VMI 1.21 A Trip to the Dentist transcript
Hear this episode at VMIpod.com/1-21
CONTENT NOTE: Veronica Mars contains heavy themes, and this episode includes storylines concerning rape, non-consensual sexual activity, drugs, and involuntary intoxication.
This contains spoilers for this episode of Veronica Mars and all that come before it, but we avoid spoilers for later episodes, which is quite difficult when there are so many aspects of a very long plot arc, and of course we later find out that [redacted] does the [redacted] and that also [redacted] is [redacted], alright?
A LONG TIME AGO ON VERONICA MARS:
Veronica finds a lot of different versions of events when she investigates what happened to her on the night of Shelly Pomroy’s party.
Keith finds Duncan in Cuba!
Duncan finds out that Logan and Veronica are a couple!
We find that a beard does not suit Duncan!
And Veronica finds hidden cameras in Logan’s poolhouse - and for once it wasn’t even her who put them there!
Reversing over your beloved surfboard, I’m Jenny Owen Youngs.
And forgetting your shellfish allergy, I’m Helen Zaltzman.
You’re listening to Veronica Mars Investigations Season 1, episode 21: A Trip to the Dentist.
HZ: The original title for this episode was apparently ‘Up On the Roofie’. I wonder why they changed it? Was it because roofie jokes not good to make, or because the drug in question wasn't even a roofie?
JOY: OMG. Or perhaps because maybe the episode title would have also been a spoiler?
HZ: Now, as you may have noticed, I didn't particularly like the last couple of episodes, but this episode is - it's not only got a lot going on, but it's also kind of like original flavour of Veronica Mars. You get a lot of plot related to what you saw in the pilot, and it's like a reunion of this season's guest stars: try and spot them all. There's no Jane Lynch, I'm afraid. Or Paris Hilton.
JOY: It's sort of like Rob Thomas looked into the future and was like, “Ah, in 20 years there will be a podcast and on that podcast, they will make a collection of cards, citing every unmemorable and indistinguishable brown-haired, rich white boy. Why don't I bring all of those brown-haired, indistinguishable rich white boys back for the penultimate episode of season one?”
HZ: Except for Troy.
JOY: Except for Troy, thank God.
HZ: And we also see our old friend, car window smashing.
JOY: That's true. Nobody's smashed a window in what feels like a dog’s age.
HZ: It's an interesting episode, because instead of it being like mystery of the week, Veronica is kind of investigating the mystery of her life for the past year and a half, which is what happened to her at Shelly Pomroy's party. Who was responsible for her rape, and who was responsible for the intoxication during which her rape happened? I did wonder, could she have investigated this party earlier? Or was the knowledge that she got in Episode 20 that Logan was the one with the GHB critical for opening up these inquiries? Or was she just not emotionally ready yet to investigate before, or was she trying to ignore it and just move on with her life, as a lot of people have had to after sexual assaults, with no legal recourse or anything?
JOY: Or maybe was she giving all of her investigative extracurricular energy to Lilly Kane's murder?
HZ: And also no one hires her to do a job this episode, so that frees up some time.
JOY: Oh, true.
HZ: So you see this night from a lot of different perspectives. So this episode is like Rashomon, getting lots of different pictures of events, which is the truth?
JOY: What is Rashomon?
HZ: It's a Kurosawa film that we would have seen if we'd gone to the Kurosawa retrospective with whatsit from episode 18.
JOY: Norris! Good old Norris.
HZ: There’s loads of flashbacks in this episode, but no flashback hands, because these flashbacks are too grim. And the wigs are the least bad part, if you can even imagine.
JOY: Okay, so we open in Cuba.
HZ: I was wondering where they filmed this - I'm assuming it's Orange County or something. Some lovely establishing shots of bikes, pretty buildings, old cars.
JOY: Sure. There's a strong aesthetic happening. It's nice to look at, until we get a look at Duncan's facial hair, which has been growing in.
HZ: He's got a holiday beard! It's quite funny, because the shot is like Cuba, Cuba, Cuba, and then sweeps into an alfresco cafe. And then someone folds down a newspaper, and you see it's Duncan, who's just been sitting there reading a paper, like any absconding teen would in a tropical destination.
JOY: Of course, perhaps scanning the classifieds to see if anyone's placed a notice of legal action being taken against him.
HZ: “I wonder if anyone's trying to divorce me today.” And who does he see on the other side of the paper?
JOY: A face we all dream of seeing on the other side of our newspapers. It's Keith Mars.
HZ: Isn't Keith great at a reveal?
JOY: Oh, yeah, hell yeah, he’s a master of timing.
HZ: Popping up just by your face when you sleep.
JOY: Yeah, popping up behind you while you're washing the exploded dye pack that he set a trap for you with in the bathroom sink.
HZ: They exchange film references:
KEITH: I know. Of all the countries under military dictatorship in all the world.
DUNCAN: So did they give you the jet to take me back home? Or am I supposed to click my heels?
HZ: The exchange rate is one Casablanca to one Wizard of Oz. Duncan's face, of course, is doing nothing, but he is wearing a T-shirt with a little red star so that you know he's in Cuba. And they have a little chat about who killed Lilly.
DUNCAN: Do you think I killed Lilly?
KEITH: I don’t know who killed your sister, Duncan. I only know it wasn’t Abel Koontz.
DUNCAN: I know it wasn’t me.
JOY: But how can Duncan really be sure?
HZ: Right. Then back to Neptune and the school parking lot. Dick is boring on about a surfboard to Logan because, remember, they're surf buddies right and Dick is like, “This is my child."
JOY: Dick has been a dick in previous episodes but he really sinks so far to new depths in this one.
HZ: New depths of Dick. He’s really deep-Dicking this episode!
JOY: Hey, whoa, Helen, this is a family podcast!
HZ: Is it though, Jenny? It's very family-unsuitable, I would say.
JOY: How big of a popcorn container would we need to get Dick Casablancas totally submerged?
HZ: Jenny! Family podcast! Even though last episode Logan and Veronica were worried about Dick finding out about their romance, now that the romance is in jeopardy, Logan spots Veronica and tries to catch her up, just ditches Dick, but Weevil comes between them.
JOY: Hell yeah. Love to see it, love to see Weevil being protective of Veronica. There's this very tense exchange where we've got like the ghost of Veronica present and the ghost of Lilly past...
HZ: The ghost of racist, classist Logan present and past. No ghost of when Logan and Weevil were friends, which is so sad.
LOGAN: Hey, Veronica. Hey, will you stop for two seconds?
WEEVIL: You see when they run away like that, it's kind of a hint they're not interested.
LOGAN: Look, you do not want to start with me today, paco.
WEEVIL: Are you sure? It was in my day planner under goals.
LOGAN: How is this your business?
WEEVIL: Well I'm just looking out for Veronica. So if you think you're going to lay a hand on her the way you did Lilly...
LOGAN: Don't you even say her name.
WEEVIL: Actually, she kind of liked it when I said her name.
LOGAN: You think she had any real interest in you? You're a pork rind. You're what people grab when they're stoned and just want garbage.
WEEVIL: What makes it worse? Thinking she had feelings for me, or that she was using me for sex?
LOGAN: You stay away from Veronica.
WEEVIL: I'm not the one she's running away from.
HZ: Weevil also says “If you think you're going to lay a hand on Veronica the way you did Lilly," which to me sounds like he's implying that Logan was violent towards Lilly, and that's not the first time that this has been implied, but it remains unexplained.
JOY: Yeah, I think I must have missed a previous reference.
HZ: It might be the episode where they're friends with the girl that is fake kidnapped so that she can escape her parents.
JOY: Right. They do talk about him being like very jealous.
HZ: But before they descend into fisticuffs, a teacher comes and breaks it up and they just sort of neaten each other's lapels a bit and then part ways.
JOY: Oh, if only every confrontation could end - maybe that's their true forbidden love shining through, good old fashioned lapel neatening.
HZ: Yeah, bit of spit 'n hanky - we don't see that, of course, it happens off camera. At home, Veronica is showering and having a cry.
