Veronica Mars S1 Ep2: Credit Where Credit's Due

Original US airdate: Sept. 28th, 2004

Rewatched: Sept. 28th, 2024

This episode’s case of the week highlights the tensions between the 09ers, as the rich kids of Neptune are known, and the non-09ers, represented mainly by Veronica and Weevil, head of the PCH gang.

At an 09er party at dog beach, we meet Logan’s girlfriend Caitlin, played by a real-life 09er, Paris Hilton, and Duncan’s friend Troy Vandegraff, who’s family is moving to Neptune. Weevil and his gang crash the party, and it looks like it will end in violence when the police arrive. The next day, the police show up at Weevil’s house. Weevil assumes they want to arrest him for the party the previous night, but instead, they want to arrest his grandmother, a maid at the Echoll’s house, for credit card fraud. Veronica is asked by Cliff McCormack, the grandmother’s lawyer, to investigate. Everyone assumes Weevil did it. But the truth is that Weevil’s cousin Chardo stole the credit cards, using them to date Caitlin in style. Chardo tries to leave Neptune with Caitlin, assuming she loves him enough to leave her life behind, but she doesn’t. She turns her back on him and is willing to let the 09er guys beat him up. Weevil shows up and talks to Logan, who lets Chardo leave with the PCHers. Chardo is forced to leave the gang (they beat him up) and leaves Neptune. Neither group comes off well, and that may be the point. The 09ers and the PCHers are both exclusionary. Both have strict rules about who can belong and who cannot. And both have consequences for not toeing the line. The only thing that separates them is money. One group has it and one doesn’t.

A final interesting point on this topic is what Weevil says to Veronica. He tells her that she’s not one of them, and not fully on the outside of the 09ers. And he’s right. Veronica (and her father) may have lost a lot of status in Neptune, and all their friends, but there are still people who respect them and remember when they were part of the in-group. Veronica can even be sympathetic to Caitlin, understanding why she would hide her relationship with Chardo. This underscores that Veronica has not fully lost her privilege, which may also be helped by her gender and race. While she has her own struggles, she may not fully grasp the struggles a kid like Weevil has faced.

The second important story line is, of course, Veronica’s investigation of Lilly’s murder. There is some tension between Duncan and Veronica this episode, possibly because they end up spending more time together (working on the newspaper together). Through flashbacks, we learn more about how her father, Keith, thought Jake Kane was involved in Lilly’s death, but there was backlash from the community and her father was run out of office. Veronica feels like she pays every day for the decision she made to stick with her father rather than her friends. And she keeps finding clues that indicate something doesn’t add up in the case. In this episode, she finds out Lilly was issued a speeding ticket on the day of her death, two hours after her time of death.

On a final note, Veronica learns that Wallace is an office aide at the school, and she asks him for her first favor. She will ask for many more. This in some ways mirrors how Buffy's friends help her. In contrast to Buffy, however, Veronica can sometimes ignore the costs of helping her.