"We Used to Be Friends" Re-Watch: "Blast from the Past" & "Rat Saw God"

 Veronica Mars

Just when you think that the second season of "Veronica Mars" can't cram more into it, the show has decided to re-visit scenes from season one! Let's get to it.

"Blast from the Past"

Veronica Mars: "Can I ask you something first?"

Duncan Kane: "Yes to costumes, no to props."

Veronica attempts to bond with Jackie by helping her figure out who stole her credit card, but Veronica could end up further from friendship than when they started. Wallace deals with the knowledge that his biological dad is back in his life and that his mother lied to him. The sheriff's race between Lamb and Keith heats up and becomes less of a sure thing for former Sheriff Mars.

Frenemies.

This show really wants you to hate Jackie Cook. It's a tough thing to do to make people dislike Tessa Thompson. But they are doing a great job. From the moment Veronica tells Jackie about the Mammamax, you just know that it is going to come back to bite her in the... chest. Not only that but the duplicitous Madame Sophie brings up Lilly before she decides to bring up Veronica's secret shame. And I think we all know by now that if you humiliate Veronica Mars, even if its just on a public access television show, she is going to get revenge and that's exactly what Veronica sets out to do.

See, it turns out that Veronica has put a literal bug in Lamb's office. And she just happened to hear Lamb extorting Jackie's father because Lamb knows that Terrence Cook bet on baseball. So Veronica burns that on to a CD and was going to play it at the Homecoming dance. That is wild. You embarrassed me on a TV show that not a lot of people saw, so I'm going to expose your dad's criminal activities to the whole school. You slightly embarrass me and I'm going to ruin your life. I don't think that I have thought much about that until this re-watch. Wallace convinces Veronica to let this go and not ruin the life of the girl he likes and he acquiesces. But he does end up breaking up with her because if Wallace is going to do one thing it's going to ride for Wallace. And ya know, Jackie does end up pilled out at the dance, alone and making a fool of herself. So, Veronica gets the last laugh.

Speaking of Wallace, he is not having a good time. I do think that it is nice for Wallace to to have his very own storyline. I'm not sure how I feel about Wallace's big season two storyline being the return of his possibly deadbeat, ex-undercover cop, formerly addicted to drugs dad showing up out of the blue. Alicia tells Wallace a convincing story about how Nathan Woods, Wallace's biological dad, succumbed to the drug kingpin lifestyle and chose it over Wallace. To the point where you're like, look at Wallace. Being mature and forgiving his mother. How nice.

But we should have known that there was more to the story. I have to say that I think that Percy Daggs III does really great work in this episode. We don't see a lot of serious Wallace but we do here. I do think that one of my favorite Wallace moments is when he sings "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" to Nathan when he shows up at the Sac n' Pac to present Wallace with the letters he wrote him that Alicia sent back. When Wallace realizes that Alicia lied to him, it changes everything. And we get to see a serious Wallace and it sort of exposes some cracks in the Veronica/Wallace friendship. Wallace is absolutely correct when he calls out Veronica for not wanting to do this one thing for him, when he does so much for her no questions ask. To be fair, Veronica is moved by it, but I think it still contributes to his decision to take off with Nathan at the end of the episode.

Our bus crash update ties in to Keith's B plot. At the start of the episode, Keith is riding high with a twelve point lead over Lamb. But then at the debate, Lamb reveals that when Keith was a deputy, he pulled Ed Doyle over for drinking and driving but let him go with a warning. This makes the race much tighter. Things could potentially shift though when Veronica gets a hold of a voicemail that someone left from the bus and you can hear an explosion before the bus goes over the cliff. Keith could use this to get a leg up but instead he takes it to Lamb because Keith is a good guy. He also takes Veronica's bug with him when he goes.

Grade: B+

"Rat Saw God"

Veronica Mars: "Cliff, come on, you owe me."

Cliff McCormack: "I owe you? Who un-confiscated all your fake college IDs?"

Veronica Mars: "Who got the Lincoln out of your ex's name?"

Cliff McCormack: "Well, who helped put that lien against Lee's Walk-In Donut?"

Veronica Mars: "And who proved that stripper was color blind?"

Cliff McCormack: "Okay, who am I calling and what am I giving them?"