JOY: Relatable Content.
HZ: Totally. She pets Backup, why is Backup so agitated? Because Logan awaits outside the door.
JOY: Is lurking outside.
HZ: In order to apologise or explain.
JOY: But first to find out what it is that he's apologising for or explaining, because he has no idea what's going on. And Veronica asks him why he had GHB the night of Shelly Pomroy's party, the night that she was drugged and raped - which is news to Logan, who kind of instantaneously like half of him remains in the conversation, but the other half of him is like, “Who must I kill?" you can see those gears turning.
HZ: “My punching hand is itching."
JOY: Yeah, exactly.
HZ: And he admits that he got Liquid X in Tijuana with Sean from episode 10. You know the guy, the Faux9er, and Luke from episode 5 - the very sweaty one with the steroids plot that went wrong.
JOY: Ah yes. Adidas.
HZ: Oh yeah, Adidas Luke - the jacket that has seen many of the cast. But Logan says that he got the drugs for fun at a rave, not to spike people. Veronica swears she's gonna make whoever did this to her pay, even if it's Logan.
JOY: Even if it was Logan!
HZ: He's gonna have to punch his own face.
JOY: Oh no! And then she tells him she has to go throw up. And that's some more relatable content from this episode. And we blast right into the credits and have the zippy credits ever felt so wrong as they do after this episode's cold open?
HZ: I think this song coming in after anything except for a slightly rubbish joke is not the time. In the school hallway, Veronica voiceovers about her own alienation. Someone she can count on is Meg, who is at the lockers. And they chat using a reference that harks back to Meg's performance of ‘Don't Tell Mama’ in episode eight when she's auditioning for Cabaret, but also to Ernest Hemingway.
MEG: Um, can we skip English today? I have some sort of Hemingway-related narcolepsy. You start talking about “The Sun Also Rises” and I start falling asleep.
VERONICA: Don’t blame Papa, blame Mrs Murphy’s monotone.
HZ: Maybe one day they'll make reference to a piece of culture that was made during their lifetimes, but not today.
JOY: Doubtful. So she starts with Meg because that's like sort of the easiest in of 09er group and all the people that were at Shelly Pomroy's party. And Meg is the first, but certainly not the last, person to say like, “Yes, I remember seeing you at the party. But if you don't remember anything, maybe you should leave it that way." Urgh.
HZ: And then our first of many flashbacks. Meg is wearing a very respectable party cardigan.
JOY: I think they call that a "partygan."
HZ: They do now. She's leaving the party with her awful now ex-boyfriend who owns no name.
JOY: They keep insisting that his name is Cole.
HZ: He has no name.
JOY: It just slides right off my ears.
HZ: You can't give a name to a void. A vortex has no name. A vortex has no face. Meg sees a crowd of people doing body shots off Veronica and says to Cole that they should help her, because Meg is a good citizen - although, unfortunately not quite a good citizen enough to go and intervene.
JOY: Right, well, Cole's kind of anxious -
HZ: - no, he has no name.
JOY: I'm sorry - the void is very anxious to leave and is also like, “Veronica Mars isn't going to throw up in my car." And then, just before he successfully pulls Meg away from the party, someone helps Veronica get up in and walk away.
HZ: Yeah, and we see that whoever that is, Logan is complaining, saying, “You can't be the cavalry and the martyr." But Meg can't recall who it was who was the cavalry and the martyr. And in the present she says, “That was just your big high school embarrassing moment. Everyone's got one like, let it go. Let it go. This is foreshadowing your later career. Let it go." But Meg has already experienced Veronica's lack of letting things go. She is also underselling the moment, but I guess she did leave the party quite early.
JOY: Okay, so Keith is delivering the package of Duncan Kane back to Celeste in Neptune. He's got a little light sparring going with Clarence Wiedman. Little “two men of very different heights but very similar skill levels, getting in each other's faces and saying vaguely threatening things."
HZ: I'd say Keith is taller in zingers, and Clarence looks like he respects it.
CLARENCE WIEDMAN: Mr Mars, well done.
KEITH: Thanks.
CLARENCE WIEDMAN: Well done. Maybe your daughter has a future in travel planning.
KEITH: And if she gets a discount and I travel the world, I’ll be sure to send you a postcard. You can hang it in your cell.
HZ: Duncan disembarks the private Kane Plane. And Celeste Kane greets him either with a cheek kiss that goes really far to the edge or she is biting his ear off. She's also had a short haircut. I don't know when that happened. It looks good. It's quite sassy. She's cordial to Keith until the issue of payment of the reward comes up and then she's got news for him.
CELESTE: Keith, thank you. I don’t know what we would have done.
KEITH: I’m happy everything worked out. I know you’re anxious to get home so just stop by the office when it’s convenient and we’ll finish up.
CELESTE: Finish up?
KEITH: I’m referring to the reward.
CELESTE: You might want to speak to your daughter about that. Veronica and I had an arrangement. You just met her end of the bargain.
HZ: Some deal has been done with Veronica; can you remember what it is?
JOY: Well, I remember from the previous episode, there was some talk of Veronica saying, “I can help you find Duncan if you let Weevil go - if you drop the charges against Weevil." And I guess Weevil did get out of jail. but Celeste also never verbally agreed to those terms. She just kind of like gave Veronica an icy stare and swooped out of the office.
HZ: But also Veronica didn't find Duncan, Keith did, so just because they're related... I mean, if Vinnie Van Lowe was like, “I'll forget the reward as long as you let Weevil go,” Keith wouldn't be culpable.
JOY: Yeah. Trash.
HZ: The Kanes get in the limo to go home, and Celeste wearily tells Duncan to take his medication with him next time he runs away, and then you get a strong sense that as soon as the cameras go, she is going to take the piss out of his silly little beard.
JOY: Somebody has to. Jesus. So now, next up in the 09er Hall of Fame, it's Adidas Luke.
HZ: Luke! He looks a lot healthier, and a lot less stressed and much less sweaty.
JOY: Significantly less sweaty.
HZ: He's having a much better day.
JOY: Thank God. Well, he's all out of GHB, so.
HZ: Episode five if you’re trying to remember which of the Bro9ers he was. Veronica's also summarising it, thoughtfully.
VERONICA: Remember when I saved you from drug dealers and I said I may call upon you for a favour someday?
LUKE: You didn’t say that.
VERONICA: It was implied.
HZ: Favours are always implied with Veronica, Luke. Did he not read the small print?
JOY: So in Luke's flashback we see Dick being positively disgusting. He also compares his girlfriend, our fave Madison Sinclair, to fake boobs saying, “They look nice, but they don't do as much as you'd like."
DICK: Look at that. Beaver's getting all the love, and Dick's flapping out in the breeze.
LUKE: Please, you have like the hottest girlfriend ever.
DICK: Much like fake boobs: great to look at but they don’t do as much as you’d like them to.
SEAN: Wait’ll you get a couple of drinks in her.
DICK: She’s on fricking Atkins.
JOY: And then, excuse me, I have to go throw up, Helen.
HZ: A bonus bro Niner for you is Sean from episode 10.
JOY: Boo!
HZ: The Poker Wanker. And when Dick asks about the stuff they bought in Tijuana, Sean says, ‘I'm saving it for a special occasion, and this isn't it." Madison seems disgusted to see that Veronica is at the party. Madison is wearing The Wig, so maybe she's pissed off to see Veronica because they're both wearing The Wig. What a faux pas!
JOY: Yeah, how do they even share time here? What are they? You think they're two of the exact same wigs?
HZ: Either that they have to swap it between actors between shots. Dick makes a move that is familiar to me from many creeps of my teenage years of a shoulder massage that she didn't want. As a result of this, Madison says, “Can you not be all over me for five seconds?" and leaves and this uptight (supposedly) behaviour - which I frankly endorse - leads Luke to give the GHB to Dick, which is pretty gross that Dick wanted to drug Madison but Luke thinks Madison didn't take her GHB because he saw her defacing Veronica's car.
JOY: Ah yes, writing “Slut” across her windshield!
