Veronica Mars Re-Watch: You Think You Know Somebody (Season 1 Episode 5)

And we’re back!

We’re checking back in to Neptune with the fifth episode of the first season of Veronica Mars, “You Think You Know Somebody,” which deals primarily with the theme of betrayal. And oh, boy. This episode is chock full of that, buddy.

Mystery of the Week

This is one of the mysteries that hits closest to home for our titular spunky blonde heroine, and she isn’t “hired” to handle the case in the traditional sense. After a spontaneous bro trip to Tijuana with Logan and Neptune High rando Luke (played by the ever-adorable Sam Huntington), Veronica’s brand new boyfriend, Troy, finds his father’s car has been “stolen.”

Troy, with the threat of being sent away to boarding school hanging over his head, accepts Veronica’s offer to use her mad skillz to track down the missing vehicle. Detective girlfriend perks!

In the trunk of said sweet ride, unfortunately, is a piñata of steroids that Luke was tasked with carting back stateside at the behest of a ‘roided up gym owner by the awesomely awful name of Hank Zigman. Veronica manages to assist Luke with gathering the $8,000 needed for Ziggy’s refund and gets Ziggy off Luke’s back by cleverly passing around his photo and information about his drug smuggling to the Mexico border patrol agents. She does this in such a way that the revenge can’t be traced back to her — Ziggy has no idea she took the photo of him, or even what her name is. As far as he knows, border patrol just got smart. Clever girl, as usual.

But Ziggy is just one of two antagonists in this episode. The first season of Veronica Mars (really the whole show, but in particular the first season) is not lacking for amazing and unexpected twists, but the end reveal to this mystery (spoiler: it was Troy!) is a great minor one in the show’s canon.

Mommy Issues

While Keith is ushering some of Lianne’s things out of the apartment and into storage, Veronica takes a peek into the box of stuff. She does this because she’s noticeably rattled to discover that her father is moving on from her absentee mother, by dating Veronica’s guidance counselor Rebecca (albeit briefly). Some part of Veronica believes that her family can be reunited.

She tries to be cool about the whole counselor Rebecca relationship at first, but she ends up folding pretty quickly and digging up some dirt on Keith’s would-be paramour. Keith flips at Veronica’s intrusiveness, but very quickly realizes he needs to end the Rebecca thing out of respect for Veronica’s tumultuous and hurt feelings.

I’m torn on how this all went down. On the one hand, Keith is open and honest with Veronica. He explains that being with Rebecca has made him feel happy and wanted in a way that’s been lacking ever since Veronica’s mother left. And why shouldn’t he have that? Veronica harshly accuses Keith of not wanting her mother to even come back, saying that if Lianne were a murderer or bail-jumper, Keith would do his job and have her back in a minute. She’s not wrong, of course, and Keith basically implies as much.

But this always strikes me as rather naive of Veronica. Lianne ran away! Up until this very episode, when she discovers the pictures of herself in the gun sights in the secret safety deposit box, she believed that her mother had run away without cause. Keith, to Veronica’s knowledge, still believes this.

How could she think it makes any kind of sense for Keith to go retrieve a wife that apparently doesn’t want to be with him, dragging her back? That’s a recipe for failure right there, and is basically what happens later in the season (minus the dragging back). The stage is set for this with Lianne’s phone call at the end.

Who’s Your (Best) Daddy? Still Keith Mars.

Keith continues to be an all-star TV dad. He’s right up there with other all time greats like Joe West on The Flash, in my not-so-humble opinion.

This is one of the first of a few instances where we see Keith be emotionally raw and a little bit stern with Veronica. Their relationship is clearly beyond a typical father/daughter one; they depend on one another. They are, at this point, all that the other has. Veronica is devoid of mother, boyfriend, best friend, all in basically one fell swoop. Who she has is Keith. Keith, having lost his career, his wife, his standing in their town, has only his beloved daughter. This episode really underscores that bond.

Keith voices the fact that Rebecca makes him happy. They are on track to have a nice, healthy relationship. Keith foregoes that, breaking up with Rebecca, because he knows Veronica can’t handle it at the moment. Seriously, what a guy. Even Rebecca can’t fault him for it.

