VMI 1.04: The Wrath of Con transcript
Hear this episode at VMIpod.com/1-04
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:
JOY: Wallace got a crush on a girl who just happens to need the services of a private detective.
HZ: Fancy that!! Gamer guys are running a massive scam from their dorm room.
JOY: Veronica dug into her huge wardrobe of disguises! A lot of those disguises are ‘hot girl’.
HZ: Flashback limo party, present-day college party, which is cooler, both look awkward.
JOY: And Veronica swam amongst the memories of homecoming dances past before finally going skinnydipping IRL, in the present.
Crashing your culturally appropriative hat party, I’m Jenny Owen Youngs.
And wearing my dad’s champage-soaked tux, I’m Helen Zaltzman.
You’re listening to Veronica Mars Investigations Season 1, episode 4: The Wrath of Con.
JOY: Well, this episode begins in the way that I've always hoped and dreamed, with Veronica and Troy making out.
HZ: Outside the Mars front door, which I would have thought would be tricked out with bear traps and things that could detect Veronica kissing boys.
JOY: Yeah, yeah, like heat sensors. Maybe Keith on the other side of the door with like a stethoscope.
HZ: The heat sensor is showing exactly how much erection the boy has got.
JOY: Oh my god!
HZ: Keith goes there! He's a details guy.
JOY: That's true.
HZ: And then Troy asks Veronica to the homecoming dance by not really asking her to the homecoming dance.
JOY: Yeah, this is the negging version of asking someone to a dance maybe?
HZ: Well, I think he's trying to protect himself from rejection whilst playing it casual.
JOY: Yes. But have some courage, man. If you're gonna go for it, I say go for it.
HZ: I suppose Veronica is quite scary. So maybe he’s being tentative.
JOY: True, she's intimidating.
HZ: I hate to ask you to have sympathy for Troy. I know how much that angers and upsets you.
JOY: I feel like Troy and I have gotten off on the wrong foot. Maybe I haven't given him a chance.
HZ: Did you go to homecoming dance, Jenny?
JOY: Gosh, no. Heavens, no. I've never been to a homecoming. I never went to a prom in high school. I was not a formals dance person. Nay.
HZ: Right. So you have zero personal insight into whatever this is all about.
JOY: Yeah, maybe I should really give Troy a break. I understand nothing. Do they even have homecoming in England? Probably not. And why bother?
HZ: Exactly. Why bother? Why bother dancing? We're all going to die one day anyway. Veronica goes indoors, not with Troy; he's not allowed in the house yet. You have to be invited in like a vampire. She asks Keith whether he ran Troy's numberplates. Keith is like, “I have no idea what you're talking about.”
KEITH: “Oh, hey, I forgot to tell ya. If he's going to be kissing my daughter on my porch for eight and a half minutes, I'll need to meet him. Sweet dreams, honey.”
JOY: Keith, with the stopwatch! And I like that Keith is like, “Troy is taking up a lot of daddy daughter time.” Does that mean that Troy is poised to become Daddy? Are we going to see a transference of the daddy belt, or whatever they use to indicate?
HZ: I think it's just that Keith is being a bit territorial. Do you think he was like this with Duncan as well? Or whether Keith was just high on life at the time when he was Sheriff? He didn't have time, he was too busy.
JOY: He's busy being a sheriff, busy having a wife who had not abandoned him and his daughter.
HZ: But now that he and Veronica are each other's main people, and colleagues -
JOY: It's all very tangled, and beautiful, but also possibly not maybe the healthiest... it's complicated.
KEITH: “He's taking up a lot of daddy-daughter time. I hardly get to see you.”
VERONICA: “I see you constantly.”
KEITH: “Oh sure. You see me, but we don't do anything.”
HZ: Poor baby.
JOY: He misses his daddy-daughter time. Veronica, however, is too blissed out.
HZ: I miss their daddy-daughter time.
JOY: Yeah, it was good. And perhaps we'll return to those days eventually. But for now, Veronica needs to go be a teen girl and flop on her bed euphorically and gaze at the ceiling like a young girl in love. Even though she is wearing that tank top.
HZ: What are you referring to? Because the exterior of her outfit is a sequined lacy mesh knee-length dress over jeans and a white tank top. So it's like she was wearing her day outfit and thought, "Oh I’d better posh this up for evening."
JOY: Yeah, I'm mostly referring to the shear beaded - what I didn't even realise was a dress, I just thought it was a long tank top. I'm learning a lot about women's fashions.
HZ: You can wear them all at once, if you want.
JOY: Oh my god, every single one.
HZ: And so Veronica lying down, blissed out, segues into a flashback.
JOY: Oh good. A flashback!
HZ: Where she spends half her time! And the flashback is to Lilly Kane in Veronica's room insulting Veronica's choice of homecoming dress, she says:
LILLY: “Why do you insist on suppressing your hotness? The world is ready for you, Veronica Mars, you don't have to blend in....”
HZ: Drink at someone calling Veronica by her full name! You'll be dead by the end of this season. She says, “You don't have to blend in,” and Veronica says, “I'm not trying to blend in” - foreshadowing!
JOY: Lilly posits that Veronica Mars is not a yellow cotton dress but instead is strapless red satin. And I just feel like from what we know about Veronica, she's way closer to a yellow cotton dress.
HZ: You know what she is? She's like nine tiny polo shirts on top of each other.
JOY: If you start peeling them off, you find out pretty quickly there's no Veronica Mars; there's just a four-year-old boy pretending to be a plucky young girl teen detective inside a million polo shirts.
HZ: That's the mystery.
JOY: Spoilers for Season Five of Veronica Mars.
HZ: It's nice to see a bit of their friendship! Veronica is is baffled as to where she's supposed to obtain strapless red satin by tomorrow, when the dance is, and Lilly's like:
LILLY: “Wait a minute. You know that we're not really going to the dance, right?”
VERONICA: “Wait, what are you talking about?”
LILLY: “The dance is just a lame excuse for a new dress and a limo party.”
JOY: Now, I've never had a limo party. Have you?
HZ: No, I haven't. I have never been in a limo.
JOY: I've been on a party bus and that party bus had a stripper pole. But it just had a definitely like a different feel than I would anticipate a party limo having.
HZ: I've been on a public bus, which also have vertical poles, but those are really for stability.
JOY: Have you ever seen anyone strip on a public bus pole? Or dance exotically? Or otherwise? Erotically?
HZ: No. But Facebook Memories told me that on a recent day a few years ago, I did see, on my way home in London, on the trains, one person puking into a paper bag and another person pissing into a paper bag. Bad night for bags!
JOY: At the same time?
HZ: No I think separate, but on the same ride.
JOY: Wow, was it the same bag?
HZ: I think probably the ability to contain fluids would have been compromised by whichever was ejected first. Sorry. Go to London, one of the world's greatest cities! Logan's bringing the refreshments to the limo party; Veronica's like, “No way I can go because Keith Mars will be on to it." He's going to ground her. Lilly's like:
LILLY: “Oh, whoop-de-frigging-doo, Veronica, I mean, grounding lasts what, a week? You are gonna remember this fun we have for the rest of your life. Trust me.”
JOY: Honestly, you only live once, as Drake and also many other people have said, across the span of time, and I think Lilly's got a real point here. Veronica's been playing by the rules her whole life.
HZ: Now I have some large questions. Am I fair in saying that Flashback Veronica is kind of boring?
JOY: She feels like a totally different person.
