Velma (episode)

You may also be looking for Velma, the TV series of the same name, or Velma Dinkley, the character.

WARNING! This page contains content that may not be seen as age appropriate, and may also be considered offensive or upsetting for some readers. Reader discretion is advised.

Velma
Premiere date	January 12, 2023
Run time	25:57
Starring	Mindy Kaling Glenn Howerton Sam Richardson Constance Wu Sarayu Blue Fortune Feimster Melissa Fumero Jane Lynch Yvonne Orji Russell Peters Debby Ryan Wanda Sykes Karl-Anthony Towns "Weird Al" Yankovic Natalia Del Riego
Music composed by	Craig DeLeon
Writer(s)	Charlie Grandy
Storyboard artist(s)	Lisa A. Kim Aimee Steinberger Tyler Turett Meg Waldow
Director(s)	Anne Walker Farrell Charlie Grandy (voices)
Animation director(s)	James Bowman
Art director(s)	Valerio Ventura
Episode navigation
← Previous	Next →

"Velma" is the first episode of Velma season one. It aired on January 12, 2023 on HBO Max. It was written by series creator, Charlie Grandy, directed by Anne Walker Farrell, and voice directed by Grandy.

Detailed summary

At Crystal Cove High School's girls' showers, a debate about TV pilots having gratuitous violence leads Daphne to get into a fight with another girl, which is stopped by Velma, who clobbers Daphne because she is a bitch, according to Velma. Velma then goes to her locker, which has the corpse of Brenda inside, whose brain has been removed.

Being the prime suspect in a murder, Velma is taken to the police station, where she is interrogated by Daphne's detective moms. It's revealed that Velma's mother is missing, which the police have actually forgotten about, and that she used to be best friends with Daphne until she hit glowed up and hang out with other hot girls who made fun of Velma. Velma highlights her hatred of them by saying she wants to murder them doesn't help. The detectives don't believe Velma killed Brenda, but they won't let her off the hook easily without helping them solve the murder. This means solving a mystery, but Velma has a past trauma involving her last mystery.

Velma leaves the station, where she bumps into Fred, her crush, who is completely oblivious to her. Daphne then appears and tells Fred about the murder of Brenda, which concerns Fred because she was his backup if Daphne got too clingy. Daphne gets intimate with Fred, who tells her this isn't the place, which angers Daphne.

Back at home, Velma's lawyer dad isn't very sympathetic to her murder charge, since she was voted "Most revengey." He also doesn't like how antisocial Velma has become since her mother's disappearance by not hanging out with her friends at Spooner's, but she counters that it's because he got the owner/waitress pregnant while her mother is still missing. Sophie is right there in the house with them and gets Aman to take several racy photos of her pregnancy after she feels the baby kicking. Velma is surprised that he could afford a camera, but not a second sweater for her, but her surprise turns to mortification as Sophie has set her up to be a waitress at Spooner's to fit in again.

And meanwhile at Spooner's... A wake is being held for Brenda by her friends. They reflect on how she was the rare slut who didn't deserve to be murdered, while Daphne turns her eulogy into a way of attacking Velma, a prime murder suspect, while she begins her work as a trainee waitress. Velma is outraged and quits.

She leaves at the back to find Fred hiding behind the dumpster, who is getting frantic about his father not seeing him as a real man, which has become more complicated since Brenda died. Velma tells him that she has her own issues with her mother. She reveals that the first mystery she solved was that her mother smoked cigarettes, and from then on, she would give Velma little mysteries to solve like refilling Diya's empty glass of alcohol.

Once when Velma got older, she found her Christmas presents, but she felt terrible, so Diya went out to get her something to cheer her up, but never returned home. Velma and Fred's little heart to heart is cut short when a mysterious car arrives and scares Fred. Inside, is Norville, a boy who has a crush on Velma and is a fellow math classmate, who has been leaving numerous voicemails aka "VMs" to Velma, which claim to know who killed Brenda.

Velma is forced to listen to each of them while sitting next to Norville in his car, as he drives, which reveals he does not in fact know who killed Brenda. Instead, Norville says he knows how they can find out who killed Brenda. He goes on to ask her why Spooner's is such a popular hangout, but he already has the answer, which is apparently drugs, something that he hates. To get to the bottom of this, Norville reveals to her that he put Brenda on an assignment for the school paper to investigate Spooner's by taking his camera and photographing anything mysterious there, which she led to a weird discovery in the bathroom, but of course, she didn't get to Norville in time. Velma remembers that Sophie had a camera that Aman apparently had bought for her, but Norville doesn't think that it was a camera Aman bought, he thinks that the camera belonged to him, which Sophie stole after killing Brenda for discovering Spooner's secret. Velma is excited about this because she would love to get Sophie out of her family's life, while Norville is excited because he wants to solve the mystery with Velma.

