Character Storylines (contd.)
Wallace
– Now that he is back from Africa, Wallace is more self-confident and worldly, but not in a cocky way. He is well-known and liked around campus, and he's doing very well on the basketball team.
– He dates throughout the year but has no long-term relationships.
– Wallace has as a class with Dick first semester and they become buddies (details below about how Dick has changed enough that he and Wallace would actually get along). They hang out and go out together a lot.
– He also becomes friendlier with Logan because of Dick. Since Wallace is still very close with Veronica (and therefore Mac), all of these characters hang out together and stay in each other's orbit this year.
– After the midyear break, Wallace gets asked to coach a youth basketball team that practices at the Neptune High School gym.
– Wallace bonds with a young boy on the team, Jonah, who is raised by his mother. Eventually there is a storyline where Jonah is hiding that he is being physically abused by his mother's new boyfriend. Keith helps Wallace catch the boyfriend and Jonah is saved.
– It also comes out during this episode that without our knowing, Lamb enlisted Vinnie two years ago to investigate the Mannings. Vinnie eventually got enough evidence and Lamb arrested the Mannings. Because they were rich and had good lawyers, the Mannings were able to keep everything out of the papers and they made a plea deal so that they would not go to prison. However, as part of the deal they lost custody of Lizzie and Grace and the girls were allowed to go live with their (not creepy and abusive) aunt in Florida.
Mac
– She and Max have an apartment together and seem very happy at first (Max dropped out of college but is making good money doing somewhat-legal computer stuff) but soon Mac begins to feel "domesticated." Max expects her to spend every evening with him, having dinner at home and playing video games. Eventually she breaks up with him because she's not ready to be that seriously committed to someone. He decides that if they aren't together, he has no ties to the Hearst College area anymore and leaves town, leaving Mac with the apartment (so Veronica can move in)!
– In the first half of the season, Mac has some semi-friendly interactions with Dick (since they are all hanging out now). Close to the midyear break there is a Mac-centric episode where she is hanging out with Dick and then later that night has a disturbing nightmare about Beaver. (Yay! Kyle Gallner gets to come back!). The nightmares continue for several nights and she eventually takes it out on Dick and breaks down in front of him. Dick actually comforts her and encourages her to see a therapist; he confesses it has helped him a lot since he started seeing one this past summer.
– Over the next few episodes Mac meets with a therapist and deals with her feelings about Beaver and even gets into her issues about being switched at birth. (Mac's therapy sessions are humorous yet poignant. She is her usual sardonic self with the therapist, yet also allows her vulnerability to show through.)
– Mac and Dick continue to become friendlier throughout the season and she leans on him for support as she deals with her issues. He, in turn, confides in her about his issues related to Beaver, etc.
Dick
– He is more multi-dimensional this season (particularly in his interactions with Mac), yet still classic Dick: i.e. hysterical with lots of one-liners!
– He interacts a lot with Wallace (hanging out/dating scene) and, later on in the season, with Mac.
– He has an arc right after the midyear break where he sincerely falls for a girl he is dating and then gets his heart broken when he discovers she is playing him for his money. He is hurt and reverts back to his old self for a little bit (getting too drunk and making comments that are more cruel than funny), but Mac calls him on it and he snaps out of it.
Weevil
– He is central to the first big mystery and is also involved in the second big mystery (many details to follow)
Mysteries-of-the-Week
(Obviously, this isn't all of them but these are the ones that came into my head as I was working on the character storylines.)
Second Episode (introduces Matt)
– The new Hearst dean hires Veronica to look into the fundraisers run by the various student groups on campus. (The dean mentions that he decided to hire Veronica because Dean O'Dell had talked his ear off last year about how amazing she was.)
–He explains that whenever the student organizations have fundraisers, they are required to report the money they raise for charity minus their expenses to the campus administration. The new dean noticed that the amount of money raised dropped significantly last year, although the same number of fundraisers were held. He wants Veronica to find out which, if any, groups are not reporting the money they raised correctly. She goes to the math department for help since she needs a formula to predict how much money each type of fundraiser should have both cost and raised and compare it to what was reported. She is referred to Matt and with his help, she solves the case.
