VMI 2.14 Versatile Toppings transcript
Listen to this episode at VMIpod.com/2-14
Content note: Veronica Mars contains heavy themes, and this episode includes storylines concerning homophobia, transphobia, murder, gambling, and drugs.
A LONG TIME AGO ON VERONICA MARS:
After a year and a half of being a one-line character, Corny finally gets his own plotline! One that involves him getting tased by a serial mugger of pizza deliverers.
Is the mugger also targeting Neptune High students who are gay and will pay blackmail money not to be outed?
And is the mugger also targeting students in interracial relationships?
A multitasking hate crime. Also: Logan is dating Hannah to get at her father, the fake witness implicating him in Felix’s murder.
Hannah’s none too pleased to be used, but nor is she pleased to find her dad’s coke stash.
Keith meanwhile finds proof to exonerate Terrence Cook from the bus bombing…
...but then Veronica finds some explosive evidence.
JOY: Sorry to blow your mind, but I’m Jenny Owen Youngs.
HZ: I’m like rich dude kryptonite and I’m Helen Zaltzman.
You’re listening to Veronica Mars Investigations Season 2 Episode 14: Versatile Toppings.
HZ: And what do you think of that title, Jenny?
JOY: Well, it's like pizza, it's like gay stuff, queer culture... It's closer to being clever than a lot of their recent mash-up titles, but still not quite getting there.
HZ: I was watching this, desperate to know what you were thinking about every moment of it, so great to know that this episode is happening, for me anyway. I feel like it's not great for you.
JOY: Ugh, yeah.
HZ: Will there ever be a Veronica Mars episode with unproblematic portrayals of gay people?
JOY: I think you already know the answer to that is "no". Based on my memory, I don't think that ever happens. As you know, of course, gay people are -
HZ: And you speak for all gay people.
JOY: I speak for them all, and we're all abominations, so it's just a hop and a skip from homosexuality on over to blackmail, outing your partner without consent, targeting people in your own community. It's not great. Not great.
HZ: The stunt-casting is Kristin Cavallari, who was on Laguna Beach at the time, which is where the fictional Neptune is geographically, so was this stunt-casting to show that the Marsverse interacts with real people? Or was it to show that it's like a parallel universe? Because she's playing a fictional character in this, even though she exists as Kristin Cavallari out of it, so these two things in the same place, same person, and yet different. It's like His Dark Materials, different Oxfords, just got to find the little hole in between them.
JOY: Yep, yep, slip on through, yep, yep, yep. Now that's queer culture.
HZ: So let's face the mystery of the week first. The one thing I like about it is that Corny gets a big plotline, sort of. It's taken away from him, as is his iPod.
JOY: Aw, his tunes, man. Love to see Corny getting to do something. It's really fun.
HZ: He's done his apprenticeship.
JOY: Yeah. Now he's ready to get tased, I guess. Poor guy. Corny's car, I love it so much.
HZ: Yes!
JOY: And if anybody who's listening knows what model that car is, would you please tweet at us at @VMIPod and let us know? I'm desperate to know.
HZ: It's my favourite car of this show so far.
JOY: Maybe a crispy tie with the Impala from the last episode? The first thing I thought when we saw Corny carrying his pizza, listening to his music, and then getting tased, was, "Hey, I know somebody we've seen with a taser on this show before - is Veronica just tasing pizza delivery guys?" Wouldn't that have been a wild twist?
HZ: This plot starts with the mugging of Corny, so it seems like a serial mugger of pizza deliverers. But then, it's also conflated with a plot to out gay students at the school, and also then linked with something to do with students who are in interracial relationships, so I didn't really understand why these things are linked, except by some kind of error. Jenny, you have a clarity of vision that I envy and admire; can you make sense of this?
JOY: Well, let's not get carried away, but they're making things like unnecessarily kitchen sink-y complicated, but trying to trick you into thinking that they've made a clever plot.
HZ: You've got the opening with Corny getting tased, and his tunes and his pizzas getting taken, but then the plot about the gay students is sort of seeded with like a little homophobic interaction between Dick, still reeling from last episode, and the other is Lucas Grabeel of High School Musical, who tried to buy coke off Weevil in episode 8 of this season and lost a shirt button, which was assault or something.
JOY: Right, the shirt button.
HZ: And the other one is someone who dunks Jackie last episode.
JOY: Boo.
HZ: Just to lay the ground again for Neptune High being not that smart about gayness, and quite shaming about gayness.
DICK: Baseball players, right? Remind me, which one of you pitches and which one catches?
KELLY: Relax, Dick, we're not saying that you're gay. I mean, just because you make out with a dude here and there...
HZ: But then it all really kicks off at the lockers, and I recognise Madison's voice, but not her face this time. I don't know whether it's because she doesn't wear the wig anymore.
JOY: Yes. But maybe she's transformed by the very non-Madisonian act of reading a poem aloud? Perhaps?
HZ: It's Madisonian in that her reading the poem aloud is making someone else very embarrassed and unhappy, and the poem casts Madison in a good light.
MADISON: Oh, wait, here's my favorite part: “Taking off our clothes,/ I put on my disguise./ But when we're in the shower/Can Madison feel my eyes?”
HZ: She's got the poem from a flyer. It's got like two interlinked female symbols on it, and it's from a folder taped to the locker of a student named Marlena, and the file says ‘Marlena's Outbox’.
JOY: Yeah, this is like brutal and unpleasant, and, god, Madison - has she ever had a redeeming quality? Have we ever seen any one nice thing about Madison on the show ever?
HZ: She wore the wig and didn't complain?
JOY: That's true. I have to wonder, wouldn't it just be juicier if they gave us one thing to like about Madison? Give us a Madison episode where they trick us into caring about her a little bit?
HZ: She's straight, blonde and rich, Jenny. What more do you need? Everyone loves that.
JOY: Sure, sure, sure.
HZ: Veronica's witnessing all this and she sees Marlena taking her file and going off, but she's grabbed by Ryan, from episode 8, who was in love with Marcos, who was murdered on the bus. Remember Ryan? I had forgotten.
JOY: Ah, but then here he is to remind us.
HZ: He was the previous victim of the pizza muggings. He was the fourth, Corny was the fifth, and thus here's where these plotlines intersect in a completely unnecessary way.
RYAN: I had something in my wallet. A list that wasn't supposed to get out. Ever. That whole Marlena thing, it was my fault.
VERONICA: I don't get it.
RYAN: Marlena's name was on a list, with nine other gay students. That poem everyone was making fun of, Marlena posted it onto a website that I set up.
VERONICA: You set up a poetry website?
RYAN: A chat room. It's called The Pirate's S.H.I.P., you know, Student Homosexual Internet Posting. I was in charge of maintaining user names and passwords, only the list -
VERONICA: I follow. But why would a mugger want to out sweet little Marlena?
