VMI 1.10: An Echolls Family Christmas transcript
Listen to this episode at VMIpod.com/1-10
Content note: Veronica Mars contains heavy themes, and this episode includes storylines depicting violence and family abuse.
JOY: Even a pumpkin carved in the remarkable likeness of Aaron Echolls would probably be able to figure out that this episode contains spoilers for this episode of Veronica Mars. But don't worry, we won't spoil anything in the future.
HZ: Although I did find it more difficult in this episode not to use my knowledge of what comes later to judge what happens in this episode.
JOY: Ooh, yes.
HZ: That's all I'll say.
JOY: You mean the extended arc where Keith goes to Padres getaway camp and then actually just joins the team and then becomes the happiest dad on the planet. And it's all because of Veronica?
HZ: I just want you to find that for yourselves afresh!
A LONG TIME AGO, ON VERONICA MARS:
JOY: It’s the most wonderful time of the year - you know, when you get stabbed at your own Christmas party.
HZ: It’s also poker night at Logan’s - but where is all the money?
JOY: We meet a new Bro9er, we think - but is everything as it seems?
HZ: Duncan and Logan wear matching underwear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
JOY: Honestly, that's the headline. We could have just said that five times in a row.
HZ: The size of parachutes!
JOY: You could definitely swaddle a newborn baby in one of those and send it in a basket down the river.
HZ: Different testaments, Jenny.
JOY: And someone at last calls out Logan’s racist jokes! Merry Christmas everyone.
JOY: Leaving a threatening pumpkin outside your door, I’m Jenny Owen Youngs.
HZ: And spilling the diuretic tea, I’m Helen Zaltzman.
You’re listening to Veronica Mars Investigations Season 1, episode 10:
An Echolls Family Christmas.
HZ: Fun boring fact I read is that the episode that comes after this, Silence of the Lamb, was produced before this episode, but it was aired after just because they wanted to hit the Christmas schedule with this one. Even though as festive episodes go, I'm not sure it's the kind of thing I would watch on Christmas Eve to get me in the festive mood.
JOY: Well, if your preference is Christmas Noir, here it is.
HZ: I mean, “if”.
JOY: So, we open on the Mars family, such as it is, trimming the Mars family tree, and I'm wondering if you could just come up on the fly with some hardboiled detective speak for trimming the tree?
HZ: “Garnishing the pointy pine.”
JOY: Exactly.
HZ: Veronica is concerned by an ornament she made as a child which looks like a Blair Witch thing with googly eyes stuck on to it.
JOY: No, no, no, that's clearly a reindeer. What's up - in England do elementary school students make Christmas ornaments out of popsicle sticks or not?
HZ: Not out of popsicle sticks, but out of toilet rolls… you know, any old shit. I recognised it as a reindeer, but I thought if you took the eyes away and turned it the other way up, you would get the Blair Witch thing, Jenny.
JOY: Okay, I am starting to see your point.
HZ: And then Keith is insistent that Veronica should add more sports-related ornaments to the tree. I had to gather this from their conversation, because I am sports-oblivious, and it turns out to be important later. So consider these Chekhov's Sports Christmas Ornaments.
JOY: It's very important to Keith that the Padres ornaments be evenly distributed. Make it nice around the tree. Make it even.
HZ:It's very sweet. And there's a bit of Mars bantz, which is charming.
VERONICA: You know, there are some people who think Christmas is about the birth of Christ and not baseball.
KEITH: Well, we're all entitled to our own religions, Veronica.
VERONICA: So what do you want for Christmas?
KEITH: Your love and respect.
HZ: And then Keith's like, “it's our favourite part of the movie”, which is so cute. He really lights up and it's sweet to think this is something they share together. It feels very convincing. What they're watching is The Year Without A Santa Claus, which is a 1970s Christmas classic that I'm not familiar with, it's not when we have over in Britain. Is it good?
JOY: I've never seen it, but - is this the origin of the Heatmiser? Is this like the only place ‘Heatmiser’ exists? Because prior to starting to release solo albums, Elliott Smith was in a band called Heatmiser.
HZ: Whoa. Good knowledge.
JOY: Which appears to be named after this character in this Christmas movie that I've never seen.
HZ: You know who else must have seen it is Duncan, because slide to next scene -
JOY: Oh my god!
HZ: - spin the wheel of Duncan Kane, who do you get? Drunk singing dancing Duncan singing the Heatmiser song in Logan’s pool house where a poker game is happening! I quite like drunk singing Duncan. I feel like he could totally get a job in a hotel singing Rat Pack covers with this performance.
JOY: One hundred percent. I want it. I need it.
HZ: But don't forget, as we learned in Episode Three, singing dancing Duncan means something's up with Duncan.
JOY: Yeah, true. It can't just be regular.
HZ: No. And Duncan also takes the liberty of sort of - how would you describe the hand gesture he makes on top of Weevil’s head? Sort of like he petting him but not quite.
JOY: It's sort of like a spidery caress.
HZ: Like he's trying to do that thing where you crack an egg on someone's head.
JOY: Yes, exactly.
HZ: Weevil's not pleased. It probably doesn't feel good. Anyway, there's a bunch of lads in the pool house playing poker. There's a Christmas tree, there's a jukebox, there's an antler lamp, there are martini glasses full of peanuts, there are booze bottles, there are pizza boxes: Chekhov's Mess!
JOY: Chekhov's Mess!
HZ: Lot of Chekhov this episode. I will say the lighting is quite acceptable to me.
JOY: Thank God! For once.
HZ: For once I can see what's happening, but it's dark enough to match the mystery and the darkest point of the year when this episode takes place just before Christmas. And it's nice to see that Weevil and Logan are continuing their poker friendship, which we saw in detention in Episode Seven.
JOY: Hope they don't accidentally kiss!
HZ: That would be so sad for you, Jenny. What a calamity!
JOY: I mean... I just want Weevil to be happy so...
HZ: The trouble is Logan, who always has to ruin nice things. He has a big cigar, and succeeds in being racist about it.
WEEVIL: You know, you look pretty comfortable with that thing in your mouth.
LOGAN: Sabor Cubano. You people can handroll like nobody's business.
JOY: Yeah, this is like a banner episode for Logan’s racism. It’s definitely at its peak.
HZ:And there are two other dudes: there is an actor, who evidently is one of Aaron Echolls's colleagues, called Connor. And then there's a babyfaced guy called Sean, who says he's projecting a ghetto aesthetic. So automatically you think he's a douche, file him with the other douches.
JOY: Yes, consider him filed.
HZ: Now, Jenny, do you play poker?
JOY: I'm familiar with the basic principles, but I it's not something I engage in on a regular basis. And you?
HZ: No, I don't understand poker enough ever to understand poker dramas on television, so I just have to accept that whatever they're showing me means something and is accurate. So when they indicate in this scene that Weevil has won $5,000, I just have to assume that something's happened that leads to Weevil winning $5,000.
JOY: Well, I don’t understand either, but someone who does is our incredible producer Zach McNees.
HZ: Here is a Fact Check with Zach’s Deck!
ZACH MCNEES: Oh my god.
FACT CHECK WITH ZACH’S DECK
JOY: So Zach, what’s the deal?
HZ: Who are you? And what are your poker qualifications?
JOY: Explain yourself.
ZACH MCNEES: I've been playing poker for over 15 years now. And in the last seven or eight years, I've been praying it pretty seriously in tournaments and cash games and have made a reasonable amount of money.
HZ: How much?
