Veronica Mars 3.05: President Evil

Veronica returns to her snappy come-back-y ways in this one. I guess she’s like that all the time, but there’s such an ease to the way that her character is commanded by Jonathan Moskin & David Mulei that the girl who’s been running around the past few weeks has been tame and easy going in comparison. It’s also the first episode to become totally comfortable with the change in bearings, with the show shifting between on-campus and off comfortably.

President Evil has a few things working in its favour. A fascinating and entertaining stand-alone mystery with a great pay-off; some major development in the respective season’s big case; and some side stories that keep our favourite supporting characters in play.

With Weevil now fully integrated back into the series, I’m glad that he seems to be getting a chance to shine in his new role. His relationship with Veronica was never based on trust and though I was frustrated by her immediately placing blame on him, her distrust of him can never really be contested. He is partly responsible for the death of one of his biggest rivals; I wouldn’t put petty theft past him either. 

Veronica losing her necklace isn’t all to recapture that all-important connection to Lilly, it’s about Veronica losing something that actually has value to her. She resorts to some cheeky tactics to get it back, but you always remember that what she’s doing is simply getting back what’s hers. If she gets to tear a few bad guys’ lives apart in the process, then so be it. And yeah, that closing scene with Busted playing out was kinda bad-ass. It’s so easy to like Ronnie at times like that.

While I wouldn’t peg it as the most fascinating side-plot this series has ever seen, making Wallace turn to something like cheating to get through a college course feels like something that would be a true test of his character. So far he’s always displayed the traits of someone wholly moral, acting as Veronica’s compass when she starts to find it difficult to sift through the haze of shady cover-ups and characters she finds herself surrounded with.

President Evil was the first all-round episode so far this season. It had snark, it had mystery, it had development in all the right stories and best of all it had Veronica doing what she does best. 

9/10

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