Veronica Mars/Spit & Eggs

Spit & Eggs
Season 3, Episode 9
Airdate	November 28, 2006
Production Number	3T5809
Written by	Rob Thomas
Directed by	Rob Thomas
Stream
← 3x08 Lord of the Pi's	3x10 → Show Me the Monkey
Veronica Mars — Season Three

I'm just taking what you would have happily given. I mean, that's hardly a crime. —Mercer Hayes

Spit & Eggs is the ninth episode of the third season of Veronica Mars, the fifty-third episode overall, and the finale of The Hearst College Rapist mystery. Due to a sudden decision by Dean O'Dell to reinstate the Greek system at Hearst College, Pi Sigma Sigma throws a party that leads to Veronica finding out the identity of the rapist.

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

and Enrico Colantoni (Keith Mars)

Guest Starring: Ryan Devlin (Mercer Hayes), David Tom (Chip Diller), Andrew McClain (Moe Slater), James Jordan (Tim Foyle), Patrick Fabian (Prof. Hank Landry), Jaime Ray Newman (Mindy O'Dell), Chastity Dotson (Nish Sweeney), Jeremy Roberts (Mel Stoltz), Krista Kalmus (Claire Nordhouse), Charlie Koznick (Andrew "Birddog" Barndale)

and Ed Begley Jr. (Cyrus O'Dell)

Co-Starring: Brandon Hillock (Deputy Sacks), Cher Ferreyra (Fern Delgado), Samantha Brown (Cora/Dean's Asst.), Jennifer Thomas (Campus Crusader), Paul Gagliano (Rico Suave Nerd), Artie O'Daly (Rookie Deputy), Jamie Chung (Flirting Girl), Carlee Avers (Bonnie Capistrano), Whitney Anderson (Kim's Friend), David Blue (Beefy Resident), Steve McCarthy (Lead Singer), Brandy Ernst (Singer), Julie Lowery (Singer), Drew Messinger-Michaels (Second Resident), Joseph G. Williamson (Male Solo Dancer)

Plot Overview

In the wake of the Greek system being dismantled on campus, Veronica and Logan hash out their problems and break up once again when Logan explains that he isn't the person she wants him to be. But, while Veronica deals with her personal problems, Dean O'Dell is pressured by alumni who were part of fraternities to reinstate the Greek system or else money will be withheld. The Dean also faces issues with his wife's faithfulness and hires Keith to investigate what he assumes is a wild affair with her assistant.

Later that day, O'Dell stops by Piz's radio show to take him up on his standing offer to "defend himself" on the airwaves. During the program about what to do about the recently vacated Greek Row, O'Dell explains to the student body that the Greek system would be retained because one of the votes was considered a conflict of interests. Because of his decision, his car is egged and nearly destroyed by a bunch of angry feminists in Lilith House. He makes it to his office unscathed, where Keith tells him that his wife's assistant is gay so he has nothing to worry about. What he does have to worry about is an ad in the classified section of the newspaper saying that the next rape will occur at the Pi Sig party. Veronica suggests to the Dean, later on in the afternoon, that he require the Pi Sigs to make a special coaster that detects GHB available at their party.

Things take a turn, however, when Veronica tells her father that his good news to the Dean was only because he wasn't looking in the right place. She explains Mrs. O'Dell's affair with Professor Landry and he follows up on it with corroborating evidence like phone records. At the Pi Sig party that night, Veronica organizes her troops Mac, Piz and Wallace to detecting potential rape victims using the GHB finding coasters. However, when they get there, they find a cheap knock-off at the party instead of the legitimate versions from the Take Back the Night booth. Although the party has been uneventful as far as GHB goes, Tim Foyle does appear at one point to lose his mind at his girlfriend making out with Dick. After witnessing his meltdown, Veronica sees Logan and shares an awkward moment before Wallace and Piz show up with a dosed drink. Logan volunteers to help by driving to the potential victim's house to make sure she's safe.

While Veronica attempts to save someone from getting hurt, a very drunk Dean O'Dell arrives at the Neptune Grand to do the opposite with the aid of his handgun. At the party, a girl tells Veronica that Kim Kaiser wasn't at the party, but her sister Carrie was and walked back to her dorm. Once Veronica starts to take off towards the dorm, she hears a warping sound on Club Flush, Mercer's radio show, which indicates that the show is on a delay. Veronica bursts in on Mercer and the comatose girl before he can rape her. She tazes him but the two wind up in a struggle and her tazer is lost under the bed of the drugged girl, but she manages to stab Mercer in the leg with a unicorn shaped object she found under her bed. Veronica runs to Wallace's room in hopes of outrunning Mercer, but winds up being saved by Moe, the RA, instead, or so Veronica thinks; ot turns out that Mercer wasn't working alone and the RA was in on the rapes all along. The tea he gave her was drugged with GHB and she was locked in his room. In a bout of self-preservation Veronica calls her father and attempts to hide while misdirecting the rapists by opening a window to make them think she escaped.

