This week, we got in one last Theme Song Chair Dance with the finale of season 2 before they gave us the depressing season 3 version. I like how the season 3 credits look, I just don’t dig how they sound.

S02E22 “Not Pictured”

Oh, Mac. And oh, Cassidy, too. There’s little to redeem Beaver but I do think that he might have taken everything that Mac could have used to cover herself to keep her safe. Sure, he’s a violent, devious sociopath, but he loved her as much as he could.

Woody was a creepy pedophile. Jackie’s life wasn’t as glamorous as she wanted everyone to believe. Keith thinks that chlamydia is the clap. It’s not. That’s gonorrhea.

S03E01 “Welcome Wagon”

I have a major problem with this episode. Anyone who has been living in Neptune for the past few years with a serious professional or academic interest in criminology would know who Veronica Mars is. Sure, she was a minor when Aaron was arrested but she wasn’t when she testified at his trial or when she was on a roof with the person responsible for the bus crash before he killed himself. Dr. Landry and Timothy Foyle should have seen that she was on the class list and they probably would have known what she looked like. Media types are usually quite happy to frame their story on pretty blonde girls and this pretty blonde girl was heavily involved.

Besides Veronica’s new criminology professor and TA, we meet Wallace and Mac’s new roommates, Piz and Parker. In other words, Wallace and Mac get to live on campus because we’re done doing Alicia storylines and Mac’s parents are more like plot devices but Veronica lives at home because Keith Mars is awesome.

Apparently not awesome enough when the writers need him to be a little oblivious. How is Veronica better at noticing when Vinnie has planted a pen with a bug in it on her than Keith is? We’re not supposed to think that he actually was a bumbling sheriff. His whole storyline just feels like a bumbled attempt at closing the Fitzgerald storyline from the previous season.

When Veronica said that she had to do “the one-handed self-portrait”, it struck me just how pervasive the term “selfie” has become. I had a sudden longing for 2006. It was a more innocent time.

Moe is a bad Battlestar Galactica fan. “Frak” is not the profanity of the future because BSG does not take place in the future. I’ll allow it, though, because it is pretty adorable how Veronica adopts the term herself.

S03E02 “My Big Fat Greek Rush Week”

Hey, the ’00s were when Rachelle Lefevre guest starred on all the TV shows. Let’s go back to that time. I don’t begrudge her steady employment but Under the Dome was terrible. Save Rachelle and her pretty hair!

I don’t know much about pot but I doubt that the house mother would have needed an entire room full of plants in order to have enough medical marijuana. I’ll handwave that aside, though, in order to discuss the actual story. Zeta Theta Beta are harmless. They do not seem to have contributed much to the environment that led to Parker’s rape. I do think that it was OK that Nish published Veronica’s story but she didn’t have to be so gleeful about it. I often wish that the show hadn’t made the group of feminists so militant but that type of feminist group does often exist on the campus of a liberal arts college and it’s OK when you balance it with the mostly well-meaning sorority and characters like Veronica and Mac.

Mac is healing. She feels guilty that her representation of Parker to Veronica may have led to Veronica not interrupting the rape and possibly catching the rapist. She doesn’t let that guilt cut her off from Parker, though. Instead, she reaches out to her and both of them can heal together.

The Logan and Wallace story is absurd. I really like that pairing and I got a certain joy from seeing Rider Strong and Samm “The Ma’am” Levine on my screen but there is no possible way that a professor would run the Stanford prison experiment in the 21st century. It just wouldn’t be done. It’s unethical. It did lead to us getting to see a large portion of Jason Dohring’s naked body, though, so I’ll learn to be OK with the fact that the writers obviously wrote down “Stanford prison experiment” when they made a list of college storylines.

S03E03 “Wichita Linebacker”

Hi, Armie Hammer from the past! Don’t sign on to be the Lone Ranger. It’s not good.

