VMI 1.09: Drinking the Kool-Aid transcript
Visit VMIpod.com/1-09 to hear this episode
Content note: MILK!
Content note: some dude sitting around a bonfire playing acoustic guitar!
A LONG TIME AGO ON VERONICA MARS:
HZ: Veronica sends off a DNA test to find out who’s her daddy.
JOY: A rich white boy of Neptune has supposedly joined a cult - and become much nicer as a result…
HZ: Veronica infiltrates the supposed cult - and starts getting sucked in herself!?!
JOY: And what’s happened to darling Keith’s poor precious face???
JOY: Slyly tricking you out of a blood sample in order to determine whether I’m entitled to your vast fortune, I’m Jenny Owen Youngs.
HZ: Unremembering the consumer siren song, I’m Helen Zaltzman.
You’re listening to Veronica Mars Investigations season 1 episode 9: Drinking the Kool-Aid.
HZ: Do you think that that is a reference that people should ease off on given that the Kool-Aid in question was poisonous and killed a lot of people?
JOY: You know, Helen, I'm so glad you asked.
HZ: Thanks!
JOY: It does feel like a pretty indelicate - but also, it's really worked its way into the collective consciousness. It's really hard to root out something that pervasive, maybe. But it's ragged. Also, a lot of those people were forced to drink that Kool-Aid at gunpoint - I feel like it implies something that wasn't even necessarily the case with the actual consumption of the Kool-Aid.
HZ: Right.
JOY: But I guess the argument is that the people were already they're putting themselves in a position of belief and involvement in this organisation and therefore, what, they deserved to drink the Kool-Aid even when they protested? I think this phrase has got to go!
HZ: It's not great. Do you think it helped or hindered Kool-Aid sales?
JOY: Well, what's wild is it wasn't even Kool-Aid! It was actually Flavor Aid - a whole other brand. Now is it worse for Kool-Aid? Or is it actually better for Kool-Aid because greater name recognition?
HZ: Was it worse for Flavor Aid? They don't get the blame. But neither did they get the fame.
JOY: No blame no fame, as I always say.
HZ: Should we change this to "You're listening to Veronica Mars Investigations season one episode nine: Drinking the Flavor Aid”?
JOY: I'm in favour of that. I think the least we could do.
HZ: Let's right this wrong.
The episode opens where the previous episode closed, with Veronica in the car crying after a pretty rotten visit to death row to see Abel Koontz, who has told her that maybe she's not the daughter of Keith Mars but maybe the daughter of Jake Kane. And so she's been crying, which seems reasonable.
JOY: Her head is spinning, her tears are flowing, she's pulling over to throw up because she's thinking about how Duncan might be her brother!
HZ: Veronica seems to be the last person to know this.
JOY: Veronica, you didn't bother to throw up when you knew Duncan was your boyfriend.
HZ: But then sassy music kicks in - the first few minutes of this episode are very energetic. Veronica, having got through this traumatic episode, is now really on the case, and the case is her own self.
JOY: Shewhips through this chain of discovery like nobody's business. The music kicks in. And then she's like, yo, look at this surveillance photo. Oh my gosh, that Book Week banner. Oh my gosh, “Mrs. So and So when was book week last year?” She narrows it down, she knows it was a Thursday because she had an appointment. She goes to a restaurant that has a table that yields the exact surveillance photo angle. Thank god she's already familiar with surveillance photography. Then she sweet-talks the receipt from that date from that table around the time of her appointment from the hostess or waitress working at this restaurant.
HZ: For once Veronica doesn't lie to get what she wants, because she says someone's been stalking her. She has to think about what it's like to be on the lens end of a long lens for once. What she discovers, though, from this receipt that she's managed to get is that it was paid for by a man Clarence Wiedman because he paid with a credit card - now, if you're being a stealth person, do you really do that?
JOY: Honestly, and if you’re Clarence Wiedman, I feel like you have the resources to just have a credit card with a alias on it if you absolutely needed to use a card. Clarence Wiedman is the freaking head of freaking Kane Software security.
HZ: Yes! This is what Veronica's surveillance finds out. And you know that he's officious and intimidating because he wears a long black coat.
JOY: Mm hmm, stay out of the way of long black coat wearers.
HZ: And now Veronica knows who he is and where he is:
VERONICA VOICEOVER: And there it is. I know who’s responsible for scaring Mom away. So if Jake Kane is my biological father that information is gonna be worth millions. And after what that family has done to mine, I intend to collect.
JOY: Yeah, she wants that Kane fortune and: swell credits! A long time ago, we used to be friends.
HZ: That was a zippy intro. There was already a lot of interest in this show. I do think it has a lot of compelling long arcs, but they are amping the fuck up to go into the second half of the season.
JOY: Yeah, this feels like this feels like they've kicked up the juice a little bit. It's very exciting.
HZ: And then Veronica gets home. And she's concerned that Keith has a wound on his face, which I can't actually see, thanks to the way the show is lit. I don't see it until quite a lot later. And it doesn't seem to be related to the scuffle he had with Wallace's mom's bad tenant last episode, because Keith seemed unblemished by that experience. How's Keith's face got some chips in it?
JOY: He says that he was sliding into home but he doesn't say whether it was baseball, softball, kickball... we don't know what sport he was playing. However, Wikipedia has revealed to me that this was actually a real life injury that Enrico Colantoni suffered while playing ice hockey.
HZ: Oh! Wow.
JOY: If anybody if anybody needed to add more hot dad credentials to Enrico Colantoni's resumé - ice hockey, just slap it right on there.
HZ: Wow. And they thought, "Don't cover it up, just make it seem like Keith has been doing some unreferred to in the plot cases that may have turned a little little bit punchy".
JOY: It looks so rough that I feel like they didn't even have the option of covering it up. It looks like a pretty bad open wound scab situation when we can actually see it later.
HZ: Keith sounds like he's fobbing Veronica off so she doesn't worry. But he is so full of beans! He is excited.
JOY: What does it mean in England when you're full of beans?
HZ: What does it mean an American?
JOY: I think that you've just eaten like a bunch of beans. There's no saying.
HZ: In Britain it means that you're full of energy and very excited. Imagine a Labrador puppy, they're full of beans.
JOY: I'm frequently imagining a Labrador puppy, so this is an easy exercise for me. Is the idea that beans are like high in protein? So you're like, “Wow, I've got all this energy now, zip a dee doo dah!”
HZ: Great question. I don't know how much appropriate science there is behind the expression. Maybe it's magic beans?
JOY: Oh magic beans. All right.
HZ: And why is Keith so excited?
JOY: He's so excited because many years after the initial request, he's finally been able to get Veronica Mars the waterbed of her eight-year-old dreams. Boy is he hyped!
KEITH: Come on, you’ve wanted one of these things since you were, like, five years old.
VERONICA: I also wanted to marry Vanilla Ice and build the world’s largest collection of Z-bots.
HZ: You know, when someone is no longer a little child, maybe those aren't the dreams to make come true. Maybe get some updated dreams just to check.
JOY: Well, this dream was free with some Gordon Lightfoot records. So, you know… Was there a waterbed craze in the 90s in England?
