"Hi, Infidelity"
In Dean O’Dell’s office, Claire gets blasted for faking her rape (see “President Evil”) as Veronica and Nish wait outside. Dean O’Dell calls them in, noting that Veronica has all sorts of proof that Claire was lying. Therefore, Claire is expelled. After she and her lawyer leave, Dean O’Dell asks Nish why he didn’t read about the situation in the Free Press. Nish says that she didn’t want to cause any more problems, since things are already tense on campus. Dean O’Dell notes that she didn’t hesitate to accuse the Pi Sigs of rape. He then tells her she’ll need to step down as the editor of the paper. Nish vows to make Dean O’Dell and Veronica pay for their actions. As Veronica leaves, she runs into Wallace, who hasn’t given her any reason to think he would be called in to see the dean. In the office, the dean, Wallace, and Wallace’s mechanical engineering professor discuss Wallace’s cheating on a test (see “President Evil”) and are interrupted by Mindy, who has brought her husband lunch. She encourages Dean O’Dell to be merciful with Wallace, something Wallace himself supports.
In Intro to Criminology, Veronica and her classmates receive back papers they wrote; Veronica’s is singled out as the best in the class. “Well, this should make me popular,” she notes. After class, Landry blows off Tim in favor of asking Veronica to have lunch with him. In the food court, he tries to sell her on declaring criminology as her major, since she’s good at it, and offers to be her faculty advisor. At home, Veronica shares the news with Keith, who pretends to be jealous. Harmony (see “Charlie Don’t Surf”) calls to tell Keith that her husband and daughter are out of town and she has an extra ticket to a noir film festival. Veronica is summoned to Tim’s office via text message, where Tim tells her that one of her classmates turned her in for plagiarizing her paper. Tim used a program to check to see if she copied it, and a bunch of red flags came up. Veronica assures him that she didn’t cheat and that she thinks someone is trying to mess with her. Tim takes this as an accusation, asking if she thinks he’s trying to get her out of Landry’s class. He tells her that either she can tell Landry or he can. Landry arrives just in time to hear that there’s something someone needs to know.
At the food court, Piz shows Veronica a record he got a hold of, but she’s too distracted by the fact that Landry gave her three days to prove she didn’t cheat. Piz thinks she should go bowling to get her mind off of things. Lest she think he’s asking her out, he says that they’ll go with Wallace and “the whole gang.” In the gym, Wallace tells Mason that he’s been allowed to drop his mechanical engineering class, but he’s not sure he wants to. The coach arrives and tells Wallace that he’ll be running first team. Mason complains, but the coach tells him he needs to prove himself. Before her next Intro to Criminology class starts, Veronica addresses her classmates, asking who accused her of cheating. A guy named Jeff takes credit, telling her that they’ve met but she obviously doesn’t remember him. He’s happy she got busted because she’s the teacher’s pet and has been destroying the class’ curve. After class, Veronica heads to Wallace and Piz’s room, where Wallace tells her he’s Evil Wallace. He tells her that he can drop mechanical engineering without punishment, but since he wants to major in it, he’d have to give that up. Veronica tries to comfort him but is also interested in knowing where he got his “study guide.”
Veronica heads to Max’s room and has to explain to him many times that she wants to find out why her paper turned up as being plagiarized. He pulls up her paper, but it looks to have been posted the previous year. It was posted by someone named Rory Finch who has a Hearst e-mail account. Elsewhere on campus, Logan takes a sociology test, using an old urban legend to buy himself a couple extra seconds. Later, he shares his triumph with Mercer, who spills the news to Veronica that Logan kind of cheated on a test. Veronica asks Logan if he wants to go bowling the next night; he agrees to go. Veronica spots Parker sitting by herself and decides to ask her to come bowling, too. Keith and Harmony go to the film festival, and afterwards, she tells him that she and her husband are basically just going through the motions now. Keith is just happy to spend time with someone “for whom Bogart isn’t a verb.” Veronica uses Weevil’s keys to break into Dean O’Dell’s office and find information on Rory Finch. She can’t find the right key, so it’s a good thing the door is already unlocked. She’s in the middle of looking through files when Dean O’Dell comes in from the next room.