HZ: She really does, and I appreciate the trauma of what happened to Lilly, and what happened to Veronica with her assault would change you; but it feels like there's no connection. It's only been a year. And also maybe like present day Super Veronica and Lilly wouldn't have got on that well, maybe because Lilly is a bit of a dominant character in their friendship. But then my other question connected to that is: Flashback Veronica doesn't seem like someone who's also working for the family detective business, and who has all these ingenious ideas - because Veronica knows how to do everything, as this episode demonstrates. So did she develop all of her ace detective skills and instincts post-bereavement in the past year?
JOY: Which has been like less than a year?
HZ: Right. And Keith's detective business has only been open for less than a year.
JOY: Yeah, this is a really good question.
HZ: Thank you. I'm doing my own investigations, of course. And then, let's visit Wallace in the school office.
JOY: Finally, something wholesome is happening with Wallace near files!
HZ: Wallace is near files and a cute girl named Georgia... and he knocks into her and piles of files drop to the floor.
[files fall to the floor]
GEORGIA: “Okay, that was the pile you just got finished alphabetizing, wasn't it?”
WALLACE: “Actually, it was two piles.”
HZ: And Wallace is like, “Don't worry, babe”. That’s the subtext.
JOY: “Can't stress this enough: if you could knock over some more files, so we could spend more time together in this office, that would also be cool.”
HZ: He would shake out all of these files so every single page is on the ground. And she says Wallace can stop being so nice. No he can't, he is incapable of stopping being so nice -
JOY: - cannot happen -
HZ: - because he's the purest soul in this whole thing. And then they hug and she tearfully says she's done something really stupid. And you can see Wallace's face over her shoulder and he is thrilled!
JOY: Well, you know, Wallace puts up with a lot up to this point in this series. He's really giving a lot and not getting a lot in return. So if he can help be a hero to this girl and it gets him some cool points, I say bless.
HZ: I don't want to spoiler this episode. But I will say, the more I watch it, the more I love it, and I think it's because Wallace has a good time in it. He's so happy this episode.
JOY: Yeah, for once things are going Wallace's way.
HZ: He deserves a break. So of course, Wallace takes Georgia to Veronica's toilet office to explain the problem she's having, which is some email trust fund scam with some super rich guy called Karl who's got a gambling problem.
JOY: And he can't access his trust fund until his 21st birthday, which is really soon and he just needs $6,000 and he'll give you $12,000 - he'll double your money in just a few days time if you lend him some thousands of dollars. First of all, wow. Imagine being a teenager and being like, "Well, I have this $6,000 kicking around. Let me just go double it real quick."
HZ: And imagine thinking, “Oh, you know who needs my financial help? Someone whose trust fund kicks in in a week.”
JOY: And someone who has a gambling issue! Red flags and question marks abound; but hey, she was trying to invest and, you know, the riskier the investment, the heftier the potential returns, so...
HZ: It's great that Wallace has managed to meet-cute with someone as innocent as he is.
JOY: Oh my god. Yes. They're so sweet and cute together. And I love it.
HZ: Veronica points out that a legit trust fund person who needs to borrow six grand until next week from someone he doesn't even know wouldn't send an email from Karl at Grrantastic-tech email address. And also someone tries to come into the toilet - which they might because it's a public toilet - Wallace does Veronica's work and kicks them out; he feels empowered.
JOY: Yeah. He's really taking on more responsibility in the Mars family business.
HZ: He tells Georgia everything's going to be fine. This is really Wallace's case. And Veronica is setting up a plan: she leaves a voice message for Karl the scammer pretending to be a ditz called Amber. And she said the voicemail as Amber - and does Veronica not need voicemail for her own use, and for her other jobs?
JOY: Hmm, what a great question.
HZ: And then it's the theme tune.
JOY: There is a brief announcement.
HZ: On the school News Channel.
JOY: They've got a whole thing going on with students broadcasting the latest updates.
HZ: They do have a very extensive media programme at Neptune High.
JOY: They've got a lot going on. It's almost as if like a bunch of really rich kids go there. And they mention that the Lilly Kane Memorial Fountain has come or is coming to be installed or there's going to be a memorial service basically to sort of like cut the ribbon on this fountain - if you cut a ribbon on a fountain? I'm not sure.
HZ: Veronica and Logan are clearly both a little shaken by this news.
JOY: Yeah. But I'm a lot more interested for our purposes in the fact that Troy wants to take Veronica on a mini golf date. And I know that you have a great interest in miniature golf.
HZ: There's a lot of good mini golf down where they are. I particularly enjoyed the Hawaiian course at Camelot mini golf and the volcanic course at Boomers.
JOY: Do you have a little mini golf diary or something?
HZ: I just have a strong visual memory.
JOY: Okay. Okay. I accept that.
HZ: Veronica seems a little bit tentative about all this homecoming stuff. And she says Keith wants to meet Troy, and she warns him:
VERONICA: “My dad's a little intense.”
TROY: “Don't worry. I give good parent.”
HZ: I think Keith is just going to see right through this smarmy boy.
JOY: Yeah, if there's one thing Keith Mars can be counted upon to do, it's to see through smarmy boys and men. I don't think Troy stands a chance.
HZ: Troy asks if homecoming is go. Again, he's being a little bit diffident about it, but I think he does care about Veronica saying yes. And Veronica's voiceover says, “This should make me happy.”
JOY: But it doesn't.
HZ: Her mouth says “yes” without huge enthusiasm because - flashback!
VERONICA VOICEOVER: “I've already lived the dream. Everything else seems like a cheap reminder.”
HZ: And we are at the Kane house and Celeste Kane is wearing a long hair wig and far more casual clothes than her present day vamp-wear; and she's calling for Lilly, because everyone's waiting. And Veronica is there; she's wearing Gwyneth Paltrow's 1999 Oscar dress, the sort of big pink baggy the one that she got the Oscar for Shakespeare in Love in.
JOY: Wow, you know things I do not know.
HZ: And she's filming with a camcorder - so kids, a camcorder. It was like a phone that only did one thing, which was making videos, but it would make the videos solid in the form of little tapes. Can you picture this?
JOY: Mmm, more plastic rectangles like in the last episode, but smaller.
HZ: Imagine a cereal box made out of black plastic -
JOY: - Of memories -
HZ: - Shoved into your phone, that only does one thing. Duncan and Logan are both wearing tuxes. Duncan's looking quite dashing. His bow tie is quite big though, like a magician's bow tie.
JOY: Maybe he's gonna do some close up magic.
HZ: Ooh, exciting. And then Logan is wearing... he's got quite an unusual outfit on. He's got this sort of unusually cut collar. He's got quite a fat tie. And he's got this high-cut brocade waistcoat, and his jacket is very long. He sort of looks like a Dickensian character.
JOY: I'm into it. I'll take it. I don't think anybody who went to like prom or homecoming fifteen years ago looks at those photos like right now and they're like, "Well, that look lasted." I feel like there's always a tux trends that are going on that feel like a teenager is wearing a tuxedo.
HZ: And then Lilly emerges, so no one cares at this point what anyone else is wearing because Lilly is feeling herself, and looking boobtacular.
JOY: She looks great. I wish her dress was a slightly different colour.
HZ: It's a sort of pale gold, glittery, quite a clingy fabric.
JOY: I wish it was either more gold, or... it's just so close to her skin colour, it doesn't really pop.
HZ: I assume that's the point though? To make it look a bit naked.
JOY: Oh perhaps! Helen, educate me in the ways of women dressing themselves. I don't understand that.
HZ: Me with my revealing garments.
JOY: Helen is wearing a dress that has dinosaurs all over it today, which fucking rocks and I don't care who knows it.
HZ: Thank you. I appreciate that. And Celeste Kane, they're taking photos of the kids and Celeste Kane says, "You all look very nice," in a very insincere way and she gestures for Lilly to cover up her cleavage a bit so Lilly opens the dress up a bit more.
