Veronica Mars, Ranked - S1E20

Jul 25, 2024

7 min read

Ugh, revenge porn and gay panic. Boooooo! I haven't seen anything this bad since Troy left town.

1.20 M.A.D

Score: 8

Characters: +5

Logan
Dick
Beaver
Mac
Cliff

Story 1/5

This episode is so gross and stupid.

Carmen’s boyfriend, the douchily named Tad (sorry to any real-life Tads out there), is preventing her from dumping him by threatening to release a video he took of her drunk and fellating a popsicle. As far as Carmen is concerned, this is a fate worse than death. She literally says that it’s worse than if it were a video of her having sex with him, which I really don’t see. The way she describes it ("I was skinny dipping and I had this... popsicle") makes it sound like she stuck a popsicle up her snatch (which sounds really unpleasant) but no. She's just sucking on a popsicle and moaning. That's literally it. It's dumb and no one should care about it.

Anyway, she hires Veronica to steal Tad’s phone and erase the video, but Tad is wily and has a backup copy.

This is where the plot gets extra gross. The revenge porn is one thing. Tad is supposed to be a bad guy, after all. It’s Veronica’s elaborate counter-revenge that I really hate: making Tad look gay to everyone at the Naval Academy, where he’ll be enrolling in the fall. Her plan is that if she threatens Tad with manufactured evidence, he'll see it's in his best interest not to release his video of Carmen—thus, the episode title: M.A.D., Mutually Assured Destruction.

Exploiting toxic masculinity and homophobia to punish a straight man only perpetuates the system that makes gay men a target of violence. It’s propping up the societal belief that being gay is shameful and embarrassing. She enlists not only Mac but the (apparently) only gay boy in school, Seth, to help her, and that just makes me so sad. I know that they're punishing a homophobe with his own homophobia, but I don't like it. Tad deserves to get taken down, but not at the expense of gay men as a group.

(The early 2000s were a pretty messy time for queer politics. Veronica Mars was only a few years after Will & Grace, the premise of which was that gay men can be normal—amazing!—but the ones that act too fruity are still objects of derision. It’s okay to be gay, as long as you aren’t too gay.)

Anyway, the plan involves Carmen getting Tad drunk on a date at the boardwalk, while Veronica takes pictures from afar. Carmen talks Tad into getting a tattoo, and buying some ecstasy from Seth. Veronica takes all these photos, along with a really terrible love song that Tad wrote and recorded for Carmen, and a spliced-together phone call between Tad and Seth in which it sounds like Tad is admitting to wanting to fuck men, and puts it all on a website. She then threatens Tad that if he doesn't leave Carmen alone, she'll send the URL to the entire incoming class at the Naval Academy.

Nothing will stop Tad from punishing the woman who rejected him, though, so he sends the video to the entire school. People make fun of Carmen and offer her popsicles. Heaven forfend! Just own it, Carmen. It's a free popsicle, take it.

Veronica wants to “out” Tad in revenge, but fortunately Carmen takes the high road and stops her. Tad does still have a huge heart tattoo on his shoulder with the name SETH on it, though, so I guess he'll have some 'splaining to do when he gets to that Naval Academy, after all.

All of this could have been avoided if they just went to the police. Veronica mentions that Carmen was underage, meaning that Tad's video is 100% illegal. But whatever, let's have a dumb episode about gay panic instead.

Plot 2/5

The Kanes have put out a $50,000 reward for finding Duncan, which Keith thinks is going to be easy money until Veronica tells him about how she accidentally gave Duncan instructions for disappearing off the face of the earth last episode. Veronica enlists Mac to help her track down a passport that Duncan might have gotten off the internet and follows a tip from Weevil about a car Duncan bought from his uncle a few weeks ago. The car lead goes nowhere—Duncan used it as a decoy—but the passport lead sends Keith to look for one Roberto Nalbandian of Argentina. In a twist I enjoy, after Veronica getting free help all season, both Weevil and Mac want a percentage of the reward.

Wallace and Veronica are disturbed that their parents are going somewhere every Wednesday night with gym bags in hand, assuming it's an illicit hookup. Veronica discovers that Keith has been placing ads in the classifieds trying to locate Lianne so that he can begin divorce proceedings (as Cliff explains to her over the phone, while—in the only truly good scene in this episode—the obstreperous Loretta Cancun causes chaos in the police station).