RYAN: Because she didn't have the five thousand dollars he demanded from her to stay in.
JOY: OK, now, listen, I love a good acronym, Helen, but no fucking self-respecting group of high school students trying to stay under the radar is going to name their little message board "The Pirate Student Homosexual Internet Posting" site. This is just bad.
HZ: That's what people who run conversion camps would name the website.
JOY: Right, exactly. That is not a name gay kids would select themselves. Also, this blackmailer is asking people for $5,000 to not out them?
HZ: They're children!
JOY: Would even 09er children... I mean, I guess we see Kelly sell his rims and then pretend that they got stolen, but like, surely not every kid on the board has access to that kind of money?
HZ: It seems optimistic. I reckon it'd be better to try and squeeze like a couple of hundred dollars out of them on the regular, surely.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: So Ryan hires Veronica. All the kids on his list can pay her $100. So then we go to Cho's Pizza, from the Kane scholarship episode. Corny lovingly describes the pizza that the muggers stole off him, and, to be honest, I'd love this episode if it was just Corny describing pizzas.
VERONICA: So what did they get off you, Corny?
CORNY: All the cash, my tunes, and the pizza, you know: it was pepperoni, thick crust, it was a real nice pie.
HZ: Then shock news from Ryan. The people on the orders have not ordered pizzas. So it's all some kind of trap.
JOY: Right, right.
HZ: And so they manage to supply Veronica with a list of those names. So she's got two lists now. She's got the kids who were being blackmailed for being gay, and the people who hadn't ordered pizzas. So maybe that's why she thinks the crimes are linked, because they both involve lists? Veronica goes into the toilet office. She just goes in and washes her hands. She doesn't use the toilet. Veronica Mars doesn't roll that way. I'd have thought she'd be grateful for the time to sit down and be by herself, but no.
JOY: No, no, no, no, I like this lore where Veronica is not like other carbon-based life forms. She doesn't engage in traditional methods of elimination. She just takes in fuel, it burns in her like coal or oil, you know? And then she just goes on with her day, and washes her hands.
HZ: Yeah. Maybe she doesn't go to the toilet because she never gets to use the toilet because she's always interrupted by someone wanting to hire her. In this case, Kristin Cavallari out of Laguna Beach, who is being blackmailed.
VERONICA: Really? You're being blackmailed.
KYLIE: Sorry to blow your mind, but I'm a lesbian, Veronica.
VERONICA: Oh, well, that's cool.
KYLIE: Only when you're in college!
JOY: A cheerleader who's a lesbian, Helen?!
HZ: This does not compute. Neptune cannot hold these two things in one person. But in 24 hours, Veronica is going to do the cash drop-off for her blackmail payout, so that's happening. And then the school news channel, which, as we know, is only to be turned on in times of crisis; right now it's announcing the annual Physics Olympics, which sounds thrilling.
JOY: Sure, why not? But that's not all it's announcing, because Kylie is like, "What's up, everybody? I'm gay, and Marlena's my girlfriend." And everyone's like, "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," turning to each other to chat at their desks. Wow.
HZ: And also, she's interviewing Lucas Grabeel, a.k.a. Kelly Kuzzio, about having his rims stolen - six grand of rims - and being mugged. So two bits of information in one news bulletin. Great efficiency.
JOY: $1,500 per rim? That just seems exorbitant.
HZ: Then cut to Kylie and Marlena walking down the halls hand-in-hand. Kylie's really strutting. Marlina seems a little more shy, I guess because this wasn't really on her terms.
JOY: Not at all.
HZ: And of course Dick is there to celebrate as if all this is for his benefit?
JOY: Yeah, yeah. He's high-fiveing some dude we've never seen before, I think, and then he wonders aloud, "Why lesbians are so pissed off all the time?"
HZ: Why are lesbians so pissed off all the time, Jenny?
JOY: Well, how long do you have?
HZ: Is it because cis straight men keep acting like you're lesbian on their behalf?
JOY: Sure. Put that in the pile. And light it on fire. We also get this like little follow-up, a rare piece of follow-up on a one-off episode bit: Dick is running down the rich dudes whose lives Veronica has touched. Logan Echolls, accused of murder. Duncan Kane, accused of kidnapping. Robbie and Hunter, from One Angry Veronica, went to Chino. They're in Chino! So I don't know if they're waiting to appeal, or what's going on, but I thought it was rare and interesting that we heard something about what happened in that one-off jury episode.
HZ: He says that Veronica is like "rich dude kryptonite", which I think would be great if you want to destroy personal wealth.
JOY: Yeah, just hold Veronica near everyone. "Hey, Jeff Bezos, come here, let me rub this Veronica Mars all over you."
HZ: She's like a degausser of the wealthy.
JOY: Yes!
HZ: Either that or she would date him. That's also her method. And then we re-meet the lovely Carmen from episode 20 of season 1, the one whose popsicle-eating became a scandal.
JOY: Yes, yeah.
HZ: But she's like, "No one remembers my popsicle scandal any more, hahaha." I'm glad she's free, but she is on the list of names for the pizza mugger, but she doesn't know why. But then she figures out the connection between her and the other people on the list.
VERONICA: Obviously you, John Ramos, and Amy are all students who live relatively close, but is there anything else that would tie you together in the mugger's mind?
CARMEN: We're all coconuts. That's what you get called in Neptune when you're Latino and date white people or join Honor Society. Get it? Like Twinkies and Oreos, except that we're brown on the outside and -
VERONICA: No, I get it. I'm sorry.
CARMEN: Hey, you didn't make the rules.
HZ: She's going to compile a list of the other, as she calls them, "Coconuts". So a third list.
JOY: A third list, OK, great. So many lists.
HZ: Although possibly with intersection with the other lists.
JOY: Chronologically, my next note is, "Kelly Kuzzio seems pretty full of shit." I can't remember what this is in reference to, but I bet you know.
HZ: That's very appropriate. He's out in the parking lot getting Marsed, because Veronica, having seen the report of him getting mugged, she's like, "Well, OK, so how long were you out cold? Because it would have taken people a while to remove your rims. Did they bring their own jack?" And he's like, "Oh, I don't know, I already told everything to the cops, so why do I have to tell you as well?" Which is a question I think a lot more people could ask in this show.
JOY: Do you have to put your car up to take the rims off? I would have thought they would just kind of like pop off like a hubcap. What do I know, though? Nothing about rims. If you know anything about rims, please tweet at us, at @VMIpod, and let us know what we're getting wrong here.
HZ: If you have ever tased someone, did it afford you enough time to steal their rims? I don't know how long people are out when they're tased.