MADISON: Stringy haired white trash!
LUKE: As I understand it, GHB is supposed to make you nicer.
HZ: Something I didn't know as well is that apparently on the back window of Veronica's car is written ‘Abel - it should have been her.’
JOY: Oh god! What's missing from Madison's life that this is what she feels she needs to do?
HZ: I think a convincing wig would be it. Amanda Noret - or Noret? I'm not sure of the pronunciation - who plays Madison Sinclair is the cousin of the real-life Shelly Pomroy who is an old friend of Rob Thomas's.
JOY: Oh my gosh!
HZ: But who never gets any lines. And then back to the present and the toilet office and Madison is in there but she is less blonde than before and I was curious as to why this decision was made. Is it so that she no longer has to wear The Wig?
JOY: I hope so.
HZ: Is it to distinguish her from the blonde-haired Meg, Lilly, Veronica, past Veronica, and past Madison? Dunno. She's still grooming herself smugly in the mirror.
VERONICA: You can keep asking, but you're not the fairest, trust me.
MADISON: Well, I can tell you who the pastiest is. What's the deal? Can't buy bronzer with food stamps?
VERONICA: You wrote ‘slut’ on my car last year at Shelly's party. Why?
MADISON: Because ‘whore’ had too many letters.
HZ: That's a rotten zinger. That's one more letter. I'm sure she could have written ‘whore’ on her car, if that had been the real reason.
JOY: Yeah, cuz she also apparently wrote "Abel, it should have been her” which is like way more letters.
HZ: Maybe that's why she ran out of car space, maybe she did that first. Madison's grievance is that Veronica made out with her boyfriend, Dick Casablancas, in front of an entire party, and made out with everyone else. This sends us to another flashback in which Veronica is singing ‘I Touch Myself’ by the Divinyls - although apparently it's a cover by band called Saucy Monky. Veronica is in a frisky kind of mood in this flashback: she sits on Dick, admires his hair, makes out with him, and then makes out with Casey - who I think, if this had happened, would have mentioned it in episode nine's campfire confessionals, don't you?
JOY: Yeah, back when he was like a person for a few short precious days.
HZ: But just as the ultimate cash crop has withered, so has Casey's good heart. Madison seems very cynical when Veronica says she wasn't drunk but drugged. Madison is no ally.
JOY: She looks for one second like she's taking it in, and then immediately puts her emotional visor back down.
HZ: Maybe too much of her Identity is formed around this notion of Veronica.
JOY: Madison, time for a new identity.
HZ: Well, she's got different hair.
JOY: That's true; she's ready!
HZ: Sadness now at the Mars home, Keith and Alicia are arguing!
JOY: So much conflict, so much conflict in this episode.
HZ: We don't even get their sweet pure romance as respite from all of the other shit. And I think it's fair that Alicia is angry about Veronica bugging Alicia's workplace, endangering Alicia and Wallace - never endanger Wallace, keep Wallace safe. She seems to be having a bit of a go at Keith not parenting Veronica and treating her like she is 40 and not 17.
JOY: And Veronica walks in on this and tries to interject to explain; and, perhaps inspired by what just happened, Keith kind of really gives it to her and says, “Go to your room”, very explosively demonstrating to Alicia that he does occasionally say parent-like things to Veronica.
KEITH: Veronica, go to your room, now.
VERONICA: Fine. But he bugged me first.
ALICIA: “He bugged her first”?
HZ: Alicia is far from placated by this statement - I guess these are not normal couple problems to have, are they? You're going on Reddit like, “My boyfriend is employing his teenage daughter as a private investigator who may have jeopardised my job and forced my son to be a criminal." This may be the sharpest we've heard Keith as well.
JOY: For sure. Veronica goes to lie in her bed and listen to music on headphones, like a good teen, until Alicia's gone and then Keith comes in. He's like, “What's up with the deal that you struck with Celeste?"
HZ: Do you think she's really listening to music on her headphones, or just the sound of her many bugs?
JOY: I think that in the soundtrack of the show, you can hear the music very low while she's laying there. But perhaps it is just the culmination of many, many, many bug signals, combining in beautiful harmony. And then Keith is like, “Hey, maybe you should have a regular teen girl job like selling clothes or pretzels or whatever."
HZ: Would you trust Veronica to sell clothes? Because I don't even trust her to buy clothes.
JOY: Yeah. Oh god! Yeah, what would happen would a store suddenly - like, their entire stock is changed over to only carry tiny versions of things, miniature jackets with tiny little cap sleeve shirts underneath - or would all of the smallest cappy sleepiest croppedest clothing begin to disappear?
HZ: “Sorry, we only have this in a size large."
JOY: Yeah, yeah; that's what I'm saying, it would either go to one end of the spectrum or the other - keep her away from retail please.
HZ: Although my heart grows to see the Marses interact so tenderly.
KEITH: I just can’t help think that…your life would be better if you weren’t working for me.
VERONICA: Are you kidding me? You’re the best father in the world. I mean, come on, look at me. I’m healthy, happy, good grades, all my own teeth, fancy shoes. I never would have gotten through this past year if it wasn’t for you.
KEITH: If it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t have to.
HZ: Then at school we reunite with episode nine's Casey, in the Big Bro9er reunion. JOY: Yeah, we get a another “’Sup Veronica?" Wow. Really missed that since the last time I heard him say it.
HZ: He's really trying to brush her off. But then he's halted by her asking about his grandmother.
VERONICA: Oh yeah. I was just wondering how you’ve been, you know, without your grandmother.
CASEY: I’ve been good. Got my priorities in check. No more throwing my family’s money at strangers so I can eat s’mores and listen to bad folk music.
HZ: Hey, Casey, no dissing the Mooncalf Collective - they're way better than the Neptune crapitalism bros that you hang out with!
JOY: Agree.
HZ: Although I feel in this episode, Casey is kind of moral-neutral compared to some of the others. Veronica asks if she hit on Casey at the party and he says no. Did it get ugly? Oh, yeah. Casey's take on the scene is that it was Dick singing and dancing to ‘I Touch Myself’. And then he pulled Veronica down onto him, kind of against her will, and was kissing her with Madison looking on in disgust, and then he plonked Veronica onto Casey.
JOY: And Casey said, you know, “No thanks. I like mine to be able to stand on their own." Who knows what really happened? Maybe this is really what happened.
HZ: He doesn't really have any reason to tell it like this if that's not how it happened, does he?
JOY: Well, I mean, just to kind of like make himself look better; in the last version we saw of this scene, he was kind of participating, and in this version of the scene, he's more like, “Oh, no, I couldn't possibly." I feel like we see things as the episode continues, and we see like more and more and more versions of things over the course of the evening, that everybody's kind of tweaking things in their favour, when the reality is probably a little more in the middle.
HZ: Although Casey seems to know not to take advantage of intoxicated people. But,he doesn't help Veronica either. So he's better than some, but not as good as a good person would be. There's also this really gross bit of flashback:
VERONICA: I have to go home.
DICK: You are home.
SEAN: See, there’s your pool and your hot tub and your big mansion. And here’s a hot foreign exchange student who’s been living with your family.
HZ: This hot foreign exchange student that Sean's talking about is Shelly Pomroy herself, but she never has any lines. It's extraordinary. Her name comes up so much in this show, but she effectively does not exist. In the school hallway, Veronica is frantically cleaning her locker, which is a sort of recurring theme in this episode, as a symbolic process of cleansing when her life feels so impossibly dirty. Wallace is pissed off and hurt and I think reasonably so.
VERONICA: Wallace. I’m so sorry I had you bug Kane Software. I honestly thought no one would find out and if I knew that your mom was gonna get in trouble-
WALLACE: Stop! I’m not stupid. I know I wasn’t just delivering a plant. I could’ve said no. You know, I do these things for you and I never ask you why.
VERONICA: I know.
WALLACE: You know why? Because I know you would never tell me.
VERONICA: I’d do the same for you.
