VMI 1.01: Pilot transcript
Hear this episode at VMIpod.com/1-01
Content note: Veronica Mars contains heavy themes, and this episode includes storylines concerning murder, rape and violence.
Doesn’t take a super smart teen detective to deduce that there will be spoilers for this episode of Veronica Mars, but there will not be spoilers for subsequent episodes of Veronica Mars.
A LONG TIME AGO, ON VERONICA MARS:
Wallace got duct taped to the school flagpole by Weevil,
Keith inquired about the identity of your daddy,
Logan smashed Veronica’s headlights with a crowbar,
and Veronica tried to cram 3 episodes worth of backstory and context into 40 minutes - in between staking out the Camelot Motel, framing Logan for having a bong on school grounds, colluding with the fire chief to swap out police evidence, and cutting Wallace down from that flagpole
Also, Duncan… existed. Barely.
JOY: Staking out a motel with a long lens camera, I’m Jenny Owen Youngs.
HZ: And eating lunch all by myself to symbolise my social ostracism, I’m Helen Zaltzman.
You’re listening to Veronica Mars Investigations Season 1, episode 1: Pilot.
HZ: We've just discovered that we have seen different cuts of the pilot, because I downloaded the series in Britain. And I don't know whether there's a special British version, which has a whole different beginning of the whole series with Veronica soliloquising about marriage in her mind.
JOY: No sooner had I hit record, than the first great mystery of the pod was launched upon us. Helen started describing the first scene of the episode and I was like, what show were you watching?
HZ: You looked at me like I was sitting over a gas leak.
JOY: There's just like, a whole thing that happens that they lopped off the front of the Hulu episode.
HZ: Because I thought this show starts very strong. The first thing you hear is a Veronica voiceover as she sits in her car, surveilling a motel at night; her voiceover is saying, “I'm never getting married.” Bam. What a statement that Americans don't even get to hear.
JOY: At least not Hulu-watching Americans.
HZ: Also in the scene that apparently you have been denied, she states that she's getting paid $40 an hour, which to me seemed not a great rate for a private detective, given that private detectives put themselves in danger. And she's out at night for hours, and it's quite boring.
JOY: And she's got a calculus test that I didn't know anything about until you showed me the British intro.
HZ: Really adding tension - what if she flunks the test tomorrow? And then, in the version I've seen, the first other character you meet is Weevil, because the biker gang rides up and menaces her beside her car. So he's meant to be the threat from the pre-credits except you don't know that because you have no pre-credits.
JOY: I just feel like we're living in two different worlds.
HZ: Should I go home now?
JOY: Should I go home now? I don't have all the information.
HZ: What do you think they show them in, like, the German cut of this show? You get Veronica from birth up to this point?
JOY: Possibly. Anything's possible.
HZ: But we've both seen the theme.
JOY: We've both seen the theme.
HZ: There are a lot of hairstyles of Veronica in the theme. It's like you're watching Quantum Leap, except she's just leaping into different haircuts
JOY: Folliculum Leap. I find her hair in the pilot in particular to be just brutal.
HZ: You could call it a lawnmower haircut.
JOY: I was thinking of the Flowbee.
HZ: Yes, we don't have those in Britain. So that's the payoff: we get the pre-credits and you get the Flowbee.
JOY: Right. I don't know if that's an even exchange, but she's really got a weather woman from Florida in 1989 kind of look.
HZ: Well, a weather woman in Florida in 1989, who had a bad breakup and gave herself a haircut in the middle of the night with kitchen shears. And then the next day, there's just random chunks at the back -
JOY: - winging out in every direction.
HZ: Very confusing.
JOY: It is truly confusing. Another great mystery of the pod already revealed.
HZ: And so the first proper scene that we both agree is definitively in this show is the school. It's so sunny, people are wearing such bright colours.
JOY: Yeah, it looks like Southern California, doesn't it, and there are cheerleaders.
HZ: I have not attended an American school, I assume it's teeming with cheerleaders.
JOY: Are there no cheerleaders in England?
HZ: There's no cheer in England.
JOY: And that's no reason to lead, okay. Well, we learned a lot. I think, in this in this opening little sunny scene.
HZ: She says:
Veronica Mars: “Neptune, California, a town without a middle class.”
JOY: I don't know if I buy it.
HZ: No. She seems very focused on the 09ers, who are the 1% effectively; and yet there seems to be a lot of middle class.
JOY: Yeah, I think her definition of middle class is actually skewed by the presence of so many millionaires and billionaires. It just moves the entire scale up significantly.
HZ: There seemed to be about seven rich people in the town though.
JOY: Well, seven rich people in this episode.
HZ: It's just confirmation bias to her that they run the place. She's just got a real chip on her shoulder. So there's a big crowd assembled. And it's it's for sad reasons.
JOY: Have you ever been duct taped to a pole naked? I have not.
HZ: I haven't, and now you make me feel like my upbringing has been so sheltered.
JOY: Maybe that's for the best because they really do refer to him later as being totally naked under that duct tape which, excuse me, means there is duct tape currently adhering to some very sensitive areas of this young gentlemen.
HZ: And yet he is decent in that duct tape. It's like he's wearing a loincloth of duct tape - we're talking, of course, about Wallace Fennell. This is how we're introduced the character Wallace, who's to be Veronica's true friend - has been duct taped to the flagpole. So his modesty is intact, he has the word ‘snitch’ across his chest.
JOY: So brutal.
HZ: And people are crowded around...
JOY: Taking selfies, laughing…
HZ: And I think this whole scene is very different because there are no camera phones yet. Or the camera phones that were in 2004 when this is set.
JOY: That guy’s got a flip phone.
HZ: The camera's just like a little grainy postage stamp.
JOY: Yeah. And what do you even going to do with that photo? Could you even send it to someone?
HZ: No, you could just marvel at the fact that you could take a picture with a phone, because that was still new. But some of them are just staring and they're not talking or laughing? So they're just bystanding.
JOY: Yeah, just like it's almost as if there are extras who were paid to stand around a flagpole and look in a particular direction. But you know who's got some direction?
HZ: Is it Veronica Mars?
JOY: It is, and she has a tiny knife. She has the world's tiniest knife.
HZ: She's prepared for a lot of eventualities. But Veronica Mars establishes their friendship straight away with her little knife slicing him down from the pole.
JOY: Very heroic.
HZ: But then, does she carry a bathrobe that she can throw up on him?
JOY: Well, thankfully, the duct tape seems to just be remaining in place covering his fig leaf zone.
HZ: It would be difficult to remove that. But she might have an implement for that as well. You can use lighter fluid - that's very good for removing a difficult adhesive. I used to work in a secondhand bookshop; that's what you'd use to get someone's duct tape off a book's spine. Perhaps that would work on Wallace’s bathing suit region.
JOY: You know, where I really don't want lighter fluid probably is my bathing suit region. But probably better lighter fluid than duct tape, I guess.
HZ: The lighter fluid evaporates fairly quickly. Duct tape, very slow to evaporate. So Veronica's had a very busy morning already, because the next scene is her having a nap in a classroom.
JOY: She's plum tuckered out.
HZ: She’s a busy teenager; so many side hustles.
JOY: She's unstoppable, constantly in motion -
HZ: - lot of stress -
JOY: A lot of stress for a young person or any person.
HZ: Do you think she's the kind of person who's like, go, go, go, go go, and then just flat out tired, asleep?
JOY: I think from what I remember about being a teenager, is that you go until you are absolutely out of any kind of fuel, and then you pass out very hard.
HZ: As she has done in this class. But then the teacher wakes up and makes her recite a Pope poem, which I couldn’t do on the spot.
JOY: Yeah. And it’s not problem.
HZ: She's got that at her disposal because this is how they establish that she's very smart, and sassy. And also sleepy.
JOY: Yes, yes. And she's able to sum it up by saying:
Veronica Mars: “Life's a bitch until you die.”
HZ: So you get the sense that she's a cynical teen.
JOY: Yeah, she's got a hard exterior. She's like a detective in a noir or something, isn't she!