HZ: They were a very far-fetched status symbol. I don't think they were as common as they were in the States. I think at some point in the States in the late 1980s they accounted for 22% of bed sales. Do you think it's because it only takes one puncture and you have to get a brand new bed?
JOY: Oh maybe yeah, you see a lot of - what percentage of those bed sales are repeat customers buying a second or third waterbed?
HZ: Now it's down to 5%, which surprised me.
JOY: Oh my god!
HZ: It's not like one in twenty beds I encounter is full of water.
JOY: Yeah, 5% seems still remarkably high.
HZ: Buoyant!
JOY: When I was in high school, my step brother who is 10 years older than me had a waterbed and he was like really cool. And he also had a pet Vietnamese pot-bellied pig.
HZ: Wow, another 90s trend that I would still be kind of interested in.
JOY: He was living the extreme 1990s fad lifestyle. And it was very important to make sure Oscar - that was the pig’s name - didn't get onto the waterbed because of like potential hoof puncturing. But what Oscar would do, for some reason, he would kind of get up on the side of it. And one day he just fell between the waterbed and the wall upside down, hooves kicking, squealing his head off, desperate for someone to come and rescue him - but waterbeds are really freaking heavy, because they're full of water.
HZ: That's how it works.
JOY: It was a whole fiasco. And what I guess my thesis statement here is maybe we should think more carefully about our fads and maybe spacing Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs far away from waterbeds in terms of like what's cool right now, maybe just keep things separated by a nice five year margin that could negatively impact one another.
HZ: Did he keep the waterbed?
JOY: The waterbed was around for a while, but definitely is no longer.
HZ: I don't think I've ever slept on the water. But I have lain on one and I remember it being comfortable but loud, like a sick stomach sloshing noise.
JOY: And I kind of remember it being like warm to the touch, which feels weird.
HZ: Well, they have to heat them because otherwise you're lying on cold water, which is not so great.
JOY: Lying on warm water doesn't seem so great either. I don't know. It just seems... who came up with this shit?
HZ: Someone in the 1800s I think, and then someone in the mid 20th century in the States decided to commercialise them. I think initially there were a medical thing because they are quite good at supporting your back, especially compared to whatever people were sleeping on before where it was like a sack of hay, some sawdust. I love that Keith says, "I got it as a throw-in with some more Gordon Lightfoot LPs" and then looks absolutely beatific at the thought of Gordon Lightfoot. He looks like an angel in a painting. But then Veronica gets very serious and sentimental sudden in and says “I love you”, even though she's now got to deal with having a waterbed.
JOY: And they hug and then what she says in her mind, but not out loud is, "I really hope you're my dad."
HZ: We all hope. We all hope Keith's our dad, and her dad, but I mean our dad. Over in Keith's office, there's a pair of parents who you know are uptight because the dad is wearing a business suit with a really really really wide tie, and the mom has a beige sweater knotted over her shoulders, and it doesn't go with her outfit at all because she's wearing quite a cool red pattern shirt but then this beige sweater just to square it all up.
JOY: Yeah, you want to avoid adults with sweaters tied around their shoulders at pretty much all costs, I think.
HZ: Unless they're pretending to be Superman.
JOY: That's acceptable - the one acceptable use of a knotted sweater, as a stand in for a cape. You know I love capes, Helen, very pro cape. This is a pro cape podcast.
HZ: Right. And if you're in a cape mood but your cape is at the cleaners, I can see why people would improv a cape with a sweater, even though it's not ever going to convince. But these people, the Gants, are having a problem with their son Casey. He's only gone and joined a cult! The Mooncalf collective. He went and joined six weeks ago he sold his Porsche Boxster and gave them all his money. Have you heard the word ‘mooncalf’ before, Jenny?
JOY: I haven't, should I have?
HZ: Well, it's a derogatory term for stupid people.
JOY: Really? What a strange choice!
HZ: Yeah, but it derives from a word from the 1500s that meant an abortive foetus of a cow or a farm animal. Because at the time, there was the thought that a malformed foetus was the result of the moon having a malign influence on foetal development. And it was just like a fleshy mass, like Duncan Kane. Why would you name your cult after an abortive cow foetus?
JOY: Yeah, this is a very strange choice now that you're giving me some context. before that I was just like “how sweet, how nice”.
HZ: Yes, it is quite a pretty name until you know what it means. And then it sucks. And the Gants leave, and then Keith and Veronica banter about a blood test which Veronica is obviously lying about.
VERONICA: I’m trying to draw a blood sample. Our health teacher said she’ll give extra credit for anyone taking a self-administered HIV test. I ordered this thing online but…I am seriously punking on this fingerstick.
KEITH: This is so endearing. My badass, action figure daughter is afraid to draw a teensy little drop of blood.
VERONICA: You know, if you really were a good father, you’d let me draw some of your blood for the test. Nobody’ll know the difference. Besides, you’ve been sexually active, I haven’t.
JOY: What??
HZ: You know, for school!
JOY: This seems off - a) that Veronica would punk out on giving a blood sample and b) that a Keith wouldn't call bullshit on it.
HZ: Right. But you know that things are afoot, because Veronica is trying to get her paternity test sent off under the guise of this school HIV test. She also manages to summarise the BroNiners whilst describing Casey; she says:
VERONICA: He’s just another slice off the loaf of shallow, vapid, pain-in-the-ass 09erdom.
HZ: Aren't they all?
JOY: According to everything we've seen so far, more or less, yeah.
HZ: But tough shit to Casey's parents, because even though they're offering the Marses a five grand bonus, he's 18 so there's not much legal recourse. Keith has to find evidence of illegal activity at the cult to have a sound legal basis for the sheriff's department to shut it down. And he says to Veronica, “Absolutely fucking do not go to the cult” like that's going to work.
JOY: Yeah, what? Don't you know by now, Keith, the last thing you should say to Veronica if you don't want her to go to the compound is, "Don't you dare think about going to the compound"?
HZ: School time, and Spin the Wheel of Duncan Kane, which Duncan do you get? You get, today, Perched-Against-The-Wall-Reading-A-Book Duncan!
JOY: “Duncan want to talk!” He's wearing a long sleeve Abercrombie and Fitch blue polo, just so there's no confusion, just letting you know I've clocked the logo. I've clocked the sleeve length. I've clocked the colour. What else would we expect really?
HZ: If you're going as Duncan Kane this Halloween, you know what to get off eBay. Veronica is not in the mood. She ignores Duncan and speeds past - he looks a little peeved, goes back to reading his book perched on a wall but she's like:
VERONICA VOICEOVER: I am not ready to face Duncan. Too many sweet memories have become chilling what-ifs.
JOY: The drama!
HZ: To take her mind off it, she and Wallace watch Casey playing hacky sack. And Wallace says:
WALLACE: Hacky Sack? The final arena of unquestioned white domination.
HZ: Not much Wallace In this episode, but he really makes every minute counts. And Casey is a familiar face to fans of high school drama.
JOY: Oh my god. It's Aaron Samuels! Aaron Samuels transferred to Neptune High.
