"Like a Virgin"
Veronica is at Mars Investigations, studying the photos she discovered in “Return of the Kane.” Cliff arrives and Veronica asks him to get her into death row so that she can talk to Koontz. He happens to have been Koontz’s lawyer during his trial, but Cliff doesn’t think that Koontz will want to see Veronica. Veronica shows him the crime scene photos, asking why Koontz would break into the Kanes’ house to steal Lilly’s shoes. Cliff finally relents, telling Veronica to write a letter about why she wants to see Koontz, and he’ll try to get her a meeting. At school, Veronica showers in the locker room and emerges to discover that her clothes have disappeared. She finally finds them in the toilet and is stuck with nothing but a towel. A cheerleader named Meg Manning (Alona Tal) offers aid, but she only has a cheerleading outfit for Veronica. She invites Veronica to join her and some other 09ers for lunch, but Veronica declines when she sees the likes of Dick Casablancas at Meg’s table. Dick takes an online purity test as some of Meg’s friends made snide comments about Veronica; Meg defends her. The 09ers discuss the purity test - you answer a list of questions about naughty stuff, and the test tabulates the percentage of your purity (the lower the score, the naughtier the person). A girl named Kimmy says that everyone in school has received the test and is taking it. After school, Veronica heads to Wallace’s house, not hiding the fact that she likes to hang out there because he has a satellite dish and she can watch pay-per-view boxing. Veronica attempts to help lower Wallace’s purity score (70%) by flashing him, but his mother Alicia (Erica Gimpel) sees them and privately tells Wallace that he shouldn’t be spending so much time with her.
When Wallace returns, Veronica tells him that she’s spotted a link on the purity test - you can buy someone else’s results for ten bucks. She guesses correctly that school will be chaotic the next day - everyone has discovered each other’s scores. Meg winds up with the number 48 painted on her locker, and her boyfriend Cole blasts her for sleeping with her tour guide on a trip to Spain. She claims that she didn’t, but he presents some of her purity test answers as evidence that she did. Veronica tells Meg that she believes she’s really pure, then offers to find out who posted the test in Meg’s name. Veronica heads to a computer classroom and asks the teacher a technology-related question. He tells her that he’s really a gym teacher and she should go to a girl named Mac for answers. Veronica finds Mac (Tina Majorino) in the parking lot, where she’s trying to get into her old, beat-up car. Veronica helps her out, then asks for help herself. Mac tells her that the school’s IT guy, Rene DeMois, is the only person with students’ passwords, so he might have more answers for Veronica. Back at his house, Wallace takes photos of Veronica in front of a sheet. When he leaves to answer the phone, Veronica overhears Alicia with a renter, Jeremy, who’s been taking advantage of her. At school, Meg and another student do a news broadcast, in which Meg thinks she’s becoming the butt of people’s jokes. After the broadcast, Meg chats with Pam and Kimmy, telling Kimmy that she should’ve been chosen to be the head anchor. Later, Meg complains to Veronica that people are harassing her. Veronica asks if anyone has Meg’s password; she says that her sister Lizzie might. Veronica questions Lizzie (Anastasia Baranova), who isn’t a big fan of Meg but claims that she didn’t post the fake test.
Veronica heads to see Rene, pretending to want to get a friend’s password. He refuses, even when she offers a bribe. After school, Kimmy auditions for the school production of Cabaret as other students look on. She’s followed by Meg, whose audition is interrupted by students who heckle her and comment on the appropriateness of the lyrics of “Don’t Tell Mama.” Meg runs off and Veronica goes after her, discovering that her locker has been tagged with the number 14. At home, Veronica writes a letter to Koontz, pretending to be a southern women named Ellen White who’s studying criminology. She lies that she’s from Koontz’s hometown and wants to talk to him. She then puts one of the photos Wallace took of her next to a sign from Koontz’s town. Back at school, as Veronica voices over that she paid ten bucks for her own fake purity test, she goes back to Rene and tells him that someone figured out her password, so she needs a new one. Wallace, Alicia, and Wallace’s brother arrive at home to find Jeremy cooking in their kitchen. Wallace starts to fight with Jeremy, who’s just generally a jerk, but Alicia stops him and they leave. Wallace heads to Veronica’s house, where she offers to send Keith after Jeremy. At school, Veronica tells Meg that the purity test everyone’s taken was first published in a magazine that Lizzie subscribes to. Veronica gets caught talking by her teacher, then gets harassed by Dick. Keith heads to Alicia’s house and offers to help her out with Jeremy. Alicia is uninterested in his help and tells him to worry about his own kid.