JOY: Or just, we can do the taser research, just let us know what's the fastest you've ever removed your own rims, thanks.
HZ: Back at Cho's Pizza, Corny's packing a pizza and taking a phone call.
JOY: Yo, he answers the phone, "Cho's Za." Does anyone in England say ‘za’ for pizza?
HZ: Of course we don't. That's barely a saving. One syllable.
JOY: A penny saved is a penny earned, Helen, as I always say, and the same goes for syllables.
HZ: An order comes in for a name off Carmen's list, so Corny's ready to be bait.
VERONICA: So are you ready to be the bait, Corny?
CORNY: Hell yeah. No one's better. I'm what you'd call a ‘master bait’.
HZ: It's his big moment. So off he goes with three pizzas; a pursuer comes out of the shadows - to be tripped up by Veronica! And then growled at by Backup.
JOY: Did Veronica not have time to, like, paint a convincing tunnel opening on like a brick wall, or like hoist a piano up on a pulley in front of this address? What is this business?
HZ: The Acme hole-in-the-ground hadn't arrived in time.
JOY: Yes, exactly. I do like seeing her do something that doesn't involve a taser, though. Minimal damage.
HZ: Well, it would be derivative of the pizza mugger, so she's just got to get a growly dog instead to scare the shit out of this person, who is a freshman named Arturo.
JOY: Happy to see Backup under any circumstances.
HZ: I like to see Backup out doing jobs. A very effective buddy.
JOY: Dogs like to have a purpose.
HZ: And Arturo says that he did the muggings, but he didn't do the mugging of Kelly, or take the rims.
JOY: Or do any of the blackmailing of The Pirate S.H.I.P. students.
HZ: Doesn't even know what the word is. What an alibi! And he's doing it all to impress Thumper, so he can get into the PCHers.
JOY: Oh, buddy, no.
HZ: Thumper is a weird and rubbish leader, from what we've seen. Last week, punching a balloon with very light menace.
JOY: He's no Weevil. This is weird, right? Because he's like ordering the pizzas to the homes of these students who he's identified to be under the umbrella of what Carmen refers to as "coconuts", but he's tasing the individual delivering the pizza, stealing the pizzas. It's very confusing: what exactly is his motive for using those particular individuals as the delivery points, but not... OK, I started out feeling very confident just now, thinking, "I think I know what's going on..."
HZ: It was really brave.
JOY: Very brave, thank you.
HZ: It's like you drive your car up what the satnav told you was a real road, but it turns out it's not, and now you're in a river.
JOY: Help! Maybe, maybe Arturo's thinking was that those individuals who ordered the pizzas would then be under scrutiny or punishment of some kind for not paying for the pizzas that ever arrived? Helen, are we just hopelessly, hopelessly stupid? What is this episode about?
HZ: I'm a fly trapped in a room and I can't get out.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: Because I don't think the police are involved in the pizza tasing. Presumably the pizza deliverers aren't carrying a shit-ton of cash, so there's not an enormous financial incentive. There is a pizza incentive. But on the whole... Well, Veronica has got a tiny tape of this confession, so that's that for Arturo. Later, Deputy Sacks shows up and finds Arturo taped to a Slow Children road sign, and an envelope saying "Confession inside". And rather than like saying anything to him, or cutting him down, he just takes the envelope and reads it in silence and then smirks.
JOY: A rare Deputy Sacks sighting. It's silent. I wonder how he's dealing in the aftermath of his date with Ms Hauser. If he's been utterly destroyed in any way.
HZ: I hope his boundaries were respected, but I wouldn't trust Ms Hauser to behave appropriately in any circumstance.
JOY: Gosh no. Ooh, I wonder if she got booked on account of the carnival money embezzlement scam, and if they ran into each other and maybe they had steamy county jail sex? OK. Anyway. I really wish that I hadn't thought of that. Uh, pushing it back down from whence it came.
HZ: I wish you hadn't, Jenny, and I can't push it back down.
JOY: I'm sorry.
HZ: Now it's inflated like a huge hot air balloon in my brain.
JOY: No!
HZ: At school, Veronica needs a favour from Mac. Still haven't forgiven Mac for her prank last week, so I don't consider her to be an ally of queer people, and yet, I guess now we're supposed to assume she is?
VERONICA: I need you to get me into a restricted website.
MAC: Sure. What's the address?
VERONICA: I don't know.
MAC: What's it for?
VERONICA: It's a Neptune High gay chatroom.
MAC: Veronica, you're not -
VERONICA: No, I'm just curious. ...Curious as to what's posted on the website, more accurately. Here we go, work your funky magic.
HZ: Tell you what, the phrase "work your funky magic" gave me a full-body cringe.
JOY: Yeah, no thank you.
HZ: It's like when your mom says "trendy" and 80 percent of you dies instantly.
JOY: I would have expected a phrase like "work your funky magic" to come up during Deputy Sacks and Ms Hauser's fake sexy jail sex that I just made up.
HZ: Stop ittt!
JOY: Sorry.
HZ: Is this your revenge on all that has been brought against lesbians in this episode? "I'm going to invent the worst heterosexuality."
JOY: I feel attacked. How dare they? How fucking dare they? How dare they?
HZ: I know.
JOY: So Mac the ally, who has beefed-up the security for this gay Neptune student site, but she's no match for Veronica saying, "Pleeease can I have access to the thing that you hold the keys to, and you're supposed to be guarding as a private personal space that is safe for these people?" And Mac gives it up, she gives Veronica a - are you ready? - hard copy of the message board, which is another way of saying she prints it out, I guess.
HZ: I was like, if you want to protect people's security at all, why the fuck are you printing out? Just log Veronica in, and then log her out so she can never log in again. What more do you need? But, Jenny, please delight us all by describing this website.
JOY: Helen! There's an undulating rainbow that isn't, like, exactly quite rainbow enough, you know? But it's, like, flowing, and then there's a pirate face in front of it, and then it has the name, like the acronym name, spelled out. It's bad, Helen.
HZ: Is the pirate doing like kissy lips as well?
JOY: Oh chri... If he is, I blocked it out. Lot of blocking things out from this episode, and recent episodes.
HZ: Mac logs in as an administrator, and we get to see some threads that are taking place in this message board, such as, "I can't take it any more", "Does he have to know?", "Gay or just open?" or "Your first special moment". 47 pages overall.
JOY: Jesus christ, Helen, you took copious notes.
HZ: And then with her hard copy, Veronica is highlighting stuff, in a public place, and I was just expecting the whole time someone would get hold of it and out every kid in the school. But luckily, that doesn't happen.
JOY: But Ryan does roll up on her while she's doing this.
HZ: Just appears from nowhere.