HZ: AKA Jonathan Bennett, who plays the love interest from Mean Girls and also Ariana Grande's ‘Thank U Next’ video. And he plays Jay Sebring in the Hilary Duff Sharon Tate film of the several Sharon Tate films out this year.
JOY: Oh God.
HZ: And then a flashback. It's very smudgey and flarey. And it's a classroom, and Veronica is snuggling with Duncan Kane on a beanbag on the floor, so presumably it's a cool teacherbecause beanbags. Weevil is reading a poem, supposedly original work.
WEEVIL: When the angels sing the sins of the world
And it's cold on the streets when you're all alone
And the tears, they start to fall.
When it all comes down, hear the angels sing.
HZ: And Casey is like, "Ha ha, that's not his poem, it's a song by Social Distortion.”
JOY: Okay, I feel like there's so much wrong with this scene, but first of all the one right thing about this scene is Weevil in theory reading poetry in front of a class - that, I love.
HZ: And it's the only Weevil we see this episode.
JOY: Which is a shame; but also if it had to be only one thing, I'm glad it was Weevil reading poetry at the front of class. But, I feel like we're supposed to get a really strong impression of Casey being this huge jerk, but all he's doing in my experience of the scene is he's just laughing because this is a song that exists, right? How could you not just chuckle at least if you started to recognise something and think like, "Oh my god, are you serious? This is this is a song that exists in the world." Like I don't feel like it makes him seem like an 09er jerk the way that we've been like shown people being 09er jerks. It just seems kind of random. And also, on the flip side of that coin, I have a hard time envisioning Casey as we're supposed to be seeing him as somebody who would know a Social Distortion song by its lyrics.
HZ: Right. Maybe Casey is full of surprises, and one of them is Social Distortion fandom. I'm not familiar with their oeuvre. Is it good?
JOY: Social Distortion, it's like a classic in its way and like iconic and a pillar of a certain genre. But that genre is just like not something I would associate I guess with what we're seeing about Casey.
HZ: Back in the present, to get the dirt about Casey, Veronica heads off to the toilet office to grill Casey's ex-girlfriend. How long do you think Veronica had to wait in the toilet office until the right person came along?
JOY: All day. She waited all day until Casey's ex-girlfriend, wearing her weird Argyle Christmas sweater, strumps in.
DARCY: I’m as clueless as anyone about this trip he’s on. I mean, one day, he’s totally cool, the next, he’s like alien lobotomy boy.
VERONICA: Any explanation?
DARCY: Nothing that made a bit of sense. He started babbling about renouncing the toxic death style of late-stage capitalist society and un-remembering the consumer siren song. I think compost even came up too, once. It was just so bizarre. I mean, I had to cut him loose.
HZ: You had to cut him loose because he was suddenly into composting and hated late stage capitalism?
JOY: Yeah, I think those are two well-established, universally recognised pillars of 09er culture: anti-compost, pro- the siren song of late stage capitalism, etc.
HZ: Even if they could compost, they wouldn't - they would encase it in plastic and throw it into the ocean.
JOY: Yes, that's how they prefer their trash.
HZ: She says she was convinced that Casey had something going on with the teacher Miss Mills.
JOY: And Veronica's little detective wheels start turning and she thinks to herself, how can I to get in with Miss Mills and see what happens? And the answer is: by writing some poetry!
HZ: Urgh! There's a lot of poetry in this episode. And she's thinking about this whilst wobbling around on the waterbed. So evidently, she still got it. Then there's a running plot this episode where Veronica tries to have a shower, and the water's cold. So if maybe they crack the case of Casey being sucked in by this cult, they get the five grand bonus, they could look for a place with hot water. That's the motivation for a Mars.
JOY: Yeah, and how long is a $5,000 bonus really going to last in terms of upping their rent budget?
HZ: Southern California rent has got to be quite a bit.
JOY: It's not pretty.
HZ: Then at school, she's in class; it's broken into groups of four, everyone turns their desk around, and there's no room in a group for Veronica. And she takes this personally, but I do think in a class of seventeen people, this was inevitable.
JOY: Okay, I blame the teacher though - this teacher teaches this class every day, they obviously are going to know that there are seventeen students - use a disclaimer and say, “There obviously will be one group of five students” - anything to not allow this to just happen. Because what do you think she did for the rest of class? Sat there, an island, comparing her own notes to her own notes?
HZ: Right, you would just shuffle the desk around. I mean, no one is looking out for her. But on the other hand, I don't know whether it's necessary for her to interpret this as hostility. I think it's just that is her condition these days; she presupposes hostility. But then afterwards, in the corridor, Miss Mills catches up with Veronica and compliments on her poem ‘I Cut Because I Can’. We don't hear this poem.
JOY: Thank God!
HZ: Did Veronica just think, “What will get a teacher's attention easily - reference to self harm?” Not cool.
JOY: Yeah. And she says there were a lot of poems she could have submitted, but that one seemed more relevant to where she is now. To which Miss Mills says, "Hey, you should come on up to the Stupid Cow Collective and talk about your feelings."
HZ: "Stupid Cow Collective", very into that. Miss Mills is very smiley, so it's obviously a cult, right? Otherwise, how could she look so happy?
JOY: Yeah, well, based on what we see of the Mooncalf Collective, it's lit! I want to live there! I'd be smiling too if I was just surrounded by nice, happy people all working together to make a nutritious, delicious dinner! Hell yeah!
HZ: It's so green. It's so sunny. They've got a lot of produce. It's very muddy, that's the only thing. They're calling it a cult In this episode, because that's how Casey's parents framed it and Veronica is always sort of dismissive of anything that might be a bit holistic or spiritual. But what is the distinction between a cult and a commune?
JOY: Yeah, this feels more like a commune to me then a cult.
HZ: People are busy preparing food and stuff and Miss Mills says, "Take some time, wander around, get a feel of the place. Just stay out of the barn! You don't want to go in the barn!"
JOY: "Just whatever you do, whatever you do, don't go in the barn!" She's not Keith Mars, she hasn't had the opportunity over Veronica's life to learn not to tell Veronica what she can't do. Lightning crashes in the sky, thunder rolls and there's like a fuckin' castle backlit by the moon - basically it just feels like all of that should be happening with the foreboding that Veronica is projecting onto this off-limits barn.
HZ: Way to make the barn sound suspicious and interesting. Spoiler: it isn't.
JOY: It's not. You know what else isn't interesting, but we have to see it anyway? It's Josh, the discount aisle John Mayer/Michael Bublé mashup.
HZ: /Jason Segel from some angles.
JOY: Oh, also that. He just strolls up to Miss Mills, who says he belongs to all of us, and kisses her very long and slow.
HZ: So much PDA!
JOY: Does the camera like circle around them one and a half times? This just like not what you would do in front of your high school student, is what I think.
HZ: And then, after Josh has finished the lengthy PDA with Miss Mills, he hugs Veronica and kind of sniffs her and goes, “Mmmm.”
JOY: I hate this! This is so gross. Why would they do that? I know what they're trying to make us think, but it's in direct conflict with everything else they're trying to show us about this place as the episode goes on. Why does he have to hug her like that?