HZ: A candy-coloured noir. But it's a lot more noirish in the British cut of this because it opens on a scene in darkness that's lit by neon.
JOY: Instead of just the sun.
HZ: Whereas yours opens with sunshine, and brightly coloured clothes.
JOY: And I mean, you're from England. I live in Los Angeles. There's something that feels right about what fate has dealt us with this these different cuts?
HZ: We do have shorter days, particularly between October and March. So there is more darkness.
JOY: And what about the darkness within?
HZ: Plenty. That's why it's a binge drinking nation.
JOY: I really love what the teacher responds to Veronica's little summary with, which is the the teacher says I think that Pope is saying that:
Teacher: “The thing that keeps us powering through life's defeats is our faith in a better life to come.”
JOY: Which kind of fades out as the scene continues. But it feels to me a little bit like, as we're going to learn more through this episode -
HZ: - It's like a motto for the Veronica Marsverse.
JOY: Truly. Yeah, that's that's the train she's on. Holding on to hope for a better life to come.
HZ: Do you believe Veronica Mars is a hopeful character?
JOY: I think she has the luxury of, like, being a healthy teenager with a loving father.
HZ: As we'll see, best relationship of all time.
JOY: Greatest father-daughter relationship in the history of film and television. And I think that she has a natural lean in an optimist’s direction, even though circumstances she has experienced have impacted her from an external point that make her think about things through negative filters.
HZ: I suppose how she summarised the poem, "Life's a bitch and then you die", is the opposite of optimism.
JOY: Wellllll….
HZ: But then is she being kind of cool and disaffected? Because when you're a teenager, you think that's great. When you're older you're just depressed by it.
JOY: “Do I really have to die? And when will it be?” Then into the corridor for a good old fashioned locker search - do they even have lockers in England?
HZ: No.
JOY: Fascinating.
HZ: Well, not in my school. You have them for your sports kit. But that was in a whole different building to where your books would be on your body. Although I did have those old fashioned desks that open and have a hole for an inkwell, so you could keep books in those, no need for lockers.
JOY: Fascinating.
HZ: We also have to wear uniforms; it's uncommon in Britain to get to wear normal clothes,and seeing the clothes on display in the series makes me feel almost relieved.
JOY: Yeah, it's brutal out there. I think this show, if it makes a strong case for anything, it is a strong case for school uniforms. And their many virtues.
HZ: And so we've got the principal there, and we've got a cop with a moustache whose name has temporarily escaped me, if he ever had one, or whether he's just moustache cop. They're searching her locker.
JOY: And a dog named Buster? Veronica is familiar with this police dog.
HZ: Yes, and she instantly calms it down. So that establishes a previous relationship. And also, she's a bit of a power player. But there's nothing in the locker, apart from a heart-shaped photo of the principal.
JOY: Dude. I have to say that is a sick move
HZ: Absolutely. Why are they searching her locker though? On what grounds?
JOY: In high schools, they don't need grounds.
HZ: No warrant?
JOY: They can open and search your locker any time. No warrant required
HZ: What are they looking for? Did you have your locker searched?
JOY: Not that I'm aware of. Never while I was present. I don't think I put up a lot of red flags for my administration.
HZ: You kept your illegal business much better hidden.
JOY: Yeah, separation of church and state, baby!
HZ: And then it's lunch. And you have one of those shots where Veronica Mars is at normal to slow speed and everyone else is rushing, rushing, rushing.
JOY: This is a fun technique. And she's all like “A long time ago, he was my boyfriend”, staring at Duncan across the mall.
HZ: Here's where we establish all of the rich kids, and you can tell they're rich because they're eating takeout pizza.
JOY: Yeah. Which I guess is a luxury? I guess it's a luxury, compared to cafeteria food.
HZ: And so here we have Duncan Kane.
Veronica Mars: “He used to be my boyfriend.”
HZ: And then there's a flashback of them kissing and then breaking up
JOY: And a flashback to Veronica's old hair before the flowbee.
HZ: Woof. Out of the frying pan into the fire, hair-wise.
JOY: Truly.
HZ: And then we meet Logan, introduced as:
Veronica Mars: “Every school has an obligatory psychotic jackass.”
HZ: So that's promising.
JOY: Yeah, what could this guy be up to aside from wearing an orange t shirt and a plaid orange button down over it open with his freakin puka shell necklace.
HZ: I read a fascinating interview with the series costume designer Salvador Perez, who did a wonderful job on the Mindy Project, and he talked about how they wanted Logan to wear a puka shell necklace so that he's one of those douchebags wearing a puka shell necklace; and he wanted him in orange, Duncan to be in blue so you could tell the rich white boys apart. And Logan - not Logan, Jason Dohring, the actor who plays Logan said, “I want him to be in rack clothes,” meaning he wanted Logan to gravitate towards the clothes that no one else wanted, so they were left on the sales rack. Even though he's a rich boy, he's dressing in sales rack clothes, so that's why you see him in a lot of rust and pond green and brown.
JOY: I remember very clearly that like those were the pop colours that like every store around this time was making - their pop colour was like rust orange or lime green. We'll see some lime green later, or the olive green. And that's the colour that would always be left over and marked down. How interesting.
HZ: I was also surprised that when you first see Logan, he's wearing this quite bold and bright outfit because I do associate him with these pond colours. And that made me think that Logan isn't a character who really wants to be looked at. Whereas when he's in orange, I’m thinking he's a bit more extrovert. But he introduces himself by sitting on Duncan, and erotically rubbing.
JOY: Oh my gosh. Is this the hottest thing that happens in the episode?
HZ: Duncan is obviously not into it. And so who is who is the most uncomfortable with the idea of gayness? Is it Logan because he's mocking it, or is it Duncan because he's uncomfortable with it - or is he uncomfortable with Logan's mockery of it?
JOY: Those are the bells that should have been going off in my head but instead when I watched this I thought -
HZ: Hot?
JOY: I didn't think hot - I just thought like, oh they both seem like alarmingly, like for the time period and for the like straight dudeliness of it, they both just seemed like like two guys like goofing off. I kind of didn't register either of them as like looking like uncomfortable beyond just like, oh, Logan's like doing a wild thing again, I'm gonna like shove them off me because I'm trying to eat my lunch.
HZ: That could also be it: Duncan was just hungry. Logan was sitting on his pizza.
JOY: "Duncan Want Food."
HZ: "Feed Duncan." Veronica is staring at their antics thinking about how she used to be one of them, and now very much isn't. And Wallace comes over to sit with her. And she's initially rather hostile. Rude.
JOY: She seems to have adjusted to solo lunch life.
HZ: And she acts like she was deserted by everybody. But how much of that was due to her isolating herself? Hmmmm.
JOY: I think it's a question worth asking.
HZ: And yet not worth answering, like so many of my questions. And then Weevil comes up, who I've already seen in the British introduction, because he leads the biker gang up to Veronica's car at night outside the motel. But is this your first sight of Weevil?
JOY: This is my first sight of Weevil and boy, it's also the first time I get to hear him talking about:
Weevil Navarro: “The only time I care what a woman has to say is when she's riding my big old hog.”
HZ: I didn't know he was a pig farmer.
JOY: Me neither. He doesn't really look it; the leather jacket kind of says not farmer.
HZ: Could be pig leather?
JOY: True.
HZ: It seems to me like they weren't sure yet what the character of Weevil was going to be, so they just wrote him as a kind of asshole chauvinist? Because I don't think this is his usual behaviour later in the series, but he's very grandstanding to Veronica. And obviously she can knock back these quips with aplomb.
JOY: Not a problem.
HZ: Amateurs! Amateurs going up against Veronica Mars with that kind of rubbish.
JOY: The fools. He tries to explain that it is legendary and she just cuts it down.
HZ: But then the principal comes up, breaks up this altercation, and says:
Principal Clemmons: “Veronica, why does trouble follow you around?”
HZ: That is victim blaming.
JOY: Victim blaming. 100%. How dare you.
HZ: And then there's a flashback to what got Wallace taped to the flagpole.
JOY: Right, which is, man, this barely even seems fair. He was working at the convenience store where he works which is called Sac-n-Pac.
