VMI 2.01 Normal is the Watchword transcript
Hear this episode at vmipod.com/2-01
Content note: Veronica Mars contains heavy themes, and this episode includes storylines concerning murder, violence, and vehicular crash.
A LONG TIME AGO ON VERONICA MARS:
Keith’s got a book deal
Veronica’s got a new job!
We’ve got a new Duncan - happy Duncan??!!
Wallace has got a problem with his urine…
Logan’s got a murder charge, a broken heart and no friends, but the Casablancases’ hot stepmom is there to cheer him up.
There’re a whole load of new characters, and a new big tragedy for Neptune: a school bus crashes off a cliff.
JOY: Organising a whole field trip just so my daughter can make some new friends, I’m Jenny Owen Youngs.
HZ: And failing a urine test and ruining my glittering high school sports career, I’m Helen Zaltzman
You’re listening to Veronica Mars Investigations Season 2, episode 1: Normal is the Watchword.
JOY: Oh hey everybody! Welcome to season two.
HZ: What a thrill.
JOY: What a true thrill. I am as excited as a Keith Mars who just found a free waterbed with the purchase of some Gordon Lightfoot LPs at a local yard sale. Before we get started, before we jump into season two, oh my gosh, we want to let you know that we're doing something a little special because it's March, traditionally a month in which you might find March Madness happening; but here, on VMI Pod:
HZ: Mars Madness. We pit the various characters and things of Neptune against each other to find the true victor. We've got a bracket you can print it out at home and fill it in, and then you can vote on all the different things in the brackets at twitter.com/VMIpod.
JOY: Yes. Find us on Twitter, vote in the polls, exercise your voice, democracy!
HZ: It's just nice to be able to vote on something that doesn't make you feel -
JOY: Terrible?
HZ: This is of limited democratic impact, and what a relief. So join us for that fun: twitter.com/VMIpod.
JOY: For Mars Madness 2020.
HZ: The very first words in this episode are Veronica Mars saying the episode title; anvil drop, take two drinks.
JOY: Also coming in hot with a whole new vest that she got while we were on break. It's shiny.
HZ: So shiny.
JOY: Very shiny. She's got a whole golden hostess look going on. And, Helen, I've come up with a few things that I'd like to add to our lexicon. First of all, this place that Veronica is working at, we're always finding ways to describe it. But I think the only responsible thing we can do is start calling it the Neptune Onlyplace. What do you think?
HZ: I love it. Veronica has this job as waitstaff at the Neptune Onlyplace which we've seen as a karaoke emporium and a posh Chinese restaurant, but also it mainly seems to serve coffee. And it's the place with the glass blobby walls. There's so much decor, because there's the glass blobby walls. There's a lot of novelty lights. There's also these yellow slabs of glass with red poppies embedded in and then lights behind them. There's a lot of vertical twig work.
JOY: Vertical twig work!
HZ: That's just the start. Oh, and there's a painting of a cup of coffee on the wall.
JOY: No.
HZ: Yep, I saw it with my own eyes Jenny, are you calling me a liar?
JOY: No, I have no choice but to believe you. I just wish I didn't have to.
HZ: This vest that Veronica is wearing of this pale yellow satin with a bamboo print is sort of thematically appropriate because there's a real urine theme to this episode. And the episode was originally titled 'Urine Trouble'.
JOY: Wow.
HZ: Urine Trouble. It works on at least two levels. Like the Neptune Onlyplace's decor, there is a shitload happening in this episode. There's the "What did we do on summer vacation?" catch up on what happened since the end of season one; it's been a hectic few months for everybody. There's the mystery of the week, which is piss-based. There's the beginning of the season big mystery, and there's the arrival of multiple recurring characters. There's Charisma Carpenter. There's Krysten Ritter. And there's Steve Guttenberg.
JOY: I'm tired.
HZ: I'm already tired - Jenny, we've got 21 more episodes of this season to go. Don't falter! A new character shows up called Kelvin; don't get too attached to him because the show doesn't seem to give many shits, but he is another of the toxic Neptune boys.
JOY: Yes, and he's failed his drug test. He's kicked off of sports team.
HZ: He swears he's been clean for 10 months.
JOY: It's all very confusing to Kelvin because he's been a good boy apparently.
HZ: And lucky for him, the school has its own superhero in the form of Veronica Mars, where they're like, "I'm in trouble, call Spider-man!"
JOY: Right right. And hey, he doesn't even have to - well, does the Onlyplace not have a toilet where she could be conducting business? I guess it's just weird to see her transacting out in the open.
HZ: Well, she takes pains to point out that this is her job now; detecting is not her job. So perhaps she's also given up working from toilet offices.
JOY: If Aaron Echolls tried to roast me inside of her refrigerator, I would be off PI work too.
HZ: I was wondering whether Keith has had to hire someone to cover all the work Veronica was doing.
JOY: Interesting question.
HZ: Kelvin is in for disappointment, because Veronica says she doesn't do that work anymore. So he smacks her with some "You're a class traitor and then you're a class re-traitor - class double agent. You have to take sides."
KELVIN: I guess it's true what they say about you then, huh?
VERONICA: Probably, but you're going to have to narrow it down for me.
KELVIN: You're a 09er now. You went and landed yourself some rich boyfriend. And last year was just some big old act for you. You gotta pick sides in this town these days. You picked yours.
HZ: They have to reiterate this show's whole thing about "there's a real class war in this town." I feel like we're told it more than we are convincingly shown it.
JOY: Yeah, it definitely feels like more of a thing that somebody came up with as a world-building detail, and less of something that's practically introduced into everyday events. I'm less concerned with Neptune's class warfare and way more concerned with this really intense coworker of Veronica's who totally wants to bone Keith.
CUTE AS A BUG MANAGER: That's hot.
HZ: She's credited as 'cute as a bug manager'. She's very keen.
JOY: By whose standard?
HZ: Which bugs are cute rather than weird, disgusting?
JOY: Ladybugs, praying mantises, adorable. Lunar moths.
HZ: Here's something very cute about ladybugs, Jenny.
JOY: I'm not going to like this, am I?
HZ: No, I think you will like it. In Russian. I think, if I remember correctly, the name translates to 'God's little cow'.
JOY: So true!
HZ: I have another concern about this scene, before we even get on to this cute as a bug manager: Veronica's parting shot to Kelvin is, "What, no biscotti?" I would like America to know: you're not supposed to eat biscotti dry. In Italy they are for dunking in liquid. Therefore, I have to wonder: is the popularity of dry biscotti in America a conspiracy to advance the wealth of dentists?
JOY: Oh, possibly. I'm even more concerned about the fact that Veronica's teeth seem - not in a dentistry way but in a biting comeback, or like really getting the last jab in kind of way - are totally filed down. What is this parting line? "What, no biscotti?"
HZ: Well, I think some of the things you see from Veronica this episode suggest she's not on the super feisty form that she was in season one, and I guess partly it's because of the change in her interpersonal relationships; maybe she's still just recovering from the events of season one, particularly the end. It's a lot of trauma to go through. Maybe she's just exhausted from all of our many jobs.
JOY: I mean, if we're this tired just from talking about it...
HZ: But anyway, this super perky cute as a bug manager calls over Veronica, because Keith Mars is on the TV news with the real Julie Chen.
JOY: Oh, wow, I was I was feeling like, that person felt too familiar to just be a pretend anchor.
HZ: Well, Julie Chen's husband was the head of UPN, I think, if you're wondering how that cameo -
JOY: Pulled in a favour!
HZ: A lot of this episode seems to be really trying to reestablish the show where it is now. There's a lot of voiceover, there's a lot of catch up and here Keith has got, on the screen under him it says that he's the co -author of a new book.
JOY: Okay, Helen. This book. This book, as you know, is called Big Murder, Small Town. Now, wouldn't you say that it is just standard when you're titling things in a way that's supposed to really get people invested that you start with the lesser thing, and then you move on to the more sort of hooky thing? Like Small Town, Big Murder, perhaps?
