VMI 1.02: Credit Where Credit's Due transcript
Hear this episode at VMIpod.com/1-02
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.
Content note: Veronica Mars contains heavy themes, and this episode includes storylines concerning violence.
A LONG TIME AGO, ON VERONICA MARS...:
Weevil & his grandma were both framed for credit card fraud
Logan was cheated on by Paris Hilton, but we are glad because he said some heinously classist & racist stuff in this episode
Some guy named Troy shows up, and appears to be nice, but says some rather douchey things
Keith singlehandedly caught an escaped felon
And Wallace just really wants to go to a party. Please let him go to a party, Veronica - any party!
Riding in on a bright pink scooter, I’m Jenny Owen Youngs.
And trying to trick an innocent hotel receptionist, I’m Helen Zaltzman.
You’re listening to Veronica Mars Investigations Season 1, episode 2: Credit Where Credit’s Due.
HZ: We start off in a classic school corridor scene by the lockers, with Veronica Mars and Wallace Fennel bantering about how pathetic their lives are.
JOY: And yearning - reaching - desperately, one more perhaps enthusiastically than the other, for an excitement akin to a Nelly video.
VERONICA: “What about you, Wallace? Your life still a non-stop Nelly video?”
WALLACE: “Hey, at least I want my life to be a non-stop Nelly video.”
HZ: Yes, I mean can you imagine such excitement?
JOY: I... can? But I’m trying to think about what happens in Nelly videos and I feel like as a woman, putting myself... I feel like it's just like a lot of bikinis?
HZ: Well, maybe he films in locations that are very warm and need the ventilation.
JOY: Sure, sure, sure, sure.
HZ: It's certainly been a while since I have seen a Nelly video. I think ‘Hot In Herre’ was a couple of years old when this was filmed so might have still been a reference...
JOY: I think that ‘Hot In Herre’ had such a lasting power.
HZ: OK, a legit reference for these teenagers to pull out in 2004.
JOY: Or whoever's writing this show.
HZ: And Wallace has found on the floor a flyer. It's a coded flyer for an 09er party - do people really make flyers for parties? Was this pre group texts?
JOY: This was definitely like pre group text, right? I would just feel like you'd probably do like a word of mouth thing, but that's just me.
HZ: Especially if you didn't want strangers to come to the party - because if you've coded a flyer, presumably you do not want strangers to come to the party, you want only particular people to come to the party.
JOY: Yeah. Oh, and the flyer is coded but don't worry, you may have forgotten since the last episode: Veronica is like a part time detective so she's got it down. The moon means it starts when it gets dark. The hourglass means sand, aka it's at the beach. The canine means that it's at the dog beach, and the little eggs mean it's on fry day.
HZ: Oh, good lord. Why not some fries?
JOY: That would have made more sense.
HZ: But this I think is the first explanation of what 09ers are.
JOY: Yes. They talk about the zip code here.
HZ: Is that something you did growing up? Did you self-identify by your zip code?
JOY: Gosh, gosh, no.
HZ: Because I didn't go around saying “Yes, I'm a TN4er”.
JOY: I don't know if I've experienced any of 09ers referring to themselves as 09ers; it seems more like what outsiders call them.
HZ: Right? Yes. They wouldn't need to, I guess.
JOY: Yeah, they know their own kind.
HZ: And then cut to this secret - and yet available on a flyer - party at the beach. And Duncan and Troy -
JOY: Eurgh! ARGH!!
HZ: Troy is new since the pilot - they're in the car, watching the party,
JOY: Being the biggest dorks - this back and forth between them, it's like, oh, you thought Duncan was sort of like cardboardy and personality-less? Why don't we partner him with somebody who can really give him a run for his money?
HZ: Bit of pep from these blandly handsome white boys. Troy is trying to hype Duncan up. And then Duncan says sardonically:
DUNCAN: “My plan? And I haven’t worked this out entirely yet so bear with me, was to... Raise the roof.”
HZ: So it's like you're watching two grandmas preparing to go to a party they know that they don't want to go to and they're too old for. And they seem very down on the notion of popularity, thus already undermining what has been established for them.
JOY: Yeah, shouldn't they be embracing their status? Two outsiders, two 09ers just trying to escape their own bonds of material wealth and popularity. Oh, must be so hard for them. And you know who else is at this party?
HZ: Paris Hilton's at the party.
JOY: How did she get to this party? Oh my god, Logan's dating Paris Hilton.
HZ: Yeah, except although she is playing a character: the character of Paris Hilton if she was called Caitlin.
JOY: I wouldn't say this is acting so much as just Paris Hilton came to set and agreed to be called by a different name.
HZ: Yeah. And she's still got a pink Juicy Couture tracksuit on, so didn't even have to go by wardrobe before getting in front of the camera. And that look I think is coming back now. Except in a less sexy kind of tight, belly-baring way, but velour tracksuits, I'm sorry, Jenny; they're back.
JOY: My eyebrows are up.
HZ: Your eyebrows have clean left your head
JOY: What? Where? Where are these velour tracksuits?
HZ: They're on people's bodies now - right now.
JOY: Oh, God, the humanity. Now that you've said it, I'll start seeing them everywhere and I won't be able to unsee them.
HZ: And so Paris Hilton chats with Troy, the new guy who's played by one of the Ashmores - there are two Ashmore twins who look the same, and they pop up as bit parts in a lot of things and this is one of them.
JOY: I've never encountered an Ashmore before this show.
Ashmore twins
HZ: And Paris Hilton chats with Troy who explains he's enrolling in the school on Monday and yet he's already a popular kid. And then some jerk behaviour happens.
JOY: Some dudes being gross. Some dudes being super gross to women. They jostle them.
HZ: Yeah, is that in the code in the party - there'll be jostling?
JOY: No, I don't think they included that.
HZ: This is unplanned, and Weevil crashes this party - although they did give out flyers, so I guess anyone who can get the flyer and interpret it is invited to the party.