JOY: Hell yeah Lilly!
HZ: Legend! And she says:
LILLY: “Hey, I'm only young once. How many braless years do I have left?”
HZ: As we know, really not enough. And it's another occasion where Amanda Seyfried lights up the screen.
JOY: Yeah, she's just so consistently delightful and charming.
HZ: Yeah, just a lot of Lilly this episode. And then the kids head out to their limo and the Kane parents call after them, “Be careful and be safe out there,” like what are they expecting? They’re going to the homecoming.
JOY: If I had teenagers, I don't know, that's probably what I'd be saying out the door every time they left the house - it's a scary world out there.
HZ: Those parents are such buzzkills. But then Veronica's reverie is interrupted by Wallace who’s jogging up to in a very jaunty way because he's so happy this episode. And he's so happy!
WALLACE: “Ladies and gentlemen, Veronica Mars, I've talked to that girl more today than I have in the past four months combined.”
VERONICA: “Her pain is your pleasure?”
WALLACE: “Hey, hey, I'm the cavalry. I get to save the day. We are going to save the day? Right?”
JOY: He's living for it!
HZ: And he's like, “We are going to save the day, right?” I think being knight in shining armour really suits Wallace.
JOY: Yeah, it's it's a great look for him. Oh, imagine if he had a little suit of armour.
HZ: And a tiny horse. And then Veronica receives a call for Amber, who was the ditzy person she was pretending to be on Karl's voicemail and agrees to meet him later. And also in the school hallway we have Duncan and Logan dress trademark contrasting green and blue. Not too sludgy for Logan today, but his necklace really pops.
JOY: And they're talking about how h Duncan's preparing to cut together a memorial video for the fountain dedication for Lilly, and Logan wants to do it so bad. Logan is apparently a video editor, which we didn't know, but that's exciting.
HZ: He says he's great at it.
JOY: And I can't wait to be proven - or for him to be proven - right.
HZ: He seems quite wistful. It's a rare Logan wistful moment.
JOY: Love to see a little vulnerability in Logan, contrasted very sharply in Duncan's sort of face play in this scene which prompted me to make, in my notes, a new nickname for him: ‘Duncan "no face" Kane’. He very rarely makes an expression with his face, I'm noticing. Have you noticed that?
HZ: Well, I wonder whether he's just trying to tightly control it to keep it together, because he's under such emotional strain. I'm trying to attribute some motivation for what Duncan's giving us.
JOY: Gosh you've got a lot more...
HZ: Sympathy?
JOY: Yeah, you're a lot readier for all these young gentlemen than I am.
HZ: And then we go to the waterside, to a kind of park? I can see some frisbees being thrown in the background occasionally.
JOY: Looks great.
HZ: And Wallace and Georgia watching at a distance as Karl approaches Veronica, who's sitting on a bench in character. Her hair is curled. She's wearing a little red top and a little reddish skirt, she's got a pink flower in her hair a pink watch strap - doesn't quite have the Paris Hilton scooter from Episode Two but it would go with the outfit. Have we seen Veronica in character disguises before?
JOY: I don't think so. I think this is the first.
HZ: Does she have a special wardrobe for the purpose?
JOY: A whole separate closet.
HZ: And then Karl, in contrast is so beige like his jacket, trousers, shirt. They're all different shades of beige and they're all so baggy on him.
JOY: Yeah, he looks like an insurance salesman.
HZ: Yeah, but one who's shrunk a bit.
JOY: Yes, in the wash.
HZ: And Georgia says from the distance that's not him. But the Karl she met did wear the same outfit, so no wonder it fits this Karl a bit badly if it's going around all the Karls.
JOY: Weird. And meanwhile Wallace - he pops a tracker.
HZ: “I can be your hero baby!”
JOY: That's exactly what he's like.
HZ: Sticks a tracker to Karl’s back bumper. And Veronica is pretending to agree to paying him $3,000 now, $3,000 next week, digging around for a chequebook, he says he can only take cash because his all his accounts are frozen till his birthday. And she blames her blondeness for not getting that!
JOY: How dare she!
HZ: She's very good at using as leverage her blondeness, cuteness, and physical tininess.
JOY: I guess she I she can expect people to underestimate her and she really just like leans into it to her own advantage.
HZ: I think it's interesting later when it doesn't work out for her. The tiny blonde cuteness, just teeing that up. And she says:
VERONICA: Karl? I can trust you, right?
KARL: You can trust me, Amber. Hand to God.
JOY: Shut up, Karl.
HZ: Shut up, Karl. And then we're in a street and call is getting out of his car running across the road to a boarded-up-looking building with Veronica on his tail.
JOY: Yeah, and this is a theatre?
HZ: As it turns out! And Karl is actually an actor called Jimmy Spain who's playing the character of Ham in a production of Endgame by Samuel Beckett at this theatre.
JOY: Are you familiar with Endgame?
HZ: I have seen Endgame, and I don't remember a lot about it. There are two characters who have no limbs and live in barrels. That's all I really remember. And Veronica, you know, she looks like she's dressed purely for fun like pink everything but she uses her pink flower barette to pick the lock on the display case that Jimmy Spain's headshot is displayed in, and she looks at the back and it's got a credit for something called ‘Duped’ or as we would say in Britain, ‘Duped’. She waits until it's darkness outside the theatre. She sits through the whole performance of Endgame, but from the street. She's waiting for Jimmy to come out. Everyone on the street is saying, "Ah you did a great job. Great!" His hair is really different to when he was playing Karl earlier, but his clothes, different clothes, but they're still baggy and beige. And then he spots Veronica, still dressed in character. But you know, he knows that shit's going down now.
JIMMY: Wait a minute. This is part of the show, right? Naw, you're not gonna get me like that. T.! Liam! You guys can come out, I ain't buying it. So…is this a part of the same episode or am I getting paid again?
VERONICA: What are you talking about?
JIMMY: Duped!
HZ: Because he thinks this is all part of a like punk'd style cranking show called Duped - Dyuped. I'm translating for any British listeners. And Veronica points out there were no cameras.
JOY: Right right? But he expected not to see them.
HZ: Right. And then he's very incredulous. He's like, “Well, how can it be fake? I auditioned didn't I? I got the call just today saying I had the job.”
JOY: Interesting that an actor would be having such a hard time wrapping his mind around something being not real even though people did and said things.
HZ: He's very method, he really worked himself into the part. And she said “Oh, if they called you then give me the number that called you,” and he does but he's also pissed off not to get his SAG points. I don't miss the era of the TV pranking show. Not at all.
JOY: No, gosh, no.
HZ: And then in the school hallway, Veronica and Wallace walk and talk. And she exposits that the number went to a payphone that doesn't accept calls, but is located in something called Gameland that she assumes is a cybercafe. But it's not - it's a gaming club, Wallace explains, and he says, “It's a bunch of nerds trying to blow each other up.” Do you reckon Wallace is one of those nerds? He goes to a gaming club? Or does he just read about them on forums?
JOY: Wow, I didn't think about this, but now that you're saying it I feel like maybe Wallace had a gaming club phase that is in his dark past.
HZ: Well, since he met Georgia like five seconds ago, he’s put away such childish things. But he says:
WALLACE: “The only girls they see in there are Japanime, so you're not really going to blend.”
HZ: Veronica says, “So I won't blend.” There's a lot about Veronica blending in in this episode. Deploy Veronica Mars disguise wardrobe! Cut to Gameland!
JOY: Yeah, there's like an EDM soundtrack starts, her wall kind of splits and breaks away, revealing a fluorescently lit whole other closet. An Uma Thurman from Pulp Fiction wig is like lifted off of a model head.
