VMI 1.22 Leave It To Beaver transcript

Hear this episode at VMIpod.com/1-22

CONTENT NOTE: Veronica Mars contains heavy themes, and this episode includes storylines concerning murder, violence, statutory rape, and suicide.

A LONG TIME AGO ON VERONICA MARS:

So! Much! Stuff! Happened!

Air Vent!
Hidden Camera!
Sex tapes!
Of Lilly!
And!
Aaron Echolls!?
Scary!
Car crash!
Punching!
Whacking!
Fridge!
Fire!
Save Marses!
Yay, Backup!
Bang!
And!
Logan!
Peril!
Sheriff Lamb’s!
Soul patch!
And! Also!
Lianne Mars!
Sucks!
Byyyye!! 

JOY: Baked in Ensenada, I’m Jenny Owen Youngs.
HZ: Editing together three different angles of illegal secret videos for maximum impact, I’m Helen Zaltzman.
HH: And collapsing while engulfed in flames, I'm special guest Hrishikesh Hirway.

You’re listening to Veronica Mars Investigations Season 1, episode 22: Leave it to Beaver.

HZ: Hrishi! 

JOY: What a time to be alive. 

HZ: The sheriff of Veronica Mars Investigations.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I guess so. As you've dubbed me.

HZ: One year ago, pretty much to the day. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: A long time ago. 

HZ: Not that long time ago, you introduced me to Jenny Owen Youngs. And already, here we are, recording the finale of the first season of our podcast. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yay.

JOY: Look what you’ve done.

HZ: You did that.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY:  I have to say, I appreciate being dubbed the sheriff of this town. But I feel like my real aspiration is to be the Wallace of a town. 

JOY: Well, couldn't you be Sheriff Wallace? 

HZ: Yes. I feel like Wallace is destined for a great civic responsibility, even though he already has quite the criminal record, if that ever catches up to him.

JOY: Water under the bridge, it will be by the time he ascends inevitably.

HZ: And so thank you very much. 

JOY: Yes, thanks.

HZ: But I'm glad you're here, Hrishi, this episode fucks me up every time I watch it, and I cried three times whilst watching it. 

JOY: It's so stressful.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: It's really stressful. Even knowing what was going to happen, there were moments where I reach for the remote to try and fast forward and then I was like, No, I have to watch it carefully, so we can talk about it. But there were times when I just wanted to be like, Okay, let me skip past this part.

HZ: I think this episode is what made me just overall think Veronica Mars is very excellent television.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: This is definitely one of the best episodes of the series.

HZ: Let's dive into this episode. We start in a newspaper office with a cynical editor named Lloyd, who is wearing competing stripes. Lloyd is played by Steve Rankin, who you might recognise from True Blood or Malcolm in the Middle. 

JOY: Or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

HZ: Or as the fight coordinator for the Metropolitan Opera.

JOY: You're kidding. 

HZ: I could not kid you Jenny.

JOY: Yeah, that's true. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Wait, can I tell you a little bit about why like his last name so much? Blankenship.

JOY: Blanket-ship?

HZ: Blankenship. Are you OK, Jenny? 

JOY: I don't know!

HZ: Is this our safeword for the episode when it gets too stressful? Blankenship and we'll take a time out. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: To me it feels like a really great summary of this first season of Veronica Mars, that she bounces from boy to boy to boy and you're like, “Which one is she going to be with this time? I don't know just Blank and Ship.”

HZ: It was a long setup but so worth it. Or Blank and Shit, if you're thinking of Troy. He's blank AND shit.

JOY: I don't remember a Troy.

HZ: Anyway, Anyway, Lloyd is sitting, looking pretty unimpressed as Keith Mars and Cheyenne, the sex worker that we met in the last episode who is able to provide Abel Koontz with an alibi for the murder, are pitching the true Abel Koontz story and Lloyd is saying, "I can't risk that on the testimony of a hooker," which, shut up, Lloyd. Like, why would she come forward? There's no real benefit to her. In fact, she's hid from ever publicly saying something about this because it's so disadvantageous to her, so you would think her coming forward was quite a strong indication that there was something to this story. 

JOY: This is what I exactly exactly the sort of behaviour I would expect from even a journalist pal of Keith's in the mid 2000s. So in England, is are people less likely to completely disregard the word of somebody who happens to work in sex work?

HZ: No, no, I think that just as likely to have that stigma in their minds. Keith is getting home and he's outside the house looking through the mail and the DNA results of his paternity test are back - and this envelope is not at all discreet because it is marked 'Unified Genetics' and 'RESULTS CONIDENTIAL', which is just the thing to keep things quiet.

JOY: That's for us; genetic testing labs surely just mail things in a totally unmarked no return address or PO box return address orange envelope, right?

HZ: I would have thought that it might say 'confidential', but not 'results confidential'. They're really heavily signalling. Keith Mars looks wistful and he can hear from within the happy giggling of both Mars women as they chop onions with spoons in their mouths to prevent crying. Have you ever tried this? I don't think it's worked for me.

JOY: I don't think it's worked for me either. 

HZ: It’s also uncomfortable.

JOY: It's gross. doesn't feel good. There's I don't know if there's really a way to avoid tears with onions. 

HZ: Goggles. 

JOY: I think I've worn goggles before; it didn't work. 

HZ: I have a way. 

JOY: Don't chop onions? 

HZ: No, I love onions. I'll cry to keep onions in my food. There's a little membrane under the first layer of onion, a little thin one. And if you pull that off straightaway, then the onion doesn't really make you cry. You're welcome.

JOY: Hmmm, I'll take it under consideration. This scene, to me, it was like a very transparent attempt - we know nothing about Lianne Mars except that she's been gone, and that she has an an alcohol issue. And I feel like this is their desperate attempt to make us care a little bit more about what happens later. They're like, "We have to give her a characteristic. She loves to pair music with food."

HZ: "And also, everyone knows about it because they've known each other for 20 years."

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: She includes the helpful line, "Just like old times," or something like that, right? Like old times put on the radio. 

HZ: That's convincing. And also when you have family customs, and you're thinking about them, you list every iteration of those family customs, right? In your conversations.

JOY: Oh, definitely. 

LIANNE: Connie Francis is spaghetti bolognaise with a crusty bread and a nice Chianti. Uh, sans the Chianti. 
VERONICA: Okay, say we were having hot dogs and Tater Tots? 
LIANNE: Late seventies southern rock, Skynyrd, maybe Creedence. 
VERONICA: Pork chops. 
LIANNE: Country, old school. 
KEITH: Unless it’s fried, then it’s Elvis, the early years.

HZ: She also says "nice Chianti" which, for me, added to the awkwardness because of the Hannibal Lecter, right? Not just because she's like, "Oh, I'm not supposed to be drinking alcohol."

JOY: The adjective ‘nice’ has forever been paired with serial killer in terms of being used for Chianti.

CLIP: Silence of the Lambs:

HANNIBAL LECTOR: A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. 

JOY: Just find another adjective, I guess is what I'm saying. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I think this episode, which has so much going on in it actually suffers from having so much going on in it.

JOY: Like every episode of Veronica Mars!

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: But this one especially is so packed to the gills that things that are actually so important, like Veronica's relationship with her mom, gets kind of squeezed a little too tightly like here, they're like, "Look, they've bonded" - but we just saw her show up. We kind of skipped all the way from, "Hey, I'm here at your house" to "Hey, everything is great and we're all having a wonderful time." And Veronica, as we know, is so mad at her mom, has been harbouring all this resentment. How did she get from that to like this happy-go-lucky spoon in mouth?

HZ: Well, I think because she took Lianne to rehab a couple of episodes ago. And I think that was Veronica like putting the cap on her anger. And so Lianne coming home, Veronica really wanted her parents to be together and I think is trying to kind of return to her old life in a way. And so it's almost like this manufactured family happiness and intimacy. And like Veronica is reverting a little bit as well. She's got like this quite childish top on as well. It's pink with some little penguins on it.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: it's funny because I feel like Keith comes into the scene and you know, part of this because of his or maybe it's entirely because of his DNA testing. But he seems to be inhabiting the scene the way that I feel as a viewer which is like this is weird and this feels forced.

HZ: And presumably he and Lianne are sharing a bedroom because their apartment is small, right? And she's been there at least a few days at this point. Right. And you would think the dynamic when when someone's been away for a year, it takes some time. I don't even know if Lianne had ever lived in that apartment because they had a different place when we saw a flashback. And we don't even know if Lianne knows that Veronica has been doing all this detective work. Also, don't you think it's weird that Lianne has had more screen time probably than Lilly, but Lilly you get such a sense of her character so strongly in every flashback, and she's so charismatic and so vivid, and I don't know whether they just couldn't be arsed to write much for Lianne or what?

JOY: Or maybe it's like Lianne has always been kind of like on the more two-dimensional or like not present in her own family's life because of her addiction issues and maybe that's just kind of like what we get?

HZ: She can still have a personality and an addiction.

JOY: Sure.

HZ: They don't necessarily write middle-aged women that great in the show because who else have we got? Celeste Kane; she sucks. Lynn Echolls was nice, but she didn't get that much to do except be very upset. And Alicia Fennel is a true delight, but I think it's partly because Erica Gimpel is quite a luminous performer rather than because they've really fleshed out the character that much in the scripts.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: They definitely haven't. The details at this point about who she is are pretty few and far between.

HZ: Yes.

JOY: Also worth mentioning in this scene: Lianne is swinging from a water bottle - Chekhov’s water bottle, file that away. Just hold on to that.

HZ: Well observed, Detective Youngs. Keith goes to the office in order to open the envelope, and he really struggles to open the envelope and get the paper out. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: That’s relatable.

HZ: The page of test results looks very home printout.

JOY: Well, it was a different era.

HZ: I guess. But before we see the full page, he is interrupted by the arrival of Cliff and I'm usually so excited to see Cliff, but I was like Cliff, can you just wait in a minute? 

JOY: Yeah, Cliff, work on your timing please. 

HZ: I feel like what people get out of ASMR videos is what I get out of hearing Cliff speak.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yes. Yes.

CLIFF: Tell me this is a joke. You want to sue the Kane family. 
KEITH: Yes. 
CLIFF: Please tell me there's another Kane family in town. Maybe a Boris and Gilda Kane? 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: His voice carries so many dynamics in it. One sentence from him is the opposite of monotone. He really makes every single sentence sing. And so it's it is such a delight when he's in there because every syllable has a little bit of joy.

HZ: Where is my Better Call Saul-style spin off with Cliff? Where? Give the people what I want, and the people is me. Now, we know that in Neptune, these aberrant teens spend a lot of time reading print media, and the camera is scanning over a newspaper which is being read by the brothers Casablancas. 

JOY: Well, there's a very hot item in the San Diego Dispatch today.

HZ: This item, which is about the eyewitness stepping forward in the Abel Koontz case, is that it's an article like on the bottom half of a page. And the same text is in the adjacent articles that are supposedly about something else, and there'll be like a real paragraph that will be about like, "Keith Mars the blah blah blah Sheriff" and then the next paragraph will be some Latin placeholder text just intermingled together. And then above, there's an article about coal mining tunnels being commandeered by drug cartels, but with the same body text as the Lilly Kane murder. This news is causing quite a disturbance for Cassidy Casablancas and Dick's like, "Chill chill, to the grave, that's what we said." What’s this?!

JOY: Yeah wow - a lot of conversations being had casually in open air areas and hallways of this school that should be saved for closed spaces when you absolutely know you're completely alone.

HZ: Yeah, I don't think it would attract much attention, two brothers standing reading the paper very vertically. In a breeze like that would just flap all over them as well, it'd be worth looking at. Inside, Wallace and Veronica walking and talking whilst Wallace reads the paper aloud.

WALLACE: “Since his removal from office, Keith Mars, the ousted sheriff, has tirelessly and single-handedly continued his own investigation, despite being shunned by the community at large.”
VERONICA: You’d think it might be gross to read a love letter to your dad, but I kind of enjoy it.

HZ: I'll read any of your love letters to Keith Mars if you want to forward them to me.

JOY: Also, nobody thought Veronica would think it would be gross to read a love letter to her dad; nobody thought that for one second.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: We're so far below the threshold for the two of them.

HZ: They sight Logan up-hall. He's holding a folder with a CSS sticker on it - remember CSS the band? 

JOY: No. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yeah.

HZ: Do you characterise Logan as a fan of CSS?