HZ: That is not a great basis for friendship, Veronica, based on not telling each other things. It hurts me to see the Marses and the Fennels not getting along, because it feels like the Fennels make the Marses’ lives so much better. We head over to the media room, and in one beautiful smooth movement, Veronica shoves someone out of the way, grabs a chair swivels it backwards, plants herself on it right in front of Sean, who's wearing some very big stripes.
JOY: Terrifying!
SEAN: What?
VERONICA: I'm just thinking of all the ways I can destroy you.
SEAN: Well you sitting there grinning is kind of torturous.
VERONICA: So Shelly Pomroy and I were thinking of getting together later for a little girl-on-girl, you wanna come with? Wow. You know, when you're about to soil yourself, you get a little twitch right in your eye.
JOY: Wow, I hate this guy.
HZ: He sucks so much.
JOY: It's another version of memory lane, and he tells Veronica that he wasn't feeding her drinks, it was just Dick; and then Dick carried her into the guest room, basically setting up Beaver to rape Veronica while she's unconscious.
HZ: Because Sean is just standing by watching! At least Beaver looks horrified. Then this absolutely gross conversation ensues. Dick not only manages to treat Veronica as an object rather than a human, and to set up her nonconsensual sexual violation, he also manages to add some penis size mockery.
BEAVER: You're gonna hurt her or something, man.
DICK: Oh, I'd hurt her. You, she might not even notice.
BEAVER: This is so not even funny.
DICK: What’s the problem?
BEAVER: Like, you’re serious? I mean, this is you trying to get me to do something stupid that you can laugh at me.
DICK: She’s actually kinda hot. When she’s quiet. Perfectly cute piece of ass. Ready and willing.
BEAVER: She's not willing, Dick, she's unconscious.
DICK: It's kinda the best you're gonna do, bro'. You're not real big with the sober chicks.
BEAVER: Fine, just go, all right?
DICK: That’s my boy. Make sure you suit up. You don’t know where she’s been.
HZ: It's amazing to me that even his younger brother knows this is wrong because Veronica's unconscious, so how is Dick so uneducated? Or is he just willfully uneducated?
JOY: I'm gonna go with ‘willful’ as my final answer.
HZ: Also note that all the people in the scene are blue but the lighting behind them is yellow. So that adds to this sort of disorienting feeling.
JOY: And at the very end of this flashback, as Dick and Sean are leaving the room, Dick tosses some condoms to Beaver and says, “Don't forget to suit up, you don't know where she's been."
HZ: Just gross.
JOY: Disgusting.
HZ: Sean says:
SEAN: Your issue is with Dick and Beaver, not me. They were horrible to you.
VERONICA: Well, I’m just sorry you had to witness it, it must have been awful for you.
HZ: Which lands with knifelike effect, I think. Because Sean doesn't even seem to be painting himself in a good light in his own version of events; he's aiding and abetting her assault, he does nothing to stop it. Is that because he doesn't care, or he doesn't see that it's wrong, or is it because he doesn't want to conflict with a Bro9er because he knows that his social position is tenuous?
JOY: True. Maybe both.
HZ: It all sucks, because the net effect is the same. In the parking lot, Veronica is set up to reverse her car over Dick's surfboard - his ‘child’!
JOY: Hell yeah.
HZ: Like Keith, Veronica is good at the theatrical:
VERONICA: Hiya, Dick. How’s it going?
DICK: What the hell are you doing?
VERONICA: Um, trying to get your attention. [Revs car] Got a couple questions for ya.
DICK: You're frickin' nuts, you know that?
VERONICA: Insulting me right now seems like a good plan how?
HZ: Dismissing women as ‘nuts’ is, I'm sure, a popular tactic for Bro9ers. Dick divulges that he had GHB but he didn't give it to her. And he also says that he found her in the guest bedroom. So then a flashback, and I feel Dick is, like Sean, an unreliable flashbacker. Veronica is lying on the bed, putting the moves on a reluctant Cassidy at the far end of the bed - she even does a seductive finger wiggle. Back in the present, Veronica does not buy this version of events.
VERONICA: Are you freaking kidding me? How about reality, Dick?
DICK: What? I’m just telling you what I saw. I didn’t drug you! Don’t go blaming me that you were all wasted and slutty.
JOY: And that's it for the surfboard, ladies and gentlemen!
HZ: Your child is dead, Dick!
JOY: It's all over. Splinters, your beautiful legacy in splinters. Okay, so you know that thing when you're at your locker, minding your own business, you're having like a pretty good day, and then actually kind of mirroring the opening scene of the episode, you close your locker door and there's a Mars behind it where you were not expecting a Mars to be?
HZ: How do Marses just appear in places with no one noticing?
JOY: I don't know.
HZ: Are they shapeshifters? Because that would make a lot of sense.
JOY: They must have some genetic advantage. They have very high Sneak. Very excellent timing. And she's like, “What happened in the guest room, Beaver?"
VERONICA: Beaver. Damn, you don’t look happy to see me.
BEAVER: How’s it going, Veronica?
VERONICA: Really well! I just found out that the dream I had where I was locked all alone in a bedroom with you was reality. Care to share some details, lover?
BEAVER: Nothing happened.
VERONICA: Actually, something did happen. And I might not remember the details, but I sure as hell remember the morning after.
BEAVER: Look, I swear to god, I didn’t touch you, Veronica.
HZ: It's strange to think that Cassidy was only introduced in the last episode, because he's already a major player. Cassidy at least has the grace to look guilty, unlike everyone else, and his excuse is that Dick was trying to set up something for him and a freshman called Cindy, but she left early with Logan, and then Cassidy wanted to be alone but then instead Dick took him into the guest room with Veronica. So in none of these flashbacks does Dick seem at all a decent human being; in this one he is pushing up Veronica's skirt offering to “warm her up” and Sean again is just around, being a smarmy fuck.
JOY: Yeah, and in this version of the flashback, Sean is the one who delivers the condoms and the gross line.
HZ: They leave Cassidy with Veronica and he runs out and throws up on the shoes of episode 14 guest star Carrie Bishop, played by Leighton Meester. I will say Dick's yellow plastic pint glass really pops with all that blue lighting in the flashbacks. Over in the Mars offices, the desk contents are spread all over the floor and Veronica is scrubbing things. Another sad theme.
JOY: Her cleaning rampage deepens and widens as she seeks to gain control over her life, which feels like it is spinning more and more wildly out of control. Keith comes in and it turns out that that entertainment lawyer he's been tracking for a year has been spotted in Vegas and he's gonna have to head over there. Does he drive to Vegas? Does he take a plane to Vegas? Does the plane take six hours, does the car ride take 45 minutes? We don't know. But some kind of Neptune physics wormhole business is probably in play here. HZ: Then the Echolls house is bathed in sunshine and light - rather unusual, although there is still a tall flower arrangement blocking the TV screen.
JOY: Inexplicably.
HZ: And oh shit - now Aaron's doing accents too.
JOY: Nooo. Is this a French kind of approximation?
HZ: You tell me.
AARON: [In French accent] Ah! Especially for you tonight, I am making what will be known from now on as "Aaron's Extra Special Crab Cakes." Ha ha!
LOGAN: I'm sure I'll thoroughly enjoy them. Right up until my oesophagus closes up, cuts off my air supply, and I shuffle off this mortal coil.
HZ: It's very apropos of nothing. We should come up with the term for apropos of nothing accents. Aaron has forgotten that Logan is allergic to shellfish - well, he's not really forgotten, he just never knew. I'm pretty sure my dad doesn't remember my allergies either. I'm allergic to booze and my dad's always offering me wine; but I think he'd feel rude not to offer me wine rather than he's trying to hurt me with wine. Then Logan asks Aaron when Logan's birthday is - what a test!
LOGAN: Well, then, round one of "How well do you know your son?" When is my birthday?
AARON: February.
LOGAN: Wow. Well, you got a vowel right.
JOY: And Aaron does not know and I took a quick look: canonically there are two conflicting birth dates for Logan floating around.
HZ: To be fair to Aaron.
JOY: To be fair to Aaron, but Aaron is still way off: he's either a Virgo or a Libra.