HZ: I think that is better, because otherwise you're going from big to small, thus ending on an anticlimax. But what surprises me is that this is three, four months after the events of the very end of season one.
JOY: Very fast turnaround.
HZ: Right; the publishing industry operates incredibly slowly. So it's plausible that Keith would have the book deal by now, and Veronica points out that he's had this book advance; but he wouldn't be doing the publicity trail for another year. When the book comes out, then he would be chatting to Julie Chen.
JOY: No time for all that Helen. I took the liberty, in addition to Small Town, Big Murder, I came up with some other titles that I thought were better. They're just like real big softballs, like Kane and Abel, or like Lilly of the Valley. I thought about this for not any respectable amount of time. The reason the main reason that I gathered these here and then repeat them to you is because I would like to charge our listeners with the task of, should you have any great ideas for a better name for this book, please tweet at us at VMIpod and let us know what you'd name this book.
HZ: I already know that at least 10 of you are going to come up with a way better name in seconds. And then 10 more within, like, one minute. I was curious that Keith is credited as co author, is it just to indicate that there is a ghostwriter working on the project?
JOY: So Veronica goes on to mention that but Keith really didn't want to be involved with the book, but because of his medical bills and the convalescence and Leanne running off with the money -
HZ: And Veronica taking another job, leaving him in the lurch.
JOY: - That he took the book deal when a journalist reached out to him.
HZ: Then we get our first flashback of the season and it's to the end of season one.
JOY: So you only have to barely move your hands to indicate we're going back in time.
HZ: Yeah, it's just a little flick of the wrist. It's Veronica at the end of season one saying, "I hoped it would be you" as she opens the door. It's a smeary red flashback now, which, it was much more of a kind of golden light at the end of season one, but you know how memory changes things, because we see who it was that she was hoping it would be. And it's Logan covered in blood, which I guess explains the change of colour in the flashback, and he topples into her arms. And then he lies in her lap on the couch in a sort of pieta pose.
JOY: Watching Jason Dohring laying across Kristen Bell's tiny little lap is like watching a bunny try to hold a Great Dane. He's so tall. He's such a bigger person than her.
HZ: He's so long.
JOY: He's like coming off the end of the couch. He's just enormous comparatively, and I feel like with him laying down in her sitting up, there's something that's really highlighting their size difference.
HZ: I think at some point later in the season, there's a reversal of this shot where she is lying in his lap.
JOY: A bunny being held by a Great Dane sounds like a much better proposition to me.
HZ: Now what's incredible about this flashback is that there's a flashback within a flashback, or a flashbackback. And this flashback is to Logan standing on the bridge parapet, which we also saw at the end of the season. Weevil rides up, and there's some promise of violence; but nothing happens until Logan playfully kicks him in the face. And then shit goes down, because the PCHers, led by Felix, drag him onto the road and kick and punch him. It's all silhouetted and I was watching this with my husband and he said they look like they're tap dancing. But not to me. And then back in just the flashback - stay track of these layers - Veronica says:
VERONICA: You're lucky you're alive.
HZ: Back to the flashbackback and a driver turns up and says to Logan he'll call an ambulance but drop the knife.
JOY: Felix is dead.
HZ: We see that he's lying just across from Logan in the road with a stab wound to the chest. Logan says he threw the knife in the water and drove to Veronica's even though he was pretty badly beaten, not ideal conditions to drive, but I guess adrenalin, maybe. And whilst doing that he heard on the radio that his father had been charged with his ex-girlfriend's murder. Rough night for Logan, but very efficient.
JOY: Throwing the knife in the river doesn't look so great, huh?
HZ: No. Generally, disposing of evidence seems like a shit plan. But also as someone says later, Logan was badly beaten up. Would he have really had the wherewithal to do a stabbing and therefore the knife evidence be taken that seriously? Would his handprint on it be forensically viable? Probably not. Well, isn't it awkward when your ex shows up to arrest your other ex?
JOY: Great news for me, I get to look at Leo.
HZ: Leo! There he is, also kind of bathed in redness. He's in much less leonine in spirits than usual, really quite subdued.
JOY: Well, you know, when you have that thing where you have to go to your ex-girlfriend's house to take in her current boyfriend for questioning - actually, a lesser man might be in a better mood.
HZ: There’s this weird thing where Leo, just before he comes into the house, holds Veronica by the neck and just sort of examines her for a few seconds.
JOY: I don't know what to make of it. But it does stand out.
HZ: Is he just examining the bruises and wounds on her face from whole Aaron Echolls death defiance?
JOY: Surely he must have heard on the police radio about what was going on, even if he wasn't the person responding on the scene, right? Like he knows that something is up.
HZ: Also at the end of season one, the way that this turn of events was depicted, it looked like it was 3 in the afternoon, but now it very much has 3am vibes.
JOY: Yeah, very confusing.
HZ: I suppose 12 hours could have elapsed between her opening the door and acknowledging Logan outside the door.
HZ: At school, Veronica wears a truly hideous T-shirt. It's turquoise and brown tie dye, but the brown parts look like dried blood or massive coffee stain. She's also got very 2005-era flares.
JOY: Yeah, I was surprised at how flarey these were. I feel like we haven't seen her in bells this wide. Terrible news, terrible news: Wallace also failed his drug test but he doesn't do drugs. And do you know who else failed her drug test? Frickin Meg, and we all know that Meg is clean as a whistle.
HZ: This means Veronica has to get back in the detective game, because she does owe Wallace 9 million favours at this point.
WALLACE: So, you'll help?
VERONICA: Do you even have to ask? Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in...
JOY: Which is a Godfather III quote, which I'm willing to accept at this point because it was frequently quoted in The Sopranos, which was enjoying its height, or the end of its reign, at this point in time.
HZ: I can also imagine Veronica having watched the Godfather trilogy with Keith many times.
JOY: I feel like they would skip the third one.
HZ: Wallace gives us some detail -
JOY: A highly detailed description of his urine-based drug test.
WALLACE: So, you're standing there in nothing but a jock. They hand you this little itty-bitty cup. You go into the stall; you do your business. Then as you watch, they seal it with this piece of tape. And then they make you sign the tape.
VERONICA: And then what?
WALLACE: Then they send it to a lab. And if the seal is broken, the lab is supposed to reject it.
VERONICA: So, there's no way anyone could have switched the samples.
WALLACE: Nope.
HZ: It's sort of like a locked door mystery but a sealed piss mystery - or pisstery, if you prefer.
JOY: I definitely prefer a pisstery.
HZ: Awful news for Veronica: Wallace this year is not going to be working in the school office.
JOY: How casual does she try to look as she says, "Hey, what period do you have office aide this year," like sweating, engineering, "I haven't had access to documents in months!"
HZ: I wondered whether Wallace had decided not to do it so that he doesn't have to get caught up in as much of Veronica's bullshit. But then he was like, "Well, I got you this master key, and here's all the administrative passwords.” Very sweet of him. He knows the way to her heart.
VERONICA: Ooh, you're good.
WALLACE: You know, you know, I get all my criminal tendencies from you. So how are you gonna go at this?
VERONICA: Try to figure out what the connection is between all the people that failed the test. Got any enemies you know about?
WALLACE: Well, there's the Klan.
VERONICA: It's not really their M.O.
HZ: Wallace also asks Veronica where her boyfriend is. And she says he's skipping the first couple of days of school to visit his dad. File that bit of ambiguity away.
JOY: Yes. Oh!!
HZ: Flashback again, and this one is smeary blue because Duncan is here. He's waiting at the Neptune Onlyplace. Veronica has a different satin waistcoat, by the way. He's sitting in Veronica's section. He's reading what looks like a leather-bound book. It could just be a volume of an encyclopaedia that fell off the shelf into his hand. We catch up with how Duncan's been since his parents got arrested.