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: No, I wouldn't have thought so. I would have thought Logan listens to Puddle of Mudd, but I might be thinking about his clothes.

HZ: And Green Day? At the sight of Logan, Veronica rushes Wallace into the toilet office and he kind of acts like he's never been there before, which I find very hard to believe. 

WALLACE: My blonde-pulling-me-into-the-girl’s-room fantasy? Ruined! 
VERONICA and WALLACE: [Simultaneously] Do me a favour?

HZ: It's very cute that they chorus “Do me a favour?”

JOY: Oh my god.

HZ: What a moment for podwatchers.

JOY: He is ready to jinx.

HZ: It's a pretty minor favour she's asking Wallace for this time; I don't think it breaks any laws. It's just telling Veronica when Logan's gone and it's evident she's been avoiding him for a while because Wallace asks how much longer she's gonna keep that up for. And, Blankenship: because in the next scene, it’s the second time this season we've seen Keith breaking up with someone and my heart is broken too.

JOY: Yeah, we hate to see it. It is not good. It's particularly rough because she asked him if this is what he wants. And he can't answer!

HZ: She knows. And also she looks very beautiful in the light from the stained glass window light, very noble. In episode five as well, like this episode, both Marses arebreaking up with someone, like Veronica is at arm's length with Logan, and in episode five she's breaking up with Troy while she's making Keith break up with Miss James.

JOY: Right? Well, because their true loves are each other.

HZ: Yes. But I suppose in this instance, he has Veronica's approval at this point for his relationship with Alicia, so he's doing it not for her. That's a bit of development. 

JOY: It's like: is keeping a family together that is not functional, with one parent who just totally checked out, is that like better for everybody? Just by virtue of like, oh, you're already married?

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: This speaks to Helen's point about Veronica having kind of regressed a little bit in this episode, because because Veronica herself knows that they're not a great match, and that Keith and Alicia are actually a much better match. But right after he breaks up with her, Veronica comes in and kind of has like a "Well, what can you do? Situation's different now? Now we can be a happy family." And her sense of nuance in relationship dynamics seems to have gone out the window.

HZ: Yeah, right. Well, if you know what music someone likes to eat with then obviously they're meant to be. Whenever we used to have people round for dinner, my husband would put on the same music regardless of food, which was Tiny Tim, followed by Shooby Taylor the human horn. 

JOY: Um.

HZ: Very difficult soundtrack for eating, or for socialising.

JOY: Yes, what was his goal - to ensure that there were leftovers?

HZ: Or to get them to leave before the food even arrived? Alicia turns on her heel and leaves crying, but she almost bumps into Veronica on the way out. There's an awkward pause which allows us to get a good look at the coat stand on which there is hanging what appears to be a vintage PVC Santa jacket.

JOY: What?

HZ: Did you not see this? 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: No.

HZ: Because it's only me that cares about set dressing. It's this very shiny like orangey red jacket would like deep white edging around the bottom and the sleeves. Who's been playing a waterproof Santa? Which of the Mars is cases has that come up? Although I did actually see a Santa - I went to Charleston aquarium once just before Christmas and the person who was scuba diving into the tank to feed some of the fish had a Santa suit on over their wetsuit and it just looked like Santa had drowned. And then from Marses to Kanes. Urghhh. 

JOY: Wow wow wow wow.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: This scene! What is going on?

HZ: Why are the Kanes planning a dinner when they've proven how shit they are at dinners? Jake is tapping a big seating plan. This is the most likeable line Celeste has ever had, I think:

JAKE: Don’t seat the entertainment people next to the corporate people. Right? Let’s keep it civil. 
CELESTE: Jake, honey, when did we become Republicans?
JAKE: We haven’t, we’re, er, going with the flow.

HZ: Probably in the 1990s when you got really rich.

JOY: Honestly. Duncan pops into the kitchen while they're doing all this seating.

HZ: A new Duncan, argyle Duncan. 

JOY: Argyle Duncan, but also I feel like echoes of class traitor Duncan are appearing here in that Duncan is perfectly willing to not discount the word of a sex worker. Which feels very of the people, by the people, for the people.

DUNCAN: So, anyone read the paper today? Garfield. I mean, will he ever learn? Oh yeah, and there was this other thing: I guess Abel Koontz didn't kill Lilly. Let's open the floor for discussion on that one, what do you say?
CELESTE: It’s hogwash.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I have a question about the writing of that line. Because I think what he says is, "Garfield, when will he ever learn?" And in my recollection of my many years of reading Garfield, that's not really the dynamic of Garfield. It's not really set up as "Garfield. When will he ever learn?"

JOY: It's more like "when will Jon Arbuckle learn?" or "when will Odie learn?" Garfield has done learned already.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yes, in fact, and he's waiting for everybody to catch up.

HZ: He's fundamentally evolved.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yeah. And so I questioned Duncan's comic reading comprehension in that moment.

HZ: Oh, Duncan.

JOY: He's trying so hard. 

HZ: When will Duncan ever learn? Celeste discredits Cheyenne because she's a sex worker, and Duncan, I think reasonably, is super pissed off at his parents.

JOY: Dude, and then what follows -

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: - just some great parenting.

JOY: Incredible parenting. 

DUNCAN: Dad, I can’t take it anymore. All the lies. Does anyone ever tell me the truth? Ever? You treat me like I’m six years old, you always have. 
JAKE: You wanna know, Duncan? You want to know everything? 
CELESTE: Jake, no! 
DUNCAN: Yeah, I wanna know. 
JAKE: You did it, son. You had a fit. You killed your sister.

JOY: They even don't know he did it!!

HZ: The Kanes really jumped to a conclusion there, and we see it later as well when there's a flashback.

JOY: Yeah, they just polevault to "You're holding your sister so you must have killed her."

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yep. And I just can't believe the way that he lets them know after being "Oh you really want to know, you want to know everything? You did it."

JOY: It's so bananas!

HZ: They're not good parents. I think that's consistent. So then we have a flashback, which you can tell is quite a while ago now because it's very unsaturated except for greens. Celeste is wearing a twinset and pearlsm even though she was just the one objecting to Republicanism. Celeste and Jake are standing by the house shouting at Duncan because they can see his back and he's cradling Lilly and they rush towards him. And Duncan has such a gory lower face, like he's been chewing on Lilly; it's probably just because her very grim head wound has been pressed against his head while he's been cradling her.

JOY: How else could they respond than "What did you do?" 

HZ: "You chewed through her skull and sucked out her brains!" Lilly looks very dead as well. It's grotesque, the gore in this scene. Then in the present the doorbell rings and Celeste goes off to answer it, because great timing.

JOY: Like whaat?

HZ: And Jake tells Duncan it was an accident and he kind of splains to him: 

JAKE: Look, it was an accident, Duncan. We know it was. You didn’t know what you were doing. You loved your sister. We’ve done this for you, son, so you could have a future.

HZ: And then to to add to this messed up scene, Celeste comes back seemingly ignoring her son sobbing in his father's arms and she's like, "Ugh, would you fucking believe it, we're being sued by Keith Mars, we've been served. Urgh!" I will say, one good thing about the Kane house is that it is a rare moment of one of the interiors of this show having nice natural light.

JOY: Unlike the next scene. 

HZ: Oh my god, the school media room!

JOY: They really batcaved it. They just can't help themselves. 

HZ: Is it buried underground? 

JOY: It's in a cavern. 

HZ: It's particularly sepulchral today. Veronica is there and weirdly, to me, she is sitting with her back to the door.

JOY: Which she never would. You have to keep your eyes on your enemies.

HZ: Her screen is visible to everyone!

JOY: Uncalled for, unbelievable.

HZ: Cassidy Casablancas comes in and Veronica addressed him as ‘Beaver’ and he corrects her, which I feel like it's a bit of character setting. And you already feel more about Beaver as well even though he only arrived two episodes ago than you do about Lianne Mars who's been sprinkled through the season.

JOY: Yeah. Yes.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I think that role is performed so well and yet drawn so strikingly, you know, like Dick very rarely ever seems like anything more than a caricature. But Beaver seems like a real person, with real feelings and a complicated inner life.

HZ: Yes, it feels like he and Dick wouldn't have grown up in the same environment. But they did. And next season you learn a lot more about about the Casablancases.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Can we just pause on the name ‘Cassidy Casablancas’ though? 

JOY: No. 

HZ: This episode is called 'Leave it to Beaver', which I feel is maybe -

JOY: - copyright infringement.

HZ: Maybe, but also just It feels like it's directing our attention to this revelation. But in a way that seems disproportionate to all the other things that this episode could be named.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I think it's a red herring, one of many red herrings. 

HZ: This Cassidy Casablancas revelation is that Logan doesn't really have an alibi for Lilly Kane's murder. He left Mexico early to see Lilly because he suspected she was seeing someone else, but I don't think at any point I thought this Logan plot anything to it.

JOY: You never bought Logan as the murderer of Lilly? 

HZ: And not because I didn't want him to be and I was like, "No, this cannot be!" I just felt like the show wasn't that invested in it.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: The red herrings that are planted, some of them feel so obviously red herrings that they aren't don't even actually function as red herrings. YYou're like, well, I'm 15 minutes in to 44 minute episode, so I can't have gotten to the answer yet.

HZ: I think the Duncan red herring doesn't feel like it's going to amount to much either, but it does feel a bit more significant because it indicates how fucked up the Kane parents are, and how fucked this shows attitude is to epilepsy and mental health. Veronica goes to report to Keith at the Mars HQ these revelations from Cassidy, who also said that Logan had bought Lilly a shot glass - apparently she collects shot glasses, and they could have mentioned that in the episode four tribute video that they did. This shot glass had the words ‘Baked in Ensenada’ on it. Lilly would have loved it, Veronica says sentimentally.

JOY: And yeah, that rings a big bell for Keith, who goes running to the file that includes the inventory of the contents of Lilly's car and Lilly's room and there, lo, behold, a Baked in Ensenada shot glass. 

HZ: Keith goes to the window to read that file by the dim lights.

JOY: Turn the lamp on please. 

HZ: Please, buy the Marses a lamp in season two! It doesn't have to be this hard. The fish tank is lighter than the window light. At school somehow the hallway is empty except for Veronica and Logan. How likely is that?

JOY: How also how likely is it that the song playing in the background is all about your bad boyfriend?

HZ: It is the song ‘Bad Boyfriend’ by Garbage. 

JOY: Wow, I did not realise it was Garbage. 

HZ: They exchange looks as the lyric references ‘bad boyfriend’, and Veronica's not avoiding Logan today.

JOY: No, even though she's supposed to be I think steering clear from him she can't resist going in for a little no costume. undercover work pretending to still be into it so that she can see what he has to say for himself.

HZ: Yeah, right. We know that she's shitting him, for some reason.

JOY: I'm sorry - "shitting him"?

HZ: Yeah, do you not say that in America?

JOY: Oh, like like she's like lying to them or playing him or something? Like "you gotta be shitting me." 

HZ: Right. Exactly. She's shittting him. But he doesn't know he's being shat. 

JOY: See, this really starts to fall apart once you start conjugating.

HZ: Does it? You knew what I meant! He is beshat. it's very flexible; the swears are very flexible bits of language. Logan says, "I have this feeling that things are gonna get really bad." Blankenship, Logan; just say Blankenship. His hair is much fluffier this episode.

JOY: Yeah, so fluffy especially later on the beach. We'll get there. 

HZ: Breeze actually running through it and it moves. Logan asks Veronica not to run out on him again. And I'm really aware just how few people Logan has to turn to, because he and Duncan had a falling out last episode. He also told Dick to fuck off in Episode 21.

JOY: His relationship with his dad is very bad. His relationship with his half sister is bad. His mom is dead.

HZ: Who's Logan got?

JOY: Sweaty sweaty Luke?

HZ: He doesn't even have a pet. 

JOY: It's true. Logan should have - a pet for Logan. 

HZ: I can imagine Logan getting a couple of cats and being like, if this was happening but 10 years later, Logan would have Instagram accounts for his cats.

JOY: Wow. I love that.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I just want to ask you two, in this moment: do you feel fully bought into Logan's of love Veronica? Now that we're at the end of the season, it is so far from where we were at the beginning of the season, and we know in flashbacks before our show started that they were friends - 

HZ: - a long time ago. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yeah, exactly. There was a double date between them you know, they all hung out. But Logan is so awful to her for so long, and it feels so deep-seated, it's not a superficial dislike that he has of her, or bullying of her. It's so terrible. As you've gone through all these episodes, do you feel bought into his total reversal of that and saying she's the only person that is important to him now?

