Someone’s stealing dogs and ransoming/maybe murdering them! Duncan’s on the lam, and Weevil got arrested breaking into Lilly Kane’s bedroom. Also, to no one’s surprise, Aaron Echolls is a violent psychopath. It’s a middling episode saved by a lot of iconic lines.

1.19 Hot Dogs

Score: 16

Characters (+3)

• Logan (+1)

• Aaron Echolls (+1)

• Backup (+1)

Guest Stars (+1)

• Allison Hannigan as Logan’s half-sister Katrina (+1)

• Okay this is a weird one, because she's in no way famous, but Claire Titelman as Mandy. Claire Titelman doesn't even have a profile photo on her IMDB page, and she's barely been in anything. But her look and performance as Mandy is so good that any time I read a book with a nerdy or awkward female character, I picture Mandy. And she recently had a cameo in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire as "news correspondent"! (+1)

Story: 2/5

An awkward weirdo named Mandy gets her dog stolen while babysitting and reading Judy Blume’s Forever. Veronica reluctantly agrees to help her try to find it (it's evident that Veronica doesn't like Mandy any more than the rest of the school does), but they quickly learn from the guy at the dog pound (also a Neptune High student) that Chester the Jack Russell was sadly found dead on the side of the road.

That’s not the end of the story, though! Veronica notices that there are an awful lot of lost dog notices at dog beach recently. When she follows them up, she discovers that those owners who offered large rewards—09ers, in other words—have gotten their dogs returned. Those who offered smaller rewards are still looking. So Veronica re-posts the reward fliers with a higher cash amount and her phone number to see what will happen. Sure enough, she gets a call from a guy who “found” her dog. She arranges for Weevil to pick up the dog and give the guy — who speaks no English and is therefore definitely not the guy who called — an envelope stuffed with a fake $1000, then uses Backup to cause a distraction to steal the envelope back. She also plants a tracker on the guy’s van so she can follow him.

She ends up at some sort of construction/day laborer location, where the man Backup attacked recognizes her and demands his money, in Spanish. Even though Veronica had no problem understanding the conversation between Weevil and his cousin at the auto yard, she has trouble understanding the description the men give of the dog thief’s car (in her defense, there are a lot of people talking at once), but when she sees a white van with playboy mud flaps (nice) and a bucking bronco sticker she realizes what they were trying to say. And guess who owns this gross van? The guy from the dog pound.

Veronica breaks up with Leo when she and Logan decide to have a secret relationship. Then she immediately asks him to break the law for her by participating in a fake bust of the dog pound, which Leo obviously does. They discover all the missing dogs in the back —- but not Chester, leading Mandy to go berserk on the dog thief with Veronica’s taser. But it turns out that Chester isn’t actually dead. The dog thief adopted him out to some old lady, and ultimately he’s reunited with Mandy.

Plot: 3/5

There’s a little plot movement this week, but not much. With Duncan temporarily out of the picture, a new potential murderer arises. Did Weevil do it??

Duncan has taken off, and Celeste is going nuts trying to find him. Word has gotten around the school that Veronica accused Duncan of Lilly’s murder. Next thing Veronica knows, Weevil has been arrested for breaking into Lilly’s bedroom. Weevil tells her that he was looking for his mother’s diamond ring, which he’d given Lilly before she died. (This, of course, turns out to be a lie.)

Veronica promises Celeste that she’ll help find Duncan if Celeste drops the charges against Weevil. This will be relevant later. (Side note: It irks me when TV/movies act like civilians have a choice of whether to press criminal charges or not. That's up to the DA!)

Veronica learns that when Weevil was arrested, he had a pen on him — “a pretty girly one,” according to Leo. When Logan makes a joke about passing secret messages, she remembers that Lilly had a “spy pen” that planned to use to send messages “to her lovers.” Veronica realizes that’s what Weevil was breaking in to get back—whatever message of his was still inside Lilly’s pen. When she confronts him, though, Weevil won’t tell her what the message said, or why he needed to get it back so badly.

All of this makes Veronica suspect that maybe Weevil was the killer, and asks Keith about it. He says that, at the time, Weevil had an alibi—he was on a work service detail for some petty crime. Now that they know the time of death was wrong, that might not hold up, but Keith posits that the Kane’s wouldn’t have obstructed justice for Weevil’s sake, which is a pretty good point.