– There is a funny part in this episode where she has to go talk to the Pi Sigs because fraternities and sororities are some of the organizations that run fundraisers. Of course all of the Pi Sigs are as happy to see Veronica as she is to see them. However, Matt confirms that the Pi Sigs are not guilty of misreporting their fundraiser earnings.
Three Episodes before the Midyear Break
– This is another mystery-of-the week where Matt's math skills come in handy. It is about a student sports gambling ring.
– A freshman named Manny comes to Veronica for help. He explains that he won big on a game and went to collect his money from the student running the ring, Derek. On his way home, someone in a black mask knocked him out and stole the money. He hires Veronica to help him find out who stole the money. (He gambled with his tuition money for next semester and now he's scared his parents are going to be super pissed.)
– Veronica's first suspect is Derek since it was a big win on an unlikely team and he must have lost money. It turns out that Derek is another math major. Matt adds to her suspicions about Derek when he tells her a story of how he and Derek had a Statistical Data Analysis course together freshman year and another student in the class challenged a theory Derek presented in class one day. The professor congratulated the other student on recognizing the faults in Derek's theory. The following weekend Derek picked a fight with the student at a party and threatened him with a broken beer bottle to never humiliate him again.
– Derek ends up being a red herring and Veronica eventually discovers that the culprit was actually Manny's roommate, Scott. (He was in debt from his own gambling and knew how much money Manny had won and that he was going to pick it up that night.)
– However, Veronica also discovers (with Matt's help) that Derek was using his math skills to fix his gambling ring and make more money for himself. Veronica exposes Derek at the student union in front of a crowd which, judging from the angry faces of some of the guys, includes some of the gamblers he cheated.
– Throughout the rest of the season, Veronica occasionally runs into Manny, who now worships the ground she walks on. She also runs into Derek and Scott, who are obviously not as pleased as Manny to see her (similar to the Pi Sigs).
The Third Episode after the Midyear Break
– This is a fun mystery-of-the-week that occurs at Neptune High while Wallace is coaching the youth basketball team there.
– Wallace has an assistant coach, Marcus, who is a senior at Neptune (and one of the stars of the high school basketball team). Marcus calls Wallace to tell him he can no longer help him coach because he has been suspended and cannot participate in any activities on school grounds. He explains that as he was leaving physics class, a copy of a test answer key fell out of his backpack. Marcus swears he is innocent and has no idea how it got there.
– Wallace believes Marcus and enlists Veronica's help to prove his innocence.
– There is a very funny scene in the episode where Veronica questions Principal Clemmons about Marcus's suspension. The humor continues when cynical Veronica, who is not happy about having to return to the place where she, and so many other teenagers, endured years of misery, is surprised to find that she is now a "legend" among the student body. They have all heard of her amazing detective skills and all the things that went on when she was at the school. All the high school boys drool over her and the girls try to get her to make a guest appearance at their "Winter Wonderland" dance.
– Veronica eventually proves that Marcus was set up by a jealous teammate who wanted to see him fall from grace. Marcus's suspension is revoked and he is reinstated as Wallace's assistant coach.
Author's Note
Thank you so much for your reviews! I would love to turn this into a real fanfic with 22 chapters for each "episode" of the season, but unfortunately, I don't know if I'll ever have the time to do it. If anyone wants to use the ideas in their own story, feel free-I'd love to read it! For now, I'm going to continue with the season outline I already have planned in my head.
As for the LoVe fans, don't worry, I'm one of you! In my opinion, VM should have continued on television for many more seasons. With that in mind, I felt that after the amount of breakups and makeups that occurred between Veronica and Logan in Season Three, it was time to take a breather from these two as a romantic couple. I think that by having them develop as individuals and rekindle their friendship over the course of this season, they will be a stronger couple when they eventually get back together. If it helps, I already know exactly how I plan to break up Matt and Veronica and Logan and Hannah in "Season Five." :)
My next update will be the first big mystery which will take place over the first half of the season.