ZACH MCNEES: If you were to look me up on the internet, you would see that I've won over $60,000 playing tournament poker.
HZ: Whoa!
ZACH MCNEES: True story.
HZ: So Zach, what's going on in this scene?
ZACH MCNEES: Oh my god. This scene from a poker standpoint is just utterly ridiculous.
HZ: I’m sorry to hear that.
ZACH MCNEES: The TL;DR version of this is: Weevil calls off all his money on the turn with a hand that effectively has a 4% chance of winning. And Weevil strikes me as somebody who maybe is a pretty decent poker player. So I find this call to be just baffling. There's just no way that anybody who was even mildly competent at playing poker would ever call Logan's turn bet. This hand should have never gotten past the turn; he would have just folded. Weevil has nothing. And this is when Logan decides to go all in for thousands of dollars. And Weevil just decides he's just gonna call with literally nothing. And then Logan says:
LOGAN: So let’s see. There are 42 cards remaining and I can win with 40 of them. I can win with an ace. I can win with a jack. Will she be the ten and give me the straight? Or will I get the high kicker out of my jack?
ZACH MCNEES: He has 40 cards in the deck to win the hand versus Weevil's two cards. This is when I put the whole hand into this hand equity calculator to look at what's really going on here. When the last card comes out, the river card, there are 37 cards that can come out where Logan wins this hand. There are two cards that can come out where Weevil wins this hand. The two of hearts falls in the river, one of two cards that Weevil needs to win the hand, and wins this $5,000 pot. This is a ridiculous hand of poker.
JOY: But what if we reminded you that very recently, Weevil and Logan were in extended detention together and there was like a lot of like bonding and tension and some noticing of certain tattoos that might have just raised the personal stakes between Logan and Weevil so that maybe Weevil is just is out there to prove something or try and get dirty?
ZACH MCNEES: What I hear you're saying to me is maybe you are saying that maybe they colluded? And maybe they knew what was gonna happen? So maybe they were in cahoots where Logan decided to push a whole bunch of money to Weevil knowing that he was going to win this ridiculous pot.
HZ: Well, I suppose the money doesn't matter to Logan because he has so much money it's kind of fictional. But also Weevil knows that all of these people are idiots. So who can say?
ZACH MCNEES: Yeah, this is a puzzling one, this hand.
JOY: I feel like I have learned a lot.
ZACH MCNEES: Have you?
JOY: I feel complete now.
HZ: I feel only more baffled by poker. Thanks Zach for your Zach Facts.
ZACH MCNEES: My pleasure.
JOY: And that’s the deal.
JOY: I 100% don't totally understand what exactly just happened here. But Weevil apparently won and is entitled to $5,000. But where's the money? It's missing from the box where Logan rolled it up and stuffed it under the chip trays.
HZ: Or did he? Weevil posits that maybe the money never went into the box, but he is not leaving without it and therefore strips!
JOY: And therefore resulting in one of my favourite things that's happened on the show to date. All the boys are in their underwear and Logan and Duncan, surprise, have the same Christmas boxers on!
HZ: But both blue boxers with reindeer - Logan's aren't a special pond green boxer with reindeer.
JOY: Oh, that makes me think that that Duncan probably got them like as buddy underwear for him and Logan last Christmas.
HZ: Ah, is that tradition, getting matching underwear with your buds? That's nice. But I mean, it's disappointing for you, obviously, that Weevil is the one person who does not participate in the strip search seeing as he is leading the strip search. Instead he steals some ornaments - he pockets a Fabergé egg, which seems like a surprising object to have in this pool house which is just basically full of crap that they don't want in the main house, isn't it?
JOY: Helen! Helen. As you say, it's like weird that this very expensive object is in their pool house. And I was curious about the origins of Fabergé egg, so dig it. For anybody who didn't already know, a Fabergé egg is a jewelled egg. There may have been as many as 69 produced: the magic number - created by the House of Fabergé in St. Petersburg in Imperial Russia. Virtually all were manufactured under the supervision of Peter Carl Fabergé between 1885 and 1917. The most famous being the 52 Imperial Eggs, 46 of which survive, made for Russians Czars Alexander the Third and Nicholas the Second as Easter gifts for their wives and mothers. Now, these real proper original Fabergé eggs are worth millions of dollars.
HZ: Logan's probably got about 50 of them, then. I do understand there to be reproduction Fabergé eggs, but they're still not like $5 ornamental eggs.
JOY: Yeah. Yeah, they're definitely for rich people. But they're not necessarily for Czars. You don't have to be a Czar to own a bejewelled egg.
HZ: I'm just having a look on the Fabergé website for egg prices, but it's not that forthcoming.
JOY: "Please call".
HZ: So anyway, Weevil leaves with the Fabergé egg recognising the value and the rich history perhaps of those decorative eggs.
JOY: I just think it's worth mentioning that Fabergé eggs are like very delicate and the fact that he just puts it in the interior pocket of his leather jacket that he's about to wear as he rides his motorcycle away, we assume - it just doesn't seem like the best place for a Fabergé egg if you want to maintain its value until you've been able to resell it or do whatever you're going to do with it.
HZ: What would you do with it?
JOY: If I was Weevil I would definitely cash in. I know that some people have uses for Fabergé eggs, but I do not.
HZ: You don't know until you've got one just how useful a Fabergé egg's going to be. And Weevil leaves. Sean says, “This is the worst game of strip poker ever,” and looks way more pleased with himself than that joke justifies.
JOY: Especially considering that Weevil didn't take anything off. How dare he call it the best game of strip poker?
HZ: Why are you wasting Jenny's time?
JOY: Okay, so we get the credits. And then we come out of the credits and Wallace and Veronica are strolling through the halls of Neptune High.
HZ: Very Christmassy there - so many very decorations - and Lo told me that Southern Californian schools don't even tend to have hallways, the classrooms open on to the outdoors, so this heavily decorated hallway with all the lockers is fiction.
JOY: Pure fabrication. So Veronica's reading to Wallace from a catalogue about a week-long Padres Fantasy Camp at their first class training site.
HZ: Chekhov's Padre Fantasy Camp.
JOY: Yeah. Wallace says something to the effect of that what she's reading out of isn't a hot guy catalogue and giving voice to my inner monologue, Veronica asks, "Do they have a hot guy catalogue?" and not giving voice to the continuation of my inner monologue, Veronica does not say, "And where can I locate a hot guy catalogue?”
HZ: And how many pages have got Weevil on? Because the other pages are wasting Jenny's time.
JOY: Yes, exactly. Stop wasting my time!
HZ: Veronica is unable to afford the Padres Fantasy Camp, which would be the ideal Christmas present for Keith, who, established: Padres fan. So many Padres Christmas ornaments.
JOY: The camp is $3,000 - and Keith once has explicitly told Veronica he wants her to save her money. Surely there's a middle ground somewhere between “Save your money” and “$3,000 Christmas present”. I think being around 09ers has warped Veronica. This just seems like a totally bananas thing for a teen girl to be thinking about getting her her father.
HZ: Although, who doesn't love Keith so much that they would consider a somewhat over the top gift for him to demonstrate their love?
JOY: Keith deserves the world and I will not argue that, of course. It just feels over the top, it just feels like out of reach, and surely there's some middle ground we could be looking at that would be a little more reasonable to consider.
HZ: When Veronica says:
VERONICA: Oh, I am so sick of not having money. I'd be the best rich person. Seriously. I'd be the perfect combination of frivolous and sensible. Money is so wasted on the wealthy.