HZ: Yeah, I think they are really bonded by trauma. And a few episodes earlier is when they really start to become friends because he turns to her when his mom is missing, and he's still hoping she's alive. And so there's that trauma, and then the trauma of losing Lilly; I think that fast-tracks them from a place of hatred. But also what I get from this - it's not like their chemistry is sizzling in this scene, which it has in some of the preceding episodes - but you just get the feeling that he just needs somebody to look after him a bit. And he knows to some degree that he doesn't have her to do that. He goes off and Veronica immediately calls Keith, who has found that Logan's car crossed the Mexican border at 8:57am on murder day, plenty time to do a murder. Veronica is standing by an open classroom door which has a chalkboard covered in French Revolution stuff.

JOY: I take all my sensitive phone calls in front of an open door that prevents me from seeing if anyone's in the room lurking, listening, being hot. 

HZ: This episode is rich in moments of someone appearing from somewhere, where why the fuck were they there? And how long were they waiting there just in case they could do an eerie apparation? Because - well, you would be excited, Jenny, to be standing by this doorway.

JOY: Would love an unexpected Weevil to appear.

HZ: Suddenly filling that doorway.

JOY: I feel like we've gone this whole season and I haven't been like super clear about one thing, which I'm reminded of thinking about Weevil's great face: I'm gay. I'm very gay. That's it. I just wanted to like reiterate, in case it's been lost on anyone.

HZ: Do people not know?

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Gay for Weevil.

JOY: Well, both gay and gay for Weevil. It just seemed like an important thing here at the at the end of our beautiful first season to just let people know that I am both gay and gay for Weevil. I don't know why, it just feels you know, I just have a burning torch of identity inside my heart, Helen. And I talked a lot about Weevil and Leo, and I just felt like, you know, clarifying.

HZ: Love who you want, Jenny.

JOY: Thank you so much! Finally, the permission I've been seeking!

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: We accept you exactly as you are, Jenny.

HZ: Now, you've got your label: gay for Weevil.

JOY: Also, I'm curious to know if any of our listeners are also gay women who think Weevil or Leo are hot, please let us know via social media. 

HZ: Oh, that's gonna be popular. 

JOY: Thank you. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Who doesn't think Leo is hot?

JOY: Fools?

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I don't think anybody doesn't think Leo is hot.

JOY: If you don't think Leo is hot, please tweet at Hrishi.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I'm not here for it.

HZ: Weevil overhears this whole Mars conversation. So now he knows that the Marses suspect Logan killed Lilly. And he says:

WEEVIL: These rich boys think they can get away with anything, don’t they?

HZ: Which is sort of the theme of a lot of this season.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: And also just life.

HZ: Yeah, I mean, it's very much predicting where things were going in society. We also, I think, always knew that at some point suspicion would be cast on Logan, given that they haven't until the end of the season, but it seems like otherwise they would have done in like the first seven episodes or something. 

JOY: Yeah, yeah. 

HZ: We go to a room that - it must be a Kane-based room because again, it's got windows open to the outside and daylight streaming in. But it's some kind of boardroom and on one side of the table there's Cliff and Keith both wearing diagonal stripe ties. I feel like Cliff would have lent Keith a tie for this. So, on the other side of the table, Celeste Kane and her lawyer who is apparently called Barry Randall, and they're both wearing dark clothing, just to contrast. They are negotiating Keith's finder's fee. And the condition is that Veronica relinquishes any future claims to the Kane estate.

JOY: Everyone knows what's going on here except poor Cliff who’s like:

CLIFF: Future claims? So what, she slips and falls outside Kane Enterprises - tough toenails?

JOY: And having no idea that there's so much more at play at least in the mind of Celeste Kane. 

HZ: Do you think, if she was really genetically a Kane - 

JOY: She would be as cool as she is? Although Lilly rocked pretty hard. 

HZ: That is true. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Did she though?

HZ: Yes! Shut it.

JOY: Oh what, you don't like strong-willed hot girls who do as they please and have sex if they feel like it? 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: We haven't gotten there yet in this episode, but if we're on the subject of if she was cool or not, how cool is it to be like "I'm gonna cheat on my boyfriend with his dad"?

JOY: "And then I'm gonna sell the video tapes to Access Hollywood or something"?

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Even before you get there, just the "I'm going to cheat on my boyfriend with his dad" is a level that goes beyond free will and and goes to like sociopath to me.

HZ: Well, I just think when you're teenage girl with -

JOY: - an ex-boyfriend who has a movie star dad?

HZ: But also just strong sexual vitality. You can use that in a way that is kind of chaotic evil. We're not saying Lilly's moral good. We're just saying she -

JOY: - she's a good time.

HZ: She's very charismatic and she is kind of spirited, whereas the rest of the Kanes seem like a sentient oven glove or something.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I did not realise that they were not still together at the time.

JOY: Most shows go in a line. And this show was like a bowl of spaghetti where you're kind of like, "how do I determine how much time has passed?" You try to track it by the wigs but then eventually even that becomes futile. 

HZ: And the saturation.

JOY: Right, the saturation cues.

HZ: Next, Keith is at the Mars HQ reading very intently, which Veronica remarks upon, and then something majestically beautiful happens. 

KEITH: Have a seat a minute; I have to talk to you. I met with Celeste Kane today. 
VERONICA: She’s paying you double and sponsoring our club membership? 
KEITH: Well, she actually agreed to pay up but only if you sign this contract that says that you’ll never sue them again. She wants you to waive any claim on the Kane fortune. 
[VM signs contract]
VERONICA: What? Was I supposed to sign in blood? 
KEITH: Do you know what you just signed away? 
VERONICA: There's nothing that I want from them. 
KEITH: Nothing. You didn't sign away a thing. Veronica, I am without a doubt your father. 
VERONICA: Oh! Yeah, you are! 
KEITH: You think that charm of yours is learned behaviour? That's genetics, baby!

HZ: They're both so good. Something that runs in the Mars family is been really good happy-crying acting. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: This is the best. 

HZ: This is the first time I cried. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Oh yeah.

JOY: Yeah, it's cry-worthy. He's like, "I'm your daddy. You know that question we've all been asking for so long?"

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: And I love that he waits and lets her make her decision before he before he reveals it to her.

HZ: What an absolutely fantastically satisfying bit of Power Keith ruling from the bottom rung yet again. But no time to celebrate, because Keith wants to go to the authorities with the information on Logan. At the Echolls home, you get a meeting of our two least favourite guys: Aaron Echolls and Sheriff Lamb.

JOY: And Sheriff Lamb has gotten worse in his time away.

HZ: We've not seen him for a little bit and he's had time to grow a soul patch. If you needed to hate him any more. Lamb inadvertently tipped off Aaron Echolls to clues about where things might be hidden. 

AARON: Whoa, whoa, whoa. You can't just barge in here! 
LAMB: Now, come on now. What? You've been in like, what, thirty cop movies? Hey, make sure you check the air conditioning vents. 
DEPUTY: Got you, boss. 
LAMB: Our snitch says these crafty little buggers today, they hide things in the vents.

HZ: So that was fucking helpful, wasn't it?

JOY: Oh yeah, what the fuck, Lamb?

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I know. He's a bad sheriff.

JOY: Oh wow, that's the first time that's occurred I think to anyone.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Well, that's why I'm here.

HZ: At school, you can tell it is the climax of this season because Logan is wearing the ultimate Logan combo: double pond, a khaki green shirt over a T shirt of the same colour, I suppose his version of a twinset. And the puka shells are his pearls.

JOY: Yeah, absolutely.

HZ: Weevil pursues. He is wearing black leather jacket over a black scoop neck T-shirt which maybe is the same black T-shirt that Celeste Kane was wearing in that legal negotiation scene because they have to double up on costumes on the show, because the costume budget was really small. His eyebrows are magnificent, really furious. It's funny to see the scary Weevil of the pilot back again, it's another way in which this episode is circling back to the pilot, where it's like evil Weevil.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: But it's evil born from love?

HZ: Yeah but he's got a fucking metal pipe in his sleeve.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: And he's gonna murder, yeah.

HZ: He's going on very little evidence.

JOY: On school grounds! At the very least I feel like we've got a place where he likes to do this stuff and he shouldn't be doing it at school.

HZ: In bright day in the parking lot. 

JOY: Literally everywhere in Neptune is very dark, just go anywhere.

HZ: Go to the media room, go to toilet office, I'm sure Veronica was busy.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I had a thought about the toilet office, by the way: you know when they get prints and stuff like that, and they're like, “Oh, you have to send it off to the crime lab” - what if the toilet office was the crime lav?

HZ: And this is why you're the sheriff. Weevil clearly means some nasty business. So it's sort of lucky for Logan, that Deputy Sacks and another officer appear from behind the school bus to take him in for questioning, which otherwise wouldn't be much of a reason to celebrate. Then we get to see Lamb and Logan wrestling each other metaphorically for the upper hand at the sheriff's department; there is a lot of wonky camera angles as well to be awkwardness of this scene. It's a bad luck episode for Logan, though. But he's still doing the Logan waggishness.

JOY: Yeah, he's like definitely kind of like flirt-snarking with Lamb the whole time.

LAMB: [Tapping the table for emphasis] You said you were in Mexico the day of Lilly's murder. Why? 
LOGAN: How many episodes of NYPD Blue did you have to watch to get the finger tapping down? 
LAMB: I asked you a question. 
LOGAN: And I ignored it and moved on. Keep up. [snaps fingers]
LAMB: Do I look like I am playing around with you?
LOGAN: So how about that phone call, huh?
LAMB: Whoops.
LOGAN: What, you didn’t read the manual? Okay, I get a phone call, it’s the law.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I have a question about this whole scenario with the phone call, because he's asking about getting his phone call and then he just brandishes his phone.

HZ: He's allowed to use his own phone! I thought you had to use a landline that they provide. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I mean, don't you also have to surrender your phone when you're going into the interrogation room with the police? Wouldn't they take your phone away from you? 

JOY: I have a friend who, in her drinking days living in San Diego, once went out on a long holiday weekend drinking binge and eventually kind of like taken in just to the drunk tank, you know, just for the night to cool off or whatever. And while she was there, she demanded a phone call. And she attempted, using the police station phone, to call 911 to report a case of false arrest. But you can't dial 911 from a police station phone. Which which lends credence I think to the idea that they would have to have you use their phone and not your own if you're getting your one phone call.

HZ: Login huddles into the corner and calls Veronica and it's another scene between them, which feels really like Logan's stomach must be falling through the floor straight into hell. And then Lamb drops a bomb! 

LOGAN: Hey, do you think you could track down my father, maybe work some of that Veronica magic that gets people out of these things? 
VERONICA: Sure. I'll do whatever I can. 
LOGAN: Thanks. Well, I'd love to chat, but I have a guest. Talk to you later. 
VERONICA: Okay, bye. 
LAMB: You called up Veronica Mars. 
LOGAN: Yeah. What’s it to you? 
LAMB: It’s funny, that’s all, I just…I mean, she’s the one who came to me with information about you.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Lamb, who just just loves to keep giving away information. You know, they really they need to do a reverse Miranda rights. 

HZ: A bit later, Lamb is in his office eating a sandwich disgustingly, and the only person in this show that I will accept disgusting sandwich-eating from is Vinnie. But I liked that they're using eating to indicate the characters as well, like Lamb eats like a douche.

JOY: He's also drinking an A and W root beer, which feels like a real bullseye, seems like exactly what he would drink.

HZ: You know what I've just realised? Lamb provokes the same reaction in me as when I walk past a Subway and they're pumping out that Subway smell and they do that everywhere I've been in the world, you can't escape it. 

JOY: Wait, you're talking about the smell of a Subway sandwich shop, not the smell of an underground train system?

HZ: No, I'll take that smell of blood, urine and rotting trash over the Subway sandwich smell.

JOY: At least you know what it is.

HZ: And then Lamb drops another revelation. He's vile, but things sure speed up with him around. 

DEPUTY SACKS: Keith Mars on line two.
SHERIFF LAMB: Keith Mars, what can I do for ya?
KEITH: The Echolls kid. What'd you find out? 
LAMB: Among other things, I'm pretty sure he's dating your daughter.

