VMI 1.07: The Girl Next Door transcript
Find this episode at VMIpod.com/1-07
A LONG TIME AGO, ON VERONICA MARS:
Logan and Weevil are stuck in detention together - and honestly, that’s all we need for this episode.
But there is more - Veronica’s (beautiful) pregnant neighbour disappears…
…And her (scraggly) boyfriend doesn’t seem upset about it.
Veronica discovers some shocking information about her mom!
And the school flagpole is back causing trouble.
Finding some family secrets in an old high school yearbook, I’m Jenny Owen Youngs.
And misusing my teacherly authority to get students to wash my car, I’m Helen Zaltzman.
You’re listening to Veronica Mars Investigations Season 1, episode 7: The Girl Next Door.
JOY: So we kick it off with a pretty noir introduction here.
HZ: You know how I complain about how this show is not well lit? I'll let this scene slide because it is night and it is lit by ambulances and police.
JOY: Yeah, plenty of pretty red and blue lights doing their thing.
HZ: Oh yeah. Which is more light than the rest of the characters can hope for in broad daylight. And we’re at the building in which the Marses live and someone is being stretchered out. And Veronica seems very shaken and exchanges some looks, some loaded looks, with Keith Mars.
JOY: And is delivering some loaded voiceover: “Is this all my fault, was it inevitable?” etc. And this is maybe the shortest cold open the show will ever have because: credits!
HZ: Smash! Very early today. It's like they declared that it's Christmas Day in early October. And then we go back to the same building one week earlier and it's so sunny, it's really an idyllic sight, isn't it - flowers growing everywhere, there's people cleaning the pool. The building faces the sea, very nice. Apparently this place is an inn, so you could stay there: it's the Inn at Sunset Cliffs on Point Loma, 1370 Sunset Cliffs Boulevard in San Diego; cheapest room $175 in winter, $200 in summer, 76th out of 292 hotels in San Diego on TripAdvisor.
JOY: Wait, that's a real place that we could go stay - that's what you're saying? That we could stay there?
HZ: We should go, and then go to that bar that is underneath Mars Investigations. Apparently it's a Fencing Academy according to one of our listeners, it's the Academy of the Sword.
JOY: I mean, I have always been bound there in like a larger ‘my destiny’ arc. The Academy of the Sword, that's been calling me forever. So there's a reason, there's a really good reason that the building the Marses live in looks like a motel: it's because it is actually a motel in real life.
HZ: That's right, it looks like a nice motel.
JOY: It looks very nice. And it looks even nicer on this episode because the most beautiful woman in all of Neptune, California, lives there and she's doing laundry with her tiny dog.
HZ: Yeah, and her tiny neighbour Veronica Mars. And she's pregnant. This plot all happens very quickly. There's a neighbour. She's pregnant. She's got a tiny dog. She's borrowed Veronica's Snow Patrol CD, but will give it back. And, she's played by Jessica Chastain, future multiple Oscar nominee because the one-episode actors in this show are very high calibre.
JOY: They go on to do great things. And we also learn that she and her boyfriend seem to regularly and very audibly fight.
HZ: Yes, she alludes to Veronica being able to hear these fights through the ceiling because she lives upstairs from Veronica and Keith. And I have heard a lot of my neighbours' relationship through insufficiently bulky walls. Have you ever been in that situation? Because I could chart their relationship from the joyous sex all the time phase to the drunken arguments phase.
JOY: Back when I lived in New York for a couple years I lived over a couple that fought so loudly and scarily that the police were called many times during my residency there. That sucked a lot, but I never heard them have sex for which I am thankful.
HZ: I'm happy for you. And unhappy for myself in my old situation. So in a way, I was glad when the arguments started, because at least the living room was quieter because their bedroom on the other side wasn't getting as much leonine action.
JOY: Oh my god!
HZ: He was a loud beast of a man at the point of ecstasy. We also learn in this scene that Sarah's boyfriend may have stolen her diary. "He's got it into his head that I've got a thing for my boss" - file this information away for later please. And just to lighten the mood, the dog is called Killer.
JOY: Oh, which is hilarious because he's a teeny tiny little chihuahua-type dog.
HZ: Spoiler: he's committed many murders around Neptune in plain sight.
JOY: Well, those mysteries will never be solved. Also, Jessica Chastain needs a ride to the doctor to get some test results. And could Veronica take her? Sure she could, she's a great neighbour.
HZ: Sure she could! It's not like she has school.
JOY: Or a job.
HZ: Or multiple jobs. Last episode, I was saying that Veronica seems unsure of how to proceed in female friendships and this to me feels like another one where she's like, Well, I suppose this is how one acts in a female friendship, with someone I barely know.
JOY: Yeah, she learned a lot from Wanda. And now she's doing a great job with Sarah. <robot voice> Being a friend.
HZ: <robot voice> Friendship manoeuvre identified. Take to doctor.
JOY: Yes, exactly.
HZ: And then at school, Logan has a floor level locker, which means that vice principal Clemmons can come and tower over him. He wants a word, and he sure gets a word.
CLEMMONS: Mr Echolls. I was wondering if I could have a word.
LOGAN: 'Anthropomorphic'. All yours, big guy.
HZ: Classic high school smartass. Clemmons wants Logan do some admin for him. Aaron Echolls, his famous dad, has offered to auction some boots he wore in a high quality drama called Hair Trigger, so the school can fundraise. But Clemmons hasn't heard from him. Can Logan chase it up? I'm sure that's gonna happen. Logan is playing very high status this whole scene.
JOY: Clemmons says he thinks they can get enough in the auction to pay for a new scoreboard. And my question is: why is a school whose property tax zone is host to all of the 09er properties in need of fundraising? This just seems kind of wild.
HZ: Especially given how heavily the school prioritises sports, and particularly these rich kids playing the sports.
JOY: Yup. But this also does seem to be a public school and public schools in the United States are not notorious for being overfunded, generally speaking, so who knows what's going on?
HZ: And then over in the media classroom, where Veronica is, there is a chatterbox named Evelyn Bugby who is an alum of the school. And she is dressed like the 1950s.
JOY: For some reason. Yeah.
HZ: I think they were just like “She's older than these people”. But she's not like 70 years older than these people. She went to the school in the 1970s, approximately, and I don't feel like this woman, at this point, would be wearing 1950s vintage, either as a vintage fan or someone who existed in the 1950s.
JOY: Yeah, I think they're just trying to indicate like “This lady's a grown-up.”
HZ: A grown up from the past. Who really chats the fuck up.