Veronica tells Dean O’Dell that she thinks she lost an earring in his office and came to look for it. He’s not suspicious and lets her search while he watches boxing on TV. He admits that Mindy doesn’t let him drink, smoke cigars, or watch boxing at home, so when she goes to a charity function, he sneaks into the office to engage in his vices. Dean O’Dell asks Veronica not to say anything if he sees Mindy, since “some things she just doesn’t need to know.” The next day, Wallace heads to his mechanical engineering class, letting his professor know that he’ll take a zero for the last test, but he still has four tests left in the semester and can still pass. Later, in the library, he tells Veronica that he’s sticking with the class. She fills him in on her progress with Rory Finch, telling him that the e-mail account was set up recently from an IP address at the Neptune Grand - after Veronica turned in her paper. Later, Wallace returns to his room to find Piz getting ready for bowling. Wallace bails in order to study, not feeling sympathetic that if only Piz and Veronica go, it will look like a date.
Veronica arrives home while Keith is on the phone with Harmony, asking her to another movie. Harmony has to decline the invitation since she has a conference at the Neptune Grand. Veronica isn’t thrilled to hear that Keith was trying to make plans with a married woman. Later, she heads to the Neptune Grand to meet up with Logan and asks if he has any inside connections in the hotel. He does - a pretty woman named Tina who is willing to look up the name Rory Finch for her. Tina reveals that Rory has stayed a few times over the past few months, always one night at a time, and pays in cash. The only address they have on record is a P.O. box. Veronica leaves Tina her phone number so Tina can call if Rory checks back in. Veronica and Logan meet up with Piz at the bowling alley, and for a moment it looks like Piz will be a fifth wheel until a cheerful Parker shows up. As Logan and Piz go to get shoes, Parker chastises Veronica for inviting her out on a double date so soon after she was raped. Veronica promises that it’s not a set-up. Parker vows not to have fun, but she winds up having it anyway. She also decides that she likes Piz and asks Veronica to find out how he feels about her.
After bowling, Veronica and Logan head back to the Neptune Grand, where Veronica wonders how she’s supposed to ask Piz if he likes Parker. She finds out that Logan got an A on the test he sort of cheated on, and he tells her that Horshack (see “My Big Fat Greek Rush Week”) was caught doing a test for Rafe. Their room service arrives, being served by Jeff, the student who accused Veronica of cheating. She notes that the fake paper was posted from the Neptune Grand, and since Jeff works there, it would be convenient for him to use the Internet there. Jeff blasts her for not recognizing him after he’s worked there for two years and she’s always there with “Captain Moneybags.” (Logan tells him it’s Admiral Moneybags.) After he leaves, Veronica vows to make him pay. The next morning, Wallace sleeps through his alarm after a night of studying, then rushes to the gym for basketball practice. The coach warns him not to spend all his time partying, since he has a chance to start as a freshman. Veronica heads to the campus radio station to find out if Piz likes Parker. After a “traumatic stress flashback to the sixth grade,” she mentions that Parker really liked Piz. Piz tells Veronica that she was nice, but not his type.
Wallace gets back a mechanical engineering practice quiz, which he didn’t score well on. His professor doesn’t think he’s going to be able to pass his class with his zero from the previous test. Parker heads to the library to tell Veronica that she just found out Piz has a radio show; she wants the two of them to go by the station that night. They do so, meeting up with Piz at the end of his show, and Parker suggests that they go get something to eat. Mercer arrives to start his show, and after Parker meets him, she confides to Veronica that she recognized his cologne - she smelled it the night she was raped. Knowing that Mercer will be working for the next couple of hours, Veronica sneaks into his dorm room and finds an electric razor and a suspicious-looking bottle. She goes to Lamb and tells him the full story. He reveals that when they found his cash box after the robbery in “President Evil,” it contained GHB, which was given to two of the rape victims. Wallace visits his coach in the gym and tells him that since he has a tough class he’s dealing with, he wants to hold off on playing basketball for the semester. This means he could lose his scholarship, but the coach allows him to keep it, warning Wallace that he might not get to start.