JOY: Yeah, that's one of the gay powers you don't really hear much about. It's something we can do.
HZ: Oh, nice. They should put that in the forum.
JOY: "How to apparate".
HZ: You get a teleport, don't you?
JOY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a trade-off, I guess. She tells Ryan she thinks the blackmailer is actually one of the posters on the board. She specifically cites MIZZ P, who posted something about "the outing of all outings", but Ryan reveals that MIZZ P actually died in the bus crash.
HZ: Save this information for later: "the outing of all outings," in Neptune, mentioned by someone who died in the bus crash. But don't think about it now, because there's been another blackmailing letter, but the victim’s not likely to come to Veronica Mars. I mean, I wouldn't out myself to Ole Toxic Heterosexuality either.
JOY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gosh, I wonder who it could be, Helen.
HZ: Well, Kelly Kuzzio's rimless car is a critical character in this. The car has licence plates that say "KUZZIKAN", and that's rather similar to KISSNKUZN on the message board. Similar enough for Veronica anyway. That's what detectives do, match words together until sense is made.
JOY: If you were a closeted student using a secret message board, wouldn't you just like come up with a name that didn't have anything to do with your actual name?
HZ: Yeah.
JOY: Cool. Well, he didn't. Veronica gets in his car, right, and she's asking him leading questions, and then the questions intensify until she says, "You're gay, aren't you?" And then the camera slow zooms in, and it cuts to commercial! The drama!
HZ: I just thought like maybe that Kelly had blacked out for a minute.
JOY: Yeah. When Kelly wakes up and we come back from commercial, he identifies as queer, which seems a little ahead of the curve linguistically.
HZ: I think so. I think the reclamation of the word had already been happening, but it seems unlikely that it would have filtered down to this guy in this environment in 2006.
JOY: Right, right. He shows Veronica his blackmail email, and it's from Rick Santorum. Ha!
HZ: "Rick Santorum" gives a local address for sending the blackmail money, so of course Veronica puts a tracker in and then she and Ryan watch it end up at 7079 Hubbell Street. Ryan knows who lives there, and now so do we.
JOY: It's fucking Kylie! Sorry to blow your mind, but it's Kylie. She's been running the whole scam. This is terrifying, this is really terrifying, and just add it to the terrible things that have happened, or been represented by, LGBTQ characters on this show, though. The few that we've had. Veronica says, "Why did you out Marlena?" And Kylie says, "Because I'm a horrible, crazy bitch."
HZ: Not enough explanation!
JOY: She wanted to be out, and she wanted Marlena to be out so they could be like a normal couple, but Marlena was uncomfortable, so she just fucking forced it on her like a psychopath. Like a monster.
HZ: She doesn't seem that arsed. She's just like, "Wellll, I'd better go and tell her that that's what I did. Whoops!" I would assume this is a relationship-ending offence.
JOY: Yeah. This girl is like American Psycho-level sociopath. She's terrifying. She doesn't care about anyone, even her own partner. She's very scary. So this is a great horror episode of Veronica Mars.
HZ: What has Marlena done to deserve this?
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: And Kylie seems plenty cheerful, despite these crimes. She even gives Veronica her tracker back, which is very nice.
JOY: Thoughtful. Those things probably aren't cheap.
HZ: Yeah, Veronica's like, "Usually people smash them up, and they are expensive." And Kylie retrieved the package from the post office, where her mother works.
JOY: She wanted to get out of Neptune, which I guess she wanted a bunch of money to do?
HZ: Veronica gets that.
JOY: So why not target the other closeted queer kids at your school? That seems great.
HZ: Look, I'm not saying I approve of this tactic either, but given what the guys here are like she could just do like performative lesbian webcams for people like Dick, for like $1,000-a-minute.
JOY: If this was 2020, Kylie would just have an OnlyFans page, and she'd be raking it in.
HZ: I'm not saying she even has to do sex stuff. She just has to exist on a webcam. She can be fully-clothed, but just happens to be lesbian, and they'll be like, "Hnnhgnnffggnnn."
JOY: Jesus.
HZ: That's it.
JOY: That's it.
HZ: The money makes itself. So, that's depressing.
JOY: Very depressing.
HZ: Do you think they were just aware of the film But I'm A Cheerleader, about a lesbian cheerleader, and thought, "Oh, we could do something with that"?
JOY: Sure, yeah, why not?
HZ: In my opinion, the rest of the episode is better than that part.
JOY: Yeah. I agree with that. Where should we go first? Logantown or Terrence Cooktown? Let's start with Logan, because that guy, it's.... Hmm. Logan is lingering near some vending machines where a dude is getting a strawberry soda. Have you ever seen such a thing?
HZ: Not in a vending machine.
JOY: Also, this high school student buying a strawberry soda from the vending machine looks like he's about 35, 40 years old.
HZ: Well, maybe he is staff?
JOY: No, no, no, no, no. He has the presence of a teen, but the visage of someone who has seen so much more.
HZ: Like so many of these kids, because, you know, we just know the traumas Veronica's been dealing with, and she's one of many.
JOY: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So Logan is over by the vending machines because that's where he and Hannah are making out. Brrr, it's a chilly day in Neptune, because Hannah is wearing a woolly scarf and beanie that are both pink argyle.
HZ: Pink argyle!
JOY: They've got strong Elon Musk and Grimes vibes in this moment, for some reason?
HZ: I can't picture either Elon Musk or Grimes in pink argyle. Because Meg's not there any more, and Madison, they've slightly pivoted her style, Hannah's getting all the pink clothes.
JOY: Right, right, right.
HZ: I quite like Hannah, actually. She has some decent lines. She does seem very young.
JOY: Yeah, like very young. But she's cute and she's sweet and she's smart. And, hey, you know, Logan is charming, so we get it, Hannah. You gotta do what you gotta do. So this scene where they're making out is very different from the next time we see them interact, where Logan's walking down the hall with Dick and they're like talking about partying and surfing or whatever.
HZ: Surf. Cabo. Surfing in Cabo.
JOY: Yeah, and she walks up selling something for like school fundraisy business, and Logan acts like he doesn't know her, which sucks.
HZ: And also, Dick gets to check out her boobs under the auspices of buying spirit buttons, which he doesn't, even. I don't see why this is necessary, and he could have at least said, "Hello," as you would to any random selling pep buttons.
JOY: Yeah, just be a fucking person. OK.
HZ: Also, they were all over the carnival. Everyone could have seen them at the carnival.
JOY: Oh yeah!
HZ: What's changed? Some bullshit. But win her back he does, because they have made a date to meet at her house on Saturday night, which is a big and glassy place. He turns up and Hannah looks a bit miffed, but softens almost immediately. And his excuse is like, "Yeah, I compartmentalise, because my first girlfriend was murdered, and my second girlfriend was nearly murdered, so I just want to protect you, right?"
