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Recap / Veronica Mars S 03 E 16 Un American Graffiti

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Veronica's in the big office at Mars Investigations when a woman arrives. Veronica recognizes her as Sabirah Krimani (Carole Davis), who with her husband owns a local restaurant called Babylon Gardens. Mrs. Krimani reports that their establishment was the recent victim of a hate crime: rocks thrown through windows, "terrorist" spray-painted across the front. Veronica takes the job and is staking out the place overnight when Amira (Azita Ghanizada), their daughter and a Neptune High alum (Class of '05), knocks on her car window to say hello. Amira's Establishing Character Moment is that she's still bitter about how Veronica (really Duncan) torpedoed the Pirate Points system the year she was a senior. She then goes to her father, Rashad (Anthony Azizi), who yells first at his wife for taking action behind his back and then at Veronica, dismissing her services. The argument's going full-bore when a giant yellow SUV comes swooping past and performs a drive-by shooting. Thankfully, they're only using paintball guns, but for Veronica, It's Personal now. As she and the Krimanis clean up, Rashad rants about having emigrated twenty years ago and being as American as anyone. Veronica, for her part, claims that she noticed a bumper sticker on the car, claiming its driver has an honor student at Neptune Middle School, and offers to look into it. Despite his earlier protests, Rashad assents.

Logan announces that he is throwing Parker's 19th birthday party—evidently they're a genuine item by now. He invites Veronica, who looks less than thrilled at the idea. He also wants her help with the planning, but has to settle for Dick. Of course, Dick's too busy on MySpace, flirting with two incredibly hot chicks. By some miracle of elocution, he invites them both to the party, and both assent.

At a local bar called The Break, an unnamed kid (Bart Fletcher) is jolted awake by the bartender (Jack McGee). He signs his tab and blearily stumbles out the door. Then a car happens. Next we know, Keith is confronting the bartender about how this 19-year-old kid with a clearly fake ID managed to get that drunk. The bartender declares it Someone Else's Problem. So Keith throws his weight around, assigning the Sheriff's Department to perform unannounced checks at every bar near Hearst College that night in the hopes of catching underage drinking. From the peanut gallery, Deputy Gills (K.C. Clyde) pulls Sacks aside and asks if Keith has always been this much of a hard-ass.

Veronica visits Neptune Middle School under the guise of being a criminology student doing a project. On the premise that violence starts early, she asks if any of the students' families own paintball guns, and then if any of them own yellow SUVs. That's a little too on-the-nose for the teacher, but Veronica's already got her culprit, and she follows the kid home. The weird thing is, he too is of middle-eastern descent. Veronica, undeterred, sneaks up on them while they're distracted with video games, and gives them a dose of their own paintballs—err, medicine. However, they deny the grafitti, and can prove it: they're equal-opportunity paintballers, drive-by-ing anyone they feel like (including, amusingly enough, Principal Van Clemmons). She confiscates the DVD and sets them to work cleaning up Babylon Gardens, which coincides with her own task of setting up the surveillance equipment. Whilst there, the Krimanis consult her opinion on whether to re-hang some sort of banner (the camera never gets a good look at it), and Veronica agrees with Rashad that they should be proud of their heritage. "See? Two against one," Rashad laughs, "democracy in action."

Veronica and Mac catch up over lunch. Mac's having a lot of fun with Bronson, but is not always comfortable with waking up before lunch and other such healthy activities. Mac spots Logan and Parker in search of a table, and suggests they cede theirs. Parker once again invites Veronica to attend the party. Veronica demurs, begging Mac to be her wing(wo)man. Mac's unavailable (she's already committed to helping Logan set up the festivities), so she turns to Piz and Wallace instead. Piz jumps to the rescue, and once they are safely in their room, Wallace calls him on abandoning a Yo La Tengo concert for unrequited love. Wallace declares they're going to go out tonight, and Piz is going to talk to a girl who will give him the time of day. "You need to go all in," is how Wallace puts it.

Veronica has checked the surveillance footage from overnight and found a single person skulking around Babylon Gardens: a fellow wearing a maroon hooded sweatshirt that says "11" on the back and "Sneed Batmen" on the front. She has no idea what that means, but—while enlisting the help of Wallace and Piz—sees another fellow (David Giuntoli) walking by with the same sweatshirt. He explains that ths Sneed Batmen are an intramural softball team composed of residence of the Sneed dormitories. And yes, he doesn't mind telling her who #11 is: it's Jason Cohen, a member of Hearst's lone Jewish fraternity.

Keith's random bar check yields no underagers. Deputy Gills opines that the local bars are actually enforcing the law, and that Poor Paraplegic Jim Wilson was simply a freak outlier. Keith doesn't believe it, and returns to The Break. Here, the bartender makes it clear what's going on: he's intending to buy a bunch of tickets to the annual raffle, the way he used to do to bribe Lamb—excuse me, to support the Sheriff's department. Keith isn't buying it—especially when he walks out of the office and finds Piz and Wallace getting their drink and their game on with Miranda (Monica Allgeier), who has impressed Piz with her billiards skills.