JOY: They're living in Napa until this whole thing blows over, and Duncan's living at the Neptune Grand.
HZ: In the presidential suite.
JOY: Where else?
HZ: Does this show expect that to be a cure for all Duncan's ills? It's like, "Okay, you don't have to live with your parents any more. That's gonna cheer you up." I just hope that while this all been happening, he's also been having some pretty intense therapy to deal with how his parents thought he had killed his sister and covered it up and made him believe for two years that he'd had sex with his biological half-sister. I feel like moving into the presidential suite of a fancy hotel does not really address any of these problems.
JOY: Horrifying.
HZ: But at least his parents are out of his way, so no more bleak dinners. I assume also Duncan just doesn't have much to do, which is why he's hanging out all summer at the cafe every day.
JOY: Seriously, do you think the cafe, do you think the Onlyplace is down the street from the Grand?
HZ: Well, you know how time and space works in Neptune. The Onlyplace is down the street from every place.
JOY: Right. Of course.
HZ: The cute as a bug manager tells Veronica her boyfriend's here, who is Logan. And Duncan's like, "Whoops, could I have a latte?" just to get the order of things back in place where Veronica is his server. And she and Logan kiss awkwardly.
JOY: Okay, this is not the last time we'll see it even in this episode. This is a LOT of kissing for the workplace. It's a long kiss for the workplace. Could we please just try to pretend to be professional?
HZ: If you do employ teenagers, you may also have to suffer a lot of PDA.
JOY: I was gonna say when I was a teenager I would never, but then also I feel like I would have just been afraid of getting my ass kicked.
HZ: That's sad.
JOY: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
HZ: I will point out that the lighting in the Onlyplace is extremely erratic. So maybe just a lot of people can't see them kiss.
JOY: Oh true. They're standing in a particularly dim sliver.
HZ: Veronica says:
VERONICA: Logan and Duncan don't speak anymore. I guess that's what happens when your best friend starts dating your ex.
HZ: Also add that to your file of show being ambiguous about Veronica's boyfriend this episode. Back to the present, back to the pisstery.
JOY: Back to the pisstery. It's time for Veronica to interview all the people who failed their drug test, take their photographs with her enormous camera.
HZ: Yeah, just long lens right up the face.
JOY: Yep, yep. And just like gather any information about any potential enemies they may have.
HZ: It riles me that she's helping Kelvin out, because he calls Wallace her beard.
JOY: Can you believe it? I like that in Kelvin's head canon, Veronica is gay. Finally, someone on this show might be gay. In Kelvin's imagination. I'll take it.
KELVIN: I heard your beard Wallace got nailed too. So I guess that changes everything now?
VERONICA: I guess so. So, and I mean other than me, can you think of anyone who would want to do this to you?
KELVIN: No, people love me.
VERONICA: No, they don't.
HZ: She asks him who his enemies are, and he's like, "Well, there's this one kid who I pantsed just because he was annoying me. He's called Butters."
JOY: So in chatting with the other kids who failed their tests, we find out that Julie's dad is getting sued by a corporation called Boatloads of Fun for some weird flooding thing that I couldn't be arsed to care about enough to really listen, but it does come into play very shortly.
HZ: Well done for paying enough attention to this to actually note that.
JOY: Did this fly right past you?
HZ: 'Fraid so; I missed the whole setup to Boatloads of Fun Corp.
JOY: Also, Meg wants nothing to do with Veronica.
MEG: Do you want something?
VERONICA: Well, I heard that you were kicked off the cheerleading squad.
MEG: Yeah, but you know me, I'm a major stoner. It's really affecting me too; I was like, "Let's go, let's go. L-E-T-S...Duhhh..."
JOY: Meg does a very marijuana-phobic impression of a stoned cheerleader, which I personally found offensive.
HZ: Meg trying to emulate what stoned person does suggests that she has never been or ever encountered a stoned person.
JOY: It just suggests that she's living in 2005, I feel like. Then the deep burn. "Meg. Can you think of anyone who would have done something to hurt you intentionally?" And she's like, "Yeah, I could think of someone; her name rhymes with Meronica Vars," essentially,
HZ: Veronica's saying, "Duncan broke up with her." I thought, did Meg not break up with Duncan after the party in Episode 21 where Duncan smashes up a poor innocent car?
JOY: Meg seems like an optimist, or she did before right now. At the end of the episode with her where she was like heavily featured, she was like, "Veronica, you shouldn't try to get even with people," or whatever she said.
HZ: Veronica's like, "BOOORING!"
JOY: Meg was essentially like, "Open your heart," and Veronica was like, "Open my what?"
HZ: Meg's in pain. And we see a lot of that this episode. Now there are metal detectors and bag searches if you want to go inside the school building, how is Veronica going to get her bugs and tasers in?
JOY: This is a great question.
HZ: And two security officers.
JOY: Although it looks like they basically just take your bag when it goes off and they look inside of it, and if they don't see a gun or a knife, they give it back to you. So probably if she's got a stapler in there, you know, a little bug in it, no problem.
HZ: She does some voiceovering about the tensions again in Neptune.
VERONICA VOICEOVER: The knife that killed Felix was never found. Logan's high-priced lawyers crushed the PCHers who testified against Logan at the preliminary hearing. Weren't they there, after all, to kill Logan? Didn't Logan have the bruises and broken ribs to prove it? If Logan did stab Felix, wasn't it self-defence? The DA decided he didn't have enough evidence to convict, so six weeks after he was arrested, Logan walked, and the town went crazy. Another rich kid getting off scot free.
HZ: Does the town go crazy? Because historically, the town loves rich people getting away with things, and it happens loads.
JOY: Oh, well, perhaps half the town went crazy.
HZ: The half that doesn't seem to have much of an outlet for those feelings, or any power. Probably an attractive tabloid story, father and son being on trial for murders.
JOY: Can you imagine?
HZ: What, if like one of my parents and I were on trial at the same time?
JOY: I didn't even mean like that, personally. I just meant like a parent and a child both on trial for murder at the same time.
HZ: Fun times though at the Mars home: Veronica has got a whiteboard in her room of the sports piss case. She's not just doing a special folder on her computer anymore. She's got photos, she's got a big blue wiggly line, she's got a stick-on flower and a butterfly to make this whiteboard fun, whilst Wallace is pacing and fretting about his permanent record having this drug test failure on it. Wallace elaborates some on the pantsing of Butters: he witnessed it; cheerleaders saw it; some of the people on the whiteboard definitely also saw it; and it was hilarious.
JOY: Do you think that in this context, pantsing refers to just Butters's pants coming down or him getting fully exposed?
HZ: I'm trying to remember what we would have called it in England; it would have had a different name; pants would definitely unambiguously be undergarments in British English.
JOY: Oh right, so you'd be like, "Oh, he got troused" or something. Sorry if I've offended anyone.
HZ: When you've pantsed people in the past, Jenny, which I'm sure actually I'm sure you've never done because you're a kind person.
JOY: Honestly, I'm not a pantser, but Jess pantses me on the daily.
HZ: She romantically pantses you? And when she does it, is it overpants and underpants?
JOY: Just overpants, and then an impish scurrying away.
HZ: So we should clarify: Jess is your girlfriend.
JOY: Yes.
HZ: She's not your high school bully.
JOY: Or a ghost.
HZ: Keith's home!
JOY: Oh my gosh, and incredible news: Keith and Alicia are still dating. Can you handle it?
HZ: I can handle it by clutching it to my heart and never letting it go.
JOY: Keeping it safe forever and ever.
VERONICA: I know a twenty-four-year-old floozy who thinks you're hot.
KEITH: This floozy, did you get her digits?
WALLACE: Hey, alright, now don't make me have to go home and tell my momma.
KEITH: Wallace, your mom and I have an understanding.
VERONICA: You do?