Mercer and Veronica square off

Veronica's phone goes off while the two argue, betraying her position in the closet, but she does manage to hit Moe in the foot with the hammer she found. While he freaks out and tries to get out of their partnership, Veronica blows the rape whistle that Parker gave her with the coasters. While Mercer gets all of his GHB supply from his room, he runs into Parker, who screams rape. Mercer tries to deny everything and takes off with Moe shortly behind him. Parker finds Veronica in his room and her father takes her to the police station where she tells Keith that he has Moe's number and Moe isn't smart enough to turn off his phone after fleeing.

Veronica explains the scam to her friends, that Mo was the set-up man and Mercer was the rapist but it dawns on them that they haven't seen Logan in a while. Outside of a diner, Logan wails on a police car with a baseball bat so that the Neptune cops will put him into the same cell as Mercer and Moe. Also that morning, Weevil finds Dean O'Dell dead from a gunshot wound to the head in his office.

Notes

The Hearst College Rapist

• Mercer turns out to be the rapist with Moe (the RA) as his accomplice. Moe would find the victims through his work with ferrying drunk students back to their dorms and dose them with GHB. He would then hand off the room number and master key to Mercer, who would commit the rape and shave the head of the girl. Both are arrested by the sheriff's department and wind up in a cell with a very angry Logan.
• Veronica solves the mystery after Mercer disappears claiming to be on his way to start his live radio show, Club Flesh. However, when the show goes on-air, Veronica hears a technical glitch that leads Veronica to believe that the show is pre-recorded. Her interest piqued, she goes off to find Mercer after Wallace and Piz successfully identify a drugged drink.
• Mercer was suspected by Veronica as the rapist when Parker mentioned that his cologne smelled similar to the rapist's, but Logan gave Mercer an alibi by telling Veronica that they were both out of the country at the time. However, it is later found out that Lilith House faked these rapings to create more attention towards the rapes.

The Dean's Death

Weevil finds Cyrus O'Dell dead

• Dean O'Dell is found dead in his office. Among the suspects are the Lilith House, Mindy O'Dell, Professor Landry, Tim Foyle and suicide. Someone he knew was in his office between when eggs were being thrown at his office window (likely by Lilith House) and when he was found by Weevil.
• The mystery of the dean's presumed death will act as the third season's second arc mystery, lasting for six uninterrupted episodes from mid January to the end of February sweeps.

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• Greek Row: Although the board of trustees voted to remove the Greek system from campus, Dean O'Dell bent to pressure from a wealthy alumni who threatened to withhold donations if the fraternities weren't re-instated.
• Lilith House: Lilith House is furious at the Dean's decision to reinstate the Greek system and many members of the organization harass Dean O'Dell for the duration of the episode.

Characters

• Veronica and Logan: Veronica and Logan break up again when Logan tells her that he's clearly not the person she wants him to be, so they're better off dealing with the pain now than letting it build up and destroy them later.
• Logan: Logan is in jail at the end of the episode, furious at Mercer's attempted rape of Veronica.
• Moe and Mercer: After both characters are revealed to be conspirators in the Hearst Rapist mystery, they both end up in jail. There seems to be a prisoner-guard complex shared in their relationship, as Moe acts completely subservient to Mercer throughout.
• Dean O'Dell: Dean O'Dell is found dead in his office by a gunshot wound to the head at the end of the episode. The implication is that someone murdered him, because he exclaimed, "What are you doing here?" in his last scene before his death. Shortly before he dies, he realizes that his wife has been cheating on him by the professor of criminology at Hearst, Professor Landry.
• Mindy and Landry: Mindy O'Dell and Hank Landry are presumably caught by Cyrus O'Dell when he shows up in their room at the Neptune Grand. Although it seems like he is there to possibly murder one or both of them, Rob Thomas has confirmed that neither of them are dead, leading to the speculation that this may have been an idealistic dream the Dean has shortly before his death.

