Spoilers for “Weevils Wobble But They Don’t Go Down” and “The Bitch is Back” below.

Things that happened

In the land of my dreams, we get a series finale that elegantly weaves itself into the rich story lines of episodes past. It features the return of characters who have exited the show: your Duncans, your Liannes, and even your Lily Kanes — in flashback form, of course. It’s tense and mysterious but ultimately satisfying and it lets me walk away from this show, Veronica Mars, feeling happy and contented at what was three great years of TV.

That’s just my dreams, though.

In reality, we get a two-hour block of mostly disconnected episodes that feel nothing like a series finale — hell, they barely even feel like a season finale — and have the gross misfortune to end things with a terrible cliffhanger, just as things looked to be getting interesting.

It’s a gigantic mess, honestly, and one that annoys me enough to almost make me want to fill out some sort of online “save our show” petition. Almost.

In hour one, Veronica is tasked with having to prove Weevil’s innocence to a doubting public one again, as this time he’s been fingered as the crook behind the distribution of fake Hearst College ID cards. And since Hearst College ID cards work just the same as debit cards, this is quite a serious offense — he goes to jail and everything!

Veronica’s had to prove Weevil’s innocence since, like, episode two of this series, but this time is a little different, mostly because she now has an Official Private Investigator badge and gets to show it off all the time to everyone in a ridiculously cute fashion.

What’s not so different, however, is the progression of this case. First, Veronica agrees to work for Weevil, believing his innocence. Then, the evidence starts to stack up and Veronica finds herself wavering in her support of the ex-gang leader. And, lastly, the truth comes out, and Weevil is innocent — hooray! — the real culprit behind the fake IDs being identified as a secret cabal of ski-loving rich kids. And they would have gotten away with it, too, if not for that meddling Fibonacci.

In a neat twist at the end, though, Veronica points Weevil to the location of the machine the kids were using to manufacture the IDs. It is a pretty awesome machine, allowing for the unlimited duplication of the ID cards — and, thus, unlimited funds. Weevil takes possession of the thing — well-deserved, really, since he lost his job at Hearst during the whole wrongful arrest debacle — and we end with him staring off, visions of mad cash money dancing in his head.

Also in the first hour: Dick is still feeling sad about Beaver. And it is amazing and emotional and kind of makes me want to break down and be the guy’s best friend. First, he sweetly asks Logan if Logan tried to save Beaver before he jumped off the roof. Then, drunk and at the beach, he tells Mac that he’s sorry for all the mean things he ever said to her. Then he totally tries to make out with her. But his intentions were good!

In Wallace news — yes, we do get to see the whole cast in both of these episodes –, he’s being tailed by some weird looking guy who likes to dig through his trash. Veronica thinks the dude just has a big gay crush on him, but in the end it turns out the stalker is actually working for something called “The Castle.” It’s a secret organization, and they want Wallace to join up.

Hold on to that. We’ll come back to it.

As Keith is investigating the alleged crime at Hearst, he’s also still on the campaign trail. He and Vinnie Van Lowe agree to appear on Piz’s radio show, which leads to a hilarious scene in which Keith is asked a two-part question: why he sucks so much, and what it’s like to suck so much.

And in the most salacious news of all, we learn that Piz has seen Veronica naked. Which is so shocking and enviable I can barely stand it. Also shocking: Piz ain’t the only one. In fact, the entire internet becomes privy to the naked teenage detective once a ‘fooling around’ tape of her and Piz is leaked to the web.

Logan’s one of the first to learn about the tape — Dick shows him — and does not take to it very well. He immediately jumps to the conclusion that Piz is just some pervert who loves filming himself getting his mack on. And so Logan makes his way to Piz’s radio booth and beats the shit out of him. He whomps him good! Piz does manage to get a couple of shots in, but Logan, apparently drawing on his long history of being involved in gang fights and, also, being the son of a child murderer, is easily able to overpower him.

The first hour ends with Veronica, still not yet learned about her nude debut, being confronted by a slightly bloody Logan at Mars Investigations.

Hour two picks up right then and there. Logan, looking a little less banged up for some reason, tells Veronica about the tape and how he kicked Piz’s ass. Veronica, in what Logan must only see as a shocking move, does not believe that he made the right call. She throws Logan the hell out of the office, initially believing him to be entirely crazy.

Upon viewing the tape, however, she realizes that at least the whole her-being-naked-and-fooling-around part was true. She is less willing, however, to place all the blame on Piz. Because, really, how could such a sad, puppy-dog-eyed, earnest young man ever be involved in such a dirty racket as amateur pornography?