HZ: I think that's kind of the thesis of this show, isn't it? Money being wasted on the wealthy, or the wealthy having money and still being miserable, because they don't get that money doesn't buy happiness. But it does buy you Fabergé eggs. As she muses about wealth, right on cue, Duncan Kane storms past.
JOY: He's like, “Did somebody say wealth? Huff huff huff.”
HZ: He's like, "I want my laptop now." And Weevil says the beautiful line:
WEEVIL: How does it feel to want?
HZ: And truly has Duncan Kane ever felt a material disadvantage? But I will say that, from what we've seen of Duncan in previous episodes, he's not as interested as the others in the trappings of wealth, and he seems to want a lot of it to go away. But he does know want at a really deep, fundamental level, because he wants his sister not to be murdered. And he wants to not have to have broken up with Veronica. But he also wants his laptop, and he's very angry and he is giving Weevil some shoving; but, you know, Duncan and Weevil: that is not an even match, especially because Weevil has a bunch of PCHers to deal with Duncan.
JOY: Careful, Duncan, careful.
HZ: Luckily, Veronica's watching this because she now knows what's up. And Duncan's like, “Well, this concerns you, if you weren't interested already in just a bit of a mystery, here's some bait”.
JOY: He's been journaling! As if Musical Theatre Duncan wasn't enough, now we've got now we've got Computer Journaling Duncan.
HZ: It's a Christmas feast of Duncans this episode. So many Duncans, a different Duncan for everyone. And Duncan's like, “Listen, I've got three years of journal on that computer, and you're in it. Know what I'm saying?” Duncan has been writing some kind of menacing sex diary.
JOY: Oh, Lord, let it be so.
HZ: Veronica goes to see the PCHers who seemed to be playing dice -
JOY: Dice in the beanbag room! With the lights out.
HZ: They've chosen a good room for it. But you do need light to play dice. And I'd imagine for many gambling games.
JOY: Yeah. And Veronica gives them the old head tilt:
VERONICA: Hey.
JOY: And then immediately gets called out:
WEEVIL: See, there you go with that head-tilt thing. You know, you think you're all badass, but whenever you need something it's all, "Hey."
HZ: Oh, love it. Weevil is on fire this episode.
JOY: Weevil seems way more in touch with Veronica's ongoing request for favours than, say, Wallace, who's getting hit up on an episode by episode basis.
HZ: Yeah, “That came out of nowhere!” Although it's interesting to me, Veronica and Weevil are only friends in times of crisis, when one or the other needs something. But they probably wouldn't meet each other for lunch when everything is fine, would they?
JOY: Right.
HZ: She's asking Weevil if she can investigate, she says “So you don't get busted for stealing 09er stuff.” But also she doesn't want him to see Duncan's saucy diary.
JOY: Do you think there's this specific level of interest Veronica has in keeping Weevil from reading it? Don't you think if somebody was going to see that, if it was Weevil he'd be the least likely to spread it around school?
HZ: Right, because he's one of the characters who actually fucks rather than just implies it?
JOY: Yeah, he's like, “I don't have time to share these diary entries about Duncan's interest in like holding hands with Veronica, I'm busy fucking.”
HZ: But also I what I love is when she's offering to investigate and he's like "I don't need you, and he's like:
WEEVIL: Could you please, Veronica, protect me from the big bad sweater vest-wearing rich boys?
JOY: Yes!!
HZ: And I also love that when Veronica says “Why were you even at the card game?” And he's like, “I hear about a $5,000 card game played by idiots, I'm interested.”
JOY: Yes, exactly. Go take their money Weevil!
HZ: And we learn in flashback how this card game came about. And you can tell that it's a recent flashback because it's not all smeary and bright like they usually are.
JOY: Right? Right. It hasn't like faded and tinted blue with the passage of time.
HZ: No, it's still quite a high res flashback. And Logan and Weevil trade insults.
JOY: Yes.
HZ: Logan's, of course, is classist and gross. And Weevil’s, of course, is brilliant.
LOGAN: Look, my only concern is property values going down if anyone sees you in my house without a leaf blower or a skimmer.
WEEVIL: Your concern? I'm the one who's gotta go up into the hills, all by myself. What if I run into a pack of you white boys, huh? On some clean, well-lit street? I could be bored to death.
LOGAN: Fine. It's a thousand dollars in ten crisp one hundred dollar bills. We don't take food stamps.
WEEVIL: Ouch! You got me!
JOY: That would be a terrible way for Weevil to go, what a waste - but oh my gosh, did you see Weevil's eyelashes in this scene? They are so long and lush!
HZ: I also enjoyed Weevil's surprise surfer dude impression.
HZ: In the present, Veronica asks Weevil who he thinks did it. And Weevil thinks no one left the pool house with the money. Unless they hit it in their gigantic underpants? Which would be really possible.
JOY: That’s true!
HZ: Those things have so much room; you could get so many Fabergé eggs in there.
JOY: Not enough consideration being given to the all of this enormous underwear that could easily conceal one measly wad of $5,000.
HZ: He says Logan had the opportunity. So then we flashback to the game. And what we learn in the flashback is a) Connor, the actor, goes to the toilet a lot - Chekhov's Bladder! Sean.... Sean keeps winning and says some rich boy twat stuff:
SEAN: Tip money for the guy who washes my Jag.
DUNCAN: Dude, you don’t even have a license.
LOGAN: Dude, why does he need a licence when he has a chauffeur?
SEAN: Can it be considered an embarrassment of riches if I'm not embarrassed? Thoughts?
JOY: What if you're just embarrassing?
HZ: But then everyone's distracted by Logan's hot mom Lisa Rinna in a bikini, diving into her pool, so they all go and crowd around the window. Duncan smushes his face up against the glass. Obviously Logan doesn't go.
JOY: Thank God!
HZ: Weevil’s not openly letching over her the way the other ones were.
JOY: Again, because he actually fucks.
HZ: Exactly.
JOY: But all the other rich boys are like “Mommy!”
HZ: “Mommy in bikini!” Back in the present, Weevil says he would have torn the pool house apart to look for the money, except he didn't want Logan to call the cops. So file all this information away. Just saying - relevant.
JOY: Filed.
HZ: And then we've got some strong noir knee to floor shot of Lynn Echolls sautering in to the Mars office. She's wearing pearls and a white Chanel tweed-style top so the overall effect of her outfit is rich and hot.
JOY: Yes, and she's freaked out because somebody left a note on their freaking kitchen table.
HZ: And she's like, “Well, Aaron gets loads of disturbing letters from obsessed fans, but this one's different.” So Keith reads it, and it's in massive red handwriting, so you know it's not casual. And it says, “Cheater cheater pumpkin eater, had a wife and couldn't keep her” - Chekhov's Pumpkin. She wants Keith to find this person. And you sense - it's quite sweet, this; Keith is very warm to Lynn and it implies that, a long time ago when their kids used to be friends, Keith and Lynn were also friends and they muse that they haven't hung out in ages and both their kids have struggled to deal with Lilly Kane's death.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: And Keith is going to go over to look at the rest of the collection of threatening letters that Lynn seems more bothered about than Aaron.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: Maybe she's got more time to read the post. At school Veronica and Duncan are lit green from below, as one so often is during the day when looking at proofs on a light box. And Veronica thinks she can get Duncan's laptop back and asks Duncan for his take on the game and he's like, "Well I was surprised Weevil was there." And in the flashback Duncan is seen on uncorking the liquor bottle that will get him into the spirit to do some singing later on. Logan's like, "Don't worry, there's no way in hell I'll let Weevil walk out with our money." At the lunch tables, the rich kids are eating some chopstick-enabled foods and there's a crowd just standing around enjoying witnessing them do that. Sean says:
SEAN: That's what he decides to steal? What's he going to do with a Faberge Egg?