JOY: Sure, and Weevil is pissed off because this beach is PCHer territory.
WEEVIL: “What the hell do you think you are doing on our beach?”
LOGAN: “Am I supposed to apologise? Am I supposed to shake in my boots?”
WEEVIL: “Maybe.”
HZ: “And you posh wankers are here.” But he's squaring off with Logan Echolls. They have previous from the pilot.
JOY: Dude, and this man - Logan was a terror in the pilot, but I think they really just took it up to 11 here, he's really going hard on...
HZ: ...being an upper class jerk?
JOY: Being an upper class jerk.
HZ: Because he makes some quips about Weevil's grandma cleaning his house. And then one of the PCHers quips about how grandma knows Logan goes through a box of tissues a day. And then Logan quips back:
LOGAN ECHOLLS: “What can I say? She's a very sexy lady.” [police sirens]
JOY: Oh, this seems like such a weird direction to take it.
HZ: “I fucked your grandma, who I employ to clean my house.” Wow, what a zinger.
JOY: That is very... It's strange.
HZ: It is strange. Logan is in his party clothes, which is pond green hoodie, and a grubby pale striped T-shirt, puka shell necklace of course.
JOY: Was that his formal puka shell necklace? His party puka shell necklace.
HZ: And then you think some fisticuffs are going to happen. But the sheriffs show up before contact is made, and everyone runs away.
JOY: And then the police force collects the kegs so that Sheriff Lamb can have a cookout at his place tomorrow. What? I just hate him so much.
HZ: You're supposed to. Don't you admire him a bit though? Why not make use of those kids’ kegs?
JOY: ‘Admire’ is not a word that I can commit to for Lamb.
HZ: Don't you think, if I was committed to being a horrible and slightly corrupt-seeming sheriff, would I take the things? Like if they were having sausages on the fire, would you take the sausages home?
JOY: I totally... points for consistency, but I don't have to like it.
HZ: That's fair. And then it is day and we are at Weevil’s house, and he and one of the gang playing a game. But not for long.
JOY: Dude, because up rolls the sheriff's department with a warrant.
HZ: Yeah, Lamb arrests Weevil’s grandma, who has been previously established in the last scene, because this show gets stuff done.
JOY: Yeah, yeah, very effective.
HZ:She's arrested for credit card fraud on cards taken from the Echolls family trash.
JOY: Dude. Dude, dude, but the charges on this card, once they reviewed, they’re for like motorcycle paint jobs -
HZ: Classic grandma!
JOY: - piercings at Puddy Tats.
HZ: I suppose they could just check whether grandma has piercings?
JOY: Well, she could have been buying them for her boyfriend.
HZ: That's very true.
JOY: But it's clear that this is a frame job. Even Lamb thinks so, but what can you do?
HZ: Well, he can only do what he knows best. Which is -
JOY: - being a jerk.
HZ: So then we cut to the Mars office, and Cliff is there in a white suit and a maroon shirt and a kind of tone-on-tone striped tie. Best dressed character in this, even though linen does crease.
VERONICA: “Lamb could have set Weevil up, he hates him you know.”
KEITH: “Honey, I started picking up Eli Navarro when he was twelve.”
VERONICA: “He just helped me out of a jam recently, that’s all.”
CLIFF: “Look, I’m sure he’s a real mensch but I’ve got a grandma in jail and I’d really like to get her out.”
KEITH: “We’ll dive in, thanks Cliff.”
HZ: And the Marses agree to help in Weevil’s grandma's case, which makes you think she's got a chance of overcoming this injustice and this horrible battle of haves and have nots. And then we're at Weevil's house again, but it's night and we can see that they have a lot of lovely strings of lights.
JOY: Who doesn't enjoy a string of lights?
HZ: I hate to think of who might not enjoy that.
JOY: Probably Sheriff Lamb would not enjoy a string of lights.
HZ: “Oh, I see your string of lights. I'm going to smash it up but also take it for my barbecue.” And Veronica shows up; she and Weevil talk over the fence. Weevil has been told to confess.
JOY: Jumping to conclusions.
HZ: How would Weevil have had access to the Echolls family rubbish bins?
JOY: I guess the idea is that maybe from picking up his grandma from work or stopping by to see his grandma so that he had.... It's a leap, but it's also just like, I don't know. I don't know. It feels unfair to Weevil.
HZ: Yeah, he's got a neck tattoo, he's probably guilty. This is kind of the attitude to the show, Weevil says that he doesn't want Veronica around here. He says:
WEEVIL: "You think you're this big outsider. But push comes to shove, you’re one of them. You still think like one of them."
HZ: As in an 09er. And I guess what he's showing is that even though Veronica think she's an outsider, and downtrodden and at the bottom of the social heap in this town, she still has white privilege.
JOY: Oh, true.
HZ: And she's not a domestic servant.
JOY: Yeah, it is really interesting. She seems to occupy this grey area in between the life she was living via dating Duncan, and the life, the economic status and social status that her father and she have been -
HZ: - reduced to. Although, how rich would they have been before when her mom was home, and her dad was the sheriff - are sheriffs paid a shitload, or...?
JOY: You know, it's really unclear. But, as we discussed in the last ep, like the definitions of, class strata segments seem amorphous.
HZ: I think also regardless of her economic background, and wherewithall as a hot white, straight blonde, she can leap several social strata.
JOY: Oh my god, are you saying that Veronica is hot?
HZ: I think she's held to be hot in the mythology of the show, Jenny.
JOY: Mythology! Mythologically hot Veronica Mars.
HZ: Like a kraken is mythologically hot.
JOY: Oh, wow, I'm learning a lot about your tastes and preferences, which is what co-hosting a podcast is all about. Then do you know what we see?
HZ: It's the credit sequence of the many hairstyles.
