Date of airing: October 26, 2004 (UPN)
Nielsen ratings information: 2.73 million viewers, 1.7/2 in Households, 1.2/3 with Adults 18-49
written by: Dayna Lynne North
directed by: Nick Gomez
In which the good-looking and seemingly appreciative boyfriend turned out to be the asshole villain, because reasons. I was never interested in Troy in the first place, as the boy just rolled into Veronica's life, thinking he could sweep her off her feet without doing the legwork first (being friends, helping her out, and all that little jazz). He was just a love interest for a high school character, and it was inevitable for the eponymous high school character to find random love with some high school dude who is nice (compared to all the other boys who treated her badly), simply because it is part of the genre of scripted high school life.
That Troy would turn out to
be the bad guy in the end was intriguing though. Not just because the writers were
looking for a proper way to have Veronica go through some quick
heartbreak and remove the boyfriend from the narrative without necessarily going through the standard "breaking up" storyline, but because Troy has been a recurring character for a couple of episodes, even though he was destined to be the "supervillain" here – a character who would normally turn up in one episode only was given four episodes to be part of a romantic storyline, although I do ask myself if the writers decided for Troy to be the villain here because they could not find another random actor to play the role. After all, it does not seem to make a lot of sense that Troy was part of a drug ring during witching hours and kept that secret from everyone, including Veronica, who had enough opportunities to log into the PI website and check out the criminal activities of her latest boyfriend. And Veronica's relationship with Troy
almost looked like she was about to join the popular kids again after being kicked out by them during the past year, because
Troy would have given her a renewed status. That Veronica would not be interested in being the "It-girl" again and just get rid of Troy that way seemed totally in character though – I am not sure she would have liked the crowd around Troy if she had stayed with him and he was not such an asshole.
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| The stunt team had some seriously talented parkour runners. |
But the writers could not let Veronica just break up with Troy. No, a much more "sinister" plot needed to stand in for that cliche of a break-up story. Troy needed to be the villain and mastermind behind the crime of the episode, and as it turned out he was found out because he was dealing with the best of the best. I mean, it was not even his fault that Veronica figured him out – he did all he had to do to get the steroids and work towards getting banished to Albuquerque, so he would not be found out, but for some reason, his plan did not work. If it had not been for Veronica’s deceptive and mathematical mind, he would have just been back in New Mexico with his other girl, and let's be honest, who knows how many he has throughout the country and in how much drug-dealing trouble he was about to get over there – a certain chemistry teacher and addict student were about to set up shop, which meant that Troy would have gotten the chance to deal with the biggest villains of the drug-smuggling trade eventually.
I did have a few
difficulties figuring out how Veronica solved the case though. Yes, she could have guessed that
Troy was behind the disappearance of his car from the beginning (I had the same suspicions), simply due to his
background in drug smuggling, but being ahead of him when it comes to
picking up the steroids at a random diner and leaving behind a message, all while annoying
Troy’s girlfriend at the other side of the country...? It is almost like
Veronica investigated an entirely different case within seconds and in-between scenes, and
everything that came between the disappearance of the car and the moment
she got the envelope from Keith was close to useless. As if the writers had not figured out the conclusion to their own case, or realized that they did not have enough time left to write the conclusion, so it was just dropped into the ending like that.
But hey, at least it turned out to be an interesting case in general. Now, if Troy would not have been the mastermind behind it all, Veronica simply would have had difficulties finding a car that was already dismantled and shipped off, according to Weevil’s chop shop buddy, and this might have been the first case of the show she was unsuccessful in solving. The case was already a hard nut to crack at the beginning, because really, how are you supposed to find a car and then the drugs that were hidden in it when you are unable to sweet-talk your way to the activation of the car's tracker? Of course, that makes it all easier to believe Troy was behind the disappearance of his car all along. And the story does have a great outcome: Veronica is single again, which means I do not have to go through the stereotypes of the genre until the next time Veronica fishes a love interest out of the ocean.
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| This happy little fun relationship is over now. |
By the way, it was intriguing how both Mars family members killed their own relationships for the sake of themselves and the other in this episode. Keith was not really that friendly towards Troy, and neither was Veronica happy to see Rebecca at her father’s side. Both were investigating the other’s love interest (in all seriousness, Keith could not have done that earlier?), and both files turned those characters into people with shady pasts. Keith broke it up with Rebecca because of Veronica, and maybe because he is not quite ready yet himself to let go of his disappearing wife. Veronica knew she would break it up, probably even before she decided to open the envelope, but as soon as she did, she knew it was the ending, and maybe she is not ready for a relationship either, now that she has to deal with trying to find her mother, all while slowly being entangled into a murder mystery. Turns out the Mars family has an equally terrible love life in this episode – something father and daughter were sharing during this hour, creating an even bigger bond.