LOGAN: Two words, man: huevos rancheros.
HZ: Tell you who loves Logan’s racist disses is all the richos - except:
JOY: Class Traitor Duncan!
HZ: Leveller of pirate points!
JOY: I love this because Duncan has had it. Fed up, Socialist Class Traitor Duncan is through with Logan being a total jackass:
LOGAN: You got something to say to me, you say it.
DUNCAN: Did you take the money?
LOGAN: You were so drunk, you wouldn't know if Kris Kringle walked in and took the money.
DUNCAN: When did you get like this? It’s like you’ve been going over to the dark side, bit by bit, so slowly that I didn’t notice when you morphed into a full-fledged jackass.
LOGAN: What? I’m a jackass?
DUNCAN: Yeah, and I’m over it.
LOGAN: What, are we breaking up now? Huh? You want your best friend charm back?
JOY: And Logan's “Like how could I be all the way on the dark side when I'm wearing this mud brown jacket over a scum green shirt?”
HZ: It's very mid-tone side. But Logan's sardonic because he hurts. I wonder how Duncan's presidency is going by the way.
JOY: Yeah, I'm sure we'll be hearing about it a lot, any time now...
HZ: I'm glad to know that class traitor Duncan wasn't just an episode six blip; he's still there in a crowd of Duncans.
JOY: Maybe the Duncan that we've seen the most of up to this point, Singing/Class Traitor Duncan.
HZ: What a treat! Echolls house. They've got some staff decorating a big white tree. There is a lot of decor happening, most of it red and white for maximum visual drama. There's a jazzy instrumental of ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’ that is adding a frantic note to the scene.
JOY: This is really extreme. I mean, I know they're rich, famous people, but like, wow, that tree is a lot! That tree is a lot! I feel like there are multiple trees and multiple sets of staff decorating individual trees. Lynn is directing Carlita to a bald patch upon the tree that must be filled in. Keith is like, “Hey, I've got some Padre ornaments that didn't fit on my tree in the car if you need any any holes filled.” And Keith tells Lynn that he's looked over the letter and all the other letters, and he thinks that the person who sent the letter that was on the kitchen table has sent six previous letters. Aargh! And he recommends that she cancel the party and she's like, "I can't possibly cancel the party just because someone wants to murder my husband. It's Christmas."
HZ: Yeah, “I've got 200 people due. Why ruin their fun just for one person not being murdered?”
JOY: And Keith is like, “You're inviting 200 people to your party. And look, your house is currently full of people. Do you even know all the people who are here? Can you vouch for them? Do you feel safe?” She's like. "Yeah, of course we know them. They're the help."
HZ: Now, foreshadowing, but interesting here: “Yes, I have acknowledged those as people. But barely.” You know, they're kind of invisible people in their lives.
JOY: Yeah, yeah.
HZ: But not forever.
JOY: Then Aaron strolls in singing ‘Deck the Halls’. Perhaps you've heard his cover of ‘Deck the Halls’ on his Christmas album Unfaithful Xmas or some shit.
HZ: He also hands a large white poinsettia to one of the staff which suggests that the Mooncalf Collective's crop is on sale!
JOY: Oh my goodness. It's the ultimate cash crop because the Echollses have a Christmas party every year.
HZ: And also later, when there's a lunch table scene at the school, it's also got a poinsettia on it. So they picked the right cash crop.
JOY: Yeah, they're moving units like nobody's business.
HZ: Aaron seems in very jolly spirits and not at all bothered about the letters. Very glib until he opens the door.
JOY: Aaron opens the door trying to see Keith out, telling him that there's absolutely nothing to worry about. And he opens his own front door onto a huge pumpkin that someone has carved a passable likeness of Aaron Echolls's face into and then stabbed the knife into the top of and then painted some blood rolling down the side of the pumpkin. Who wants to see that at their own front door? No, no, no.
HZ: And we know that Aaron Echolls has a high tolerance for seeing depictions of his own face because we've seen the house before and it's usually full of his pictures when it's not full of Christmas trees.
JOY: Yeah, it seems like they’ve taken some Aaron Echolls memorabilia down in preparation for the holiday celebration, just making a note.
HZ: At the Mars HQ, Veronica is wearing a very, very complicated jacket that is also really only a half-jacket, becauset probably comes down to her liver, and it's got furry bit, it's got metal ring fastenings instead of buttons and a great big hood, and yet it's leaving her stomach completely cold.
JOY: It's the Duncan Kane of jackets, if you will.
HZ: Keith is calling a place to ask if they do pumpkin carving and ranting about vegetables and things and says to Veronica to go to the Echolls house to get Lynn to sign some papers for him. What papers does she need to sign?
JOY: Unknown. Very mysterious.
HZ: Also he was just there in the last scene?
JOY: It's almost as if this this episode needed a reason for Veronica to see Logan's pool house and also have a conversation with Logan so he could send her to Connor, which he's about to do.
HZ: Yeah, well, she turns up at the pool house, Logan's playing a shooty game so she could obviously win that very easily. The pool house, we se is a mess - Chekhov's Mess.
JOY: Chekhov's Mess.
HZ: Also there's some very very big brandy balloon glasses filled with snacks. I'm surprised that all of those survived a night of teenage boys being raucous.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: And there are board games boxes all over. Upon Veronica's entry, Logan says:
LOGAN: This is why I suggested attack dogs. But no, my mother wanted an alpaca.
HZ: Lovely delivery of ‘alpaca’ by Jason Dohring.
JOY: Really nice.
HZ: Let's just check in with the Logarments: he has a white long sleeve T-shirt, quite bright, but it does have pond-coloured stripes down the arms and a pond-coloured collar.
JOY: Logarments!
HZ: Sartorial pond-watch complete. And then Logan says some sardonic detective-insulting things.
LOGAN: I’ve been meaning to ask you something. Did your super-sleuth kit come with a decoder ring? Do you have a pen that writes with invisible ink? Never mind, don't care. Mush! Mush!
HZ: But then having dismissed her, he calls her back and suggests maybe she should talk to Connor, who we learn is a rich film star in a movie with Aaron. And Logan also mentions that Connor has drawn-on abs, a coke problem, and doesn't like Logan very much.
JOY: Those are all the things that you need to know about Connor.
HZ: Then in a flashback to the game, I quite liked Connor initially because he tells Logan off for saying racist things. And it's about time someone called Logan on that. But then Connor is like, “Well, I'm just gonna join in the racist stuff”.
WEEVIL: So, what’s Catherine Zeta-Jones like?
SEAN: She likes to read to starving children and bake home-made scones, this according to The Insider.
CONNOR: I only met her in passing.
LOGAN: It’s not like your people, they don’t all know each other.
CONNOR: Dude, what’s up with that?
LOGAN: What?
CONNOR: That’s like the tenth racist thing you’ve said.
LOGAN: Oh my god! Does the soapbox come with the SAG card?
CONNOR: Or is it because Rosie Perez thought you were a girl?
HZ: So thus, firstly, lumping together all Latinx people. Secondly, kind of gender-shaming, well, genders because of Rosie Perez thinking Logan was a girl.
JOY: Yeah, strong start and really poor finish for Connor.
HZ: Do you think Logan knows that it is possible to spend time with people that you don't hate and that don't hate you?