JOY: So many hairstyles, so many quick turns. So many different types of cameras, so many little notebook sketches. And my favourite is where they end on the teal Veronica Mars logo that looks like it's been sketched out on some ripped off notebook paper, which my girlfriend astutely pointed out looks like an old MySpace background. Which is exactly what it looks like.
HZ: Exactly the right time period for the MySpace aesthetic.
JOY: Yes. 100%. MySpace was really helping me out at this point in time in 2004.
HZ: And then it's daytime again. And Keith and Veronica are in a diner. She's got a terrible cap on, and Keith knows it, he's razzing her. Veronica, she's got a striped green tank top over a tiny pink polo shirt with annoyingly residual sleeves. She's got these two tiny shirts on at the same time and one of those rivet belts that took me right back to the time; and then this cap which has got camouflage on the back?
JOY: Yeah, what is this?
HZ: So that it looks like the back of your head's invisible.
JOY: Sure, sure. Blendin' in.
HZ: And then combat pants, so she's ready for combat.
JOY: Ready for combat, and good thing, because here comes Sheriff Lamb.
HZ: Wuh whoa. There's a newspaper story about a killer escape from the sheriff's cruiser. Whoops. What a blunder!
JOY: Oopsy Daisy! Old butter fingers.
HZ: There'll be another one along in a while. And so Keith is on form this morning because he's been warming up by razzing Veronica about the cap, so then he can give Lamb a good razzing and then Lamb absolutely biffs that volley of the razzing by being like:
SHERIFF LAMB: “You know what’s coming up? October 3rd. Are you doing anything special to mark the one year anniversary of Lilly Kane’s murder? Got it! Dress like a sheriff and crucify some poor, grieving father, just for old time’s sake, you know?”
HZ: Good one, dickhead.
JOY: Like, Lamb, God! If you just try!
HZ: Yeah, he's not got good chat.
JOY: No, no.
HZ: Imagine Lamb in a rap battle!
JOY: I refuse.
HZ: And then Keith points out that nobody claimed the $100,000 reward for catching Lilly Kane's killer.
JOY: Isn't that interesting. It's almost as if somebody who didn't want to be identified, or somebody who didn't need the money, or somebody who was hiding something, is responsible for the tip, perhaps. Who knows? We're going to find out.
HZ: But Lamb points out that Keith going after Jake Kane for it says that all of the Kanes were accounted for. So he was barking up the wrong tree with that accusation. And then Lamb and Deputy Sachs leave. And Veronica says:
VERONICA: “Smell you later!”
HZ: Which I think is all that Lamb deserves.
JOY: Truly. Yeah, that's what he's earned.
HZ: Yeah, he's probably going to use that to someone later that day. He’ll go into a room at the sheriff's station being like, “Smell ya later, Inga” and she'll be like, "Yass, I suppose you will". Then we're in the school office and Veronica Mars and new student Troy meet-cute, sort of.
TROY: [in fake British accent] “Giv’ us a smile, luv.”
JOY: Eww no, he tells her to smile and she likes it.
HZ: Yeah, because it’s 2004!
JOY: I guess.
HZ: You do think that would not be the kind of thing that Veronica Mars would respond well to; you think she would go, "Wow, oh, wow. As if I hasn't thought of that!"
JOY: And then she throws a throwing knife into just between his shoulder blades. Something like that.
HZ: A little light tasing.
JOY: A little light tasing. Yo and then we find out Wallace is now working as an office aide.
HZ: How convenient!
JOY: And Veronica steeples her fingers, she twirls her moustache. She's very pleased about this development.
HZ: Strokes a big white cat.
JOY: With her mechanical hand.
HZ: And she asks Wallace to copy Weevil's attendance records.
JOY: Good gravy.
HZ: I honestly don't know how some of Veronica's moves would have worked if Wallace hadn't got this job.
JOY: Truly, yeah; it really comes in handy.
HZ: How has she coped before now? And then we meet a nice teacher played by Sydney Tamiia Poitier.
JOY: Yeah, she's running like the journalism class/school paper, and we find out that Veronica has been sentenced to journalism class because she is, and I quote:
VERONICA: “She says I’m ‘disconnected and passionless’.”
JOY: According to her counsellor. Imagine being in high school and having your counsellor tell you you're “disconnected and passionless”.
HZ: It seems like a harsh thing to say to a kid. And wouldn't you think, "I wonder why they're disconnected and passionless?" rather than being like, “Here, I'm going to punish you by giving you more work when you've already got so many jobs.”
JOY: Yeah. Also, anybody who finds Veronica Mars to be passionless just hasn't taken the time to get to know Veronica Mars and her many passions.
HZ: No. They've never seen her set a dog on someone.
JOY: No, no, or tase anybody. Or put one of those outfits together in the morning.
HZ: Yeah, those don't happen by accident. There's a number of decisions.
JOY: Even though they look like an accident. Sometimes.
HZ: They look more like - you know those things that fire tennis balls at you. But for clothing.
JOY: OMG! Speaking of those things that fire tennis balls at you.
HZ: Paris Hilton's in the class? Notorious tennis ball server? She's off to interview some people.
CAITLIN: “Miss Dent? I’m gonna go down to the gym to talk to people for the student poll.”
MISS DENT: “Be back by the end of the period. And remember that we are a multicultural school with a diverse population of students from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds.”
CAITLIN: “Meaning?”
MISS DENT “Meaning don’t just interview your friends.”
HZ: And the teacher tells her not just to interview her rich white friends.
JOY: And she doesn't seem to... even once it's explained to her, she doesn't seem to fully grasp,
HZ: Which seems like a resonant statement for our times of the media not reflecting the identities of the populace. But Veronica wants to take pictures, and Sidney Tamiia Poitier asks if she has any experience with cameras - she saw the lens enter the room before the body!
