Cassidy Casablancas

Cassidy "Beaver" Casablancas is a fictional character on UPN/The CW television series Veronica Mars, portrayed by actor Kyle Gallner. He was a series regular during the second season and the main antagonist during the second season finale.

Background

Cassidy, known as "Beaver" (a nickname he despises), is a son of one of Neptune, California's richest men, Richard Casablancas, and younger brother of town bully Dick Casablancas. Cassidy hangs around with his older brother a lot, even though Dick victimizes him almost as much as his usual targets. Despite his unspoken reservations, Cassidy acts as accomplice when Dick and his friend Logan Echolls cause trouble in the community. He is also depicted as very smart, earning a high score on his SATs and leading his FBLA class's stock-market game even though he is a year younger than the other students.

Cassidy is extremely needy as a result of the emotional neglect he suffers at the hands of his father, who openly favors Dick over him. His mother also rejects him, refusing to let him live with her since she is always travelling Europe. In season three, a guilt-ridden Dick reveals that he and his father would have contests to see which one could make Cassidy cry. Dick also admits to duct-taping Cassidy's feet to the pedals of his bike, forgetting about it and a couple of hours later finding him pedaling around desperately in circles.

Notable events

Dick and Cassidy provide an alibi for Logan even though he had returned to Neptune the day of Lilly Kane's murder. Eventually, Cassidy tells Veronica Mars that they had lied to the police.

During Veronica's investigation of her rape at Shelley Pomroy's party, she discovers Dick had encouraged Cassidy to rape her while she was unconscious to lose his virginity. Cassidy, however, denies it. He tells Veronica that he ran out of the room and threw up, after realizing that he could not go through with it.

In the season two premiere "Normal Is the Watchword", while Dick is talking to Logan in a flashback, it is shown that Cassidy avoids directly looking at Veronica.

When his father marries a younger woman, Kendall Casablancas, Cassidy tells Veronica that he suspects she is having an affair and hires Veronica to find proof. In the process, Veronica exposes Cassidy's father's real estate scam. Cassidy's father quickly abandons his family and flees the country.

After a failed request to move back in with his birth mother, Cassidy and Kendall start a new real estate business to make money. With help from Cindy "Mac" Mackenzie as his tech girl, he creates a company named Phoenix Land Trust, using Kendall as the on-paper "owner" of the company, as Cassidy is underage. The Trust buys up cheap properties outside the proposed borders for the City of Neptune, a risky move that bet heavily against passage of incorporation.

Cassidy and Mac soon begin dating. In "Ain't No Magic Mountain High Enough", they attend the school's winter carnival together. Dick and his friends make fun of Cassidy for holding hands with Mac. He lets go of Mac's hand and walks away angrily. Later, the two prank Dick by finding a transgender woman online to set him up. Dick sees her leaning on his car and begins to make out with her, believing she is a "hot mom". He brings her into his car and soon comes out disgusted. He threatens Cassidy, but decides not to punch him when the latter warns him he'll get him even worse next time.

Cassidy and Mac's relationship falls apart when he refuses to become sexually intimate with her. When she mentions to Cassidy that she had gone to Veronica for advice, Cassidy abruptly dumps her for bringing Veronica into his personal life. In "Not Pictured", the pair reunites on time for graduation. They attend Logan Echolls' party at the Neptune Grand. They go back to their hotel room, but Cassidy is unable to perform. Mac comforts him and gets up to take a shower.

In the second season finale, "Not Pictured", it is revealed that he was among the boys molested by Woody Goodman. Veronica discovers that Cassidy set up the bus crash to kill Woody's other victims, who intended to come forward. He had planted the rat on the bus so that some of the kids (including himself) would plan for another ride back to school, giving him a perfect view of the bus and thus enabling him to crash it at the right moment by detonating the explosives he had planted via cellphone. Cassidy, who was in charge of the special effects for his friend Hart Hanson's war movies, had gotten the explosives from his Dad's mechanic Curly Moran, Aaron Echolls' former stuntman. He then proceeded to frame Moran for the bus crash. The PCHers beat up Curly, but Cassidy realized they would not kill him and finished the job himself by running him over with his car. He then wrote Veronica Mars' name on Curly's hand and dropped the corpse in the water, effectively sending the investigation in the wrong direction. Cassidy is also responsible for many of the events of the first two seasons such as orchestrating the exposure of his father's real estate fraud, and Goodman's fall from public favor. When Veronica finds out Cassidy was a part of Woody's Little League team, she puts the pieces together. A call to Hart Hanson confirms her theory. Veronica also discovers that he did rape her after all, giving her chlamydia in the process, which he had, in turn, contracted after being molested by Woody. Cassidy leads Veronica to the roof of the Neptune Grand after he intercepts a text message she had sent to Mac, warning her to stay away from 'Beaver'. After Cassidy blows up the plane bringing Goodman back to Neptune following his arrest (believing Keith Mars was also on the plane), he tries to kill Veronica. Logan stops him, however, and Cassidy prepares to commit suicide by jumping off the roof of the Neptune Grand. Logan tries to stop him, but Cassidy asks why he shouldn't kill himself. When Logan is unable to answer, Cassidy jumps to his death.

Appearances

Season 1

• 1x20 M.A.D.
• 1x21 A Trip to the Dentist
• 1x22 Leave It to Beaver

Season 2

• 2x01 Normal Is the Watchword
• 2x02 Driver Ed
• 2x03 Cheatty Cheatty Bang Bang
• 2x07 Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner
• 2x09 My Mother, the Fiend
• 2x12 Rashard and Wallace Go to White Castle
• 2x13 Ain't No Magic Mountain High Enough
• 2x15 The Quick and the Wed
• 2x17 Plan B
• 2x18 I Am God
• 2x21 Happy Go Lucky
• 2x22 Not Pictured

References