Uh oh. It looks like someone might have nabbed Veronica's "perfect murder" report and followed it step-by-step to get away with killing Dean O'Dell, who's death was officially ruled a suicide. Sounds like we got us a mystery arc for the rest of this season (I only wish it hadn't cost us Ed Begley Jr., he was great in this series).

So, who's the murderer? After two and a half seasons of series creator Rob Thomas proving he's way smarter than I am, I've learned to stop guessing so early on. NeptuneSite has a list of possible suspects, if you're into that sort of thing.

Instead of depositing my murder theories here, I'd rather dive into what this episode was really about: conviction (personal and political), relationships, and a monkey.

We catch up with Veronica six weeks after O'Dell's death. Veronica and Logan are still split, and she's hired by a couple of campus lab techs to find their stolen lab monkey.

Many primate jokes abound, including a "the case of the stolen monkey" jab courtesy of Piz, but only Veronica Mars can start an ep with such a basic mystery plot like "find the stolen monkey" and end up being one of the most engaging, fun, and complex things to watch on TV.

Veronica goes undercover at the hilariously named PHAT (People for Humane Animal Treatment) group on campus to find the monkey nabbers. We get the usual role-playing and sneaky tactics she's used to great effect in the past, but it was obvious and a little disappointing to find that the guy behind the mystery turned out to be one of the techs who reported it. Also, there was a little too much "girlyness" going on in this ep for my comfort level — and that's coming from a guy who's been watching Gilmore Girls for years. Plus, we had to sit through a few minutes of sad music-scored animal rights proselytizing (blech), but those were a small price to pay for a damn fine hour of television that delivered a love interest for Mac, a LoVe reunion, and the definition of "Manila."