After teenage outcast Velma Dinkley is accused of killing a popular classmate, she has just 24 hours to find the real murderer. There's only one problem: Velma has sworn off solving mysteries - forever.
Tropes
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: A thrown paper cutter was evidently enough to slice through a student's leg.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: When Velma is suffering from another hallucination and saying how no one likes her, Norville confesses that he likes her. Unfortunately for him, his sincere confession is ignored due to Velma seeing him as a brother (and later episodes she actually just thinks of him as useful labor who drives her around places and bends to her every whim) and thinking that he’s telling a joke to help her out of her panic attack.
- Establishing Character Moment: We're introduced to Fred bumping into Velma, knocking her over, too into taking selfies to notice. Instead of apologizing, he asks if they've met and then explains that he has selective amnesia based around how attracted he is to others.Fred: My doctor says it's basically sickle cell for rich guys.
- Establishing Series Moment: Daphne and her Alpha Bitch friends are all showering in the girls' locker-room. They start off with a discussion about how pilot episodes always start with a misleading amount of sex and nudity and they all agree how lame it is... with their naughty bits covered with conspicuous towels and soapsuds, doing sexy poses as they do so. Then it devolves into a Cat Fight when she gets into an argument with one of her friends thinks it has some artistic merit.
- Hypocritical Humor: Daphne almost drowns Krista over a petty argument but gets miffed when Velma throttles her (to death in her own words) in the shower.
- Mistaken Ethnicity: Velma is South Asian in this cartoon, but Fred (due to being casually racist) mistakes her for other ethnicities like Hispanic or Pacific Islander.
- Not Hyperbole: When Brenda's body falls out of Velma's locker, she yells in shock that Brenda has no brain. When Daphne gives an offended eyeroll for that statement, Velma points out that she means literally as her skull is empty.
- Police Are Useless: Daphne's moms not only completely forgot about Diya going missing, but they also ask Velma to solve a murder case that she is the number one suspect in committing. Then they give her — their only murder suspect — free reign to solve the case for 24 hours before they actually arrest her, basically giving her enough time to skip town if she actually did it. They even acknowledge that they want this untrained, underaged amateur detective to solve the case specifically because they are laughably incompetent at their jobs.
- Race Against the Clock: The titular character is the prime suspect of the murder of her popular classmate Brenda. Velma is told that if she doesn’t find the real perpetrator in 24 hours, she will end up getting arrested and put in jail.
- Security Cling: The girls cling to each other and scream when Velma hits Daphne with a crowbar.
- Self-Serving Memory: When Velma describes her relationship with her mother to Fred, the flashbacks depict a loving mother-and-daughter bond, such as playing with a water hose or helping her write her novels. Later on, Velma's dad confronts her on this and explains that her mother didn't disappear, but simply left because she hated them. Velma tries to deny it, only to realize that all the fond memories she shared before are really her just torturing her mother and making her miserable.
- Shaming the Mob: Fred does this when the students harass Velma over her makeover attempt, but the way he does this makes it more about himself rather than her.