HZ: Logan's released, though. They didn't have much to hold him. And at the Mars home, Lianne is doing something domestic with a dishcloth to signify mom and wife, since they can't be arsed to really write anything for her. Veronica is at the beach with Backup, and a lot of people are milling around with surfboards.

JOY: Oh my god. It's like a reverse flash mob or something. He has just found his way into the midst of a whole bunch of people he doesn't know who all move away all at the same time.

HZ: Because Logan is another person in this episode who suddenly appears - from behind a surfboard. But weirdly, Veronica just walked past that surfboard from the other side. So surely she would have seen him before the people moved away. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: But apart from reality, and just for the sake of the camera, I thought it was an impressive bit of blocking. 

HZ: Oh, yeah. It's like watching some beautiful stage magic. But then this kind of horrible conversation happens. 

VERONICA: What do you want me to say, Logan?
LOGAN: "Logan, I'm gonna go home and put my head in the oven because I can't go on living knowing what a heartless bitch I am." Something like that!
VERONICA: So you're saying you want me dead? 
LOGAN: Yes. 
VERONICA: One word from me and Backup goes for your throat. 
LOGAN: Is that what you'd do, boy? You’d tear out my throat? Who's a man killer, huh? Who's a man killer?

HZ: Backup actually seems to have some sympathy for Logan, because Backup is not going for his throat. He's being pretty quiet and placid around him, which is probably as good an indicator as anything that Logan is not -

JOY: - is not guilty.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I think it's also an indication that despite all of this, Veronica still loves Logan. And that's what Backup can sense, that if Veronica had even a sense of hostility on the other end of that leash, Backup would be growling.

HZ: Logan's got some information to drop. He explains that as he was driving back from Mexico that day, he knew that it was over and he wrote Lilly a letter, because 2003, and gave it to her with that shot glass. And you can feel the atmosphere softening between him and Veronica, but then Keith shows up wearing a hideous butterscotch coloured blouson jacket, but it's really not the best - but then Mars jackets are rarely the best, and it's probably too hot for him to wear that plastic Santa jacket. And he's shouting at Logan to get away from her and running towards them, but he's running so slowly because running on sand is really difficult.

JOY: Oh my god. Yeah.

HZ: Logan walks away backwards in that classic Logan move. I think he's often walking away backwards, and also the physical performance of Logan is is so beautiful in a lot of these scenes. Keith takes Veronica home, where Veronica watches a video of her and Lilly dancing to ‘Wannabe’ in Lilly's room. 

JOY: I love this.

HZ: I don't really know what the purposes of this Spice Girls video; I suppose reminding you of how close these two were and how much fun they had when Lilly wasn't dead. But Veronica is like, well, Logan's letter was not in that room inventory that we saw earlier. Where could it have been? Where did Lilly keep secrets? Air vent! Do either of you hide stuff in air vents? 

JOY: Not yet. But now that I've watched this, it seems like a good time to start. 

HZ: It's not really an option in Britain. I don't often see in residences an unscrewable air vent that you could hide stuff in.

JOY: Yeah, well, I guess you have to have like central air central heating, which I don't. I need to move immediately if I'm going to engage in squirrelling things away.

HZ: This revelation sends us into a flashback! 

LILLY: That guy I met in Italy last summer? 
VERONICA: Yeah? 
LILLY: He sent me some pictures. 
VERONICA: Doing some rewiring? 
LILLY: Celeste is a bit on the nosey side. 
VERONICA: Yuck. 
LILLY: Tell me about it. I'm getting even, though. I left phone numbers on matchbooks for Tyrone and Leroy and Chico around the room. Give the woman a little drama in her life. 
VERONICA: Wait...who's Tyrone and Leroy and Chico? 
LILLY: Beats me, but they seem to really upset mom.
VERONICA: Lilly, those are naked photos. 
LILLY: They certainly are.

HZ: What a thrill for me, because it feels like it's been so long since we were served up piping hot dish of Marses in disguise. Here's Veronica in a dark brown curly wig, which is not well placed, it looks like she's wearing it backwards - and the show hates curly hair - she's got a little pair of spectacles on white shirt, black waistcoat, bow tie. She's off to audition for Party Down.

JOY: Yes. She's like a teeny tiny Howard Stern.

HZ: The revelations just keep coming in this episode: on her way out, she takes a swig of water from a bottle, then spits it into the sink because that's not water; that's the truth that Lianne skipped out of rehab early. But Veronica doesn't really have time for that right now; she's got a Kane party to infiltrate. And she must know all of the sneaky ways to get into the Kane home.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: We yada yada yada our way right into she's just working there. She's just a, you know, nobody suspects.

JOY: It's a huge mansion full of people who are not at all going to be concerned with the help.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: But the help themselves. I mean, she's got the platter. How did she get the platter?

JOY: Just swung by the kitchen.

HZ: It's a near empty platter so she probably just took it from where it'd be like discarded.

JOY: Yeah, right. Why are those crab puffs so far apart, spread so wide?

HZ: There are only about six left. But it's also very convenient that she got the outfit exactly right, little bow ties and waistcoats. They could have been wearing straight ties or no waistcoats. But we've seen in this show before as well, but to rich people, the help are invisible unless they're fucking them. We saw that in episode 10. So this is a party for the governor and the governor of California at this time was Arnold Schwarzenegger, and as Veronica is walking off with this tray of a few canapes, you hear this voice in the Arnie style going:

ARNIE VOICE: The crab puffs are fantastic.

HZ: Imagine, though, if he had really done a cameo on Veronica Mars! I also was looking at Lisa Thornhill on Wikipedia, who plays Celeste Kane. And her Wikipedia is not that informative, but it does contain the mysterious sentence: "Thornhill was raised around truckers."

JOY: Okayyy.

HZ: Veronica sneaks off and she puts down her tray on a side table and it clatters the floor. But is it supposed to clatter to the floor in order to alert someone to the fact she's leaving the room? Or is it just that Kristen Bell accidentally put it on the wrong bit of side table and they couldn't retake the scene?

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: No, I think that it's an indication of how -

HZ: - stressed?

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: - yes, that she is now getting to a place where her normal Veronica Mars composition, she's less composed. She's decomposing. Right in front of us. And I think that continues throughout the for the rest of the episode. This is the first indication of she's getting so close to the answers that she's actually starting to lose her cool a little bit.

HZ: Veronica gets to Lilly's room and goes right up into that vent - are the screws already a bit loose in it?

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yes.

HZ: And a door creepily opens very slowly behind her.

JOY: Yeah. Why is the camera man in that closet or whatever?

HZ: Well, also, why are Lilly's doors translucent? Why do people have such bad doors? It's like hotels putting glass doors on bathrooms because you know what glass doors are not? Soundproof. You know what people like in bathrooms? Privacy. And not to be seen or heard. And I feel like Lilly would also prefer privacy. There must have originally been an adbreak here for additional suspense of someone creeping up on Veronica. But actually - 

JOY: - we don't know what ad breaks are anymore. 

HZ: No. It's quickly revealed that it's just a new Duncan indignant Duncan. He grabs Veronica and she takes off the wig and glasses, but he's still furious until he learns that she doesn't think Duncan killed Lilly, but she think does Logan did.

JOY: The traumacoaster that poor Duncan Kane is on in this episode. His parents tell him that he killed his sister. 

HZ: There's a party of fucking rich Republicans in his house. Maybe his best friend killed his sister. Oh, and then he has to watch a tape of his sister having sex in a minute.

JOY: Alongside someone who he thinks is also his sister. 

HZ: So while she explains, you get this POV shot of someone watching them in a shadowy way. Veronica gets up into that air vent and she finds a bunch of mini DV tapes. And as they leave the room to go to Duncan's room to watch them on Duncan's camera, there's a shot of a door - I assume to Lilly's bathroom or closet or something - and it's a bit open, suggesting someone's hiding in there. The music is on high menace throughout this whole bit. Now here's a thing: so they go to watch the tapes, right? The tapes are of the Echolls sex hut that we saw in the last episode, so you've got the overhead shot and then you've got like a headboard-level shot. And has someone edited them or does the surveillance system - 

JOY: - just automatically rotate camera one camera two camera three camera one camera two camera three? Also Helen, if I recall correctly, when last we were in the pool house, you mentioned that Aaron Echolls's huge face was on the curtains, but did you notice in this sex tape that Lynn Echolls's face is also on the curtains?

HZ: They get a curtain each?

JOY: Looks like they get a curtain each they're kind of pushed to the side so you only see like a sliver but they have such distinctly different faces.

HZ: Do you think that - because I was assuming the cameras were installed by Aaron for no one to know, but you think he and Lynn instilled them so they can make sex tapes of themselves with both of their consent? Do you think they've rigged the sex hut for their own purposes, and then it's being used for nefarious purposes?

JOY: I can't see another way. Like I can't see another reason for why it would be allowed to pass that their faces would be on the curtains, because if Aaron set it up strictly for himself, it seems like he would find some way for those curtains not to be there. 

HZ: Do you think they have the curtains with their faces on - so in episode 21, you see the curtains, and there's like four foot faces on them - do you think they have those so that they can look at their own faces while having sex? 

JOY: I mean, it's hard to imagine that being a reality for someone. But yes?

HZ: Aaron's face is all over the house, so it tracks. 

JOY: It's true, he does like to look at himself. 

HZ: And I guess Lynn likes looking at his face because she married his face. 

JOY: Right. 

HZ: I also wonder, if you were having a secret camera system installed that leads to like this maybe self-editing situation and a couple of screens behind a sliding set of shelves: did Aaron install that himself? And if not, what did he tell the contractor?

JOY: Right, he must have had it professionally done. My question is, why wouldn't you set it up so that like you had to pull a specific book off the shelf or something, to unlatch something before - like, just anybody could walk in there or even lean against the bookcase and be like, "Whoa!" and accidentally push open the shelves that are covering the screens.

HZ: Maybe not everyone's allowed in the sex hut. 

JOY: Doesn't seem like a whole lot of like boundaries being set in this world at this house.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: In the same room, there's a liquor cabinet that's locked. THAT needs a key. But the secret sex tape video screen and recording system, not locked. It's not like they're unfamiliar with the idea of locking certain things in this room. They just have weird priorities.

JOY: “Son, use the sex pool shack as often as you like with whomever you please, but just stay out of the liquor cabinet. It's locked.”

HZ: Well, some people find things being forbidden to be more enticing. Adds mystique. Also there’s sound as well as visuals on these tapes. So they've miked up the room? But whatever the truth behind it, what the tapes reveal is that Lilly is on the bed in the outfit she wore on the day she died. 

JOY: Are we to believe that she only wore her pep squad outfit one day ever because she says “That's the same day she died”?

HZ: Also the tapes are dated, aren't they?

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Because later, the next one, they say Oh this one's October 1st.

HZ: Which is like a couple of days before. But like Veronica, Lilly spots the camera in the ceiling and the tape cuts out. And then we watch the other tape and poor Duncan has to see his sister having sex with someone and we don't see with whom until they roll around. And then there's this amazing horror reveal of Aaron Echolls looking at the camera right in the eye. And then this amazing Duncan reaction: 

VERONICA: Oh my god!
DUNCAN: Mr Echolls?!?

HZ: Mr!

JOY: Before Mr Echolls appears too, Duncan looks put off. Duncan looks like, oh man, Lilly getting me from beyond the grave. He doesn't look adequately disturbed for somebody who's watching a sex tape of his sister, standing next to somebody he also believes to be his sister. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY:  But before we get to the flashback: how did you two feel about this reveal? I mean, this is the big moment. You know, we're still pretty far from the end of the episode and we've been building an entire season up to this point of who killed Lilly Kane and in a Twin Peaks kind of way of like who killed who killed Laura Palmer? But I don't know, did it feel sufficiently climactic to you?

HZ: I'm trying to remember cuz I first watched this, I think, 2008, 2009; and I don't remember what my feelings were, but I think I was like, oh, that lands, that makes total sense. Because it felt like I hadn't been bullshat earlier in the series too much to put me off that scent. It didn't feel like it'd been retconned late.

JOY: Usually when I watch TV, I'm like a dog watching somebody like wave a tennis ball around, and I'm just like, "Wow! What are they gonna think of next?" This was one of those very rare moments for me where I got there before the show told me but, but kind of like, either at the end of the previous episode or maybe the beginning of this episode, so like, definitely not long enough for it to feel unsatisfying, you know what I mean? Not like, Oh, god, I'm just like, sitting around waiting for them to tell me who did it. It all happened very fast and felt very right. Because nothing, like no other proposed version of events up to this point, had felt satisfying or like they could possibly be real, like they wouldn't be doing this stuff with Veronica and Duncan and Veronica and Logan, I think, if one of them had actually done it.

