Veronica Mars "Papa's Cabin" (2/27, Spoilers)

[LoadStar]

Ultimately a pretty obvious conclusion to the arc, if you ask me.

Tim kills the Dean, tries to frame Landry for the murder; Landry suspects that Mrs. O'Dell did it, and tries to protect her by framing Batando for it. Batando is wacked enough to have done it anyway. So you have two people trying to frame someone else for the murder, and in the end, Mrs. O'Dell honestly didn't know and she honestly probably wanted to find out who did it. She just got caught in the middle of all this, and ended up dead as a result.

I'd like to know two things:
- how Foyle got a hold of Veronica's phone long enough to bug it
- how the recordings from the bug Foyle put on Landry's phone got into Batando's place

[TAsunder]

B&E for both. He got into the mars investigation room well enough to demonstrate at least minor talent for it despite his columbo like intentional bumbling.

It's good they didn't give tim too much screen time previous to this episode, because after about 10 seconds in this one, I knew it was him with certainty. He was already my prime suspect, though, after thinking more about the whole witness on his computer thing.

[johnperkins21]

Was this the final show of the season? It certainly felt that way, but I am hoping not.

Veronica popped the back cover off of the phone in seconds. Seems like all he would have needed would have been a minute. And he could have had the DVD with him when they went to Batando's place and put it on the shelf while she was looking through CDs or some other place in the house.

[TAsunder]

Speaking of the DVD, why didn't veronica question him when he pointed out Taps? It was a good joke but if that were me, I would have immediately suspected Tim. Way too convenient.

[johnperkins21]

Speaking of the DVD, why didn't veronica question him when he pointed out Taps? It was a good joke but if that were me, I would have immediately suspected Tim. Way too convenient.

She gave him an out when she suggested "A Bug's Life."

[DevdogAZ]

I enjoyed the episode, although I knew all along it was going to be Tim. It was interesting to see how it played out though.

I don't believe this is the last episode of the season. I think I remember reading that there would be three more, but since Pussycat Dolls is taking the timeslot next week, it will probably be at least 6-8 weeks before VM comes back.

[TAsunder]

She gave him an out when she suggested "A Bug's Life."

Forgot about that one. Good call.

[cherry ghost]

Was this the final show of the season? It certainly felt that way, but I am hoping not.




5 episodes left after Pussycat Dolls' 6(I think) week run.

[LoadStar]

B&E for both. He got into the mars investigation room well enough to demonstrate at least minor talent for it despite his columbo like intentional bumbling.

Ok, B&E to leave the recordings in Batando's place, but Veronica's phone? She rarely leaves it anywhere away from her side.

And assuming he broke in to leave the incriminating evidence, the recordings, at Batando's place - why wouldn't he have edited out the one Landry left for the guy at Pepperdine? Just a sloppy mistake?

[LoadStar]

Let me run down the events, as best as I can tell:

Foyle bugs Landry's phone, likely sometime around the time that Landry starts paying attention to Veronica over him, causing him to feel jealous and that he's about to be replaced as star pupil. He begins to make recordings of all of Landry's calls. Likely at the same time, since he's jealous of Veronica, he bugs her phone as well. (How did he get V's phone, I don't know.)

The night of December 10, Cyrus confronts Landry and Mindy at the hotel about Mindy's affair, then returns to the office. Mindy leave the hotel to go to the office try and calm Cyrus down with Xanax. Mindy then leaves Cyrus, doped up on Xanax and alcohol, and returns to the hotel.

As she's returning to the hotel, Cyrus is killed by Tim Foyle. He knows that O'Dell is upset about the affair, and figures this is a good time to frame Landry. He has with him Landry's clothes and gloves. He types the "suicide note" per Veronica's paper, mops up some of the blood with Landry's clothes, and leaves. Tim knows enough to use gloves to type the message. Tim dumps the clothes down the chute, making sure that they get stuck so they're found later on.