JOY: We learn she's from the Alumni Association, and she's pestering Miss Dent, because she needs to scan a bunch of photos. She needs all this stuff for the upcoming class reunion. And Miss Dent pulls Veronica aside and says, “I would really like you to help this woman with her needs.” And Veronica is like, “Oh, I'm so busy.” Miss Dent is like, "Oh, but she's from the class of ‘79. Think of all the bad clothes you can mock," to which I say: look in the mirror, Veronica! How can you remove the splinter in your neighbour's eye when you have a plank in your own, as the Bible once said?
HZ: And in 15 years’ time, there'll be some jerks ripping into your outfits on a podcast. Although, I'd seem to remember she's wearing something quite nice in this scene.
JOY: Wellllll.
HZ: And she also says that another of her jobs is to keep this woman away from Miss Dent.
JOY: For the love of God, please.
HZ: I love to see the irritable side of Miss Dent, because she's such a perfect person. But she has not perfected herself out of being annoyed by annoying people, and good for her. Sad news though: if you are getting attached to Miss Dent and Sydney Tamiia Poitier: tough shit. This is her last episode. They couldn't afford to keep her as a series extra. It says on one Wikipedia entry that she left because she was pregnant. She wasn't pregnant for another 10 years unless it was a very very long elephantine pregnancy for that whole time. They just didn't have the budget.
JOY: That is a huge bummer. I will miss her.
HZ: As will I - as will Veronica, I think, because she made an ally over the last few episodes. Someone who would do her bidding, which is Veronica's fave kind of person.
JOY: Her favourite kind of person. And what luck that this woman who time travelled from the 1950s graduated the same year as Veronica's mom, Lianne!
HZ: Maybe she was held back 30 years - like she was originally a senior in the 1950s.
JOY: That's totally possible.
HZ: Happenstance, Veronica flips through the class of ‘79 yearbook. And who does she spot?
JOY: It's her mom, isn't it?
HZ: It is her mom.
JOY: And then she has a wistful little voiceover about how her mom was "voted most likely to disappear off the face of the planet".
HZ: Is that her actual yearbook caption?
JOY: No no - she didn't win that, I don't think they give out that superlative at Neptune for some reason.
HZ: What did you get in your school yearbook?
JOY: I don't think I got anything.
HZ: Huh? Is that good or bad.
JOY: But I would accept a superlative now if you wanted to give me one, Helen.
HZ: I can't choose!
JOY: Okay. Helen I would like to give you - I would like to give you the superlative of "Most likely to make me laugh so loud while we're taping that there are extra special notes in our editing scripts that say 'please turn Jenny's laugh down here’.”
HZ: And I will award you "Earth angel most most likely to sing in a way that makes me cry."
JOY: Oh My God. Wow, this this episode is so different from all our previous episodes to date. It just feels very personal. And I feel a lot of love being exchanged, which is feels appropriate. Because we're about to go to perhaps the greatest romance the show has yet offered us: Logan and Weevil. Will they? Won't they?
HZ: You know what they will do is be matched line for line in insults. It's magnificent.
JOY: It's really incredible how hard they go!
HZ: Logan's are still gross and racist and classist. But still, Weevil can knock them back with the best of them.
JOY: Great job, Weevil.
HZ: Unfortunately, they are having this badinage during a test which now because they have spoken during the test, they both fail, the teacher Mr. Daniels is not here for any of their bullshit.
JOY: But also he's kind of rude beyond the boundaries of a teacher telling Weevil that he's going to be pumping Logan's gas later in life and so on:
DANIELS: You know, the glow of your father's wealth and celebrity may be enough to sustain you through high school, Mr Echolls, but do you know what it will get you in the real world?
LOGAN: Please say ‘high school English teacher’. Please say ‘high school English teacher’.
[Weevil laughs.]
DANIELS: Mr Navarro. I wonder if you'll find Mr Echolls so amusing ten years from now. When you're pumping his gas.
HZ: This shocked me - are teachers likely to make such remarks to a student? Toxic Neptune strikes again.
JOY: They're really not supposed to. But I feel like it would be way less likely to happen now, because I think people - teachers - have to be way more aware of being appropriate than maybe they did 15 years ago. In high school, I'm sure I had a teacher or two say something super inappropriate at some point. This falls in that category for sure.
HZ: I remember when I was seven going on a nature walk with our teacher, who kept making quips about finding the murdered body of one of the people in our class. She was like, “Look, that's Nathan's shirt over there. That's where I buried Nathan's body.”
JOY: What the hell?
HZ: Maybe she really had.
JOY: Maybe she was trying to to turn herself in.
HZ: Maybe. It's just like, "Please, someone recognise the pain of having to trammel these jerks during their formative years". But now, Logan, and Weevil are stuck in detention together, and Weevil rightly complains that he got zero in the test for talking, where even though it was Logan who was talking to Weevil, and it was Logan who insulted the teacher in front of everybody. And Weevil is really on about the injustice in this town - and rightly, I think.
JOY: Yes, the injustice is real. But if the injustice didn't exist, we might not get to watch Weevil and Logan start playing poker together and they just can't stop flirting with each other.
HZ: It is beautiful. Thank goodness they're stuck in this detention unsupervised, and that they seem to have found an alliance so quickly. Unfortunately, the card game is short-lived because Mr. Daniels comes in scoops up the cards.
WEEVIL: Aw, come on, man!
LOGAN: What the hell? We were playing a game here.
DANIELS: This is punishment, gentlemen, not party time.
LOGAN: Well, that would explain the absence of balloon animals.
JOY: And gives them a full week of detention - and I'm so happy for them that he didn't confiscate the money in addition to the cards, because I feel like that could have easily happened.
HZ: That is a good point. I feel like Mr. Daniels isn't after their money in the way that Sheriff Lamb, say, would have been.
JOY: Yes, exactly.
HZ: He just hates everything - but that includes financial gain from children. And then back at the Mars residence, Veronica is hearing an argument as cued up earlier between Sarah and her boyfriend, who conveniently are not only audible but are also visible outside on the balcony. And so when Sarah storms into the apartment, the boyfriend stares threateningly at Veronica.
JOY: Yeah, and we hear that Andre told Sarah's mom she's pregnant, and Sarah is mad about it.
HZ: Sarah is visibly pretty pregnant, so presumably she has been concealing this from her mother for quite some time.
JOY: Yeah. And Veronica is woken up in the middle of the night by a scream that sounds like it belongs to Sarah, and a loud thud.
HZ: Then in the morning, Veronica, who has a tiny red jacket on, asks Keith if he heard anything, and Keith's like, "Nah, I can sleep through an earthquake." Do you believe that though? I feel like Keith sleeps with one eye open.
JOY: I believe that he does as well.
HZ: I like it that Veronica says, "It sounded like a falling body" and he says, "Would you describe the sound as Hitchcockian?" and then has a good laugh to himself.