HZ: Oh okay, so similar time of year.
JOY: Yeah, yeah, adjacent months. But I'm gonna go Libra. He feels way more like a Libra to me. But what do I know? Basically, there's just sort of like this deep discomfort, where it's very clear that that Aaron doesn't really know much of anything about about Logan and Logan's just like, “Once I get my inheritance, I'll be gone and you won't have to worry about knowing anything about me."
HZ: When Logan's like “Wow, you got a vowel right," Aaron snaps into pre-violence mode; but then doesn't stay in it very long, because he seems to want to be a good parent - or at least to be rewarded for things that he thinks are good parenting acts even if they're pretty minor, and it's too soon to expect the reward, or it's way too late for it to really matter in their relationship. We go to another special guest star of this season: the multifunctional blob-windowed restaurant bar karaoke joint cafe place, where Carrie Bishop evidently works, so Veronica gets to grill her. Veronica asks if Carrie remembers Shelly's party last year, but it is now spring/early summer 2005. And the party was established in the last episode as having taken place in early December 2003. So, what?
JOY: Time is a mess in this universe.
HZ: Now Carrie’s flashback, at least, is less horrible than everyone else's. Because Carrie saw Veronica seemingly enthusiastically taking off her underwear and kissing someone with quite a lot of passion. And Carrie just goes:
CARRIE BISHOP: Oh god. Shut the door next time!
HZ: This is the revelation this the most shocking to Veronica. So who's in this flashback carefully hidden by the fog of memory?
JOY: It is Duncan Kane! So we better scoot on over to the Kane residence and knock knock knock on that door and get a look at that sobering facial hair. Duncan comes to the door and Veronica is basically like, “So at Shelly Pomroy's party, you were the one that raped me." And before he asks for like, context or anything, his go to is:
DUNCAN: So I’m a murderer AND a rapist now.
HZ: Not the time for Sassy Indignant Duncan! Spin the wheel back.
JOY: Yeah, dial the wheel back a couple notches. And then we finally get out of Duncan that he thought there was an unspoken rule that we're never going to talk about it, it just was what it was. And then we see a flashback of Duncan coming into the room when Veronica is already on the bed, and then each looking happy to see each other and kind of like getting together.
HZ: And then Duncan in the present says:
DUNCAN: You don’t remember. It’s kind of a bad feeling, huh.
HZ: Again: NOT the time, Duncan. And I appreciate that you do have your own traumas to process and nobody is supporting you. But. So then the thing Veronica is upset about is that Duncan abandoned her even though the sex they had is consensual. And then he has a big acting moment. Go on Jenny, do it.
JOY: Buckle your seat belt. Buckle your seat belt. Please secure any loose objects in the cabin. Because Duncan is about to tell Veronica -
HZ: Do the voice!
JOY: Duncan's about to tell Veronica that he <Duncan Voice> "had to get out of there. Because you're my sister!”
HZ: "I tried not to love you but it won't go away!”
JOY: It sounds like he kind of has like a mouthful of hamburger when he's doing these lines, you know?
HZ: Maybe that's the beard?
JOY: He's like put it to the side.
HZ: Maybe he's got some milk in his cheeks, like storing it for later.
JOY: Yes, yes, yes, and you never want to be without milk so it's best to keep some stored in your side mouth pockets. And just as he finishes shouting that he loves her and tried not to but it won't go away, who should roll up out of the fucking Kane rose garden or whatever but Celeste!
HZ: Worst possible sight when you're already down. Veronica sobs, turns away, Duncan slumps to a crouch. It's interesting here to contemplate why they're upset. Duncan was upset at the time because he thinks Veronica is his sister. Veronica was upset because she thought she was raped. And she definitely had sex when she was not capable of giving consent. And it's interesting, isn't it? Because as we find later, Duncan was also spiked, and therefore also not really capable of giving consent.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: Let's go to something pure now, which is Wallace's house. Veronica is parked outside and Wallace jogs up and then realises she's crying. It's kind of a game-changer moment for their relationship - in a good way, happy to say.
JOY: It's made clear by what Wallace says when he comes out, that he's about to call the police on her and calls her a stalker, that she's been sitting out there for a while, trying to, get the guts up to go inside, because they've had a little bit of a falling out, but he's still like her best friend and out of everybody that she could talk to right now, he's the only person she wants to talk to about it. Like immediately, immediately, as soon as he sees that she's crying, nothing really matters, nothing that happened earlier in the day.
HZ: He is a true friend. And also he wasn't at the party, so at least that is not a possible concern for this scene.
JOY: The one thing that really caught my eye in this scene is that in the daylight, with the top down, all the trash talk about Veronica's car starts to carry a little more weight in my mind. When you see the upholstery of her car sort of looks like Logan bought it off the sale rack. It is brown; it is of a texture that you would not want to be pressed up against for an extended period of time. It speaks volumes, that's all. So I'm willing to give one point to everybody who's ever said any anything shitty about Veronica's car.
HZ: Good detective work, Jenny. Maybe that is why it's always filmed in such a noirish way. What is nice though is Wallace’s room. Have we been in there before? I know we've been to Wallace's house, but just the living room, and then the kitchen; but his room is very nice. It's very symmetrical. He's even got matching lamps and nightstands. Like any teen.
JOY: His mother's a provider. She's working over at Kane Software, buying a bedroom suite.
HZ: Wallace is, as we know, the mayor of Neptune - when he's not Veronica's favour boy. At last Veronica tells Wallace about her rape and she explains that's why she keeps things to herself. And Wallace just wants to help, he's a very good and pure soul. So, as his reward, he gets to see the graphic design of the century.
JOY: Another visit to the My Lilly Kane Murder Investigation laptop, it's sort of like a sub-Lisa Frank brand of school products.
HZ: While he's enjoying all the folders, or maybe he's just looking at the busty background picture of Lilly, Veronica goes into the kitchen where Alicia is making sandwiches and she tells Alicia Keith is the best guy ever - can endorse - and they're really good together and she makes him so happy...
JOY: I love this!
HZ: Veronica's come around to it, but maybe it's too late. Maybe Alicia has ruined things. That's what she's worried about. I'm worried about it, too.
JOY: Veronica doesn't always have - she's not always able to access like the appropriate level of softness, when she's in a situation like this. And I'm really happy that in this situation, where it's about Keith, and Keith's happiness, that she is able to get there and to say what needs to be said in a warm and like very genuine way.
HZ: Yeah, it shows that she maybe has grown a bit emotionally. Also, maybe that she is dealing with some really big, horrible stuff. And maybe that has put this into perspective as actually a good thing, rather than her enemy.
JOY: Curiously though, while this conversation is happening, Keith is in Las Vegas on the phone making an appointment with a sex worker named Cheyenne.
HZ: From a small ad, because people still read the ads in the local press in this show. So Keith's got to go to Vegas and Cuba this episode.
JOY: He's a man about not just town, a man about globe, Keith Mars.
HZ: Reading the paper, not just hiding behind it.
JOY: Can't we do both?
HZ: Because he's away, Veronica can have Logan in the house. And she's on the couch apologising to him. It's been a busy and shit day for Veronica Mars.
JOY: Dude. Oof, this is all one day, so far?
HZ: Logan says, “All I care about is you." So that's nice. He's another person trying to be supportive for her. Veronica says, "I was drugged, but I wasn't raped, because it was Duncan." And this is a problem that I have with the show, where they've set Veronica up from the beginning as having had this thing happen to her, and how it shaped her, and it's a trauma in her life. And then at this moment, the show is like, “Well she doesn't need to feel raped anymore, because it was Duncan. It was just Duncan, so it's not rape." And she was still non-consensually drugged. She still had sex that was perhaps non-consensual because of the drugging, and sex with someone that you are or were voluntarily sexually involved with previously can still be rape, and it just feels like they're trying to make her feelings of violation and trauma go away, or be invalidated. And, you know, survivors of sexual assault can process that in all sorts of different ways, of course, but it remains the case that there was still a lot of people at that party aiding and abetting and enabling her sexual violation, or her rape.