KEITH: Yes, and it's this: I behave myself and she doesn't leave me. So please, tell her nothing, other than I worship the ground on which she treads.
HZ: And then the Marses have this very weird conversation:
KEITH: How was your first day of school, honey?
VERONICA: Great. I beat up a freshman, stole his lunch money and then skipped out after lunch.
KEITH: What, no premarital sex?
VERONICA: Oh, yeah. Yes. But don't worry, Dad, I swear you're gonna like these guys.
KEITH: That's my girl.
HZ: Is this like the jokes they made when she was dating Troy where he was like, "How was your date?" and she was like, "Oh, well, lousy conversation, but the sex was fantastic"? These are weird quips to make with each other.
JOY: It's almost as if, rather than an actual father and daughter talking to each other, these lines of dialogue were written by someone, I'm going to guess probably a dude.
HZ: Well, this is Rob Thomas's fourth episode writing credit of the series.
JOY: Uh huh, uh huh, it's totally chill for a teen daughter and adult dad to make these jokes to each other.
HZ: Well, Veronica is a bit of a bro.
JOY: That's true; broing down with dad.
HZ: And also maybe he's like, "I don't know how to relate to teenage girls so I'll bro with her." School! We go lockerside with Butters.
VERONICA: Butters?
VINCENT: Butters is the name of the weak loser suck-up on South Park. Butters implies soft, fat -
VERONICA: But oh so delicious.
VINCENT: Vincent is my given name.
HZ: Butters is my favourite South Park character.
JOY: In my opinion, it's hard to dislike Butters, for his pure soul.
HZ: But this person Vincent is nothing like South Park Butters: he's a sinister wanker. But obviously a red herring this early in the episode. And it's revealed that Vincent is vice principal Clemmons's son, which I probably should have spotted due to the both resonant voices. We return to the school at night and Wallace and Veronica break in! Wallace is wearing a T shirt with 69 on it, FYI.
JOY: Hell yeah, I missed that, and that's insane, because 69 is like a bad signal in the sky specifically for me.
HZ: It's in massive red numbers as well.
JOY: How did I fail?
HZ: Like Veronica, you're not fully on your mid season game.
JOY: I'm fired.
HZ: They break into vice principal Clemmons's office; in Clemmons's office there's a framed photo of Vincent on the desk, which I feel Veronica would have noticed.
JOY: On the many times she surely broke in before this.
HZ: Although she says, "I make it a point not to know freshmen," she makes it more of a point to know everything about everyone. She finds the key in the desk - this is no obstacle for her, really. She finds the relevant file. She speculates on how Vincent could have done a switcheroo with the drug test results. I didn't pay too much attention because red herring.
JOY: She's got some sort of little document fucking micro magnifier, running across all the sentences, we're seeing them real close up, they sure look authentic. And we see that there are no discrepancies but wow, they're all signed by lab tech Jim Chimory. I wonder if this will have anything to do with anything later on.
HZ: They're both very amused by the name Jim Chimory.
JOY: It is fun to say; Jim Chimory is almost "chim chimney chim chimney chim chim cheroo." Oh, I'm gonna guess that Mary Poppins is not a delightful reference.
HZ: We have Mary Poppins in Britain, if that's what you're getting at, Jenny.
JOY: But it's the home of the worst American person doing an English accent thing ever, right?
HZ: Speaking of bad accents, though: Wallace does one:
WALLACE: So I'm screwed, basically.
VERONICA: Unless the results were accurate.
WALLACE: [in faux-Jamaican accent] Yah, mon, maybe I smoke so much ganja I don't even remember doing it.
HZ: Veronica's voiceover, very busy this episode, explains that after the DA decided not to press charges against Logan, Neptune became a different place. Again, I just don't know that I buy this.
JOY: Yeah, I mean, we're seeing things that support just like Veronica's experience a little bit.
HZ: And very much Veronica's worldview and the like seven people that she spends time with.
JOY: Yeah. Was there not a great distress between classes before?
HZ: Only when Keith Mars was deposed. And flashback again, Veronica and Logan are making out; they're sweet-talking. She's kind of annoying in the sweet talk. But Logan says he's in love with her.
JOY: Is it just me or does Veronica look a little squigged out when he says that he's in love with her? She has like a momentary face that made me think that they've never said that before and that she's like, "Urghhhh!!"
HZ: That's probably the face she makes when her desire suddenly dies. Or maybe she's just trying to figure out what you do with that information.
JOY: Right. Well, quick recovery. She pokes: "The things guys will say to get past second base," which is more more information than we need.
HZ: Then as they continue to make out, someone drives by on a motorbike and shoots out the back window, showering them both with glass; the bike drives away. Logan is wearing an orange polo shirt, and I was like, what does that mean? This one the brightest outfits we've seen Logan in, and is it that when he's kind of romantically happy - because in some of the flashbacks with Lilly he was wearing some quite bright polo shirts - he doesn't go for the pond discount rack garments.
JOY: Sure, that could very well be it.
HZ: I haven't done a full study yet but I will, at the end of this whole podcast, present my findings in my when I defend my PhD thesis. Back in the present, Veronica is pestering Wallace as he tries to deliver a urine sample but is bladder shy, and she asks Keith to give him pointers.
KEITH: Wallace?
WALLACE: Yep.
KEITH: Have you tried turning the water on?
WALLACE: Mm-hmm. KEITH: Also, pinching your own nipples can sometimes work. WALLACE: Argghh! Man.
JOY: Wallace has my sympathies in this moment. It is stressful trying to pee when somebody is anywhere nearby, especially if their ear is pressed against the - are you kidding me? The door to their bathroom has like a slat situation. It's like all Venetian slats.
HZ: You know what makes bathroom doors great? I've said this before and I'll say it again: being solid. Impermeable to sight and sound.
JOY: Just creation of a space of privacy.
HZ: But it was all for naught, because later Veronica finds Wallace's test to be clean, which means Vincent cannot have secretly fed Wallace some drugs, which is the whole point of this; I don't think we explained that the shitty theory about how Butters could have done it is he snuck some drugs into a spirit box and we know that Wallace can't resist the cookies of a spirit box.
JOY: He's a cookie monster.
HZ: But this plot is thus nullified. Under the wiggly line on the whiteboard, which I had been wondering what was that for, Veronica writes very squeakily the names of the kids who will stand in for the kids who are banned, the ones who will level up because these ones are now off the squads, including Shelly Pomroy replacing Meg in the cheerleading squad - but don't worry, Shelly Pomroy never has any lines in this show, despite her importance to the plot of season one - and then calls in Keith to ask how to find a company's shareholders, boring information only an adult can provide.
JOY: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah - who cares about that when you can watch Enrico Colantoni's reaction to Veronica waving the drug test in his face. I watched it like five times, it's so good.
HZ: Best facial expression of the episode. So he searches for Boatloads of Fun and oh, fancy that: all of the suspected students who get to level up with these banned kids have parents on the board of Boatloads of Fun.
JOY: As well as Jimmy Day, who may have escaped your notice, Helen: he's the football player that was referenced at the beginning of the episode who passed his drug test, even though, and I quote, "Everyone saw him smoking up on the boardwalk."
HZ: So: a conspiracy!
HZ: At school, we pay our first visit of this academic year to the school media room, which is a tiny bit brighter than it was at the end of last season.
JOY: Well, it's under new management.
HZ: Veronica explains to Wallace that she has a plan, an "I Know What You Did Last Summer" plan, to send emails to every parent on the list, saying that Jim Chimory wants to meet them to discuss a new financial arrangement, just to give them a good scare.
JOY: Yes, and then, because there's not enough happening in this episode, she lets us know that she's going on a journalism field trip to Shark Field.
HZ: Yeah, I was like, why have they introduced this teacher just so that she can ask Veronica for a permission slip? The teacher, Miss Dumas - or Dumbass as Dick calls her later in the episode - is played by Naima Mora, who won ANTM cycle four. But I assume that this is really just so the teacher has some screen time before the trip at the end of the episode, which is fateful. But it was really amazing to me how late this episode the whole trip concept was introduced, given how important it is.