Simultaneously, Landry leaves the hotel to go home, night ruined. He stops by a convenience store, buys cigarettes, offers one to anonymous female brunette, then goes home.

Mindy hires Keith to investigate the murder. She honestly has no idea who killed Cyrus, and wants to find out. She doesn't think it's Hank, and she knows it's not herself. Hank on the other hand thinks it could very well be Mindy.

Hank and Mindy have discussed it and come up with an alibi for the phone call Hank makes to Mindy's cell phone. They might have, during this conversation, asked the question if each other did it - but if they did, and they both deny doing it of course, Hank still believes that Mindy did it. So, he goes and swaps Batando's keyboard with Cyrus's to try and pin the blame on Batando instead.

The bug in Landry's phone is eventually discovered (by Landry), but Landry believes Keith placed it, and gives it to Keith. Keith asks Veronica if she bugged Landry's phone, which she denies. They never figure out that it was Tim that placed the bug.

So, Mindy gets detained by now sheriff Keith, and with the added pressure he can now apply, Mindy rolls on Hank and tells all. Keith arrests Hank, which would settle matters as far as Tim is concerned - except Hank has an alibi, the mystery woman. Tim now hears about the alibi, and goes to work discrediting it by calling someone Hank has had contact with to pretend to be the mystery woman. This gets Hank freed from jail, at which point Tim lets Hank know that Mindy skipped town so that Hank goes after her.

Sometime during this, Tim breaks into Batando's place to try and make it look like Batando actually bugged Landry's phone. He leaves the recordings behind, in a DVD case for Taps. He then gets Veronica over to "discover" the recordings. He must've forgotten about the Pepperdine call... he never meant that one to be discovered. All he needed was the suspicious "I'll take care of it" call from Hank to be discovered.

Tim then deliberately leads Veronica to connect Hank to this new woman by leaving the disposable phone in Hank's place, so that Veronica follows the thread to connect Hank to this mystery woman. Now it looks to Veronica like Hank faked his alibi, so now Hank gets arrested again - this time hopefully for good. (The fact that Hank at this time accidentally kills Mindy was completely unexpected to anyone, Tim included, I'd guess.)

So - Hank gets arrested, Mindy is dead, and Tim is now prof. So all's well that end's well... except that it dawns on Veronica that Hank couldn't have made the phone call, and that's where it all falls apart.

So - the only question mark is - how did Tim bug Veronica's cell?

[TAsunder]

Confiscated it during an exam?

[smak]

Enjoyable episode, but maybe it's because i really pay attention, but a lot of it was pretty easy to figure out.

I suspected Tim the whole year. Only for about 5 minutes this episode was I wavering.

I knew the alibi was fake, that was easy to figure out.

I knew that Papa's cabin wasn't somebody's dad's cabin the second it came up. Knew it was the actual name of a hotel/motel/resort whatever. Didn't think about the Hemingway part, but doesn't really matter.

I knew they'd only find one person on the boat, with the other being dead. Didn't know which would be which.

One question i have is how did Veronica know that it was a man's voice on the phone to the alibi. Just something we didn't see onscreen maybe?

-smak-

[getbak]

I don't believe this is the last episode of the season. I think I remember reading that there would be three more, but since Pussycat Dolls is taking the timeslot next week, it will probably be at least 6-8 weeks before VM comes back.
They ran a promo at the end of this episode promoting its return on May 1, with 6 new episodes (which means they're either running multiple episodes per week, or it'll run past the end of sweeps).

[getbak]

One question i have is how did Veronica know that it was a man's voice on the phone to the alibi. Just something we didn't see onscreen maybe?
I just assumed it was because the kid's mother said that Landry had threatened to send her son away if she didn't help him out. If she thought it was Landry, it must have been a man.

[smak]

I just assumed it was because the kid's mother said that Landry had threatened to send her son away if she didn't help him out. If she thought it was Landry, it must have been a man.

Yah, i figured that, i just thought it a bit unusual for a key part of the gotcha to be something that the audience didn't see.