Velma accepts Norville's offer to help, and he drives her back home, where she finds Aman and Sophie asleep on the couch, and Sophie's camera on the table. She quietly swipes it away and looks at what's on there to find babies dressed as vegetables, which is how she could afford to pay for the camera, something learns from an awakened Aman. Velma is left wondering who has Norville/Brenda's camera, which sends Velma into a massive hallucagenic panic attack, where a monster gets beneath her skin, and gives her a heart attack. This wakes up Sophie, who actually knows what is going on and resuscitates her. Velma is brought back and apologizes for thinking Sophie had killed Brenda. Brenda isn't hurt by this, and Aman apologizes to Velma for not believing in her hallucinations, but she has to realize that Diya didn't leave them on the basis that Velma solved a mystery, but Velma doesn't want to hear the truth. She then unlocks a memory of how she may not have been the easiest child for Diya to handle. Sophie thinks this is a chance for Velma to change her personality and fit in, which seems a little harsh, but Velma agrees that it is time to move on. She throws away the Christmas present that her mom had left Velma in her car she had abandoned.

The next day at school, she turns up with her outfit altered to be more revealing, which gets all the students' attention for the right reasons until a popular girl calls her out for trying to deflect her murdering Brenda, which turns everyone against Velma. At least until Fred pops out and defends her, but also calls her a boy in the process. Velma goes to the girls' bathroom and changes back into her regular attire, and while washing her face, she finds that Daphne and the other popular girls have snuck up behind her to confront Velma for apparently stealing Fred from her. Daphne says that Velma can have Fred, but she wishes him luck on getting him naked because he is body conscious and Daphne hasn't been able to be intimate in the year they've been dating. He can't even use the bathroom at Spooner's without first getting everyone out. This becomes an unexpected clue for Velma in the murder of Brenda.

At night, Velma takes Norville to Fred's mansion to investigate. She gets Shaggy to wait in his car, while she goes alone as she believes that she has rid herself of her hallucinations after accepting that she wasn't the cause of her mother's disappearance. Suddenly, she comes face to face with Diya. But she turns into a monster. Velma breaks into Fred's house, but the paintings start to come to life in a ghoulish manner. Shaggy tries to get her to focus on his voice through their phones, but when she does, he draws a blank. She starts to feel a heart attack coming on, hallucinating that an actual fist is trying to come out of her chest. Norville begs her not to die because he likes her romantically, which startles Velma and begins to break Velma out of her panic, but not the way Norville would hope. She scoffs at him as he is like a brother to her, and only thinks he is joking so asks him to make her laugh some more, which leads to more embarrassing details that he would hope would get her to like him back too. Velma recovers and finds Norville's camera with photos of Brenda hooking up with a guy from school. She discovers that Fred stole the camera because it revealed his perfectly hairless leg, a result of still going thru puberty. The secret is so much to bare that Fred could've killed Brenda over it, and Velma could be his next victim. He begins to reach inside his bathrobe for a checkbook, but is shot in the legs by Daphne's moms, who arrive with Norville. Fred was trying to pay off Velma to keep quiet as he did with Brenda.

When Norville takes Velma home, they talk about how Velma still felt guilty about her mother leaving which is why she had another hallucination. Removing the Christmas present out of the trash, Velma doesn't believe that her mom left her because she didn't love her due to her mystery solving as she originally believed. Velma feels much better because she now has a new determination in finding her mother. Unfortunately, that's not the only mystery she'll have to solve as another decapitated body of a teenage girl is found in Velma's recycling bin, this time belonging to Krista.

Memorable quotes

Krista: And, yeah, normally in pop culture, when a slutty girl is murdered, we're all a little like, "Well, maybe she deserved it." But that is what made Brenda so special. She was the rare slut that did not deserve to be murdered.