JOY: I like when Keith makes himself laugh, especially at Veronica's expense.
HZ: He really doesn't seem particularly interested in the problems of the people upstairs. Which you think he would have had some clue about, if they really have been arguing so habitually.
JOY: So Veronica trots upstairs in her tiny little blazer to take Sarah to the doctor. But Sarah is nowhere to be seen, Killer's on top of the table barking, a ton of stuff in the apartment is broken and on the floor - it doesn't look good in there.
HZ: Or just messy.
JOY: Hmmm.
HZ: I have often wondered with places that I've lived in, because I'm untidy, if we were burgled, would people be able to tell if our home had been turned over, or whether that was just our normal mess?
JOY: Right? I guess it's an argument in favour of adhering to some kind of order.
HZ: I just wish it came easier to me. Teach me your ways. So that's one mystery already for Veronica this morning! And now she's at school, leafing through the yearbook and finds a page which says "Love is thicker than water" in a very 70s-looking font, above a heart-shaped photo of her mother Lianne Mars kissing Jake Kane.
JOY: Prom king and prom queen. Whhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?
HZ: Jeepers. Do you not think that there's quite a high chance that all the years Lianne Mars was living in the same home as Veronica, she may have had a yearbook around, and Veronica, being a bit nosy, might have looked in it?
JOY: I think that this show treats the personal histories of everyone on it like they just came into existence magically just now. It doesn't make any sense that Veronica wouldn't know that was a thing, I think.
HZ: Even though I was not a super smart teen detective with a nose for trouble, I was deeply interested in my parents’ past when I was little. And I always wanted stories about when they went to school and stuff like that, and how they met, and all of these things. And I can imagine that her mom wouldn't have said, "Well, of course at school I was Prom Queen with your boyfriend’s dad." But you would have thought maybe she would have got out the yearbook and shown her pictures of her so they could all laugh at the 70s fashions. Anyway, a surprising scene next for the toilet office because Veronica is not working in it, which means Weevil and Felix can piss and wash their hands, and also Felix can exposit that Weevil “tapped the fine white arse belonging to Lilly Kane”.
JOY: Helen, I want that to be my ringtone. I want your voice saying that sentence to be my ringtone.
HZ: What did I do now?
JOY: No, it was beautiful and perfect and so - it was just really great. So many incredible things coming together in one one sonic moment. Thank you.
HZ: And appropriately because Felix was intimating that Weevil was with Lilly Kane, who was at the time Logan's girlfriend, Weevil is wearing a Logan style sludge colour long sleeve t-shirt!
JOY: Oh my god, maybe that's just what happens to men who are involved with Lilly.
HZ: She drains all the colour out of their wardrobes.
JOY: Yeah, well, she's got a shine, come on now.
HZ: Or maybe men left grieving by the death of Lilly, they lose all the real greens and are just left with a greenish residue.
JOY: Also very possible.
HZ: Weevil's pretty pissed off about this.
JOY: Yeah, he's very defensive, and gets super mad at Felix and tells him that it wasn't like that. And what was it like Weevil?
HZ: This is a real dreamy episode for you, isn't it?
JOY: Everything's coming up Jenny in this episode.
HZ: in the hallway, Veronica and Duncan walk along together and some very choreographed extras pass in front and beside them in a mesmerising pattern.
JOY: Yeah, this is like this is like, who is the famous swimming pool choreographer - Busby Berkeley?
HZ: Veronica's asking Duncan if he knew that her mom and his dad were a couple and Duncan says no, very unconvincingly, because Duncan. And then flashback to the last year when Veronica is asking Lilly why Duncan had suddenly dumped her without warning, and is pretending that she doesn't exist and Lilly's like, "It's alright, he's just going through a phase. I'll talk to him, don't know what you people would do without me."
JOY: While meanwhile, in the present - now this is interesting. As part of their detention curriculum, Mr Daniels is having Weevil and Logan wash his car.
HZ: Is this allowed?
JOY: This is not allowed. But then neither is gambling, as he's quick to point out.
HZ: Two wrongs don't make a right.
JOY: I suppose that's true.
HZ: But Mr. Daniels does have a marvellous sweater with a kind of geometric design of lines on it.
JOY: I like everything about Mr. Daniels. I think he rocks.
HZ: He's so angry. He's really misusing his power.
JOY: He has a well-formed moustache. He cares about literature. And is this my wrong? I guess I'm just looking past the bad things about him.
HZ: And we know that this school has a very strange attitude to car-washing - student-based car-washing.
JOY: That's true. Honestly, we're lucky that that Weevil and Logan didn't have to strip down to their bikinis to perform this menial task.
HZ: You're unlucky, I would say. But what Logan is wearing is a shirt in a colour. What would you describe the colour as Jenny? I was thinking maybe light liver?
JOY: I'll take light liver for 200.
HZ: Maybe he should go to the clothing boutique that Veronica has turned up in looking for her neighbour Sarah. And she's talking to the shop assistant Nathan, who possibly is the boss that Sarah mentioned earlier? Who is such a useful expositer of information about Sarah and her boyfriend with the temper.
NATHAN: Might want to check with her boyfriend, Andre.
VERONICA: Do you know him?
NATHAN: I feel like I do. She talks about him ad nauseum. “He's such a brilliant artist; he's so down to earth; he has magic hands.”
VERONICA: I'm sensing you don't like him very much.
NATHAN: They fight all the time. And I know for a fact the guy's got a temper. A couple weeks ago she spent the night at my place. She was storming out, she didn't want to drive. Andre absolutely flipped out. They fought on the phone like Sid and Nancy.
JOY: He has a lot of information, but everything else about him is like, ugh, why? Why does the information have to come in this package?
HZ: Yeah, but he's very efficient with it. He drops the boyfriend's name, says he's a brilliant artist.
JOY: With magic hands.
HZ: He's got a temper... And he said that they fought on the phone like Sid and Nancy - do you think Sid and Nancy would be the reference on this guy's lips in 2004?
JOY: I don't think it would be the reference on that guy's lips. And also I have a hard time imagining Sid and Nancy fighting on the phone, which I don't think is exactly what he meant. But it's not a clean comparison to me.
HZ: No. Not a fun reference either.
JOY: No. But usefully, this guy knows exactly where Andre's studio is, and Veronica Mars decides to swing by.
HZ: What are the odds! It's unlocked. Either that or Veronica can just pass through doors. And although it's very large, there is of course not very much light. Because what do artists need? Not to be able to see the work they're doing.
JOY: Heavens no.
HZ: And here's Andre who is Buffy alum.
