Veronica Mars: Detectin' ain't easy

Spoilers for "Veronica Mars" coming right up...

As most of you know, after the Dean O'Dell arc wraps up, "Veronica" goes off the air for a couple of months for the CW's "aspirational" reality show about the Pussycat Dolls, then comes back with five self-contained episodes as a test to see if that's the direction the show should go in next year. (Assuming, of course, there is a next year.) And if the last couple of episodes are an indication, maybe done-in-one is the right direction, since the Mysteries of the Week have been by far the best thing about each.

While trying to blackmail a judge was one of the two or three dumbest things Veronica has ever done, the story overall worked very well. Early on, there was just enough ambiguity that I would have buyed either the Twue Wuv or blackmail explanations for Wendy's behavior, and by the time Max bought her freedom, the two characters had been so well-established that the show could get away with several scenes in which all the regulars were either absent or besides the point. I can't remember the last time I invested this much in one of Veronica's clients, and it's a credit to Diane Ruggiero that I cared about both Max and Wendy.

On the other stories, we're now two weeks into the O'Dell mystery and I don't feel like we've learned a whole lot, plus they've played the same note twice in a row about Keith's fame getting in the way of a good undercover op. The 'shipper scenes felt character-consistent, but I'm tired of stories about Veronica's trust issues, and the promos for next week (which, in fairness, are probably as non-representative as all the CW promos have been) looked like we're in for even more angsty dullness.

Some other thoughts:

• So I guess the mission to smuggle in every line of "Lebowski" one piece at a time has now been overtaken by a quest for "Galactica" references.
• Am I the only one who absolutely didn't recognize Madison until Veronica identified her? Either a bad wig or a bad hairstyle or something.
  
• Favorite scene: Keith saluting Lamb at the stoplight. Diane gives good one-liner, but sometimes the best comedy is silent.
  
• Somebody with more free time than me want to go back and do the math on how many episodes each non-Veronica/Keith/Logan regular has been in this season? Rob said in his TWoP interview that the supporting cast (other than Parker) would be featured more heavily in the rest of the season than they were in the rape arc, but Wallace has been MIA for a couple of weeks and Weevil was the only non-Holy Trinity member to show up here.
  

What did everybody else think?