JOY: And it definitely feels like things have been deeply oversimplified in one fell swoop here. Not that, as you say, different survivors of sexual violation are going to heal and process differently, and this is a very particular set of circumstances where a lot of stuff is kind of like intersecting and would make an individual feel any of 10,000 different ways, and probably like half of those, you know, in the same day. But just sort of like, this wand-waving of like, “Oh, it was Duncan. Isn't that crazy?” And that makes it something else - is strange. But perhaps also on par with the discourse of 2005, it's not surprising, but it is... I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed.
HZ: I just don't want this show to use her rape for drama points, and then retract that and just be like, "Oh, no, actually it was fine." Especially because I don't like to give spoilers, but this isn't the closure of this plot.
JOY: Maybe it's like, Veronica is really tough. And Veronica has developed all of these skills and coping mechanisms and things in the last year and a half or so that we've seen, right? She's like a totally different person than she was a couple of years ago, in a lot of ways. And maybe what we're seeing here is her high level of compartmentalization and some kind of relief that she's feeling, like, perhaps just the knowledge that it was Duncan, and that it was someone who she was in relationship with previously and who she loved was such a relief; that it wasn't a stranger; that from his perspective, he thought they were like sharing something; like at least that it wasn't that she was being deliberately, aggressively violated by a mystery person. Maybe there's some relief to that, even if it's not like, “Oh, and now I'm fine and the trauma is gone." At least there are way fewer question marks than there were a day before.
HZ: Yeah. Put it this way: I think the character of Veronica would definitely be within her rights to process this however she wants. And if she wants to process it so she doesn't feel violated, and doesn't feel victimised, then that is fine. I just don't think it's fine for the show to be like, “Oh, look, we flip reversed it." You know, to dole it out over such a long time, and then be like, “Oh, it's alright.”
JOY: And then be like, “Gotcha!”
HZ: “Gotcha." Exactly. Then in Vegas, Keith's guest Cheyenne arrives wearing a black dress with charm chains draped over the shoulders. Keith's hotel is quite beige and drab, and also, the TV is angled so you can't watch it in bed. What the fuck? What piece of shit hotel would do this to you? What is the point?
JOY: Yeah, that is cruel and unusual punishment.
HZ: Keith's still kind of in caring dad mode, asking Cheyenne if she's hungry.
KEITH: Are you hungry or anything?
CHEYENNE: I think not having to buy me dinner first is kind of the point. Why don’t you come sit over here with me and relax, okay?
KEITH: Well, maybe we could go sit out on the balcony.
CHEYENNE: You’re still gonna be married on the balcony. Now. I want you to tell me exactly what you want. That one thing you can never get the little woman to do. And we’ll start there.
KEITH: Actually, I’d like to start by talking about Abel Koontz.
HZ: Wow, Keith, that is one hell of a kink. Bet she doesn't get that request often.
JOY: “The little woman just won't discuss Abel Koontz and the Lilly Kane murder with me the way I'd like.”
HZ: “Little woman wouldn't even tolerate that we bugged her office." Keith explains that he's a PI and has been searching for her for a year because she was supposedly with Abel Koontz when he murdered Lilly, allegedly. They had a standing appointment. Since the trial, Cheyenne has moved multiple times to avoid precisely this moment. So Keith has lied to Veronica this time and before, saying “I'm in Vegas to find this lawyer." And, “I haven't worked on this case for months." He's been working on this for a year trying to find her.
JOY: And Cheyenne doesn't want to come forward, because among other things, if she did, she'd become, as she puts it, “the most famous working girl on the planet” - and isn't it just so typical that who gets hurt by Abel Koontz getting framed and the Kanes covering it up? People who are just out there trying to make a living. And like she didn't ask for this. She didn't ask for this at all. And what happens then? You either have to change your line of work or the nature of your work becomes very different.
HZ: Yeah, she would be victimised for doing the right thing, with repercussions for her child. We go to the Echolls house, Veronica and Logan are approaching. Everything is dark, which is usually a bad sign there. Logan is interpreting it as Aaron wanted to eat by candlelight. He and Veronica stop kissing outside the glass door they rotatokiss indoors. So they're still at it when the lights go on and Aaron shouts "Surprise!" No one else shouts “Surprise!” but there are some quiet shocked murmurs because it's basically the full complement of 09ers here, most of whom we don't know. But there are Meg and Duncan, who looks horrified, snd Madison looks kind frozen with disgust and despair. There's also some red balloons and a balloon arch.
JOY: Yeah, I thought the balloon arch was, in particular, a really specific choice for Aaron to make.
HZ: It looks like it was left over from the Christmas party bcause it looks like a big bent candy cane; but it can't have been, because it would be withered by now.
JOY: Very withered.
HZ: Aaron is really trying to do the Dad Redemption, isn't he? And I suppose him forgetting Logan's birthday is not insignificant, but it feels like it's nothing compared to the true unforgivable of the physical abuse he's doled out over the years.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: And the fear that Logan must feel of his father. But anyway, in the background, Duncan is leaning against a pillar, staring at some point on the floor in a posture that seems very unrealistic. And it doesn't seem like he's despondent or anything, it just seems like it's not his scene and so they've put him in powersave mode. But I guess Loganica don't have to hide anymore. So then Dick is like:
DICK: Dude, what the hell are you doing? Please tell me this is like, some new reality show called My Skank.
LOGAN: Goodbye, Dick.
DICK: What?
LOGAN: Get out of my house. You have a problem with Veronica, you leave. Actually, you have a problem with Veronica, you're pretty much dead to me, so just, like, evaporate or something, I don’t know. That’s kind of a general invitation. If you don’t like my girlfriend then just start heading toward the rectangle with the knob.
HZ: “Rectangle with the knob," that could be Aaron's 1998 award for Action Sequel Star of the Year.
JOY: Love to see Logan having absolutely no time for anybody who has anything bad to say about Veronica. Love it.
HZ: He's had it with this bullshit, but who's the person who does walk out?
JOY: It's Duncan. But who knows if he actually is responding, or if some kind of electronic glitch took him out of power save mode and he just started autowalking towards the door?
HZ: “Milk, milk, milk." Even though, as aforementioned, Duncan spotted a frisson between Logan and Veronica in Episode 15 and seemed kind of happy about it. So what is this the Logan using the word ‘girlfriend’ lit a tiny angry light in him. He lumbers out. Logan tries to stop him, and then there's just some extras milling past like this is a normal party scene and not intensely awkward.
JOY: Yeah, yeah.
HZ: Veronica heads to the punch table and Madison is there, wearing a flower in her hair and a green patterned halter top in a kind of 1970s curtain fabric. Her face makeup is several shades darker than the skin on her body - maybe she’s just thinking “in the flashback the lenses is so smeary the lights is all blue, so no one will notice," but it's not a flashback, it's the present. She chitchats with Veronica as if they're normal acquaintances, and then hands her a glass of punch. What is in punch that makes it so fluorescent?
JOY: What is punch made of? What a great question.
HZ: We don't have it here in Britain, we just have booze.
JOY: What do children drink?
HZ: Booze.
JOY: I see, okay; well, that really cuts out a lot of need for other options. But so far as I've ever seen here, punch, and punch-adjacent drinks, seem to be made from mixing water with some kind of neon crystals. And it's really difficult to say what's in those crystals.
HZ: It's better not to know.
JOY: Exactly. Perhaps better not to know, Helen.
HZ: Madison does some chit chat about Aaron's career and stuff, and says, “They said the punch was sugar-free, but I don't know." Chekhov's sugar, by the way, although obviously this is not the first act so the resolution comes way quicker. Veronica wanders off, clutching this glass of punch with both hands as if it's warm. Where's the coconut toddy when you could use it? Meg is still leaning against the pillar that Duncan vacated and tells her not to drink the punch.
JOY: Somebody's got to hold it up!
HZ: That’s true! She tells Veronica not to drink it because it will contain the episode title, ‘A trip to the dentist’, as in a dollop of Madison's spit.