JOY: Yeah, I immediately have to dislike this guy, whenever I see him anywhere I mistrust him. It would take a lot for me to get on board with this guy playing any character because he plays a particularly vile scumbag on Buffy. And urgh.
HZ: Is that Parker Abrams?
JOY: That's right, that's the guy.
HZ: He was also cast in the original season 4 of Veronica Mars, not playing Andre again, but playing an FBI agent because the original idea was Veronica would graduate from college and join the FBI. And then the show was cancelled.
JOY: Oh, the way back then Season Four. This show loves - I mean, we haven't seen it yet. But this show just loves recasting the same actor to play a different character. What is that about?
HZ: Well. it's easy - already got the headshot. And Andre says that they fought because he finds Sarah's friends annoying and Sarah's mom hadn't known she was pregnant till Andre told her so Sarah had run off having escaped from Ohio, where her mom is. Then Andre makes the mistake of condescending to Veronica Mars. Who does that?
JOY: I wouldn't recommend it. He says, "Why don't you go play field hockey or whatever it is?" And Veronica's like, "In this blazer? Are you nuts?"
HZ: “I can't even move my arms, it's so small!”
JOY: Couldn't possibly swing a stick.
HZ: He does some shit jokes about Clue. But then they are interrupted by a sultry lady coming out from what looks like behind a shower curtain. She drops a robe and poses for some art in an impossible pose that you couldn't hold for more than about 30 seconds, clasping her hands behind her back.
JOY: That's legit something that happens in yoga class that usually gets held for somewhere between 30 and 90 seconds, I think, which is where I would tap out. And then Veronica tries to nudity-shame her, which seems uncalled for - Veronica is just in a bad mood and she's taking it out on this poor lady, who's just there trying to model.
HZ: Right. I've been to life drawing classes in the past. And they did not have the sexy atmos that Veronica is ascribing to that form of art. You know, they're doing a job, and the people drawing them have a technical job to do.
JOY: Yeah. And isn't the human body a work of art unto itself? And who hurt Veronica? You know what I mean? Who warped her perception of the human body.
HZ: At home later, she's agitated.
JOY: She's like doing her homework or whatever. She hears the dog barking and then she's like, “Oh, dogs just are like, like psychics about like bad vibes and they just know when things are wrong.” And she says to herself, "Now that I'm hearing this dog bark I have the corroboration I need" - to break in to somebody else's house? Because a dog?
HZ: Tenuous! I would say that this episode we're not seeing the best Veronica, either spiritually or detectively.
JOY: No.
HZ: Not her best work. And so she climbs through Sarah's window. Conveniently there's a chair placed on the other side of the window so she can step right into the room. Then she looks around in torchlight at some huge sinister paintings all over the place.
JOY: Okay, that painting over the bed is legitimately terrifying. And also, I know how much you must be enjoying this lighting.
HZ: I understand why this is dark.
JOY: Yeah, at least narratively there's a reason!
HZ: And the artwork, to be fair, doesn't look any less creepy in full lighting.
JOY: No, it's bad all the time.
HZ: There's also a thing in the bedroom that's sort of sticking out at an angle like a lamp post that someone's hit with a car, wrapped in duct tape, maybe it's a tribute to Wallace in the pilot. Very confused as to what that is, is it a giant earbud? We'll never know.
JOY: No, but she but she does find two useful or interesting items - she finds a pink phone which we must assume is Sarah's because the patriarchy, and also a gun. A gun!
HZ: But whoopsy - Andre is home. Shiiiit.
JOY: You know that classic "Your dog was barking in your door was unlocked, so I just let myself in and use your bathroom" bit that we all rely on at some point in our lives?
HZ: Who hasn't?
JOY: That's what she does. And it works, kind of?
HZ: Yeah, he's incredulous and just tells Veronica to stay out of his business. Maybe he's just too surprised. And you would think, given that the last time they had encountered each other she had told him in no uncertain terms not to underestimate her, that he wouldn't underestimate her upon breaking into his house. But back at school, Veronica is stuck with the chattering woman from the 1950s. Both of them are wearing quite similar stripes, so I wonder whether it's meant to indicate that they are united but different. But then Veronica has a real "What the fuck?" kind of jacket: it's sort of crinkly, it's similarly a light liver colour to Logan’s jacket, a bit like - I was once in a restaurant and they had a cookery programme playing on silent and it showed this enormous bowl of milk filled with livers - liver milk. And so as the recipe went on, the livers and the milk combined, and that's roughly the colour of this jacket. And also it has three lines of colour where you would have a chest pocket, and it has a sash and it has frayed cuffs. I feel like if you've put that much effort into the rest of the jacket, you would have finished the cuffs. Very dissonant note.
JOY: Yeah, I feel like this was maybe the dawn of like the mass production of destroyed stuff as a look. And they were still really dialling it in, so they were like, “We're gonna take this jacket all the way down.”
HZ: I remember that trend where Britney would turn up at an award ceremony wearing apocalypse clothes to do a song.
JOY: Apocalypse clothes, exactly. That's what she's wearing while she's pumping this Alumni Association broad for all the info she can get on Jake Kane and Lianne Mars. And this woman tells her that they weren’t just a couple, they were the couple, and says they were connected at the mouth in the hallway, which is what everybody wants to hear about their parents.
HZ: Like a couple in a movie, says Mrs 1950s. Veronica voiceovers about the fleetingness of affection. She's met a lot of people this episode that exposit things usefully.
JOY: Yeah, she should try to meet more people like these people in the episodes to come, because they really whip the plot along.
HZ: She flashbacks to a scene where, having asked Lilly in the previous flashback to have a word with Duncan about why he's gone cold on Veronica, Lillly, evidently, has been told about the family secret because she's like, "No, get over it. It's fine. Yeah, you should just move on." And then to the present again, and the classroom that is lit with like a dark orange light. Maybe that's why Mr Daniels is in such a bad mood, because he has to just squint at things all the time.
JOY: Yeah, could be - he might have a headache.
HZ: He's doing some declarative Shakespeare-ish talking. But the upshot is that he is leaving Logan and Weevil to alphabeticize his bookshelves. Firstly, why? When they're clearly not going to do a good job. And secondly, they can't even read the book titles in that light. What’s he doing?
JOY: And I have a really hard time believing that Mr Daniels doesn't already have his books organised in that fashion. Doesn't it just seem like they're already alphabetised?
HZ: Well, actually, I think Mr Daniels may have organised them by Dewey Decimal, or by genre, or by colour and height, and he's decided to freshen up the system to a different system just to fuck with these kids.
JOY: All right, all right. I can get into that. And as soon as he's gone -
HZ: Ugh, it’s upsetting to me to see.
JOY: Blatant disregard for literature, you hate to see it. Drop-kicking books, disgusting.