Referbacks

• 3x02 - My Big Fat Greek Rush Week: While Moe is losing it over the possibility of getting caught and sent to prison for aiding in the rapes, he calls Mercer "sir." When Mercer tells him to stop blubbering, he refers to him as "prisoner." The full extent of this connection is unknown, but it was apparently a callback to the sociology experiment. A picture of Mercer in fatigues and Moe in the mock prisoner uniform was pinned to Moe's wall and Moe had previously said that the experience was "life-changing."

Trivia

The Show

• Home Sweet Home: This marks Tina Majorino's first appearance as Mac since the second episode of this season, "My Big Fat Greek Rush Week."
• Missing in Action: Sheriff Lamb (Michael Muhney) does not appear in this episode. The last time all the billed characters appeared in a single episode together was the season two finale, Not Pictured.
• From the Middle: This is the first episode of the show to start in in medias res, a storytelling technique often used on shows such as Alias and Battlestar Galactica that is mainly used to hook the viewer in with the cold opening.
• Subliminal Messages: The coaster that the Take Back the Night booth is giving out to identify laced drinks has the CW logo on it.

• Music:
  • "Right Here, Right Now" by Fatboy Slim
  • "Have You Never Been Mellow" by Olivia Newton-John
  • "Sweet Caroline" by The Diamond Smugglers
  • "Thank the Lord for the Night Time" by The Diamond Smugglers
  • "Can't Get Over You" by the Digbees

Behind the Scenes

• Ratings: Approximately 3.44 million viewers tuned into the first-run airing of this episode, making this the highest rated episode of the season to date. After ratings for this episode were released, Rob Thomas received a call from The CW president Dawn Ostroff congratulating him on the news. Ostroff has been frequently cited as being a huge fan of the show.

Allusions and References

• Annie Hall: Annie Hall is a 1977 film written and directed by Woody Allen, it is widely considered his best work and is generally also his most memorable. The film tells the love story between Allen and Diane Keaton, although Allen has said that the film isn't autobiographical. In the movie, the main characters can often be seen smoking pot which often leads to a stream of conscious look at each character's past.

Mindy: I swear, I'm having an affair with Annie Hall.

• Charlie Chan: Charlie Chan was a very prominent detective in movies from the 1930s and 1940s.

Keith: Oh, very good, number one daughter. You might make a detective yet.

• Star Trek: Star Trek is one of the first science fiction shows to be created and has spawned a huge fanbase with a rich mythology and multiple spinoffs and movies dedicated to it. The quote Mac utters is a popular, well-known line from the show.

Mac: Resistance is futile.

• Junior League: The Junior League is an organization predominantly comprised of a group of wealthy women who do charitable work through dinners, balls, and other upper-class functions.

Cyrus O'Dell: If I recall correctly, these coincide with the nights of Mindy's Junior League meetings.

Memorable Moments

• Veronica and Mercer have a fight situated in near darkness.
• Veronica tries to hide from Moe and Mercer after being drugged by Moe.
• Keith tracks down Moe and Mercer using Moe's cellphone signal and ambushes them at a motel.
• Logan intentionally breaks the windshield of a police car in order to land himself in jail.

Quotes

• Dean O'Dell: Hot damn, I'm back in business. What would I do if you ever left me?

Weevil: Call human resources and have them send a replacement?

• Piz: Hey gang, what's the word? Is it avuncular?…No? Just a shot in the dark.

• Tim: Are we working together now? Are we Starsky and Butch?

Veronica: Cagney and Pasty.

• Mac: Will they let me in? I think all the glitter has come off my porn star tube top.

• Tim: That's it, Bonnie. I've had enough! I've known about all of them. I've known about every knuckle-dragging frat boy you've given a free ride, but guess what. I wasn't sitting back and taking it. Not at all! For every guy you were with, I was with someone new myself. Did you think I didn't know? I know everything!

Bonnie: Looks like I'm single.

• Mercer: Unicorns? Really? Well, we'll definitely be needing some mood music. You know, techno has a bad reputation, but I think it's undeserved. Groan if you disagree…good. We're on the same page. It's unfortunate that when you wake up, all you'll know is that your hair is gone…because it's gonna be good. I'd wager your best ever. And it's a me thing, I'm sorry to say. I…have no patience. I mean, if I'd met you in a bar or at a party, I would have had you back here and on your back in an hour. But that's an hour of my life I would have never had back, an hour of listening to you talk about unicorns and your high school boyfriend and how you hate the taste of beer. I'm just taking what you would have happily given. I mean, that's hardly a crime.

• Dean O'Dell: What are you doing here?