HZ: I think because they're trying to create ambiguities to whether he is a nasty sex cult leader.
JOY: Yeah, yeah. Yes, of course. Yes. But still I feel like they didn't have to go quite so hard on it because it as we as the episode progresses, and we're like, “Oh, this place is actually like pretty tight, and everybody seems chill,” The only thorn stuck in my brain about it is like, “Eurgh, that hug was a really long though.” Have you - have you ever encountered a long hugger whose embrace you couldn't shake off in a timely fashion?
HZ: I'm trying to think. I mean - what if I'm the hugger? I don't think so, cecause I'm usually the one who responds to a hug rather than initiates but - what if? What if I'm the Josh?
JOY: Well, it's I suppose it's possible. I haven't witnessed that happening. But...
HZ: You haven't know me so long.
JOY: No, no, no, I guess I still have a lot to learn.
HZ: And then Casey's there, living it up. Then we meet a character called Rain. She's prepping dinner and she ropes in Veronica, and they're just doing the grunt work to realise the vision of chef Django who says, “The secret ingredient is love”.
JOY: Which would be less foreboding if Rain hadn't just said, "I'd give my body to anybody for a Choco Taco." Why would you say it like that, Rain?
HZ: Have they just cued this up as well to make it seem like the secret ingredient might be an illicit substance. Spoiler: it's not. But they are trying to find evidence of this being a sex or drugs cult. Rain takes Veronica to milk a cow named Isis.
JOY: This fuckin’ rocks.
HZ: Veronica is way better at pretending to be a gamer than a cow milker.
JOY: Yeah, yeah. Well, I feel like I think Rain like really very clearly illustrates how it works. And then Veronica sits down and just like squeezes the udder as though it were like a squeeze toy.
HZ: Yes, it's like a stress udder rather than trying to squeeze the milk out of it. I've never milked a cow, have you? You grew up on farms.
JOY: I never have - I fucking never have. It feels like a missed opportunity, feels like a hole in my life, Helen. But also then I would be coming into close contact with my least favourite substance: milk.
HZ: Milk! Another milk plot. And Veronica tries to pump Rain for information. She says, "Josh is kind of sexy," which Rain is like, "Really?" So she's obviously not brainwashed.
JOY: No, no, no. Then fucking Helen. Excuse me. Helen. Listen to my words and comprehend their meaning. Because oh my god. Rain and Veronica are talking about what they grow here at the farm and Rain describes it as "the ultimate cash crop”. And Veronica is like, “What's that?” and Rain's like, “I can't even describe it. It's going to blow your mind.”
HZ: Spoiler: it won't.
JOY: It is so pedestrian. It's seasonal. But - and there's a lot of them. But they're just talking about poinsettia plants. And what...
HZ: Jenny!
JOY: ...the fuck? How dare they! I'm sorry - spoiler for like a little bit later in the episode. But they're friggin’ Christmas plants. Why?
HZ: Well, what bugs me in this episode is that they are really trying to create tension by very obvious misdirection. It's not subtle. It's just people withholding information completely needlessly. "Don't go in the barn!" that is a whole nothing. "We're growing the ultimate cash crop" which is a houseplant that is legal. It's like, I don't know if you've ever read any mystery novels by PD James?
JOY: I have not.
HZ: She's a very famous mystery novel writer of Britain. And I'm not a huge fan, because the ones I've read, she's often spent a lot of time like describing the ornaments in a character's house, not because they're relevant later, but it just feels like she's killing time so that you anticipate something happening more, rather than actually creating a mystery plot. Whereas Agatha Christie, she would make everything really count by the end, so you didn't feel bullshat. I feel bullshat by this episode, Jenny.
JOY: I also feel bullshat. But I will also say at the opposite end of my feelings spectrum, I'm also having a blast. This is a really fun episode that's zipping along but not in a disorienting way, and there's not too much going on with the parallel of the episodic mystery and the larger mystery arc - it feels like really balanced and like, these characters are fun, and it's acoustic guitar time and Veronica Mars wants to break out the mushrooms and dance naked and we're all like, “Woo!” but instead everyone's just sharing their feelings around the fire. And Helen.
HZ: Yes?
JOY: I need to address two things. First of all, Josh wants everyone to welcome their honoured guest Veronica Mars - drink!
HZ: I think it's different because he's introducing her to a bunch of people.
JOY: No, no, no, no, no, no. Why does he even know her last name? It's irrelevant. She hasn't heard anybody else's last name on this commune.
HZ: Well, probably because everyone always calls her by her full name. So Rain would have been calling her ‘Veronica Mars’, Casey would be like, "Hey, Veronica Mars, have some soup." And Josh is making everyone do these confessions. And Miss Mills says:
MISS MILLS: This is scary. I’m 32 years old and I feel like I’ll never have a better moment than this.
HZ: This teacher is like a one person cult, even if the rest is just a commune/farm.
JOY: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then and then. And then when they welcome Veronica. Am I mistaken? Or does everyone moo?
JOSH: Hey, how about a big Mooncalf for the honoured guest?
[They applaud and moo.]
JOY: That's the cultiest thing that's happened so far.
HZ: They've got to live up to the name. And Miss Mills says "Veronica is a poet. Veronica, read some poetry."
JOY: Yeah. “Read your self-injury poetry in front of this group of people you just met, Veronica.” that seems like a very comfortable thing to ask someone to do.
HZ: And at this point, Veronica bolts. So it's good to know that the prospect of having to read poetry, at least will keep her out of a cult. Although, did she do it deliberately? Or was she genuinely horrified at having to reveal something of herself and deceive these people? Because she voiceovers, "That performance should have them asking me back." So what do you think do you think she bolted -?
JOY: I think she did it on purpose. I think she was like, "Leave them wanting more."
HZ: Oh, but where is she? By the barn! Don't go in there!
JOY: Don't go in there! It's forbidden, Veronica! And it's forbidden because there's a big scary horse.
HZ: She opens the door, and a horse rears - is that how horses behave? They're just waiting to instantly rear?
JOY: They all crouch behind doors just waiting. Yeah.
HZ: Unlocked doors. So if they really want this barn's contents to remain a mystery, put a bit more effort in. Miss Mills, Casey and Josh run up and Josh says, "Oh, that's a horse Hildegard that we're nursing back to health because the neighbours were going to put her down."
JOY: Fuckin' Hildegard!
HZ: So couldn't they have just said at the beginning, "Don't go in the barn because there's an easily startled horse named Hildegard there."
JOY: Yeah. That would have been way too simple, Helen, way too simple.
HZ: Of course, and it would have made this episode…. well, this plot would have been foreshortened. The thing is, I don't want people to be listening and going, "Well if they hadn't done this, then there would be no episode." I just want them to have written the episode a bit better! Some of this is so great. And then other bits it just feels like they couldn't be bothered.
JOY: Thankfully, they could be bothered to give us a nice healthy shot of Backup in the next scene. What's up buddy? Hey Backup, you look great.
HZ: Keith and Backup are just hanging out together in the living room. They're not watching TV. Keith's just reading with his pal.
JOY: It's really sweet. I love it. Round two of the hot water pipes not working!