HZ: I'm trying to remember who I thought it might have been before the reveal. And maybe I thought Celeste was a possibility - but more because of how you would write it rather than what would realistically happen in that situation. I mean, the real leftfield answer would be Veronica.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I think the first time I was watching and we were getting to this place, I had kind of thought, maybe hoped, that it was Sheriff Lamb somehow.

HZ: Yes. And he was doing it in order to depose Keith.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Exactly, that his deposing of Keith was also a way to cover his own tracks. And that actually, he's not just a bad sheriff, but thoroughly evil in all ways, it went even deeper than we thought. And I think I started to get invested in that a little bit. And so when it turned out to be Aaron EcholIs, I thought, yeah, I mean, he's not a good guy. It felt a little bit, a tiny bit jammed in for me. Not, you know - like you said there were enough breadcrumbs in there that I didn't feel like I had been completely jerked around. But then from here on out, Aaron Echolls, who I thought was like a terrible person, but lhad a tinge of realness to him. But from here on out my feelings about that kind of change.

HZ: I think there's not been loads of breadcrumbs in that you don't think, "Oh, actually. Now I understand what they meant by this, it was really to do with Lilly's murder." I don't think there's really that; it just feels like he is someone who could be moved to spontaneous deathly rage.

JOY: And we we've seen plenty of evidence of him cheating on his wife. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yep. And that he's generally really creepy.

HZ: I think I also bought the idea that he and Lilly would have slept together, because she has that kind of sexual power to her that I think when you're young, you're like, yeah, I'll have sex with people who are parent age because that seems exciting rather than like horrific and illegal in their case. In the speculative flashback, Lilly sees the camera in the ceiling and she opens the shelves and finds the screen. Detective Lilly would have been pretty great. Right?

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yeah, she and Veronica as a sleuthing team would have been unstoppable.

HZ: Lilly putting on costumes and honeytrapping people into giving away valuable information: they would have solved everything in eight minutes. Then there's a quick flashback to what we saw in the pilot at the sexy car, Lilly saying "I've got a secret. A good one." And Veronica realises what happened and we get a speculative flashback. She doesn't seem that pissed off. She's more like, "Oh that dirty dog," rather than "Ew, I'm so violated." 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: This is in the speculative flashback, Veronica has put her reaction in there, which is that she's like, “You dog.”

HZ: Yeah. But she grabs a bunch of tapes and scoops off and luckily she takes the tapes with her and rather than Aaron's other conquests or him practising his golf swing, or  just say staring at himself in the curtains. Aaron promptly strolls in calling her but she's already off, she's driving home smirking. At home, she hides the tapes in the vent and then she grabbed some magazines and sun lotion and goes to set up poolside and Aaron rushes up and she's like, "Mr. Echolls! Hi!" which again cracked me up, these Kane kids calling him Mr. Echolls - although sardonic in her case, unlike Duncan. 

AARON: I want those tapes back! 
LILLY: Mr. Echolls, hi! Sorry, Logan's not here. 
AARON: I am not playing with you. 
LILLY: Oh, really? Well, you're usually very interested in playing with me. 
AARON: Lilly, give me the tapes, now. 
LILLY: Like what, you don't see yourself enough on film? 
AARON: I want those tapes, you stupid little bitch. 
LILLY: Oh, I’m the stupid one? Well, now you can just watch the tapes on Access Hollywood along with the rest of America.

HZ: So he grabs the big chunky ashtray, smashes her in the head hard enough for her to go tumbling several feet, including over this sort of ornamental stream thing, and there she lives in this now familiar death pose and he wipes the ashtray with his T-shirt and throws it in the pool and runs off. 

JOY: I got really hung up on it in this last watch, that when Aaron confronts her about the tapes Lilly is like "Well, I'm you're just gonna have to watch them on, you know, whatever TV show I sell them to," and it's like, okay, so you're going to out the guy that you've been sleeping with as a statutory rapist and also make sure that your ex-boyfriend knows you've been sleeping with his dad? That seems too far. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: This is what I mean: it's one thing to have it be a secret, but it is especially heartless to think of, okay, she and Logan might be estranged but it is so heartless to him, right? Does she have no consideration for his feelings in the wake of their breakup or wherever they are now? Just like tearing the heart out of the poor guy, right?

HZ: I think both of them are quite callous to each other I think that has been somewhat indicating their on-off fiery relationship as they've set it up during the series.

JOY: But she'd also be selling a sex tape of herself, and like, at this point, she's still sleeping with the guy - like what is her motive? It's not money. She doesn't need money.

HZ: I think it's fucking with people.

JOY: Too far. 

HZ: I remember this time, people were making careers off the back of sex tapes. It was like right around the time of Paris Hilton’s sex tape, and then Kim Kardashian sex tape.

JOY: Neither of which like resulted in somebody getting arrested for statutory rape. It just seems like a whole other dimension.

HZ: But she could have become a famous person, which might have been an objective.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Whether she did or not, I do think you know, she likes having power over people. And even if she was just saying it almost in a joking way, like if she was just teasing him about it and if he had stopped to not murder her, things might have -

JOY: I personally can never stop to not murder somebody when I'm in the middle of conflict.

HZ: Just like to get it all done.

JOY: Yeah. And get home to dinner.

HZ: Time passes, indicated by blowing autumn leaves on the paving next to Lilly's body. Duncan gets home and runs up to her corpse and cradles are trying to get her to wake up despite her open eyes and massive head wound. And then, as we have seen before, Jake and Celeste arrive and they run up and Celeste just shrieks, which I think is her most reasonable response to anything, like it really does sound like the horrified noise a parent might make upon seeing their child horrifically murdered. Whereas Jake is immediately just hectoring Duncan like, “What did you do, son? Why did you murder your sister, son?” Why would that be your first thought? This is a weird assumption based on the evidence, which is just that he's there, she's dead, and that they know that he has a mental health thing that has been under explained and epilepsy, neither of which are significant.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Or add up necessarily to murdering your beloved sister.

HZ: Absolutely not, but I think the show was trying to pretend that those are fast track to your parents believing you're capable of the murder. And that's been responsible for a lot of shit in this season. In the present, Veronica explains Duncan that it's very plausible because she has already seen Aaron beating Dylan to a pulp and then just being like, hey, son, how's you did school? And she knows that he beats Logan as well.

JOY: Okay, so this plan, right? I have to get these tapes to my daddy. So I'm not going to get visual confirmation to make sure that Aaron Echolls is still here at this party - you just go and keep him in your sights. Right?

HZ: Okay, lots of things. Firstly, Aaron is here to meet the governor. I bet he and Arnold were in a film together in the 1990s.

JOY: Oh for sure.

HZ: Secondly, how's it gonna help Duncan keeping Aaron in his sights? As soon as Aaron leaves the room, Duncan will be like, “What do I do now?” Wouldn't it be a better plan, and way safer for Veronica, to stay in the middle of the party? Because what's he going to do with like sixty rich Republicans around?

JOY: And while Keith comes to her.

HZ: Keith and the police come straight to there. And before running off, Veronica has time to tell Duncan that they're not siblings. 

JOY: By the way, we're not related, byeee!

HZ: That could have saved both of them like two years of misery.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: To me, this is a little bit set up by the tray falling down. Because everything, all of your objections, I think, are entirely reasonable, but I think there is some element of her not being at her best right now. Having found figured out who actually killed Lilly, I think she's just this is, you know, further into the decomposition of Veronica Mars and she's just not thinking so clearly. the idea that she doesn't stop to actually see where he might be is.

JOY: Bananas, and uncharacteristic.

HZ: Also in this episode, she showed some quite strong spontaneous plan-making. So I guess it figures that not all of the plans would really be the right ones given these conditions that she's under.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I wanted to pause on one one moment that I really liked, which is the acknowledgement between Veronica and Duncan that Logan is beaten by his dad. You know, Duncan’s sort of normal lack of reaction to anything, which I normally find so annoying, is actually so effective here, when she said it, because it feels like something just tacit that they acknowledge, you know, he doesn't have to make a big thing out of it - he never makes a big thing out of anything except for Garfield - but here It really works. And I just I love that idea that like, yeah, this is his best friend. Of course he knows that. Of course, he knows that about that. And they that and it's something that almost feels like it goes without saying they don't talk about it. But it's something that he knows because he's grown up with this guy.

HZ: Yeah, it feels like he might have seen marks on Logan, like if they're changing for surfing or whatever. And also that Logan might have made some kind of glib remarks that you already had another clue you would put those together.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Exactly. And Duncan is an astute enough and a good enough friend that he has put all of that together. And this is maybe the first time that he's actually acknowledged it with Veronica or anybody else. I just thought it was a really great moment.

HZ: If it was deliberate. Rather just Teddy Dunn’s face not doing anything at the time. Veronica calls Keith while walking to her car and Keith advises her to stay put till he gets there. So he agrees with us.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yeah. Well, he's a professional and he's good at his job.

HZ: She says she'll be home in 10 minutes, because of the roads of Neptune operating quicker than time. And she then calls Logan. But Logan doesn't pick up because his phone is in the car, whereas he is standing on the parapet of the bridge where his mother died by suicide. And he's standing on one foot, testing the potential for falling, and he's got a hip flask of booze. He's still doing his daily ridiculous voicemail greetings though.

LOGAN’S VOICEMAIL: You’ve reached Logan and here’s today’s inspirational message: Adversity is the diamond dust with which Heaven polishes its jewels.

HZ: And as he swigs from the flask, the PCHers ride up and Weevil removes his helmet. 

LOGAN: Seriously, what do you think you can do to me, huh? 
WEEVIL: I’ll think of something.

JOY: You know, in this dark bleak moment, some levity.

HZ: Really?

JOY: Yes.

HZ: Name one.

JOY: Consider, if you will: I'm just looking at the at Logan's line and Weevil’s response on paper and without the context of the rest of the episode, it seems like something you know, that I could get way more into especially because ‘Bad Boyfriend’ is playing again. Remember all that heat in detention?

HZ: I miss the hot detention buddies; that has not really been sustained through the season.

JOY: Alas.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: And this was my secret hope in this moment. 

HZ: What, that they would kiss?

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: That despite the overt menace between the two of them, what actually had happened was that Veronica not being able to reach Logan and she had sort of understood his mental state to know that he was in danger. And she had this information now, and she also knows that Weevil thinks that Logan killed Lilly still. And so she's putting all this stuff together. So what we don't see off screen is she's called Weevil and said, “Look, Logan didn't do it. I know you two are at war with each other. He didn't do it. And also I'm worried about him because for all these reasons, can you go check on him?”

JOY: Yessss!

HZ: “Remember when you were friends in episode seven. Hang on to that feeling.”

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Exactly. “And just do it as a favour for me. Go check up on him and make sure he's okay”. And so then they get there. It seems like it's, you know, they're gonna fight but actually, they're there to help Logan.

HZ: I hope that you're right, but we know in the first episode of season two, I mean, I don't I don't really want to spoiler, but some punching does take place off screen at this time. 

JOY: Just because some punching took place doesn't mean some kissing didn’t also take place.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: But in this episode, we don't know what - this is the end of our stories of Weevil and Logan for this episode, and that was what I was hoping.

HZ: Also there is a bit of humour in, again, Jason Dohring’s physical performance where he does those sort of balletic but barely controlled-seeming beautiful moves and he's standing on the parapet and he does this Matrix-style beckoning move to Weevil which apparently according to Rob Thomas, he improvised while they were shooting, but it seems very Logan as well just to try and like deal with a lot of the horribleness in his life by being quite silly in the moment.

JOY: Absurd, yeah.

HZ: Veronica's driving and Duncan calls - he can't find Aaron Echolls anywhere because - another terrifying reveal for this episode.

JOY: Helen. He's in the backseat and what's lighting up his face? Is it lights headlights from the road? Does he have a phone that's lighting up his face all of a sudden?

HZ: He's just lit from within so that he can show up in the rearview mirror on this very dark road.

JOY: So then we assume He's been laying, literally low, until this moment?

HZ: Do you think he's just been sitting there critiquing the foul state of her car while he waits to go fuckest uppest?

JOY: Yeah, “I can't believe I've been brought so low as to be hiding in the back of this shit heap.”