JOY: Yeah, the teacher's like, I like to, you know, just start with the automatic setting. And Veronica basically just like -
HZ: - camerasplains
JOY: - she like grows 10 feet -
HZ: - like a lens -
JOY: - and just like, dunks the shit out of this poor teacher who's just trying to help.
VERONICA: “Um, the swivel LCD really comes in handy when you’re doing overhead shooting or ground level macro-shooting.”
MISS DENT: “Right.”
VERONICA: “The optical zoom actually goes up to 71.2mm, and it’s good to have the raw file option because you can mess with the images post-exposure without nearly the loss of image quality you’d get with a JPEG file.”
MISS DENT: “And… when it’s dark outside, you should use a flash.”
JOY: What a good sport! Now that's the kind of teacher who's not going to tell you that you’re passionless and disconnected.
HZ: No, absolutely not just going to tell you that. You can go and take pictures of surf contest with the other person who's covering it.
JOY: “Let me introduce you to someone in your class.”
HZ: Who can it be?
JOY: Um, well, it's that that sack of meat that is vaguely shaped like a man. It's Duncan Kane!
HZ: No way! What are the odds? And then, it turns out Wallace has the records Veronica wants.
JOY: But he pops into the classroom door and waves it around like a flag! Like he's trying to make sure people can see it from the moon!
HZ: Do you think Veronica is going to teach Wallace tradecraft?
JOY: I hope so.
HZ: And then they go and look at the records outside, at the lunch tables, with people, in public, in the bright sunshine.
JOY: It's all very questionable.
HZ: And Wallace reminds Veronica that Weevil taped him to the flagpole last week.
JOY: But that was last week!
HZ: Wallace is so pure though, that even though that happened, he is helping Veronica on a case to exonerate Weevil.
JOY: Bless Wallace.
HZ: He is too good for this world.
JOY: He is too good for this world.
HZ: Yeah. And then there's a very pre-smartphone plot about how they find it suspicious that there are these charges for online orders of things that Weevil couldn't have made because he's got shop class, without any internet access during the time those charges were made.
JOY: Yeah, this wouldn't happen today, would it?
HZ: Too easy now. Or you'd have to have, "And the shop class is in a building in a Faraday cage so you can't get internet there."
JOY: A Faraday cage? Are you going to explain what that is to me?
HZ: It’s from Enemy of the State. It's just one of those metal cages that -
JOY: - blocks all signal?
HZ: Yeah. And then we’re back at the Mars office hanging out with Keith and Cliff, what a pair!
JOY: Keith and Cliff!
HZ: And Veronica thinks Weevil didn't do it. And Cliff says:
CLIFF: “They released Letty Navarro a couple hours ago.”
VERONICA: “That’s great.”
CLIFF: “They released her because Eli ‘Weevil’ Navarro came in and confessed to the crime.”
JOY: Bless Weevil.
HZ: Absolutely.
JOY: Although, feels like it took a while.
HZ: I don't know whether time proceeds linearly in the different sets of this show.
JOY: Oh, that's true. Perhaps time has no meaning, or little meaning here.
HZ: Maybe it gets dark and light several times a day in Neptune, and that's why people behave so oddly. And then back to the school media lab, and Paris Hilton and Logan are chatting - Logan is wearing a reddy-orange hoodie, not some of his “fade into the background clothes” today.
JOY: Ooh, he's gonna pop.
HZ: He's feeling sassy! He and Paris are gonna pop together, because pink is her trademark. And then Paris says to Veronica:
CAITLIN: “But you know what? No one cares what you think, Veronica Mars. Not any more. Not since you stabbed all your friends in the back.”
HZ: Which is useful bit of summary of what people think from the pilot? Who did she stab in the back?
JOY: Yeah, yeah, she stabbed like, Duncan and Duncan's fam... She sided with her dad over the entire 09er population, I guess is the deal.
HZ: I think knowing what I know about Veronica Mars I'd change this to “since you tasered all your friends in the balls”.
JOY: Thank you for making me think about that. Also, literally everyone calls this girl ‘Veronica Mars’. No one calls her ‘Mars’. No one calls her ‘Veronica’.
HZ: She's got a really long first name. You don't need another syllable to deal with as well. And then Veronica's doing a little bit of cunningness there.
JOY: Oh, she says that she's like going to be transferred into a class that they have at a certain time.
VERONICA: “In fact, they’re thinking of putting me in your fourth period government class.”
CAITLIN: “We’ve got computer lab fourth period.”
VERONICA: “Oh, shoot. My loss.”
JOY: And that's when the online charges were made.
HZ: Yeah, she really Columboed Paris Hilton.
JOY: I feel like she could have just asked Caitlin and she would have been like, “This, blah, blah”. Like, like she didn't need to do... sometimes a Veronica Mars tap dances unnecessarily and is like, “Look at my tricks, I'm soooo clever”. But, sometimes you could just ask. She doesn't always take the shortest distance between two points, I guess is what I'm saying.
HZ: Maybe that's for her own amusement. Maybe it's because she's a high-level intelligent person and just some things are too easy. She needs bigger and bigger complications.
JOY: That feels very like Hannibal Lecter to me. I can't wait to see where she goes.
HZ: Prison? And then they’re back outside at the lunch tables, Veronica and Wallace, with the schedules. And she spots that Logan Echolls visited the Neptune Grand website, and there's a charge on the card for the honeymoon suite.
JOY: Oh my god!
HZ: Which - why? Because if Logan was just needing a place to have sex where his parents wouldn't interrupt, his parents are never around anyway, as we later find.
JOY: They're never around, and doesn't he just have infinite access to money?
HZ: And a giant house. He's like, "I want to go and hang out in a place that is smaller and less nice than my house": the nicest hotel room in Neptune. And then Veronica goes to the parking lot and examines her car, and the tires have been flattened. And Logan comes along and rolls an apple along the trunk, so threatening.
JOY: Yeah, you know that nothing good is going to happen after someone rolls an apple across your trunk.