JOY: Yeah. Yeah. He's like, "Check out my pattern of dead or nearly-dead ex-girlfriends, and then you'll see that it's totally reasonable for me to ignore you." But Helen: big news, because Logan and Hannah are enjoying movie night in the lower level of the Griffith house, and Logan must feel right at home because behind them on the wall is an enormous piece of face art, a huge face. It's got to be eight feet tall, looming behind them on the wall.
HZ: What is that? Is it Hannah's dad?
JOY: I think if memory serves that it was of a woman. And assumably not Hannah's mom, because they are divorced.
HZ: Maybe it's one of his plastic surgery clients?
JOY: Hmm. Very possible.
HZ: They're snuggling and snacking and talking about how Hannah's parents split a year ago because they grew apart, slash were always arguing about money. Interrupted by Dr Tom Griffith coming downstairs in a blue shirt and gold tie, even though it's Saturday night. Very caszh. He looks horrified, and then he goes back upstairs, sort of like when a vampire is sucked back into their coffin.
JOY: Logan pops upstairs to have a little threat party with dad.
HZ: Logan uses the toilet. He's a toilet person.
JOY: He's a a toilet person. That's... In more ways than one.
GRIFFITH: I want you to get out of my house and never speak to her again.
LOGAN: You really want that to happen? You'd better rethink what you saw on the bridge. Scratch that: what the Fitzpatricks told you you saw.
GRIFFITH: You can't threaten me, you little punk.
LOGAN: Wouldn't be here if you couldn't be threatened.
GRIFFITH: So do you want to be the one to explain to Hannah why you're really here? Try and bully me?
LOGAN: Well, why don't you tell her? Sounds like you guys already are so close. I'm sure she'll see things your way.
GRIFFITH: Please don't do this.
LOGAN: While you're at it, try explaining why you never mentioned how you're the mystery witness in my murder case. That'll be good.
JOY: I think he leaves this conversation, Logan leaves this conversation, with the upper hand.
HZ: Yeah.
JOY: But also, dude. Hannah is a person. I don't know, it sucks.
HZ: Here's the thing: I like Logan versus Tom Griffith, but I hate Logan using Hannah, even though he's like, "No, I wasn't using you" later, he bloody is. After he leaves, of course Tom tells Hannah about the whole murder thing. So in school, she's studying in a pink polo neck because she's the pink person now, and Logan enters and gives the teacher a note that somehow propels Hannah out into the hallway so that he can grab her and shove her into a classroom. He seems to bethinking about romance when he does this. He just wants some out-of-class smooching, but she does not because she's like, "You're a murderer, though." Also, he keeps grabbing her arm and shoving her. It's a lot of physical intimidation from him, this scene.
JOY: That's not great. But you can see in Hannah's face that she isn't totally closed off to Logan's version of events, and he says, "You know, your dad's in debt to the Fitzpatricks. Keep an open mind and look around your house, and see if there's anything there that backs up my side of stuff."
HZ: Yeah, who would you believe: your dad, or a guy you've been on two dates with?
JOY: Well, depends on the dad. It depends on the guy. Her dad seems like a real fucking creep, like ice creep.
HZ: Terrible tie, also. Very chilling-looking house. Looks like the kind of house where if you've got a film where a woman escapes an evil, controlling husband, that's where he would live.
JOY: Oh, yes, 100 percent. He kind of actually reminds me, now that we're talking about it, he kind of reminds me of the surgeon in The Human Centipede. Similar cold energy.
HZ: Maybe that's the kind of surgery he has been doing.
JOY: I hope not, Helen.
HZ: The one thing I do love about this scene is that Logan is wearing some classic pond-coloured attire, and because the classroom walls are kind of light brown and it's fairly dimly lit, all you can really see is his hovering head.
JOY: Yes, yes, blending in with his surroundings, as he would in nature. So Hannah takes this to heart and she checks the caller ID in her home, and sees about a million calls to different Fitzpatricks and the River Styx.
HZ: Well, just the name Fitzpatrick without specifying which of the many it is.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: Did the dad fill in all those contacts on the landline?
JOY: Right? Or is it caller ID's work?
HZ: It's like he wants to be found.
JOY: And then she goes into the bathroom, opens a box of bandages, and finds, of course, a stash of coke. That's where I keep mine, Helen.
HZ: Yes, so that you can use it after you brush your teeth.
JOY: Or right before I brush my teeth. This seems weirdly... I don't know, like, not... I guess it's kind of hidden? If it's in, like, the bathroom that's like off of his bedroom, then maybe that's...
HZ: I'm sure he's got air vents he could have hidden it in.
JOY: Kids hurt themselves all the time.
HZ: Especially in that house. All cold, hard edges.
JOY: Yeah, all the glass waiting to be shattered. It stands to reason that she might need a bandage at some point, that he should be keeping his coke in his underwear drawer.
HZ: So there's not a huge amount of plot advancement with this, this week. Just more entrenchment of Logan versus Tom, with Hannah as the ballast.
JOY: Right.
HZ: She's catching feelings.
JOY: She's catching feelings. He comes by art class as it's getting out, and she's like, "You were right about my dad," and then they hold hands, and then a song kicks in, and it's like, "I don't know what love is," and then Veronica and Mac see them holding hands, walking down the hallway.
HZ: Veronica looks back at them as if she's dying a bit. And I suppose she knows Logan's got a type, which is pretty blondes who are quite good at quips. And Kendall was sort of an aberration-like rebound person, but she's like, "Well, Hannah's his type, this might actually be real." That's how I interpreted her look.
JOY: And as we all know, no boys are allowed to like any girls except Veronica.
HZ: No. The song is by the British band Starsailor, because we know the music supervisor of this show loves British indie bands of the mid-2000s.
JOY: Yes, yes, yes. And that's it for Logan, right?
HZ: Yeah, not too busy this week. Just a bit of messing with her dad and being a jerk. It's well within his wheelhouse.
JOY: Not a stretch. He didn't need to prepare for this in any way. He was ready to go. It's like rolling out of bed.
HZ: So the two long plot arcs of the season are "Who killed Felix?" and "bus crash", and we get a bit of both of them. So off to Terrence and Keith, this sort of buddy relationship. I don't know whether we've seen Keith before with like a regular pal like this, have we?
JOY: I don't think so. I think the only person, the only adults we've seen Keith interact with on an ongoing basis have been Alicia and Cliff, right? Sorry to rub salt in the wound of absent Alicia. But yeah, now he's got his little baseball buddy who's being followed by paparazzi. You know, Neptune is just crawling with paparazzi. He's being harassed by Sheriff Lamb, and he doesn't remember what he did between 5pm and 11pm, which is relatable content.