Veronica stakes out the Zeta Epsilon house to get a glimpse of the guy, but someone's already beat her to it: there's a fellow in a tree taking pictures of what's going on in an upper room. He escapes on his bicycle, while the victims of his amateur-pornography career emerge from the front door to try to chase him. One's Jason Cohen. The other is Amira Krimani. She identifies the peeping tom as Nasir (Haaz Sleiman), whom she used to be in an Arranged Marriage pact with. His student visa has expired, but her father gave him work to keep him in the country. And now he has photos of Amira and Jason being intimate with each other, and Amira is certain she's about to be disowned. Veronica takes pity on her and pledges to get the photos.

It's not hard: there are only two 1-hour photo places open this late, and only one of them has a pretty-obviously-Middle-Eastern guy hanging around. By pretending to be Nasir's boyfriend, Veronica easily gets the photos... but the hapless clerk (Fred Stoller) does have some fumbled prints he can hand over to Nasir, when he comes asking. And it's enough: though Veronica is able to hand Amira the entire roll, Rashad arrives with the partially-developed prints from Nasir. Only the right half of the photo is developed, but unfortunately that's the half with Amira on it. Rashad is sure the community has been stirred up by her coupling with a Jewish boy, and that this explains the vandalism. (Veronica: "Which community?" Rashad: "Either! Both!") Once again, he attempts to fire Veronica, but she tells him in no uncertain terms that if Sabirah wishes her fired, she may tell her so herself.

The next morning, Veronica is greeted by the sight of two fake IDs: the ones she made for Wallace and Piz when they were investigating the Pi Sigs. Keith can't keep a note of fatherly pride out of his voice as he praises their quality, but he goes on to ask how Veronica would feel if one of them had met a car. They're interrupted by Sabirah, who reports a second grafitti attack; the vandal also took their banner. This pleases Veronica mightily, since she hid a tracking device in said banner, and she sets off to hunt down the culprit.

The culprit is Derrick Carr (Cole Williams), who drives a black panel van, wears a shirt with the American flag and a bald eagle on it, and claims that Babylon Gardens is a front for a terrorist organization. He also has a brother (Eric Ladin), who returned from a tour in Iraq paralyzed from the waist down, and who apologizes for Derrick's rash misjudgment of the restaurant. Derrick, however, claims he has proof: whilst at the mall, a Middle Easterner handed him a flyer depicting Iraqi insurgents giggling at American coffins. Offended (and not unreasonably so), Derrick tailed the fellow, seeing him check in for his shift at Babylon Gardens. Veronica dutifully reports her findings to the Krimanis, but adds that Derrick is on his third strike for various other criminal activities, and that reporting him will land him in jail. Rashad asks only to speak with him.

Keith visits Wallace and Piz in their dorm room, asking if they'd care to join him for a few beers. To facilitate this, he gives them new fake IDs—Piz's claims he's Jon Bon Jovi, Wallace's Biggie Smalls. (Wallace: "We don't really all look alike, Mr. Mars.") One Gilligan Cut later, they're pouring themselves non-alcoholic beers at The Break. And just in time: who should walk in for his surprise underage-drinking check but Deputy Gills. He asks everyone to show their IDs, but clearly isn't paying attention to what any of them say. "This waste of time," he declares, "has been brought to you by your temporary sheriff of Balboa County." Wallace's only response is to pull out a walkie-talkie and ask if Keith caught all of that. The next morning, Gills and three others are confused when Keith fires them.

The Krimanis call upon Derrick at his house. Mr. Krimani gives a pretty nice speech about what America means, and how it doesn't exclude anyone. Derrick isn't buying it, but Mr. Krimani walks away, confident that his point has been made. Just as he gave Derrick a chance, he decides to give his daughter's boyfriend a chance too. Nasir, however, he turns over to Immigration.

Veronica attends Parker's party. The first person she meets is Dick, who confesses to being impressed she showed up. He's also impressed when she accepts a swig from his flask (she wipes the mouth on her shirt first). Next, she links up with Mac and settles on the couch—only to be happened upon by Max, he of the exam cheats and hooker girlfriends. She abandons them together and attaches herself to Wallace and Piz... who have brought Miranda with them. Also having success with women is Dick. His attempts to keep his two lady-types (Amy Main and Christina Ulloa) apart have failed, but as it turns out, they're down with a threesome. They send him to the ice machine... Only to lock him in a closet. They're MySpace friends and are not impressed with Dick's transparent attempts to hook up with them. As the elevator doors close on them, they begin a salacious embrace. Dick whimpers in disappointment, as does the audience.

Mac and Max are hitting it off well—to the point that Max has to stop and make sure his friends didn't hire her. Veronica is not having as much fun: after a brief conversation with Logan, in which she admits she's not back in the saddle, she's been accosted by some sort of ballroom-dancing expert whom Logan sent to her. To escape him, Veronica descends on Piz—heedless of Miranda flirting with him, and of Wallace's approving smilke at the sight of same—and begs him to be her pretend-boyfriend. Piz agrees, causing Wallace to haul Veronica to the side and give her a talking-to. She should be aware by now, he says, that Piz has a thing for her, and had better let him down easy. Consequently, Veronica asks Piz out on the balcony to clear the air, where she starts to apologize about how she's been too busy and preoccupied with her own life to pay him any attention. Instead of listening, Piz just kisses her.

On his way out to the elevator, Piz says to Wallace, "I went all in."

And Veronica, the "Eureka!" Moment clear on her face, chases after him and kisses him back, a moment only slightly marred by the elevator opening and Logan getting a clear view of Veronica sucking face with someone who isn't him.


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