Veronica hears from Tina that Rory has made a reservation, so she heads to the Neptune Grand and Tina sends her to Rory’s room. Before she can go upstairs, she spots Keith at the bar, then spots Harmony nearby. Keith promises her that they’re just friends, but Veronica reminds him that Harmony is married. He tells her not to worry, obviously not remembering who she is. Upstairs, Veronica goes to Rory Finch’s room only to find a bathrobe-clad Mindy. As she’s heading back downstairs, she runs into Landry with a bottle of champagne. She calls him Rory Finch as he heads to Mindy’s room. Downstairs, Keith and Harmony have a drink and she tells him that she doesn’t want to be on her deathbed regretting things she hasn’t done. She’s gotten a room at the hotel and wants to know if Keith wants to go up there with her. He tells her she’s great and he wants to say yes, but he can’t. He doesn’t want to have regrets on his deathbed either, but he’s not sure what he would regret more - going up or not going up. He gets his answer as he drives home and gets into a car accident. He immediately heads back to the hotel and makes out with Harmony.
The next morning, Veronica makes breakfast and isn’t happy to learn that Keith isn’t home to eat with her. She goes to see Tim and give him her proof that someone posted her paper online after she turned it in. She asks him straight out why he did it, asking why he wanted her to follow the trail to Rory Finch. Tim doesn’t confess, but he basically wanted her to know that Landry is having an affair with Mindy so that she won’t hero-worship him anymore. As Veronica is leaving the office, she sees that Tim has been keeping a serial-killer-like board of information on the rapes. He notes that so far there hasn’t been any DNA evidence left at the scenes of the crimes. Tim then asks if Veronica really thought Jeff framed her. She suddenly remembers what she did for revenge - she filled his trunk with items from the Neptune Grand to frame him for stealing. As Wallace works his hardest in his mechanical engineering class, Dean O’Dell invites Veronica to eat lunch with him in the food court. She seems to want to tell him about Mindy and Landry, but she chickens out, then gets called away by Logan, who informs her that Mercer has been arrested for the rapes. However, Logan was with him the night of a rape that occurred over the summer (probably Nancy’s), and though he won’t give up their location, he knows Mercer is innocent.
THE TITLE IS A PLAY ON...: The movie/book High Fidelity.
THE RAPE CASE: Claire faked her rape.
Parker thinks Mercer is the rapist, since she remembers smelling his cologne the night she was raped.
Mercer has a suspicious-looking bottle and electric razor in his drawer. The sheriff’s department also found GHB in his cash box from the casino.
Tim has been keeping track of information pertaining to the rapes.
No DNA evidence has been found at any of the rape scenes.
Logan claims to have an alibi for Mercer, though he won’t tell what it is.
MEMORABLE QUOTES: Veronica: “Will bowling take my mind off of the fact that everyone’s out to get me?”
Veronica: “I wrote this paper by myself, last week.”
Logan: “I took ten extra seconds on a test. I thought you loved bad boys.”
Dean O’Dell: “Do you follow boxing?”
“Okay. You’re Rocky. Mechanical engineering is Mr. T. ‘Eye of the Tiger’ is playing.” - Veronica to Wallace
Piz: “Hey, look, man, it’s school policy that if you’re dead, I get to keep your stuff, so if you are dead, just - just don’t say anything.”
“Hey! Can someone let me know when some girl is in my office?” - Lamb, re: Veronica
Written by John Enbom; directed by Michael Fields
Piz: “It worked for Nixon.”
Max: “This must be a real Kafka-esque experience for you.”
Veronica: “Does it say who posted it?”
Max: “Ah…rory.finch@hearstcollege.org. That’s not you, is it? That might explain everything.”
Veronica: “I do, but if that’s your idea of bad, you need to turn in your badge.”
Veronica: “I only follow sports that are done to music.”
(Wallace moves)
Piz: “Well, that’s disappointing.”