HZ: He makes a quip about the paparazzi waiting for him to make a run for it in his Bronco, or I assumed it was a quip, but then later we see Jackie driving a Bronco, so there is a Bronco in the Cook car collection.
JOY: It is curious, because it feels like a very straight-ahead OJ Simpson reference, but...
HZ: Yep, and I suppose he is a black sports player accused of a murder.
JOY: But I think Jackie also had access to the Bronco, I think we've seen the Bronco way back in the first episode that we knew Jackie was Terrence Cook's daughter.
HZ: Yeah, she was introduced with a complaint about the car she was allowed to drive.
JOY: Right, right, right, right, right.
HZ: So from what Terrence remembers of the day, he was at Shark Field field until 5pm, and then at 11pm he saw news of the crash on TV, can't remember in the middle. And when Keith is like, "How come?" and he's like, "Well, can you?" and Keith's like, "No, you're right." So, that's fair. I do find it a bit frustrating that there's always these reasons why things aren't going to work for this plotline, because they do need to prolong it for such a long time. So then Keith gets Veronica to find out who's on Terrence's call list. She's like, "Who's this guy?" and he's like, "Oh, Crazy Hank, a guy who works on my car, we were - wait a minute! We were at a casino that day!"
JOY: Aha!
HZ: And Keith's like, "Brilliant, casinos have loads of surveillance footage," and Terrence is like, "Yeah, but I owe the casino millions, so they're not gonna help me out." But they'll help Keith Mars out. He goes there, walks and talks with Leonard Lobo. You know, who can resist a walk and talk?
LOBO: What's he paying you, Mr Mars?
KEITH: Four hundred dollars a day.
LOBO: That's four hundred dollars a day he should be paying me.
KEITH: Terrence Cook's going to get charged with murder any day now.
LOBO: Terrence Cook owes me a significant amount of money. That's where my interest in him begins and ends. They can swing him from the rafters for all I care.
KEITH: Well maybe all that swinging will drop some change from his pockets. It might be a little hard to get paid by an incarcerated man.
LOBO: Reggie, check the tapes. See what you come up with.
JOY: It's just good sense. Mr Lobo's got a better chance of getting paid if Terrence Cook doesn't go to jail.
HZ: Exactly. Either way, though, whether Terrence Cook goes to jail or is kind of in hock to the casino forever, he's got a pretty shit time ahead.
JOY: Yes.
HZ: Keith, however, gets $2's worth of chips to have fun with, while Lobo's people find the footage for him. So that's nice. And he seems so stressed.
JOY: Oh, man, I am with him. Gambling is just not for me. I would be Keith in this scenario. Keith, you got to just cash those out and take that $2 home.
HZ: Can you even cash out $2, or are the cashiers just like, "Don't even"? He loses the $2, but luckily is saved by a tap on the shoulder. They've got all these surveillance pictures for Keith and Keith's like, "But wait, there's five vital minutes missing. Where's Terrence Cook at precisely 7:03pm?" So then he tries to make a phone call amid the slot machines, and one of the goons is like, "Sir, take it outside, because we jam all the signals so that cheats cannot cheat."
JOY: Oh-ho!
HZ: Jamming the signals! Cue Keith's smug face.
JOY: Yeah. I guess he doesn't need those vital five minutes after all.
HZ: How big's the casino? Is it possible to walk out, make a call, come back in?
JOY: Have you ever traipsed around an American casino, Helen? I hope not.
HZ: I have, and it's like trying to get out of an Ikea in under 20 minutes.
JOY: Exactly. They sprawl.
HZ: Do they really do the signal blocking, I wonder?
JOY: I think they do. I think that's real.
HZ: So this seems like great news, and somewhat of a relief because we can be like, "Oh, finally we don't have to keep on with this plot." And yet...
JOY: And yet, when Keith gives Terrence the news, Terrence tells him that Leonard Lobo was accused of throwing a game at some point, so he's on this, like, list of unsavoury characters and wouldn't be a good alibi, or is the kind of alibi source that would just, like, make more problems for Terrence. I'm tired, Helen. Can't these guys just figure it out?
HZ: Just one breakthrough, please.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: Just fucking eliminate him, move on to the next thing. But they're going to take the photos to the sheriff. Now, at school, Veronica is trying to cadge a lift to the game, the sports game, on the bus with the guys, but the teacher is like, "No, no girls with guys. Girls are just a distraction. You know what happens to guys when there's a girl around, they just become uncontrollable. Like werewolves. You’re like a full moon to a werewolf, Veronica."
JOY: Ha!
HZ: What's funny to me is like, during this conversation Jackie comes into the classroom as if she's got class, offers Veronica a ride in her car instead, and then leaves. So what was she coming in for?
JOY: She just missed Veronica, Helen.
HZ: That's sweet.
JOY: Let them be friends.
HZ: I love them being friends, Jenny. Loved it last episode, love it this episode.
JOY: But you know Jackie can't just, like, roll to a basketball game in the Bronco. The bouncy Bronco. She drives Veronica to a fucking hangar full of fancy rich guy cars.
HZ: The cars are Terrence's cars, but the hangar is Woody's hangar?
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: The mayor has a hangar. There's a fucking helicopter in it.
JOY: Yeah, why not? And what's interesting is that Jackie is like, "Take your pick," but most of the cars are parked in such a way that they wouldn't be able to just be driven out.
HZ: Maybe they get winched out the top.
JOY: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Take your pick of the two cars that are kind of in the exit points.
HZ: This reminded me of a place that I went to once called the Cars Of The Stars Museum - now I think it's shut down, sadly - where someone in the rural northwest of England had collected all these cars that had been in films, like a DeLorean, they had the A-Team van, the Flintstones car, a lot more rides in that that I would have been excited to get to take to the game. Yeah, fucking take the Flintstones car.
JOY: Well, the problem with the Flintstones car is that you have to pedal it with your caveman feet.
HZ: I suppose, and they've got a 75-mile journey. Fair enough. No wonder Veronica chooses a Bentley, and she gets to drive it on the way home, which is startling.
JOY: That seems like the hardest thing to suspend my belief about, that Jackie would let Veronica drive that car. That just seems crazy.
HZ: It's a giant car. Can Veronica even reach the pedals?
JOY: Pedals? No, definitely not.
HZ: They're chatting about how Wallace did some Jordan-esque achievements up to the sports game, but they can't praise him to his face because Veronica prefers him humble, as we know. She likes to keep him at her mercy by making his self-esteem damaged.
JOY: No amount of praise could poison Wallace. He's a perfect basketball angel. Then we get Keith and Terrence Cook confronting Lamb with the surveillance photos, trying to get him to back off of Terrence Cook as a part of this investigation. But no, Lamb is unwilling to participate in this.