HZ: Veronica sobs and I think it's appropriate. But throughout this little climactic part of the episode, she seems very shaken and scared, and she's not like sort of driven to real like badass mode like people often are in the third act of action films.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: And also the way that she has been, in so many times throughout the series, you know, where she's she's kept her cool, and she's got a taser and she's got Backup and she's done awesome stuff: I love how distraught she actually gets in this moment where she's like, “I know this person is a murderer. They're a murderer and they're in my car and I trusted them.”

HZ: “And I’m tiny and he's huge and quite muscly.”

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yeah, I love, again, the way that Kristen Bell plays everything from here on out is so fantastic.

HZ: It's excellent.

JOY: And how resourceful - I hope that in a similar situation I would be resolved to crash my own car. It's not the solution to everything, but in this situation, wow, could she have picked a better thing?

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yeah, checks her seatbelt, she does it so quickly, she thinks of it so quickly. I was really impressed. Yeah.

HZ: She's a very good Veronica - when she's good, she’s very very good.

JOY: Unfortunately her shit heap does not have an airbag. So aside from the upholstery, that's the second real bummer about her car that I have discovered.

HZ: But the impact must have been quite severe, because like we see when she's brought back to consciousness, she's sort of squished against the steering wheel, but Aaron, from the backseat, he's right crushed up on the dashboard.

JOY: This is why it's important to wear your seatbelt in the backseat.

HZ: What if you've got some menace to do and do physical movement? Because it's hard to be menacing when you're wearing the lap belt in the middle seat.

JOY: Well maybe just don't menace. 

HZ: What wakes her up is her phone ringing - it's Keith. He's heading out the house to find because I guess his dad alarms are ringing.

JOY: What do we think? To me it says like, I feel like the interpretation of a different family unit in this situation him not telling Lianne what's up would indicate that he doesn't want to worry her until, you know; but it just like sings so loud of, like, he does not feel connected to this person. She does not feel like part of their family unit anymore at all.

HZ: Also If she doesn't know that Veronica has been a PI ever since Lianne left, maybe Keith is like, it'll get me and Veronica into trouble with mom.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: But I really thought it was it was what you were saying, Jenny; sort of like, you are not part of this unit right now. And this is inner circle stuff. And it is dire. And I just I don't have time for you, peripheral person.

HZ: Yeah, we know that Veronica is number one on Keith’s call sheet. So Veronica comes back to consciousness. Aaron is still unconscious. So she carefully extracts the tapes.

JOY: So stressful. This is like legit out of Scream 2.

HZ: Yeah, she's trying to grab more things and she's like, and he coughs and she terrifiedly escaped. She sees a house with some lights on and she run-limps to it. No one's answering the door. And then again, in like horror film style she turns around and she sees that her car door has now been opened which means Aaron is loose. She runs behind the house - there is quite a lot of junk outside which is good for her purposes because if it was a Kane-minimalist house, where would she hide tapes where they wouldn't be found? But here she can hide them in a washing machine, a barrel, she tosses one onto the roof.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I just thought, again, how smart of her to split them up.

JOY: Yeah. One onto the roof for later purposes.

HZ: She sees a light come on upstairs so she hammers on the back door and a man's face appears in the blinds that slumps down to be replaced by Aaron Echolls’s face and then his fist - does he punch Veronica through glass?

JOY: Definitely not, this is a mistake.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: This is a little bit confusing right here.

HZ: I suppose they've done it for the drama - because it would fuck him up more than her.

JOY: Yeah, he wouldn't be punching through a sliding glass door, that's not gonna happen.

HZ: But this is total horror movie villain tropes, isn't it, because he's somehow everywhere, and super quickly because he was still unconscious when she got out of the car, he had time to search a car for useful items such as a set of walkie talkies, which he wouldn't necessarily know she had, get to the house and get in when she didn't, without the owner noticing - or did the owner let him in because he's a big fan of Dancing Dirty? And he also does scary reveals for the sake of flashiness, I guess, because he's got a sense of drama with his profession.

JOY: I mean, this frickin monologue that's coming up is pretty intense.

HZ: Then he's got his scheme: he's trapped Veronica in the fridge with one of her walkie talkies so he can monologue at her while she’s trapped in a fridge.

JOY: Him almost killing Veronica, and everything that he does in this space of time that's coming up, is the best evidence we've seen for him having that Oscar.

HZ: I think Harry Hamlin as well is great as Aaron Echols. I think he really sells this character.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: To me, this part is where it starts to get into like moustache twirly uber evil guy, and I'm like this is this is too much now you've gone past the bounds and so this is actually my least favourite part of it because yeah, from here on he becomes a little too super-villainous.

HZ: Yeah, but I think still the performance he does with what he's given, I really bought into it even though the facts of it I was like, “No, he's still unconscious in the car at this point, or he's like stumbling around in the road.”

JOY: My biggest stumbling point is being able to believe that he watched something on the History Channel about Joan of Arc.

HZ: Remember he's been doing his grief curriculum.

JOY: Oh, true.

HZ: So he’s probably been watching a lot of documentaries.

JOY: Right.

HZ: But even though Veronica is stuck in a deadly situation, she has some witty remarks.

VERONICA: What have you done to me? 
AARON: Veronica dear, where are my tapes? I'll let you out as soon as I have my tapes back. 
VERONICA: No, thanks. Honestly, I feel safer in here.
AARON: Well, you know, you shouldn’t.

JOY: Watching her in this little box is among the worst things that have ever happened to me.

HZ: And to her probably.

JOY: And to her probably, but do either of you have any sort of claustrophobic inclinations?

HZ: I actually quite like small spaces, but I'm not sure I'd like to be trapped in a fridge with Aaron Echolls sitting on it because also you'd feel the lack of air it must have been not particularly fun to film either. Veronica has been trapped in small spaces before - she was trapped in her own car boot by the Tritons.

JOY: Dreadful.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: The part that was hardest for me to watch was the moments right before Aaron is revealed in her backseat, because I know it's coming.

HZ: Because it's too quiet, nothing’s really happening, she’s driving along a dark road.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yeah, that was where I was really motivated to just start to fast forward and then I had to resist the urge.

HZ: But this is fucking drama, this whole thing, because now Aaron picks up some handily placed containers of gasoline, takes a good sniff before he starts pouring them all over the fridge.

JOY: I didn't even think about that - there just happens to be some gasoline. What luck.

HZ: And the fridge an empty fridge with no shelves in it so he can fit a tiny teen in it. Keith arrives and now I have two Marses to worry about. Aaron's kicking the fridge and Veronica is like, “The tapes are on the roof. Let me out.” He goes up to search. There's also a yellow frisbee on the roof. Keith with his gun out appears on the porch calling for Veronica, so Aaron leaps off the roof and knocks Keith down.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: This is a bit of cleverness again from Veronica that because they've got active walkie talkies, she's able to squawk out a warning to her dad through Aaron's walkie talkie. So smart.

HZ: Although he still is unfortunately not able to move to one side - because if Aaron just crashed to the porch, he would have fucked himself,and Keith wouldn't have to go through this really terrible fight.

JOY: This fight is bananas.

HZ: i think the violence on this show, it really looks very painful. It's not kind of like punch noise but a fist not connecting, it looks horrible. And also they don't play music during this one, like they're not trying to amp it up with the soundtrack, which makes it feel even worse.

JOY: Yeah, and like all of the sort of like weapons of convenience, these projectiles they're just picking up from the deck.

HZ: Yeah, because he hits Keith with a bottle twice and throws stuff at him and then he walks in with a big plastic horse and that is harking back to the whole “Buy me a pony” thing. Not like this. Don't get her a pony like this. Aaron mostly has the advantage, although Keith does getting some good shots with an old fashioned like armpit crutch.

JOY: But where the tide really turns is, so classic: he gets in a very tidy junk shot and is able to pin Aaron. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I like the dynamics of their fight because it made sense one, first of all, Aaron has the element of surprise. So he gets that one sneak attack, he gets one one round of attack, before they even have to roll for initiative. So he already has hurt Keith before the fights even begun, and then with all his action movie training, and he's in good shape -

HZ: Does Keith train for combat?

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I think that Keith probably has had a lot of scraps both as a police officer and as a private detective, bounty hunter; I'm sure he's had to do a lot. But I imagine he's scrappy and like, but again, between the advantage of surprise and, you know, maybe training and and just a horrible mean streak. It makes sense to me that Aaron has the physical advantage for the first time half of this fight.

JOY: Although I would say like I would anticipate that somebody like Aaron, the physical and dietary regimens that he's probably on or is probably used to have more to do with achieving something visual and less to do with like stamina or whatever. Whereas I imagine Keith, even though we usually see Keith like at a desk or running out the door to go catch a bail jumper, I'm imagining that he's like, been going on a run every day, and was doing stuff we don’t see.

HZ: He’s quite muscley, isn’t he?

JOY: Yeah, like compact.

HZ: Enrico Colantoni is quite into playing ice hockey, so maybe that?

JOY: it's true.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY:  In one of the role playing games I used to play as a teenager, there was a lot of martial arts stuff in it, and there was a martial art style that was basically like a bar-room brawler kind of style where you were you didn't have these like fancy moves or things like that, it was kind of almost like a like a Jason Bourne style, you can use anything as a weapon and there are no there's no like honour in it or anything like that. You would throw sand in someone's eyes, you jam a pen in their ear. Whatever.

HZ: We’ve seen Jason Bourne give someone some real shit with a magazine.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Right, exactly. So that's what I imagine Keith does.

JOY: Another way to utilise ’shit’.

HZ: You’re welcome, people. I have a big vocabulary, nearly 200 words. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: So that leads to the junk shot, I think where he's a by any means necessary kind of fighter.

HZ: There's also an abandoned toilet on this porch. And I'm relieved that neither of them gets smashed into the abandoned toilet because that would really fuck up Keith, if Aaron choose to use that as a missile or hit Keith head on it. After Keith has groined Aaron and he's on the ground, Keith’s getting some good punches, so it seems like he's subdued Aaron but Aaron gets the last laugh literally because he's like, “Haha!”

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: That was too much for me.

HZ: He gets out that lighter that was Lynn’s lighter that was mentioned earlier in the season and flicks it on and he tosses it out the fridge and everywhere starts to burn. And he tells Keith that Veronica is in the fridge and then he sneaks off.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Again, it is a level of evil genius that I just did not think he would get to.

HZ: He could have easily killed Veronica with his hands, or with an object like he did Lilly, ages ago. So this whole fridge fire thing and then telling Keith where she is: it's almost like he doesn't want her to die. He could easily kill both Marses in this moment. I suppose he's getting Keith out of the way so that he can leave. Keith pulls the fridge off Veronica because I think the fridge is door side down. But he's on fire.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I just want to point out that in the peripheries of the shot, as Keith goes to rescue Veronica: if you look and you're looking at it on Hulu, say, where the aspect ratio is now 1.78 to 1 as opposed to the original 4:3 aspect ratio, you can see on the right hand side of the screen two people in the background, looking at Keith, as he goes to do this, and at first I was like, what is happening? I took a picture of it. I sent it to the two of you, and then as I watched subsequent scenes, I realised the two people - one is a tall bald man, and the other is a shorter woman who seems to have blonde hair - that it is their stunt doubles.

HZ: Aah! Because I didn't see this, because I've got the British cut slash original TV cut that we found in the pilot was different what Jenny had seen on Hulu, because it has the original noirish beginning but it's in a different aspect ratio, so didn't get to see this stuff. But I didn't realise that when they change the aspect ratio that you got to see the things that are in the periphery of the frame that you’re not supposed to see. But also why would they just standing around watching wouldn't they get out of that part of the set?

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: But I think they needed to be really close by because they're setting the set on fire.

HZ: I guess when your set’s on fire, you don’t get many retakes.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: So you just have to jump in and out and in and out.

HZ: I didn't notice, in my aspect ratio, I didn't notice the intercuts between real Mars and stunt Mars. Veronica beats the flames off Keith so I guess they both saved each other in this brief moment. Keith is not sounding well.

JOY: Dude, watching how wrecked both Keith and Aaron are by the end of their little thing together is so great, and seeing Keith basically just sort of like propel himself without the greatest sense of balance or equilibrium across the deck to get to the fridge and then flipping it over and he's falling down and catching on fire and then she's stumbling and eventually gets him away - just watching I guess both both the stunt performers and Kristen Bell and Enrico Colantoni do all of that just feels very real, on the heels of this fight that felt so real. This feels like way elevated, I think, like above anything we've seen on the show so far.

