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Soon after, we see an emboldened Kylie sashaying through the halls hand in hand with Marlena. Never mind the fact that poor Marlena looks a bit shell-shocked, Kylie has brought some lesbian pride to Neptune High!

While Veronica is pleased to see some gay pride on display, her male classmates are simply titillated. When Kylie reacts to their catcalls with disdain, one of the guys loudly exclaims, “Why are lesbians so angry?”

Later, hilarity ensues when Veronica enlists the help of computer whiz Mac to hack into the Pirate Ship in order to further her investigation. Mac is surprised and asks, “Veronica, you’re not…” Veronica quickly assures her, “No, I’m just curious--I mean…”

After reading through the chat session records, Veronica suspects that the blackmailer may be one of the gay students. This new twist leads her to spoiled athletic rich boy, Kelly (Lucas Grabeel), who previously claimed to have been robbed by the pizza delivery guy mugger.

But Kelly is gay, and he staged the robbery for the insurance money needed to pay off his blackmailer.

Veronica is shocked, because earlier in the episode, she watched as Kelly made gay jokes at another student’s expense. Kelly notes Veronica's disapproval and explains that he made the jokes and committed insurance fraud “because I want to survive high school. If people here find out that I’m queer, then I’m dead.”

But the blackmailer (humorously called "Rick Santorum", the name of the homophobic U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania) makes the mistake of using a real mailing address for the payoff, and the trail leads Veronica back to sassy lesbian cheerleader Kylie, who easily confesses that she is indeed the blackmailer.

Why would Kylie blackmail a fellow gay student? She needed the money for college, and she had no problem extorting from “self-hating” spoiled little rich boy Kelly.

But why did the teen lesbian Robin Hood out her own girlfriend? “Because I’m a horrible, crazy bitch” Kylie says only half-jokingly, then elaborates, “I wanted to be out, but I wanted Marlena to be out with me. I wanted to be able to walk down the hall with her, like a real couple."

While her materialistic and self-centered motives are more Act Out than Act Up, the character of Kylie represents a fascinating twist on what could have been a maudlin, “poor gays” storyline. At Neptune High, gay students are plentiful and allied with one another, their homophobic classmates are presented as immature and moronic, and, although her methods are questionable, Kylie challenges her girlfriend's internalized homophobia rather than perpetuating it within herself.

In the end, the viewing audience is encouraged to see lesbian cheerleader Kylie as more of a diva than a delinquent. Smells like gay teen spirit to me.

For more on Veronica Mars, visit the official site

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