JOY: I don't think he has had a place in his life where he could learn that like you couldn't have learned that from his parents, for example.
HZ: No. Then Connor's phone rings in the flashback - kids, that was when your phone made a noise like when the alarm goes off. But what the noise was telling you is that someone's calling you, which was like them sending a WhatsApp message but with their mouths and live rather than recorded, if that makes sense.
JOY: That makes some sense.
HZ: Go to a museum and ask them about it. And Connor takes his phone to the toilet and present Logan thinks, “Well, that's weird, to take your phone to the toilet,” because this is of course before the era when people would just go to the toilet to tweet for a few hours.
JOY: Uh huh. Uh huh.
HZ: Then he arranges for Veronica to go and visit Connor on set and, you know, always manages to be gross.
LOGAN: Veronica Mars. No, Veronica, “V” as in “virgin.”
JOY: Uncalled for, just uncalled for!
HZ: But then he does also utter a classic Veronica Mars line:
VERONICA: Look at you, all helpful.
LOGAN: Hey, your pestiness being unleashed on Connor brings. me. joy. Annoy, tiny blonde one. Annoy like the wind!
JOY: I like when they are antagonistic with each other in a way that doesn't make me feel bad about, say, the kind of person that Logan is.
HZ: Yes. It's such a rare pleasure. But his face is quite upset as Veronica departs for the movie set where there are some helicopters and some shootings.
JOY: Some abs on display.
HZ: Veronica's voiceover is hot for the abs - Chekhov's Abs.
JOY: She is feeling this guy and his Chekhov's Abs, he’s all sweaty...
HZ: Not physically feeling.
JOY: No, no, she's like, theoretically. Desiriously? Hm. Okay.
HZ: They're Connor's abs, we should specify - not just some abs that are not attached to a character. And he's like, “Are they too shiny?” Are they too shiny, Jenny?
JOY: No, they're just shiny enough. I have no problem with his abs or their shinyness. What I do have a problem within the scene is, “So you want to be an actress or something?” And Veronica's like, “No, I'm just a garden variety fan. Anyway, I heard you were playing a poker game. Tell me all of the details,” and Connor's like “Let me tell you all of the details!” It's just like so unnatural.
HZ: Maybe she's like, “Well, actors are idiots. And I've paid him a compliment, which means he's mine. Which means he will do whatever I want.” He is he's very chatty. But because he's so chatty, it seems like he's not hiding anything. He points out that one person did leave the room with cash, and that's the pizza delivery guy. Flashback: they're patting down Duncan for his wallet to pay the pizza delivery guy, because they think Duncan so drunk, he can't get his wallet out. And yet, Duncan admonishes Logan for giving the pizza guy really shitty tip - $2 on top of a $50 bill.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: 4%! Drunken Kane does the math and works out the percentage of this tip.
JOY: Hmmmmm. Suspect !
HZ: Also, because this episode is information-packed, Duncan accuses Sean of never paying for beer despite being chauffeured everywhere. And Sean's like, "Oh, I have a taste for ghetto beer."
JOY: Adjusts monocle. Tips top hat.
HZ: And in the present, Connor throws a teabag at the bin and misses. This is Chekhov's Teabag.
JOY: Uh huh.
HZ: And then he gets a call so Veronica has the opportunity to call Wallace and ask for a favour, just a small teeny favour - getting Sean's home address.
JOY: Oh, poor faithful Wallace, just ready to serve, at a moment's notice, the great cause of Veronica Mars investigations.
HZ: Did you say ready to serve as a tennis pun? Because in the next scene, Aaron Echolls is playing tennis, albeit standing very rigidly and barely moving, either for reasons of keeping him in one camera shot or because Harry Hamlin is not a tennis player, I don't know.
JOY: I'm just gonna vote: keeping him in one shot. I just have faith.
HZ: It seems like it seems like a very unnatural tennis situation.
JOY: Oh yes.
HZ: He's a bit distracted because Keith is also there asking questions about what he calls the Aaron O'Lantern. I feel like there's probably a better pun or portmanteau to be made. I'll think about it.
JOY: Yeah, I'll leave that to you, your area of expertise.
HZ: And Keith's like, “Is there anyone who bears you ill will?” And he's like, “Nnnnnnnnoooo...”
JOY: Me.
HZ: And he's like, “I'm faithful to my wife”. And Keith is teasing out this pumpkin connection. Which - it's not a Christmassy gourd, is it?
JOY: No, no, it's definitely limited to October and November maybe.
HZ: So Keith's like, “What did you do at Halloween? Did you piss anyone off?” Aaron’s like, “No, I spent last Halloween at a party at the Casablancases’.”
JOY: “With my wife Lynn.”
HZ: Yes. And Keith's like:
KEITH: Don’t want to stir up any muck.
AARON: Well, there’s no muck to stir.
HZ: And Keith gives a very "Sure, Jan" expression.
JOY: Elsewhere in the 09er zip, Veronica rolls up at Sean's house, and his dad comes to the door. But it's odd, isn't it?
HZ: Sean's not allowed to receive visitors at home. And Veronica's like, "Dad's answering the door wearing a suit but in the middle of the day?!"
JOY: Math lady meme!
HZ: Dad's a butler! He's a butler at a rich house and Sean's not rich person at all. He's just acting like a rich person by being as much of a douche as possible because that's what rich people are like, right?
JOY: Yeah. And he's doing good job blending, but it just seems really unlikely to me that that the other 09er kids wouldn't know who lived in this house. You know?
HZ: Very good point. Interesting. Maybe Sean is newish.
JOY: Yeah, that's true.
HZ: Maybe the 09er kids are just thick? I don't know. That's a good question, Jenny. Both Marses are doing a lot of investigating this episode because Keith is in the Echolls kitchen, surrounded by cookies and things and the catering manager Martha, who caters the Casablancas Halloween Party every year and also usefully caters this party, she’s like, “I'm contractually not allowed to talk about the events that we do,” proceeds to just tell him all kinds of blabbing things about this event.
JOY: Once you question her taste, all bets are off.
HZ: Yeah. That's weird, isn't it? Does Keith deliberately say, “I was told you had the bad taste to fire someone”?
JOY: Yeah. He's fishing for sure.
HZ: Very good isn't he, he's very good.
JOY: So clever.
HZ: Might not be the Echolls's kitchen, it might just be surrounded by catering, for fun. It's my mistake. The juice here is that:
KEITH: Aaron wanted her fired because she was on the second floor of somebody else’s house?
MARTHA: That and someone else’s wife was on top of him.
KEITH: Wait. You’re saying Aaron Echolls was with another woman the night of the Halloween party?
MARTHA: While his wife was downstairs eating canapés.
JOY: You think you'd want to keep that person on your side and not have them fired? You think forcing somebody to fire them would be a last resort.
HZ: Given that the rich people are almost incapable of seeing or hearing staff members, it's drawing a lot more attention to it by firing them rather than just them being ignored by all the money stuffed into the 09er ears. At school, Sean gets out of the back of a fancy car and the driver hands him some books. Veronica strolls up wearing another furry jacket that's quite small, but not as small, because it is getting colder. And Sean says "the criminal element” has found its way into his gym bag and stolen his Rolex.
JOY: I don't believe there was ever a Rolex in his gym bag, that's what I'll say.
HZ: No, although Veronica later does intimate that Sean had a shoplifting problem which expedited the... Is this much of a relevant flashback?
JOY: Well, it's relevant because everyone's in their underwear still.
HZ: Not Weevil. They're suggesting that Weevil isn't stripping because he has crabs.