HZ: Well, like I said, I think they do the violence well. But I think also they don't recover instantly like people do in action sequences and she's exhausted. She's been in a car wreck, she's been trapped in a burning fridge. Like respiritorally alone, that'd be pretty messed up.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: That is one of my favourite tropes in detective stories, is that the hero from the beginning to the end just gets progressively beat on worse and worse and worse, and by the end of they are just in like such terrible shape. And I love that they incorporate that in this show, too.

HZ: Cut to Aaron escaping; he's not in great shape either. But he takes a key from Veronica's bag which is still in her car. And I guess she's got keys to Keith’s car? Because he gets into Keith’s car.

JOY: It makes sense to me; you think that father daughter team doesn't have keys to each other's cars?

HZ: I suppose she's got keys to everything in Neptune. But he doesn't have time to sort through them. He just finds the right one straight away. But in one last Mars attack, in one last incredible reveal, who's in the backseat of that car? Revealed in the rear view mirror - unfortunately they didn’t go for that eyes reveal in the same way, which would have been amazing if they’d replicated that.

JOY: Ears in the rearview mirror.

HZ: So cute. It's Backup! Ready to take an Echolls by the throat as predicted in the earlier scene - well arm, he goes for the arm, and Backup can smell an evil person.  

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Aaron has a pretty mild reaction to being bitten by a really powerful dog, like being bitten in the arm, he's like, "Mmhhm."

HZ: I guess, because he's in full film psychopath mode now where he's not a real human, he's just like a machine of evil. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Right, with pure adrenaline running through his veins.

HZ: He manages to get his arm free; he gets out of the car; he staggers into the road; and in the way that this show is kind of so funny at moments, he is run over by a van. Which is Thomas-brand - there's a little Rob Thomas tribute and has a picture of a lily on the side. And then another really funny thing happens: the driver gets out and he's like, "I'm so sorry I didn't see you - oh my god, you're Aaron Echolls!" I laughed so hard.

JOY: As terrifying as it would be to hit somebody with your truck, imagine how quickly that would compound when you realise it was Aaron Echolls.

HZ: Aaron croaks, "Help me!" but as the driver goes to do so, Veronica interrupts, pointing the gun.

VERONICA: Don’t touch him. Do you have a cell phone? 
DRIVER: Yeah. 
VERONICA: Call 911. We need an ambulance, the police and the fire department.

HZ: The full special. Veronica looks pretty fresh for she’s just been through - her eye makeup held up through a lot of crying and a lot of smoke damage. I'm relieved at this point because I thought Aaron will probably pop up for one last attempt at kills, but he doesn't. The emergency vehicles fill the road. Gentle music is playing so we know that we can relax a bit. Keith is getting stretchered off.

VERONICA: You mean the world to me, do you understand that? Are you listening to me? 
KEITH: Hey, who's your daddy, huh? 
VERONICA: I hate it when you say that.

HZ: Keith looks really amused with himself at this moment. I'm fucking crying again. You know the guy earlier who appeared at the door and then was replaced by Aaron Echolls's face and fist? We see him being attended to by a medic, so that we know that he isn't dead.

JOY: Happy he didn't die. 

HZ: He does seem to have a really shit wig, though. And also I thought they tried to make him look quite like Aaron, weirdly, and I couldn't work out why.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: The camera is on his face for a strange amount of time. And I tried to look for a credit for who that person was because part of it was like maybe that's a cameo from someone special. But I couldn't figure it out.

HZ: Do you think he's one of the production team? 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Maybe. 

HZ: Maybe they lingered on his face a bit too long so you could register who he is because otherwise it's some random dude being cured, is it Aaron's stunt double? Aaron is on a stretcher having his Miranda rights read and Lamb is there watching. Jake and Duncan arrive and Jake furiously surges forward. Then as officers grab him before he can get to Aaron, Lamb seizes the moment to arrest him for obstruction of justice, which has been quite a long time coming.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Jake Kane's reaction is weird. I mean like what you said about Celeste's reaction to discovering Lilly being so real and feeling so painful and visceral, I felt the opposite in this moment, where he says, "You killed my daughter!"

JAKE: You killed my daughter!  You killed my daughter!

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: “My daugh-ter, my daugh-ter.”

JOY: I don't know, I felt like it had a real raw, just like super raw animalistic, unevolved kind of quality to it.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: That was what I was looking for. I didn't see it - but I accept that if that was what you got.

JOY: We usually see him be we usually see Jake Kane being like, "I'm Jake Kane. I'm really rich. I made a whole lot of other people really rich and son, you can be president one day," you know? And like this just feels to me, I don't know, it hit well enough. 

HZ: I think all of these Kanes, particularly the Kane parents, are not particularly emotionally mature, or particularly emotionally self aware. So I wonder whether he has a limited palette to draw on of reactions. Duncan is watching all of this looking suitably traumatised or just not registering emotions in his face, which is his usual. He and Veronica find each other's eyes. And then, hospital. Keith's arm is wrapped in bandages. He's hooked up to machines. Veronica's watching. She's developing like a pretty big bruise under her left eye. I assume she's already been treated for smoke inhalation and whatever other injuries she might have incurred in this wretched evening, checking her for concussion and whatnot. Also the seatbelt, crashing into the tree.

JOY: Oh yeah, you get very bruised The doctor is like, "Yo, your dad's gonna be fine, but you've got to go home and rest," and Veronica's like, "I can't leave him here alone." 

HZ: He says, "Is there anyone we can call?" and she just does a little smile and I was like, "Who's it gonna be???"

JOY: Cliff?

HZ:It should be someone from that sports camp he really wanted to go to.

JOY: A Pedros player.

HZ: Veronica has had a fucking day, but the emotional punches are not over yet. She lets herself in at home, and I guess her white shirt is gonna be pretty filthy, her waistcoat is gonna stink of smoke; she's going to need to get a new outfit for any future posing as a waitstaff person needs.

JOY: You know, tools of the trade, cost of doing business. 

HZ: Lianne rushes out, worried.

LIANNE: What, Veronica, what happened? 

VERONICA: It’s over now, and I’ll tell you the rest in the morning. But first I need you to pack. 
LIANNE: What? What do you mean? 
VERONICA: You can’t be here when dad comes home. 
LIANNE: Veronica. 
VERONICA: I know, Mom. I know you're not through drinking, I know you didn't even finish rehab. You checked yourself out, and that was my college money. I bet on you, and I lost. I've been doing that my whole life. And I'm through.

JOY: Brutal, so brutal. 

HZ: Is this the most painful thing to happen in this episode? This is a high bar, but to me, this is what landed the most acutely.

JOY: Yeah, not because I care about Veronica's relationship with Lianne, because I haven't really been given anything, but because I care that Veronica is so defeated, and we're just seeing the tail end of a lifetime of disappointments.

HZ: At the hospital, Keith gently wakes and who's there?

JOY: It's Alicia, and you'll have to excuse me, Helen, there's something in my eye.

HZ: I cried again, this was my third cry. And even thinking about it I could probably summon a cry again, as well. What more kind of luminous person to wake up to? 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: One of the reasons I think Alicia and Keith are so -

HZ: Keithlicia.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Keithlicia is such a resplendent, iridescent couple on the screen is because I think - correct me if I'm wrong - it is the only example of two good people being paired up together this whole season.

JOY: Veronica and Leo.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Except for Veronica and Leo. I mean, Leo. Yes. But yeah, okay. 

JOY: Also is Veronica like a totally good person?

HZ: I think Veronica's not really a good person.

JOY: Not like Keith.

HZ: I think all this time maybe Wallace and Mac been having this like beautiful offscreen -

JOY: Secret romance, that would rock. 

HZ: That's two good people who could be together but aren't. 

HZ: Back at the Mars home, just in case you were feeling any sympathy for Lianne - 

JOY: Wow, fuck this lady. Fuck this lady! She took Veronica's college money and now she takes this $50,000 check that's made out to Keith Mars, and because they are still married, and because marriage laws are weird, and banking is weird, I don't know if it's the same way in the UK. 

HZ: No, it's much harder to pay in checks that are not for you in the UK, as far as I know. And also we don't use checks any more. 

JOY: Well, they probably still have a joint checking account, but but you wouldn't be able to cash a $50,000 check against that. I'm trying to figure out how exactly she would do this. But I do know that being married gives you kind of like, almost an inappropriate, in this circumstance, what becomes an inappropriate amount of access.

HZ: They got so close to him being able to file for divorce in that episode when he was advertising in the paper.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I think also Lianne, probably, you know, Veronica inherits some of her mom - you know, she doesn't just inherit her dad's great sleuthing skills. I think some of her social engineering skills also come from Lianne's natural conning abilities.

HZ: I suppose if you are trying to hide an addiction then you are going to be quite an accomplished liar. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: If you're dishonest enough to steal from your own child -

JOY: TWICE!

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: - twice, then I think you have a level of fluency with it that you could trick some bank teller with a story.

HZ: And also it seems like a lot of the time when we're presented with Lianne, it's like, ah, a nice mom, always next to the kitchen sink like drying something. But that's sort of a pose as well. And I almost had sympathy for Lianne because I thought living with alcoholism is tough and being rejected by your daughter is tough and knowing that you've disappointed her in a way that you can never really come back from because you stole her college fund, and left rehab: that would be really hard to deal with. But this scene is saying "it's fine. You don't have to feel bad about it."

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Right. Yeah, I think they let us off the hook with that.

HZ: But this also is real closure for either Veronica or Keith feeling any kind of pull to keep Lianne in their lives.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Right. 

JOY: And $50,000 a small price to pay to be rid of this woman for all time.

HZ: I'll pay $50,000 to keep Keith and Alicia together. It's not clear what time of day is, the lighting could mean it's like sunrisey but Veronica is half awake when Lianne closes the front door. She has a cathartic dream of her and Lilly in pink bikinis lying on a double lilo - with head rests, which I thought was very comfortable-looking - and they're floating in the middle of a lily-strewn pool. 

LILLY: You know how things are gonna be now, don't you? You have to know. 
VERONICA: Just like this. Just like this. 
LILLY: Don't forget about me, Veronica. 
VERONICA: I could never.

HZ: Then we see Veronica alone in the pool on a single lilo. So they had to get two different lilos to shoot this. In the present, it is 3:07 according to Veronica's clock. And it doesn't say pm or am, but I'm going to go with pm and she slept for ages to recover from this stuff, but as we know the lighting in this show does things.

JOY: Tells us nothing. 

HZ: Someone's at the door. And Veronica says:

VERONICA: I was hoping it would be you.

HZ: Who? Tune into Season Two to find out because that's the end! I'm guessing some crimes were committed in this episode. So to find out what, let us go and check in with our southern California marshmallow and legal expert Lo Dodds for today's LoDown. 

THE LODOWN 

JOY: Do you think that someone in Keith Mars's position would have had any shot at successfully suing the Kanes? And if so, would the cost of his lawyerly fees in pursuing that course of action have exceeded $50,000? What do we think?

LO DODDS: Yeah, I think that Keith definitely should have paid the $400 filing fee and that $50 an hour for Cliff to sue the Kanes. I imagine some reward cases can get a bit murky as to who contributed the most. Sometimes the police is the ultimate arbiter of how much somebody contributed, whether or not they deserve the reward money from whomever is putting up the reward. But let's face it: Keith went to Cuba and brought him back from Cuba. There is no disputing that Keith earned that reward. This is interesting: Veronica, signing the release for the Kane fortune, her claim on the Kane fortune, I am not sure that would be enforceable at all. Minors cannot legally enter into contracts. There are only certain types of contracts that a minor can sign, if you're a child actor, if you're a child performer; but there are rules about that and parental consent and all that sort of thing. This idea that you're releasing all future claims against the Kanes - I don't think she could do that. Not until she's 18 anyway.

HZ: What charges would Jake and Celeste Kane face for covering up what they thought was their son's culpability in their daughter's murder? Like evidence tampering? What do you get for paying off a man to go to death row?

LO DODDS: They're gonna be charged with obstruction of justice. They definitely perjure themselves because they know they testified about Abel Koontz, offering false evidence. The whole bribery of Abel Koontz is going to come up. They planted evidence as well. So that is going to get them some additional charges. And of course, conspiracy because they were all in it together along with Clarence Wiedman and Abel Koontz.