HZ: Veronica's voiceovering about the prospect of being Jake Kane's child, and says, “It's not about the money. It's about making Jake Kane pay, but if I am an heiress” - and then she does in a southern belle accent:
VERONICA MARS: As God as my witness, I'll never take cold showers again.
HZ: Why did she pick this though? Is this a paraphrase of a famous line or something like that?
JOY: I do not know.
HZ: It's a bizarre collection of stereotypes that exist in Veronica's brain.
JOY: Yeah, there's a lot clanking around in there, isn't there?
HZ: Next day, Veronica chats with Casey at school and says she's so ashamed of her meltdown last night and she was a rampaging jackass. And he's like:
CASEY: Have you forgotten who you're talking to? I'm Casey Gant, okay? I wrote the jackass Bible, the jackass Koran, the jackass Talmud.
HZ: It's been a very quick turnaround from the toxic masculinity of Neptune, hasn't it? Maybe just they all need to be sent to do a six-week stint on a commune. I'm not seeing the downside yet, except for the guitars around the bonfire and the clothes.
JOY: Yeah, maybe they could just start an 09er programme, where they all rotate in and out? And maybe become less jerk-like.
HZ: Yeah, because it's really done wonders for him. But he invites her back. And so we also go back - and what the fuck is Josh's shirt?
JOY: Oh my God, Disco Inferno!
HZ: It's like a pinstripe shirt, but they're diagonal pinstripes and it's been run over but it's also on fire.
JOY: And maybe like half of it was dipped in bleach. But it was like pulled out really slowly so that there's a fade happening.
HZ: I'm very upset by it.
JOY: We're very upset by the shirt. And I feel like Veronica is probably very upset when she hears the sharp blade of truth in Josh's words when he tells her that she's built a fortress around herself.
HZ: True!
JOY: Which offers a limited amount of protection but it also keeps other people and what they have to offer at bay true starving the soul. Veronica, listen to this man!
HZ: Instead she reaches for her tazer.
JOY: And then it's time to see the ultimate cash crop.
HZ: Oh my god, what can it be? Please let it be drugs! No.
JOY: No, it's an enormous greenhouse full of Christmas plants. Poinsettias, Michael Bublé's in the corner spreading fertiliser .
HZ: Why? Why was anyone cagey about that? "Your mind will be blown."
JOY: Can you smoke poinsettias? I think cats are allergic to them, you can't have them in the house with cats.
HZ: They contain an irritant as well, so I think they're probably better not ingested. Now, Josh says Casey's money help them finish the greenhouse. Casey sold his Porsche Boxster six weeks ago, we've been told - maybe it's seven weeks by this point. This greenhouse, which is huge, is full of quite mature poinsettias. And did they grow them all in the last six weeks? And if not, where were they? Because apparently, if you're growing a poinsettia from a cutting, you started in May to get it ready for Christmas. With seeds, you have to start it from the spring the year before you want them. And also, at this time of year that this is set - because it's full on fall at this point - the poinsettias need 12 to 15 hours a day of complete darkness - not even artificial light - so that they're colourful by Christmas. So this greenhouse better have a retractable roof or something.
JOY: Greenhouse of Lies, I say.
HZ: Veronica also is wearing a puffer vest with a big fur collar. Do you think you would choose to wear fur to a place where people were rescuing a horse from being put down?
JOY: No, no, no, no, no, no. Use your common sense Veronica, please.
HZ: Unless it's intentional, where they can be like, “Oh look, so much work to do to convert this one.”
JOY: Yeah, butshe looks like she's well on her way during this montage of everybody making dinner together, laughing, smiling, handling produce...
HZ: There's corn, there's bread, potatoes being peeled, the Stereophonics’ ‘Have A Nice Day’ is playing in another “what the fuck?” moment from the soundtrack to this show. And she's really softening to this cult.
VERONICA VOICEOVER: You're saying you don't want my money, you don't want my body, you don't want me working in your ganja fields, you just want me to be happy. Strange.
HZ: She doesn't know how to deal with this. But she's kind of relaxing. And I think Veronica does need a place where people aren't judging her and she doesn't have any history there that means people are hostile to her and that she can let down her guard. But then she sees Keith, who is pretending to be from the water department to check the pipes for lead. And Keith sees her, despite his very explicit instructions at the beginning of the episode for her not to go!
JOY: We also get a much better look at Enrico Colantoni's wound and it is brutal. Do you think he got a hockey stick to the face?
HZ: Yeah, it's two large wounds.
JOY: High sticking - flag that player for high sticking.
HZ: Back in the office a lot later, the Marses are very angry and upset at each other although Veronica is being contrite, which is quite rare.
KEITH: There you are. What the hell were you thinking Veronica? That’s got to be the worst decision I’ve ever seen by someone who wasn’t literally brain damaged. Since when do you reserve the right to totally blow of my instructions? Does my judgement, my concern for your safety carry that little weight with you?
VERONICA: I’m sorry. Dad, I screwed up big time, I know. Trust me, I’ll be following your game plan the rest of the way. They just seem so harmless.
KEITH: What is your basis for that call? The absence of swastikas engraved on their foreheads? Please, reassure me that you aren’t that dense.
VERONICA: I’m sorry. Really.
HZ: Do you think a lot of cults and communes are resentful that they get a bad rap because of Charles Manson?
JOY: Yeah, I think Charles Manson and Jonestown like anything that like made a significant headline and especially something that has some kind of avatar readily available in people's minds - the forehead swastikas, and the drinking the Kool-Aid.
HZ: Veronica asks Keith if he's planted any bugs and whether he's heard anything incriminating, and he says:
KEITH: Nope. It's like listening to The Brady Bunch with a reggae soundtrack.
JOY: Uh, reggae, whyyyyy.
HZ: Hey, I like reggae in the correct place.
JOY: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just have a bad sense about the type of reggae - I just feel like they're probably listening to Rusted Root, you know what I mean? Which is not reggae, but which is what I think Keith Mars might think is reggae, you know what I mean?
HZ: And he has not yet found anything incriminating in Josh's past or Miss Mills's past. He says:
KEITH: My guess is they’re just a bunch of tie-dyed Oliver Twists who scam naïve kids to pay the bills.
JOY: “Tie-dyed Oliver Twist” sounds like it means something else. You know what I mean?
HZ: And yet, I haven’t seen that much tie dye.
JOY: Very little tie dye, but sounds like a euphemism you know, and not for hippies on a commune. I don't know what it sounds like a euphemism for... dealers' choice.
HZ: Is it just that he's saying they're Oliver Twists, which means they are parentless and begging, but also wearing tie dye because they're hippies in a commune?
JOY: Sure, Helen. If you want to break it down logically and in an orderly fashion, and make a bunch of sense while doing it, then fine.
HZ:And then Keith kicks Veronica off the case. But their discussion is interrupted by Casey's parents stride in with a guy who's just credited as ‘ice cold man’ in this role on IMDB. And he's wearing a long black coat - we know to be scared of those - and a black polo neck. So he kind of is dressed as Neil Tennant from the Pet Shop Boys.