HZ: It rhymes. Put it on a sign. But what we see is: Wallace is the cashier and a couple of PCHers come in, steal some booze, mock him he presses the alarm, as you would when someone thieves something.
JOY: Veronica goes out of her way to say that Neptune doesn't have a police department. It has a sheriff's department. So whatever distinction - the clearest distinction I can make in my mind is that I feel like I'm used to seeing police officers wear like black or dark blue uniforms and sheriffs wearing a tan uniform. And maybe they're like more on a county level?
HZ: But in Reno 911, which I know to be a very accurate depiction of American law enforcement, I'm pretty sure they're wearing those dark beige, buff uniforms.
JOY: Yeah, yeah, but shorts, right?
HZ: It's very warm in Reno.
JOY: But man, Sheriff Lamb is always chewing gum and always being a jackass.
HZ: That's his thing, jackassery. And he's very good at it. He's a real odious kind of guy.
JOY: Yeah, I guess he's found his calling in life, and he's really decided to lean into that aptitude.
HZ: It's just too much effort to be a nice guy. Didn't work for Keith Mars as sheriff. So he's going the other way.
JOY: Right? Right. Maybe it'll work better for him.
HZ: Maybe also he has a lot of stress grinding of his teeth. And that's why he chews the gum.
JOY: True. That's possible. Is he a villain, or is he just an antagonist?
HZ: Bit of both. Bit of Sac, a bit of Pac.
JOY: So Wallace hits the silent alarm, the sheriff's department comes down and so do the PCHers, and he does what the PCHers want, which is to say, “Oh it was an accident, they didn't steal anything, they paid.” And then he still gets duct taped to a freakin pole!
HZ: As a young African American man, he really couldn't win at all in that equation.
JOY: No.
HZ: But it seems to me that given that the PCHers do not seem to be afraid of meting out some nasty violence - not even the nice kind of violence, what am I saying? They violent away pretty readily. The flagpole thing seems almost like a bit of a retro punishment.
JOY: Yeah, “Most of the time, we're a violent biker gang, but also we go to high school and this is what we do within the confines of a high school property.” Yeah, it is peculiar that they don't just find Wallace and beat him up.
HZ: It's like they’ve all gone on a bachelor party and Wallace was the groom so they have to do something horrible to him. Also how and when did this take place? Did they obtain Wallace at the end of his shift and put him on the flagpole all night?
JOY: Has he been there all night?
HZ: Did he come early to school, and so did they on the off chance? What are the logistics of this? How much human weight can a flagpole carry? Because they're designed to carry flags.
JOY: One of the great mysteries of the pod.
HZ: So many! And now Veronica Mars has gone home to enjoy a flashback of happier times.
JOY: Oh, man, I don't want to see Duncan coming up out of a pool. It's just not what I ordered.
HZ: Do you want to see Veronica's missing mother, Lianne Mars, with a big birthday cake? They're establishing a lot of motivations for Veronica’s sadness in this episode. This is like reason three of about ninety.
JOY: Yeah, she's got a lot going on; and I have to say they really jam a lot of information into this episode, into this pilot.
HZ: It's doing the most.
JOY: It is bursting at the scenes.
HZ: But Veronica takes a little time off. She takes Backup, her dog, for a walk on the beach.
JOY: What a great beautiful dog, this dog whose name has not yet been revealed to us.
HZ: Oh no, I’ve spoilered the name.
JOY: It’s OK. They've already watched the episode. But Backup is a beautiful white dog, looks like a pitbull or pit mix with some brown spots. Let's all remember how beautiful Backup is: a white dog with brown spots, and so shall he ever remain.
HZ: Are you suggesting they switch Backup for a different dog in a later scene?
JOY: They do.
HZ: You watch this far more closely to me. You’re bringing some excellent intel.
JOY: I believe it's just the pilot and they have a new dog actor for after the pilot.
HZ: The first one, his contractual demands were too much? Or maybe they bleached the spots?
JOY: No, he actually goes the other way; it's an all brown dog with like clipped ears.
HZ: And also on the beach is Wallace, Veronica's new friend is flying a little remote control plane.
JOY: What do you think about this?
HZ: I assume Wallace would now be into drones instead.
JOY: Right. That would be the modern equivalent, I guess.
HZ: It seemed like a reason to have Wallace outside but not doing anything really. I don't think this whole series gives Wallace that much to do.
JOY: Welllllll….
HZ: Except for do things for Veronica, which makes him a very good friend for Veronica who loves to get people to do things for her. But on his own, he's a bit like, “What do I do now? I guess I've got this plane that I was given for Christmas when I was 10, I’ll take it for a spin.”
JOY: Yeah, he's just out there trying to enjoy himself.
HZ: Do you think a windy beach is the optimal place to fly a little toy plane?
JOY: I don't know. Do you think it's better for it to have wind to ride upon? Or the wind is an impediment?
HZ: Hmm. Gotta say I've never flown a little toy plane on a beach, so I'm not qualified to judge.
JOY: Nor am I.
HZ: What have we done with our lives?
JOY: Mostly watched Veronica Mars, of late.
HZ: And then we are at Mars Investigations.
JOY: Yo and Celeste Kane is there! Celeste Kane is parked outside! Celeste Kane is parked outside!
HZ: Red Jag, vanity plates. That's a whole thing. And this is where we first meet Cliff, one of the funnest characters in this whole thing.
JOY: Love Cliff. HZ: Cliff is also one of the best dressed characters in this whole thing. He's wearing a double-breasted brown suit with an earth-toned shirt and tie. There's a nice bit of contrast, but he's noticeably better fitted and more put together than other characters. He has a great voice. And this this show is really good at establishing characters with just in the first few lines, and he's talking about this case where a woman called Loretta Cancun...
JOY: Hell yeah.
HZ: She's a sort of sexy entertainer, isn't she?
JOY: It seems that way. Yes,
HZ: She has smashed a laundromat with a baseball bat?
JOY: That's the deal, yep, yep.
HZ: And he says:
Cliff McCormack: “I like this case. It's tawdry.”
JOY: And my God, I want to go to sleep inside of his voice.
HZ: Just wrap me in his tie, send me away. And then Celeste Kane... It's all a bit more noirish.
JOY: Dude. Yes!
Celeste Kane: “Don't get the wrong idea. Mr. Mars. I don't like you.”
HZ: Wow. So dramatic.
JOY: Yeah, I think I feel like they must be bummed that they had to shoot this during the day, because I feel like he should just have like one little lamp on in his office and she should be storming out and saying everything a little bit more dramatically.
HZ: And there should be one saxophonist outside in the street playing a wailing note.
JOY: Yeah, under a streetlight, and she should be wearing a really wide hat.
HZ: That would be best, or a veil. A little black net veil. Instead she's wearing a white suit. And this is where we first meet Keith Mars, greatest dad in the world. Although he does let his daughter work very late even though she's got school.
JOY: That is maybe his lone parenting failure.
HZ: And this is also where we get the introduction of the idea that Keith Mars has tried to send Celeste's husband Jake Kane to jail for life.
JOY: Father of Duncan Kane. Veronica's ex-boyfriend, for those of you who are just getting on board.
HZ: If you're thinking, “Well that sounds complex already” - just wait. And later that evening, Veronica and Keith are eating some kind of trash-looking dinner at the office.
JOY: Doesn't look good.
HZ: Shows that they both a bit feral domestically.
JOY: ‘Feral’!
HZ: And Celeste Kane thinks Jake is seeing someone at a motel which, as a watcher of the British cut, I'm already like, “Oh, I've seen the motel.”
JOY: Yeah, yeah. You know where the hotel is that people have meetups.
HZ: Yeah, I would go that stake it out because I already know where it is. It's pre credits. But new for you. And then Keith gets a call. He's got a job to do. He's got to fly to El Paso to catch a bail jumper, leaving Veronica alone to do some business - and also maybe feed and clean the fish tank in his office, because that is a very clean-looking fish tank, and yet they both don't seem like the kind of people that would do maintenance on it.
JOY: Yeah, that's a great point. Do you ever see even see them feed those fish?
