"Show Me the Monkey"
Veronica and Keith are doing work at Mars Investigations while wondering why manila folders are called that. (She looks it up on Wikipedia.) Mindy arrives and announces to Keith that Dean O’Dell didn’t kill himself as Lamb ruled six weeks earlier. Keith thinks he did, since he saw Dean O’Dell the night of his death and knows he was drunk and depressed over Mindy’s affair with Landry (see “Spit and Eggs”). She admits that she wants Keith to investigate because if he really did kill himself, she doesn’t get any of his insurance money. Keith tries to ask her for her alibi, noting that if the situation becomes a murder case, the sheriff’s department will be asking her for it. Mindy confirms that she was with Landry all night but neither of them killed Dean O’Dell. Keith promises to check into things, and if anything looks suspicious, he’ll take the case. Mac heads to a lab at Hearst, having been called by two students, Pauline and Gil Thomas, to help restore their computer. It was trashed when their lab was broken into, and their backup, a monkey called 25, is missing, along with 20 control-group rats. Mac immediately thinks of Veronica as someone who can help; she finds her in the food court and she, Pauline, and Gil Thomas fill her in. Pauline notes that the monkey has no name, so they’ll just have to call him 25. She and Gil Thomas suspect PHAT, a campus animal-rights group, has liberated 25, but in the process they’ve screwed up the students’ research.
Mac teases Veronica about having to look for a monkey, but Veronica is able to easily follow up on a lead when she learns that PHAT is holding a recruitment meeting that night. Mac offers to tag along and Veronica jokes that they just need “one more angel.” On her way to class, Veronica passes Keith, who’s hoping to speak to Weevil about Dean O’Dell. He admits that he thinks Dean O’Dell killed himself, but he does want to help Mindy find some closure. Veronica wonders how Keith tracked her down, since her cell phone is off (see “Silence of the Lamb”); he tells her he’ll fill her in someday. That evening, Veronica and Mac get ready for the meeting in Mac and Parker’s room; Parker provides some fashion advice. A girl from the floor asks which country Mac and Parker plan to be for an around-the-world party (see “The Wrath of Con”). Mac isn’t a fan of participating, but Parker thinks that the two of them and Veronica should be out trying to find guys since they’re all single. Mac and Veronica head to the PHAT meeting, where Mac complains about some of the group’s beliefs and is overheard by a guy named Bronson Pope (Michael Mitchell). He turns out to be the chapter president.
Bronson gives a little lecture about the group’s beliefs, which Veronica interrupts to ask if anyone there freed the monkey and rats. Bronson tells her that that’s not their thing, but they’re doing a letter-writing campaign the next night. A girl named Darla suggests also picketing a show by a hunting rocker named Ed Argent. Keith and Weevil meet up in Dean O’Dell’s office, where Weevil reveals that he found a suicide note on the computer. It read, “Goodbye, cruel world,” followed by a bunch of Z’s (Weevil thinks his head fell on the Z key). Keith is surprised to see a bottle of scotch on the table. At the Neptune Grand, Dick takes a photo of his…Dick the Third? He then throws it off the balcony, despite Logan’s reminder that management asked him to stop doing that. Dick encourages him to get back in the game and asks Logan to let him help. Veronica and Mac meet up with PHAT for the letter-writing campaign, and Veronica learns that all research animals are eventually killed. She chats up Darla and offers to join her if she wants to picket the Argent show. Bronson tells Mac that he’s glad she and Veronica came (but he’s obviously mostly happy that Mac came). Later, Veronica tells Mac to casually look towards Bronson, who is happily looking at her. Mac doesn’t seem to get that he likes her. Darla and another PHAT member, Sam, tell Veronica and Mac that if they want to prove themselves, they should do something to get the group’s attention.