JOY: Jammed in there; and Veronica says, "I'm just a normal teenage girl going on a normal school field trip," which puts us all at ease. I'm sure everything's gonna be fine.
HZ: And then Wallace says the title of the episode, another anvil drops, you have to take a double double drink.
JOY: So you've had six drinks.
HZ: In the hallway, Veronica slomo-walks past a cluster of PCHers and sleeveless Weevil - Sleevil.
JOY: Wow. Okay, listen, Helen: school has been out for months. She hasn't been able to slomo-walk down this hall in like for forever, let alone doing it while making meaningful eye contact with Weevil that tell that's supposed to tell us something about class tensions.
HZ: He's very eyelashy. Class tensions that only apply to Veronica, Logan and Weevil. That's the class system of Neptune really, isn't it? Then another flashback, Veronica wearing a very juvenile sweatshirt thing. She's clinging on to Logan's arm like a koala clings to a tree as they walk along while Logan was attending summer school to make up the classes that he failed because of that whole being accused of murder and having his dad arrested and all that shit.
JOY: He's talking about how Trina, his half sister, is selling her version of the Aaron Echolls story and she wants to play herself, but the people who want to make it want Tara Reid to play her.
HZ: And yet Trina Echolls probably wouldn't be a very significant character in that because she was away for a lot of it. She's only been in like two or three episodes of this show.
JOY: Yeah, well, surely that wouldn't prevent someone with Trina's sort of like opportunistic nature from inserting herself into a narrative she had nothing to do with.
HZ: I like that they are trying to cast a another member of the American Pie cast. The Casablancas brothers turn up in a pickup truck that blocks Logan's yellow Xterra. Dick says:
DICK: Logan! And Logan's special lady friend, who I approve of wholeheartedly and without reservation.
HZ: Harking back to the party in season one episode 21 where Logan was like, "Got a problem with my girlfriend Veronica, you leave." Dick is clearly not leaving, but also being a dick about it.
JOY: I'm really finding myself charmed by Dick being a dick in this episode.
HZ: You are? It's the turning point.
JOY: I've been infected.
HZ: The Casablancases load up Logan's car with gasoline. They say that they're going to Pan High to write 'Pan sucks' in the grass of the football field, which feels to me rather beneath them.
JOY: Is it beneath them?
HZ: It seems like a prank they might have played a couple of years before. But then Veronica's voiceover says the next day the community pool at the city park somehow caught fire and had to be shut down for the rest of the summer. All the 09ers don't care because they have their own pools. Would they really do pool arson though, these kids?
JOY: This sounds like something an adult would think of for some teenagers to do. It's a little too like thought out sinister. I would expect teens to be a little more or less reflexive.
HZ: I suppose a possibility is that Logan's rage and swirling emotions and fears just lead him to senseless acts of vandalism and folly. But, great cut into a shot of one of the 09ers' pools.
JOY: Here we are at the Casablancas home.
HZ: It's like seeing a David Hockney painting with Cassidy Casablancas splashing into the middle of it. Is this our first trip to the Casablancas home?
JOY: I believe it is.
HZ: There's a lot more Casablancas this season. Brace yourselves.
JOY: And can we say it? Shall we say it, Helen, upon this glorious entrance?
HZ: Is Logan wearing a sleeveless primrose yellow T-shirt? Yes, he is.
JOY: OK, that is a curiosity. But I'm specifically referring to, can we please say, in a warm welcoming fashion: hellooooo9er! It's Kendall Casablancas! It's Charisma Carpenter ripping it up!
HZ: Yet another Buffy actor crossing over to the Marsverse. She is, I think, a real joy in this series. She seems to have so much fun with this character. She also looks incredible. And she makes quite the entrance. She's wearing a string bikini and heels and kind of diaphanous bright pink coat. And she's got a margarita.
KENDALL: Welcome home, children. How was school? Who wants a Rice Krispie treat?
BEAVER: Gee, Mom, you're the best.
HZ: Logan has a cushion on his head for the shade and immediately drops it onto his lap.
JOY: Yeah, you noticed that, did you?
HZ: And then as the Casablancas brothers bicker, Logan says:
LOGAN: Uh, I want a Rice Krispie treat.
KENDALL: Go make it yourself, then, kid. Do I look like a cook?
HZ: It's just glorious, just glorious. She gets in the pool and they all watch; Dick's quite fidgety and explains that she met their father Richard Casablancas when she was a Laker girl.
JOY: Yeah, this is a running thing that goes back to Buffy, in one of the first episodes of season one Charisma's character Cordelia says something disparaging about someone she's competing against for a spot on the cheer squad. She says, "Who does she think she is, a Laker girl?" And this is rooted in the fact that Charisma was briefly a cheerleader for the San Diego Chargers.
HZ: This feels like deep cuts specifically for Jenny Owen Youngs.
JOY: Deep cuts, exactly, but I am the centre of this jokes diagram.
HZ: You are the centre of the universe.
JOY: I am also the centre of the universe. Thank you for noticing.
HZ: Logan and Dick make a hand gesture called The Shocker at each other.
JOY: This is horrifying - and then they Shocker-five.
HZ: Apparently the UPN censors missed it because they didn't know what it meant.
JOY: Incredible. But you know what's interesting? We learn later in the episode that at this point, Logan and Veronica are not dating. So he's saying that he's going to do the Shocker with unknown, and they Shocker-five about it? Are we supposed to infer from that there's already something going on between him and Kendall now?
HZ: I wasn't sure from Logan and Kendall's interaction here whether they were already involved at this point, but it seemed to me later in the episode that they probably were already involved at this point, right? Unless this was the day they became involved.
JOY: Who can keep all these Shockers straight?
HZ: Back to Neptune's Onlyplace, and there's a couple of parent-looking people, one in a grey suit and one in bland posh momwear asking to meet Jim Chimory, and Veronica leads them to a table with other parent-looking people in suits and posh momwear, and then listens on an earpiece as they snap at each other stressedly, and one of them says, "Is that the Mars girl I've heard so much about?" Do people really say that? Why would they say that? She walks over to Clemmons, who is sitting listening on an earpiece, but so obtrusively, because he's sitting like 90 degrees to the table, across two tables with his finger in his ear. That is not how you do this secretly, sir. And then cute as a button manager does a cute little button dance to tell Veronica her boyfriend's here - but!
JOY: Different boyfriend! It's Duncan! It's her not-brother Duncan.
HZ: What your feelings about this reunion, Jenny?
JOY: Umm............ Enh?
HZ: I for one am happy to see a cheerful Duncan this episode.
JOY: It is nice. So much has happened to Duncan. It's nice for him to be in a good place.
HZ: Absolutely. And also, I can kind of understand why they might have got back together, given how they broke up before and also that they had an at best confusing and at worst criminal previous sexual interaction when they were both drugged. So maybe they want to overwrite all that, or maybe at least just to break up on their own terms, not Kane parent terms.
JOY: Yeah. However, the one thing I don't like about Duncan particularly in this moment is more workplace kissing, just sucking face in the middle of the floor, and then you got to go over to a table and be like, "Can I get you a refill?" after they just saw you do that? Am I kiss-shaming people. I can't tell what's happening here. But this just seems like the thing you don't do at work.
HZ: Although who's to say Neptune's Onlyplace is a workplace and not just an abandoned warehouse full of old light fixtures? In the school parking lot, Duncan and Veronica smile at each other and then Logan appears from nowhere because he's just been hiding behind Veronica's head leaning on a school bus.
JOY: So creepy.
HZ: Logan is not going on the bus trip, but he does body block Duncan and Veronica and says to Veronica, looking at her very intently, that he's going to miss her. They get on the bus we meet another new character, Gia, played by Krysten Ritter.