HZ: It's a sign! She interpreted it from the codes from the party.
JOY: Oh yeah. ‘Rolling apple’ means your head is about to roll, perhaps.
HZ: And then Troy comes up for another bit of meet-cute. And there are my favourite lines from this episode:
TROY: “Flat?”
VERONICA: “Just as God made me.”
JOY: So beautiful! Now here's something that I really don't buy. You know who doesn't need help changing a flat? Veronica Mars. There's no way that Veronica Mars doesn't know how to change a flat.
HZ: I think it's just whenever Troy is around, she turns into a kind of different person, a helpless girl person.
JOY: Hmm, isn't that interesting?
HZ: But Troy is a helpful chap, unlike Logan with his apple, and they introduce themselves in a smouldering way. And then: peak Paris Hilton, as she drives past on a pink scooter and watches bitchily while Troy helps Veronica with her wheel.
JOY: Listen: If anyone has ever looked like they've never been on a scooter before, it is definitely Paris Hilton in this scene. It looks very unnatural.
HZ: But the upshot of Veronica having had a sabotaged tire is that Duncan is going to drive her to this surf contest that they're both reporting on. And it is an awkward journey. Veronica flashes back to when Lilly Kane was driving Veronica, and they were chatting about boys, and Celeste Kane being mean and wanting to break up Veronica and Duncan if she can.
JOY: Oh my god!
HZ: And then in the present day, Veronica and Duncan drove past Weevil in orange prison gear at the side of the road picking up litter.
JOY: Yeah, already doing roadside cleanup.
HZ: That is very quick justice system work.
JOY: Also, he's in juvenile detention? Because he's under 18?
HZ: And then it's the surf contest. We see some surfing, we see Veronica's long lens being put to different use to usual.
JOY: Yes, but thank god she's been practising with it so much. And Duncan in this scene is sort of like hulking in a way I feel like we haven't seen him hulk before. He's just like lumbering about on the beach, looking particularly broad of shoulder.
HZ: Duncan is just a different character in every scene. They do not know what to do with him. And then it's night again, for the fourth time that day. They're driving back, and the sheriffs pull over Duncan's car. And they take Duncan's licence and they reveal that there are a bunch of parking tickets and violations dated from October 3rd, which was just before Lilly died, and it used to be Lilly's car.
JOY: Yeah, and question: if you have a bunch of outstanding parking tickets and you die, does the person or people who inherit your estate or worldly possessions or whatever, do they also inherit your parking ticket debt?
HZ: So it'd be like your legacy, leaving people a load of your parking violations.
JOY: Yes. “Enjoy! Remember me!”
HZ: “Remember me fondly.” And so the sheriffs impound the car, and then Jake Kane shows up and he swings his dick at the sheriffs, not literally.
JOY: “Don't you know who I am?”
HZ: And thus demonstrates that in this town, wealth is always going to trump law. And then he pauses at seeing Veronica Mars, his old adversary.
JOY: Nemesis!
HZ: His old nemesis that is his daughter's friend and son’s ex.
JOY: Yeah, yeah. And we get this context flashback that reveals that Keith really was interrogating Jake pretty hard and was pretty convinced that he was involved. Jake gave a tearful press conference, Keith is run out of office, Lamb becomes Sheriff and then of course, we all know, he finds those Ziploc baggies of evidence.
HZ: Yeah. And Veronica had a choice: stand by Keith or the Kanes. But Keith is at this roadside as well. And both of the dads have dad jackets, partially unzipped.
JOY: Ah, hot dad time.
HZ: So there's a bit of dad squaring off. It's just showing the old rivalry of Keith and Kane. And then Keith and Veronica drive home and Veronica wants to stop at the Neptune Grand, so we pay our first visit to the Neptune Grand Hotel.
JOY: Oh, and we get to see their father-daughter routine.
KEITH: “Excuse me. We need to talk to somebody in security right now. Right now!”
VERONICA: “Dad! Will you just back off and let me handle it?”
KEITH: “You handle it or I handle it but we’re gonna get to the bottom of this, right now.”
VERONICA: “No! Would you just stand over there? You’re scaring people.”
HZ: This is an absolute delight of a scene.
JOY: Good gravy. Could you imagine...
HZ: With my dad? Absolutely not.
JOY: Ha! Or being the young woman working at the counter?
HZ: So Keith and Veronica play-act at the receptionist.
RECEPTIONIST: “What seems to be the problem?”
VERONICA: “I came in here about a month ago with a guy…long story short, I’m pregnant.”
KEITH: “Hm.”
RECEPTIONIST: “OK?”
VERONICA: “Um, here’s the thing. The next part’s a little embarrassing. I don’t remember the guy’s name. Or what he looks like. Tequila? Never again. My dad’s wondering if there’s any sort of surveillance video we could take a look at, or…? Here’s the credit card bill. He had me pay for the room."
HZ: The receptionist goes off. And then they congratulate themselves for their exquisite performances.
JOY: This is some really strange father-daughter interaction. It's just like, it's out. But it is, of course, it's what they've got going on. Also, I'm going to say it again probably 1000 times before we're done making this podcast, but: how does this girl not know who Keith Mars is, if he's so notorious, and he was such a famous man about town sheriff in Neptune?
HZ: Good point. Maybe she has moved to Neptune within the past year. Just hypothesising.
JOY: I accept that, but it’s a dangerous bet they made.
HZ: Also because often in hotel lobbies they have streaming news on some screen somewhere, and she might have seen Keith getting hounded out of his sheriff position - but it doesn't matter. She swallows the story and she gives them the detailed bill that they're looking for. Paris Hilton signed for room service.
JOY: Paris Hilton! It was Paris Hilton, with a fake credit card, in the honeymoon suite.