HZ: By a robot!.Here's a shirt from a nurse's outfit - a sexy nurse. Little school girl mini kilt with matching tie. And then knee socks from your Clueless cosplay.
JOY: Exactly. There's like a real Clueless-Pulp Fiction-Sailor Moon kind of thing going on here.
HZ: So naturally, when she walks into this gaming club, everyone checks her out.
JOY: Every dude is like, Whoooaaaaaa!
HZ: “Don't get many women around here!” She files her ID with security and she looks around for a game to play and wedges herself in between two guys on a sofa playing something and one of them is boasting about fragging the other one - I don't know what fragging is.
THE ALLUSIONIST: frag, verb: to kill or wound deliberately with a fragmentation grenade or explosive device
HZ: And she asks if they can watch her stuff. And then she goes off on a walkabout and she spots a game with a number of previous players' scores listed on the screen. And she gets her printout of the scam email sent to Georgia from this email address grrrrrrantastic with several rs. And there's a grrrantular ranked on one of the games. Like someone who's running this big email scam...
JOY: Is using their own high score name? It seems odd.
HZ: Yeah. Maybe in 2004 people were..
JOY: - this guy was like “I am the internet”.
HZ: “Can't beat me!”
JOY: “You people wouldn't understand.”
HZ: She logs into the game as ‘gamegirl’, goes back to the sofa. One of the gamers offers her some candy. It's quite sweet.
JOY: That was nice.
HZ: And she does some shooting. And she fires at grrrrantula. They're like, “Stop killing your own team!” And a blonde guy on another sofa is like:
VERONICA VOICEOVER: Come on, loser. Show yourself.
GRANT: Hey, cut the crap. I'm on your team, lamer!
JOY: Oh, how dare!
HZ: And Veronica shoots some more and leaps up she's like, “Ownage!” The the blonde angry guy who we can assume is grrantular, says it's not ownage, I'm on your team.
JOY: And his voice is kind of breaking. He sounds a little bit like he's almost gonna cry.
HZ: Well, this is the worst day of his life. But Veronica's looking pretty smug. And, and then she goes to retrieve her ID from the security desk. And for some reason, which I'm assuming is cute girlness reasons, the security guy lets her rifle through the box of IDs for herself.
JOY: Yeah, yeah, she gives him the wrong last name so he can't find it. And then it's just like, “hey, it'll be faster if I do it”. And then just takes her sweet time finding Grant's ID. Also, don't you think it must just be so exhausting to be Veronica Mars?
HZ: Having to think of all these plans all time and reading so many IDs quickly in a very dimly lit room. And also having to hang out in this place, which looks depressing.
JOY: Yeah, not ideal.
HZ: And then it's daytime again, and she's in a corridor at San Diego State University, which Grrrrrant goes to. And would you know it, there's a bunch of posters up for party tonight and I don't know why a poster would say ‘tonight’ unless they are really conscientious about putting them up and taking them down on the day of the party.
JOY: Sounds like a lot of work to me!
HZ: Really does; just use the date. The theme of the party is "Around the world" and it promises beer in Bremen, and Kamikaze in Kyoto. And if I'm to recommend anything alliterative in Kyoto, it would be the kaleidoscope museum, which is great.
JOY: Wow. That does sound good!
HZ: It’s very charming. There's a lot of different kaleidoscopes.
JOY: As you would expect.
HZ: More than you can imagine. So Veronica's now got a plan. And finally Wallace is going to get to go to a party!
JOY: Wallace is finally going to get to go to a party. However, as with everything else in his life, Veronica Mars is going to foil what would otherwise be the best night of his life by forcing him to wear like a pocket protector and some glasses and, the kicker: an E = mc2 t-shirt.
HZ: In gothic script.
JOY: You know how you really, you really communicate to people that you're into math? It's with an E = mc2 t shirt. Why?
HZ: But I love that Veronica's den of disguises is getting so much play this episode already. And also she's got kit for Wallace that she wouldn't even wear herself.
JOY: Yeah. That's thoughtful of her, I guess.
HZ: She's trying on different pairs of glasses on him.
JOY: And just looking for the right ones.
HZ: And Wallace is saying:
WALLACE: “You can't take the cool out of me. Look, pocket protector, and I'm still full of pimp juice.”
HZ: Oh, Wallace. You can't take the cool out of you where there is no cool.
JOY: Well, he's adorable, though. And he's feeling himself right now.
HZ: He's feeling very vulnerable and awkward about the Georgia situation because he seems to really like her. And he goes two floors out of his way on his way to class just to see her.
JOY: Yeah, this whole exchange between him and Veronica about how - like Veronica is kind of asking him about Georgia, trying to get him to talk about it. And then he does this whole thing about how like, “Guys don't need to talk about stuff the way that like girls need to talk about.” And then he goes on to talk about Georgia anyway.
HZ: He also says, “Nobody's gonna buy me as a nerd.” Ah hahahaha!
JOY: Oh, Wallace, c'mon man,
HZ: So cute. And so he jaunts off out of the room,. He's ready to get this party started. And Veronica picks up her flip phone off a pile of photos, which is on top of a huge light box that happens to be in her bedroom.
JOY: And why not?
HZ: Why not? I suppose every interior in Neptune is about unusual sources of light that don't emit much light. Kane house: so many lights, it's so dark! Gaming clubs: so many lights, it's so dark.
JOY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's a noir.
HZ: Hmmm.
JOY: No, not buying it? Well. It's flashback time!
HZ: She picks up a picture of her and Lilly and the guys from that dance night, it's like a different lifetime ago.
JOY: Sending her back in time in her memory to when they were listening to what sounds like, to my ear, my discerning musician’s ear - like porn music in the limo?
HZ: And they're playing truth or dare.
JOY: Oh my god. And then Lilly. Kisses. Veronica.
HZ: So what happens is, she asks Logan what he thought of Veronica when she first saw her and he thought, “She's cute.” And like I was saying last episode: why did these people appear to have no pre-existing relationship in the present when they were friends?
JOY: It's very strange. Well, maybe maybe Veronica is such a different person now because she transformed into a petite young detective overnight.
HZ: And then Logan dares Lilly to kiss someone in this limo so there's her brother which, no, Logan who’s her boyfriend, zero challenge. So of course she kisses Veronica. Do you think Veronica's into it?
JOY: No. I mean, just like in a fun way.
HZ: Duncan: definitely yucked.
LOGAN: Yeah!! Girl on girl action in the limo!
DUNCAN: Oh, man! Dude! That's my sister and my girlfriend.
LOGAN: Yeah, dude, like that one's not in the rotation.
JOY: Good Lord, Logan. Not everyone has whatever's going on for you, sir.
HZ: And then erratic Duncan's back because he revenge fizzes them all with champagne. Logan's like, “Dude, this is my dad's tux!” which explains why it's so long!
JOY: Yeah, and also so 80s-feeling.
HZ: Duncan, undeterred, sprays even more champagne and then those two run out of the limo and just have this knockdown scrap on the beach - so they're going to get sand on the tux, making it even worse.
JOY: Yeah, this is really sweet though. I like I like the flashbacks in this episode. I like kind of seeing this four person unit in their in their kind of like some of their sweetest moments.
HZ: I have another question. Lilly, does she have other friends?
JOY: No.
HZ: You only ever to see her friendship with Veronica. You don't even see her and Veronica being friends as part of a group, even though the implication is Veronica was part of the popular crowd, because when she turns up to the party in the first episode, they all know who she is but they've all kind of turned against her. And yet the implication is she used to be absolutely welcome at those kinds of gatherings.