SEAN: What about you?
WEEVIL: I’m the one who got his money stolen.
SEAN: I’m thinking…crabs?
WEEVIL: I told your mother to clean up.
HZ: He's not wasting his A-game burns on these guys. I don't love this style of Weevil joke. Sean, in the present, condescends to Veronica Mars, and as anyone who watches Columbo knows, condescending to these detective people is a bad idea.
VERONICA: Why would Weevil steal his own money?
SEAN: You should really consider another profession. Perhaps he stole the money before he knew he was going to win. Right before Mrs Echolls got wet and wild, he was down to his last two chips.
VERONICA: I heard you weren’t doing so hot either.
SEAN: Yeah, but the difference is, I don’t need the money.
HZ: Implying that Weevil stole the money, but also, Mrs. Echolls wasn't “wet and wild”. She went for a swim.
JOY: Yeah. Stop projecting.
HZ: Yeah, it's like when the tabloids are like "Flaunted her bikini body,” you're like, “That is just a person having a corporeal existence, rather than being an untethered soul.” So fuck you, Sean.
JOY: Yeah, fuck you, Sean.
HZ: But he's also like, “Veronica, obviously I didn't steal the money because I don't need the money.”
JOY: The lady doth protest too much methinks. Helen. He's the only 09er who keeps talking about how very much he doesn't need the money.
HZ: Yeah. Is it opposite day?
JOY: It might be.
HZ: Because even these rich people, they seem very keen on having more money.
JOY: You can never have too much.
HZ: At Mars HQ, Keith and Aaron are having some coffee. Keith asks Aaron to pull a file out which he's got tucked into his armpit, which I found really cute. But I was wondering also whether Keith had a kind of game plan of informality with Aaron and cosseting him a bit where he's like, "So, you fucked someone that's not your wife, but my memory is not so good, either. So it doesn't matter that you lied to me."
JOY: Aaron seems like somebody who's gonna lie to make himself look better, until he doesn't have the opportunity to do so but still wants to feel good about himself. So I think the trick to getting Aaron's to cop to stuff is give him soft ways to backpedal for sure.
HZ: Keith is very smart. Then he's like, "I'm not going to tell Lynn that you cheated, because you didn't hire me to tell you that you cheated, she hired me to protect you. So here's a list of people who were at the Casablancas Halloween party. Can you circle the people that you slept with?" And Aaron's like circle circle circle and Keith's like, "No just the people you slept with whilst at the party." Amazing. And Aaron's like, "Ooof. I was on the hard cider." Now, anyone who's been 15 years old in Britain can identify.
JOY: The hard cider.
HZ: That is a pretty starter level drink for Aaron to blame.
JOY: Yeah, then we get his flashback. And there he is, beneath some woman in a - I don't know what is she like a silky milkmaid, or something?
HZ: I think she's Bo Peep.
JOY: Oh, yeah, that makes a lot more... Well, I mean, it's not even that far away from silky milkmaid. I'll take it. I'll count that as a victory for me.
HZ: I don't know what Aaron's costume is. I think just fuckboi, isn't it?
JOY: Yeah, fuckboi. Fuckdad.
HZ: This is a woman called Monica, who's not a stalker. She's his agent’s wife.
JOY: Yikes! Buddy...
HZ: And so Keith's got some photos from the party, conveniently, asks Aaron and to point out the women that he slept with. And very handily there are all three of them in the same photo; one of them is Wonder Woman, the other is in this Bo Peep wear - all of them are invited to the Christmas party. Is that a good idea? And he says, “It's fine! They're not stalkers! They're just needy.” Great attitudes towards women.
JOY: Yeah. So, next step for Keith is to go talk to Monica Hadwin, who's being fitted with a dress and is ripping into her tailor like, I don't know, some like Sex in the City-style Cruella de Vil or something.
HZ: Oh, lovely comparison. Yeah, cuz she's like, “I have to look as hot as possible. Otherwise, my life is over.” Something like that. She's another person who is conveniently forthcoming. She says Aaron's a sexy, charming movie star with an arse like an 18 year old wrestler. He's psycho bait.
JOY: Aaarghhh. Yeah, what to do with this? I'm not sure.
HZ: But then her husband, Aaron's agent, shows up who’s clearly not ignorant of Aaron's shenanigans. And the spouses are another unhappy rich couple of Neptune, trading barbs.
MONICA: Before Aaron, his biggest client was a day player on “Boy Meets World.”
HARVEY: And before me, you sat in your underwear in a fish tank at the Standard.
JOY: Is anyone happy in Neptune? Is anyone happy who has loads of money? Is anyone happy? Helen, are you happy?
HZ: I think Keith is sometimes beatifically happy. And when Keith's happy, I'm happy.
JOY: We're all happy. Yeah.
HZ: Over at the school lunch tables. Veronica's watching Duncan from afar and worrying about the diary. Wallace turns up with a lunch tray of many hot dogs.
JOY: Stealing files from Veronica and endangering his wellbeing and his high school career burns a lot of calories for Wallace, I think, so he's got to re-up. Hot dog fever.
HZ: We don't even know how many files and misdemeanours she makes him commit. These are just the ones that make it to screen.
JOY: Honestly. Yes.
HZ: These are just the case of the week misdemeanours she forces him to do. I miss Wallace when he's not around.
JOY: Me too.
HZ: Wallace makes Veronica a nicer person.
WALLACE: You’re gonna hurt yourself, thinking that hard.
VERONICA: They say if you’re caught in a stare it means your mind needs a break.
WALLACE: Like that mind ever takes a break.
HZ: But over on the 09er table, Logan shows up with pizza and Duncan removes himself so things are still not going well.
JOY: Trouble in paradise.
HZ: Veronica strides up and Weevil magically just apparates behind her. She tells Logan Duncan and Sean that she knows who stole the money. But she'll only tell them if certain conditions are met.
JOY: She wants the card game to resume tonight at Logan’s. She wants to take the place of whoever stole the money. Logan's like, "Do you even know how to play poker?" and Veronica burns them - Veronica fires up her flame thrower and fucking burns it all down.
LOGAN: Do you even know how to play poker?
VERONICA: No. But it must be really hard if all you guys play.
HZ: "You must not know about me, you must not know about me."
JOY: One thing that we skimmed right over though is, while Veronica is staring at 09ers from across the lunch area, she's voiceovering, "Santa knows I've been a good girl," which just kicked off a video montage in my mind of all the times Veronica has committed more crimes then she solved per episode for the last half of the season.
HZ: But, you know, Jenny, at Christmas what do you prefer - one big gift or lots of little gifts? Is it like that? Veronica solves one big crime and in return she gets lots of little crimes.
JOY: True, okay, okay. So it's like an ongoing exchange, the circle of life, if you will.
HZ: And then the reason why Veronica wants in on this poker game is because that would earn her enough money to get Keith the Christmas present of going to the baseball camp! And it's that night, so we don't have to wait that long. Echolls Party: the servers are in Santa hats. It's all kind of fancy. Looks more fun in the pool house, doesn't it?
JOY: Yes, it does. I prefer the pool house party.
HZ: Despite all the jerks and their jokes. Logan is like “ho, ho - ho” as Veroncia walks in. In all the pool house scenes, Duncan's been swigging from a bottle of hard liquor. And he does this now, and he does that theatrical kind of "aah" to indicate the burningness.
JOY: Oh, yes.
HZ: But now we get a Poirot-worthy reveal scene, which I love.
JOY: It's time to check off all those boxes that Chekhov has created, laying track in the earlier parts of the episode.
