"Betty and Veronica"
Veronica is in her bedroom, wondering how Wiedman figured out that she was going to Barstow to get Lianne (see “Ruskie Business”). She finds a pencil sharpener the Wildlife Alliance sent her, even though she never made any donations to them. She breaks it and finds a listening device inside. Veronica voices over that Wiedman must have overheard her booking her trip to Barstow; she would have left right after the dance, but she was being vain and didn’t want Lianne to see her the way she was dressed. She flashes back to finding Lianne at the cantina and Lianne trying to get her to leave. In the present, Veronica starts to crush the listening device, then realizes that she can use it to her advantage. At school, Wallace shoots hoops with a teammate, Jack, as Veronica hangs out nearby. Later, as Wallace and Veronica walk down the hall, Wallace is the center of attention, getting congratulations from a bunch of different students. Wallace encourages Veronica to meet more people, since there are a lot of cool people around. Unfortunately for her, she runs into Meg and Duncan, who are all lovey-dovey (see “Ruskie Business”). Clemmons suddenly calls Veronica into his office. There, he tells her that Polly, the school’s parrot mascot, has been birdnapped. She thinks she’s being accused of the crime, but he actually wants her to find the bird. Veronica milks the situation, asking for a personal letter of recommendation, a different locker, her own parking space, and some excused absences. (Clemmons agrees to the locker, the letter, and two absences.) Veronica promises to keep quiet about the missing bird.
Later, Veronica uses her new locker, which is next to Wallace’s. Jack has heard about the missing Polly; the rumor is that kids from Neptune’s rival Pan High School took her. Wallace is upset, since he bonded with Polly when he worked in the office. He goes on about the great things about Neptune High again, sharing with Veronica that someone left a box of homemade Snickerdoodles in his locker, plus a note that said, “Go Wallace. We love you. You rock.” Duncan approaches and congratulates Wallace on a good recent game; Meg tries to make nice with Veronica, but she isn’t really in the mood. Wallace tries to get Veronica to eat lunch with him at the jock table, but she’s not interested. Instead, she winds up in completely different clothes at Pan High. The students there are less wealthy than Neptune kids, and Pan students hate Neptune as much as Veronica does. In the cafeteria, she zeroes in on the jocks and pretends to be a new student. One of the jocks, Richie (who’s number 13) introduces himself and she tells him her name is Betty. The two of them and some other jocks start talking about basketball (Veronica says she used to go to Riverdale, but no one gets the reference) and Richie mentions that someone stole Neptune’s mascot. Another jock worries that Wallace will be hard to beat on the court, which makes Veronica proud, but Richie promises that they have something special in store for Neptune. A kid runs in and announces, “They’ve got our goat!” The students declare war on Neptune for taking their mascot, Billy, and Veronica, calling herself a human Google, mentions that the mascots are metaphors for school pride that she doesn’t have. After school, Veronica heads over to the sheriff’s department and flashes back to the cantina. Lianne tries to reminisce but Veronica asks her straight out what’s going on with her and Jake. Lianne swears that Jake didn’t kill Lilly - she knows because they were together at the Neptune Grand that night.
In the present, Veronica asks Leo to get her interrogation tapes from Lilly’s murder investigation. At Mars Investigations, Keith tells Veronica that the bank called to let her know that her account is overdrawn. He’s surprised, since she was saving up a bunch for college, but she tells him that it must be a mistake. She flashes back to the cantina and Lianne claiming that nothing happened between her and Jake at the hotel. She explains that a couple of days before she left, she heard a message from Celeste on Veronica’s answering machine - she had a message about Jake and Lianne, and she didn’t want Veronica seeing Duncan. Lianne met with Jake at the hotel to tell him to get Celeste to back off. In the present, “Betty” returns to Pan High and learns of a bookie who runs bets out of Rest Stop 15 with no line. (Rest Stop 15 is “like a cross between Inspiration Point and Tijuana.”) A student named Wilson arrives and is cheered; Richie explains that he’s rumored to have been the one who stole Polly. He has a picture on his phone of himself with the bird. Just then, a delivery guy arrives with a huge box; the note attached reads, “To Pan High cafeteria. Bon appetit. Love, Neptune.” Inside is meat labeled, “100% goat meat.” “Betty” catches up to Wilson and asks to see the photo of him with Polly. He claims that he just walked into Neptune like he belonged there and grabbed the bird. After memorizing Wilson’s locker combination, “Betty” asks him to show her around Rest Stop 15 after school. After he leaves, she opens his locker, sends someone a photo, and asks the person to meet her at Rest Stop 15. After school, Wilson arrives at Rest Stop 15 and runs into Weevil, who demands to know where Polly is. Wilson swears that he doesn’t know where she is; the parrot he took the picture of was from a pet store. As Wilson leaves, Veronica arrives and Weevil tells her he’s not doing her any more favors. A jock from Pan High arrives and places a bet with Weevil; he recognizes Veronica as “Betty” and an amused Weevil plays along.