JOY: Love to see Krysten Ritter in anything.
HZ: Well, you're gonna see a lot more of this series, congratulations! And then a flashback to Veronica breaking up with Logan. I don't fully get this conversation until Logan start smashing up a room and shouting.
VERONICA: And, the thing that I can't stand is that I'm pretty sure there's a part of you that's having fun with all of this.
LOGAN: Fun? Fun?? My mom is dead! My girlfriend is dead! My dad is a murderer! And the only person I still care about is dumping me. You think I'm having fun?
HZ: Dick shouts at the teacher and calls her Miss Dumbass and complains that the bus stinks back there It smells like someone died; just file this information away for later in the season.
JOY: Chekhov's bus smell.
HZ: And then he spots Krysten Ritter and has to be disgusting about it in ADR.
DICK: Hey, who is the lovely young flower blossoming into womanhood?
HZ: Cassidy looks very amused by all of Dick's Dicking, even though Cassidy often seems very critical of Dick's worst instincts, so I don't understand really where he's coming from. Casablancas home:
JOY: Oh, stuff must be going on, because Logan was just by the bus where everybody was getting on including Dick and Cassidy and then he goes to the Casablancas residence and says:
LOGAN: Hey, can Dick and Beaver come out and play?
KENDALL: Let's see if we can find them.
HZ: Now we understand why these boys have these nicknames., and it's really just for this line. Kendall walks off and shrugs off her robe and he follows her back and says, "We've got to stop meeting like this," suggesting this has been going on few times at least.
JOY: Right. Right. Okay. It's all coming together for Jenny now. Thank you.
HZ: Don't you think though that Kendall, the implication is that she's married Richard Casablancas for his money, but if she's having obvious affairs, from someone who may not be that discreet because he is friends with her stepsons, this would jeopardise her divorce settlement money? Because I imagine he would have made her sign a prenup.
JOY: This wouldn't be a betting man's first choice for her extramarital affair, you know, in terms of keeping it secret, keeping it safe.
HZ: And then it's Shark Field which seems to be some kind of sports thing. A baseball thing?
JOY: It's a baseball team!
HZ: We meet another new character, Woody Goodman, played by Steve Guttenberg, and he does some sports talk and in this explains he coached some of these people for little league and that he's running for mayor.
JOY: So he wanted his daughter - even though he's fabulously wealthy, he wants his daughter to go to public school because it's better for his mayoral campaign.
HZ: He's just saying this!
JOY: Oh my god, just saying it directly; and then it is revealed that he has organised this field trip so his daughter, who is new at Neptune High, can make some friends.
HZ: This is so selfish!
JOY: A. selfish and B. way to like, ruin your daughter's chances socially. If that was my dad, I would have murder him and that would be the central mystery of this season.
HZ: And no one seems to mind!
JOY: Yeah, they're all just like, "Cool."
HZ: Krysten Ritter gets to do the thing that she's great at, which is being a vapid alpha. Like the character she plays on Gilmore Girls.
JOY: I think it's worth mentioning that per Jessica Jones, Krysten Ritter is also amazing at playing a dark loner.
HZ: Oh and in Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23 she's amazing at playing a bitchy alpha.
JOY: I love her!
HZ: To contextualise her speech, she is wearing a flippy little turquoise miniskirt and a pink embellished cardigan over a purpley top and she's got this little pink handbag from the Paris Hilton costume collection.
JOY: I was gonna say this had to be Paris's.
HZ: This is her entire welcome speech. It's just about how they should interpret what she's wearing.
GIA: Okay, just so everyone knows, I don't always dress like this. I didn't know if you guys were doing like relaxed beachy or the West Coast wannabe East Coast urban. So FYI, it's not a statement. I'm just doing the new school blend-in thing.
JOY: And then Woody Goodman says, "My daughter. She's a cool kid. Play nice." Hurrrhrhhh!!! Kiss of death! Kiss of death!
HZ: Later, Duncan is serving himself lunch from a buffet whilst Veronica again is doing the koala cling on his arm, making the serving so much more difficult than it needs to be. This is what I mean when you said earlier Veronica is not as sharp, she's also so clingy in this, and it does make me wonder what sorts of ways she is, I guess, in a relationship, like whether she's reverted a bit to a previous era of Veronica.
JOY: Now that the big mystery is solved and she's not working for her dad anymore, she's morphing back into a more sort of traditional teen?
HZ: In the flashbacks with Lilly, she always seemed to be not that exciting a character and certainly not as sassy as broken miserable Veronica was, but maybe she only doesn't suck when she's working as a detective.
JOY: Veronica does this whole bit with Duncan about his food and getting love handles.
VERONICA: I'm afraid you're gonna get love handles if you eat all that.
DUNCAN: I have an excellent metabolism.
VERONICA: Well, then it's official. I hate you.
JOY: This made me think that it would probably be important for us to find a term for the thing that happens when Gen X words come out of teen mouths.
HZ: Yes, because she's doing that classic thing where it's like "teenage boys can eat everything right and stay slim" and yet also even someone as tiny as her is very weight conscious. But it also contradicts all of these characteristics established for her last season where she's a human dustbin and only eats junk food.
JOY: Yeah, yeah, it's all very strange.
HZ: Plus, is she also being a bit controlling where she's like, "Duncan, I don't want you to get fat"?
JOY: Yeah, what's happening?
HZ: What's happening? What's happening is another character turns up: Terrence Cook.
JOY: Hey, Terrence Cook, a handsome man.
HZ: He looks very self-conscious, but maybe because the suit they've put him in is way too big. Everyone applauds him and then ignores him, leaving the conversational space for Dick to interrupt Veronica and Duncan.
DICK: Hey. We're not taking that stank-ass bus back to Neptune. My dad sent in a limo. Would you and your girlfriend, whose quick wit I find enchanting, like to take a trip back in style? Miss Dumbass said it was cool.
DUNCAN: Hell, yeah.
VERONICA: Fine.
DICK: Cool.
VERONICA: I feel dirty.
DUNCAN: Dirty, one R or two Rs?
HZ: Duncan then kisses her on the forehead, the least dirrty move you can make. Veronica sees Dick over talking to Meg, who we can tell refuses the limo offer, and it's implied that she doesn't want to be where Veronica is.
JOY: Veronica says, "I know what this means: I should be where Meg is! Let me impose myself on her!”
HZ: It's like she's learned this behaviour from a puppy: "Who likes dogs least in this room? Here I go!" Then she has a little bit of fun with parents to tell him that he's Keith Mars, his favourite player ever. It's a bit of sports chat, so of course, my brain turned to other things. He correctly guesses that Veronica's favourite player is Johnny Damon because he's so pretty. Also, a big Trump fan in real life.
JOY: Can I tell you something about Johnny Damon?
HZ: Please. It's sports so I won't know it.
JOY: I know your eyes are gonna glaze over and you won't remember, like this will just be a blank for you in the future, but: my girlfriend is a Red Sox fan. And the Red Sox have a famous rivalry with the Yankees. The Yankees are a very rich team.
HZ: Did she pants the Yankees?
JOY: Alas no. But the Yankees are very rich team and whenever a player goes from the Red Sox to the Yankees, they are loathed forever, for all time, by their former fans, because sports fans root for the clothes not for the human beings inside them.
HZ: Human beings are just an inconvenience really.
JOY: There's all this stuff that I've learned from Jess about the Yankees, like you have to have like a very short haircut and you can't have facial hair except for a moustache and it can't go past the end of your your upper lip and all this like psycho stuff. And so the Red Sox deliberately grow out big bushy beards and long hair to fuck with the Yankees, which I love. Okay, so: Johnny Damon's an outfielder, and when he started playing for the Yankees, Red Sox fans were furious and every time he plays at the Red Sox field, everybody who's in his section of the outfield crumbles up $1 bills and just chucks them to his playing position, because he sold out and went to the Yankees, a much richer team that lures players away from other teams with huge amounts of money.