The election results are in and on the same night, the man who called in the murder of Felix Toombs shows up at the sheriff's station. Logan is arrested and gets Cliff as his public defender. He also has a Lamb arranged family reunion in lock up. Veronica is approached by Abel Koontz to locate his missing daughter, Amelia DeLongpre, before he dies.

Advanced Interrogation Techniques

What do you do when you have to service a  large cast of series regulars and you have four hundred ongoing storylines and you are six episodes into the season? Well, you send one of the main characters away. That's right. Wallace Fennel doesn't make an appearance in this episode and because he's not in it, we don't see Jackie either, which is a little strange because of how the last episode ended. It's weird to not have Wallace in the episode and Veronica does kind of seem unmoored because of it. It's nice for the show to show us how much Wallace means to Veronica. He's her gal Friday. She needs him. And it has to be driving her crazy to be e-mailing him over and over again and not getting any responses. I'm glad that we get to see that. 

You'd be forgiven for thinking that you were watching an episode from season one because so much of this episode is tying up loose ends from season one and we may be missing some season two season regulars but that is OK because we have some season one characters filling the void. Abel Koontz is back and he's at death's door. He just wants to reunite with his daughter who took off with her Kane Settlement and disappeared last season. So, this sends Veronica on an episode long quest to track her from college to Ibiza to an ice machine at a seedy motel.

Oof. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this episode, particularly when it comes to the fate of Amelia DeLongpre. Did she have to be murdered by some douchebag diplomats son she met in Ibiza after he forced to extort more money from Kane Software? Like the reveal of her killer is just an afterthought. And it feels like Amelia dies because the show really wants to drive home that Abel Koontz lived a tragic life. We already knew that! And, she doesn't even tell him. I just don't like women being murdered to service a man's story and I feel like "Veronica Mars" is better than that.

If there is one good thing that comes out of all this, it is the inexplicable team up of Veronica Mars and head of security for Kane Software, Clarence Wiedman. I love when Veronica spars with adults. And usually the adults that Veronica spars with are not at her level, but Clarence definitely is. And it's cool to see them teaming up and playing their own twisted version of good cop/bad cop. Clarence is dangling innocent exes out of their dorm windows while Veronica pretends to be a scared teenage girl. I really think that we need to see more of this pairing in the future and I don't remember if we do.

The other big season one comeback is Aaron Echolls who proves what a monumental piece of shit he is. If there was ever any doubt (and there shouldn't be), he is absolutely one of the worst characters in the history of television. Harry Hamlin really sells it. You can feel the oily, actor slickness just oozing from Aaron when he talks to Logan in the holding cell, trying to pin Lilly's murder on Duncan and his attempted murder of Veronica on temporary insanity. It's difficult to tell if he is just getting high on his own supply or if he has honestly convinced himself. And then in the cell with Keith, when Keith boldly and nonchalantly threatens Aaron, you kind of see the mask that he's holding in place slip.

Logan is under arrest for the murder of Felix Toombs again after the witness on the bridge comes forward and IDs him. Lamb asks no questions. Like, why are you coming forward now. He is the literal worst. I didn't realize I needed more of Logan and Cliff together until I saw their scenes. I feel like Logan could potentially grow up to be Cliff if he wasn't insanely wealthy. Cliff is spitting out one liners so fast, there's no way you can catch them all. And it's not a surprise to hear that he is winning Logan over before he heads off on bail. Speaking of Logan's bail, he exits jail to find that the PCH'ers have torched his mansion in retaliation for his quick bail. Logan then buys Weevil's grandmother's house and threatens to evict her. This isn't going to end well. And I'm not even going to mention that Logan and Duncan are now living together at the Neptune Grand. Yes, move your girlfriend's ex into your suite. Smart.

In our bus crash updated, Lamb lets it slip o Keith that Veronica was brought in after Curly Moran's body washed up on the beach. Veronica tells Keith the whole story and how she believes the crash was meant to silence her so she couldn't testify at Aaron Echolls's trial. This is what leads Keith to confront Aaron and to break in to where the exhumed bus is being held at the end of the episode. While hiding from a security guard, Keith discovers a rat taped to the underside of one of the seats. The plot thickens...

Grade: B

Next up, Veronica goes undercover to expose the parents of an abused child Meg used to babysit for and she and Keith team up when a bus crash victims family is being blackmailed.

What did you guys think? Did you like the focus on Wallace? Do you hate Jackie? Were you excited to see the return of some season one folks? Let me know in the comments.