KEITH: I want you to announce that Terrence Cook has been cleared of suspicion in the bus crash.
LAMB: What? Is this some kind of Jedi mind trick?
JOY: When Lamb is clearly going to be difficult, and Keith hands him the CD to essentially blackmail him, Lamb crosses his fingers and says, "I really hope it's the new Big & Rich." Helen, do you know, are you familiar with the musical artists Big & Rich?
HZ: I'm not, Jenny. Should I?
JOY: Well, they are, I think, best-known for their country smashola ‘Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy’.
HZ: That doesn't work.
JOY: That's about sex. ‘Have sex with a cowboy.’
HZ: "Don't fuck a horse," OK, what a message.
JOY: Listen! You have to hold two layers in your mind at the same time. "Don't ride a horse regular. Instead, fuck a cowboy."
HZ: "Take a cowboy to the races, and see if they can handle the jumps"?
JOY: Just make sure you only have one headphone in at any time.
HZ: I just don't think this analogy works, Jenny.
JOY: Helen, I feel like you're missing the spirit of modern American country music.
HZ: Am I? Am I, by jove. It seems appropriate that Lamb would like this.
JOY: Yeah, this is exactly the kind of shit I could picture Lamb rocking out to.
HZ: Except Lamb seems unfucked by all of this that's happening.
TERRENCE: I don't think a grand jury will have a hard time figuring it out. You don't back off, Sheriff, and that recording is going straight to Woody Goodman, the newspapers, your grandmama.
LAMB: Right. Here's how it's gonna play out, slugger. Release the tape, I lose my $50,000 civil servant job; you: you lose your Hall of Fame induction, your color commentating gig, your endorsements. Now where's the trade in that, Terrence?
HZ: Also, as Lamb counts out things, he gives Terrence the finger.
JOY: Wow.
HZ: Petty, but that's how he likes to be.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: But back in the hangar, the car's top won't go up, and Veronica's like, "Well, Bentleys and my shit car that everyone talks about being shit all the time, they're basically the same. Broken fuse. I'll just go and get a screwdriver to fix it."
JOY: Except the screwdrivers are kept in the exact same place as all these explosives and detonators. Helen!
HZ: You never know when you might need an explosive close at hand.
JOY: Does Veronica even know what... I don't know, they don't show us anything, we don't know what she sees.
HZ: No. Maybe it's cartoon sticks of dynamite.
JOY: Ooh, yes. Please let it be so.
HZ: It's shocking enough a revelation that she wakes up Keith, and he's like, "Oof, so much for my gut trusting Terrence."
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: That's what happens when you love sports people, just broken hearts.
JOY: But just hang on, Keith - let's get a look at these explosives, in the next episode, probably.
HZ: It sort of felt like some progress was being made, except essentially not. There's still doubt as to whether Terrence is innocent, and the proof that he wouldn't have done it is inadmissible for reasons. So, no real movement on the season-long mysteries.
JOY: Yeah, yeah. We're just treading water here.
HZ: Well, shall we go now to our resident legal expert and southern Californian marshmallow Lo Dodds for today's LoDown?
JOY: Dear god yes, let's go.
THE LODOWN
HZ: OK, Lo, I'm going to start with a simple question, insofar as I can summon one as this episode goes. At the beginning, Corny drives up and he's wearing headphones, but is it not illegal to wear headphones whilst driving in California?
LO DODDS: It is. It's actually illegal to wear headphones in both ears, either driving or biking. So technically he wouldn't be violating the vehicle code, and it's just a fine, but you can get points on your licence for it.
HZ: What about if you're riding a horse? Still a form of transport.
LO DODDS: The vehicle code doesn't really cover horses, I don't think?
HZ: That's dangerous.
LO DODDS: I mean, I could be wrong, but yeah, I don't think so.
JOY: Keith and Terrence Cook are on a hunt to come up with an alibi that proves that Terrence Cook couldn't have made this call at exactly 7.03pm, right? And I'm wondering if you have a sense, or you can enlighten us to sort of any data that you may have accrued over your years of being intimately familiar with the law, about people and alibis. Like, how frequently does somebody need a to-the-minute alibi? How likely are they to be able to produce that to-the-minute alibi? And like, if you asked me yesterday what I did, or if you asked me today what I did yesterday, I would tell you that I was home all day, except I would be forgetting that I left for a half hour to pick my dog up from the vet, which is exactly the window during which the plumber stopped by to fix the drain.
LO DODDS: And when you murdered the plumber?
HZ: Blew up the drain?
JOY: When I murdered the plumber, yes, exactly. No, when when the plumber texted me this morning, he was like, "I came by yesterday," and I was like, "How the fuck could that be? I was here." I'm just saying, like, the fallibility of human memory. I know I'm taking the long way around Lo, but, like, how do people even come up with fucking alibis? Like, how can you prove...
HZ: How can anyone remember episode 1 halfway through the season??
JOY: This is what I'm saying!
LO DODDS: I think that you're probably forgetting that in this day and age of technology, most people do have alibis as to where they are, because your phone is tracking you everywhere. They convict a lot of people based on their cellphones pinging certain towers and being in the vicinity of certain places.
HZ: Yes, we've heard Serial season 1.
LO DODDS: But I think Terrence here... First of all, the prosecution has the burden of proof. The prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this thing happened. This person committed this crime. The standard of proof in civil cases is lower. But for Terrence Cook, I don't think that they are trying to prove his alibi so much, not because he's required to do it, he's trying to give an alibi so Lamb will get off his back so that he can not go through this trial by media, which is really what he's concerned with. He doesn't want all the gambling stuff brought up. But right now, the case against Terrence Cook is pretty weak. Like, kids went to a baseball field, and there's remnants of baseball memorabilia on the bus. Like, yes? How are you actually going to tie Terrence to this case? Why Keith and Terrence are willing to resort to felony extortion to get Lamb to back off...
HZ: Yeah, that didn't seem like the most above board tactic.
LO DODDS: I don't even know... Like, Lamb is committing extortion in the tape, because, yes, he will lose his job and he will be charged with a crime, and not only that but Terrence could sue him. And then Keith and Terrence, again, with the extortion, and it's worse because Lamb is a public figure and you're extorting this public figure to do a public act. Bribing politicians and blackmailing politicians is never a great thing to do. This "mutually assured destruction", as Veronica called it, doesn't really sit well with me. For Keith especially.
HZ: Wasn't good in season 1 episode 20, it's not good now.
LO DODDS: It doesn't make sense. We've talked before about possession of incendiary devices, so the explosives would be a crime. Possession of the explosives, that whole, again, the idea that Terrence has explosives is itself a crime, but the idea that the police would have to tie those particular explosives to the explosives that were detonated on the bus, like, I'm still not seeing a great conviction to happen here for Terrence Cook.