JOY: But with those glasses, and that haircut and the coat, like he really has a strong vibe of somebody who like probably has been cast as like a stoic Nazi torture officer.
HZ: He's played by Ray Proscia, who's in a lot of stuff. He's a regular in Suits, The Young And The Restless and The Man In The High Castle, so maybe.
JOY: Aha!
HZ: And Veronica eavesdrops. Because Casey's parents have come to say that Casey's grandmother is dying and if she dies, Casey will get the bulk of her $80 million fortune and they're worried he's going to hand it all over to the cult.
JOY: Yeah, and they're saying she's gonna die in like a day or two, and they're also saying they just found out that day that the will favours Casey.
HZ: And ice cold man is a cult deprogrammer - although he says that is a vulgar term.
KEITH: What’s your background, anyway, if you don’t mind my asking?
ICE COLD MAN: Technically, my field is SMSPI - Systematic Manipulation of Social and Psychological Influence. One vulgar term is ‘deprogramming’.
KEITH: No kidding. I’ve heard of that. How does that work, anyway?
ICE COLD MAN: In simple terms, I control the elements of a subject’s social and psychological environment to eradicate undesirable modes of behaviour. I’m then able to instil or re-instil desirable ones. I’m quite good at my work.
HZ: This is accompanied by a menacing boomy bed track, so you know that it's a scary scene.
JOY: Yeah, yeah. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Back at school, Wallace is like, “Where's the headline?” Veronica is like, "I don't even want a headline. Casey was a jerk. And now he's nice. And seemingly it's thanks to this cult." Casey wants Veronica to visit his grandma in the hospital with him.
HZ: Sound the bells, because Wallace drops the episode name.
WALLACE: Sounds to me, Veronica, like you've been drinking the Kool-Aid.
HZ: Ta-daaah!
JOY: Thank God, we know what to call it now.
HZ: Yeah. Love Wallace. But then maybe we should blame him for this reference.
JOY: Also true.
HZ: And when Casey comes up to ask Veronica to come with him to visit his grandmother in hospital, she goes:
VERONICA: Yeah, sure Casey, I’d love to.
HZ: Which I think is an appropriate response if he's asking you out on a date, and less of an appropriate response for ‘grandma is dying’ visits.
JOY: What the hell?
HZ: Do you think Veronica just really wants to believe that rich white jerks of Neptune can be changed with just a few weeks of tomato-picking and stuff?
JOY: I think so! It seems like - I don't know. It seems like there's like a romantic thing, or like the possibility of a romantic thing kind of like building between them. And she certainly could use some more friends, at the very least.
HZ: Totally, especially as Wallace doesn't seem to be putting up with her bullshit this episode.
JOY: Yeah, yeah. So she goes with Casey to the hospital. He reveals in this conversation that his parents have actually known about his grandmother's will for a year. Aha! Even though they've been misrepresenting that information to Keith. Veronica drives Porscheless Casey back to the Mooncalf Collective. And she wants to stay. Because why wouldn't you? It fucking rocks there, it seems so great.
HZ: And it's dusk, which means it's guitar time soon.
JOY: Oh hell yeah.
HZ: And then at the Mars house - nightmare for you, Jenny, because there is more milk!
JOY: No! The nightmare is compounded, Helen, because it's not just a big container full of milk -
HZ: MILK!
JOY: - it's also the face of a missing young person on the side of this milk carton, which makes me think a lot about how uncomfortable it would be to be a kid pouring your own cereal milk and then see other kids who are missing, who have been kidnapped, who are probably - I'm sorry to say it, but - dead in a ditch somewhere. To have to reckon with that reality or possibility every time you have breakfast as a kid seems bad.
HZ: Yeah, it's a good way of amping up panic. But who is the milk carton kid, Jenny?
JOY: Oh my gosh, it's Rain! Or Debbie Myers.
HZ: Yeah, she is a runaway and a minor. Now, apparently, I remember there was an episode of 99% Invisible about milk carton kids. And they were only really a thing for a few years, mostly 1980s. By the mid-1990s they'd invented the amber alert system, so this wasn't really the way to find missing children anymore. And by late 2004, this is another plot shortcut.
JOY: Yeah, the last known milk carton face usage thing that I could find a record of was in the year 2000. Which isn't that far, but it's really a stretch.
HZ: That wouldd be some pretty manky old milk if it was four years old.
JOY: Well, it's in the Mars household, though, so you never know.
HZ: But it just feels like it's a trope that we're familiar with from TV shows and films using it as shorthand. And also from the ‘Coffee and TV’ music video from Blur. Veronica is staring at the carton until Keith comes home and says, "That must be good milk."
JOY: Good one, Keith, nice!
HZ: And Keith, upon understanding the situation, says he'll call Casey's parents. Veronica asks him not to, Keith says they need the money; the cult's contributing to the deliquency of a minor; and they don't answer to the collective but to the clients. The Marses are really at odds with each other this episode, which is rough.
JOY: Which is tough to see, especially after such a strong start with the waterbed.
HZ: I know. They were so happy. They were so happy.
JOY: Oh my gosh, you know who else can't go on that waterbed is Backup. I don't know what the dog’s sleeping arrangements are. But keep Backup off that bed for the love of God, Veronica.
HZ: Yeah, he's got big paws, ready to puncture. I also feel like a dog might not like the noise of a waterbed. They're very sensitive to sound.
JOY: Oh, true.
HZ: At school, Veronica goes to Miss Mills's classroom that's the one that's full of beanbags because she's the cool teacher, right? Everyone sits around as equals, no hierarchies, peel the corn, here's Josh, everyone kiss Josh in class. Miss Mills is, as always, very beatific and talks about the light of the moon, just not really registering how stressed Veronica is. And Veronica starts to explain that she's been working for her dad, who is a PI. And then they're interrupted by Casey crying, because Vice Principal Clemmons just called him into the office to tell him that his grandma died this morning. Not a person to deliver bad news, Clemmons.
JOY: Yeah. And the award for the most inappropriate teacher student hug in 2004 through the lens of 2019 goes to Miss Mills and Casey!
HZ: Is she another long hugger? She caught that off Josh.
JOY: Well, I just think that in general, like if a teacher embraced a student now it would be alarming, it would be a problem. Not a lot of teacher-student contact.
HZ: Maybe this is the fuel for Casey's ex-girlfriend thinking that there was something happening between them romantically and sexually.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: Then it's grandma's funeral. Josh and Miss Mills are there, and so is Veronica, who runs after them and says she's found out that Rain is a runaway, and she's told her dad, so they have to get Rain out there, and Josh is like, "Dude it's fine. Everything's gonna be fine, yeah? It’s fine."
JOY: “Yeah, just chill, take a hit off this sweet poinsettia joint.”
HZ: And then they leave Veronica and Casey to walk arm and arm. And Casey says:
CASEY: I appreciated you being here. For no reason that I can see, you’ve been a real friend to me lately.
VERONICA: Can you really say that after what I just told you?
CASEY: I guess I don’t think that you were faking the kindness. Am I wrong?
HZ: Then there's some coy smiling.
