Veronica Mars/Show Me the Monkey

Show Me the Monkey
Season 3, Episode 10
Airdate	January 23, 2007
Production Number	3T5810
Teleplay by	John Enbom & Robert Hull
Story by	John Enbom
Directed by	Nick Marck
Stream
← 3x09 Spit & Eggs	3x11 → Poughkeepsie, Tramps and Thieves
Veronica Mars — Season Three

Show Me the Monkey is the tenth episode of the third season of Veronica Mars, the fifty-fourth episode overall, and the first episode of the second arc mystery of the season. Veronica is hired to find some stolen lab animals while Keith investigates the Dean's death.

Starring: Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars), Jason Dohring (Logan Echolls), Percy Daggs III (Wallace Fennel) (credit only), Ryan Hansen (Richard "Dick" Casablancas), Julie Gonzalo (Parker Lee), Chris Lowell (Stosh "Piz" Piznarski), Tina Majorino (Cindy "Mac" Mackenzie), Michael Muhney (Sheriff Don Lamb) (credit only), Francis Capra (Eli "Weevil" Navarro)

and Enrico Colantoni (Keith Mars)

Guest Starring: Patrick Fabian (Prof. Hank Landry), David Tom (Chip Diller), Jaime Ray Newman (Mindy O'Dell), Michael Mitchell (Bronson Pope), Eric Jungmann (Gil Thomas Pardy), Linara Washington (Pauline Elliot), Jackie Tohn (R.A.), Brittany Ishibashi (Emmy)

Co-Starring: Brandon Hillock (Deputy Sacks), Greg Wayne (Sam), Adriana DeMeo (Darla), Chip Joslin (Ed Argent), Jack Sway (Seemingly Interested Guy), Marco Dapper (Super Hot Guy), Chelsea Logan (Taylor, Girl on Beach), Amelia Jean Alvarez (Amy), Mark Chaet (Professor McGregor)

Plot Overview

Six weeks after Dean O'Dell's death, his wife is looking for closure in the form of a murder investigation headed by Keith. Because the sheriff declared O'Dell's death a suicide, his life insurance won't pay out the money his wife needs to take care of her family. Keith doesn't agree to take the case, but offers to look around and make a decision based on what he finds.

Meanwhile, Mac is called in as tech support for a lab computer that was sabotaged in an apparent animal rights assault on the lab's animal testing. Additionally, whoever destroyed the computer also stole several rats and "#25," a monkey. Naturally, Mac directs the researchers, Gil and Pauline, to Veronica, who takes the case when one of them admits that the monkey can play the piano (although that's not the focus of their research). Pauline tells Veronica that the heist was obviously pulled by P.H.A.T. (People for Human Animal Treatment), an animal rights organization.

Veronica and Mac make plans to take advantage of a P.H.A.T. recruitment meeting when she runs into her father, who is looking to question Weevil about the dean. He admits that he doesn't buy into Mindy's idea that the dean was murdered but is investigating anyway for reasons unknown. While he looks into the situation, Mac, Veronica and Parker are propositioned by an R.A. to pick a country to represent in an international hall party that two of the three aren't entirely interested in taking part in.

At the P.H.A.T. meeting, Veronica and Mac meet Bronson Pope, the chapter president, but he denies any involvement with those incidents. Instead, he insists that P.H.A.T. is about education and invites Veronica to be part of the group's letter writing campaign. They take him up on the offer the next day, but Veronica uses the time to get with a girl who suggested that they picket a rock concert. After slaving away at stuffing envelopes for a while, Veronica is approached by Sam and Darla, who have apparently split off a kind of extreme splinter cell. They tell her and Mac to do something to "catch their attention" as initiation. Veronica asks Piz to try and book Ed Argent onto his radio show as part of his plan. When Piz succeeds, Veronica tricks Argent into wearing a sweater with "Meat is Murder" stitched into it and has Parker take their picture.