Veronica gets a phone call for “Ellen” and sets up her visit with Koontz. Back at school, Lizzie overhears Cole gossiping about Meg and defends her sister. Veronica learns that Meg skipped school and goes to see her at home. She encourages Meg to get tough, get even, and go to school the next day, no matter what. Wallace, Alicia, and Wallace’s little brother arrive at home to discover that Jeremy has flooded their place with gas. Alicia decides that they should go to the police, since they now have evidence against Jeremy, but Sacks can only tell her to get a lawyer and try to evict Jeremy. Alicia points out that they’d still have to put up with him for 60 days. Wallace heads over to Veronica’s for the night; Veronica asks Keith if he talked to Alicia, but he says that she had a plan and he didn’t want to interfere. After Keith leaves, Wallace tells Veronica that his mother thinks he’s staying with a different (imaginary) friend; her co-workers at Kane Software have been talking about Keith and Veronica and told her all sorts of stuff. Keith finds dirt on Jeremy at Mars Investigations, then heads to his apartment, where he orders Jeremy to move out by 6 a.m. Jeremy ignores him and goes to bed. At 6 the next morning, Jeremy awakens to find Keith in his bedroom, reminding him of his deadline. Keith encourages him to be crazy, since he’s supposed to be, then starts acting crazy himself. He orders Jeremy to leave and never bug the Fennels again; Jeremy agrees. At the Marses’ apartment, Wallace has trouble finding his keys. Keith pretends to find them and gives them to him.
At school, Mac tells Veronica that whoever’s charging money for the purity tests is making a fortune. Veronica tries to log onto a computer but can’t because, according to Mac, someone is logged on as her in the journalism classroom. They head over as Mac asks if Veronica has anything confidential in her e-mail account. Veronica realizes that there’s an e-mail to Duncan in her outbox which says that she has an STD and she hopes she didn’t give it to him. Mac notes that someone named “Froggy” is IMing the person who logged into Veronica’s account. Veronica asks the person to get another password for her and Froggy replies, “Another one?” That evening, Veronica tracks “Froggy” to Inspiration Rock Quarry, aka Lovers’ Lane, and takes photos of him in a car with someone. The next day, she confronts Kimmy with the photos of her and Rene. She notes that Rene is 23 and Kimmy is a minor, so he could be in a lot of trouble. Kimmy swears that she didn’t get Veronica’s password from Rene - she claims that Pam did because she’s upset that Duncan still likes Veronica. She says that she herself only posted Meg’s fake test because she’s jealous of her. After Kimmy’s done confessing, Veronica reveals that she taped the entire conversation. She later airs the tape during the school news broadcast. (She gets a little embarrassed at the part about Duncan and voices over, “Note to self: cue tape for client.”) Pam blasts Kimmy for being a drama queen, not realizing that she’s now on the outs with the 09ers. At school, Veronica sees Mac in her new Volkswagen Beetle and notes that she was the only person smart enough to set up the purity test. She voices over her pride that Mac got money from 09ers.
Meg tells Veronica that everyone is now trying to make up with her and claiming they didn’t believe the things they heard about her. Veronica says that no one is saying that to her; Meg says that people are afraid of Veronica. She adds that the getting tough advice was good, but Veronica might want to rethink her stance on getting even. She then tells Veronica that she does have friends. Veronica catches up to Duncan and tells him that the e-mail he got wasn’t from her. He promises that he’s not still in love with her and she claims that she didn’t think he was. After an awkward moment, Duncan cracks a joke and the two are all right. Alicia heads to Mars Investigations and tells Keith that Jeremy has moved out. She thanks him, noting that he must be a nice guy if he helped her after she turned him down. Veronica finally goes for her meeting with Koontz; he tells her that she reminds him of someone. She tells him that she thinks she can prove that Koontz didn’t take Lilly’s shoes, which could earn him a retrial. Koontz replies that he knows who she is and mentions that Lianne used to visit Jake’s office. He notes that Veronica is very dedicated but didn’t inherit that trait from Lianne, so she must be her father’s daughter. Veronica points out that Keith tried to save Koontz, but he says that he’s talking about her real father, Jake. Shocked, Veronica leaves the prison and cries in her car.
WELCOME TO NEPTUNE: Meg, Alicia, Mac, Lizzie
THE TITLE IS A PLAY ON... The Madonna song of the same name.
MEMORABLE QUOTES: “Dershowitz, Cochran, and Shapiro were offering up their limbs, and he comes here for representation. I failed criminal law and I still know that can’t be good.” - Cliff, re: Koontz
Veronica: “What’d you score?”
“Meg, you’re the last good person at this school. I’d believe cartoon birds braided your hair this morning.” - Veronica
Wallace: “Why are you holding your hands like that?”
Wallace: “I just about murked my mom’s crazy, no-rent-paying tenant this afternoon.”
Veronica: (to Wallace) “Seriously, you should talk to him.”
Written by Aury Wallington; directed by Guy Norman Bee
Wallace: “70.”
Veronica: “Wow, you are 30 percent danger-lovin’, girl-touchin’ rock star.”
Veronica: “So that one day in your memoirs, you'll describe me as inscrutable.”
Wallace: “I was leaning more towards bonkers.”
Veronica: “I’ll take what I can get.”
Veronica: “That guy’s sleazy, so I hope ‘murked’ means something bad.”
Keith: “Am I giving you the birds and bees again, Wallace?”