same jail cell as Mercer and Moe, and…well, we don’t know exactly what he does, but we can assume that physical pain is involved.

This is completely understandable. By beating up Mercer (and perhaps Moe) Logan is fulfilling a role that Veronica has encouraged in the past. In “Weapons of Class Destruction,” Logan repeatedly hits Ben, the undercover federal agent. Following this, they share their first kiss. In “Not Pictured,” after spending the entire season broken up, Veronica and Logan finally reunite after he comes to Veronica’s rescue and tackles Cassidy to the ground, knocking the gun out of his hand.

Veronica doesn’t like to admit she needs anything. She’s the very definition of hard-boiled. Asking for help is showing vulnerability, and that is something Veronica refuses to do. But no (wo)man is an island, and everyone has needs. So what does Veronica need? Veronica needs someone who won’t hold her back. She needs someone who will stand by her, encouraging her as she makes her way through life. Keith seems to understand that.

But, note the similarity of these lines:

VERONICA to Logan: I am what I am.

MERCER to his victim: It’s a me thing.

Both make excuses for their destructive behavior. Veronica is no rapist, but she’s never going to have a loving partnership with Logan if she doesn’t learn to let him in.

Clearly, both Logan and Veronica need to make some changes if their relationship is ever going to work. Will their relationship ever be sunny-side up again? Neither is completely right or wrong, and that’s what makes the pairing so interesting. It’s an age-old power struggle. Veronica feels that asking for help is the equivalent of losing control over her own life. It’s a fine line that can be easily crossed, as Moe perfectly illustrates.

Hearst Rapist

Veronica uncovers Mercer as the rapist, and Moe as his accomplice. In a bizarre case of Stockholm Syndrome, Mercer uses Moe as the setup and cleanup guy. Moe doses the victims, gives Mercer access to their rooms and cleans up the evidence after the fact. It wouldn’t be surprising if Mercer is also the one leaving the “surprise” in the bathroom stall for Moe.

Like the insistent, repetitive lyrics of a techno song, Mercer wants his victims “right here, right now.” Mercer wants his pleasure without any personal interaction. He likes his victims over easy. And Moe is exactly the person Veronica never wants to be: someone blindly following orders, under the control of someone else, and at the expense of losing one’s own identity. Moe probably eats a lot of quiche.

When the other “rapes” occurred for which he wasn’t responsible, Mercer must have been thrilled. As far as he knew, the other rapes were real, and he likely assumed he had a copycat. Imitation is the highest form of flattery. As an added bonus, the other incidents only complicated the investigation into solving the mystery. In their zeal to banish the Pi Sigs, the members of the Lilith House only made it easier for Mercer to get away with his crimes.

New Mysteries

The A Mystery

Who poached the dean? I wager that his wife and Prof. Landry will be at the top of the suspect list. As might be some of the more impassioned members of the Lilith House—the egging scenes were pretty frightening. But we also know that Cyrus had a bit of gambling problem, and that too could be a key component to solving the mystery. The former Pi Sig frat brother Mel had a pretty threatening demeanor as well. I believe Cyrus was worried about more than Mel’s veiled threat to cut off contributions to Hearst College when he reinstated the fraternity.

There were two unexplained gaps of time: 1) the time between when Cyrus confronted his wife and when he returned to his office, and 2) the time between when Cyrus woke up to see eggs being pelted at his office window and before he was found by Weevil. Investigating these two time periods should help solve this mystery.

The B Mystery

When Veronica sees the pictures of the three Pi Sigs circled on Tim’s bulletin board, it appears that Tim suspects them for the rapes, but actually he was identifying his girlfriend Bonnie’s extracurricular dalliances.

TIM: I've known about all of them. I've known about every knuckle-dragging frat boy you've given a free ride. But guess what? I wasn't sitting back and taking it. Not at all! For every guy you were with, I was with someone new myself. Did you think I didn't know? I know everything!

But if he knew about all of them, why would he suddenly have such a strong reaction? He stormed into the party long after she arrived, so he most likely didn’t follow her and spot her with Dick. His wild outburst suggests that he may have been trying to establish an alibi. Bonnie is going to have to walk on egg shells around him.