It’s pretty amazing how “Un-American Graffiti” severely deflated my expectations for this week’s episode of Veronica Mars. All “Debasement Tapes” would have needed to do to make me happy was to not totally suck. Did it acheive that lofty goal? Fortunately, yes.

The previews made a big deal out of Paul Rudd guest starring on the show. As I had no idea who Paul Rudd was, I was filled with not caring. Having seen the episode, I still had no idea who Paul Rudd is but common sense tells me he played Desmond Fellows. Perhaps this was a big deal to some of you out there, as CW apparently seemed to think it would be, but to me he was just another actor.

At the onset of the Fellows/Piz arc I was a bit concerned. It was such a textbook character meets their idol only to find out they aren’t so great situation that Grace even pointed it out. Even the situation it transitioned in to (the character helps their idol regain their confidence arc) was also a cliche, but somehow it was still effective.

I do have to complain about the mystery itself a little bit however. If Desmond had simply taken the wrong bag, why did he not wonder about how ridiculously light the bag must have been? A single robe’s got to way a lot less than a bag full of crap. For that matter why did the other guy pack a huge bag with nothing but a robe? I was willing to buy the coincidence of Veronica finding Grace, and of Ratner being involved with a group protesting Fellows’ work, but it’s a bit too much of a stretch to believe that someone is going to pack a bag that lightly.

The Mac/Logan plot worked surprisingly well. It was odd that Logan, who as recently as last week’s episode was portrayed as focusing more on his studies, would have forgotten a major project, but it worked as an excuse to get himself, Mac and Max their own plot of the week.

I did think it was kind of out of character for the professor to shut down Logan’s presentation as quickly as he did. Any professor who is willing to give a last minute extension on a major project (apparently without penalty) is not then going to shut down the presentation because he finds it too silly. Besides, given your average university student I’m sure there were presentations for business models that were at least as unusual as Logan’s. Logan may not receive top marks for originality given the number of ratemy______’s sites that already exist, but he shouldn’t have been stopped from giving his presentation. Fortunately for Logan when a professor acts like that there’s a whole appeals process one can go through to ensure one gets a fair evaluation. Look for the writers to never bring that up.

The plot with Keith, Leo and Vinnie was too short. As a result of said shortness, it immediately became clear that Vinnie was planning to run for sheriff as soon as he locked the theives in the store. There would be no point to just have Vinnie randomnly helping catch some theives and Keith’s mention of the upcoming registration deadline at the beginning of the episode left the audience with only one available explanation about Vinnie’s actions.

While I thought the ’surprise’ of Vinnie joining the race wasn’t so well done, I do like the possiblities that Vinnie entering the race presents. Were Vinnie running against just about anyone other than Keith, his shady actions as a PI would probably ensure his loss. But it’ll be a lot harder for Keith to exploit Vinnie’s more questionable actions when he and Veronica have done many of the same things themselves (The Marses usually had better reasons, but people don’t really want nuanced explanations in their campaigns). And, lest we forget, Vinnie has photos of Keith getting rather friendly with a married woman. While Vinnie isn’t actually a (completely) bad guy, I don’t see Vinnie having any qualms with leaking those photos to bolster his chances of victory.

I have the feeling that had I seen it at any other time, I would consider “Debasement Tapes” to be merely an average episode (though compared to most stuff on TV, an average episode of VM is still pretty good), but thanks to it following on the heels of the horrid “Un-American Graffiti”, it feels like a great episode.

Sir Linksalot: Television News