Buy Veronica Mars – The Complete First Season
This Christmas episode from season one of Veronica Mars starts out with Veronica and Keith decorating the tree. This caring family environment is quickly brought into stark contrast when we head to the Echoll’s house. Logan is hosting a poker game. Duncan appears to be drunk. Weirdly, Weevil is playing with them. We’ve come in at the end of the game. It’s down to Logan and Weevil. Weevil wins and Logan goes to pay him, however the money box is empty. This does not go over well with Weevil. Through Weevil’s efforts to find the money, we find out Duncan and Logan both own the same reindeer boxer shorts.
Weevil starts stealing the 09ers possessions, saying they’ll get them back when he gets his money. Duncan’s laptop is missing, so Veronica goes to Weevil and says she’ll solve the case. Weevil tells Veronica how he bought into the poker game.
Meanwhile, Keith is hired by Lynn Echolls to find out who is stalking her husband, Aaron. They’re throwing a big Christmas party and she doesn’t want anything to go wrong. This doesn’t end up working out too well, and Aaron’s affairs are brought into the open.
Duncan thinks Logan stole the money, so he and Logan aren’t getting along too well. Veronica talks to Sean and Connor, who were also there. The clues keep coming. Everyone had an opportunity to steal the money, and everyone seems to have been hiding something.
I won’t give away the answer to the mystery, but it’s a good one. Veronica makes them all gather for another poker game and buy her in, she wants to send her dad to baseball camp for Christmas. Before the game, she unravels the mystery, then takes the place of the guilty party.
This is one of my favorite episodes of Veronica Mars. I often have no idea who commits the crimes on this show, but this case was extremely surprising to me. I also really enjoy the scene with Veronica and Logan. It is a hint at what’s to come and has the great line, “Annoy tiny blonde one, annoy like the wind.”
This is also a big episode in the overall continuity of the show. This isn’t just a throwaway holiday episode. There are things in this episode that affect the rest of the series. I think this is an excellent example of a great holiday episode of television.
(photo: Warner Brothers/vm-caps.com)