HZ: It’s glorious. Weevil offers Veronica Mars a sody pop. And she's like, “I need something stronger,” grabs Duncan's booze bottle - swigs.
JOY: Chug chug chug.
HZ: He's like "No!" It's iced tea, Drunken Kane was an act! Veronica knows: she's like "Duncan can't remember the alphabet when he drinks, let alone figure out 20% of the pizza bill." Which, to be honest, I wouldn't necessarily trust Duncan to do when he's fully sober. Good thing that Connor recounted all of the details of the pizza transaction down to the numbers - or did she just have surveillance footage, as she does of every room in Neptune?
JOY: Maybe she has everyone's flashbacks bugged.
HZ: Why is it that Duncan played fake drunk?
JOY: I think that he just wanted everybody to underestimate him in the game to give him an advantage.
HZ: But then he lived down to expectations.
JOY: Oh, sweet Duncan.
HZ: He’s not good at being wily, is he? Next revelation: Connor is not a coke addict. So why all the toilet trips?
JOY: He had to pee. He had to pee so much because he was drinking diuretic tea so that his abs would look the best they could possibly look in all of his shirtless shots in that new film. And I thank him for it! Sorry.
HZ: And Logan didn't take the money and hide it, or why afterwards had he turned the room apart by the time Veronica went to visit? I mean, I'm always tearing rooms apart looking for things that I hid a short while earlier, so me, not so impossible.
JOY: Sure, sure. But you think you'd have like at least a quadrant of the room selected or something if he had, in fact, tucked it away himself?
HZ: Yeah. And Veronica says about Logan, "Looks like an evildoer, smells like an evildoer, but surprisingly - not so much." Which really sums up Logan, doesn't it?
JOY: It really does, with the exception of all his running racist commentary.
HZ: So who are we left with - Logan? Logan is innocent. Duncan is innocent - almost too innocent. Connor - just pissing a lot. Who could it have been that took the money?
JOY: Well, it wasn't Weevil because he's too beautiful and precious and perfect for this world. Therefore, it must have been Sean, who actually brought that bottle of what he continues to refer to as “ghetto brew” because it had a wide mouth so he could jam a big old wad of cash in there.
HZ: And then put it in the recycling and fish it out the next day! This is a high risk horrible sticky plan!
JOY: Yeah, this is so much risk, and you have to imagine that the person who we see pulling all the recyclables - wouldn't you notice, “Oh wow, this bottle that I'm picking up to recycle that should be empty actually is heavier than it should be, and it's kind of like there's some paper rattling around inside of it”? I mean, he's just lucky that that somebody didn't get to those bills before he did.
HZ: Or maybe there's just a lot of spare cash rattling around in the Echolls's trash.
JOY: Very possible.
HZ: But also, let's consider this: firstly, we've seen in previous episodes, the Echolls house has a big security gate. Secondly, this kid really knows the bin collection days in Logan's neighbourhood? Thirdly, the Echolls House always seems to have fans outside, would they really leave the trash out for them to rifle through? I wouldn't choose this plan to smuggle out $5,000 in cash, personally.
JOY: It would not have been my first pick either, I would have chosen to hide it in my enormous underwear, if I was one of these boys.
HZ: What's the point of such billowing underwear?
JOY: If you're not going to conceal something.
HZ: And Veronica, of course, knew this as soon as she saw that Sean's dad was a butler.
VERONICA: I have to say, I was a bit miffed. I was this close to being able to say the butler did it. But no, it was the butler's son.
SEAN: That doesn't prove anything.
VERONICA: Well, that proves that you’re a liar and the background check I ran on you proves that you've got a bit of a shoplifting problem. You are really bad at it.
HZ: Motive!
JOY: Which I guess is maybe how he rustled up $1,000 to buy into the game in the first place. That was a question I had. And then it's time - now this is curious. It's time for them to sit down and play the poker game. And Veronica very quickly makes a show of like, “Uh oh, card shark Mars is coming for all your money.”
HZ: Played by a hand double!
JOY: Yes! A hand double with different hands, for sure. But why would - especially Weevil, who won the $5,000 - why would Weevil agree? Are they just dividing up the the $5,000 and they all go back to having a grand each to start with? This is a weird move.
HZ: Like I said, I don't understand poker. I'm just gonna fixate on how the boys are all taken aback: “Whoa, she can shuffle. I didn't know women can handle cards.” Keith, meanwhile, is scrutinising Halloween party photos of wonder woman next to pumpkins.
JOY: Carved pumpkins, oh my God!
HZ: Revelation! And then in the Echolls party, there's a white piano playing soft jazzy Christmas songs - boring! Lynn says, “Be back at 9pm, I have a big holiday surprise for everyone.” Keith calls a catering company about a girl they fired whose job was whatever French is for pumpkin carver! Ominous cut to: waitstaff are at the party holding a tray. And in the pool house a Dandy Warhols cover of ‘Little Drummer Boy’ plays, it's all happening.
JOY: Oh my God!
HZ: Veronica is clearly cleaning up at cards.
CONNOR: “You must be really unlucky in love.”
HZ: Kristen Bell does a great laugh in a kind of "Oh, buddy. Where to begin?"
JOY: Oh my god. They take a little break to go in for snacks. Who's watching the money now? And Weevil tells Veronica that she's a natural - at what exactly? At being at a rich people party I guess.
HZ: Maybe at poker winning, because we know that Weevil is good at it too.
JOY: I love that, after they finished having this exchange, Veronica's like, “Oh, could you hold my plate for a second?” and then Weevil with a plate and each hand is passed by someone who's passing hors d'oeuvres. I think it's like shrimp or something. And he's like, “Ah, come on, man. Just like, put it in my mouth. Basically, just pop one in because my hands are full, please!”
HZ: Just throw them from the other side of the room.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: What I'm not so keen on is the jazz flute rendition of ‘Greensleeves’ that's playing. And what I do like is that Duncan and Logan reconcile in, like, fifteen awkward words - it's such a teenage boys-seeming thing.
JOY: Yeah, for sure.
DUNCAN: So…I, uh, you know.
LOGAN: Yeah.
DUNCAN: Sorry about the whole…
LOGAN: I’ve done plenty of other things.
HZ: Outside, Keith can't get in, he's not on the guest list. Inside, Jake Kane is browsing in the library. Or just staring at a wall? I don't know. Maybe his battery ran down, that's where Duncan gets it from. And Veronica confronts him about the surveillance photos of her and Jake's like, “I don't know what you're talking about.” And it's very heated and emotional.
JOY: Yeah, he seems genuinely like he doesn't know what's up. He doesn't seem like he's lying. And then this is compounded when he runs back out into the party and grabs Celeste's arm, which I don't love, and is like, "What did you do? What did you do? We're leaving!"
HZ: Lynn picks up one of the many many hand bells that are at this party.
JOY: Hell yeah, my kind of party!
HZ: And asks everyone to follow the Santa-hatted waitstaff outside for the big surprise and I must say, the surprise she's planned is kind of blah.
JOY: Especially compared to the one the carver has planned.
HZ: Pretty grim. Keith has infiltrated the party and very lucky that he has. So Aaron is like, "Brrr, I better get a coat," in a very unconvincing way - bad actor; goes off to flirt with Monica, and is interrupted by a server from the Halloween party.
JOY: Oh my god, and she's all:
SERVER: You don’t even care, do you?
AARON: I’m sorry?
WAITRESS: Sleep with me, you say you love me.
AARON: Lynn, I don’t know who this person is, I swear!
