The team looks into the murder of McKinley High’s 1989 Prom Queen, Felicia Grant, after a photo of her at school fifteen minutes before her supposed hit-and-run murder is discovered, meaning someone drove her home. The detectives find out that even though Felicia was the most popular girl in school, she wasn’t as liked by those closest to her as she should have been.
Tropes
- Always Someone Better: Felicia was this to Suzie.
- Big Jerk on Campus: Cole Austen in 1989, the football quarterback, Felicia’s then-boyfriend and the Prom King alongside his Queen who always drove the newest car thanks to his dad's dealership. He was totally conceited and even gave a classmate a fake love letter to embarrass him at prom. Of course, like most BJOCs, this combination of high school peaking and jerkiness made him a Future Loser.
- The Bus Came Back: Lilly's sister Christina returns after a five-season absence.
- Class Princess: Prom queen, cheerleader, and student body president Felicia Grant is disgusted when her boyfriend Cole humiliates a nerdy student with a crush on her by giving him a fake love letter, and tries to get Cole to apologize to his victim. She also wants a serious college education and spends most of her flashback scenes trying to reconnect with her former friends. It's unclear if she was always like that or is a former Alpha Bitch who had a Jerkass Realization, though Lee's recollection of her indicates it was a little of both.
- Closet Geek: Implied with Felicia, who used to eat homemade pizzas and watch The Twilight Zone with Lee.
- Former Friend of Alpha Bitch: Lee to Felicia.Lee: We Used to Be Friends. High school started, she became a cheerleader, and I became an afterthought.
- Future Badass: Evan "Corky" Mazer, a glasses-wearing nerd who crushed on Felicia suffered a mean prank by Cole and the jerk posse at the prom. This motivated him to toughen up and better himself so that he could defend himself, and joined the army straight out of high school. When the case is reopened, he’s an expert martial artist, and a good-looking one at that, who no one dares mess with.
- Future Loser: Cole Austen was the 1989 McKinley High Prom King. Now in 2010, he’s a Fat Bastard working at an auto shop, pathetically trying to recapture his Glory Days through memories and applying for a job at his alma mater.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Suzie’s resentment of always being second best to Felicia drove her to spill an intimate secret of Felicia's to Cole and sleep with him.
- Jerk Jock: Cole in high school. It doesn’t help his future.
- Lonely at the Top: Felicia. She may have been prom queen, but she also alienated two true friends to get there, and her boyfriend isn’t exactly a genuine or even kind person. Felicia even admits to Lee that she's secretly miserable with her status because no one seems to really understand her.Felicia: No, they don't love me. They want to be me, or they want to get with me, but they definitely don't love me.
- Love Letter Lunacy: Corky was the victim of a cruel prank at the hands of Cole and his fellow Jerk Jocks when they left him a letter that was supposedly a confession of love from Felicia. He approached her about it at prom and said he returned her feelings… only to have her look at him confused. That’s when Cole and his buddies started laughing their heads off.
- Loving a Shadow: It becomes clear that Cole doesn't really know Felicia, only caring about her looks and popularity, and they're not on the same page regarding their life after high school. This causes her to break up with him.
- Misplaced Retribution: After Corky realized he had been fooled with a fake love letter, he took his anger out on Felicia, accusing her of being needlessly cruel to him. In reality, Cole wrote the letter without her knowledge and she was rather appalled by the prank.
- Not Good with Rejection: Subverted. Cole is furious over Felicia losing her virginity to Lee instead of him, but is fairly accepting of her decision to call it quits, mainly being disappointed in his intoxicated state that he won't be getting laid on prom night.
- Parting-Words Regret: Suzie is deeply ashamed of how she ruined her and Felicia's friendship at their senior prom out of petty jealousy, and the latter's death that same night meant they could never reconcile. She seems to finally gain some closure after the murder is solved, seeing a vision of Felicia smiling at her.
- Pet the Dog: Despite Lee's resentment towards Felicia, he still cared enough to try checking on her at prom, being the only one who realized she wasn't as happy as she was pretending to be, which she clearly appreciated.
- The Prom Plot: The backstory takes place on one prom night.
- Starting a New Life: Felicia planned to attend UC Berkeley in the fall, hoping for a fresh start away from all of her high school drama in Philadelphia.
- Student/Teacher Romance: Averted. The assistant principal tries to make a move on Felicia, but she rejects him and storms off, so he runs her over with his car.
- We Used to Be Friends: Lee says this word for word about him and Felicia pre-high school. What he doesn’t say is that they were briefly lovers pre-high school, too.