HZ: Plot thickens. plot thickens. And then back at school Veronica accuses Logan of stealing his own mother's credit card, going to the Grand with Paris Hilton - which is a story that makes sense, Paris signed for the room service; Logan made the booking; and yet we're not that far through the episode. It can't be solved right now. And then Sydney Tamiia Poitier shows Veronica a printed copy of the school paper.
JOY: Her first cover story.
HZ: You know, taking long range surveillance pictures: would that necessarily develop an eye for an aesthetically well done photograph?
JOY: Hmm, really not sure.
HZ: Very different skill.
JOY: But I guess she at least has been developing the technical know how so she can get something that looks good and is skillfully executed, and then maybe the teacher does the cropping of the photo or something?
HZ: Although actually, I guess, given Veronica's training, it's quite a good skill set to bring to sports photography. To catch someone mid-surf, gotta be on the ball.
JOY: That's true. You need a very fast shutter speed, I think?
HZ: Rewind to the earlier scene where she's camerasplaining and see if she mentions anything about the shutters. And then it's the sheriff's station and Keith Mars, he's on a roll.
JOY: Hot dad Keith Mars caught the escaped alleged manslaughter felon.
HZ: And why is that not the plot we see this episode, rather than some bullshit about a surf contest?
JOY: Oh gosh, no idea. Well, because how would Veronica and Duncan have been forced to be in a long car ride together because of some escaped felon? He seems to be wisecracking to Sheriff Lamb about the reward money. He seems to be harassing him, but Keith, get that reward money. What are you doing?
HZ: He's earned it. He's very good at acting low status, Keith. Again, like Columbo - I feel like Columbo runs in the Mars family; low status and trapping people in a subtle way into revealing their lies.
JOY: I have some Columbo homework ahead of me, so I can get on your level.
HZ: What you need to do is just to watch daytime TV during periods of underemployment, and then you've done your Columbo homework.
JOY: Yo, so Troy - Troy, you might remember him as the sort of like -
HZ: - that dude -
JOY: - generic rich guy that's been hanging around as of this episode.
HZ: Very helpful in a tire-slashing crisis.
JOY: True, true. He invites Veronica and Wallace to a party that he's having.
HZ: Finally, Wallace's dreams of going to a party will come true!
JOY: But Veronica is like:
VERONICA: “Haven’t you heard? I’m not allowed in the first class cabin.”
TROY: “Look. Uh, I don’t believe in much, but I do believe in this. When sexy, sassy girls can’t come to a shindig of mine, it’s time for all parties involved to stand up and just admit that, hey, maybe I was a little bit wrong or sorry. I mean let bygones be bygones, screw pride. Let’s dance, baby, let’s dance!”
JOY: Whoa, dude!
HZ: If this was being made now, Troy would be getting the villain edit.
JOY: Truly. But you know what's interesting? Has Troy negged anyone yet?
HZ: Troy has generally been a nice boy except a bit sleazy when he's flirting with Veronica.
JOY: Maybe we just hate him because he's not - maybe we've already been brainwashed into wanting everyone to neg us on this show, and because Troy's not doing it, we're like, “what a tool.”
HZ: I think it's just because I can't stand to look at another rich white character.
JOY: Yeah, oh, yeah. Yeah, we definitely need more of those. And we will get one soon enough, because guess what Logan's wearing now? Oh my gosh!
HZ: Pond green hoodie, but with a brown T-shirt this time, and he's holding Paris Hilton's purse which is high contrast to his pond clothes.
JOY: Love to see it when he is holding Paris's purse! But then he - oh! - takes her phone out of the purse to see - oh! - that she's been calling someone - oh! - at one o'clock in the morning. And he calls the number and the person answers and starts like sweet talking into the phone.
HZ: “Hey baby…”
CHARDO: [on phone] “Hey baby, later we’ll play a tickle game if you want... That’s cool, I’ll just talk. I know you like it. I miss you, mama. I can’t wait to see you.”
HZ: "I'll just talk for ages even though you're not saying a single thing to me. I'm just going to monologue for a couple of minutes". And while this is happening, Veronica is indoors trying numbers on a cell phone bill. Apparently you can just call somewhere and get someone's ID based on the number that you read out.
JOY: Sure. And why not?
HZ: And also at this time, Duncan, who's been hanging out is on usually animated - he's off to get a burrito. Seems thrilled!
JOY: He's so excited! So excited about his burrito and we discover - we identify - the guy on the other end of the phone with Logan: it's Chardo, the PCHer, Weevil’s cousin!
HZ: The one who jostled at the party. And Veronica is on the case because it's her toilet office - have we see her toilet office before?
JOY: I think this might be the debut of her toilet office.
HZ: Whenever I see the toilet office, I just think how a bad school toilet office would smell.
JOY: And I think about how inconvenient it is for everyone else in that school who has to pee!
HZ: Extremely selfish. But Veronica Mars has time and again proved that she doesn't give a shit about what's good for the masses.
JOY: True.
HZ: Her individual needs take precedence. But she exposits at Chardo that he took the credit cards in order to woo Paris Hilton. And Chardo says he and Paris Hilton are gonna run away together because they love each other. Is running away together really the appealing option for kids in 2004?
JOY: Sweet Chardo. Well, it seems like a Romeo and Juliet kind of thing, a PCHer and and 09er, this could never work.
HZ: Running away to... Irvine. And then it's Weevil’s house and Veronica asks Weevil’s grandma why they let Weevil take the fall. And grandma explains because Weevil is 17, whereas Chardo is 18 so he would go to prison because he would be an adult. And then grandma describes Paris Hilton thus:
LETTY NAVARRO: “She doesn't like her ice cubes made with tap water.”
HZ: She likes them made up of liquefied pink scooters.
JOY: Delicious! Cotton candy flavoured. Then Weevil comes home because he's been released and she's so happy to see Weevil, and then I cried. I cried watching this, it's fine.
HZ: And he hugs Veronica. They have such an up and down relationship.
JOY: Tumultuous. It's a real rollercoaster between Weevil and Veronica Mars.