HZ: Wouldn't it be better to throw nickels at him?
JOY: It would definitely be more cost-effective.
HZ: And more aerodynamic. It's very hard to make even a balled up $1 bill fly very far.
JOY: But what about a $1 bill like paper aeroplane kind of deal? Not feeling it?
HZ: I think you'd be lucky.
JOY: You gotta talk to these Red Sox fans, Helen.
HZ: I refuse to participate. On the bus, Veronica takes the seat in front of Meg. Horrible scenes; I just feel more upset that Meg's upset because Meg is a good Meg, but Meg is not ready to forgive and she takes off for a seat that's further back. Everyone else's up the front of the bus, note. Flashback!
JOY: Montage of Duncan hanging out at the Neptune Onlyplace: bussing tables, waving from across the room.
HZ: He's such a helpful Duncan. He sees Veronica's busy and he moves some dirty cups.
JOY: It really got me. I thought it was very sweet.
HZ: It's like he's working! Presumably Duncan never has had a job. But what else is Duncan gonna be doing this summer? Because his parents have fucked off. His friends suck. He'll probably finish all of his leather-bound books eventually. Then the 2004 jam 'Long Time Coming' by the Delays plays. In the present, Veronica explains she heard through the grapevine that Duncan broke up with Meg on the last day of school. Coincidence, with them learning that they're not half-siblings ? Dunno. She was faithful to Logan at the time, "Duncan and I didn't get together until my 18th birthday." When is your 18th birthday, Veronica??
JOY: Ah, this is where the disgusting false rumour that Veronica's birthday is during the summer came from, I see.
HZ: In flashback, Duncan takes off, and behind his massive coffee cup is a gift box. Because this episode loves hiding things behind other things that are bigger.
JOY: Helen, have you ever seen a gift-wrapped fortune cookie?
HZ: Usually they're just wrapped in a little cellophane wrapper, so why would you also gift wrap?
JOY: It's all very curious. I don't know.
HZ: Given that the important thing about a fortune cookie is the note inside, he could have just put the note in a box.
JOY: Or he could have just left the cookie on a piece of paper that said 'Veronica, open me' or... It's a lot of unnecessary encapsulation.
HZ: Yeah, but Duncan is so multifaceted.
JOY: It's true. We'll never know his true depths.
HZ: This made sense to one of the Duncans. But the note, whatever's in it, causes Veronica to run after Duncan and kiss him, which is when I spotted that painting of a coffee cup on the wall.
JOY: How romantic. What do you think that note said? "Dirty with one R or two?"
HZ: I think it said, "Well, I guess, as we're not blood relatives..."
JOY: And then she filled in that blank with her tongue in his mouth! Sorry.
HZ: You know, as there are many Duncans, there are many Veronicas, and the Veronica that is Duncan's girlfriend Veronica just seems really not the most inspiring Veronica. In the present:
VERONICA VOICEOVER: I'm sorry Meg is hurting, truly sorry. But I can't say I have any regrets.
HZ: The bus makes a rest stop at a gas station.
JOY: Lilly's ghost is at this gas station; isn't that wild?
HZ: She's also getting gas. She's still wearing the pep squad outfit; you don't really see her, you just hear "Veronica!" and then see a blurry pep squad outfit run behind the building, and I think it's because they didn't have Amanda Seyfried film anything this season. But there's no Lilly there. Who is there though?
JOY: A person I'd much rather bump into - well, eh, Lilly, Weevil around the corner, bumping into either one of them, I'm equally happy. It's Weevil, is the point!
HZ: He's got a very large square earring in his right ear.
JOY: What is that thing? It's like a shingle from a roof.
HZ: I'd wear it, but he and I generally have very different styles. These two are not getting on, and I feel sad to return to that state of hostility that they had in the pilot. A lot of stuff here is resetting to the pilot: Veronica with Duncan; class war in Neptune; Logan and Weevil hate each other; Veronica and Weevil hate each other; because one of the pleasures of season one was seeing how their sort of very varied alliance grew and grew.
WEEVIL: Your little year of living dangerously, did you get your fill? As soon as they'll have you back, you go running to the 09ers. And as a little bonus, you give it up to the richest boys in school. Wow! Well, I'm sure their sheets are clean.
HZ: He is right that Veronica does have a taste for the rich boys: Duncan, Troy, Logan. Leo was her most evenly matched boyfriend economically and maybe she just can't stay hot for economically normal people.
JOY: Interesting. It seems to be news to Weevil that Logan's car got shot up, which raises some questions about whether Weevil's really still in charge of the PCHers.
HZ: How did Weevil get to be the head of a gang anyway?
JOY: He had the prettiest eyelashes, I think.
HZ: That's how it works. On the bus. Miss Dumas is checking whether everyone's there and I guess as a new teacher, she can't tell all of these white kids apart.
JOY: Honestly, everybody's in the limo. There's like Meg and like three other kids are the only people on the bus and she can't count.
HZ: Yeah. And Meg looks around and sees Veronica and Weevil outside and she's like, "Yes, everyone's here." This is Meg's one bad act of her life, and it saves Veronica.
JOY: Actually, yeah, it's ultimately kind to Veronica.
HZ: The bus leaves. Weevil revs his bike and rides off and Veronica calls Wallace. But then, Weevil returns.
JOY: Weevil returns, and Weevil pulls up, the bike stops and you hear him say like, "You're gonna get on?" or whatever he says, and it cuts to him having just stopped his bike, and he's already off the bike, leaning against the bike being a cool guy.
HZ: Then the song 'Ashes' by Embrace plays, which is another 2004 hit by a British band; we've just had the Delays.
JOY: I've never heard of these songs or bands.
HZ: I don't particularly like the band Embrace but I also found it very jarring to have a song this cheerful running over this scene.
GIA: It just went straight off the cliff. It didn't even slow down. They're all dead. They're all dead.
JOY: Goodness. We can all agree that Weevil looks amazing with no helmet and aviators on driving the bike but uh oh, the limo's pulled over and where's the bus? According to Krysten Ritter, who is ready to scream it as soon as they get off the bike: the bus just went over the edge. It didn't even slow down. They're all dead. They're all dead. Presumptuous.
HZ: She also says these very impassioned words, but then stands very impassively at the edge of the cliff, as do the Casablancas brothers just sort of watching like, "Eh, whatevs. I guess there's a bus down there with papers floating around and the doors..."
JOY: Well, if you looked down and saw CGI that bad, you might have a hard time acting against it as well. Here's the reason for the season: the ending lyric of the song at the end of the episode is: "I sink like a stone. I lost control." Heavens to Betsy.
HZ: I guess that explains why they chose such a tonally inappropriate song; they just went for the lyric. And Veronica's voiceover says, "This is Neptune. Nothing happens accidentally." I suppose, again, if you have lined up the evidence to support that statement from your own life, maybe.
JOY: But maybe a bus just went off a cliff. You got nothing, Veronica, you have absolutely nothing. This episode gave us almost no answers and about a million questions and some of them are only suitable for our southern California legal expert Lo Dodds. So let's talk to her for today's LoDown.
THE LODOWN
JOY: Lo, thank god you're here. Thank god we're back.
LO DODDS: Yeah, yeah. It's exciting to be back, although I wish we were under better circumstances.
HZ: Than season two? I mean, season three is worse circumstances than season two, Lo.
JOY: Lo. I don't remember ever getting tested for drug use when I was playing sports in high school. Is this a Californian thing? Is it, would you say, normal for high school athletes to get regularly drug tested?
LO DODDS: It is legal to randomly drug test high school athletes and college athletes. So yeah, Wallace could have showed up for the first day and they said, "Right, guys, time for random drug testing." Yeah, totally legit; seems weird, but you are - basically the courts think that you are accepting a lot of risk and are going to be held to a higher standard when you are practising sports, and they have you sign health waivers and all kinds of things. So they really want to make sure that they are not going to be liable if you're high and on the field.