JOY: Oh! And then she stabs him with a freaking pumpkin carving tool!
HZ: Wow. I didn't realise there was specific pumpkin tool sets.
JOY: Yes, you've got your knife, for the removal of the lid and maybe for blade tracing stuff, but then you need like little scoopers and...
HZ: Stabbers.
JOY: Exactly. Scoopers and stabbers.
HZ: And we didn't mention what Lynn's surprise was: it's just some carollers wearing bonnets under some fake snow.
JOY: The fake snow is nice.
HZ: It's alright. It depends what it's made of, if it's something biodegradable, or if it's shredded plastic bags, which often is.
JOY: Well, okay, hopefully it's not that one. Hopefully it's soap like at the Americana, but the Christmas carol that she's chosen for these people blows, I don't like it.
HZ: What is it?
JOY: It's like, "Oh, we go a-wassailing" or whatever. Nobody goes a-wassailing.
HZ: Not in Neptune, it's too warm.
JOY: You know what would have been a tight surprise is if everybody went out there and then Michael Bublé came slip sliding out in his little Christmas tux with a miniature poinsettia pinned to his lapel and he was all like, you know, <insert Christmas song that Michael Bublé sings here>.
HZ: So outside you've got carollers and snow happening in real time. Inside you've got slomo Aaron getting stabbed. And before the stabber can stab again, Keith leaps up to throw Aaron to the ground and get him out of harm's way. Keith is a hero. It's a shame that he's a hero for Aaron, because as we already know, Aaron is a violent, horrible man. But Keith doesn't necessarily know. Logan calls the emergency services, looking traumatised and horrified while there's carols. And that's Christmas in Neptune! What a holly jolly time!
JOY: And Veronica doesn't get the money so she can't send Keith to Padres camp. And there is no Santa Claus and everything sucks.
HZ: The end? I blame pumpkins for all of this.
JOY: Hmm.
HZ: Well let's see how many crimes are being committed in this episode, and check in with our southern California lawyer and marshmallow Lo Dodds for today's LoDown.
THE LODOWN
JOY: Merry Christmas.
LO DODDS: Merry Christmas.
JOY: For Christmas, I got you a creepy note that I'm going to leave on your kitchen table - now that's breaking and entering?
LO DODDS: Yeah, that is breaking and entering. I think that's probably burglary with an intent to commit a felony; if it rises, she's harassing. It's a wobbler crime, so in the sense of if you harass or threaten somebody else to the point that they fear for their safety, but considering that she's been writing multiple threatening letters, she broke in, coupled with another crime, she is definitely looking at burglary and felony harassment.
JOY: And then is it illegal to carve someone's face into a pumpkin and then stab it with a knife and then leave it on their front steps and then paint some drips of blood down it? And, follow up: is it more or less illegal if the likeness is like poor, or very convincing? What are the degrees here? What are we looking at?
LO DODDS: I don't think it's a crime. But I think we should admire her artistic integrity here that she managed to get his face so accurate. It all falls under harassment, so it would definitely be used to increase her penalty to show that she was very serious about killing him. Which is why I believe she would also be charged with attempted murder.
JOY: Right. So stabbing someone is a felony. It’s felonius.
LO DODDS: It's not just the stabbing.
JOY: The stabbing and the intent, right?
LO DODDS: Right. Because of the harassment, that's what makes it so much worse. And the fact that she makes that little speech and apparently has time to pull out a knife in front of everyone after being mad at Aaron for lying to her.
JOY: Real quick: where Veronica, Jake, Celeste and Clarence are concerned: if you photograph someone while they're out in public, that's fine. Because you can't have an expectation of privacy if you're in a public place. However, if you Photoshop a bullseye over their face, and then mail those photos to their Mom, what are we looking at? The same kind of harassment deal?
LO DODDS: Yes. Clarence Wiedman would definitely be in some serious trouble for harassment, making threats. I'm trying to think if he could possibly also face some liability for intentional infliction of emotional distress. That's not a crime but civil liability if Lianne decided she wanted to see how deep plants his pockets were, that's a concern. And harassment also can potentially also land you on the sex offender registry list.
JOY: What can't land you on the sex offenders registry list?
LO DODDS: It's very broad; just keep it in your pants, California, because it is very broad.
HZ: Jenny, I really felt like Christmas had come early for me in this episode, because there's so many great lines.
JOY: What was your very favourite?
HZ: I don't know!
JOY: You can pick as many as you want, because it’s Christmas!
HZ: I think whichever I choose, Weevil will have delivered it because it's either, "Please, Veronica protect me from the big bad sweater vest wearing rich boys" or "What if I run into a pack of you white boys on some clean well lit street? I could be bored to death!" Hello and goodbye.
JOY: Two beautiful contenders. I would like to add to the heap, when Weevil rolls up to Logan's locker to try to convince him to let them play his poker game, Logan says "If you're asking me to the prom again, the answer is still no," which I love because it's funny and I also love because I continue to very casually ship Logan and Weevil and their best frenemy ’ship, which may turn into a romance at any time.
HZ: And how do you feel about the mysteriousness of this mystery? There is so much going on in this episode.
JOY: I feel like this is a good example of a proper mystery mystery, on the poker game side of things; I feel like we see everything play out, like Veronica collecting information from each individual, and gathering the clues and putting it together. And that feels very satisfying to me. So I'm going to give it four out of five names circled on a list of holiday party guests who Aaron Echolls slept with.
HZ: Yeah, I really loved this episode. I loved the Poirot-esque single room mystery - well, single room and a toilet. And the reveal, I thought Veronica is back on detective form after a rough few weeks.
JOY: Yes!
HZ: And I thought the Aaron Echolls pumpkin mystery proceeds pretty well and then has a very dramatic climax. The episode just stops at the most dramatic point. And then you also have these small sweet moments between Keith and the Echollses that suggest this off-screen life where they have known each other a long time but maybe don't see each other that much. You get lots of haves versus have-nots in Sean being this sad exemplar of a have-not trying to be a have. But also the kind of obliviousness to waitstaff being people too. And then I did love Drunken Kane. It looked like Teddy Dunn was having good fun this episode playing Duncan, or playing all the Duncans. Playing this buffet of Duncans.
JOY: Yeah, great episode for Duncan, perhaps above all.
HZ: So I'm going to score this episode four and a half out of five liquor bottles filled with tea.
JOY: Nice.
HZ: Which is how I like to take my liquor.
JOY: As tea?
HZ: As tea.
JOY: Well, that's another episode of Veronica Mars investigated.
HZ: Case closed.
JOY: That was Veronica Mars Investigations Season 1, episode 10: An Echolls Family Christmas.
HZ: Watch season 1 episode 11 and join us in a week to investigate it.
JOY: Find the show on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @VMIpod.
HZ: The website, where the show lives along with matching enormous boxer shorts, is vmipod.com.
JOY: I'm Jenny Owen Youngs and I do stuff besides make this podcast: you can hear music that I make at jennyowenyoungs.com, I'm in the process of releasing new songs right now and they are over there, go listen. And you can hear me talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer on my other podcast Buffering the Vampire Slayer.
HZ: Just listen to any noises that Jenny makes; you won't be sorry. And I, Helen Zaltzman, make two other podcasts: Answer Me This and The Allusionist, and The Allusionist is currently touring around North America, a night out where you learn about the history of singular ‘they’. So find that at theallusionist.org/events.
JOY: This episode was edited and mixed by Zach McNees, with music by 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? Is it a pumpkin?
HZ: Tantamount to a pumpkin.