HZ: Veronica has one of her trademark tiny jackets on; this one's black and it has many zips. ‘Zippers’ as you call them in America, I believe.
JOY: No, I prefer ‘zips’ - saves time. Veronica zips.
HZ: And then we're at Paris Hilton's house, and so is everyone else.
JOY: Literally everyone.
HZ: But initially it's just Chardo; he's like, “Right, it's time for us to do that running away plan.”
JOY: Yeah, “the running away plan that we agreed upon, baby.”
HZ: And it doesn't seem to be going well because Paris Hilton is just looking out the window, she's not like "I'll be right down, just packing."
JOY: Yeah, she's not saying anything back, she's just staring. And then, the 09ers roll up on Chardo. They're everywhere. Oh my god, they're going to attack him! But then -
HZ: Oh, wait, this is the first appearance of Dick Casablancas!
JOY: Oh my gosh, who actually, if you're watching with closed captions, is credited as Richard in this episode, FYI; heads up, he hasn't been Dicked yet.
HZ: Apparently, the writers came up with Dick's name because they kept referring to the character as "a dick". And they created him so that Logan would have another friend besides Duncan. They must have realised that Duncan is not able to provide the emotional support that a damaged kid like Logan would need. But then Logan turns up as well. He's wearing a light brown ribbed T-shirt. Remember ribbed T-shirts?
JOY: No, I forget them.
HZ: That's the blissful way to be.
JOY: You can't make me remember.
HZ: [Logan] leaps out of a jeep and then there's fighting, except the PCHers show up after one punch.
JOY: Yes, this is a quick progression of things.
HZ: And Logan says they should let Chardo go.
JOY: Yeah, Logan and Weevil have a private conversation.
HZ: Yeah. Do you think the other people who’ve just been called in to be muscle in this scene, do you think they’re just like, “For fuck’s sake”?
JOY: The other PCHer or the other 09ers?
HZ: Both. “Why did you call us in if you're just gonna have a private chat? Don't waste our time.”
JOY: Well, I think everybody thought there was going to be a serious throwdown. But as we're going to see in a little bit, I think Weevil wanted to handle this in house.
HZ: Yeah, and Paris Hilton leaves the window.
JOY: Never to be seen again.
HZ: I guess she also doesn't want to see Chardo being beaten up on her account.
JOY: True.
HZ: And then we're at the beach, and Chardo says sorry to Weevil, but Weevil throws him out of the gang
JOY: Um, can I just say that Weevil is hot in this episode, particularly in this scene when he rides away on his hot bike, Weevil is hot. Fight me.
HZ: I’ll allow it. Weevil tells Felix not to go too far in pulverising Chardo and rides off into the sunset.
JOY: Looking hot.
HZ: And then it's the Mars office, and Veronica is studying that party flyer. It's a bit wistful. She asks Keith why he went after Jake Kane. But we don't really - it's a very short scene.
JOY: No answers to be gleaned from this scene.
HZ: But then we're in the sheriff department. And conveniently, just before Lilly died, she and Veronica got fake IDs.
JOY: Haha. How handy.
HZ: Absolutely. And Veronica deals with the outstanding tickets, not in order to pay off Lilly's debts posthumously, but for cunningness.
JOY: But for the sake of detecting.
HZ: I wonder what the budget is for detecting? Like how much would these tickets be if they've been unpaid for a year?
JOY: That is a good question. And can she expense it?
HZ: That's a very good question.
JOY: We also don't see her pay it, right? We just see her take the ticket info and leave. So maybe they never get paid.
HZ: And then Lamb turns up, he pulls some faces.
JOY: Pulls faces!
HZ: Veronica says:
VERONICA: “Hey, any luck finding Chardo Navarro?”
HZ: Does that imply that Chardo has been killed and his body's been disposed of? Or just that he's fled town?
JOY: Surely he's fled town? The PCHers wouldn't kill him. It's Weevil’s cousin. There's honour among bikers.
HZ: But Veronica says:
VERONICA: “You should talk to my dad. He's really good at this kind of thing.”
JOY: That's why she brought it up.
HZ: ZING! But then Lamb hears the secretary address Veronica as Lilly, because she's been using Lilly's ID.
JOY: So he's like, “Whaaaaa?” But she's already gone.
HZ: Whoops. But he knows she was up to something shifty.
JOY: Is shiftiness relative though, in the town of Neptune? Because Veronica is on a quest that seems noble to anybody except maybe Lamb and the 09ers. OK, most people wouldn't be into it.
HZ: Then we're back at the lunch table. And she makes an interesting and valuable discovery: Lilly Kane was caught on speed camera two hours after she was killed, supposedly. I mean, she was definitely killed; but the timing is now called into question.
JOY: Yeah, two hours after her alleged time of death, there she was speeding through a red light.
HZ: And now there's a new instalment of Troy acting like a gross douche. He comes up and says, Veronica didn't come to his party. And he says:
TROY: “Well, a wise man once said that a “No” is like a “Yes” except with different letters and arranged in a different order and spoken out loud but, you know, it disappears on the wind.”
HZ: Ugghghghgh.
JOY: So gross! But also there's something perhaps to be gleaned here. A no is like a yes, it disappears on the wind, maybe like all human intention, and everything we have to offer the universe is just like a tiny speck of dust upon the great universal wind - no, it's still gross, but I just wanted to check that out real quick.
HZ: It's bad. And Veronica watches Paris Hilton being ostracised by the popular kids and having to eat lunch alone. What worse nightmare?
JOY: Maybe she'll come over to Veronica's table.
HZ: She’s not that desparate.
JOY: Logan - Logan, by the way, just want to let you know, is wearing an orange T-shirt in the scene with a cream and orange short sleeve button-down open over it.
HZ: It's a very bright look for Logan again.
JOY: I guess anything is brighter than a brown or an olive green.
