So, after weeks of silence, I am back to deliver my Official First Guess at who rigged the bus crash on Veronica Mars. Are you ready for it?

It was Aaron Echolls.

It's totally him! I mean, who else could it be? He's a bastardly psycho who has resources and means and connections—and a frigging Oscar! He beat his son, slept with all his friends' wives (tell me he didn't sleep with Kendall and I'll tell you you're ridiculously naïve), and murdered a teenage girl because she was trying to ruin his image. Dude is by far the most guilty of all the guilty-looking dudes we've met this year.

Let's face it: if it's not him, then it has to be Mayor Goodman. If it's Mayor Goodman, why are we bothering with the rest of the episodes? He's looked guilty for weeks. And if it's not Mayor Goodman, then it's someone obscure, like Kendall or the Fitzpatricks, whom we didn't even meet until eight or nine episodes into the season. That would just be cheating.

Let's not forget that we had eight months to stage the Lilly Kane murder trial. Why did the producers wait until now to do it unless it tied in with the bus crash? Why bring Hamlin back if it's just to have him sit in a courtroom and sneer at Keith?

Now that I've convinced you that it's Aaron, let's examine why and how: to get rid of Duncan and Veronica (and Logan?), so they couldn't testify against him. He tried, but failed, to kill Veronica to keep his Lilly-killing a secret. So he sat back, thought about it, and hired Curly to off his witnesses. If his own son died with them, well, Logan had already proven how little he cared for Daddy.

Curly, as a former stunt supervisor, would have been able to rig the explosion so that there was no residue after the bus was pulled from the sea, leaving the police to assume it was either an accident or driver error. And the Fitzpatricks will be able to attest to Curly being at the scene, as they were there too, for much cheekier reasons.

Curly's visit to the crash-site memorial was because he genuinely felt guilty about his crime. He didn't kill the right people, and he was wrecked about the whole thing. Which is why HE WROTE VERONICA'S NAME ON HIS HAND BEFORE HE JUMPED INTO THE SEA AND KILLED HIMSELF. He wanted Veronica to know that she was the intended victim, and wanted Keith to look into why. (Damn, that just came to me, but I love it!)

I'm not sure who planted the explosives in the hangar. Don Lamb perhaps? To make this charge stick?

At first, I'd thought that Kendall had something to do with this, but she is a total red herring. She's this year's Mama Mars (complete down to skipping town with a teenager's money in the finale—mark my words. Too bad Beaver's business is worthless, and she used Aaron's money to prop it up!).

She did, however, have more than lust to motivate her into Logan's bed. As we late-20s ladies know, nothing is creepier than dating a 17-year-old boy. She started sleeping with Logan soon after the grand jury refused to indict him on Felix's murder. The Fitzpatricks needed her, for whatever reason, to distract him while they set up Dr. Griffith to come forward. Did you notice that she stopped coming around as soon as the charges were brought back? Poor Logan. When Veronica tells him that yet another of his girlfriends was only using him, he's gonna want to join Curly in his watery grave.

And Mayor Goodman? He won't be guilty of the bus crash, but he is guilty of other things. He was to be the "outing of all outings" for our gay friend Peter, whom he diddled at Little League, like he did to Beaver. Which, really, is enough evil for one man.

So, with all this said, I expect I'm 100% wrong like I was last year.