Characters

Legend
Character debut	Speaking debut	Ep. debut	No lines	Mentioned

In order of appearance:

Character	Actor
Velma Dinkley	Mindy Kaling
The Creeper (mask)	N/A
Daphne Blake	Constance Wu
Krista McRae	Debby Ryan
Olive	Fortune Feimster
Gigi	Yvonne Orji
Becca	N/A
Lola	N/A
Rachel Brosnahan
Brenda Bright	N/A
Detective Donna Blake	Jane Lynch
Detective Linda Ke	Wanda Sykes
God
Ghost Clown (photo)	N/A
Ghost of Redbeard (photo)	N/A
Gypsy (photo)	N/A
Fred Jones	Glenn Howerton
Aman Dinkley	Russell Peters
Sophie	Melissa Fumero
Steve Harvey
Amanda Dinkley	N/A
William Jones (photo)	N/A
Diya Dinkley	Sarayu Blue
Norville Rogers	Sam Richardson
Dandruff Tuba	"Weird Al" Yankovic
Cool edgy girl	N/A
Jacques Beau	Karl-Anthony Towns
LeBron James
Helen Mirren
Dorkus
Victoria Jones (portrait)	N/A

Organizations

• The Crystal Cove Interferer (mentioned)
• Crystal Cove Police Department
• The Space Kooks (mentioned)
• Fighting Urchins (mentioned)

Locations

• Earth
  • United States
    • Crystal Cove
      • Dinkley residence
      • Crystal Cove High School
      • Police station
      • Blake residence
      • Spooner's Malt Shop
      • Jones residence
  • Spain (mentioned)
  • Mexico (mentioned)
• The Moon

Objects

• Bowl Cut Made Easy
• The Crystal Cove Interferer newspaper
• How to Solve Mysteries with Your Friends
• Scuba Do's & Don'ts
• The BIG Book of Books Seen in T.V. Shows
• History of Fog
• Mrs. Murderlady Solves Murder
• Mrs. Murderlady
• Stabble
• Little Miss Forensics Lab
• Daphne's Journal

Vehicles

• The Mystery Machine (mentioned)
• Diya's car
• Norville's car

Production

Filming

It was copyrighted in 2023.

Music

The music was composed by Craig DeLeon, and edited by Todd Dahloff.