JOY: I think maybe Veronica has opted to give us one teeny tiny break as an audience and has decided not to introduce us to all of her and Lilly's 09er friends in the first four episodes because we have so much other information flying in our faces non stop.
HZ: Fair enough. But you do think everyone there would have wanted to be friends with Lilly, because she's the funnest person.
JOY: I want to be friends with Lilly. Yeah. Top 10. Top one.
HZ: I don't think she'd want to be friends with me because I'm too boring but...
JOY: I don't know, she seems to have an appreciation for a sharp wit.
HZ: When she getting that from? Logan, I guess. Logan is quite funny in a mean way.
JOY: And you're funny without even being mean!
HZ: Sometimes. And then Veronica's reverie is interrupted by Wallace:
WALLACE: “Very cute girl in need of our help right now.”
HZ: Stop cock-blocking Wallace with your reveries, Veronica! And they're at the party, the theme of "All around the world": they've got paper globe lampshades, and some dodgy hats. That's how the international theme is expressed.
JOY: It's not great.
HZ: The nations represented: there's an Italian flag and the poster of the Leaning Tower of Pisa with "Italy" written across it. And then there are people in Hawaiian shirts or shorts, and there's an electronic hula girl thing. There are people wearing what I think are supposed to be sombreros to represent Mexico and there are chilli decorations, and then there's miscellaneous Asia. And there's this guy who's been teed up to show Wallace around: he's wearing a sombrero, a flower garland, pyjama bottoms, a lanyard, and some kind of satin Chinese or Japanese embroidered coat. And he's showing Veronica and Wallace around - Veronica is dragging Wallace by the arm as if they are a couple.
JOY: She really is.
HZ: But you know what? Veronica and Wallace are really standing out at this party by being dressed so normcore. What kind of disguising is that?
JOY: Maybe as potential future college students they wanted to to not look any cooler than that, perhaps?
HZ: Maybe. But if she really wanted to blend in to do some of her sneaking around, she needed a culturally appropriative hat.
JOY: Unfortunately, at this party, yes.
HZ: And I bet she's got some in the den of disguise.
JOY: I really hope not.
HZ: She spots Grrrant, the guy who was pissed off at her for shooting him in the gaming cafe.
JOY: And lots of people are ready to talk about Grrrant.
VERONICA: Hey, I think I know that guy.
R.A.: Grant. Yeah, he's pretty famous around here. He's like a genius or something. Him and that bouncer looking dude over there. They call them the Silicon Mafia. Basically, around here, these guys are legend.
JOY: Also everyone thinks they grow weed.
HZ: Yeah, they're like “around here these guys are legend” - I can't work out why at any point in the course of this episode.
JOY: Really never revealed; that mystery is unsolved.
HZ: Unless just the guy showing them around - what would you call that? Someone who's like in charge of the dorm?
JOY: Oh, an RA, or resident assistant?
HZ: That sounds legit. Maybe he's just such a dork that he thinks that these people are cool and exciting.
JOY: Very possible.
FEMALE STUDENT: And they have a security system like with laser beams.
MALE STUDENT: I think they're building robots or something.
FEMALE STUDENT: I felt the wall in the dorm next to theirs and it was way hot. Do you know how many grow lights they probably have in there?
MALE STUDENT: The walls are so hot, it's because they have a million dollar bank of super computers.
FEMALE STUDENT: That they bought with their weed money!
HZ: Veronica runs into the RA's room asking, “Is it okay for people to be shooting Roman candles down the hallway?” and he's like, “Oh shit,” leaving her in his room to rifle through his Big Drawer Of Keys.
JOY: People are always leaving Veronica alone with their drawers of stuff.
HZ: She's so tiny and cute, what damage could she do?
JOY: So then we get to we get to see Wallace doing his first undercover work on screen pretending to be really into math. And he's fielding questions left and right.
HZ: Grant is interrogating him about math.
GRANT: So, what do you plan in majoring in?
WALLACE: Math?
GRANT: Math, wow. So, what are you into? Chaos theory, PDEs, joint methods? What's your thing?
WALLACE: I'm pretty interested in, ah, joint methods.
GRANT: Hmm.
WALLACE: Right now.
GRANT: For error estimation or duality?
WALLACE: I know this is gonna sound kinda weird but…I'm interested in both.
HZ: Grant is shit at a party. What does everyone think Grant's a legend?
JOY: It's really confusing.
HZ: He's like, “Blah, blah, blah. So what's your favourite bit of Fermat's Last Theorem?” And also what's weird is that it's supposed to look like a conversational group but nearly everybody is behind or next to Wallace and not looking at him. It's like the Game of Thrones metal throne is just made by partygoers wearing stupid outfits - one of them's got a horned Viking helmet on, even though Viking helmets didn't have horns.
JOY: !! Viking helmets didn't have... okay, that's a whole other podcast.
HZ: Meanwhile, Veronica, she pins the picture of Jimmy Spain - I suppose he's an international themed-person - outside Grant’s room and lets herself in with the key, but she hadn't banked on there being an alarm. So Wallace’s math chat is interrupted by Grant getting a notification that his alarm's gone off.
JOY: Oh my gosh. And they roll up on Veronica and they're like, “How did you get in here?” And she's like, "I don't know, I just opened the door."
HZ: “They told me this is Sri Lanka. I wanted a coconut toddy.” I love that she's got the words ‘coconut toddy’ ready as a lie.
JOY: Ready to go! I want to know what a coconut toddy is.
HZ: In Britain, a hot toddy would be like hot water with lemon, honey and whiskey in it, so maybe if you put coconut rum in it?
JOY: In the United States that's also a hot toddy!
HZ: But, you know, we have a lot of different words - like biscuit, fanny mean very different things in American English, so who knows? ‘Toddy’ here could be something - it could be Jello with a celery stick in it.
JOY: We are united in the definition of hot toddy.
HZ: Okay. But when they're like, “How did you open the door?” and she's like, “I don't know, I just opened it!” But you can sense that she realises her usual ‘cute her way out of anything’ tactic is not working.
JOY: It’s not going to work on these guys. And then she pretends that she's got some vomits coming on and she manoeuvres out the hallway, she grabs Wallace and she's like:
VERONICA: “I don't feel so good, Papa Bear.”
JOY: Oh my god, Papa Bear.
HZ: Revolting! Revolting.
JOY: Yeah, that's that's upsetting.
HZ: It upsets Wallace.
JOY: It upsets us all.
HZ: She's not the girl that he wants to call him Papa Bear.
JOY: I don't know if Wallace wants to be called Papa Bear by anyone. Papa Bear seems like something Keith Mars would call himself now I'm thinking about it.
HZ: “Who's your papa bear?”
HZ: And then the next day at school, Wallace is complaining:
WALLACE: “My first college party: drinking pina coladas with a dude, and talking about math.”
HZ: Coolness is always just out of Wallace's reach, how tantalising...
JOY: What's wrong with pina coladas?
HZ: It’s just like a cold coconut toddy, isn't it?
JOY: The way the gods intended it to be.
HZ: Veronica's wondering what they're hiding in their room to need so much security. She says, “An alarm that sends a message to your cell phone?” Cut to smart homes, in our present day. And then Wallace is distracted by seeing Georgia at her locker and just stares dreamily at her, leaving Veronica free to walk past the media room - and she hears Lilly's voice coming out of it.
JOY: And Logan is editing the Lilly video, but all he's been supplied with by Celeste is like horseback riding and choir recitals.
HZ: So cute.
JOY: Adorable, but really not representative of the full picture of Lilly.
LOGAN: “Memories both misty and water-coloured… God, this would piss her off.”