JOY: Gross. I hate this. This is disgusting.
HZ: And this galvanises Veronica to go back and grab Madison, in another arm injury of the day.
MADISON: Ow. What are you doing?
VERONICA: Did you give me a trip to the dentist the night of Shelly’s party?
MADISON: What? Hello, I have no idea what you’re talking about.
VERONICA: Did you spit in your drink and give it to me at Shelly’s?
MADISON: Like I was the only person’s spit you had in your mouth that night.
HZ: And then flashback again. Dick hands Madison a fluorescent yellow cup and she takes a tiny sip.
MADISON: Regular soda? Why didn’t you just fill the cup with lard?
HZ: I hate Madison, but I do quite like her because she's funny. And she's so unafraid to be just a truly terrible human being.
JOY: Totally vile. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's something pure about that kind of honesty. I really hate this device. It's so fucking gross. But also, it's now making me think about: do you know that young people these days are really into spitting into each other's mouths?
HZ: Really? As a kind of love ritual?
JOY: Yes, as a love ritual.
HZ: How distant from each other?
JOY: Unclear. I don't know if it's a distance activity.
HZ: Is it like a sport?
JOY: Yeah. I think it's less about like... because you don't want to miss.
HZ: Nooo. Spitting in someone's eyes is very different from spitting in their mouth.
JOY: Exactly. Considerably less romantic, from what I understand. Well, okay, so here we are, just two old folks talking about what young people are doing nowadays.
HZ: So in the past, Madison starts to reject this sugarful drink, but then she sees Veronica. She spits in the drink and then holds it out in Veronica's path. Cut to the present.
VERONICA: You have no idea what you did to me.
MADISON: Oh my god! I spit in your drink. You are like so scarred for life.
HZ: In between those two sentences, everything happened, and Veronica is still trying to figure out what. In the present, though, some shit’s going down outside the party.
JOY: Yeah, so you know the thing where you try to open your car door and it won't open, and so you grab a shovel, break the window and smash the side of the car while you also kick it, eventually dropping the shovel and just smacking the car with your hands, screeching and screaming into the night?
HZ: It's the only possible solution for a stuck car door.
JOY: That's the only way to get it open.
HZ: Poor old Duncan! What a day. He really looks like a robot trying things for the first time. Do you think Duncan went to Cuba for socialist research?
JOY: I like that narrative better than running away, for sure.
HZ: Or both. And then Meg runs up. Poor Meg can't catch a break with guys, deserves so much better.
JOY: Yeah, she does.
MEG: Duncan! Duncan, what are you doing? Stop that. This is about Veronica, isn’t it? You’re still in love with her, right? Answer me.
HZ: Meg doesn't get her answers, she just gets some screams. Cut back to the rather dull-looking party - the Echolls parties just suck don't they? The Christmas party looked shit till the bad things happened. Aaron shows some people out with his arm draped over their shoulders like a python sleepy after a meal. Logan and Veronica take this opportunity to sneak out. And there's this really beautiful manoeuvre where Logan turns to lift Veronica off some steps and it looks like they're dancing in a 1940s musical. And then they go to the pool house and did you happen to notice the curtains Jenny?
JOY: I didn't, tell me about them please!
HZ: They are gauzy white curtains with Aaron Echolls's face printed on them enormously, like four foot high faces. These are the most terrifying curtains I've ever seen. And this is the the sex hut! It's the family sex hut!
JOY: Well, I guess any port in a storm for poor Logan. But there is no real escape from Aaron Echolls.
HZ: Maybe it's a test. It's like, "Son, if you're capable of having sex with my giant face staring at you, then go right ahead."
JOY: Terrifying. Oh my god.
HZ: They kiss and land on the bed. But wait: Logan has to tell Veronica something. Veronica doesn't want to hear it. But nonetheless, here it comes. And it is a flashback.
JOY: Yeah, it's the final flashback, the very final flashback of the episode, and we see the salt lick situation happening, and then Duncan rolling up and telling everybody to leave Veronica alone. Logan is kind of like pissed to the side, but comes back with a drugged drink for Duncan. Back in the present he tells Veronica he just wanted Duncan to have some fun, because he'd barely smiled since Lilly. Now, I can understand in some part of my brain Logan's intention, but: could everybody just stop drugging each other?
HZ: Ideally. The weird thing I think is that neither them seem to give a shit about Duncan getting spiked and Duncan participating in sex that he was too intoxicated to consent to, technically. And so Logan and Veronica just kiss.
JOY: Yeah, well, I think there's a sort of double standard thing playing out where women are victims, and men are not; men can have as much sex as they want, but women have to either be like victimised, or because they're having sex or else they are being violated or else if they have too much sex, then they are morally bankrupt. There's no good end for women having sex on this show, it seems.
HZ: No. Repeatedly, the female sexhavers have a pretty rough time.
JOY: But it feels like for Duncan, the way that it's treated is just a dude doing dude stuff consciously or not, consensually or not. I don't know, it just seems like there's some some element of gender is playing in to their sort of dismissal of the fact that Duncan was also drugged without consent and then engaged in an act that would be questionably consensual at the very best.
HZ: Yeah, I'm not surprised that the show doesn't care about Duncan's feelings in all of this...
JOY: It is hard to care about Duncan's feelings, to be fair.
HZ: I still think they should be considered, but instead these two kiss. Logan wants Veronica just trust him and she does. But not for long.
JOY: My God, right. He does a little Lilly trick - or actually I guess it's a Logan trick that Lilly was doing - where he's hidden the liquor cabinet key in an air vent. He takes it out. He goes to open the liquor cabinet. The key breaks off in the lock - so pesky - and so he leaves to go to the house to get them drinks. Veronica is there laying in bed looking up at the ceiling fan waiting for Logan to come back. And then she notices a small glass circle at the centre of the hub of the ceiling fan and she thinks, “I've seen something like that before, that looks vaguely familiar. Hang on! That is a hidden camera of the very sort that I myself have planted in many places to observe many people without their consent or knowledge."
HZ: "That's exactly where I'd have put a hidden camera if I'd got to this room first."
JOY: “...If I got to this room first.” Exactly. So a quick bit of very basic detective work - follow the wire casing to the shelving unit on the wall, which pulls apart revealing a media centre and two televisions showing two feeds, once she turns the screens on, of the cameras in this room, videotaping everything and then she's like, “Fuck this - ring ring. Weevil pick me up on your big hog and get me out of here please."
HZ: Saving the day two episodes in a row.
JOY: Weevil to the rescue.
HZ: Are these cameras just running the whole time? Or are they motion activated?
JOY: Oh, maybe - I'd like to believe that they're motion activated. Maybe it's even a remote situation, because the screens are dark until she turns them on. So maybe she's activated something by that and maybe they don't even start recording until they are started.
HZ: Veronica rides off on Weevil's big old hog and arrives home for one final surprise of the episode.
JOY: Lianne Mars has come home.
HZ: How do you think this went? Because Keith's home also, Veronica wasn't home to perhaps soften the impact. Do you think she had a plan for this moment if she had been prepared for it? Because Keith didn’t know Lianne went to rehab because of Veronica.
JOY: Yeah, I guess Veronica is a planner, so she probably had something lined up. But uh, I'm sure this is not what she was expecting. Nor were we.
HZ: Not ideal timing either, now that Veronica is on board with Keith and Alicia. Them's the fucking breaks. It's been a very hectic and emotional day for Veronica, and it's taken another turn. But here is where it ends. Shall we head over to see Southern Californian lawyer and marshmallow Lo Dodds for this week's rundown of criming in today's LoDown?
THE LODOWN
JOY: Lo.
LO DODDS: Yes.
JOY: For the love of God, can you please tell us who is culpable, or who is the most culpable, for Veronica's involuntary intoxication? Is it Madison for handing her the drink? Is it Dick for putting the drugs in the drink? Is it Luke for supplying the drugs? Is it a three way tie? Or is it some other distribution of blame?
LO DODDS: It's a distribution of blame. Here's the thing, nobody intentionally gave Veronica GHB.
