Keith, you dog!

When I found out the name of this episode of Veronica Mars was "Hi, Infidelity", I was frightened at the prospect of (a) some forced "don't worry Logan is still a rebel" cheating action from Veronica's boyfriend, or worse, (b) our hero advancing her relationship with Mr. Hyperactive Child (Piz - and to be fair, he made a better impression on me this week compared to in the past). But no - Enrico Colantonio finally got it on with his former Just Shoot Me co-star Laura San Giacomo in his oh-so-predictable subplot. Still, the drama was nicely done, especially with the out-of-the-blue car crash.

I liked this episode. I liked it better than maybe any of the other Season 3 episodes so far. For once, I cared about each person's storyline. Wallace once again showed off the classy guy he is by choosing his professional dream of engineering over a short-term sure thing like starting on the basketball team...okay, well, maybe not realistic, but certainly goal-oriented.

Also good: the whole awkward double date bowling. The show's always been good in its understated-humor scenes, and it was kind of nice to see New Girl's personality for once, which actually turned out to be charming...in the whole blonde, high-school-mentality, shrieky way. (Okay, fine. She's not bad looking, either.)

I'm always a big fan of seeing the reasonable side of unreasonable characters -- it's just plain cool when done right -- and here we got glimpses of the nice sides of two jackasses. First was Lamb, in legitimately-collaborative mode when Veronica gave him the campus-rape tip. I've kept a close eye on Lamb ever since he let Veronica and Duncan go after they were caught sneaking into Meg's parents house in Season 2 -- I mentioned it before -- but the show has been relentless in making him a complete jerk since then. Here we caught a glimpse of his underlying desire to do the right thing, which I guess I'm a sucker for. (Once again: don't abruptly turn him into a heartless villain, Cassidy-style...please?)

The other, a more major point: the T.A. in Veronica's class. The main plot of the episode followed her trying to figure out who set her up to make it look like she plagiarized an essay, but in the end it turned out to be what amounted to a very roundabout way of giving someone advice: her professor's a lecherous jerk, and the T.A. didn't want Veronica to get too close to him, lest she get hurt like he was. Gee...that was...nice of him. Veronica seemed to have the same reaction: "Do me a favor...don't do me any more favors."

But wait! Back to the serial rape storyline. It got tantalizingly close to heating up at the end of the episode, when we find out Mercer, the dude Veronica tipped Lamb to, was arrested. Logan
shows up and tells her he was with Mercer the night of one of the rapes. But he can't tell her where or why...

SECRETS! Da da duh.....

What will happen with Keith's new flame? Will that girl at the hotel desk show up again? If you were in Veronica's class, would you think she's the stuck-up, curve-breaking, elitist-with-the-rich-boyfriend, bitchy brown-noser the rest of the class thinks she is?

Let's face it, the answer to the last question is probably yes. But since when has public opinion stopped her? Until next time...