HZ: Flashback to real Lilly on the dance night on the beach. Jackets are off now, ties are undone, and they are playing "I have never", and you really see the contrast between Lilly and Veronica because Veronica is wearing this voluminous princessy pink dress. And next to Lilly's busty bombshell clingy gold dress, it’s really like child and adult.
JOY: Yeah, yeah. And this is what we learn. These are the mysteries that are solved in this scene: We find out that Veronica Mars has never skinnydipped! Duncan jerked off in the locker room after watching cheerleader practice! Bleurghhh!
HZ: And Duncan has never seen his parents having sex, but Lilly has, and then does a fantastic impression of Celeste with some amazing eye work.
JOY: Yeah. Beautiful - and a nice yawn at the end.
HZ: And then she does that thing - it's really annoying when you play I have never with the show off because she says, “I have never not had sex,” and you think, probably sometime in your life?
JOY: Listen lady - cool it! There have been times.
HZ: But then that means the virgins have to drink, which is Veronica and Duncan. But it's quite sweet because then they smooch.
JOY: Veronica's like, “You are so cool for being a virgin.”
HZ: My friend Alex has the best ‘I have never’: "I have never worn jeans."
JOY: Whoa, that's a good one. Also for our United States listeners, I feel compelled to let you know that the game we're referring to, as you may have inferred, is ‘Never have I ever’ here.
HZ: That's just adding two syllables that I can't be arsed with. But sadly, this is all in the past; and in the present Veronica walks out the classroom wistfully. But she's now hanging out back on the university campus with Keith.
JOY: A little daddy-daughter time.
HZ: And Backup.
JOY: Daddy-daughter-doggo time.
HZ: Aaah, all the family - but Keith is grumbling, he's like, “I don't think this constitutes quality time.” And Keith has also been allowed in the Den of Disguise, because he puts on a DEA jacket. And I love that Backup is part of Keith's disguise, because he forces his way into the dorm room, he knocks and thenhe and Backup swarm in and Liam and grant can't really do anything, because Backup's quite a big scary dog.
JOY: Keith Mars and Backup have a lot in common. They're both kind of low to the ground, broad-shouldered, not intimidating in a tall way, but like you definitely don't want to mess with them.
HZ: Yeah, don't stand in their way. They'll headbutt through if they want. Keith asks Grant if there are any drugs on the premises, Grant's like, “Caffeine?” And while Keith is frisking the room he places a bug on a high shelf. Liam asks if he has a warrant and he's like, “I don't need a warrant because there's clearly nothing here, bye!”
JOY: This routine! Do you think he's done this before?
HZ: Do you think the Marses have had acting lessons? They're both very good at it.
JOY: Oh my gosh, maybe.
HZ: Wonderful natural talent.
JOY: Shines.
HZ: Their ability to embody different characters is really being shown off this episode. It's like they're each in an episode of Orphan Black, the number of different people they're playing.
JOY: Wow, yes!
HZ: And outside Veronica's sitting at some tables, like the lunch tables at the high school except not yellow, and on the bug she can hear that Grant and Liam are arguing about why they let Keith Mars in. Liam's like, “I'm heading to the snack bar!” and he sets the alarm. And Veronica is listening to the keytones of him setting the alarm - so, kids, keytones where noises that were made when you pressed different buttons on your phone. And buttons were like tiny little touch screens on your phone that only did one thing. If you can get this into your minds. So Veronica's figured out the code to their alarm just from this - see, did she really develop this amount of skill in a year, did she?
JOY: It’s very impressive.
HZ: Did she?
JOY: But no time to wonder about that now, because she's late for Keith and Troy and minigolf!
HZ: Well, she she's getting a somewhat emergency-sounding distress call from Troy.
JOY: Yeah, and I wouldn't want to be left alone with Keith Mars if I was dating Veronica.
HZ: And yet that's what's happening, because at the Mars house, Keith is about to interrogate Troy. I was interested to see that on the Mars coffee table there's a pile of newspapers topped with a huge conch shell.
JOY: Wow, I totally missed that.
HZ: Do you think the conch shell is what they listen to all the bugs with?
JOY: I hope so. Also, don't you think Keith Mars should have one like bare light bulb suspended from the ceiling in his living room with like a pull chain to turn it on and off for just such an occasion as this?
HZ: Yeah. And a floor that heats up. He does have this cool poster of Backup in a cartoonish style behind him and it says "UNLEASH" in big letters!
JOY: This is such a weird home decor choice. Where did this poster come from?
HZ: Is there fan art for the Mars family? And Keith looks smug. Troy looks smug, but for different kinds of reasons, because Keith knows he's on the way up and Troy's on the way down in this scene. And this I love - Keith says:
KEITH: So. Veronica tells me, um… well actually she hasn't told me anything about you.
TROY: Well, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
KEITH: Neither do I. Hahahahaha!
HZ: Amazing insincerity.
JOY: Meanwhile, sweat beads on on Troy's forehead as he grows more and more stressed out.
HZ: I just love it so much. And I think Troy yet hasn't... it's not dawned on him what's about to occur.
JOY: Yeah, he doesn't know that he's about to get dunked on real hard.
HZ: He is being baited into a trap with a cake. And the trap is about to close on him because Keith gives him permission to take Veronica to the dance and he's like, "What about after the dance?" and Troy says, "I know she has to be home straight after." And Keith is like, “So you're going to stay for the whole dance? Not going to go to a party or a boat and then get back in time for curfew?” And he's like, “Huh, the whole point of the dance is to go to the dance."
JOY: Then Keith says, "Then you won't mind that I cancelled your reservation at the Four Seasons."
HZ: Boom. MARS POWER!
JOY: So stressful for Troy.
HZ: Also - Four Seasons? A real hotel, not the Neptune Grand?
JOY: Yeah, that's interesting. Is there a Four Seasons in Neptune? Or is it like Neptune adjacent?
HZ: Maybe. Maybe he wanted to get a little way out of Neptune.
JOY: To a room that possibly hasn't been bugged already by Keith Mars.
HZ: Does Keith know about Veronica's sexual assault from the year before? And if so, is that something contributing to this protective dad schtick?
JOY: No, she hasn't told her dad.
HZ: And then Veronica gets back and she's like, “Who's for mini golf?” and Keith is just basking in his power.
JOY: He is thrilled.
HZ: Keith and Wallace are having the best time this episode. In Grant and Liam's room - another room in Neptune of the many that has windows that are opaque, and theirs have the logo of a tattoo parlour stuck on it.
JOY: Yeah, it's very strange, but kind of dormy I guess.
HZ: Yeah, there's a lot of soda cans around; and they receive a call and it's from Keith.
JOY: Another incredible role. He just disappears into these roles.
HZ: And he's so relaxed, because you see him at the Mars office making the call, his feet are up on the desk, Veronica's taking notes. Oh, and people who were curious to know whether their fish tank on top of the safe is just for show, it does appear to have living fish in it in this scene.
JOY: Nice! He's asking grant if if he and Liam could be arsed to show around a student they're trying to get...
HZ: Don't pander to me!
JOY: No no no. I'm just trying to you know, meet you in the middle. They've got a student they really want to get at their college, he might go to MIT. So if you guys could show him around, that would be cool.
KEITH: “And he asked for you and your crew specifically.”
VERONICA: “‘Crew’?”
JOY: Veronica's mouthing, furiously "crew?" And Keith is like, "I got this, honey".
HZ: And he offers the irresistible bait of three free tickets to Gamelord for a private screening of the new Matrix online game. You would think that as Gamelord regulars they would know about this if this was happening.
JOY: Yeah. And also like that they would have already pirated this game, like it would have been leaked from the game maker and they would have already played it?