HZ: Throwing books. Weevil has a plan for poetic justice.
WEEVIL: I've got a plan.
LOGAN: Tick tick. Losing interest.
WEEVIL: Well, if I thought you had the cojones to pull it off, I'd tell you, but...
LOGAN: Never underestimate the size of my cojones.
HZ: Logan certainly loves to talk about his cojones.
JOY: He really does. And step one of the plan - hey, his car's gone. Mr Daniels’s teeny tiny little blue car, missing in action.
HZ: Maybe they cleaned it so hard that it's invisible now.
JOY: Yes. Yes. I think that's it.
HZ: Sarah's mom and stepfather have turned up at the Mars building to ask Andre where Sarah is and he says he'll call them at the hotel if she turns up. And as they leave, Veronica apprehends them and says, "My dad's a private detective, he could help, here's his card". Now, Jenny, if your daughter was missing, would you hire a private detective just based on some random kid accosting you and giving you her dad's business card?
JOY: I mean, I don't think it's the most effective way to drum up PI business, but also her mom and her stepdad look frazzled. And, you know, if you strike while the iron is hot, you might just reel in some new clients.
HZ: Exploit exploit exploit. Now let's see what the cojones hath wrought.
JOY: Mr Daniels's car has somehow been impaled upon the flagpole. How?
HZ: Engineering miracle!
JOY: Yeah, really incredible.
HZ: It’s really impressive.
JOY: I salute Weevil.
HZ: Absolutely. You know, if only his talents were turned to the right kinds of things, people would be falling over themselves to praise him.
JOY: Yeah, but instead he's immediately accused - they say there's a witness, but the witness is never produced and it just seems like they want to pin it on Weevil. They've decided Weevil did it, which sucks.
HZ: The witness is racial profiling.
JOY: Yeah, exactly. And that really sucks. But it does afford us the opportunity to see Weevil and Logan share a romantic nod to one another in the hallway as Weevil is brought in to be questioned. Love to see it.
HZ: Weevil is expelled. He feigns indifference. But we know that he wanted to do ok for his grandma.
JOY: Yeah. That sucked. Then we see Duncan, we see like a little 09er squad talking about this. And Duncan's like, "I didn't even know they expelled people at the school". And Dick is like, “Well, not our people.” And Logan is like seething, because he's like, “Everybody's talking about this and I'm not getting any credit.”
HZ: But Dick strolls up just to say, "If Weevil start selling oranges in front of my house, I'm going to be pissed." So I'm wondering: now that they've decided to redeem Logan a bit and dial down the amount of racist classist things that he says, they're just giving Dick those lines instead?
JOY: It does kind of seem that way, doesn't it?
HZ: The janitor is in the background looking confused as hell as to how to get this car off the pole?
JOY: Oh yes.
HZ: Just leave it there as a sculpture.
JOY: Yeah, it's art now.
HZ: And then at the Mars office, Sarah's parents are telling Keith that Sarah was very sweet until senior year and then suddenly became secretive and was always picking fights. And they hypothesise that Sarah was angry because her mother had remarried after her father died. They say she had a knack for attracting troubled young men. And her stepfather Randall says, "You're making her sound worse than she was, teens have moods." But the upshot is that Sarah didn't finish high school or say goodbye. She just fucked off from Ohio and ended up in Neptune.
JOY: So we are meant to believe that Jessica Chastain is the same age as Veronica Mars in this episode, more or less? She never finished high school?
HZ: They are roughly the same age as actors. And they both look approximately the same now as they did 15 years ago when this was filmed.
JOY: Yeah, maybe that's really the thing - maybe they're both ageless, and that's what's tripping me up. Okay.
HZ: But I suppose Kristen Bell reads young and Jessica Chastain reads a little older than her age in this episode. But you're right, I didn't really clock until I rewatched this for the purposes of this podcast that Jessica Chastain was supposedly a school contemporary of Veronica's rather than someone about eight years older.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: But after the parents have gone, Keith tells Veronica that she is off the case.
KEITH: Look, sweetie, young, attractive girls who take up with troubled men? Disappear without warning? Honey, I've handled a hundred of these cases in my life and they often end badly. Prepare yourself.
HZ: So I don't know whether he's just protecting Veronica from it, or what?
JOY: Now that I'm getting my mind around that she's of an age with Veronica, maybe he's preparing himself, maybe it's really tough for him to see bad things happen to young women who are around Veronica's age.
HZ: Yeah, true. Quick trip to the toilet office. Veronica calls Sarah's doctor and pretends to be Sarah to get the results of a DNA test she's had on the baby: who's its daddy? Not Andre!
JOY: This is wild though because this is the appointment Sarah needed a ride - she needed to go in in person to get these results, but Veronica is able to just snake them over the phone.
HZ: Yes, usually when I call my doctor things like that, I have to give some identifying information.
JOY: Yeah - social security, DOB.
HZ: But maybe Veronica has got all that from her computer programme.
JOY: Yeah, who knows what private eyez.com with a Z has provided Veronica about her young friend. Logan is ready to make a deal.
HZ: Yeah, Logan is pissed off at not having got the credit for for this amazing car prank and he's gone to see vice principal Clemmons about it.
CLEMMONS: Mr Echolls. What can I do for you?
LOGAN: Man, I tell you Mr Clemmons, I am pissed off!
CLEMMONS: I need for you to use appropriate language in here, Mr Echolls. Now, what's got under your skin?
LOGAN: It's that Weevil kid.
CLEMMONS: He is no longer a student here.
LOGAN: Yeah, I know. But the problem is, he's getting all the credit for sticking Mr Daniels’s car on the flagpole. And all of the sudden, he's like the biggest badass in- …rad dude here at Neptune. I mean, people are gonna be talking about that punking for years.
CLEMMONS: I don't think I understand.
LOGAN: I mean, I want my share of the credit.
JOY: Yeah, he basically confesses to helping Weevil, bemoans the fact that he hasn't received the credit that he feels he is due, and then cuts vice principal Clemmons off at the knees in terms of punishment by popping his daddy's movie boots up on to the desk. If Clemmons wants those....
HZ: Find someone who looks at you the way that Clemmons looks at those boots: with a mixture of love and desperation. I keep getting Facebook ads for very similar boots, by the way. So if you want some, Modern Vice is the brand. They have black boots like these with red stars, but a lightning bolt down the side.
JOY: Should we get a matching pair?
HZ: Very nice. They are about $500 each. So...
JOY: That sounds like a bargain. That's $250 per foot.
HZ: No wonder they think auctioning this off has got to be worth something to the school.
JOY: A small price to pay for our feet to look the same in those boots.