Meanwhile, Lynne’s lawyer sits down with the remaining members of the Echolls family to tell them what she left them in her will. Aaron was written out (deservingly) and it turns out that poor Trina was never in in the first place. Logan is the sole heir, inheriting $150k. Trina takes a break from trying to get Aaron to star in her boyfriend’s stupid indy movie to ask Logan for a $10k loan. Logan laughs in her face.

The next time he sees her, she’s got a black eye and a limp. Logan realizes that her boyfriend beat her up, and asks Veronica to track the guy down. (His expression of amused admiration as she does so is so sweet.) It turns out to be moot, because Aaron has also figured out that the douchebag is beating Trina, and invited him over for dinner. (Side note: the roll that the douchebag wants Aaron to take in his indy movie, "junkie hitman with a conscience" sounds truly awful despite Trina's assurance that this is a John-Travolta-in-Pulp-Fiction level role).

Logan and Veronica arrive at chez Echolls just in time to see Aaron finish kicking his ass (to the tune of That’s Amore and Trina screaming “Daddy, no!”). Logan seems to find this amusing, which is kind of a red flag, Veronica. So is Logan saying, "Father knows best" as the douchebag drives away.

Nevertheless, Logan and Veronica kiss again. They agree to keep their relationship a secret. It’s Veronica’s idea, and I’m not totally sure who she’s trying to hide it from. Duncan’s gone. Maybe she’s afraid of Weevil’s judging eyes. She’s still claiming to hate Logan when she breaks up with Leo.

We end with Keith stealing some hair from Veronica's hairbrush - now HE'S going to do a secret DNA test to see if Veronica is his daughter, or Jake's.

Iconic Lines: (+9)

• Weevil, attempting to learn math: All I know is, if your boy Bob is making 5%, he’s pushing the wrong product.  

• Keith, re: Veronica attempting to help Weevil learn math: No running with scissors, no candy from strangers, no smartening up the local criminal element.   

• Keith addressing Weevil as "Eli" and Weevil addressing Keith as "Sheriff." I love this nod of respect from Weevil. As far as he's concerned, Keith is still the sheriff.

• Leo, re: what Weevil had on him when he was arrested: The badass standards: seventeen cents, a couple condoms, a pen.

• Logan to Trina, miming picking a hair out of his mouth: Hmm. Will you look at that? There was a string attached to my pop-tart.  

• Celeste to Veronica: I know you think I hate you, but I don’t. I just can’t stand to look at you.  (This cracks me up EVERY TIME.)

• Veronica to Wallace: No discussing parental PDA at lunch. It was your rule! 

• Veronica to Keith: All this time you’ve had Lilly Kane’s murder files in a box in the closet marked “Playboys”? 

• Keith: Well, I figured it would be safe there.  

• Logan cueing the bell to ring in the hallway. Such a cool-guy move.

Cringe: (-2)

• Multiple references to “community soap” when talking about jail. Sorry, (joking about rape is never funny)[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PrisonRape]

• Leo being derisive about Weevil's "girly" pen. I know this is how we find out it was really the spy pen, but come on, Leo. Bad ass dudes can have pink pens.

Song of the Episode

That's Amore,  performed by Dean Martin.

Outfit of the Episode

V's outfits aren't too bad this episode, though this "Texas" t-shirt she's wearing is a little random.

I think they made Veronica look normal so that Mandy's fashion travesty could stand out more: floral blouse buttoned all the way to the neck, green cardigan, khaki skirt that hits below the knees, ankle socks, and though you never really see them, I'm betting clunky black shoes. And those long pigtails, omg.

Anachronism of the Episode:

Judy Blume's Forever. I'm of two minds about this one, because it's the absolute perfect book for an awkward teen girl like Mandy to be reading. (For those unfamiliar, it's about a teenage girl graphically discovering sex with her boyfriend, and was therefore scandalous -- all the more so because no terrible fate befalls her.) However, I think this is the perfect book for a nerdy girl to be reading if you're Gen X. It was 21 years old by the time of Veronica Mars (though still frequently challenged by parents through the 1990s). But the datedness of it plays into Mandy's character--she's not exactly with the times. So overall, I think it was a good choice even if it went over the heads of some of its intended audience.

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