HZ: Maybe there are no fish in it. It's just a fish tank.
JOY: Oh, that's cool. I want that.
HZ: You could have that.
JOY: All of the fun bubbles and none of the responsibility of keeping something alive.
HZ: Just get the little plastic castle and the plants. Plastic plants. And then we see Veronica outside Kane Software at night, surveilling it from her car, which is where she spends a lot of her time.
JOY: She spends a lot of her time in her car, accompanied by her best friend, a telephoto lens that is about seven feet long.
HZ: And then there's some exposition, which is that Kane Software went public, Jake Kane got $1 billion, every staffer got at least $1 million. So that's how the wealth and the town is created and why everyone is pro-wealth and pro-Kanes, and anti-the adorable justice seeker Keith Mars.
JOY: And also that Kane Software made all that money when they went public because they created, invented, and perfected streaming video.
HZ: Wow. And this was just before YouTube, which launched in February 2005. So there was still a lot to be done in online video stuff. It was right on the nose. And then we're back to a flashback, so the wig is back.
JOY: The wig is back.
HZ: Brace yourself for that. And we meet Lilly Kane, Duncan’s sister, Jake and Celeste’s daughter, Amanda Seyfried.
JOY: Veronica's best friend.
HZ: They are doing some sexy carwashing in a party atmosphere.
JOY: You know? It's hard to argue with sexy carwashing.
HZ: Was there a lot of sexy carwashing during your childhood?
JOY: I wish there had been, but alas... I certainly did not execute any sexy carwashing and and I did not receive any sexy carwashing either, I'm sorry to say. And you?
HZ: Brits at school don't tend to have cars with the ubiquity that Americans at school in televisual dramas have. We're also not allowed to drive until we're 17. And I never learned. So I’ve not owned a car for anyone to wash wearing a skimpy outfit. I guess the benefit of wearing a skimpy outfit is there's less damp cloth to dry.
JOY: Yes, that's the benefit, so far as I'm aware.
HZ: But Lilly says to Veronica:
Lilly Kane: “I've got a secret. A good one.”
HZ: And those are the last words she speaks to Veronica.
JOY: What are the odds that the last words she would speak to Veronica would be so dramatic?
HZ: And so useful for engineering the plot? And also, why not just tell her the secret then?
JOY: Yeah, just tell her the secret. Oh, but then some some adult comes by and it's like, “More scrubbing, less talking.”
HZ: "Get back to the sexy carwash, children!" And then we see Veronica in the car at night outside the Kane house, which is big enough that I initially thought it was an office.
JOY: Oh my god. Yeah.
HZ: And Duncan is sitting in the entrance rocking back and forth.
JOY: Yeah, he's looking shook.
HZ: And Veronica goes up to him. He won't speak to her, that's how shook he is. Keith Mars, who's the sheriff in this flashback, has found Lilly Kane's body by the swimming pool. She has her eyes open and she has a big bloody wound on her head, suggesting some kind of blunt force trauma. And her parents are crying alongside. And Veronica runs up and sees the body - and surely that crime scene should have been sealed by the point Veronica is able to run on to it? It'd be very traumatic to see your best friend’s murdered body.
JOY: That would be real bad.
HZ: And this is where we hear that Keith Mars was portrayed as the bungling local sheriff who pursued the wrong man for this murder, because he's been trying to nail Jake Kane for it. So this is where we get a lot of the extra complexity of this plot and the Mars social isolation becoming justified.
JOY: Yeah. And the general Kane vs Mars dark energy vortex.
HZ: I have a question.
JOY: I'm ready.
HZ: Are Duncan and Lilly meant to be the same age? Because they all seem to be in the same year at school. She's dating Logan, who's in their year at school.
JOY: It's confusing. I was also thinking about this while I was rewatching. I'm not sure if it's ever exactly established. Maybe they're fraternal twins.
HZ: Maybe they were just cranked out quickly enough to be in the same academic year. Maybe Lilly's in the year above. And she just prefers friends and romantic partners from the year below.
JOY: Entirely possible.
HZ: She's dead, we can't ask.
JOY: Alas.
HZ: And then we get the scene that I've already seen in the British cut, of Veronica Mars staking out the motel in the dark just lit by a lot of neon, and she sees Jake Kane knock at door 6 and go in.
JOY: Who could be in there?
HZ: We don't know because then it goes to a flashback.
JOY: So many flashbacks! Has there ever been so many flashbacks in a single episode of television? Have there ever been so many flashbacks in a pilot?
HZ: I think in season six of Mad Men there were more flashbacks. But in a pilot, maybe in Lost?
JOY: Maybe.
HZ: But Veronica is in the school library, I think this is a pretty short time after Lilly's death. And there are some computer kids watching a video - a streaming video of Kane Software, shit...
JOY: Dark.
HZ: ...of Lilly Kane’s murdered body. And it's leaked by someone at the sheriff's department. Do they ever come back to that and explain why someone would do it? Are you supposed to you think that the sheriff's department is being shambolically run so that Keith Mars is not a credible sheriff?
JOY: I think what Veronica indicates in this monologue is that somebody made a lot of money by smuggling out that video and making it available online.
HZ: As in they were paid to do that? Or they were already getting Google ads on their streaming video years before that was set up for YouTubers?
JOY: I think maybe it was more of like a tabloidy thing, that was the sense that I got.
HZ: And we see Logan very upset because Lilly is his girlfriend and so he's grieving. And he's very upset with Veronica specifically, because her dad thinks Jake Kane did this. And he says:
Logan Echolls: “What's the matter with you people?”
HZ: ‘You people’ being Marses? Or ‘you people’ being people of a low income?
JOY: It feels like Marses in this instance, although Logan says plenty of horrific things across class lines.
HZ: That's his schtick.
JOY: Yeah, that's his whole bit.
HZ: And then we also see Lianne Mars packing up whilst arguing with Keith Mars, whilst Veronica watches the TV news of a Kane Software employee, Abel Koons, being arrested after Sheriff Lamb, the gum-chewing sheriff, has discovered a shoe of Lilly's on Abel Coons's houseboat. And so Veronica's got the upset in front of her, of this story about her best friend's murder. Also, the story proves that her dad has been wrong. And then in the background, her parents are splitting up. So she's got a lot of trauma happening.
JOY: There is so much information in this pilot, it is kind of mind-bending,
HZ: It's intense, how far through are we, about six minutes? And then we're back in the present, which is her outside the motel.
JOY: Finally!
HZ: And this is when the PCHers show up - again, if you've seen the British thing - and this is when Backup the dog - because Keith Mars has said to Veronica:
Keith Mars: “When you go after Jake Kane, take Backup.”
JOY: And it turns out she does because it's her dog!
HZ: Very literal. Lovely little joke.
JOY: Delightful. And Backup is not just all talk, Backup is -
HZ: Lots of biting.
JOY: And also Felix gets tasered. Or tased, what's the verb?
HZ: I think tased…. but Veronica is quite-tazer happy. And she tells them to leave Wallace Fennel alone for a week. And Weevil says:
Weevil Navarro: “Why do you care so much about that skinny Negro?”
HZ: And he also says:
Weevil Navarro: “Weevil love you long time.”
JOY: And in between those two horrific things, he also says:
Weevil Navarro: “You must really lay the pipe right, huh?”
JOY: So this is a real real rough moment for Weevil saying a bunch of shit we'd just prefer that he didn't say.
HZ: It also seems like shit that he would have learned in order to come across as the biggest douchebag he could.
JOY: Yeah, yeah, really feels like he's swinging for the fences of douchebaggery.
HZ: And then Veronica's internal monologue says:
Veronica Mars: “Want to know how I lost my virginity? So do I.”
HZ: Why does she bring that up at that moment?
JOY: He's being like really overtly sexually inappropriate and aggressive. And Veronica is acknowledging that she has apparently this reputation -
HZ: - for sex-having.
JOY: For sex-having. How dare she!
HZ: It’s not like anyone else at this school is sexualised.
JOY: Right? Right. And the real twist of it is that she doesn't even remember how she lost her virginity.