The stunt gets them noticed by the splinter group, which leads them into a dorm room with Sam, Darla and a photography rig. They're handed "No Fur" signs and told to strip and pose for "the calendar." Mac and Veronica look horrified and mull over whether or not to do it, but are saved when the curtain is pulled down and the nude calendar angle was actually a big prank. They ask Bronson to come to the international party, where they've been assigned the country of Canada. He eventually shows up, but Mac blows the moment where he tries to kiss her. However, Parker attempts to make things work out again by stealing Bronson's ID and going to his house to give it back to him. They're invited inside, but Mac and Veronica discover the missing lab rats. He claims that he didn't steal them and that they appeared on his doorstep in a box. Despite his claims, Veronica goes back to Pauline with this info and she calls the sheriff.

While cleaning the hard drive, Mac discovered leaves in the casing. With this evidence, she tipped off Bronson about the raid and told Veronica about the leaves. Veronica took this lead and followed it back to Gil Thomas, who stole the monkey in the first place because he developed a bond with it. Veronica decides not to turn him in and returns Pauline's check, but looks horrified when the professor for the class mentions that they can just order a new one that will be there in six days.

That night in a bar, Keith attempts to covertly coax information out of Professor Landry, but Landry isn't fooled by Keith's attempts. Keith later tells Mindy that he'll take the case, possibly because of Landry's insult to him. Meanwhile, Veronica has a chat with Piz and is spurred to get back together with Logan, much to the disappointment of Piz.

Notes

The Dean's Murder

• Following the discovery of the body of Dean Cyrus O'Dell, the sheriff declared it a suicide. But, because his wife doesn't believe that his death was from suicide, she hires Keith to investigate in hopes of finding evidence to bring before her late husband's life insurance agency.
• The scene of the suicide was taken directly from Veronica's posted "perfect murder" paper, complete with a note on the screen saying "goodbye cruel world." Additionally, the dean hadn't drunk his 40-year-old scotch that he held in such high regard.

Music

• One Week by Barenaked Ladies: The song that Veronica and Mac play on the radio to prove that they're Canadian is "One Week" by the Canadian pop rock band Barenaked Ladies. The song, off their album Stunt, caused the band to become wildly popular outside of Canada in 1998 mainly due to the pop culture references woven into the lyrics.

• Long, Long Time by Linda Ronstadt: The song that is playing on the jukebox during Keith's conversation with Professor Landry is "Long, Long Time," a song performed by Linda Ronstadt in 1970 on her album Silk Purse.

Arc Advancement

Characters

• Veronica and Logan: Logan and Veronica get back together once again after six weeks of being apart.
• Mac: Despite her disastrous relationship with Beaver, Mac has finally come around and is striking up a relationship with Bronson Pope, the head of the Hearst chapter of P.H.A.T.

Trivia

Allusions and References

• Incredible Hulk: The Incredible Hulk was created when Bruce Banner was caught in a gamma bomb test saving the life of a teenager who had strayed into the blast zone. Banner was transformed into a green monster that grows stronger as he gets angrier.

Mac: All that's missing is a big hole in the wall, shaped like the Hulk.

• Sprockets: Veronica and Mac reference a sketch from Saturday Night Live called Sprockets. The sketch featured Mike Myers as a German man named Dieter who often demanded that guests "touch [his] monkey."

Veronica: We're talking monkey as in...

Mac: ...Touch my.

• Garden State: The "book" that Dick talks about is actually a movie written, directed and starring Zach Braff about a man from New Jersey who travels back home from California for his mother's funeral. There, Braff falls in love with a girl he meets in a doctor's office played by Natalie Portman and re-evaluates the quality of his life. As Logan said, the film was an original script.

Logan: Garden State was never a book.

• Ted Nugent: Ed Argent, the fictional conservative rock star, is a clear analogue of Ted Nugent. Nugent is most well known for his song "Cat Scratch Fever" and for his borderline extremist conservatism. He often boasts about killing his own food and is well known for his frequent racist and homophobic remarks. Nugent holds a long-standing rivalry with animal rights activists and has commented that extremists have threatened to kill his family because of his stance on hunting.