At home that night, Keith tells Veronica that he thinks it’s suspicious that Dean O’Dell didn’t drink the scotch he’d been wanting to drink before killing himself. He asks Veronica about her impressions of Dean O’Dell; she admired him. She confirms that he probably wouldn’t leave a suicide note that was a cliché, then reveals that for her Plan a Perfect Murder paper for Landry’s class (see “Spit and Eggs”), she did a case on a fake suicide. She had the killer leave the note on a computer so the handwriting couldn’t be checked, and the note was a cliché so it wouldn’t be studied. Her example was, “Goodbye, cruel world.” On campus the next day, Veronica tracks down Piz and asks if he can book Argent on his radio show. He’s curious as to how Argent is connected to the 25 case, but she won’t tell him. In the lab, Pauline discovers that 25’s food is now missing, though it wasn’t after the break-in. Veronica tells her that there might be a PHAT splinter cell and she’s looking into it. She confirms her suspicions that once the students were done with their research, they were going to kill 25. Another student, Emi, arrives and criticizes Pauline and Gil Thomas for blasting the air-conditioning, since it messes with her plants. Veronica goes in to question her, but Emi promises that she would never vandalize a lab.
After Piz’s radio interview with Argent, they meet up with Veronica, Mac, and Parker, who are decked out in Zeta Theta Beta sweatshirts. Veronica and Parker act like girly fans while Mac tries to play along. The three get Argent to take a photo with them in his own sweatshirt, but he doesn’t realize that they’ve swapped it for one that reads, “Meat is murder.” The photo appears in the paper the next day and Sam congratulates Veronica on her success and tells her that she and Mac are in, giving them a room number to come to at 3 p.m. When the two show up, they find Sam and Darla ready to take their nude photos for an anti-fur calendar. Fortunately, before Veronica and Mac have to make a move, the rest of the PHAT members pop up and reveal that it was just a test to see how committed they are. Bronson invites Mac to join them for a meal, but she doesn’t get that he’s basically asking her out. Veronica makes up for it by inviting him to the around-the-world party. Unable to come up with much at the last minute, Veronica, Parker, and Mac decorate Mac and Parker’s room as Canada (complete with Canadian accents, a moose photo, and Barenaked Ladies soundtrack). Parker is confused until Veronica explains that there’s now a guy involved. Mac wonders if Piz will show up, but Parker is already over him (see “Hi, Infidelity”) and wants to be wooed. She tells Veronica to mingle, since they should be back in the saddle.
Veronica takes Parker’s advice during the party but doesn’t have much luck. Bronson doesn’t show, so Mac decides to go back to her room. (Veronica helps clear it out by announcing that Canada is closed due to border-control issues.) Later, Parker shows Bronson into her room, telling Mac she checked his ID at the border. She then finds Veronica and tells her the news. Bronson and Mac have a nice talk, but when he tries to kiss her goodnight, she balks. Dick and Logan head to the beach, where they meet up with Chip, who provides beers. There are also some interested girls hanging around. Veronica and Parker usher Mac to Bronson’s house, as Parker has swiped his ID to give Mac an excuse to go see him. She encourages Mac to tell him they’re on their way out and invite him along. However, when they arrive, there’s a girl named Amy there and Mac backs off. Bronson invites the three in to show them a letter they received back from a cosmetics company. When Mac heads off to get a glass of water, she spots something surprising in another room. Back on the beach, a girl named Taylor joins Logan, Dick, and Chip. Back at Bronson’s, Parker tries to determine Amy and Bronson’s relationship but doesn’t have any luck. Mac returns and quickly tells Veronica to check out the bedroom. She does so, finding the missing lab rats.
Veronica confronts Bronson about them, asking where 25 is, but he claims that the rats were dropped off on his doorstep, probably because everyone knows he likes animals. Veronica asks to see the box and finds a bunch of shredded paper inside. Parker finally asks Bronson how long he and Amy have been together and learns that they’re actually siblings. Veronica tells Mac that she has to tell Pauline and Gil Thomas about the rats because they’re her clients. Logan and Taylor get friendly in his car, but afterwards, all she can say is that she can’t believe she just did that with Aaron Echolls’ son. Veronica takes a photo of the rats to Gil Thomas and Pauline but tells them Bronson doesn’t have 25. As Pauline prepares to call the sheriff’s department and get a search warrant, Mac calls Veronica to tell her she found something interesting in their hard drive. After Sacks shows up at Bronson’s with a warrant, news of the search gets back to Veronica, who confronts Mac - she warned Bronson about the search and he got rid of the rats. Mac apologizes and says she just didn’t want him to get in trouble. In other news, she found leaves on the motherboard of the students’ hard drive. Veronica takes them to Emi, who identifies then as green-tea leaves. She also spots a plastic toy banana in Emi’s lab; Emi tells her it was 25’s and she took it because the sound annoyed her on the weekends.
