Veronica Mars/Poughkeepsie, Tramps and Thieves

Poughkeepsie, Tramps and Thieves
Season 3, Episode 11
Airdate	January 30, 2007
Production Number	3T5811
Written by	Diane Ruggiero
Directed by	John Kretchmer
Stream
← 3x10 Show Me the Monkey	3x12 → There's Got to Be a Morning After Pill
Veronica Mars — Season Three

Poughkeepsie, Tramps and Thieves is the eleventh episode of the third season of Veronica Mars, and the fifty-fifth episode overall. Veronica is hired by Max to find a woman who he only knows the name of, while Keith investigates the egging of the Dean's window.

Starring: Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars), Jason Dohring (Logan Echolls), Percy Daggs III (Wallace Fennel (credit only)), Ryan Hansen (Richard "Dick" Casablancas) (credit only), Julie Gonzalo (Parker Lee) (credit only), Chris Lowell (Stosh "Piz" Piznarski) (credit only), Tina Majorino (Cindy "Mac" Mackenzie) (credit only), Michael Muhney (Sheriff Don Lamb), Francis Capra (Eli "Weevil" Navarro)

and Enrico Colantoni (Keith Mars)

Guest Starring: Adam Rose (Max), Chastity Dotson (Nish Sweeney), Cher Ferreyra (Fern Delgado), Krista Kalmus (Claire Nordhouse), Brianne Davis (Chelsea / Fiona / Wendy), Christopher Carley (Brian's Co-Worker), Richard Keith (Brian), Jackie Debatin (Chelsea / Fiona / Wendy's Agent)

Co-Starring: Brandon Hillock (Deputy Sacks), Nathan Frizzell (Fred), Amanda Noret (Madison Sinclair), Laura Roth (Nicki), Julia Lehman (Lizette), Robert "Bonecrusher" Mukes (Imposing Guy), Windell D. Middlebrooks (Big Scary Man/Happy)

Plot Overview

Veronica is hired by Max, whom she calls Sir Cheatsalot, who wants her to find the woman he loves before she gets married. The catch is, Max doesn't know anything about her other than her first name, Chelsea, and is threatening to kill himself if he loses her. He explains that he met her at a comic book convention and that the two "connected on a higher plane." She told him that she left a note with her information on it in her room before she got on her flight back home to Poughkeepsie but housekeeping did away with it. He knows she's getting married because she sent him a text message, but his roommate accidentally erased it. He did write down the number before that incident and Veronica discovers that the phone belongs to a guy that conveniently goes to Hearst. While interrogating him in the food court, she sees Max's roommate, who she instantly pegs as "Chelsea."

Veronica explains to Max that Chelsea is a hooker hired by Max's friends to try and loosen him up by getting him to lose her identity. She also explains that she was coached by them and the moment that Max had with her probably wasn't legitimate. Max still insists that Veronica find his hooker, despite the facts. Veronica is told by Max's friends that they hired her off of an escort search engine, but Chelsea has apparently changed her working name since the Comic-Con adventure. They narrow the search down to two from thousands thanks to the memory of Max's roommates, but they aren't sure which of the two it is. So, Veronica hires both to come to Logan's apartment. The two meet Max there after an awkward conversation about how many prostitutes Logan has been with, but the two finalists don't show up until late that night. The first to appear is "Lizette," who isn't the girl in question. They pay her, she goes on her way and is quickly replaced with "Fiona," who is the girl that Max is looking for.

"Fiona" explains that he name is really Wendy and that she really was upset over leaving Max. Eventually they're interrupted by Madison, who shows up just to be kind of a bitch. The next morning, Keith puts on his old sheriff's uniform in order to question Claire and Fern in their apartment. Keith says that he thinks that they egged the dean's office while they were out egging various campus hot spots and intimidates them into giving her up, until Nish slinks out of the back and blows his cover. She claims to have been egging the dean's car at the time Claire and Fern were egging his window.

Meanwhile, Veronica is hired by Max for a second time, this time to help Wendy disappear so that she can cleanly get out of the prostitution game. Veronica agrees, but as this is happening, a battered woman appears at Logan's door looking for Wendy. She's forced to go back to her pimp for fear of her co-worker getting beaten again. Max goes into a depressed stupor that he's knocked out of when Veronica realizes that there's purple make-up on the towel and Max was duped out of $1000. At this point, Veronica changes her plan of action to seeking revenge in Max's name. She blackmails a judge, who's one of Wendy's most frequent clients. This gets rid of Max and allows Veronica and Logan some alone time, which brings back the hooker question. He also admits that he may have blacked out in Mexico and was with a girl who "meant less than nothing" to him while they were separated.

The next day Max and Veronica go to the bus terminal to pick up their loot, but they only find a note threatening Wendy and demanding that they get into a limo parked outside. Inside the limo are "Mr. Happyfists" and Wendy's "agent," the woman who turned up with bruises from before. Max offers to pay Wendy's $10,000 that she owes the pimp in order to free her from the game. Despite Veronica's protests and better judgment, Max's decision turns out to be one that he doesn't regret when Wendy is waiting for him in his dorm. Unfortunately, Max has a hard time coping with his new girlfriend's days as a stripper, especially when his roommate asks her if she's strip at their friend's bachelor party. He's led to ask her if she really left her information at the hotel after he dropped her at their airport. She admits that she didn't and he has a harder time at accepting this. She winds up leaving him after this incident because of his inability to reconcile her former job and tells him that she'll pay him back. She later sent him a package with a thousand vertically folded $1 bills.

After all of the hooker drama, Veronica decides to take her advice and get some sexy lingerie, but she meets Madison there where she admits to being the girl who meant less than nothing to him while they were separated.

Notes

The Dean's Death

• Fern and Claire own up to being the ones who egged the Dean's window, while Nish claims that she egged the Dean's Volvo. However, he was driving the minivan that night and his wife had the Volvo.

Trivia

Allusions and References

• Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves: The title of the episode is a play on the song title "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves," originally by Cher. The song was the first by Cher to top the Billboard Hot 100 charts in 1971.

• Dave Gibbons: Dave Gibbons is a comic book writer and artist most famous for doing the art for Watchmen a seminal 12 issue maxiseries written by Alan Moore which aided in turning comic books into adult-oriented literature. The graphic novel referenced by Max is likely The Originals, which was published in 2005 by Vertigo, an imprint of DC Comics.

Max: I was there because Dave Gibbons has a new graphic novel that he scripted as well as drew.

• American Beauty: Veronica references a scene from American Beauty, in which Wes Bentley showed Thora Birch a video he filmed of a plastic bag blowing in the wind. He used that exact phrase to describe it, which is often mocked for putting too much importance in the trivialities of life.

Veronica: And how when you see a plastic bag blowing in the wind you think there's so much beauty in the world, you can't take it?

• Weird Science: Picking an escort using an exact description on the search engine is similar to the plot of Weird Science, a 1980s movie and later TV series about two nerds who design their perfect woman with the aid of a computer. The woman then comes into reality when a combination of hacking into a government mainframe and a lightning strike create her.

Veronica: How very "Weird Science."

Quotes

• Keith: Will you be home for dinner?

Veronica: No, I'm meeting two hookers over at Logan's later.

Keith: On a school night?

Veronica: Off-peak hours, save a few bucks.

Keith: You're not really…

Veronica: Fiona and Lizette. They're just a couple of gals putting themselves through college.

(Keith stares)

Veronica: Man, quit bringing me down with your bourgeois hangups.