Song

• "Sweet but Psycho" - Ava Max

Crew credits

• Developer: Charlie Grandy
• Executive producers: Charlie Grandy, Mindy Kaling, Howard Klein
• Co-executive producers: Elijah Aron, Jessica Kumai Scott
• Supervising producer: Amy Winfrey
• Consulting producer: Matt Warburton
• Co-producers: Stephanie Amante-Ritter, Rick Williams, Hye Yun Park
• Story editor: Akshara Sekar
• Supervising director: Anne Walker Farrell
• Animation director: James Bowman
• Casting directors: Sarah Noonan, Agnes Kim
• Production managers: Jane Yeon, Sofía Moreira Rodríguez
• Senior assistant production managers: Amy Cass, Rebecca Scagos, Jillian Tsai
• Assistant production managers: Talia Berger, Lauren Wolf
• Art director: Valerio Ventura
• Assistant art director: Adam Fay
• Character designers: Brad Lewis, Megan Phonesavanh, Alex Wilson
• Prop designers: Allison Kim, Jeff Marfisi
• Background design supervisor: Clark Snyder
• Background designers: Erik Caines, Shelly Liu, Shannon Parayil, Tiffany Wei
• Background painters: Eric N Clark, Davey Cummings, Evan Eley, Jenny Li, Kati Prescott
• Color designers: Teri Shikasho, Victoria Thornberry
• Design apprentice: Jacqueline C.J. Barnes
• Storyboard artists: Lisa A. Kim, Aimee Steinberger, Tyler Turett, Meg Waldow
• Storyboard revisionists: Gizelle Fangon Orbino, Chloe Stewart, Meghan Tryon
• Editor: Brian Swanson
• Assistant editor: Alison Irving
• Animators: Ye Aung, Greg Chen, Connor Hoffman, Garrett Ray, Frank Summers, Brianne VanTuyle, Jason Walling
• Animation timers: Jill Jacobs, Jungja Kim-Wolf, Mike Wolf
• Animation checker: Justin Schultz
• Effects animators: Elizabeth McMahill, Nick Pflug
• Art director of creatives services: Matthew Girardi
• Graphics and title supervisor: Brenna Kraus
• Graphics and titles artist: Adrienne Steinbaum
• Animation services: Studio IAM
  • Production supervisors: Kang Hei Chul, Kwon Mi Ok
  • Production support: Lee Kyun Min, Chung Hae Yeon
  • Animation directors: Jo Seung Gu, Jeong Dong Won, Lee Seong Chan
  • Assistants (clean-up): Park Ji In, Park Seo Hyun
  • Key animators: Kim Tae Kwon, An Mi Hyang, Joeng Jin U, No Seung Yeon, Jeong Sang Eon, Jo Hee Won
  • Compositor: Hu Jin Ho
  • Layout supervisors: So Ho Seong, Mun Hui, Jeong Seung Tae
  • Background supervisor: Jeon Hyo Young
  • In-between checkers: Yun Jung Hee, Lee Hyeon Suk
  • Color designer: Yang Sun A
  • Technical director: Yun Ji Yeong
  • Translator: Oh Dong Yeop
  • Model checkers: Oh Jae Hee, Park Jin Mi
• Post production executive: Greg Emerson
• Post producer: Kip Brown
• Post production managers: Rebecca Sands Coutts, Marissa Llano
• Creative services producer: Lisa Hallbauer
• Creatives services assistant production managers: Emily Dillard, Charlie Carpenter
• Recording facilities: Atlas Oceanic Sound & Picture, Cherry Beach Sound Studios, Gorilla TV, Igloo Music, Margarita Mix Hollywood, Outloud Audio LA, Philadelphia Post, Pomann Sound NY, Red Angel Media, Salami Studios, SisterBoss, Smart Post Atlanta, Studiopolis, Todd-AO Hollywood, Wolf at the Door
• Recording machine operator: Jeff O. Collins
• Track reader: Wilson Martinez
• Supervising dialogue/ADR editor: Mark A. Keatts
• Assistant editors: Harrison T. Barth, Michele Beeson, Gabriel Gianola
• Dialogue/ADR editors: David M. Cowan, Kelly Foley Downs, Patrick Foley, Michael Garcia, John Reynolds
• Post production sound services: Atlas Oceanic Sound & Picture
• Online editor: David Cowles
• Asset manager: Rachel Ryan
• Production manager: Abigail Overstreet
• Production support: Cher Bentley, Jeff Deckman, Eileen Goldstein, Tamara Miles, Eileen Nakamura-Smith, Niko Sumcad, Kira Tirimacco
• Casting administrator: Liz Carroll
• Casting: Maria Millage, Alden Osbourne, Morgan Rudner
• Pipeline associate producer: Karina Benesh
• Pipeline engineer: Debbie Sleeper
• Pipeline supervisor: Kevin "KP" Porterfield
• Rights and clearances: Katie Ward, Jake Baumgart
• Business and legal affairs: Jennifer Allen, Leslie Bell, Leslie Chinchilla, Raymond Gonzalez, Denise Martinez, Shanon Muir
• Operations: Lindsey Gui
• Production supervision: Bobbie Page, Susan Ward
• Studio management: Ed Adams
• Executives in charge of production: Peter Girardi, Shaleen Desai, Katie Petrachonis, Daniel Wolfberg, Monika Zielinska
• Executive producer: Sam Register

Release

Dates are in order of release:

• United States: October 3, 2022 at New York Comic Con; January 12, 2023 on HBO Max
• Australia: January 12, 2023 on Foxtel; January 15, 2023 on Fox 8

Behind the scenes

• The episode is rated TV-MA for sexual situations and violence.
• Velma has the mask of the Creeper in her room, who was the monster in the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! episode "Jeepers, It's the Creeper."
• The girls in the shower talk about the Riverdale pilot, in which Betty and Veronica kiss each other to get on the cheerleading squad.
  • Spooner's is a parody of Pop's Chock'lit Shoppe.
• Amanda's formal debut occurs when she is born in "Velma Makes a List."
• At the police station, there are photos of the Ghost Clown, Redbeard, and the gypsy from the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! episodes "Bedlam in the Big Top," "Go Away Ghost Ship," and "A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts," respectively.
• Brenda's dead body was found on Wednesday, October 9.
• Stabble is a parody of Scrabble
• Diya's vanity plate is "NOTACLU."
• A student has a t-shirt that says "The Space Kooks," a reference to the Spooky Space Kook from the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! episode "Spooky Space Kook."
• In Fred's house, Velma hallucinates that a portrait of Fred and William are the Skeleton Men from The Scooby-Doo Show episode "A Creepy Tangle in the Bermuda Triangle."

Errors

• Velma's cane hit to Daphne wouldn't have sent her shower cap flying off like that. And it also disappears once it's knocked off.
• When Velma had apparently given up on her mother, she still continued to wear her glasses--glasses she never needed to begin with.

Marketing and promotion

The episode premiered at New York Comic Con on October 3, 2022, followed by a panel with the cast and crew.

In other languages

Language	Name	Meaning

Home availability

• Watch with a subscription at HBO Max.