At home, Veronica pieces together the shredded paper from the rats’ box and sees that it’s a page from a Playboy-esque magazine. She then heads to Gil Thomas’ apartment with the plastic banana and asks him if he took 25 because he named him. Inside, Gil Thomas (who does, indeed, have 25) explains that he started coming to the lab on the weekends and let 25 play with some toys like the banana while Pauline wasn’t around. He always had to take the banana when he left, but one day he almost forgot it and 25 (now renamed Oscar) held it out to him. Later, Veronica goes back to the lab, where Pauline and Gil Thomas are with their professor. Veronica gives back their check, claiming that she didn’t find 25. The professor is fine with just having the data on the computer, and with ordering another lab monkey. Mac goes to Bronson’s house and nervously invites him to a movie the next night. He accepts and she leaves, then returns to kiss him. In the food court, Veronica meets up with Piz and they talk about music and how they won’t just listen to something bad to fill a void. The subtext turns to text as Veronica realizes that she doesn’t want to be without someone just as a substitute for having someone else. Piz seems to think this means she’ll want to be with him, but it just leads her to rush to the Neptune Grand and reunite with Logan.
At a bar, Keith sits down near Landry and orders a scotch. He engages Landry in a conversation about women and tells him that he once knew a woman who told him her ex was harassing her. Keith went to light the guy’s car on fire but ending up torching his own car accidentally. He asks if Landry has ever done anything stupid for a woman. Landry, however, knows who he is (he read Keith’s book and recognized his photo) and says he didn’t kill Dean O’Dell. He notes that he himself wrote a book about profiling and encourages Keith to read it. Later, Keith meets with Mindy at Mars Investigations and announces that he’ll take the case. She asks what made up his mind and he tells her it was the scotch. In the food court, Piz catches up with Veronica, wanting to have another meal with her. He’s disappointed to see that she and Logan are back together.
WELCOME TO NEPTUNE: Bronson
THE TITLE IS A PLAY ON...: The phrase “show me the money” from the movie Jerry Maguire.
THE DEAN O’DELL CASE: Dean O’Dell’s death was ruled a suicide (by Lamb), but Mindy thinks he was murdered. She claims that she and Landry were together all night and neither killed him.
Dean O’Dell supposedly left a suicide note reading, “Goodbye, cruel world.”
Before his death, Dean O’Dell drank scotch, but not the scotch he always anticipated drinking, which Keith finds suspicious.
MEMORABLE QUOTES: Veronica: “We’re talking ‘monkey’ as in….”
Mac: “I just can’t wait for that moment when you’re in a tree, going, ‘Here, monkey, monkey,’ and holding out a banana, and then the branch breaks and hilarity ensues.”
Dick: “So, what, you’re just going to mope around like that guy in…what’s that book where the guy’s mom dies and he comes back to Jersey? He’s got that motorcycle sidecar.”
“She played Pee Wee soccer. She made her own penalty cards so she could red-card players she didn’t like.” - Mac, re: Veronica
Veronica: “Ed Argent is in town. Think you can pull some of that Oregon-mountain-man, kill-what-you-eat, gun-rack charm and book him on your show?”
Bronson: “Some of us are going to grab a bite, if you want to come along.”
“Just a regular vegan JFK looking for his Mackie O.” - Veronica, re: Bronson
Bronson: “I didn’t free the rats. They just showed up.”
Piz: “These guys were all, like, ‘As long as she’s got a pair of….’ You know, it was indelicate.”
Written by John Enbom and Robert Hull; directed by Nick Marck
Mac: “‘Touch my.’”
Pauline: “It’s not just any monkey.”
Veronica: “Please tell me he plays piano.”
Pauline: “25 is a genetically altered capuchin monkey. Its uptake-inhibitor proteins have been coded to allow us to monitor cholesterol breakdown at a cellular level.”
(Veronica looks unimpressed)
Paulline: “And he can play ‘Chopsticks.’”
Veronica: “Ah, if there’s hilarity, I charge extra.”
Logan: “Garden State was never a book.”
Dick: “It wasn’t? Oops. So much for that paper.”
Piz: “Everything north of San Francisco is just Thunderdome to you, isn’t it?”
Mac: “I’m good. I had some mints.”
Veronica: “Like, in a tiny van with a sob story about needing a place to crash?”
Veronica: “What’s indelicate about shoes?”