HZ: They are some pretty snazzy boots. Do you think Clemmons just wants them for his own feet?
JOY: It's possible he might be the person who's going to, pay for the scoreboard.
HZ: I reckon Clemmons would cut his toes off to get his feet into Aaron Echolls’s boots from some shit film. Back to the boutique, and Veronica tells Nathan about how Andre is not the baby's father, which you think Nathan, seeming to know everything about Sarah and Andre's life, would already know. He's like, "Oh yeah, I did my own DNA test on her what she wasn't looking."
JOY: Oh Jesus!
HZ: He says that he is also not the father. And says maybe the guy that raped her is the baby's father.
JOY: Dude, what? Nathan!
HZ: This is the first Veronica has heard about a rape. Like, I realised that they've just put this character in to tell Veronica what to think and do, but have some sensitivity.
JOY: Yeah. Yep. Also, rape, is it always going to be in this show?
HZ: It does seem like one of their favoured devices for trying to add drama to a plot. And it is certainly not one of the things I admire most about the show. Because it feels like this is pretty late in the episode to mention that she has been raped, and so it feels a little flippant where suddenly you're like, "Oh, this is why this mystery counts: there's a rape in it." But the rape is the reason why Sarah fled Ohio without saying goodbye and ended up in Neptune far, far away. And don't tell Nathan about your life and your personal info because he's a blabbermouth.
JOY: Definitely don't do that.
HZ: Veronica accuses Nathan of stealing Sarah's diary and then struts off and makes a phone call and asks Weevil for a favour.
JOY: My favourite scene. Yes! Weevil and all the PCHers roll up. Wow! They are here for Prada. They are here for Hermès. They are here for all of your fancy brands. And they want to try everything on, they want to throw piles of shirts around - including a green tie, including a white jacket until Veronica's like:
VERONICA: Guys! Remember! No white after Labour Day!
PCHERS: Ohh!
JOY: And then all the bikers are like, “Ohh!” What is this scene? It's so funny.
HZ: It's bizarre. Veronica is basically trying to bully Nathan into giving up the diary. Not Veronica's best episode.
JOY: No no, she's not doing her best work.
HZ: She's like, “I can't be arsed this week. I'll just give the threat of violence to get what I want.”
JOY: That's what she's doing.
HZ: Keith is busy surveilling Andre and the model who are coming out of the studio with huge suitcases.
JOY: Huge suitcases, suitcases you could fit a Jessica Chastain in each one, I think.
HZ: If you had two Jessica Chastains. And Keith, in the car on a dark street, is still better lit than students in classrooms. Sorry to harp on about it, but apparently I can't stop myself. Keith follows Andre and the model and apprehends them at the railway station, accuses Andre of skipping town, and he's like “I'm just dropping off my friend.” Now. They're on a regional train line. I've been on it. Why is she travelling so heavy, with like stuff that you would move to the other side of the world amounts of suitcase?
JOY: Yep. Especially when she was ostensibly there to be naked.
HZ: Maybe she came dressed - no. Why would she come with big suitcases if she was wearing a lot of clothes?
JOY: It’s all very complicated.
HZ: I once saw a video artwork, which was a guy putting clothes on until he had so many clothes on he could barely breathe. So maybe that's what they got up to after Veronica left the studio.
JOY: Oh yeah.
HZ: It's possible. Weevil and Logan back together again, the next day at school. Weevil has been unexpelled.
CLEMMONS: This will go on your permanent record, but you're extremely fortunate that you're not being suspended or expelled.
WEEVIL: Does it go on my permanent record that I was un-expelled?
CLEMMONS: Don't push your luck, Eli.
JOY: They're going to do some painting themselves. Unfortunately, no one is naked.
HZ: I'm so sorry. Yeah, they're just gonna paint over some graffiti. Weevil is scantilyish clad enough, though, that Logan notices a tattoo on him, one of the many - and it says ‘Lilly’.
JOY: Oh yeah. And he flips! And he's like ”WHY?” and Weevil’s like, "You really want to know?" And then they have a moment where they just do that for a minute and get their faces closer and closer. And Weevil says, "It's my little sister's name". And I it's difficult to suspend my disbelief that there are not one but two Lillys in Neptune who spell their names L I L L Y.
HZ: Yes. Also I feel like 2004, the name Lilly had only been coming back in for a few years. Jason Dohring's daughter in real life is called Lilly with the double L. What do you think about that?
JOY: I feel weird about that. I mean, it's not my place to feel weird about it. But it does kind of raise a question mark.
HZ: "How did you come up with my name, mommy and daddy?" “Well, you were named after a dead girl who was my girlfriend in a drama that you are 20 years too young to watch”?
JOY: Yeah, yes. But hey, we don't know what's going on over there.
HZ: Maybe he's got another child called Weevil.
JOY: Now that I'm into. And also maybe he's like, you know, “Veronica Mars, the show - it was something really special that I was a part of, and I want to like, honour that, and I really am thankful for it. And I'd like to name my daughter after a character on the show.”
HZ: “Keith Mars.” I've also read a bunch of interviews with him where he talks about how he got married not that long before the show started filming, but also that for the duration of the three years that they were filming the original series, he was in love with Kristen Bell. And he was like, “Seriously, I felt like I would die without her.” And even if he didn't act on it at all off camera, I'm just wondering whether that would be some tension in your private life, that intensity.
JOY: Well, I'm glad I'm not in love with Kristen Bell and having to work with her every day. I'm neither in love with Kristen Bell nor having to work with her every day.
HZ: Veronica is in the Mars office leafing through Sarah's diary. So evidently the PCHer intimidation worked. Unfortunately, Sarah is not as prone to explaining everything in pithy and easy to understand detail that Veronica has got so used to this episode. So she doesn't give details about the rape. But she has done some drawings of nearby locations.
JOY: Yeah, including a stretch of beach labelled ‘Paradise" that Veronica immediately recognises and drives to.
HZ: And then she spots a car with an Ohio plate! How convenient.
JOY: Yeah, just full of stuff - definitely looking like somebody's been living in it for a minute.
HZ: And she finds Sarah in a shelter on the cliff.
JOY: And after she finds Sarah, Sarah is like, “Oh, you found me.” And then she like, looks around. And she's like, “I'm gonna miss all this.” What does it mean? Where does she thinks she's going? Ohio?
HZ: Oh, yeah, maybe that's the implication. Or maybe she's going to have to run further away next time than two minutes away from where we both live. Veronica tells Keith that she's found Sarah. And and then Keith says:
VERONICA: I found her.
KEITH: I know. Word's out in the complex. I’m very impressed.
VERONICA: Think I've got a future in the biz?