HZ: And we know this because we're back to a flashback! The second flashback in the same scene. She's at a party held by someone called Shelley Pomroy. And the wig is particularly upsetting to me in the scene, but it's not the most upsetting thing that is to occur. She sees Duncan, her recent ex, being smooched by someone while he's watching Veronica circulate this party.
JOY: Bleurgh.
HZ: And she drinks a pint of drink. She strolls blurrily around the pool and then collapses on a lounger. And then she gets out of bed in the morning, a bed in the party house, and she finds her underwear on the floor. And she realises bad things have happened while she was unconscious.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: This won't be the last time this show uses rape and sexual violence to amp up the drama, a practice that is not one I'm hugely fond of in it.
JOY: Not the most responsible storytelling practice.
HZ: They already have Veronica dealing with a lot of trauma. And they've added this one. But then we're back in the present. Jake Kane exits the motel room and this is the first appearance of Veronica's long lens.
JOY: Hell yeah. Should we name it? Should we call it Lenny?
HZ: Lorenzo, because it's so long.
JOY: Oh, wow. Yeah.
HZ: And then we're back at school. And we see Logan's big yellow Jeep, which he's got Duncan in.
JOY: Wow, the stuff that he says to Veronica when he pulls up next to her is really - it's like they wanted to have Logan and Weevil come out of this pilot as just the two biggest cruellest jerks you can imagine.
HZ: Logan's taunting Veronica, and Duncan tells him to shut up so I think you're supposed to feel like Duncan is a decent guy even though he hangs around with awful jerk friends. And also possibly has residual feelings for Veronica? Logan then offers Veronica a hip flask. Presumably this is at school arrival, so what, 8am? And he says:
Logan Echolls: “What’s the matter, aren't you your mother's daughter?”
HZ: Oh tasteless, making fun of someone's alcohol dependency and absent parent.
JOY: You know what really takes the edge off of this bad behaviour for me is the fact that Logan's wearing a greenish brownish jacket or hoodie.
HZ: Wearing a hoodie over a brown T-shirt. I feel like this the classic Loganwear; brown! The rack clothes.
JOY: So bad.
HZ: Why not dress as mud when your soul is this corrupt? And then we're in a flashback again!
JOY: My god, I'm getting whiplash from all these flashbacks!
HZ: We're in Veronica's bedroom, and her mother has just left, leaving her only a music box with a note, and Veronica throws both of those in the bin. Will she live to regret? But then we're back in the present and Veronica… Veronica seems to be wearing clown pants in the present.
JOY: Oh gosh. What do they look like?
HZ: They're these boot-cut flares in a brown check with a little denim jacket. And Wallace is teasing her about something, but it's not the pants.
JOY: Somehow it's not the pants. Yeah, he's saying like:
Wallace Fennel: “Girl? You should hear what people say about you.”
JOY: Which would feel lousy coming from somebody who wasn't so adorable and charming. But Wallace is those things.
HZ: He's very pure, isn't he? Such a pure lad.
JOY: Just feels sweet.
HZ: But also, what are people saying about her? Because it seems like there would be more indifferent than super-inclined to gossip about her, I would have thought, a year after all this stuff went down. And then I can't really remember what happens in the next scene because I was so dazzled by the soundtrack suddenly cutting to a song by the Streets.
JOY: And the path that leads us down is to Veronica and Wallace approaching a student named Corny, in the pottery lab.
HZ: In the pottery lab.
JOY: Yeah, let's call it the pottery lab and why not.
HZ: This school really caters to a lot of kids' interests.
JOY: I'm surprised. It feels like - I don't know, maybe I shouldn't be surprised. Maybe because there are so many rich kids going there - or at least seven, as we ascertained - it only makes sense that there would be loads of art programs.
HZ: And what does she want from Corny?
JOY: Some kind of pottery, she wants something? We don't know yet.
HZ: She always wants something.
JOY: She always wants something from pretty much everybody around her. But he's gonna throw in the glaze for free. So that's nice.
HZ: Then we're back in Veronica’s room, and she's checking the photos that she's taken with the long lens - Lorenzo.
JOY: And listen, Keith is home, Keith gets home, Keith gets home! And he says:
Keith Mars: “Who's Your Daddy?”
HZ: The first instance of this classic Mars bants!
JOY: “Who's your daddy?”
HZ: And Keith has had a successful mission to El Paso, earning a check for $2,500, which, again, to me seems a little low given the risks involved in being a private investigator, the amount of travel, and also when you're in a freelance profession, you’re kind of paid for all of the time you are not working so that when you work, you have the time to do the work. So I think they should rack up their rate a bit. Given the amount of crime that's happening in this small town!
JOY: True! Incredible density of crime.
HZ: And Keith says:
Keith Mars: “Tonight we eat, like the lower middle class to which we aspire.”
HZ: And he grills some steaks outside the apartment. He doesn't even wait for the grill flames to die down, which is when you're supposed to put the food on - you've got to light the coals and then leave it for at least 40 minutes. So he's just firing these steaks...
JOY: ...cavalierly tossing them down to char.
HZ: Getting them good and sooty, but raw on the inside.
JOY: Veronica has taken photos. She didn't get the money shot at the Camelot when she was following Jake Kane, but she got photos of the licence plates and says Keith can run them. Keith takes one look at one licence plate and he's like:
Keith Mars: “You stay away from Jake Kane. I don’t want you doing anything else on this case. We’re gonna drop it anyway and I’m-I’m gonna let his wife know.”
Veronica Mars: “What? We’re dropping the case? Why? What’s wrong? Who is it? Why don’t you just tell me?”
Keith Mars: “Veronica, no! It's done, it's over with. Just stay away from him!”
HZ: Way to kill the celebratory mood!
JOY: And also way to ensure that that's exactly where Veronica will be focusing all of her attention moving forward.
HZ: And then Veronica is out again at night - he's always working! - staking out the Seventh Veil, which is a sexy club.
JOY: It's a sexy club. It also appears to be next to another sexy club called The Body Shop.
HZ: It's in the sexy club district.
JOY: It's in the sexy club district of Neptune, California.
HZ: Veronica is outside the sexy club with a camcorder. Presumably it does tape.
JOY: Yeah, she's always got a camera of some kind.
HZ: She's got a load of gadgetry. She must have a bad back carrying around so much electrical equipment.
JOY: She's young and spry. She's fine.
HZ: OK. And then it's school again. And we're back seeing a locker search, not Veronica's locker this time. It's Logan Echolls’s locker, and finally the pottery makes sense. But it's the next day. So there's no way that this piece of pottery could have been made. Pottery, if she wants it glazed, could take several days because there's two firings. So how quickly does she need the pottery?
JOY: You have skyrocketed past my understanding of pottery.
HZ: If they're making something bespoke, they need to make it; then the clay needs to dry out; put it in the kiln; it needs to cool; they need to glaze it, then fire it again. Days.
JOY: Maybe it's a special one day - maybe it's a special two hour glaze. It becomes very quickly evident why Veronica was was getting Corny to make something in the pottery lab: so that she could pop a wild-looking homemade bong into Logan's locker in time for his locker check.
HZ: It's like a classical statuette. And Logan knows Veronica was up to this.
JOY: Gosh, and the way that he talks to her afterwards...
Logan Echolls: “Oh you're so cute. I'm gonna get you for this. I will!
JOY: It's terrifying.
HZ: He's a menacing character. And then Wallace's plane-flying becomes useful, because his remote control starts a fire in the bong when it's been put in the police evidence room of confiscated items. And smoke starts pouring out the room, to the startlement of Inga, the German secretary/receptionist at the sheriff's department - what is going on? What a complex conspiracy these kids have pulled!
JOY: It's a tangled web. So many crimes.
HZ: I wonder why they needed this bomb to be pottery and not some material that you could execute far quicker? Or just buy a bong. Maybe because Veronica's got style, she's willing to go the extra mile, pull in a favour for the aesthetic. And then Veronica is at the fire station and someone says to her:
Fire Chief: “Well, if it isn't Smokey, the barely legal.”
JOY: Oh my god, his tone is so gross. And this is her friend the fire chief.