HZ: What kind of legal trouble would those parents get, and Jim Chimory?
LO DODDS: Jim Chimory, Jim Chimory, Jim Chim Cherew.
HZ: I bet he gets that all the time. That's why he went rogue.
LO DODDS: I don't know what kind of lab Jim Chimory works in. So in the sense of saying if he's just drug testing athletes, he's going to get fired, there could be a civil lawsuit, which is what will probably happen against that company. If he's processing stuff like evidence, that, as we've seen, can be a whole kinds of complications, if you call into question that particular facility because all the cases that have had their evidence processed through that facility are now going to make a big fuss; they wouldn't be able to process further evidence at that facility; he's probably just going to get fired. The company will probably be in bigger trouble. As for the parents, I don't know that they would get in that much trouble. I'm not sure what Clemmons would decide to do with them, because they've committed bribery. But let's be honest, they're all a bunch of Neptune parents and Lamb is useless. So I don't know if he'd be arresting them for bribery, extortion or anything like that.
JOY: And what's Clemmons gonna do? Give them detention? And then they might have to play some sexy poker.
LO DODDS: And then they might kiss? They are probably going to get sued, though, by the parents of the other athletes, potentially they could pay some civil liability. But again, what kind of damages do you really have? When you're filing a lawsuit, you need to figure out like how am I going to show the judge that I have lost any money or any position from this? And since the kids are all still on varsity, we're all good.
HZ: We learn in this episode that the Kane parents have just fucked off to live in Napa to get away from it all, even though presumably their trial is going to be in Southern California. Is that okay? Is that normal?
LO DODDS: Yeah, I think that they would be allowed to do that, because let's be honest, they have not committed any sort of violent crime that would require them to be held during trial. They probably had to post bail, but the Kanes, being super wealthy, were able to do that. And I don't know that the Kanes would be considered a flight risk considering that Duncan is still in school and they have ties with the community. I'm sure they gave some spiel about being pillars of the community or some bullshit. But they might have confiscated their passports. So maybe that is why they are staying in Napa.
HZ: Well, Duncan could just get them a new one off eBay.
LO DODDS: That's right. That's right.
HZ: He knows.
LO DODDS: So Napa is not that far away from, let's assume it's the Orange County courthouse, so they could just pop down whenever they have a hearing.
JOY: Well, I mean, based on Neptune geography, Napa could just be a 30 minute drive. We don't know.
HZ: It's next door to the Kane house.
JOY: Or a four hour flight.
HZ: What an exhausting episodes. Just a lot of running around.
JOY: So tired.
HZ: Veronica is definitely not getting the best line of this episode for me. But who is, Jenny, for you?
JOY: For me, Veronica is involved. When Kelvin says, "I guess it's true what they say about you," and Veronica says "Probably, but you're gonna have to narrow it down for me." Nice.
HZ: See, sassy Veronica's still in there.
JOY: Some of the time.
HZ: Maybe, because we both loved it so much, I'm going to choose the bit where Keith says, "Wallace, your mom and I have an understanding. I behave myself and she doesn't leave me." What a beautiful summary of Keithlicia's relationship.
JOY: Love it. Love it. He worships the ground on which she treads, Helen.
HZ: Write it down, Jenny, write it down.
JOY: I wouldn't want to forget.
HZ: And then how do you score this episode? A lot to digest.
JOY: Okay, there is a lot to digest and so I have two scores.
HZ: Is one just for Veronica's voiceover, which does a lot of work?
JOY: It's a big lift. Okay, so the mysteriousness of the mystery, the central episodic mystery of what's up with the drug tests, I'm giving like a three out of five hot stepmoms because I didn't care very much. And the red herring came too early.
HZ: I feel like this episode is barely committed to this plot.
JOY: Yeah, they were just like, we need three extra minutes of scenes.
HZ: Are there even like any consequences for anyone who set up this plot?
JOY: Doesn't seem like it, except the positive consequences of Wallace and company getting back on their respective teams. For the episode. I'm going to give it four out of five gift-wrapped fortune cookies. Because there's a lot going on and a lot of it is like really interesting, and there's so many great new characters and I'm having a blast; and Veronica is not the best Veronica we've ever seen but -
HZ: Best Kendall Casablancas we've ever seen.
JOY: Definitely, 100% - best Casablancas we've seen, honestly.
HZ: Some very enjoyable Wallace as well.
JOY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I only removed one point because I'm just so tired from watching it.
HZ: The difference in having a Wallace-Veronica plot where Wallace needs her for once, I preferred that, because it felt like even though he needs her, the balance of power is a bit better than when she's just using him as her unpaid intern.
JOY: Her unpaid intern! It's also just nice to see Veronica, Even though she tells Kelvin she's left her PI life behind, once Wallace is in trouble, she's hurtling to the rescue.
HZ: I mean, wouldn't you?
JOY: Absolutely.
HZ: Anything for Wallace. Wallace is not on this trip to the baseball.
JOY: I don't think he's in journalism club.
HZ: There's loads of classes that are allowed to go on this trip and Wallace is into sports. But I'm glad that Wallace is alive, because he wouldn't have gone in the limo.
JOY: True.
HZ: So I agree with you: mystery of the week, whatevs. I think they do do so much in this episode. And I'm quite interested in how they deal with the repercussions of the end of last season and move around the pieces a bit, but I think they are probably trying to do too much. I think they're trying to dazzle you with bits of voiceover. So you're like, Okay, yes, they've established this, fine. Yes, sure. I'll go with it. Because they keep telling you again and again, oh, the class war, the blah, blah, blah, the this and that. Oh, Veronica and Logan had to split up for reasons that didn't really make sense to me. These boys have set fire to a pool, for fun. So I think those things, they maybe could have pared back on a bit, but overall, I'm going to give this episode - I'm going to go four out of five cushions on the lap.
JOY: Protective measures for everyone's comfort.
HZ: So that is this episode of Veronica Mars investigated.
JOY: Case closed.
HZ: That was Veronica Mars Investigations season two, episode one Normal is the Watchword.
JOY: Watch season two episode two and join us in a week to investigate it.
HZ: Find the show at VMIpod on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook where there's a lot of good social media-ing. Why would you punish yourself by not following us on those platforms?
JOY: Yes, join us. The website where the show lives and works in a variety of shiny satin vests is VMIpod.com.
HZ: And on there as well you can find links to our merch, which is fantastic.
JOY: Our beautiful, beautiful merch.
HZ: You can also donate to the show if you are desperate to give us some money. If you want to throw it to us like you would throw it at a defecting baseball player. Because he's still getting all those dollar bills and taking them home and ironing them and spending them.
JOY: Sure, sure. I'm Jenny Owen Youngs and when I'm not talking to Helen, I'm also making music. You can hear some of what I do and learn more about me at jennyowenyoungs.com. And you can also listen to me talk about another petite blonde protagonist over at my other podcast Buffering the Vampire Slayer.
HZ: For more of Jenny's opinions about Charisma Carpenter also.
JOY: Indeed.
HZ: I'm Helen Zaltzman, and I make two other podcasts: Answer Me This, where we answer questions from the audience on myriad topics, and The Allusionist, which is an entertainment show about language, a tool we all use, so why not understand a bit more about it? That is at theallusionist.org.
JOY: Can you imagine anything more soothing than listening to Helen talk for hours on end? I cannot.
HZ: Oh, I can.
JOY: No, no, no. This episode was edited and mixed by Helen Zaltzman.
HZ: The music is by Martin Austwick and Jenny Owen Youngs; huge fan, huge fan.
JOY: The sheriff of this town is Hrishikesh Hirway.
HZ: The show is distributed by PRX.
JOY: Until next time: who's your daddy?
HZ: Who's your daddy?
JOY: He's that guy who organised the field trip that we're all on right now so you could all be my new friends!