KEITH: I think you've got a future as a highly-paid, Ivy League educated executive of some sort who never thinks about private investigation again in her perfect life. Now. Let's do something normal fathers and daughters do.
VERONICA: Buy me a pony?
KEITH: I was thinking I'd watch TV and you'd rub my feet?
VERONICA: Hmm. Yeah, that’s normal.
HZ: Which is a runner in Veronica Mars. So I'm just saying prepare yourselves for future "buy me a pony" jokes.
JOY: Hooray. But Keith's counter offer is "I thought I would watch TV while you rub my feet", which is maybe not a thing to do.
HZ: I've rubbed my mom's feet but not my dad's feet. Trying to think if I've ever even seen my dad's feet.
JOY: And I hope it stays that way.
HZ: Upstairs, in Sarah's apartment, Andre's making the bed, asking Sarah she's seen his keys. And Sarah says, "You're not leaving, are you?" And he's like, "No, Sarah. I'm not the one who's always leaving". Is that necessary? He's like "God I had to put up with your parents all this time. Go and deal with them. Sick of it." I'm paraphrasing, but...
JOY: Well, to his credit they're her parents, and he's been making small talk with them for a couple hours as they like sit out in their living room and she hides in the bedroom.
HZ: Yeah. But also, he didn't seem that concerned when Sarah was missing. Wouldn't you be a bit more concerned than him?
JOY: I certainly would be.
HZ: And if so, would you be less insulting when she's back?
JOY: Perhaps yes.
HZ: But downstairs in the Mars apartment, there's a little meal of foreshadowing happening. They're talking about how Andre knew the baby wasn't his.
KEITH: I don't know. I mean, he knows about the DNA test, that…the baby's not his. And he said it didn't matter.
VERONICA: Which in itself is all sorts of freakish.
KEITH: Or it's a testament to how much he loves her. A man's gotta be pretty committed to a woman, who would agree to raise another man's child. Do you know who the real father is? Hello? Earth to Mars!
JOY: And Veronica pouring a root beer with the fridge door open is like, “Whhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?”
HZ: “Bells are ringing in my brain.”
JOY: And you could see it all falling and locking into place: the yearbook photo of her mom and Jake Kane, being prom king and queen. The flashbacks of Duncan breaking up with her one day without ever saying anything. Lilly saying she'd talk to him and then coming back and saying, "Just trust me. It's for the best." All of these things - so many things.
HZ: Good thing she's processing quickly, because there's no time to sit and digest this information, because upstairs there's a row at Sarah's apartment and they can clearly hear Sarah shouting, "He raped me. He raped me. Your husband raped me." Useful for her to give away so much plot in the Mars earshot. And Action Keith to the rescue! He rushes upstairs. There's a hell of a fight going on in the house. Sarah's got the gun that Veronica spotted earlier. Good thing she broke in to avail us of that plot point. Randall knocks it out of Sarah's hands. They're fighting, he's about to attack Sarah, when Keith, through the window, shoots him in the shoulder. Then back to the scene from before the titles. The ambulance is leaving, Keith and Veronica are musing on this tragedy.
JOY: Yeah, well, that guy knows who his daddy is now, A; and B, Veronica is somehow finding a way to try to blame herself for this, and she says, "The real tragedy came along a while ago I just brought it to the surface. But are some things better left buried?" Not everything is about you, Veronica, please!
HZ: I suppose she's talking about her own life, whether she should bury the sense that maybe Keith is not her daddy despite - well he's always questioning it, isn't he? Always saying, "Who's your daddy?"
JOY: Oh my god! Aahhh.
HZ: So let's check on how many crimes were committed by the collected Marses.
JOY: So many crimes, oof!
HZ: Quite a few. Let’s ask our resident Southern Californian lawyer Lo Dodds to give us the LoDown.
THE LODOWN
JOY: OK, what crimes is Veronica committing by breaking into Sarah's apartment?
LO DODDS: She's just committing trespassing again.
HZ: Classic Veronica.
LO DODDS: Because again, you've got this whole intent issue and Veronica is there to check on her friend. She's not intending to steal anything or do anything nefarious, so she's just trespassing.
HZ: How do you prove intent?
LO DODDS: Well, the police would try to prove that she was there to steal something, by either whatever her behaviour was beforehand, or if she actually stole something; that's when you can say it's burglary, because she walked out of there with the phone or cash or whatever it is.
HZ: The dog. She's going to steal that dog.
LO DODDS: Exactly, the dog; she could have. But yeah, generally speaking, if you walk in on someone in an apartment, and they have some valid excuse for being there, you would hope that "I'm the downstairs neighbour" and that checks out, then hopefully she's not going to get charged with burglary. Also Andre would have to press charges, and I don't think he's going to do it.
JOY: And then Keith shoots someone. Is he going to be in trouble for doing that?
LO DODDS: He's not going to be in trouble. Self defence extends to defence of other people. So if you believe that someone else is about to suffer imminent harm, you are allowed to defend them and Keith having gun, this is America and he was allowed to use his gun. And yeah, I think he did a good job of just shooting him in the arm as opposed to just killing him on the spot.
HZ: Quite a difficult angle, given that the guy was low compared to where Keith was.
LO DODDS: It was and yeah, I don't think police officers are trained to do that to just disarm. Because you face a lot of liability if you attempt to disarm and then that person goes on to kill a bunch of people. But yeah, Keith did the saving move there. And I don't think he'd bear any responsibility for doing that since the stepfather was attempting to grab a gun and kill the woman he raped.
JOY: And what are carry laws in California?
LO DODDS: California has some of the strictest gun laws in the United States. But Keith would be an exemption to those laws, because Keith is a former law enforcement officer. And there's a federal act that allows law enforcement officers and former law enforcement officers to conceal carry if they meet certain qualifications. However, the very first one of those qualifications is that you have to have left the force in good standing. And I don't know if being subject to a recall election qualifies as being in good standing. And so whether Keith would really qualify or whether he would have to go through the laws , what they existed as in 2004, to conceal carry in California. But let's assume he did, because he's a good guy. And in which case, he'd be allowed to conceal carry.
JOY: And then what kind of crime is it inviting a biker gang to come and mess up a store so that you can get someone's diary?
LO DODDS: I don't know that that's any crime. I don't think that the PCHers really could be charged with anything, because at no point did the guy tell them to leave the store. So the fact that they're in there trying on clothes, and generally being assholes, at the point which he tells them, “Hey, you're no longer welcome here,” then again, you might be dealing with some trespassing issues. If they ruined any of the clothing, he might be able to get them charged with theft or vandalism.
HZ: Or messy unfolding. Tie-mocking.
