"Ain’t No Magic Mountain High Enough"
A bunch of students are hanging out in Ms. Hauser’s classroom, some (like Madison and a guy named J.B.) making decorations for Winter Carnival and some apparently not doing anything (like Weevil and Corny). Veronica arrives to get decorations for the FBLA carnival booth and banters with J.B., who claims to be her nemesis. Weevil and Madison disagree about the destination for the senior trip, for which the carnival is a fundraiser - the 09ers want to go to Catalina but Weevil and others want to go to Magic Mountain. J.B. warns Veronica that he’s just a few thousandths of a point behind her for the Kane Scholarship, but she’s not worried. In the parking lot, Jackie suffers through some ribbing because of her father (see “Rashard and Wallace Go to White Castle”), including at the hands of Dick. She tells Cora (see “Blast from the Past”) that she’ll show up at Winter Carnival anyway, but Madison overhears and says that Jackie will ruin everything. Jackie sarcastically replies that that’s her plan. At Mars Investigations, Keith finds Terrence waiting around to talk to him. He manages to hide his glee over getting to talk to his long-time idol. At Neptune High, the carnival kicks off and Logan buys slushies from Veronica. They share some banter over a pie-selling Madison and she marvels at his $50 bill. Weevil buys a balloon for his niece Ophelia and gets harassed by Thumper. While playing games, Dick and Logan spot Cassidy holding hands with Mac (whom Dick calls “the chick from Ghost World”).
As Veronica attempts to fix the slushie machine with a screwdriver while simultaneously bonding with Jackie over how much their school sucks, Ms. Hauser collects money from Madison’s booth. Veronica starts to hand hers over and J.B. asks Ms. Hauser for the keys to her classroom so he can get a staple gun. She hands over the keys and takes Veronica’s money just as a bunch of mostly naked guys run by, apparently for their Triton initiation (see “Clash of the Tritons”). Ms. Hauser puts the cash in a box, which she gives to Veronica before heading off to take care of the Tritons. Veronica puts the box in a cupboard and, as Ms. Hauser and Clemmons are talking, Wallace and Jane approach. Ms. Hauser returns for the box, but it looks like someone has opened the cupboard from the other side and absconded with it. Ms. Hauser informs Clemmons that in mere minutes, Veronica has lost all of the money for the senior trip. Veronica is surprised to hear that the box held $12,000, but she points out that it’s metal, so if they make everyone leave through the metal detectors, no one will be able to sneak it out. Ms. Hauser notes that someone could open it, so Veronica suggests that they lock the shop classrooms and the janitor’s closet. Clemmons has the metal detectors moved so everyone will have to walk through them, then orders all of the students’ lockers to be searched. Madison overhears and accuses Jackie of stealing the money, since she said earlier that she planned to ruin everything. Ms. Hauser seems to be under the impression that Madison is right.
At a leapfrog booth, Logan strikes up a conversation with a girl named Hannah (Jessy Schram). When he wins a stuffed bunny, he gives it to her and tells her to name it after him. Veronica finds Weevil and Ophelia and tries to casually check Ophelia’s backpack for the locked box. Weevil catches on and tells her that her case must be bad if a six-year-old is her main suspect. At Mars Investigations, Terrence tells Keith that Lamb is using him as a scapegoat because he sees him as Woody’s ally. Keith doesn’t think that Lamb will file charges against Terrence without any evidence. Terrence reveals that Lamb thinks he planted a bomb on one of the students at the ballpark and detonated it using a cell phone. He needs Keith to help him prove that he didn’t. Veronica heads back to the slushie booth to find Cassidy trying to fix the machine while Mac happily hangs out with him. Cassidy tells Veronica that he loaned the screwdriver she was using to Jackie. Veronica spots Jackie heading into the school with it and follows her to the bathroom, where she hears scraping. When Jackie emerges from her stall, she tells Veronica that she was changing into her bathing suit. Veronica checks the stall door and sees that Jackie was scraping off something derogatory written about her. She explains that almost $400 was placed in a jar for her to be dunked in the dunk tank, and she doesn’t want to take the harassment about her father lying down - just as Veronica didn’t. She heads to the dunk tank and students begin taking out their anger over the bus crash on her.
