Veronica Mars: When both Marses failed

Spoilers for "Veronica Mars" just as soon as I pry open this coyote trap...

I'm going to be briefer than usual on this one, since I watched the episode a few weeks ago and wasn't in a position to take notes at the time.

Even though a lot of the Fitzpatrick stuff still makes me feel like I'm trying to figure out who killed the limo driver in "The Big Sleep," Enrico Colantoni really sold Keith's despair at the resolution. (Plus, that was a damned clever use of Vinnie Van Lowe's tracking device, wasn't it?) Veronica frequently screws up, but Keith's biggest blunders prior to this (getting kicked off the force for his handling of the Kane case) took place before the series even began, so when father and daughter both realized how badly they had botched things, it had an extra sting. (Scenes where Veronica and Keith both cry: gold.) My only question: wouldn't an auction house require some kind of proof of ownership to sell paintings as valuable as the ones Keith boosted from the crime scene?

The rape story progresses onward with the reintroduction of some of the frat guys from "The Rapes of Graff," not to mention Veronica's incredibly brief tenure at the school paper. (Would Andrea Zuckerman or Brandon Walsh have treated her and that poor chaperone lady so cruelly? I think not.) Since this story was only a factor in the last few minutes of the premiere, this episode was mainly about putting a bunch of pieces on the board (including the very welcome return of jerkhole Sheriff Lamb); I'm expecting more significant progress (red herrings, unlikely clues, etc.) in the coming weeks.

While I never participated in the prisoner/jailer experiment when I was in college, I'd read about it, and most of the accounts had people acting significantly worse than "Boy Meets World" Boy treated poor Samm Levine. (And why is it that all of the Freaks are gainfully employed, while our three Geeks have to scrape by on small guest appearances like this? Oh, wait, I know: because the Freaks were better-looking.) On the one hand, the fact that things never got that out of hand (and that neither Wallace nor Logan had their behavior altered by the experience) made it feel like a wasted opportunity. On the other hand, in an episode where Veronica and Keith -- and Mac, for that matter -- are dealing with massive doses of guilt, maybe the show needed one story that wasn't so dark.

So what did everybody else think?