JOY: Yeah, and this is great, and we're pumped, and we know it can't possibly last, Veronica couldn't have possibly made a friend who's gonna stick around. Casey strolls off to tell his parents that they're not going to starve, and he gets grabbed and manhandled into the limo and we see the deprogrammer standing shiftily nearby.
HZ: Yeah, but we know what happens when you're bundled into a limo: you go off for a boozy beach party! Waheyyyy! Homecoming!!
JOY: Usually, but not always, I guess.
HZ: Now, Veronica sees this whole from inside her car, and yet she runs after the limo - and obviously can't chase it for very far. Why didn't she just follow in her car that she was already in? Would have been quicker.
JOY: One of the great mysteries of the podcast, Helen.
HZ: She's not thinking straight. And at the Mars offices, she tells Keith:
VERONICA: Dad! We have to call the police, Casey’s just been kidnapped.
KEITH: What? What are you talking about? Kidnapped by who?
VERONICA: By his parents and that creepy guy that was with them at the last meeting. They grabbed him in the parking lot at the funeral and shoved him in the limo and drove away.
KEITH: They grabbed him? So it was against his will, then? He tried to get away?
VERONICA: No, it’s not like he was running from them. I was kind of far away but I could tell he was surprised by what was happening.
KEITH: I wasn’t there. You saw what you saw, I’m not doubting your interpretation but…if I was still sheriff and somebody told me an eighteen-year-old kid got into a car with his parents after his grandmother’s funeral, there’s nothing I could do about it.
HZ: Keith seems to have come around to the collective he's like “they're more wholesome than this town. Rain is better off there than where she was before in abusive foster situations.”
JOY: I think that's a really good sign that he's coming around this business, and I think it's deserved.
HZ: At school, Veronica is parked next to Duncan, who's in wry spirits. They have a little bit of a funny back and forth. Duncan's fine as a bit part, isn't he? It's just when they tried to convince you that he's the leading man of the piece.
JOY: Yeah. You know, it's funny. Veronica puts a free crab rangoon flyer under his windshield wiper. And his responses to that is "Phat" with a ph which is just tough to hear. It's right up there with everything else in this show. It really trumpets loudly the year of its origin. This is kind of sweet and feels, I don't know, a little weirdly placed. Like Veronica's been stressing pretty hard about her parentage and then it’s just stuck in here to give Duncan, the richest boy in town, a free crab rangoon flyer.
HZ: Maybe they would be better as siblings.
JOY: Oh, maybe.
HZ: Maybe they'd have a great sibling relationship.
JOY: That could be cute.
HZ: But all this car park business is really to give us the opportunity to see Casey zooming into a space in a silver convertible, which is a Porsche Carrera I think. People who've observed this show know that I am indifferent to cars, and I don't know what the different kinds are. This one just looks expensive and snazzy.
JOY: Yeah, yeah. It's some kind of Porsche. And he gets out of it. And he does his ridiculous teen boy head nod and is like, “‘Sup, Veronica”. And we're all like, well, that's a boy that doesn't belong to a cult anymore.
HZ: No, he's back on the Neptune toxic masculinity. He's going to give up the hacky sack.
JOY: The hacky sack’s way in his rear view now.
HZ: I'm slightly surprised that this guy with $80 million is even bothering to come back to school.
JOY: Maybe they deprogrammed him into turning over the $80 million to his parents.
HZ: Well, the ice cold guy did say that he's “quite good at his job”.
JOY: Terrifying.
JOY: And then we get to what we're all here for which is: how could Veronica ever deny Keith as her father, even if he isn't - strictly speaking - her biological dad?
HZ: And this is one of those points where I feel like they're prolonging the plot of “ooh who is Veronica's biological dad?”, but not in too artificial a way, because she doesn't want to look at the results. And I think that seems more legitimate than saying, "Don't go into scary barn with nothing particularly interesting in it."
JOY: Right? Yeah, I totally buy that. The one thing that I don't buy is, “Hey, my dad is asleep. So I'll just take this document that I don't want to read into his bedroom, where his shredder is plugged in, and shred it loudly, waking him up in the middle of the night rather than unplugging the shredder, carrying it out to the living room and doing my shredding business there.”
HZ: Way not to draw attention to something again. Theme of the episode!
JOY: And he's Keith! Don't you think Keith is going to be in that shred bucket the next day with long tweezers pulling shit out? Magnifying glass, lining it up, taping it back together?
HZ: Yeah, they did say that Keith could sleep through anything a couple of episodes ago, when Jessica Chastain was upstairs having loud arguments.
JOY: Apparently ‘anything’ doesn’t include a shredder.
HZ: Veronica's been sleeping in a tight choker. And full eye makeup.
JOY: What - isn't that what you did in high school, Helen?
HZ: Mmmmmmmmmmm noooooo.
JOY: Okay.
HZ: But Keith wakes up and he says:
KEITH: Honey, I don’t mean to ask a silly question but is, is it really necessary that you do that right now?
VERONICA: Yeah. As a matter of fact it is.
JOY: Yay, right back where we started with their relationship at the beginning of the episode. Yay!
HZ: So loving. And also, the mystery remains. I did realise that even though I've seen all of this before, and a lot of it I've seen twice or more, and yet, I couldn't really remember any of the single episode plots at all. But I could remember a lot of the long plot arcs a lot better. Because I think that's where the show's true excellence lies.
JOY: I feel like the reason that this show is still as important to people as it is, and back for a fourth season so many years after it went off the air and everything, is because of the strength of the larger arcs. And how fun the what, if I was watching a different show, like The X Files, or Buffy, I would call “the monster of the week”, I guess it's the mystery of the week episodes. But that that larger sort of myth arc is always there running alongside and, even as questions are answered in that larger arc, we're still getting new questions cropping up. And it remains engaging and intriguing while the shorter term mysteries continue to be fun, and show us more of the world and introduce us to new characters and show us more aspects of everybody's personalities.
HZ: Yeah, it's the relationships between the characters that really make you care. And a lot of those unfurl over long periods of time.
JOY: Yeah, we're only just beginning this journey.
HZ: I know. Isn't it exciting?
JOY: Yeah! Hell yeah.
HZ: Aand now let's visit our resident lawyer and Southern Californian Lo Dodds to check on the Legalness and Southern Californianess of this episode in today's LoDown.
THE LODOWN
JOY: You know who drinks a lot of milk? Children. First thing in the morning having a bowl of cereal, pouring some milk in there. Those kids are not opting in to the trauma of having to face the fact that some of their peers are missing. Do you think that somebody could perhaps bring a case against a dairy for contributing to the anxiety of minors?
LO DODDS: You mean like intentional infliction of emotional distress?
JOY: Yeah!
LO DODDS: I don’t think so. I don't know. Like, it's so weird. Because today, you have parents that are very up in arms when it comes to disclosing information, adult-themed information to their kids too soon, nobody wants to tell their kids about sex. Nobody wants their kids to find out about Santa too soon. And the idea that you would have to have a conversation with your child, like “this child is missing” seems incredibly depressing and seems like there would have been a lot of complaints. I don't actually know if people complained about this.