Keith also pulls the most dad move of all when he turns the tables on Veronica, handing her the envelope containing all of Troy’s dirty secrets shortly after Veronica gives him the dirt she dug up on Rebecca. Which, as far as dirt goes, totally paled in comparison to Keith’s dirt on Troy.

Troy/Veronica ‘Ship Goes Boom: Goodbye to All That

Well, it was nice while it lasted.

Aaron Ashmore, as per usual, is utterly adorable and charming as Troy Vandegraff — that is, until he is revealed to be actively despicable in record time. While Veronica thinks she is helping her boyfriend avoid being carted off to private school in New Mexico, Troy is really just using her detective acumen to set up an elaborate plot to escape Neptune, making off with the drugs (for money) and his ex-girlfriend Shauna to make a new life for himself. What an utter moron.

A nice subtle moment which highlights why this very brief relationship (and subsequent betrayal) is a big deal to Veronica is the hallway scene, where Troy walks with his arm around her. This clearly mirrors earlier flashback sequences of Duncan walking through the hallways holding Veronica in the same way. For Veronica, the relationship with Troy is really the first time that she’s let anyone in to even the remotest degree, emotionally exposing herself even a bit to anyone, since her life fell apart the year before and she became a pariah.

On that note, I always find it a bit strange that Veronica doesn’t mourn the relationship more. I’m not saying she should have gone catatonic with grief for her “lost love” (because, no), but it did seem a bit off that she lets it roll off her shoulder like that. In that way, it’s clear that her heart wasn’t fully in it. Her mind is still mostly Duncan-centric.

The way that Veronica pulls off the revenge on Troy is rather spectacular. He fully manipulates Veronica into helping him orchestrate his escape from his family’s clutches to go make a life with Shauna. It’s kind of the worst way someone can betray their girlfriend, which makes Troy absolute scum in my opinion.

We don’t actually see Veronica connecting the dots about what Troy is up to, so for a minute there it appears that Troy’s managed to pull it all off. Then, of course, the phone call from Shauna. The panic. Tearing open the steroid piñata and instead finding it full of Mexican candies and a kiss-off letter from the one and only Veronica Mars, informing him that she’s aware of his scheme and sarcastically wishing him well with Shauna. Like a boss.

Stray Observations:

• Fans of the Veronica Mars film will recall that Luke actually shows up there! Not only does he appear once more later in the first season of the series, he plays a rather prominent role in the film continuation. Spoiler: he’s revealed to be gay during the course of the movie, and though I’ve re-watched the series since seeing the film in the past, this re-watch was the first time I caught the very, very minor (perhaps even accidental?) hints that Luke is gay. “Didn’t Luke look kind of scared last night when the senorita started working her milkshake on him?” Could be reading too much into that, but nah. I’m sticking with it. Foreshadowing!
• This is not the last of Troy Vandegraff, those of you who are bemoaning the loss of Aaron Ashmore’s face. He’ll be back in season two, albeit very briefly.
• Veronica’s hair is getting better! It’s not as terrible and choppy as it was at the very beginning of the season. Progress, guys.
• My god, the green screen for all of the driving scenes (particularly the daytime ones) is so, so bad. I’ve had to actively look away whenever Veronica steps into a car.
• I’m not sad to see Troy go. Sure it sucks for Veronica, but really Troy is just one guy in a list of guys standing between the yet-to-be-revealed inevitability of Logan and Veronica. So for the four of you new watchers who are mourning Troy’s absence, I assure you — it gets so much better for Veronica.
• This episode has zero Duncan and zero connection to the central murder mystery. For what essentially amounts to a standalone, it is pretty great. We return to the Kanes and to Lilly’s murder, next week.
• Veronica: “It’s your life or a baseball.” [off of Luke’s long pause] “It’s a BALL!”
• The flashback sequence (Lianne quizzing Veronica on who she is dating, Veronica admitting it is Duncan Kane) foreshadows the whole maybe-siblings thing, when we see Lianne blanche at the idea that the two are dating. Yawn. Still really don’t care about that bit.

Thoughts on “You Think You Know Somebody”? Did you see Troy’s scumminess coming, or were you as shocked as I was? Is Keith the best dad ever or the best dad ever? Are you going to continue watching Veronica Mars?