-smak-

[Zevida]

I've been trying all season to figure out why I wasn't enjoying it as much as the previous two seasons and this episode really hit it home for me. I found it completely ridiculous that with Keith now in charge of the sheriff's department that it was two bungling college students who kept bringing him all the evidence and he just jumped at their conclusions. In the first two seasons, we had crimes that had been committed and "solved" and Veronica working behind the scenes, for the most part, to try and figure out who really did it. This season there were two active crimes and it made no sense that the sheriff's department was not trying to investigate the rapes and that they are *that* bad that they missed a murder staged as a suicide.

When Veronica is a jr. detective digging into closed cases, it is semi-believable, but when she is the driving force of a major investigation, well, it just passed into the realm of ridiculous for me. They might as well have named Veronica sheriff for as much work as Keith put into solving the case.

[TAsunder]

Huh? Keith was the driving force behind a large part of the investigation into the dean's murder. Did you miss all the countless scenes where he was working the case? Keith was sheriff for a few days, he didn't have the luxury to devote 100% of his time to the case like veronica did. He also wasn't being led astray by the real murderer. I don't think your point is valid.

[LoadStar]

Yeah, I think your criticism is a bit off base. Keith was sheriff for literally a couple days at most, during which time he investigated Mindy, and leaned on her enough to get her to roll on Hank Landry. Once Keith (as Sheriff) did that, the case broke wide open, really.

[madscientist]

Plus, as sheriff Keith actually has a lot less freedom in many ways: as a PI he could have broken into Batando's house, etc. As a sheriff he can't do stuff like that without tainting evidence: he has to get a search warrant etc. Of course, he could probably do that but it would take time.

AND! it's possible he wouldn't have found anything at all, because all the evidence that Veronica turned up was spoon-fed to her by Tim.

[TAsunder]

Don't think he needs a search warrant for batando's place at this point.

[mwhip]

No mention of VM's line of the year?

To Wallace: "I am trying to figure out which Gilmore Girl you are".

[Jonathan_S]

And assuming he broke in to leave the incriminating evidence, the recordings, at Batando's place - why wouldn't he have edited out the one Landry left for the guy at Pepperdine? Just a sloppy mistake?Did he risk a B&E to plant evidence, or just trust he'd have enough time to plant it during the search? (Doesn't really matter, but I'd just assumed he'd brought the DVD to Batando's when he and Veronica came in, and also brought the phone to Landry's again with V).

I'm guessing that he didn't edit the phone logs, because if anyone cross checked the call log of Landry's cell against the recordings, a call without a recording would stand out like a sore thumb. Then after calling Pepperdine it would be obvious who had motive to remove that specific recording.

[Jonathan_S]

Likely at the same time, since he's jealous of Veronica, he bugs her phone as well. (How did he get V's phone, I don't know.)Wouldn't V have checked her phone after the bugging of Landry's was found, she knew someone interested in the case is bugging phones?
(But we didn't see it happen so maybe she didn't. But if she did then Tim would have to have bugged V's phone at some point after that.)

[Jonathan_S]

What I'm wondering is whether the fake alibi woman actually worked at that strip club.

Landry gave Keith the location of the convenience store and time of night on his own, without coordinating with Tim. And I don't think Landry planned to create a fake alibi.

So Tim had to create one on his own (to ultimately frame Landry) that fit the story. If that woman did work at that club it is a massive, mind boggling, coincidence that Landry would have influence over someone that so perfectly fit his real alibi.
Having someone who could be blackmailed who happens to work the shift you need at a location across the street from where you need to be placed?

But if she didn't work there, then wasn't the fake alibi so weak that the frame job would risk rebounding because Landry is too smart to be that sloppy?


Oh, and Landry's breakdown on the boat: The acting was so bad that I kept thinking he was going to drop the act and claim he was just screwing with Keith and that Mindy had just run ashore to shop or something.

[gilmoregirls102]

I think that when the show comes back, that Miss Mars is going to be taking over the PI business!!! With Keith being the sheriff now, and Veronica having the years of experience and the Criminology class behind her...