JOY: Maybe we could just have looked at putting notices like this on adult-specific beverages like beer or liquor for example.
LO DODDS: The pictures would have been distorted by the roundness of the object, I think.
JOY: Contributing to the delinquency of a minor as a concept: what does that cover, exactly?
LO DODDS: Keith talks about this and he says contributing to the delinquency a minor is a serious crime. It's not that serious of a crime actually. It's a misdemeanour. And I'm not even sure it would stick, because the definition is when someone acts or fails to act. And the juvenile has to become like one of three things: a dependent of the court; they have to become a habitual truant, or they become a juvenile delinquent. And none of those things seem to be happening. We don't know that Rain is not attending school. And considering that one of the commune leaders is a teacher, that seems like she would be like, no, I encouraged her to go back to school, we tried to get her back in the school system. I don't think that that would stick at all. This is really a crime for people who are buying drugs or getting kids to sell drugs, recruiting kids to do crime, crime families or gangs and that sort of thing. This is not for like sweet communes that are teaching the kids to grow poinsettias.
JOY: Okay. And what would Keith's obligation or any PI's obligation to share information with official law enforcement be in terms of like, he finds out that Rain is a missing minor, but then opts not to share that information with the police, would he get in trouble?
LO DODDS: There's certain people in professions that are mandatory reporters, like teachers, nurses and doctors, if you suspect somebody is being abused, a child is being abused, but private eyes I don't think are mandatory reporters. So I don't think Keith has any obligation to disclose that information to law enforcement.
JOY: Let's talk about Casey for a second. Casey we know is 18. Casey getting grabbed and stuffed into this limo and take it away against his will and then deprogrammed was terrifying. And certainly not legal, right?
LO DODDS: He's not really kidnapped. Sadly, kidnapping is - really it requires force and fear. And it requires moving the person sort of a significant distance. And considering that Casey is back at school on what appears to be the next day, he's turned like back into a douche overnight. And so I don't think that is kidnapping. Keith has a point that it's like he gets into a limo - although the parents don't get into the limo. So yeah, that could have been a factor of saying like if someone was gonna say if Casey had come and said, No, this was actually legitimately I was kidnapped. I was forced into this limo. So yeah, I don't think he's probably kidnapped. Maybe false imprisonment. He could definitely sue him. But since he's got millions of dollars, he probably won't.
JOY: Got it. OK. Is it legal for Casey to say "'Sup, Veronica" like that, after all they’ve shared?
HZ: So, Jenny, I was thinking that for me, the main mystery in this episode is: what happened to Keith's face? You have investigated that.
JOY: Hell yeah!
HZ: So, I ask you: what is the main mystery in this episode? Is it whether the Mooncalf Collective is dangerous, and a sex or drugs cult? Is the mystery whether Veronica will join it herself? Is the mystery that Veronica is the child of Jake or Keith? Is the mystery whether she kept the waterbed long term? And who's the bad person? Is it Casey's parents? Or is it Casey for going back into the late stage capitalism rich boy shit?
JOY: Okay. I think that the mystery of Jake Kane, whether or not he's Veronica's father, is attached to the larger arc of the season. Right? So it's definitely not the episodic mystery, even though it's largely focused on the confines of this episode so far.
HZ: And also in this episode, they seem to be emphasising, "Ooh, well, if Veronica is Jake Kane's daughter, she stands to inherit billions of dollars." But really, the reason we care is because of Veronica's bond with Keith, of course.
JOY: Right. And it is kind of interesting to see the parallel of the mystery of the week, about Casey, a boy who comes from a family of means, who has the opportunity to step away from those means or to even keep those means but change his relationship to them, you know, and then Veronica, running on a different track in the same direction, is sort of thinking about like, “Well, if I am biologically the child of Jake Kane, and that entitles me to x, y and z, then is that more important than just maintaining the bond that I have with my father and not risking changing my relationship to Keith by learning that?”
HZ: So how do you score the mysteriousness, of today's mystery?
JOY: Right, the mysteriousness of today's mystery, which I'm going to say is, “Is the Mooncalf Collective evil or not?” I'm going to give it two out of five mooing cultists around a bonfire.
HZ: Yeah, I think the mooing is one of the more exciting things about them.
JOY: It spoke to me.
HZ: They have a temptingly bucolic existence but they are kind of dull people.
JOY: Well, we've only just seen a little bit of their lives; who knows what kind of mischief they get up to?
HZ: Lot of long hugging. Lot of hair sniffing.
JOY: Never mind.
HZ: I'm going to rate this episode three out of five Brady Bunches with a reggae soundtrack. Because I wasn't that bothered about the cult. And it's because I felt that there was so heavily trying to misdirect. And I think probably the true mystery with Casey happened off screen in between him being bundled into the limo at the funeral and him coming back to school a douche again. And yet they don't show any of that.
JOY: Yeah, what happened?
HZ: Right? That's where the mystery is, rather than him having a good time at the cult. And I do think, though, that the first five minutes or so of this episode are really exciting and very pacey and also precipitating a lot of story that then is kind of ignored for most of the rest of this episode, but is relevant henceforth.
JOY: I love when things are relevant henceforth, I really just love getting to hear you say the word ‘henceforth’, and I look forward to seeing where all that stuff goes. Because it did feel very exciting to watch the intro to the episode.
HZ: Yeah. And then do you have any favourite lines from this episode?
JOY: My favourite line from this episode is when Keith is addressing Santa's concern over second floor deployment of waterbeds and he says, "That well known bedrock pragmatism of Elvish culture."
HZ: What?
JOY: Beautiful!
HZ: There's a lot to unpack in that.
JOY: Well. Santa's a thoughtful guy, I think, is the core of the idea there. And what about you Helen, what did you like to hear?
HZ: I'm going to award this to Wallace for saying "Hacky Sack: the final arena of unquestioned white domination."
JOY: So I guess that is another episode of Veronica Mars investigated.
HZ: Case closed!
HZ: That was Veronica Mars Investigations Season 1, episode 9: Drinking the Kool-Aid.
JOY: Watch season 1 episode 10 and join us in a week to investigate it.
HZ: Find the show on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @VMIpod. And I really recommend you doing so, because Jenny does the Lord's work on our social medias.
JOY: The show lives hidden behind a terrifying rearing horse at vmipod.com.
HZ: I'm Helen Zaltzman You can find more of my podcasting work at The Allusionist and Answer Me This. And you can see the Allusionist live on stages across North America this month: go to theallusionist.org/events to come and see a show that is entertainment about smashing gender of the English language.
JOY: Hell yeah, get it out of there! And I'm Jenny Owen Youngs, I make music which you can hear and learn more about at jennyowenyoungs.com. And you can also listen to me talk more about TV on my other podcast Buffering the Vampire Slayer.
HZ: This episode was edited and mixed by Zach McNees.
JOY: With music from Martin Austwick and Jenny Owen Youngs.
HZ: The sheriff of this town is Hrishikesh Hirway.
JOY: Distributed by PRX.
HZ: Until next time, who’s your daddy?
JOY: Who’s your daddy?
HZ: Well, I guess I would know if I hadn't shredded the DNA test results.