It turns out that Keith and Alicia's Wednesday night dates are just a dancing class. Veronica spies on them and finally realizes that her father is happy with Alicia. But Clarence Wiedman warns Alicia to stay away from Keith and drops the bomb that Wallace helped Veronica bug his office. Alicia is not pleased.

Aaron Echolls, having released his aggression on Trina’s boyfriend last week, is playing Cool Dad this week. When Logan gets waylaid by Dick and Beaver, Aaron gives Veronica a ride home and thanks her for being Logan’s friend.

Veronica is still trying to keep her whatever-it-is with Logan on the down low. She claims it’s because she doesn’t want Duncan—who, remember, has disappeared off the face of the earth, and also is decidedly her ex and dating Meg—to find out. Logan claims that secrets are hot but is really, really bad at keeping it a secret. First, he starts to defend her against Dick’s taunting until she cuts him off. Then he has his dad’s driver pick up her car from the shop and bring it to school. He also skips a weekend of debauchery in Mexico to ask her out on his dad’s boat.

But, hang on! When Carmen's video is released and Veronica actually watches it, she realizes that it was the night of Shelly Pomroy's party—the night Veronica was roofied and raped, something we've barely touched on since the pilot. She realizes Carmen isn't just drunk in that video. The reason she doesn't remember the whole popsicle incident is that she, too, was roofied.

In another delightful callback to the pilot episode, Veronica gets to school early to find Seth bound to the flagpole with duct tape. She demands to know where he got the Rohypnol. Seth corrects her—it was GHB, and he got it from Logan.

Veronica does not show up for their yacht date.

Iconic Lines (+6)

Veronica to Logan after they get caught making out on the couch: "YOU got caught by your dad. I got caught by the star of Breaking Point and Beyond the Breaking Point.
Veronica, acting like a dumb teenager: So I was all like, no way, and he was like, yeah way!
Veronica being dumb again: This is like, study hall, right? I was excused from gym class for... ummm... PERSONAL reasons?
The look the study hall teacher gives Tad when Tad realizes his phone has been stolen out of the teacher's drawer. This guy does not give a shit.

Could not care less what happened to Tad's phone.

The Iconic Loretta Cancun: I know what entrapment is!
The Iconic Cliff "These Are My People, V" McCormack, Esquire: Actually, Loretta, I don't think you do.
Seth to Tad: Isn't just joining the Navy alone gay enough to get you thrown out of the Navy? (Despite my distaste for this gay panic storyline, that's a great don't-ask-don't-tell burn.)

Cringe (-6)

A true record for cringe content.

Tad to Seth, because he can't come up with an actual comeback: Prom's supposed to be for TRADITIONAL couples. Tad's asshole friend: Aw, c'mon! What's more traditional than fairies and fat chicks? (I love that Seth looks more hurt on behalf of his fat friend than on his own behalf.)
Drunk Tad to Carmen: I don't know what it is about you, Carmen, that makes me feel plumb loco. (PLUMB. LOCO. Who says that? What kind of 1940s-ass-shit is this? As much as I want to punch Tad in the face through this entire episode, that line makes me want to hold him down and punch him repeatedly, just like Logan did with Teen Kazinski.)
Tad to Carmen: What about yesterday, etc. Carmen to Tad: It's called PRETENDING. (The way she says this like it's a sick burn wants me to punch her in the face.)
Keith's egregiously awful Spanish accent when he knocks on a hotel room door in Mexico and says "room service!"
Carmen to Veronica: He wasn't always like this. (Counterpoint: He was. I guarantee you he was.)
Tad after releasing his revenge porn: Who's going to want to touch her now? If I can't have her, no one can. (NO. GROSS. JAIL.)

Song of the Episode

Me and You and a Dog Named Boo, by Lobo. I love that Aaron Echolls listens to yacht rock.

Shout out to Crimson and Clover, by Tommy James and The Shondells, which is just a great song.

Finally, Veronica's sleuthing music, aka La Femme d'Argent, plays as Mac figures out the date the video was taken. I forgot that I was supposed to be on the lookout for it, but now here's at least one instance of it popping up uncredited.