HZ: Right? Because the fire chief has conspired with her for this sneaky bong activity.
And this firefighter who's gross but apparently useful gives VM a large envelope.
JOY: It's a videotape.. It's the original Sac-n-Pac videotape.
HZ: How does the firefighter have it?
JOY: He made the switch when they answered the fire call to the police department where the evidence locker had the bong that was on fire in it.
HZ: It's such a complex jape that my brain failed to follow the complexities of it.
JOY: I do think that that whole thing, and also this entire pilot, it's like two to three episodes-worth of television information crammed into forty minutes.
HZ: No brain could follow. And then we're back in the Mars office and Veronica is on the phone pretending to be Inga The German Receptionist we've just seen, doing an amazingly bad accent - and yet, it delights me to witness this happening.
JOY: It's really something.
HZ: And again, they established the character that she is pretending to be in a few seconds a couple of scenes ago, and she's already proving to be useful. There's not a lot of fat on this episode. Very little to trim. Veronica wants someone to run some plates. And then she discovers -
JOY: - oh my god -
HZ: The car is registered to -
JOY: Lianne freaking Mars!!
Helen Zaltzman: NO WONDER Keith asked her to drop the case! So she asks Keith why they're dropping the Kane case. And Keith lies to Veronica - and it is so sad when these two don't get on.
JOY: It is sad; but sometimes as an adult, sometimes as a parent, you really have to make choices to not necessarily always treat your kid - even if your kid is like a really bright, whip smart - sometimes you have to lie to your kid because you're trying to protect them or you think you have to lie to your kid to protect them or whatever.
HZ: Yes. The show is planting some seeds for this being a deal. The other traumatic thing in this scene is Veronica's trousers. Another pair of wacky pants! She's got her typical tiny jacket.
JOY: Is this the same outfit where she's she has like a sort of teal-coloured shirt that's open kind of low and then a black jacket? She kind of looks like she's wearing like a real estate agent outfit?
HZ: Is it the black jacket with gold zips?
JOY: Yes, exactly.
HZ: Right, well, I forgot all of that once there was a wide shot showing her shins where you see that the trousers - you know how you see these old videos of Abba and they're wearing these tight satin trousers that billow but then they're wearing mid-calf boots, so the trousers are gathered mid-calf, like a very long Shakespearean pant or something? That seems to be the silhouette of Veronica's trousers. Was that... I don't remember people wearing that in 2004. Like golfing bags.
JOY: It's funny that like, from this outfit, we cut to Veronica in a flashback saying:
Veronica Mars: “I need to report a crime.”
JOY: Because I'd like to report a crime and it's that outfit.
HZ: But this is very harrowing. Because Veronica's walking into the Sheriff's office - she's gone from this party, where she was roofied and sexually violated, and she's gone to report it. And Sheriff Lamb is like,
Sheriff Lamb: “Is there anyone in particular you’d like me to arrest, or should I just round up the sons of the most important families in town? I’ve got not a shred of evidence to work with here, but that really doesn’t matter to your family now, does it?”
HZ: And that's because she's just reported it, which means they haven't done physical tests, they haven't examined the scene, they haven't questioned the partygoers: of course there's no evidence. So he's just being the jerk that he is.
JOY: He's being pretty pure evil. And he says:
Sheriff Lamb: “I’ll tell you what Veronica Mars, why don’t you go see the wizard? Ask for a little backbone.”
JOY: Which calls back to earlier in the episode when Wallace was recounting the whole situation with the PCHers in the Sac-n-Pac in which Sheriff Lamb told him:
Sheriff Lamb: “You need to go see the wizard, ask him for some guts.”
HZ: He's not got many go-to lines.
JOY: And also those lines aren't even good. That's not even good enough to repeat.
HZ: He's not even a charming jerk.
JOY: Yeah, he's really lacking in a lot of ways.
HZ: And yet it is, unfortunately, in the real world, not super surprising that a report of rape by a teenager who was intoxicated is not taken seriously by law enforcement.
JOY: Not even not taken seriously, but met with utter disdain, and indifference, and cruelty.
HZ: Just no attempt to to even to make her more comforted, nothing. It's meant to make her feel as bad as possible. But revenge time in the present, because Veronica walks into a courtroom as Lamb is testifying about the Sac-n-Pac. And this juxtaposition of those scenes kind of shows how Veronica is this pretty baller person now.
JOY: Oh heck yeah.
HZ: And Lamb is describing the video evidence of the guys stealing the booze, and they put in the video. And when I did jury service, I remember, it was a full half day of the people trying to work out how to use the machine in the courtroom to show us some CCTV evidence. And they had to dismiss us early because they couldn't figure it out. So that doesn't happen in this scene. And they play the video, and what is this? It's not the video evidence he just described!
JOY: No, no, no, it's a very different kind of video evidence in which, we assume, an employee of the Seventh Veil is getting into a police cruiser with a member of the sheriff's department force and exchanging, we assume also, sexual favours in exchange for retaining their liquor licence even though they don't really ID people. That's all of the lead up that we've gathered in tiny pockets.
HZ: But even if you have not been as attentive as Jenny, you can be like “OK, an officer getting a beej on video in a courtroom doesn't seem like legitimate evidence for this Sac-n-Pac thing.”
JOY: It definitely does not prove that those two guys stole alcohol.
HZ: So the case is dismissed!
JOY: But what's wild is that Cliff, the lawyer doesn't say, “Can we get this case dismissed?” - the one that they're there for. He says:
Cliff McCormack: “Your honour, is this an appropriate time to ask for a dismissal in the case against Loretta Cancun?”
JOY: Who still took a baseball bat and attacked the bunch of laundry machines, did she not?
HZ: Let's think about the laundry machines in this. I think this shows that Cliff is an opportunistic character. Possibly not in the best of taste, but he will see that opportunity and try to take it, because if you don't try, you just don't know. And Veronica, as soon as all this mayhem occurs, she gets up; Lamb is obviously pretty pissed off; and she's quite smugly triumphant, rightly so.
JOY: Right. Would you say that Lamb has now been slaughtered?
HZ: Whoa. Would you say that the Lamb has been grilled?
JOY: I would.
HZ: Would you say the Lamb has been roasted?
JOY: That's really what the Lamb hath been.
HZ: Would you say he is a sacrificial Lamb? I'm sure we'll have a lot more good times with the Lamb puns.
JOY: So that was a four to one pun ratio, I think. So for every pun that I make, I will look to you for at least four.
HZ: There's a lot of people in this who have surnames that are nouns. We've got Veronica Mars, we've got Lamb, we've got Wallace Fennel. That's a good flavour combination, actually, lamb and fennel.
JOY: Ooh, yeah. Nice.
HZ: And after this triumph, Veronica parks at the beach. And Wallace is there with his little plane.
JOY: And now Veronica has a little spare time. So she's trying to learn how to do a loop-the-loop.
HZ: She's given Wallace the brown envelope of the tapes. It’s not any good to him now is it - what use is it?
JOY: Well, I think maybe it's a collateral or a threat to the PCHers in case they get the desire to tape him to a flagpole again, they'll think twice.
HZ: If they taped him to a flagpole that time, it's gonna get worse next time.
JOY: So he better keep the video safe
HZ: They're going to impale him on the flagpole or something. but they're having a nice relaxing time as the sun's setting, flying this plane. Wallace says:
Wallace Fennel: “Underneath that angry young woman shell is a slightly less angry young woman just dying to bake me something. You're a marshmallow, Veronica Mars.”
JOY: Yeah, I mean, we all want to hear "You're a marshmallow, Veronica Mars". And the “angry young woman bake me something” thing is less egregious coming from Wallace.
HZ: Yeah, it feels like the toxic masculinity of the town has infected even our sweet pure Wallace.
JOY: Even Wallace is not safe.
HZ: Or maybe he's just playing at it. Maybe he's thinking, “What's my identity in this place? Let's try on some of the douchebag stuff. Is it suiting me? Nah.”
JOY: Right, right. And then Wallace notices that Veronica's car is covered in something... What? What is that? It's just film, it’s sort of brown and orange and olive green. It's a bunch of 09ers!