HZ: But just a quick trip back to the media room, it's just Veronica, and Logan in an orange hoodie. Logan says that the video he's cut is very Wonder Years, so Celeste will love it. Veronica is like, "Here." She gives him a mini DV tape that she found in her stuff. And it's labelled in big letters ‘Fun with Lilly'‘.
JOY: Wild!
HZ: It is wild; she says, "It's not a violin recital." Then back to campus and we see how excited Grant is about getting to go and play the new Matrix online game. He's walking along with Liam and Wallace, although Wallace is texting on one of those old phones that’s like a miniature laptop.
GRANT: What are you doing?
WALLACE: Just text messaging my girlfriend, tell her how psyched I am.
HZ: Whereas actually he's sending Veronica message to say that she can proceed because they've left the room. So she lets herself in - so did she keep the keys that she stole?
JOY: I guess she kept the keys, and now she has the code to the alarm.
HZ: And in her voiceover she's saying that Silicon Mafia is raising startup capital by doing this swindle, and it could result in them getting millions unless someone trips them up on the way - and she takes a huge pair of yellow bolt cutters.
JOY: Dude, love to see Veronica with bolt cutters, love to see it!
HZ: As well as the Den of Disguises, how big is the Mars collection of various tools and gadgets?
JOY: The B&E kits, the bugs...
HZ: Veronica seems to be having a pretty good time. She's opening up all their computers. She's unscrewing their hard drives. It’s a pleasure to watch her work.
JOY: It looks satisfying. Oh, yeah.
HZ: What a joy. She gets a text. Did texts actually used to say ‘END’ in big letters at the end?
JOY: I think they did, way back.
HZ: Like a telegram. Wow. And she sticks a piece of paper to a computer screen and gets ready to leave, then remembers to go and retrieve Keith's bug from a high shelf and while she's there, she spots red and blue wires running along the ceiling into a closet. And in the closet there's a padlocked safe.
VERONICA: “I really hate these guys.”
HZ: She goes to their fridge which is just crammed full of cans of soda.
JOY: Is it soda, or are they energy drinks? I feel like my gut is that they're energy drinks, it just seems like more of a gamer/hacker drink.
HZ: He did mention that the room is full of the drug of caffeine earlier. She takes it and she sits cross-legged facing the safe as if she's meditating,
JOY: Planning very carefully her next move. Meanwhile, the hacker boys roll up on the gaming club.
HZ: It’s not busy in the day.
JOY: There's no party whatsoever.
HZ: And Wallace says, with zero convincingness:
WALLACE: “Wow. I can't believe there's no party. I feel so... duped.”
HZ: Lovely callback. He is living his best life this episode.
JOY: Yeah, he's having a blast.
HZ: Doing the most. And then the guys get alerts in their phones from the alarms on the backup drives; they rush out, and Wallace takes off his specs, because his work is done. And Liam's like, “No, the backup drives are fine. Nobody's getting into that safe” - or are they?
JOY: Or are they?
HZ: Do they even need to?
JOY: It turns out that while energy drinks may help young adults work late into the night, they do nothing for the performance of a backup drive.
HZ: Whoops, whoops, whoops! They open the safe, and Veronica has done some clever rigging job because she's the cleverest person in the world. And there is energy drink dribbling into the safe going into all the drives. What would Veronica have done if there wasn't any energy drink in their fridge? I wonder what she would have used? I guess she could have used shampoo or something.
JOY: Oh, yeah, shampoo, maybe get a syphon going from from the sink? Yeah, I'm not Veronica Mars, so...
HZ: She's just going for the energy drinks because it's stylish. I guess, also, the sugar would further damage the electrics. And Grant is reading the piece of paper that Veronica had stuck to the screen, which is her version of their scam email.
GRANT: "Hey buddy, I was hoping you could…help me. I'm coming into my trust fund next week and if you give me $7600 tomorrow night, I'll give you your hard drives back."
HZ: And I only just noticed at this point as well, that Grant is wearing this gaudy shirt with a big picture of a game of pool on it.
JOY: OMG. What closet did he get that out of?
HZ: It’s from his den of disguise. But all the disguises are of different kinds of nerd. And then it's night and Liam and Grant walk up to Veronica, Georgia and Wallace under some trees - and it's just Grant and Liam, and if they're so legendary, how come they have brought no backup for this situation that could jeopardise their whole lucrative scam business, and also she's fucked up all their shit?
JOY: I'm sure they're just so desperate to get the information that they need to start back up on their work that they don't want to mess anything up. They don't want to take any chances.
HZ: They hand over a wedge of cash. Wallace counts it because he's the math guy, of course, even though that was only a character he was playing.
JOY: Now, I have a math question. Or a maths question.
HZ: It's okay. I'm on your territory.
JOY: They initially got $6,000 from Georgia.
HZ: Yes.
JOY: Veronica said her rate would be 10% of what she whatever she can recover. But they get back $7600.
HZ: Yes. So you've got Veronica's commission.
JOY: Does Wallace get 10%? And then does Georgia 10% for her pain?
HZ: But then that would be $7800.
JOY: Oh god, this is not working out for me.
HZ: But Veronica says:
VERONICA: "Ownage."
HZ: There's a lot of callbacks in this episode.
JOY: I'm deeply dissatisfied with the inconsistency of this math.
HZ: Maybe they're asking for $200 interest - but to be honest, knowing how big the scam is, she probably could have asked for double the money as in the original scam. Or maybe she's thinking we you don’t want to take all the other money away cuz we want to reunite the other scam victims with it", I don't know, I can't see into Veronica's mind. It's opaque like the windows in Neptune. And then Grant is annoyed, and he's like,"Can we have our backup drives back now?" And Veronica is like:
VERONICA: "You need to lay off the caffeine, Grrrant, ‘cause you're downright testy!"
HZ: Lovely delivery. And the drives are in a full garbage can behind them. And while they go to scrabble through it, Veronica, Wallace and Georgia walk off so slowly.
JOY: Really taking their time. Enjoying the moment.
HZ: Georgia's a bit worried about all the other people who was scammed.
JOY: As was I; and ,thank God ,Veronica has turned over some information about these guys and their scam to the FBI.
HZ: And then Wallace, who is so pleased with himself, says:
WALLACE: "Game Over."
JOY: And then Wallace gets kissed!
HZ: What an adorable dweeb
JOY: He's a precious little angel.
HZ: While he and Georgia are kissing, the guys are rifling through a trash bin behind them. So romantic!
JOY: Giving Veronica ample opportunity -
HZ: - to stand by her car, take out her keys, and then also a wrinkly piece of A4 advertising Lilly's memorial service, which has a picture of a water lily on it and also multiple fonts. And then it's a flashback again of the limo returning to the Kane house, and it's daylight so they've been out all night. And the kids seem to be having a good time still: Lilly's pouring a drink into Logan's mouth while he's laughing; Veronica's snuggled on Duncan's lap; and then Duncan sees his parents - who were always killjoys, even before their family tragedy - have called the cops and the cops are of course Keith Mars. And Lilly is thrilled:
LILLY: "This is like the best dance EVER!"
JOY: Honestly, what we've seen of them hanging out in that limo all night, I would have gotten grounded for that - that was way more fun than going to a dance.
HZ: She did say to Veronica it was going to be fun that she would remember for the rest of her life.
JOY: And now here we are.
HZ: Well. she's remembered it for at least a year. And then they get out the car, and the flashbacks are kind of smeary and so Duncan's white shirt in the daylight and the flashback smeariness is blinding. It hurts to look at it, it's so bright. And Celeste is like, "Lilly, are you drunk?" and Lilly's like, "Not so much anymore." ZING! And then Celeste is like "Why do you insist on humiliating me?" and you're like, “How?” And in front of whom? No one knows!
