Veronica Mars Re-Watch: Season One Episode Fifteen

Ruskie Business

The opener: A bonding moment with Veronica and Logan; he thanks her for helping find his mother. Duncan jokes about seeing Veronica and Logan talking: did he ask her to the upcoming 80's dance, Total Eclipse of the Heart?  This is too casual a comment from the guy who broke Veronica's heart a year ago. Meg arrives and announces that she has a secret admirer. Over at Mars Investigation, a Russian Internet bride Catarina needs help finding her fiance/soul mate Tom Cruz.

Veronica's hope to get two soul mates back together (a welcome change from the usual divorce work) ends badly. She finds Tom Cruz via his Catahoula leopard dog with assists from Wallace and Deputy Leo. But Tom is not Catarina's fiance; Tom's in the Witness Protection Program to escape the Russian mob. Catarina and her brothers are after him. Keith has Veronica give Catarina a fake address for Tom, and Leo arrests the brothers.

Another hit on Lynn Echoll's credit card leads Veronica and Logan to a LA hotel where a mysterious woman is holed up in a luxury suite. It's not Logan's mother, but his step-sister Trina. His last hope gone, Logan collapses in tears in Veronica's arms.

Veronica's attempts to find Meg's secret admirer have also failed. Meg says she and Veronica should go to the dance together. At the last minute, Veronica discovers that Duncan is Meg's admirer. She leaves the dance as Duncan approaches Meg, quoting the J. Geils Band, "Love stinks."

But, all is not lost.  Meg has invited Deputy Leo as a surprise for Veronica. Their first dance is interrupted by a drunken Logan dressed like the other Tom Cruise from Risky Business.

Next Veronica is interrupted by the latest in a series of hang-ups on her cell phone. This leads her to a bar in Barstow where she finds her mother. Ominously, Clarence Wiedman also appears in the doorway.

This is a jam-packed episode: two mysteries of the week solved; the Lynn Echolls case resolved; Lianne Mars found; more background on the dysfunctional Echolls family; lots of funny one-liners (e.g. "I cannot escape Tom Cruise," as Logan interrupts the dance); lots of 80's music and fashion.

Unfortunately, for those of us who watched the original run of the show, we had to wait four weeks for the next episode.