HZ: Logan's got a crowbar. That can't be good.
JOY: He's wearing a brown pullover, brown pants, brown shoes -
HZ: - brown pullover with a zip neck.
JOY: Yep. And an olive green t-shirt underneath.
HZ: Yes, pond colours. And the necklace of course.
JOY: Run, run for the hills.
HZ: What's amazing about Logan is he has this very distinct movement style - it's kind of laconic, but also balletic.
JOY: What is... Oh, like ballet?
HZ: Yeah. Sort of lurches around, but in this very deliberate manner. It's a beautiful physical characterization, I think.
JOY: Yeah, you're not wrong. I agree with that.
HZ: Thank you. But he's also still not a good guy because he smashes Veronica's headlights because his car has been confiscated. No more yellow Jeep for Logan, because of his bong shenanigans.
JOY: I guess this seems like a like a reasonable, expectable thing for what we've seen him this character so far to do.
HZ: And then the PCHer show up. You've got a lot of people who are adversaries, because you've got Veronica versus Logan, Veronica versus the PCHers, but the PCHers also versus Logan.
JOY: When the enemy of your enemy is your friend, right - but what if the enemy of your enemy was your enemy first?
HZ: Ah, I think it's just: what's the jerk hierarchy?
JOY: Yeah, that's true.
HZ: Wallace is obviously the least jerk.
JOY: PCHers would be next, and then Logan is the most jerk.
HZ: Yeah, because Logan just has awful friends around him. So Weevil and Logan are facing off, so you've got the two guys who've been the most douchey in this pilot finally meeting. It's the ultimate battle of the douchebags. You've got Weevil's sidekick Felix doing some bad acting that I think is supposed to be japes. But he's not good at japes.
JOY: He's not very good at japes, but I appreciate that Felix does get to the bottom of the truth and discover that that 09er is driving around listening to O-Town, which is a boy band you may not be aware of, I don't know?
HZ: I saw Making the Band. They did a song ‘Liquid Dreams’; other than that, I'm not familiar with their oeuvre.
JOY: ‘Liquid Dreams’, that sounds inappropriate.
HZ: It's suggestive.
HZ: And so Weevil - does he bring his own crowbar or does he borrow Logan's crowbar?
JOY: He borrows Logan's crowbar.
HZ: Nice that they can share tools.
JOY: Yeah, that is that is nice.
HZ: And he smashes the light on Logan's friend's car and dents the hood.
JOY: And I have to say, the hood-denting is significantly less satisfying than the double headlight smash.
HZ: Yeah, if you are ever violating Jenny's car, go for the glassy bits.
JOY: Please don't violate my car!
HZ: No, she doesn't deserve it. She's nothing but goodness. But also, this is supposed to be revenge on Logan, but Logan's car's been confiscated. So like he's gonna give a shit?
JOY: He’s going to lash out at Logan’s friends mom's car.
HZ: The mom is going to be so furious! And Weevil asks Logan say that he's sorry, and Logan is disinclined.
JOY: No, yeah, he's not having it. He's punched a couple of times.
HZ: He’s not a sorry-sayer.
JOY: He won't even say sorry after he's been punched in the face twice. Veronica doesn't even want his apology!
HZ: She says “Let him go.” And Logan leaves.
JOY: And Weevil's like, “Let me take this opportunity to say some more disgusting things to you about how you can bring your car to my body shop.”
Weevil Navarro: “My uncle has a body shop on the highway. If you come in, you know, I can make sure your body gets the full service treatment.”
HZ: Although he does also get her discounted car repair, so...
JOY: Which is nice.
HZ: Under the innuendo is useful, functional information. But here is where this uneasy friendship between Weevil and Veronica is born, because they chat about that disappearing surveillance tape. And Weevil apologises to Wallace for the flagpole.
JOY: And also is every dude maybe actually in love with Veronica Mars?
HZ: It seems highly plausible, except for Felix who seems just like, “Whatevs.”
JOY: Disinterested. He's got other stuff going on.
HZ: Yeah, I feel like with Wallace they've established a definite Friend Zone thing very early on. So he's not even gonna try, he's not going to tilt at that windmill.
JOY: Neither one of them seems remotely interested in each other or like there's any tension at all, which is very cool, because I just feel like we don't really see it very much; it always is a thing, eventually.
HZ: But why wouldn't you be crushing on Veronica Mars? Because she's...
JOY: You've drank the Kool Aid, Helen! This show is trying to tell you that Veronica Mars is the living end.
HZ: Well, it's not just she's good looking. It's just that she negs everyone, which is classic PUA.
JOY: Oh, yeah, yeah, I guess negging, allegedly, from what I have heard, can be very effective.
HZ: With people with low self esteem. And I think a lot of these pseudo-confident teens are secretly just dying on the inside all the time.
JOY: But Wallace has good self-esteem. He’s a good boy.
HZ: So that’s why I don't think the negging works on Wallace. So that's why their relationship is one of the healthier ones. But then we are back in the night for the noirish vibes of this thing. And Veronica is spying on her own dad through the window of the Mars office.
JOY: Yeah, it seems like she's waiting for him to leave so she can go rifle through his business. But listen, before we follow her inside, I have to make an announcement. Which is that the exterior of Mars Investigations is above Lestats, which is a small venue in San Diego where I myself, Jenny Owen Youngs, not in the Marsverse, but in the real world, have played multiple shows; I’ve played downstairs in a real venue from the fictional Mars Investigations offices, and I need to scream about it, and that is what I'm doing, and thank you for listening.
HZ: What is upstairs? Do you know? Is that just where the venue stores cans of drink?
JOY: I'm not sure. But I promise you that before this journey is over, I will find out. That's my vow to you.
HZ: That's the mission we’re setting you.
JOY: Thank you. So basically, I am Veronica Mars. That was what I'm trying to establish. I think.
HZ: You seem a little more functional.
JOY: I do seem a little more functional, and also taller, and less interested in incredibly long lenses.
HZ: Your haircut's significantly better
JOY: Thank you.
HZ: When you have flashbacks, are you wearing a wig or no wig?
JOY: I'm not wearing a wig. But everything is kind of tinged blue.
HZ: Your jeans look very normal to me. There's no weird clownishness there. So really, I don't think you have a ton in common, but maybe that's why you were downstairs and not upstairs in Mars Investigations going into the safe, which is beneath the fish tank.
JOY: What a great place for a safe and what a great place for a fish tank.
HZ: Very stable. It's like they're the guardians of the safe. And in the safe, she finds Lilly Kane's murder file.
JOY: Murder file! Imagine if you had a murder file.
HZ: Well, I guess I would never see it because I would be dead. But this murder file, for the murder that happened a year before, has notes in it that are less than one month old and includes her surveillance photo of Jake Kane from the Camelot motel from earlier in the episode - what's going on? Why does Keith have this file?
JOY: A lot of question marks, not a lot of answers.
HZ: Not yet. But we've got many episodes of this to go. But Keith is back in the office.
JOY: And he's back in dad mode. He won't be deterred by Veronica being slightly standoffish earlier in the episode. He's all like, “I rented the South Park movie, I ordered some dinner, who's your daddy?” and then in a turn of events, no one could have seen coming, she looks at him lovingly, tilts her chin up and says:
Veronica Mars: “You are.”
JOY: What the hell?!
HZ: And also there's the musical box in this scene that she threw away in the earlier scene, when she was flashing back to her mother leaving.
JOY: She felt remorse, she dug it out of the trash and didn't bother to flash back to that.
HZ: Maybe her mother left a duplicate.
JOY: Possibly. A week later, a new music box was delivered that was like, "You're probably less angry now."
HZ: And now I'm wondering whether the version of this episode I saw ends in the same way as your one or not, because in the one I saw, it's this shot of Veronica driving. It's quite a dramatic shot with her eyes in the rearview mirror. And she's back at the motel that she was surveilling; she knocks on the door of room 6. There's a voiceover about her getting her family back together, because her mom must have been the woman in the hotel. And then it fades out in a weird jingly version of ‘All You Need is Love’.