And I am MAD that Parker likes Logan... that is against the rules, even if Veronica says it's okay- IT'S NOT!
It's funny how even Wallace knew that!!!

[TAsunder]

It's veronica. She likes to keep things boiling inside with a cool demeanor outside. She doesn't think it's cool. Even dick is more open with his feelings than veronica sometimes.

[5thcrewman]

Did Landry kill the Dean's wife with a knife? Cuz then it could be:
"Papa's Stabbin' Cabin (Cruiser)"

[dtle]

One bad plot point: If Tim already knew that the Prof doesn't have a high opinion of Tim, then why did Tim go out of his way to break into Mars Agency to retrieve the bug he planted in the first place. Why would he ask VM to help the Prof at all?

[tem]

Keith also figured out that "Papa's Cabin" was the resort in Cabo and not a mountain hideaway as V and Tim thought. His smackdown of them as they tried to be oh-so-smart about license plate lettering was great.

[dolcevita]

Also interesting that when Tim asked Veronica whether she would be his TA, he asked whether she would pick up his dry cleaning for him -- obviously how HE got Landry's clothes.

[LoadStar]

One bad plot point: If Tim already knew that the Prof doesn't have a high opinion of Tim, then why did Tim go out of his way to break into Mars Agency to retrieve the bug he planted in the first place. Why would he ask VM to help the Prof at all?

Well, the breaking in wasn't exactly smooth, and that could've been deliberate. He could've broken in just to look pathetic enough to get VM to help, because he needed her to bring false information back to Keith.

[TAsunder]

Well, the breaking in wasn't exactly smooth, and that could've been deliberate. He could've broken in just to look pathetic enough to get VM to help, because he needed her to bring false information back to Keith.

Yup, he was doing his best "bumbling detective" act to try to lead veronica and keith astray and keep tabs on the investigation.

[Jonathan_S]

Yup, he was doing his best "bumbling detective" act to try to lead veronica and keith astray and keep tabs on the investigation.
And part of that leading them astray was was get Veronica to help "find" the evidence Tim wanted her to find. Tim's too close to this whole thing, and kind of had an apparent motive even before the recording got out. If he'd been the one to find each piece of information alone it probably would have aimed suspicion on him. But with Veronica taking point on reporting their finds? Suspicion diverted.

(Until he starts blabbing too much in class. It was fairly obvious that as soon as he started talking he was going to mess up and implicate himself)

[johnperkins21]

(Until he starts blabbing too much in class. It was fairly obvious that as soon as he started talking he was going to mess up and implicate himself)

As he predicted during his speech when he talked about improvisation being the foil of most criminals.

[gilmoregirls102]

It's veronica. She likes to keep things boiling inside with a cool demeanor outside. She doesn't think it's cool. Even dick is more open with his feelings than veronica sometimes.

TAsunder... I couldn't agree with you more!

[stellie93]

I was surprized that Mindy could cash in the life insurance policy. First, I wouldn't think you could get the money that fast, and second, they don't usually pay for suicide do they? Wasn't it still considered suicide at that point? At least you'd have to wait for the investigation to end. I thought maybe she had hired Keith because she knew she couldn't collect if it was suicide.

[madscientist]

Don't think he needs a search warrant for batando's place at this point.Maybe. I don't know the law on this. Surely the apartment and contents reverted to the next of kin, and the sheriff would need some kind of permission or a warrant before searching it. It's not like the apartment was a crime scene or anything.

[DevdogAZ]

I was surprized that Mindy could cash in the life insurance policy. First, I wouldn't think you could get the money that fast, and second, they don't usually pay for suicide do they? Wasn't it still considered suicide at that point? At least you'd have to wait for the investigation to end. I thought maybe she had hired Keith because she knew she couldn't collect if it was suicide.
My life insurance policy covers suicide. It just depends on the carrier.