HZ: We find that Logan has lied about his alibi - are there legal consequences for that and are there legal consequences for Dick for backing up the fake alibi?

LO DODDS: Yes. So Logan, Dick, Cassidy, the Kanes, they are all on the same boat. Let's call it the USS Obstruction of Justice. It's bad for them: offering false testimony, conspiracy or offering false evidence. And, because I assume that they all testified under oath during this investigation, potentially they're all going to be convicted of perjury, which, fun for them around the same time this was happening, they could have shared a cell with Lil Kim, who was also in prison for perjury. So, bonus.

HZ: In Neptune?

LO DODDS: I think she was convicted in LA. But yes, she got a year as well. So they can all look forward to that. I feel bad saying this, but I feel a little bit disappointed in Keith Mars right now. Nobody checked the border records? Keith just calls the Border Patrol or whatever and figures out that Logan's car crossed back over the border. The fact that that was not done in the original investigation just makes me a little sad. I was gonna blame it on Lamb, but then I remembered Keith was sheriff.

HZ: Maybe Keith is a better P.I. than he was a sheriff.

LO DODDS: It's possible when he's not constrained by the bounds of the law. Right. 

HZ: He wasn't so good at public investigating. But private investigating is his real forte. 

LO DODDS: Maybe he had to call in a favor with the Border Patrol and he wouldn't have been able to do it while sheriff. I think that's a possibility. He wouldn't have been able to get that information on the up and up.

HZ: We thought it was a bit weird that Logan was allowed to do his one phone call using his own cell phone. What is the deal with with being allowed a phone call when you're being interrogated?

LO DODDS: You're not just allowed one. You're allowed three. 

JOY: Whoa!

LO DODDS: Yeah, you get three. You can call your attorney. You can call a bail bonds person and you can call a relative or a friend. 

HZ: Just have a chat.

JOY: Is it a crime for Veronica to intentionally crash her car in order to cause injury? Or is it not a crime for her to do that? Or, is it a crime, but would the police probably look past it because everyone would just be so happy for her car to be totaled that they wouldn't have to see it anymore?

HZ: Oh, yeah, she's gonna get a new car, I assume! Silver linings.

LO DODDS: No. Veronica is not gonna be in trouble there. She's gonna get away with a lot in that situation because of self-defense. So considering she is in the car with someone she believes - and accurately believes - is a murderer and she has every reason to believe that he is going to do something nefarious to her and destroy evidence, I think that even if she had killed him, she probably would've been okay.

HZ: Aaron's crimes are really stacking up this episode because what have we got? Arson; property damage; trespass; he assaulted the property owner. That's before we even get on to the crimes he committed against Veronica and Keith.

LO DODDS: Yeah. With respect to Lilly, you're talking about multiple counts of child porn; statutory rape; murder, obviously.

HZ: What degree of murder? 

LO DODDS: Well, it was not premeditated murder. 

JOY: So that's second degree?

LO DODDS: Yeah. He's either going to look at second degree or manslaughter. Crime of passion sort of stuff for him. And as far as he's still looking at multiple counts for all of the other stuff as well, which as you said, includes vandalism, property damage, attempted murder of Veronica, attempted murder of Keith, burglary, grand theft auto, false imprisonment, arson, assault.

JOY: Is grand theft auto what happens when he pops up in the backseat? Like, can you commit grand theft auto from the backseat, I guess is my question.

LO DODDS: I'm thinking more of him stealing the keys and attempting to drive Keith's car away.

JOY: Ah. But if an Aaron Echolls tries to steal a car in the middle of the woods and nobody sees it, and then a dog bites him and then he runs away, did it really happen? And will he get charged?

LO DODDS: Yeah. Because he's obviously not going to cop to trying to take the keys and steal the car. But the fact that Backup bit him is evidence that he was in the car. So there you go. 

HZ: So Lo, are you going to return to VMI for season 2?

JOY: Will we ever see you again?

LO DODDS: I’ll be there. I’ll be there like Cliff in a bad suit.

HZ: How dare you? Best suits in Neptune!

JOY: Cliff looks great and so do you.

LO DODDS: Thank you. Cliff is always wearing beige.

JOY: It’s a great colour on him, he looks amazing. He looks like a spring breeze.

LO DODDS: I’ve never seen a male lawyer in a beige suit.

HZ: Because Cliff colours outside the lines!

LO DODDS: It’s true, it’s true.

HZ: Hrishikesh. Were there any lines in this episode that you particularly enjoyed?

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I especially enjoyed Wallace saying, "Do me a favour" in unison with Veronica, because it shows the evolution of their friendship. 

HZ: From denial to acceptance?

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yeah, I think from from his surprise in like, "what are you asking me to do and you could get me in trouble" and all this stuff to just like, "I already know. I already know it so well that I'm going to say it with you, and thus claim my identity as your buddy. I've got your back and you can count on me."

HZ: ting closer to being her equal than he has been for a lot of the season. It's also worth remembering that Wallace at the beginning of the school year was taped to a flagpole, and now he's the mayor of the school and everyone loves him. 

JOY: Well deserved.

HZ: Great comeback. Great choice of person for everyone to love. Jenny, which did you like?

JOY: Do you know what? I'm going to go to sap-town again, for my favourite line, which is when Keith wakes up in the hospital, he opens his eyes, and Alicia is there and she says, "Veronica didn't want you to be alone," which says so many things. It says that Alicia wants to be there for Keith; Keith looks so happy; and the most important thing, I think for our purposes is that Veronica knows what's up. Veronica continues to know what's up, Veronica is letting go of Lianne, because Lianne is toxic for everyone and wants Keith to be happy and did the right thing for her dad. 

HZ: Well, Veronica's been on board with Keithlicia for a couple of episodes.

JOY: But Lianne coming back made it, I think, more confusing for her. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yeah, she had that moment again when Alicia leaves after being broken up where she looks at her dad. She's like, yeah, it sucks. It's a tough situation. But what are you going to do? Things changed.

HZ: But also Veronica has had like 12 or so hours since she drank the vodka that was posing as water, during which she hasn't had time to do much about her mom, but I assume she would have had to call Alicia and explain the situation as to why Alicia would want to go to the hospital bedside of a injured ex-boyfriend.

JOY: I could see Veronica calling Alicia and being like, “My dad's okay, but he's in the hospital and he's alone and he shouldn't be. Can you come?” And Alicia just being like hell yeah.

HZ: Yes, but I can imagine that she would have been like, but what about his own wife situation and Veronica having to be like, "It's bullshit." I was trying to choose my favourite line between Veronica in the fridge still having the presence of mind to go "No thanks. I feel safer in here" and this one, I think this one is what wins, when the guy who runs Aaron over and celeb-spots him and is like, "Oh my God, you're Aaron Echolls!" I just think it’s so funny. it's quite neatly reflecting a situation where people react to fame in a particular way, regardless of whatever whatever fuckery is happening around. "Oh, there's a house on fire - Aaron Echolls?? Can you sign my arm?" And then how did this episode score for you? Hrishi.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I give it a 50,000 out of 50,000 purloined dollars

JOY: Wow.

HZ: That's a lot of stolen dollars.

JOY: That's 10,000 times greater than our normal rating scale.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Am I too out of scale? I thought with the season finale I could go big. 

JOY: You can go big. As the sheriff, you do make the rules.

HZ: How do you feel about this episode, its standard as part of the season?

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I think my favourite episode was the episode previous to this one. I thin because it felt more well managed with the time; it was also a really plot heavy episode and with really incredibly dramatic consequences for for Veronica. And I love the sort of Rashomon kind of storytelling of it, and it felt like a great big episode that was also appropriate for the scope of the show. This felt a little like, everything felt great, except for some moments that felt a little too big, too big for the container overall. But then there are just so many great parts, that it'sa really good second best episode of the season for me.

HZ: I think also for a TV show that is usually quite funny, it's for teens, it's about teens, to do something that is this kind of full-on action, genuinely thrilling, genuinely scary, really tight, like there's so much happening but it's not messy this episode like some of the episodes are messy because they need to make shortcuts. There's just a feeling of full circle as well, because you have the “Who's your daddy?” coming back -

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yeah, that's the best, that's the best.

HZ: You have Backup as well, because Backup has not done much active service; he stole that guy's shoe the other week, but generally it's just been like reassuring rather than actively useful. It wraps up this Lianne thing that's been a hole in Veronica's life this all season. We return to evil Weevil of the pilot.

JOY: Hot.

HZ: We got some great Lilly flashbacks, and I do think like Amanda Seyfried's performance adds a lot to this show compared to other things that are about a dead teenage girl, and the dead teenage girl is just a cipher. You also have like the expectation of both Duncan and Logan being so traumatised and never be able to trust their parents ever again. I mean, Logan already couldn't, but Duncan: we know that his parents suck and he's always had a terrible time with them like from that awful dinner in episode three, but -

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: This is a whole other level. 

HZ: Yeah, he's got a lot of stuff to sort through. And this show, like this whole show really like every episode, there's something about parent-child relationships. And Veronica and Keith's is the golden one, but in this one, their bond saved them. I think for me there's just so many kind of “fuck yeah!” moments in this episode where it feels, even when it's scary, just so incredibly satisfying, like when Keith shows up and he and Aaron fight, or when the van runs over Aaron.

JOY: Or just seeing Veronica kind of like deteriorate over the course of the episode.

HZ: And so I'm going to score it 4.85 plastic horses. 

JOY: Well done.

HZ: And Jenny?

JOY: This is the top of the heap for me. I'm going five out of five - five out of five, a beautiful, perfect episode, to me. Five out of five DNA test results proving that Keith Mars is in fact all of our daddies. 

HZ: I agree with you that this is the episode that like there's always stuck in my mind because I've seen all of Veronica Mars once, and I've seen the first couple of seasons at least twice. And I've probably seen this episode more than that, before we even got to doing this podcast, but I remember and I'd forgotten so much. But I remember this episode very clearly. And I think this episode made me view the whole season as being a lot stronger than maybe the individual components. And it is probably what convinced me to spend a lot of my time picking apart this show with you, Jenny.

JOY: Excellent, this episode and Hrishi determining our future for all time.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I love that Weevil's statement about you know what he thinks about Logan, where he says "these rich boys think they can get away with anything" still also holds true for who the actual murderer is. The class warfare part of of the show also runs through even in this episode.

HZ: Yeah, I think the privilege carries on into Season Two about how the repercussions play out for the murder, without spoilering too much. But it also feels like with this episode, I don't know whether they knew that they were getting renewed when they wrote it and shot it, but it feels like if they hadn't got renewed, it would have been -

JOY: A great ending. 

HZ: Yeah, everything is sewn up enough.

JOY: Yeah, I feel like this is definitely the episode that makes Veronica Mars feel worthy of talking about now, like this feels like the show becoming itself. I wonder if I - to your point, Hrishi, about the previous episode kind of being like, neater and feeling you know better to you. I wonder if I would - like this is my favourite episode so far and I wonder if I would be able to like it as much as I did if it wasn't preceded by another like really high calibre episode of the season.

HZ: Yeah, and another one where it felt like instead of it being mystery of the week, it's stuff that's been playing out for a long time. 

JOY: Stuff that matters.

JOY: Well, that's this episode of Veronica Mars investigated. And Season One of Veronica Mars investigated too.

HZ: CASE CLOSED! Ish because next week, there’ll be a special episode where we investigate mysteries from the season that remain unsolved. So if there's anything that made you think "That was a lot of loose ends" or "Hmm, how the hell did that work?" then let us know at VMIpod.com/investigations. 

HZ: That was Veronica Mars Investigations Season 1 episode 22: Leave It To Beaver.

JOY: Find the show on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @VMIpod.

HZ: The website, where the show lurks, about to spring into sight in your rearview mirror, is vmipod.com. 

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I’m Hrishikesh Hirway, and I’m the host of Song Exploder and a new show that’s about to come out called Partners, and the cohost of The West Wing Weekly - you can find all that at my website hrishikesh.co. And I guess I’m the sheriff of this town.

HZ: It’s an elected position.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Thanks for electing me.

HZ: Thanks for buying your way to power.

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 visiting jennyowenyoungs.com and letting me work my musical wiles upon you.

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 the incredible talent  Jenny Owen Youngs.

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: The show is distributed by PRX.

HZ: Until next time, who’s your daddy?

JOY: Who’s your daddy?

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: “I hate it when you say that!”