JOY: Celeste, you're really stressed out about stuff that no nobody cares about.
HZ: Right? You called Keith in to be your humiliation witness. And Lilly points out that it's not very fair that both her children were out all night but only the female one is getting shouted at.
JOY: This seems to be misogynistic.
HZ: And Celeste is like, "Lilly, you're at the root of any trouble this family's ever had."
JOY: Celeste, you really needs to dial down the drama.
HZ: Duncan says it's his fault, but it's too late. Jake's saying, "Get inside the house." Lilly's like, "Not before I land a big smooch on Logan."
JOY: “While kind of making eye contact with my mom!”
HZ: Logan is swivelling his eyes around awkwardly to see the family there. Keith thanks the Kanes for the coffee and Veronica and Duncan kind of smile and wave.
JOY: Which is sweet.
HZ: And then, in the present, is Lilly's memorial service at night outside the school with the school orchestra playing ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’ on flute. There's like a projector with "Lilly Kane always remembered” in a rotten font. The family's on a platform, there's a big vase of funeral lilies, people are holding candles. Veronica's taking photos. Celeste Kane makes a speech saying, "Lilly loved this place," and you're like, "really?"
JOY: Did she? Sid she embody pirate pride? Is that what she embodied?
HZ: Yeah, what a weird thing to say about your late child.
JOY: Celeste is a weird lady.
HZ: She is. Jake looks like he's barely containing his emotion. He does a bit of a mouth twitch and Duncan is just staring ahead as if to just deal with this difficult occasion. Duncan is wearing a denim blazer. Which is like a casual parody of the dark blue suit that Jake is wearing. Wallace and Georgia are hugging, Wallace looks way too happy for this occasion.
JOY: Yeah, yeah. And then it's video time, time for Logan's directorial debut.
HZ: Cute kid footage; slightly older kid who's clearly young Amanda Seyfried singing and doing a hell of a performance even without hearing the song. And then the older Lilly bouncing into view.
LILLY: “Hello America! You wanted Lilly. You got her. Now sit back and enjoy the ride.”
JOY: Electric guitar kicks in signifying that shits about to go wild, and it does, because there's underage drinking. There's mooning out of the limo. There's more underage drinking. There's what appears to be maybe like a seance of some kind. And then there's some kissing between Logan and Lilly.
HZ: There's her running up a beach in the dark, there's her leaning out of the limo with her hair in the breeze going:
LILLY: "You love me, don't you?”
JOY: And we're all like, “Yes, we do.”
HZ: Jake Kane loses his shit and cries. Everyone else applauds. Veronica and Logan exchange smiles. I feel like this is the episode where Logan feels like a real person.
JOY: Yeah, and not just like a cartoon villain.
HZ: Then this is the only glimpse we see of Weevil this episode: we see him wiping tears off his face. What's that about?
JOY: Weevil was crying, why? One of the many great mysteries of the podcast.
HZ: Then we're in a limo in the present day - no more flashback limo. It's a bit more of a sedate limo party of Wallace and Georgia, Troy and Veronica, who is wearing strapless red satin. And weirdly has her hair done in the way that she had it done when she was playing Amber the Scam Victim. Do you think she experiments with different looks and styles while she's in disguise? And then thinks, "Oh, I'll incorporate that in my day to day"?
JOY: Entirely possible.
HZ: And she asks if they can make a stop, “there's something I need to do”, and Troy is clearly shit scared of what Keith will do if they don't go straight to the dance!
JOY: He's so nervous. But Veronica's got.. she's on a mission. She needs some closure. She needs to bring things around full circle and do what she meant to but never did and go skinnydipping, and get her hair that she clearly carefully did completely wet, and also eventually she's going to get out of the water with no towel and put her undergarments on and her skin-tight dress back on, while she's wet?
HZ: There's going to be sand caking her feet, and then in the limo. And Wallace is like, "Don't ask me, man, I stopped trying to figure her out day one." And that's it for the episode. I did notice that the credits had a typo when they were crediting the actor who played "student annoucer", not announcer, annoucer - so, you know, I could I could be a detective. Should we just check the accuracy of these mysteries and this Southern Californianess with our authority on those matters, Lo Dodds?
JOY: That would be good.
HZ: Here's this week's Lo Down.
THE LODOWN
LO DODDS: In this episode, the Mars family actually commits quite a few crimes.
JOY: What are the legal ramifications of impersonating a DEA agent?
LO DODDS: That's only a misdemeanour! Isn't that weird? impersonating an officer is only a misdemeanour. I would have thought there would have been a much higher penalty for that. Yeah, in this episode, there are quite a few crimes. We're back to tracking and bugging; Keith pretending to be an officer, going into their dorm room, which is trespassing; but he's not there to steal, so it's not burglary, but he plants a bug, and that's a crime. So he probably would have been busted on quite a few things.
HZ: What kind of offences is Veronica committing by going into some stranger's room and trashing all their computational equipment?
LO DODDS: That's a crime. That's a lot of crimes. She commits felony, residential burglary when she breaks into the dorm room to steal the hard drives; that carries a sentence of a minimum of two years. She also destroys the backup drives, and assuming they were worth more than 400 bucks, she could also be charged with a felony for that.
JOY: Maybe she could get some hot immunity since she turned these guys over to the FBI.
LO DODDS: Yeah, she could turn state's evidence and try to make a deal with prosecutors to say this is what evidence she managed to find and she has a witness, and if she testifies for them, they'll they'll give her a plea deal, and she can get community service, picking up trash. There is also skinnydipping in this episode. So Veronica could have found herself on the sex offender registry if anybody has seen that, especially because she was in the presence of minors! So if they had all done skinnydipping, and she'd been arrested - you have to show that you have some lewd intent for displaying your bits. But, you know, if anybody had found it offensive, there been somebody else on the beach, if - God forbid - there had been kids on the beach, and she'd been convicted of that, even if she'd been convicted for the misdemeanour, she would have wound up on the sex offender registry list.
JOY: Wow.
HZ: But if they'd asked her and said, "Do you have any lewd intent for showing your bits?" and she said, "Well, actually, I'm just trying to reconcile myself to the difference between this year and last year, thanks to some very hurtful flashbacks, but really rubbing in how alone I am and how much I miss my friends, and how different my boyfriend situation is, and it's really just an emotional healing process rather than lewd"?
HZ: So Jenny, how do you rate the mysteriousness of this mystery?
JOY: I'm going to give this mystery a five out of five energy drink-saturated backup drives rating, if you don't mind.
HZ: Whatever you want. I liked that this mystery didn't contain any physical danger for Veronica and Keith; I found that much less stressful. But for me the mystery - I didn't really care about it as a mystery, but I just loved seeing Veronica's many ingenious ways of unlocking the next clue. We saw costumes; we saw gaming skills, we saw IT skills; we saw honey-trapping skills... I would have been somewhat curious to see multiple different Karls all wearing the same beige outfit, but it moves on quite quickly on to something else. So these guys have set up a very complex and labour-intensive up front operation for their scam - I suppose now they would just do digital payment fraud, wouldn't they? So I find the mystery a bit disjointed, but extremely satisfying. And that's partly because Wallace is having the time of his life. So I will give this, overall, four out of five questionable party hats. And do you have a favourite line?
JOY: My favourite exchange is Duncan saying, “That's my sister and my girlfriend,” and Logan saying, “Yeah, dude, like that one's not in rotation.” Horrifying.
HZ: My favourite line is Keith Mars and Troy laughing really insincerely. Doesn't get better than that. Well, that's another episode of Veronica Mars investigated.
JOY: Case closed.