HZ: But does it not matter that someone put it in a drink for somebody who wouldn't have known it was in there? Because a drink was spiked, and someone did the spiking, and someone also distributed controlled substances.
LO DODDS: Right? So anyone who bought the drugs, anyone who transported the drugs, as well as giving them away could be charged with possession and trafficking, but it's a single dose, they're all minors, maybe not a problem. So when you think about Dick, when you think about Luke, when you think about even Logan, it's still not going to amount to much. Now, California used to classify possession of all those drugs as a felony. But a couple years ago, they reclassified them all as misdemeanours. And then everyone said, "Hey, that would include date rape drugs, and we really think date rape should be punished way more," so then they made it a crime to possess even that small amount of GHB with the intent of committing a sexual assault. So Logan doses Duncan without his knowledge, but he's not intending to commit a sexual assault on Duncan. Then you have Dick, who gives it to Madison: he could potentially be charged with a felony for trying to commit a sexual assault against Madison, because she didn't know. But then Madison gives it to Veronica and doesn't know what is in it. So we're missing a lot of intent here for what happens to Veronica. Except for the alcohol - force-feeding the alcohol is kind of a concern. There was a case where someone had force-fed alcohol to someone to the point that they died, and they only got two years for involuntary manslaughter. So it's not great; but yeah, the several degrees of intent here is going to create a problem for anyone who wanted to prosecute roofing Veronica.
HZ: But of course, Veronica is not the only one who is drugged without their knowledge or consent. Duncan is also drugged by Logan. Would Logan get in trouble for that?
LO DODDS: Logan never seems to get in trouble, does he?
HZ: Does Duncan even realise that he's been spiked?
LO DODDS: They never really address that in the episode, do they? Does Duncan ever mention that he thinks he was drugged as well? He remembers - he remembers what happened. He's the one who says, “You were there. We were enjoying it together. I don't know what you're talking about. You were enthusiastically consenting.” And that's kind of where you get down to this whole problem of, you know, if Veronica had not accepted his version of events and said, “No, I was drugged. I have no memory of this. There's no way I could have consented to this,” that's where you get into the whole he said/she said issue. Because she buys his version of events and decides, okay, yes, I agree that I was not raped because I agreed to have sex with you, and you didn't run away because you were raping me, you ran away because you were committing felony incest.
HZ: Another crime took place at the party: Madison defaced Veronica's car. Would she get in any legal trouble for that?
LO DODDS: I don't think so, because Madison, rather politely of her, is using car chalk, which is beloved by cheerleaders and wedding guests everywhere. So I think she's gonna be fine.
HZ: There's a special kind of chalk for writing ‘slut’ on people's cars?
LO DODDS: Yes, I don't think it's just for writing ‘slut’, but it's for writing things like ‘just married’ and ‘go Tritons’. I have used it.
JOY: Aggressively, maliciously? Or in a friendly way?
LO DODDS: I use it as a wedding guest. I probably used it as a cheerleader, but I use it as a wedding guest.
HZ: You wrote ‘slut’ on a wedding car?
LO DODDS: I wrote “Wuv, true wuv” because that's the kind of person I am.
HZ: Keith Mars has a little trip to Vegas, and meets Cheyenne, who doesn't want to come forward as a witness in the Abel Koontz case, because she doesn't want to be in the public eye and she doesn't want it to be known that she's a sex worker. So if she were to testify, would there be ways to protect her?
LO DODDS: The Sixth Amendment guarantees you the right to face your accusers in criminal court. So they make special provisions for child victims. So they sometimes put up screens, stuff like that. But if you're an adult, generally speaking, you're going to have to testify, but - I mean, you don't have to testify. But if they let you testify, the protections that you're afforded might be witness protection, but not that you don't go to court. You can't have an anonymous witness. We don't really do that.
JOY: At the end of this episode, we see Veronica and Logan making out at the pool house; Logan goes away; Veronica discovers that there are hidden cameras actively viewing her in this environment. Now, if you are a person in a private residence and you have the reasonable assumption that you are not being surveilled, then being surveilled is a problem. Is that accurate or not accurate?
LO DODDS: I don't know. I think you're going for a reasonable expectation of privacy.
JOY: Yes, that’s the one, of course.
LO DODDS: I think this is just going to go more towards straight wiretapping, illegal wiretapping, which Veronica does all the time, bugging people, recording people without their consent, regardless of whether they have an expectation of privacy or not, is illegal in California. Both the person being recorded and the person doing the recording have to consent to the recording. So it's okay to make a sex tape if you both are on board with it, but not okay to make a sex tape of a minor.
JOY: Right, because that would of course be child porn. And Neptune has enough homegrown child porn to last into the next century. They’re all set, they don’t need any more.
LO DODDS: So much child porn! So much child porn.
HZ: It's a big episode Jenny.
JOY: My head is spinning, so many things happened.
HZ: Were there any lines that stuck out for you?
JOY: My best laugh in this episode happened when Veronica was furiously cleaning and Keith walked in on it and asked her if she'd seen another special on dust mites, and then he says, “Do I have any messages, or did you boil them?"
HZ: A little light relief in quite sad process of her dealing with this horrible stuff that's happening to her.
JOY: Yeah. What about you?
HZ: Well, also a scene is pretty horrible where Logan is doing his racist Logan shit to Weevil where he's like, “You don't want to start with me today, Paco," and Weevil says, “Are you sure? It was in my day planner under ‘goals’."
JOY: I want to get a look at Weevil's day planner! What’s in there? “Put on henley. Be hot. Shave head again."
HZ: And then how did this episode score for you overall?
JOY: I'm going to say that I was it was a real rollercoaster. So much has happened; so much has been learned; it's a frickin wild ride and there are some things that are regrettable, but for the most part, I would say it's a pretty seriously solid episode. So I will give it four out of five of today's millennials romantically spitting into each other's mouths. Is that too far? Wow. Sorry Helen. What about you?
HZ: Yeah, I think this is up there for me as one of the best episodes of the season. And I think it's partly because it kind of focuses on Veronica herself and the people in her life, rather than her fixing something for someone else who might be someone who is just there for the episode, so we don't really care about them. I think the way that they unfurl the story, it's just so upsetting because you just see again and again - you don't necessarily get a clear picture of whose fault things are about who drugged Veronica, but just consistently, it's no one really tried to help her. Except Duncan pulled her out of one of the situations. But generally a lot of people saw her in a state and didn't try to intervene. And so I feel like that's really driving home how grim that is. You've got a lot going on. You've got some investigating and very little MacGuffin. And it's really setting up for a big finale. So I'm going to give this episode 4.2 fluorescent cups.
JOY: Nice.
HZ: Well, it depends what's in them, whether it's nice or not.
JOY: Cups of Topo Chico.
HZ: Just cups of spit.
JOY: No. Alright, so that's this episode of Veronica Mars investigated.
HZ: Case closed. Except it's not really. Case continues.
JOY: Case continues.
JOY: That was Veronica Mars Investigations Season 1 episode 21: A Trip to the Dentist.
HZ: Watch season 1 episode 22 and join us next time to investigate it. The season finale!!
JOY: Find the show on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @VMIpod.
HZ: The website, where the show lives hidden in an air vent, is vmipod.com. Check out our new merch on there also!
JOY: I'm Jenny Owen Youngs and you can hear more of my speaking voice on my other podcast Buffering the Vampire Slayer and you can hear my singing voice by checking out my hot hot jams over at jennyowenyoungs.com.
HZ: I’m Helen Zaltzman and you can hear my other podcasts The Allusionist at theallusionist.org and Answer Me This at answermethispodcast.com.
JOY: This episode was edited and mixed by Zach McNees.
HZ: The music is by Martin Austwick and Jenny Owen Youngs.
JOY: The sheriff of this town is Hrishikesh Hirway.
HZ: The show is distributed by PRX.
JOY: Until next time, who’s your daddy?
HZ: Who’s your daddy, Jenny? If you ask him when your birthday is does he remember? Because I asked my daddy this week when my birthday is, and he got the month wrong.