[JimSpence]

So, is Veronica now going to teach the criminology class? :)

[sbc44]

I was surprized that Mindy could cash in the life insurance policy. First, I wouldn't think you could get the money that fast, and second, they don't usually pay for suicide do they? Wasn't it still considered suicide at that point? At least you'd have to wait for the investigation to end. I thought maybe she had hired Keith because she knew she couldn't collect if it was suicide.


Its normally not covered for the first couple of years of the policy, then it is covered after that.

[gilmoregirls102]

So, is Veronica now going to teach the criminology class? :)

No, I think since Papa Mars is now sheriff, she is going to run Mars Investigations!

[murgatroyd]

No mention of VM's line of the year?

To Wallace: "I am trying to figure out which Gilmore Girl you are".

+1

A great moment, one of my faves all season.

Jan

[mrpantstm]

I wasn't that impressed with the conclusion to the Dean murder. For a criminology professor, you'd think Landry would have a bit more insight than "She's setting me up Keith."

While Landry and Mindy may have told the police the other did it, you'd think the two on the boat would at least be on the same page together. Landry accidentally killing Mindy was unnecessary.

I've fairly lost interest with the whole LoVe relationship but I still think the writing team sincerely bungled that storyline.

And I guess I was wrong, Veronica didn't put herself into mortal danger when confronting the killer. :D :p

[madscientist]

While Landry and Mindy may have told the police the other did it, you'd think the two on the boat would at least be on the same page together. Landry accidentally killing Mindy was unnecessary.We won't know if it was unnecessary until the season resumes. They could well have needed Landry out of the way (in jail) for some reason related to the plotlines in the rest of the season.

Anyway, neither of them knew Tim did it, and each one thought the other one did it. That could lead to some serious tension.

[Robin]

It's good they didn't give tim too much screen time previous to this episode, because after about 10 seconds in this one, I knew it was him with certainty. He was already my prime suspect, though, after thinking more about the whole witness on his computer thing.

It's funny, I really didn't have any theories in the last few weeks but this week the "previously..." montage sold me on him. I think the combination of seeing him and knowing couldn't be Landry, Mindy, or the ex led me right there!

[Rosenkavalier]

No, I think since Papa Mars is now sheriff, she is going to run Mars Investigations!

Keep in mind, Keith did say that he's the Sheriff at least "until the special election". He was asked by the County Commisioner to step in on an interim basis, and he won't have the job for 'real' until he wins it outright. And that presumes that he decides to keep the job - - one of the reasons he ran last time was his anger over the way Lamb was handling the bus crash investigation. If someone competent runs, he may choose to step aside.

A side note: in one of the interviews that Michael Muhney gave after "Mars, Bars", he noted that none of the officers or staff at the Sheriff's Office had the traditional black bar or band on the uniform, nor were there any signs whatsoever at the station that anything was out of the ordinary. It was almost as if Lamb had just vanished instead of being killed in the line of duty.

[Jesda]

Julie Gonzalo is way hotter than Kristen Bell.

There, I said it!

[cmontyburns]

This was a good if not completely satifying ending to the O'Dell murder arc, which overall I thought was a strong run of episodes. It really highlights one of the problems with the shorter mystery arc format: there just isn't enough time to introduce enough suspects or motives to make you really wonder who did it. I suspected Tim early on just because he was one of the very few possibilities, and seemed more likely than the others. I didn't know his motive or how things would turn out, of course, so it was just a guess. But I would rather not have been able to guess it so easily.

On another note: Rob Thomas said that due to the short season order, they had to cut one planned episode from the O'Dell murder arc. He commented that this resulted in them setting up something during the arc that they didn't pay off -- and he felt that fans would notice. Any thoughts on what it was?

[DevdogAZ]

On another note: Rob Thomas said that due to the short season order, they had to cut one planned episode from the O'Dell murder arc. He commented that this resulted in them setting up something during the arc that they didn't pay off -- and he felt that fans would notice. Any thoughts on what it was?
I always thought that the rich donor to the school who popped in to see the dean unannounced earlier on the day he died was going to play into the mystery somehow. I'll bet that's what he was referring to.