JOY:But I feel like everything that was happening over it was like, really solid. Like, she's, she starts out talking about, in her mind, how Keith is lying, trying to protect her, because that's what dads do. Then she's saying, “But these questions need answers. And that's what I do.”
HZ: I'm trying to think if my dad lied to protect me “because that's what dads do”.
JOY: Well, if he did a good job, then you don't know,
HZ: Right, I'm not sure it was really a primary motivation for him, or whether he was really conscientious enough to think, “Oh, that's my job, protect my child.”
JOY: Well, is it really fair for any of us to hold our fathers up against the example, the shining example of Keith Mars?
HZ: No, you're absolutely right. And so that's how this episode wraps up with many mysteries.
JOY: And the closing thought of Veronica Mars self-identifying as a marshmallow.
HZ: Good branding there, Veronica.
JOY: Solid.
HZ: And then we have credits which include characters listed as ‘mouth’, ‘favourite band sucks t-shirt’, ‘Cat in the Hat raver’, ‘band dork’, and ‘pencil-necked geek’.
JOY: Amazing. I did not see any of that. That is incredible.
So let’s investigate how accurate this episode is in its portrayal of Neptune and legal process and check in with Southern Californian lawyer - and Marshmallow - Lo Dodds, for the LoDown.
THE LODOWN
LO DODDS: I’m Lo Dodds. I’m an attorney, and I grew up in Southern California, roughly where Neptune is supposed to be located; and I am the daughter of the former chief of police.
LO DODDS: The situation when Sheriff Lamb is showing the video about the stealing of liquor from the Sac-n-Pac: that's actually a bit of legal accuracy there. That is not a trial. I know, I was shocked to it is a preliminary hearing, which is legitimately a place where all you have to do is show that you have enough evidence to go to trial. And in that case, all the defence is doing is sitting there trying to show that the prosecution doesn't have enough evidence, and considering they didn't have Wallace to testify that these guys had stolen all the 40s, and they only had this video, which was now just a video of someone getting, you know, orally pleased outside of the Seventh Veil, there was no case. So it actually would have happened right like that; it would have been dismissed, or actually Cliff would have asked for it to be dismissed instead of asking for his other case to be dismissed. But yeah, that is accurate.
HZ: I'm surprised and impressed.
LO DODDS: I was shocked as well, because it is one of my big pet peeves. Whenever you have TVs and movies that show a trial going for it after only like a month or two months, even in criminal cases. It doesn't go that fast.
I would say that the sheer amount of crimes that Veronica and Wallace commit right off the bat is a little - I wasn't surprised, because I remember that she commits a crime at least every episode. But the destruction of evidence in the evidence locker, that's actually only a misdemeanour, I discovered; but the incendiary device that they put into the evidence locker would probably have been a felony. But then again, they're both juveniles. So they probably would have gotten off with just with just a wrist slap. It's super ridiculous as well, because she gets the fire department involved. She calls the fire department and the fire department agrees to switch the evidence for her.
HZ: Oh, so they’re complicit!
LO DODDS: They're also part of the conspiracy! You want to go, “Who are all these people that are just willing to risk their badge and their careers in order to compromise evidence for this girl just because they like her dad?”
HZ: A whole conspiracy of everyone! You can’t trust any of these public services.
LO DODDS: You can’t.
HZ: So this episode, as you said, absolutely rammed with new characters, and establishment of those characters. So many plots; so many mysteries seeded. It's a lot. No wonder this got commissioned.
JOY: Yes, so many questions. But did you know that Veronica Mars was originally conceived as a young adult novel by Rob Thomas?
HZ: Now, I wonder how this plan changed so much.
JOY: Well, it seems as though he was working on the young adult novel version of this, then started writing television scripts for other shows. Television scripts took considerably less time than writing a novel and paid better. And then it seems as though he was just like, “I will take a swing at this story that I like, and try to make it a pilot script,” and in doing so changed the gender of the protagonist who was originally male in the YA novel to be Veronica, because he said he thought a noir piece told from a female point of view would be more interesting and unique. The original pilot script was darker in tone than the one that was filmed.
HZ: Really? Because this is quite dark. You've got the rape of young woman; you've got her mother leaving and being an alcoholic. You've got nearly everyone in this town being mean as hell, if not worse.
JOY: Her dad getting fired; their whole family being socially isolated...
HZ: ...law enforcement corruption. It's a mess. And also wealth inequality, theme of our times. I think this season there's a lot of long arcs. You have the single episode mysteries as well. Which in this case… meh, Sac-n-Pac thing I don't massively care about it. Which of the long arc mysteries makes you want to watch the rest most? I think for me, it was the murder of Lilly Kane more than “Where's mom and how will I get her back?”
JOY: The murder of Lilly Kane definitely feels like, when you weigh it against like "my mother is missing and my family has been torn apart and I don't know what's going on"... You would think maybe in the mind of a teen girl or in the heart of a me watching now, those things would feel in better competition with each other, but for me it's just all about Lilly.
HZ: Even in the very brief glimpse you get at first, she's such a zingy character.
JOY: Yeah, Amanda Seyfried is so great.
HZ: She does a fantastic job. And it's also not the kind of Laura Palmer thing where she seems to exist in the fantasies of the surviving friends and relatives. Lilly seems like a very real teenage girl who is quite self-assured, and is aware of her own sexual power.
JOY: Yeah, yeah. And is like, multifaceted. And isn't just a sort of caricature or flat two-dimensional drawing.
HZ: I think one of the brilliant things about this episode, but also the whole series, is that a lot of the characters - you can imagine them existing when you don't see them. You can imagine Keith and Veronica when the camera's not on them, living lives, rather than they're just characters that come alive when they have a scene like Duncan, for instance. I don't feel like Duncan has that continuum of life.
JOY: Duncan is definitely sitting in a dim closet motionless in his default position waiting to be motion activated by someone coming to interact with him.
HZ: All in all, very strong pilot. And so for this episode, what rating would you give the mysteriousness of the mystery?
JOY: Is the mystery the PCH thing - like alcohol theft?
HZ: Well, I think I'm not even going to trifle with that. I'm going to rate it on the establishment of the greater mystery, which is this large conspiracy also tied into a murder. And I would give that, I think, four and a half self-immolating bongs out of five.
JOY: Absolutely. I'm on board. I'm hooked. I'm ready to ride the rollercoaster. I would give it five out of five crowbars a-smashing.
HZ: Well, that’s this episode of Veronica Mars investigated. Jenny, do you have any favourite lines from this episode?
JOY: Wellll, it’s a dead heat between everyone’s favourite line from any show, “Who’s your daddy?”
HZ: Something about riding a hog?
JOY: It’s a triple heat? But I’m going to land solidly on Wallace saying, “Underneath that angry young woman’s shell is a slightly less angry young woman just dying to bake me something. You’re a marshmallow, Veronica Mars!”
HZ: I’m going to choose Keith Mars saying, with a great deal of glee, “Tonight we eat, like the lower middle class to which we aspire!”
JOY: And don’t forget after that he says, “Ya-da-da-da-da-da-da!” - what the hell song is that that he’s singing or dancing to?
HZ: I wonder how that was scripted? Whether they were like, “Here’s the choreography, here’s the score,” or whether they were like “Just sing and dance”. Still so many mysteries left to unlock.
JOY: Well, case closed for today.
That was Season 1, episode 1: Pilot.
Watch season 1 episode 2 and join us in a week to investigate it.
Find the show on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @VMIpod.
The website, where the show lives along with the code to our safe and a cherubic bong, is VMIpod.com.
Hear more Jenny Owen Youngs: music at jennyowenyoungs.com and Buffy the Vampire Slayer recapping at Buffering the Vampire Slayer podcast.
Hear more Helen Zaltzman on The Allusionist, an entertainment podcast about language, and on the comedy show Answer Me This.
This episode was edited and mixed by Zach McNees. Music by Martin Austwick and Jenny Owen Youngs.
The sheriff of this town is Hrishikesh Hirway. Distributed by PRX.
Until next time, who’s your daddy?
Who’s your daddy?
Alas, not Keith Mars.