LO DODDS: Exactly. But that's what I mean: everyone goes into a store and pulls a sweater out and doesn't fold it back up again. So the idea that you could prove that these people did it with malicious intent is a little bit unlikely. And let's be honest, they didn't really do anything other than be there and play on that guy's obviously very racist mind that they were obviously going to be there to destroy his store as opposed to really try on the new product line.
HZ: And I was very impressed by this feat of engineering that Weevil and Logan commit by putting the car on the flagpole. But what kind of offences are they committing by doing that?
LO DODDS: So there's a difference between stealing a car and lactually meaning to steal it and forever deprive its owner of its use. That's when you're going into grand theft auto. But there are lower charges for joyriding, which this might fall under, which is just temporarily taking someone's car away from them, you know, to get away from a crime or to, in this case, wrap it around a flagpole. Since he's going to get the car back, it's really just going to be about the damage to the car, the vandalism to the car.
HZ: Seems significant damage to have a hole in the roof and the floor.
LO DODDS: Is it though?
HZ: It's leaky!
LO DODDS: The car is supposed to be crappy, so you don't know how much the car’s actually worth. And if the damage to the car is so bad that he just gets the insurance write-off, you don't know whether or not it was that much to begin with. Again, it's like not the crime that you're thinking about here, it's the civil suit because Mr. Daniels is definitely going to turn around and look at Aaron Echolls and say, “Hey, you owe me this $4,000 car, you owe me a replacement or you owe me the repairs,” and Aaron Echolls is definitely going to pony up for that.
HZ: Or just give them another pair of his old shoes.
LO DODDS: Exactly. Give him maybe the hat he wore in Hair Trigger.
HZ: Ooh, going above and beyond.
LO DODDS: Exactly, I also really didn't understand the whole witness issue in that thing where they said they had a witness. And Weevil, they're like asking him who helped you who helped you? And he smartly says, “Why don't you just ask your witness?” And so it doesn't make any sense that they would think anybody helped him if they only saw him committing the crime, and if they didn't have a witness at all, why did they think Weevil did it in the first place?
HZ: Maybe Mr. Daniels has so few enemies that he of course knows who the enemy is?
LO DODDS: Mr. Daniels is formerly of 21 Jump Street. So you feel like his intuition should be better.
HZ: He knows how to deal with crimes in schools.
HZ: Jenny, what's your best line from this episode?
JOY: My favourite thing - my favourite word thing that happened is the exchange between Clemmons and Logan when Clemmons says, "I was wondering if I might have a word" and Logan does sort of like Hollywood hands and is like, “‘Anthropomorphic’. All yours, big guy." Love it.
HZ: It's a beaut. I'm gonna give it to Weevil, though, because as good as Logan's lines are in this episode, I think Weevill has it better. When Logan says, "They teach you manners in ESL?" and Weevil says, "If I was going to cheat, you think I'd choose someone smart."
JOY: Hell yes, Weevil!
HZ: And what a glorious episode for the Weevil fan! Which is my nickname for Jenny Owen Youngs.
JOY: Yeah! Am I alone? Am I the only Weevil stan out here?
HZ: Impossible that you could be the only one.
JOY: Tweet at me please, my fellow Weevilians.
HZ: Is that the hashtag, Weevilians?
JOY: Yeah, we're gonna need a better hashtag.
HZ: Come to think of it, he maybe deserves a better nickname. How did he end up with that? ‘Weevil’?
JOY: I don't know. I like it. Somehow he just makes it cool.
HZ: So Jenny, how do you score this episode?
JOY: Okay, I have two separate scores going. For the main mystery, I'm going to give it three and a half out of five tiny chihuahuas with big vicious names, because I feel like as soon as I hear the word ‘rape’ and I see a stepdad enter a narrative, all the alarms start going off for me. No offence to real life stepdads. This is just what Law and Order: SVU has done to my brain. But far more exciting than that, to me, is the mystery of how Weevill end Logan impaled Mr. Daniels car the flagpole, which I give 11 out of 5 compact cars impaled mysteriously on a freaking flagpole. Helen?
HZ: Yeah, I agree. The main mystery, when you think back on it, it's quite paltry. It's not the best use of Veronica. It feels like she's disengaged; her technique's bad; she's a bully with Nathan; she's pestering Andre with no useful outcome. And also, I do think it's flippant to introduce family abuse two minutes before the end of the episode. It’s pretty late in the episode just to be like, oh, drama points from rape. It's not something admirable. But it's certainly an experience that the character could have had, that they did something better with if they decided that they had to portray it. But I feel like it's doing everyone a disservice. So I felt - sorry, Jessica Chastain, because I do feel bad for your character. But I'm giving the main mystery 1.5 out of five random women dressed like the 1950s. But this could have just been a bottle episode of Weevil and Logan in detention with occasional cameos from angry Mr. Daniels: the dynamic is so great, because they're both usually the troublemaker, and usually their other relationships are imbalanced because they're the power in their respective friendship groups. And then they often square off at each other like alpha versus alpha, but in this episode, they are united against the common enemy, which is a classic political technique. And so I award the Weevil-Logan parts of the episode 4½ out of 5 starry boots, and I've deducted half a boot for throwing books, which is very upsetting to me.
JOY: Well reasoned. So I guess that's another episode of Veronica Mars investigated.
HZ: Case closed.
JOY: That was Season 1, episode 7: The Girl Next Door.
HZ: Watch season 1 episode 8 and join us in a week to investigate it.
JOY: Find the show on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @VMIpod.
HZ: The website, where this show lives along with a tiny dog called Killer, is vmipod.com.
JOY: I’m Jenny Owen Youngs, and you can learn more about the music that I make at jennyowenyoungs.com. I'm currently three songs deep releasing a five-song EP one song at a time every month. And you can hear those songs and more at my website. You can also listen to me talk at length about Buffy the Vampire Slayer on my other podcast Buffering the Vampire Slayer.
HZ: I'm Helen Zaltzman I make the entertainment podcasts with facts and information in them Answer Me This and The Allusionist. The Allusionist is about to go on tour of North America, and you can find out all about it at theallusionist.org.
JOY: I've seen Helen do something live for like twenty minutes, that was maybe the most stunning twenty minutes of somebody talking about something that I've ever seen.
HZ: Wow.
JOY: Yeah. What do you think about that?
HZ: That's an incredible accolade, Jenny. Do you think if you came to see an hour of it, because this show’s an hour, would it be three times more incredible or would it be diminishing returns?
JOY: I'm on board for the full hour. Give it to me, please. This episode was edited and mixed by Zach McNees, with music from Martin Austwick and a tiny little bit of music from Jenny Owen Youngs - that’s me.
HZ: If you liked the tiny little bit, imagine how much you’re going to like her several albums and EPs. 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: The guy with invisible feet.