[gilmoregirls102]

Can I wait til May 1st? Nope. (13)

[Warren]

my question is how did Keith get to go to mexico so fast

[LoadStar]

my question is how did Keith get to go to mexico so fast

Neptune is, as best as anyone can tell, in the San Diego area of California. (They've made references to the Padres baseball team, before the writers came up with he Neptune Sharks to avoid having to continually license the "Padres" name from MLB.) They've shown several of the characters making a drive over to Mexico in the past, so it's not at all unreasonable to have Keith down to Cabo within a few hours driving... faster if he hops on a plane or helicopter.

[TAsunder]

I'm pretty sure it is unreasonable to drive to cabo san lucas, unless there's some other cabo that isn't at the end of the peninsula. It's about 1000 miles.

However, it's not that long of a flight.

[ScaryMike]

Julie Gonzalo is way hotter than Kristen Bell.

There, I said it!


You, my friend, should be sent straight to the loony bin, do not pass go, do not collect $100.

[Warren]

oh I didn't mean driving to Mexico I meant calling Mexico and saying we need to come to your country to find someone. I don't really know how easy or hard it is.

[Jesda]

You, my friend, should be sent straight to the loony bin, do not pass go, do not collect $100.

Pic war! :D

http://www.lindzmag.net/articleimages/julie_gonzalo002.jpg

[Jonathan_S]

Pic war! :D
http://www.bubel.com/~josmith7/kristenBell.jpg

[Magnolia88]

Please, move the pic war over to the "Veronica Mars is hot" thread.

They are both very pretty, end of story.

[NoThru22]

Kristen wins!

[lambertman]

I bet Julie's much lower-maintenance, though.

[cherry ghost]

Please, move the pic war over to the "Veronica Mars is hot" thread.


Why?


Jesda,
I look forward to your rebuttal.

[TAsunder]

Maybe just my opinion but we should include amanda seyfried in this competition.

[Magnolia88]

Why?


Why? Because this thread is titled "Papa's Cabin," that's why.

There is another thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=278939&page=5) devoted to the hotness of Veronica Mars. Keep your photo spamming in the relevant thread. It's called common courtesy to other posters.

[TriBruin]

Why? Because this thread is titled "Papa's Cabin," that's why.

There is another thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=278939&page=5) devoted to the hotness of Veronica Mars. Keep your photo spamming in the relevant thread. It's called common courtesy to other posters.

[Quickly clicks on the link to the other thread] :D

[DreadPirateRob]

Finally watched this tonight (had to wait for wifey to watch it with me).

One nagging question I have - why did Mindy buy the boat and flee town? It made her look extremely guilty - at least as an accomplice - which served a plot point as a diversion in the first part of the ep. Yet based on the denoument she apparently had nothing to do with the murder of the Dean. So why buy the boat, ship her kids off to England, and skip town? She wanted to skip town because... why, exactly? Because she thought Hank actually did it, and was afraid of him? But wasn't he in custody at the time she bought the boat? That whole chain of events doesn't quite add up to me.

[Jesda]

Why? Because this thread is titled "Papa's Cabin," that's why.

There is another thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=278939&page=5) devoted to the hotness of Veronica Mars. Keep your photo spamming in the relevant thread. It's called common courtesy to other posters.

Wahh! MY WATER'S WET!

[TiVoStephen]

I was surprized that Mindy could cash in the life insurance policy. First, I wouldn't think you could get the money that fast, and second, they don't usually pay for suicide do they? Wasn't it still considered suicide at that point? At least you'd have to wait for the investigation to end. I thought maybe she had hired Keith because she knew she couldn't collect if it was suicide.The way I remember it, she waited until the criminology professor was arrested for murder, so that way the insurance company couldn't argue it was suicide, and that was even mentioned by the agent.

However, you're right about it being strange to get the money that fast.