Veronica heads back to Mars Investigations and flashes back to Barstow. She tries to get more information out of Lianne, who just wants a drink. Veronica demands to know how Lianne got Jake to get Celeste to back off, and Lianne finally admits that she threatened him with a paternity test. She tearfully says that she doesn’t know what the paternity test would show. In the present, Leo arrives with the tapes; he tells Veronica that he wants a dinner date in exchange. She asks him about sports betting and learns that a bookie who doesn’t have a line will either make a ton of money or get himself into a lot of trouble. Veronica wonders why he’d take that risk and Leo suggests that he knows something the bettors don’t. At Neptune High the next day, Veronica eats lunch with Wallace and the jocks. Wallace grabs some food and leaves early, heading to the parking lot. Veronica follows him to a van, where he reveals that he’s been holding Pan’s goat hostage. He tells her that it was Jack’s idea, but now the goat is causing problems and he doesn’t know what to do about it. (“Bad kidnapped goat!” Veronica chides Billy.) In the journalism classroom, Duncan tells Veronica about the recent flood of letters to the editor concerning Polly. A girl named Arianna gives the two of them a letter she wrote that says that Polly is better off, since she’s not in a cage anymore. After she leaves, Duncan says that he thinks she’s part of SAAC (Students Against Animal Cruelty), the group that threw blood on last year’s Homecoming Queen for wearing fur. At home, Veronica bakes and listens to the interrogation tapes as we see the scenes they’re from. Jake tells Keith that he was in a hotel with Celeste for two and a half hours. Wallace arrives and realizes that Veronica, who’s baking Snickerdoodles, has been leaving the cookies in his locker. She reminds him that she used to be on the pep squad, so she’s experienced at making spirit boxes. She asks if he’s picking his mother up at work and asks him to do a weird favor - she wants him to put a plant in on Wiedman’s assistant’s desk and say it’s from a secret admirer.
Later, Veronica listens to another interrogation tape, on which Celeste attempts to corroborate Jake’s testimony but doesn’t get all of the details right. Leo and Veronica go out to dinner but wind up picking the same restaurant as Duncan, Meg, Jake, and Celeste. In a Barstow flashback, Lianne tells Veronica that Celeste interrupted her and Jake at the hotel, but Lianne left without hearing them fighting. In the present, Veronica voices over that Celeste told Keith she was at the hotel for two hours, but according to Lianne, she was only there for about twenty minutes. She wonders if Celeste had Wiedman take the photos of her in the gun sight to get back at Lianne. She isn’t sure if it was about paternity, an alibi, or both. At school, Veronica comes upon a SAAC meeting; she tries to compliment Arianna’s letter but Arianna is upset that Veronica is wearing fur and leather boots. Veronica tries to ask her about Polly, but Arianna doesn’t confess to anything. Veronica then has to rescue her fur-collared vest from SAAC girls and tell them that it’s fake. The school’s news broadcast is interrupted by a video of a disguised figure at Pan High, holding Polly. The figure announces that if Wallace plays in the game the next night, Polly will be killed. Later, Veronica tells Weevil that she thinks he took Polly; he’s taking the bets without the line, and he knows that if Wallace doesn’t play, he’ll collect the money for the favored team. Weevil points out that if he had Polly, he wouldn’t have helped Veronica try to find her. Later, Wallace laments his situation and tells Veronica that his coach is encouraging him to play. He wants to play, but he doesn’t want to risk Polly’s life, so he decides to sit out. “Would it cheer you up if I brought back the goat?” Veronica asks. Veronica asks Meg about the interrupted news broadcast; Meg tells her that it was taped the night before, so someone had to have cut in the Polly clip before the broadcast aired that morning. Meg tries to patch up their friendship, but Veronica tells her that they “run in different circles.” She can’t just start hanging out with the 09ers again after the way they’ve treated her. Meg suggests that they start their own circle and Veronica accepts that that might be possible. The two girls watch the Polly clip again and this time Veronica recognizes the disguised figure’s shoes.
Just before the big basketball game, Veronica arrives at the gym with Billy and Polly, which she gives to Clemmons. Richie greets “Betty,” who tells him that Wallace is a great basketball player, “but it’s really his sweetness and purity of spirit that makes him unbeatable.” Veronica tells Wallace that he should play in the game, since Polly is back, then tells Jack that he should have covered up the number on his shoes when he made the video with Polly. She reveals that Jack wanted Wallace to sit out so that he could be the star of the game, as well as control the score and make the money from the bets. (Apparently Veronica got Polly by going to Jack’s room, pretending to be a cheerleader, and telling Jack’s mom they needed the bird for the game.) Clemmons takes Jack away and Wallace heads into the gym for the game, which Veronica decides to stay for. Afterwards, back at home, she explains that she took all of her college money and paid to put Lianne in rehab. She then asks Keith why a person might confess to a crime he didn’t commit. Keith says that Koontz might have confessed for money, but Veronica points out that he wouldn’t be able to spend it, since he’s dying. Keith notes that there might be someone else he wanted the money for. After he leaves, Veronica says out loud that she knows who’s getting the money for Koontz’s confession. Through the listening device she put in the plant, she hears Wiedman tell his assistant to get him Amelia DeLongpre. She does an Internet search for Amelia DeLongpre and Abel Koontz and finds an obituary for Stella Koontz. She was Koontz’s mother, and is survived by him and a granddaughter, Amelia - Koontz’s daughter.
THE TITLE IS A PLAY ON... Characters from the Archie comics.
THE LILLY KANE CASE: Jake has an alibi for the time of Lilly’s murder - he was with Lianne.
Jake’s false alibi covers Celeste, but since he was really with Lianne, Celeste has no alibi.
MEMORABLE QUOTES: Duncan: “Eighteen points, eight assists.”
Veronica: “You stole a goat?”
Veronica: “Can you do me a weird favor without asking any questions?”
Weevil: “You know, I always knew you had a thing for me, but I never thought you wanted me for my brain.”
Written by Dianne Ruggiero; directed by Michael Fields
Wallace: “On the streets, we call those dimes.”
Veronica: “Streets! You live on the corner of Pleasant Valley and Marigold.”
Wallace: “They stole our parrot. Matter of principle. Unlike you, I have some school pride.”
Veronica: “And a goat crapping apples in the back of your buddy’s van. Congratulations.”
Wallace: “Isn’t that the bedrock upon which our friendship was founded?”
Veronica: “I’m gagging on the inside.”