HZ: Maybe he's feeling all peppy after beating someone up.
JOY: Or dumping his girlfriend. 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
JOY: Lo, ls it realistic, in your lawyerly expert opinion, that the rich kids are ordering in pizza to eat for lunch at school?
LO DODDS: No, I don't think that would have happened, at my school anyway. Because if you were a young popular SoCal teen of means, you would definitely have left campus for lunch. I don't know why all the children of Neptune, with their various expensive cars, were not going out to eat, you know, pizza and sushi and whatever else there was available.
HZ: And so when Paris Hilton is ostracised by the other students, that would have happened off site, realistically?
LO DODDS: Oh, I don't know actually, if you were ostracised in high school - I was not a popular person in high school, but I was related to several popular people, which is why I think I was not bullied and not subjected to this kind of thing. But I think you would have had people eating lunch by themselves, Paris probably would have had to stay on campus because nobody would have taken her in their Mustang down to the local pizza parlour.
HZ: Well, she's got her pink scooter.
LO DODDS: I would think she had to give it back, because it was stolen with the stolen credit cards. And the only way Weevil was going to get his charges reduced was if that number, between petty theft and grand larceny, is about $950. So if they were able to get the money, return the scooter, return the motorcycle gear, and he was able to give some of that money back, that would have led to a reduced sentence for him.
HZ: Weevil takes the fall for his grandma and his cousin. If he'd been prosecuted for that offence, how quickly would he have been put on litter duty? That seems like a very quick turnaround?
LO DODDS: Well, it was quicker because he pled guilty. So the thing about that is that Weevil's grandmother makes the point that Chardo can't do his own time, because he's 18, and he has a record. So we are led to assume that Weevil, who is a juvenile, also apparently, despite being the leader of a criminal gang doesn't have a record and therefore is probably just going to get community service. And if you went to the hearing, and he pled guilty, the sentencing would have happened fairly quickly.
JOY: So they did a decent job of portraying the legal process in this episode?
LO DODDS: I think that they actually accurately depicted them serving a warrant for arrest on the grandmother. I thought that was interesting.
HZ: Is that something that is usually done for TV purposes rather than accurate legal purposes?
LO DODDS: Yeah, I don't actually think they show warrants often on TV, the fact that Sheriff Lamb had the piece of paper out and was like, “I have a warrant for your arrest,” and then sort of walked in and got her afterwards, as opposed to most TV shows, they just walk in and search or they walk in and say “We need to search the premises” and people just let them.
HZ: Right. So he'd done the paperwork beforehand. Good at admin, Sheriff Lamb.
LO DODDS: Yes, yes. Lamb actually got something right in this episode.
HZ: So Jenny, do you have a favourite line from this episode?
JOY: I really love this exchange between Veronica and Wallace, where she’s talking about how she printed out the whole browser history from Logan Echolls’s computer in his fourth period computer lab class.
HZ: Very rude.
JOY: Yeah, I would really appreciate it if no one ever printed out my browser history, thank you. And Wallace says, “Is he guilty?” And Veronica says, “Well, of wanting desperately to see pictures of Alyssa Milano naked, yes.”
HZ: Classic 2004 teenage boy. And also there wasn’t anything else on the internet at the time.
JOY: Just search engines full of people trying to find naked women.
HZ: It’s so sweet that he had to print out a browser history.
JOY: Remember printing stuff out? So for our younger listeners, printing something out -
HZ: It’s like when a cloud condenses into rain, but for words on a computer.
JOY: And solid, not liquid.
HZ: Sorry, yes: it’s like when clouds condense into rain, then the rain forms into a sheet of ice. With words on it. Better?
JOY: So beautiful. The poetry of Helen Zaltzman, everyone.
HZ: For me, the poetry in this episode came in the exchange between Troy and Veronica: “Flat?” “Just as god made me.” She’s negging herself here. Nobody escapes the negging of Veronica Mars, even Veronica Mars.
JOY: No. You’ve got to neg yourself before other people can neg you, I think is the premise there.
HZ: Is that to build up scar tissue or something?
JOY: Yeah. And then you get tough, because you become a hard-boiled teen detective, impervious to the jabs of your very wealthy classmates.
HZ: And then what would you score the Mysteriousness of Mystery?
JOY: This mystery.
HZ: It twists, it turns. I’d say there’s a problem with the motivation behind all of it being the interest vacuum Paris Hilton acting.
JOY: Yeah, there’s a little bit left to be desired there. I’m going to give it 2½ out of 5 stolen student files you could get suspended for giving to Veronica Mars.
HZ: I think all of this mystery is worth it entirely for Veronica and Keith’s skit in front of the receptionist, and therefore, I’m going to score it 3.75 threatening apples.
JOY: Wow. Well. That’s this episode of Veronica Mars investigated.
HZ: Case closed.
JOY: That was Season 1, episode 2: Credit Where Credit’s Due.
HZ: Watch season 1 episode 3 and join us in a week to investigate it.
JOY: Find the show on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @VMIpod.
HZ: The website, where the show lives along with the coded invitation to an 09er beach party, is vmipod.com.
JOY: I’m Jenny Owen Youngs, and you can find out more about me - everything you might ever want to know about me, at jennyowenyoungs.com, including music that I make. You can also listen to more of my voice on the podcast Buffering the Vampire Slayer.
HZ: And I’m Helen Zaltzman, and you can hear my other podcasts the Allusionist, an entertainment show about language, at theallusionist.org, and Answer Me This, an entertainment show about all kinds of shit, at answermethispodcast.com.
JOY: This episode was edited and mixed by Zach McNees, with music from Martin Austwick and Jenny Owen Youngs - that’s me.
HZ: The sheriff of this town is Hrishikesh Hirway.
JOY: Distributed by PRX.
HZ: Until next time, who’s your daddy?
JOY: Who’s your daddy.
HZ: Zack Zaltzman.