Hey, Veronica, Logan is going to school despite the fact that he might not actually have to in order to be set for life. Needle him a bit over the fact that he should maybe dedicate himself to his other classes as much as he does weightlifting but don’t give him crap for taking weightlifting. It is an actual class plus I’m just going to decide that Hearst has a PE requirement that you too will have to meet. In other words, neither Veronica nor Logan is doing particularly well in this relationship and I know that Logan knows about her trust issues but she should ease off a bit. Don’t try to change a guy, Veronica.

Of course, that’s the point of this episode. Trish loves the smart, intellectual side of Kurt but she doesn’t get the part of him that is loyal and cares about his football team. She just wants to brush that part of him aside but you have a relationship with the whole person and sometimes even the parts of that person that you don’t necessarily like or understand are still admirable.

The Keith and Weevil relationship is always a great one to explore. It feels right that Weevil would throw himself into investigating just a little too much and ruin his chances. He deserves a chance to turn his life around but it’s not going to be a smooth road.

Fortunately, Veronica’s new uneasy relationship with Dean O’Dell gets Weevil a different job and a chance to stay on the road to rehabilitation. I love Ed Bagley Jr. in this role and that wasn’t something I thought I’d ever say. He’s the perfect combination of someone who’s a little politically incorrect and out of touch yet someone who is more or less effective at his job.

S03E04 “Charlie Don’t Surf”

Super spoilery episode title! It’s pretty obvious that “Charlie” isn’t the real Charlie when he mentions surfing if you know the title. It was nice to have this little bit of network synergy without being too gimmicky. Still, it would have been interesting to see the Logan from Gilmore Girls actually interact with the Logan from Veronica Mars. He might have been able to show Logan Echolls that sometimes the poor little rich boy can grow up a little bit.

The show itself may have done that, though. Logan gets to see that while he is wealthier than your average eighteen year-old college student that he will actually have to take some responsibility for his income. He also learns that despite how his girlfriend often acts, jumping to revenge is not often the best tactic. Poor Charlie Stone was outed by the brother he never asked for.

Speaking of Veronica, ease off! Yes, you have a reason to be nervous about dinner with your dad and your boyfriend at your apartment. That can be a little nerve wrecking in any situation and it’s much worse in this case. Keith bodily threw Logan out of the apartment just over a year before. That being said, they both tried to get along and make small talk. If you’re that ashamed about pretty much ever part of your boyfriend then maybe he shouldn’t be your boyfriend anymore.

For the rest of the episode, Keith is all busy flirting with Laura San Giacomo’s Harmony Chase. It’s the Just Shoot Me reunion that no one was asking for!

S03E05 “President Evil”

Clearly this episode was the reason that Veronica started wearing the star necklace again this season. She wore it and the same choker all of season 1 then it went away but now it’s back so that it can be ripped away from her throat, inspiring her to hunt down the burglars.

We’re still following Weevil on his rocky road to rehabilitation. Even Veronica, who has mostly acted as champion, isn’t certain that he can really do it. He’s the first person she fingers as one of the culprits of the burglary. Instead, it was the security guards which makes sense because security guard is generally not a well-paying job and security at Hearst seems to be particularly awful, what with all the rapes and all.

S03E06 “Hi, Infidelity”

Cheating of all kinds in this episode. Veronica is accused of cheating on her criminology paper just so that Timothy Foyle can show her that her new mentor is sleeping with the dean’s wife. A car crash leads Keith to sleep with the married Harmony Chase because apparently when a member of the Mars family gets out of a life-or-death situation then they sleep with someone for the first time (see: Veronica losing her virginity to Duncan in season 2).

More importantly, though, is that Piz’s silly crush on Veronica leads to an awkward bowling double date which leads to Parker developing a silly crush on Piz in an attempt to move on which leads to progress on the shaved head rape storyline. Of course, it’s still two episodes until that can be solved and Logan immediately tells us that Mercer is most likely a red herring, albeit in a super shady way.

Next week, we get to finish up the rape arc which is great because it is super awkward to write about.