At Mars Investigations, Terrence and Keith drink beer together and Keith jokes that in order to fulfill his long-time fantasy, they’ll next have to play catch. He asks Terrence for more information on his relationship with Ms. Dumas so that he can help him. Wallace approaches the dunk tank, much to Cora’s disdain, but instead of throwing balls to dunk Jackie, he throws them over the top of the booth. “I suck at this,” he notes. Mac and Cassidy run into Dick, who taunts them until Cassidy gets angry and walks away. Logan catches up with Hannah again and gets her to take a break from hanging out with her friends. At the dunk tank, Madison can’t land any hits on the target, so she dunks Jackie manually, saying, “Next time I tell you to stay home, listen.” Elsewhere, Veronica tells Clemmons to empty the ball pit to see if the locked box was hidden there. The pit is empty but the box isn’t found. Ms. Hauser turns on Veronica for causing trouble but Clemmons learns that a student was filming the carnival for the video yearbook and may have some helpful footage. He and Ms. Hauser gather Veronica, Weevil, Jackie, Madison, J.B., Dick, and Ophelia in Clemmons’ office (where Dick is more interested in Ophelia’s balloon than the video) while their lockers are searched. J.B. notes that even if the money is found, they can’t prove that it was stolen. Dick notes that he never leaves home with less than $13,000 on him. Veronica says that while she was working at the slushie booth, she received a $50 bill with “Nancy” written on it, so that can serve as an identifier when they find the money. On the video footage, Ms. Hauser sees Jackie hiding something, but Jackie says it’s her gym bag. “Trash is trash,” Ms. Hauser replies, not caring how rich Jackie is.
Logan and Hannah hang out in the bounce house and he tells her that because of the activities they’ve completed that night, they’ve now had a date. She admits that it’s her first. Dick and Madison see Mac and Cassidy together and tease them from afar. Little do they know that they’re cruising an escort site for what appear to be revenge purposes. At Mars Investigations, Terrence tells Keith that he and Ms. Dumas had a fling while he was engaged. He had no idea that she was applying to teach in Neptune, and when she arrived, she threatened to tell all to his fiancée. He wouldn’t say anything, so she ended his engagement for him. Keith thinks this situation is more of a motive for causing the bus crash than his support of Woody’s incorporation plan. At the carnival, Veronica asks Weevil about the tools he and Logan used to mess with the car in “The Girl Next Door,” thinking a saw might have been involved. She notes that he tends to be able to get into the auto shop after hours. Weevil tells her that everyone who takes shop makes copies of the teacher’s keys. Clemmons and Ms. Hauser search the lockers in the shop classroom, finding a $50 bill with “Nancy” on it in one. The locker also contains a bag of pills. Clemmons consults his list and notes that the locker belongs to Thumper. Ms. Hauser also finds a paddle with a bunch of letters and numbers (which look like license plates) on it. (This will come into play in “Nevermind the Buttocks.”) While Clemmons has Thumper detained, Veronica uses a copy she made of Clemmons’ office key (see “My Mother, the Fiend”) to get in and grab the paddle. She starts to photocopy it but finds a page from one of Ms. Hauser’s tests (on alcoholism) in the Xerox machine.
