Veronica’s back with the first of (what could be) the final five episodes of the series.  It’s also the first new episode in the “self contained” mystery cases mantra the series is now following.

So, did the self-contained aspect work?

Yes and no.  This week’s mystery is Veronica looks into who is vandalizing a local Arab restaruarant with racial slurs.   On the surface, it sounds good and the show even tries to tie the mystery into Veronica’s high school days by having her know the daughter of the couple that hires her, but on the whole it didn’t work.  The storyline finds a whole bunch of stereotypes in it that all work together and add up to, well, a lot of heavy-handed preaching.   When Veronica uncovers the culprit to be a guy whose brother was wounded in Iraq that got offended by anti-American pamplets an Arab worker at the restuarant is handing out and the couple owning the restaurant doesn’t press charges but just goes to meet him face to face, praising the greatness of all things American…yeah, it was about as subtle as that.  The only thing missing was the sappy music from making this the “very special episode” of Veronica Mars that is so desparately wanted to be.

The thing is, there’s a way to tell this kind of moral story without it seeming too easy or too superficial.  Friday Night Lights did it earlier this year with the racism storyline and in the past, I’d have argued Veronica could do it as well.  That said, I didn’t recognize the writer of this episode, so maybe the script didn’t come from the usual think-tink of writers who usually do a lot better than this.

Meanwhile, there are some good moments.  Keith decides to crack down on underage drinking in Neptune after a 19-year old with a fake-ID gets hit and paralyzed.  Keith finds Piz and Wallace out drinking–on fake IDs provided by Veronica.  Nice moment when he confronts her about it.   But then again, the Keith/Veronica scenes have always been a highlight of the show.

And while there’s no central mystery to the final five episodes, there could be the on-going storyline of will Keith retain the office of sheriff?  He’s instituting discipline and moving things away from how Lamb ran things.  Seems Lamb turned a blind-eye to the under-aged drinking issue as long as the bars in question supported the police raffle.  Keith even goes so far as to fire four deputies who are remiss in their duties (he catches them using Wallace and Piz going back in with obviously fake IDs).  Nice moment and it should be interesting to see if Keith can keep the job, stepping on the toes he is stepping on.

In other news, Logan and Parker seem to be hitting it off–so much so that Logan is throwing Parker a b’day party.  And inviting Veronica.  Yeah, there’s awkwardness all around. 

Meanwhile, Wallace tries to help Piz get past Veronica, but instead pushes the two together, leading to them kissing.  And they happen to kiss in front of Logan as we fade to black.

Yeah, that is not going to end well.

And we got Mac with some good scenes.  So, that’s bonus points in my book.

It’s just too bad the A-story was as heavy-handed as it was.