Veronica Mars 3.15: Papa's Cabin

"Well, first, I'd break into someone's office, act really weaselly, and then ask their advice."

The final episode of the Who Killed Dean O'Dell arc has come to an end, and the final mystery arc of the season. And maybe of the entire series. Which really sucks, but hopefully Dawn Ostroff (Creative VP of Programming at The CW, and ex-head of UPN) won't inflict this on the show. The whole point is that it's a mystery show. Whatever. ANYWAYS, the final episode of the arc was pretty insane. I remember reading an interview with Rob Thomas saying that this final episode of the arc would be different from all other arc finales in that as opposed to Veronica solving the mystery halfway through the episode, then being menaced by the killer/culprit at the end, then saved by someone else (being chased through a junkyard by Aaron Echolls, then saved by Keith; threated by a gun and tasered on the Neptune Grand roof by Beaver, then saved by Logan; beaten up by Mercer in the dorm hallway, then saved by Parker), she was going to deduce through logic the killer and have a Sherlock Holmes finale that way. And boy, was it awesome.

In other storyland, Veronica gives her blessing for Logan and Parker to start dating, even though it kinda pains both of them; there is going to be a special election to determine the sheriff of Balboa County (or is it Neptune County now? Hmmm... are the continuity fairies overlooking this, or is there some reasonable real estate reason that this has changed that I'm unaware of?) since Keith is taking over only temporarily.

The explanation of the crime is completely convoluted and complicated, but I wouldn't have it any other way: Mindy explains that Dean O'Dell barged into the hotel room, confronts her and Landry, then tells Landry that he's gonna fire him and take away his tenure. He storms off and she's the one who visits his office during the time that Nish, Claire, and Fern were egging the office. She calms him down, giving him the Xanax, then returns to an empty hotel room. Landry is arrested, but he counters that the Dean also threatened Mindy with the pre-nup and she'd get ZIP. Mindy skips town after getting the life insurance check (which totally makes Mindy O'Dell a femme fatale in terms of the plot), and she buys a boat. Veronica and Tim team up to free Landry, and get him freed due to some fake alibi with a stripper bumming a smoke off him. By the time Keith figures that it's a fake alibi, Landry's skipped town looking for Mindy, who he believes framed him. Veronica listens to Landry's phone calls, hears a reference to "Papa's Cabin," and also hears Landry totally trash Tim to a potential employer. Awkward.

Keith is the one who solves what Papa's Cabin refers to, which is a Cabo getaway, and the scene in which he does it is absolutely hilarious since you have Veronica and Tim giving ridiculous reasoning as to where Landry could be, when Keith is all "Cabo. Duh!" Great. Anyways, in Cabo, we see that Landry has "accidentally" killed Mindy, which lands him in jail, as well as framing Batando to save Mindy, who he feels was the killer. Landry's arrested, Tim's made professor of the course, and he asks Veronica to be his TA. AH, but WAIT. All is not done: the missing piece of clue is the phone bug, which Veronica discovers in her phone, and she figures that Tim is the real killer, framing Landry for trashing him for this job. And they have a stare-down in the classroom which is amazing.

And I spot UCLA grad on Veronica Mars #3 in this episode: Robert Bastron, who plays one of Veronica's classmates. The others being Tanya Chisholm, playing Nancy Cooper (Rape Victim #...3 or something), and the eternally awesome James Jordan, who played Lucky the school-shooting janitor in Season Two and Tim now. Which means that Dean O'Dell's killer once gave me a drunken wedgie. Kinda cool.

This episode was pretty great, but it was a bit different than the previous ones, not because of the lack of thriller-ness, which a lot of people didn't care for, but because catching O'Dell's killer wasn't of super-major intensity to Veronica (whereas finding Lilly's killer and the bus bomber was, and the rapist became important once he tried to rape Veronica), so there was a lack of... conenction, despite the fact that she liked O'Dell so much. Alas. But, still awesome stuff. But, now, six weeks off, thanks to Who Will be the next Whore Pussycat Doll or whatever it is.

All in all: A-

Until then, same bat time, same bat channel.