In the hallway, Veronica runs into Jackie and tells her that she believes she didn’t steal the money. She invites her along to watch “Ms. Hauser squirm in her own personal Hell.” In Ms. Hauser’s classroom, where she, Clemmons, J.B., and Madison are waiting, Veronica gets Ms. Hauser to apologize to Jackie, then pulls out the test page. Ms. Hauser is confused, as the test was locked in her file cabinet and only her student aide know her code to the copy machine. This aide happens to be J.B., who Veronica remembers borrowed Ms. Hauser’s keys. J.B. accuses Veronica of trying to sabotage him so he can’t get the Kane Scholarship. Veronica announces that she’ll magically make J.B. confess. She takes him into the hallway and tells him that she knows he knew when the streakers would run through the carnival because she has a picture of him at the last Triton initiation. If he doesn’t come clean, she’ll post the photo on the Internet, which will earn him the Tritons’ wrath. They head back to the classroom, where J.B. confesses to stealing the test. “Ta-da!” Veronica exclaims. Veronica sees a shoeprint in the glitter from Madison’s decoration and climbs up to the ceiling, discovering the stolen money above the tiles. The footprint matches Ms. Hauser’s shoes. Veronica guesses that Ms. Hauser took some of the money from Madison’s booth before she ever gave the box to Veronica. Clemmons escorts Ms. Hauser to his office, telling her that this is why he sometimes takes advice from his students. Veronica teases Madison about having to go to Magic Mountain while Jackie wonders if anyone in the room isn’t a thief or a cheat.
In the parking lot, the escort Mac and Cassidy have hired flirts with Dick, who receives an invitation for some car sex. Logan walks Hannah to the parking lot, having made plans for a second date, and says hello to her father - Dr. Griffith. Dick quickly exits the escort’s car, having learned that she isn’t so much a she as a he. He goes after Cassidy, who threatens to do worse if Dick hits him. “You remember Sally?” he asks. At Mars Investigations, Keith tells Terrence that he can’t take his case since he doesn’t feel Terrence is being completely straightforward. He plays a tape from Veronica’s bug in Lamb’s office. Terrence admits that Ms. Dumas blackmailed him after some Fitzpatricks showed up to get some money. He adds that he threw a game, one that Keith almost got to attend. He cheered for Terrence’s team while watching from home, and when they lost, he felt like he’d let them down. Keith is disappointed in his hero but says he’ll take the case because he doesn’t think Terrence would kill a bus full of students. At Neptune High the next day, Veronica watches Weevil arrive in a new car. She tells him that she made up the story about “Nancy,” adding that she knows he planted the pills in Thumper’s locker. She knows that Weevil switched the locks on his and Thumper’s lockers, but she’s not sure how. He tells her that he did hide the locked box in Ophelia’s backpack. She stashed it in the ball pit, and after Veronica interrogated them, Ophelia retrieved the box. While the pit was being drained, Weevil was planting the pills and money in Thumper’s locker. He wonders why Veronica didn’t turn him in, asking, “Is it your undying love for me or just good old-fashioned lust?” She admits that it’s love of roller coasters and her desire to avoid being on a boat with her classmates.
WELCOME TO NEPTUNE: Hannah
THE TITLE IS A PLAY ON... The song “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”
THE SCHOOL BUS CASE: Lamb suspects Terrence of causing the crash because Ms. Dumas was blackmailing him.
MEMORABLE QUOTES: J.B.: “Help her? She’s my nemesis.”
Veronica: (tapping her nose) “Oh, Madison, you have a little….”
Veronica: “Get your ice-cold frozen…sugar water.”
“Shooting in a clown’s mouth. Your future’s bright, Dick.” - Logan
Madison: “We all saw her lurking around.”
Cassidy: “Bambi Gasm!”
Veronica: “Oh, I found this in a copy machine.”
“So, when you rented The Thomas Crown Affair, McQueen or Brosnan?” - Veronica to Weevil
Written by Diane Ruggiero; directed by Guy Norman Bee
Veronica: (to Madison) “His nemesis? Mm…did we break up?”
Madison: “What? Brown? Because I’m a brownnoser?”
Veronica: “No. Glitter. Because you’re a fairy princess.”
Logan: “You had me at ‘ice-cold.’”
Veronica: “What’s your poison?”
Logan: “Ah, emotionally unavailable women.”
Jackie: “Lurking? Uh, you mean standing while black?”
Mac: “Of the Boston Gasms?”
Cassidy: “One would hope.”
Ms. Hauser: “Where did you get this? This is my exam.”
Veronica: (slowly) “In the copy machine.” (to Jackie) “Am I still speaking English?”
Jackie: “Mm-hmm.”
Clemmons: “What were you doing at the copy machine?”
Veronica: “Making coffee.”