Veronica sets off to find who really filmed and distributed the tape. To do so, she calls upon all her friends — and even her trusty tazer — to help out. Her path takes her right through a student named Dominic Dassante, who is a total jerk and refuses to cooperate until Veronica has Weevil remove the tires from his car and then gets his credit card revoked. Dominic turns Veronica on to a guy named Gory, who, after a little bit of digging (and some stealthy bugging), turns out to be connected with a secret society known as The Castle.

Told you we’d come back to it.

Wallace has been intrigued about the offer to join The Castle, as they are little more than a thinly-veiled analogue to the real-life Skull & Bones society and, as such, they can totally make people rich. After learning about their potential involvement in Veronica’s nudie tape, however, Wallace decides he wants nothing to do with their stupid secret society. Because Wallace is a shining beacon of light and truth in this dark world.

Veronica has other plans for him, however, and asks that Wallace continue to seek membership under the guise of helping her figure out what the deal is with this secret society and, also, who it is that was directly responsible for the tape.

Then the episode gets kind of weird.

Wallace’s membership attempt takes him to some sort of abandoned warehouse, where he’s forced to strip down to his underwear, put on a shock collar, and answer questions about his own life asked by a mysterious disembodied voice. If he lies — and they seem to just know when he’s lying — someone in an adjacent room gets shocked. Wallace is unable to convince the disembodied voice that he’s on the level, and so he gets nothing except a lot of voltage, but he is able to pick up a clue that leads Veronica further into the tangled web of The Castle.

Thanks to a slip-up, Veronica knows that some guy who scored 2400 on the SATs (The SATs go up to 2400 now? Who knew!) is also up for membership in The Castle. She follows him to a giant mansion, but needs to sneak in to get a better view of the people inside. After struggling through the doggie door, she navigates the dark halls of the house only to stumble across a giant portrait of Lily Kane.

And, also, but less intriguingly so, a portrait of Duncan Kane. The house is Jake Kane’s house, something that becomes abundantly clear when Jake Kane wandered back into the show all “Hi, I’m Jake Kane, and I help run this secret society.” He even brings Clarence with him! It’s not quite the series finale reunion I was hoping for, but it’s better than nothing, too!

Veronica manages to escape the house undetected, stealing the hard drive from Jake’s computer. It’s encrypted, however, and so she enlists Mac to help her crack into the files. She’s hoping she’ll get a membership list that will give her the clues she needs to find out which Castle member was behind the tape.

Unfortunately, as she and Mac use the school supercomputer to work around the hard drive’s security, Keith’s been called to investigate the break-in at the new Kane mansion. There, he finds out that his daughter is a really sloppy thief, and has left not only a piece of material from her sweater behind but also got herself videotaped hopping the fence into the Kane backyard. I guess they don’t teach you everything in PI school.

On the tapes, Veronica finds a Castle roster dating back almost a full century, including all sorts of confessional videos and audio clips. She even finds her buddy Gory confessing to his dad being connected to the mob. After careful consideration, she decides to stay away from the kid. A wise move, really.

Not so much with the wise, however, is Logan Echolls, who happens across Gory when he’s trying to apologize to Veronica for his part in the whole I-kicked-Piz’s-ass debacle. Gory’s insulting Veronica — he found the bug she planted, and also has apparently watched the nudie tape about a thousand times — to the point where Logan is clearly incredibly angry. Veronica tries to cool him down, and for a minute it looks like she has, but then Logan changes his mind and charges the guy, taking him down even easier than he took down Piz.

He’s out of control, bloody, and now he’s in the bad books of a mob-connected kid. It’s like he wants to die.

Veronica returns to the tape to Mr. Kane, promising to leak out some of the information she gathered from the Castle confessionals if he tries to prosecute. Unfortunately, she’s a little too late, as Keith has already been forced to tamper with evidence in order to save his daughter from an investigating Clarence. He ran a speaker magnet over the PVR that had the security recording of Veronica breaking into the Kane house on it. Of course, Keith isn’t able to just get away with doing it, and in the end it looks like his action is going to cost him the election.

And that’s where we end, really. No resolution. No finale. Nothing concrete. Just Veronica going to vote for her father in the election, Logan marked for death, and a nude video of our titular detective floating around the internet that I’ll never ever get to see.

It’s enough to depress a guy.

Things that were good

• These were both good episodes, but I’m not going to bother listing the positives like I normally do. The episodes were good, but the situation sucks. The show getting cancelled sort of negates any need for a review.

Things that were not so good

• This is the end!

Worth watching if…

There’s nothing so annoying as a series finale that’s not meant to be a series finale. I can’t believe that The CW — a show that’s not exactly known for its high ratings anyway couldn’t find somewhere on the schedule for next season for at least a few episodes of Veronica Mars wrap-up. As it is, this is just kind of insulting to anyone who spent time actually watching this show over the last three years. And it’s all for what? Another season of Search for the Next Doll? Outrageous.

In Five Words

We Used To Be Friends