HZ: Well, especially as the hanger belongs to another person.
LO DODDS: Exactly. That's right. It belongs to Woody. So, you know, he does have access to it, so that's, you know, they're going to use that. But why do they have all those cars if he owes so much money to Lobo? I don't understand. There's a million dollars in that hangar, easy. Unless he's under water on all those cars, like if he had them all on loan and he doesn't actually own them outright and he's just making payments, maybe not, but there's still some value in there and you would think that those cars would all have been gone to pay gambling debts. So, yeah, I don't understand that at all. I think they really focus on reputational harm in this episode. So this is the thing with the forced outing of the students and the blackmail of the students. Again, more blackmail, my god; Kylie committing felony extortion, it's the same felony that Keith and Terrence and Lamb are all going to get charged with. It's subject to some serious penalties. Use of the mail to commit this crime is also going to land her with more severe penalties.
HZ: Really? Why?
LO DODDS: Well, extortion is a state crime, so she's going to face state penalties, but use of the mail services may also subject her to federal charges. And I'm not sure how this was going to go down because she said her mom works there, and you want to go, so does that mean she was planning to go to her mom's work and rifle around in the mail room? Was the mom going to retrieve the package for her? She's stealing mail that's not addressed to her. That's a federal crime. What's-his-face with the rims...
JOY: Kelly.
LO DODDS: Kelly, yes. Kelly lied to the police and filed a false police report, and also committed insurance fraud. Hey, you want to talk about the pizza burglar? Arturo?
HZ: I suppose. What's Arturo facing?
LO DODDS: Yeah, so Arturo is probably not facing anything.
JOY: What! But he tased people! Assault, battery...
HZ: Stealing pizzas.
LO DODDS: Here's the thing: you cannot force someone to confess something under penalty of being attacked by a dog, tape them without their consent, and then tape them to a pole and call the police.
HZ: Mars laws!
LO DODDS: That confession is going to be inadmissible. And also, when they question Arturo: Arturo is a freshman, Corny said, so you cannot question a minor, sorry, not just a minor, a kid that's under 15 can't waive their Miranda rights before consulting with an attorney. And when Cliff shows up, he is definitely going to tell Arturo to keep his mouth shut. They might be able to search Arturo's apartment or his house and find whether or not he has pizza lying around, but again, that's going to be pretty circumstantial. So, yeah, it's going to come down to Corny and Veronica, and considering Veronica is doing the illegal wiretapping once again, it's not a good case. I'm pretty sure Cliff is going to get Arturo off.
HZ: Is it a crime to order pizza for someone else that doesn't know you're doing it? Pizza fraud?
LO DODDS: Pizza fraud, ha!
HZ: Well, Jenny is your favourite line, "Work your funky magic?"
JOY: Nay, my favourite line is... I have to pick this one, it's like my cultural obligation, Helen. "Sorry to blow your mind, but I'm a lesbian, Veronica." If only she had said "Mars", then we could have drank.
HZ: Aw. Have you ever used that line yourself?
JOY: Hmm. I don't think so. I can't imagine it blowing anyone's mind to discover that I am gay.
HZ: Not all explosives are as identifiable as the ones that Veronica finds.
JOY: Right. And some minds are more blowable than others.
HZ: I guess.
JOY: I'm praying that your line was my other contender for best line. Let it be so.
HZ: I found it funny when Veronica said, "Are you ready to be the bait, Corny?," and he's like, "Hell yeah, no one's better, I'm what you'd call a master-bait."
JOY: Yeah, Corny. Nice.
HZ: Bless him.
JOY: Should we rate this fucking episode?
HZ: Better had do, Jenny. I just really wish they didn't love homophobia and shame as much as they do.
JOY: Yeah. I want to give it points for, in one way subverting our expectations and making like the, air quotes, "hot cheerleader" a lesbian. I feel like that doesn't happen as often, right? I want to give them points for like having a plot about gay students, but it just was so ragged and painful.
HZ: And again, not a positive plot.
JOY: Not a positive plot at all.
HZ: Because the one that was the least-closeted was blackmailing the other one.
JOY: Yeah, it's pretty bad representation.
HZ: Preying on their shame.
JOY: I have no choice but to give this episode, which was a confusing mess, maybe like one and a half $1,500 rims?
HZ: That's generous.
JOY: Thank you.
HZ: I liked seeing Veronica doing some detectiving, even if a lot of it was misbegotten. I liked Corny, I liked seeing Carmen again, even just a little bit. If the character of Kylie hadn't been blackmailing other people and preying on their shame, then I would be like, cool, a lesbian who seems proud and happy about it. That would have been a nice character.
JOY: That's not what you get on this show, Helen. No, no, no, no, no, no.
HZ: So I guess I'll give it to two $1 poker chips.
JOY: Wow.
HZ: Which it will then lose.
JOY: This episode just made like $2,252 out of us. Is that right? Between one and a half $1,500 rims, and $2 in poker chips, this episode made a tidy profit. Maybe Kylie's going to get out of Neptune after all with all the funds we just provided.
HZ: What's the going rate of half a rim, though, Jenny? I feel like as soon as it's not a whole rim, the value just plummets.
JOY: No, no, no, no, no, you can just solder it together with the other half of the rim, so I'm valuing it at $750.
HZ: You don't have the other half. The episode didn't earn it.
JOY: Well! I daresay that's this episode of Veronica Mars investigated.
HZ: Case closed.
JOY: That was Veronica Mars Investigations Season 2 Episode 14: Versatile Toppings.
HZ: Watch season 2 episode 15 and join us in a week to investigate it. JOY: Find the show on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @VMIpod.
HZ: The website, where the show lives in a hangar with a lot of fancy cars and the mayor’s helicopter, is vmipod.com.
JOY: Good gravy. My name is Jenny Owen Youngs, and when I'm not making this podcast, I make a podcast called Buffering the Vampire Slayer, you can listen to it or I also make a great deal of music. That is my main life pursuit. And you can hear some of it and learn more about all that it is at jennyowenyoungs.com.
HZ: I'm Helen Zaltzman and I make two other podcasts Answer Me This and the Allusionist, and lately on the Allusionist is an episode about translating Black Lives Matter into Yiddish. That's at theallusionist.org.
JOY: This episode was edited and mixed by Helen Zaltzman. Thanks to Ian Steadman for the episode transcript.
HZ: The music is by Martin Austwick and Jenny Owen Youngs.
JOY: The sheriff of this town is Hrishikesh Hirway.
HZ: The show is distributed by PRX.
JOY: Until next time, who’s your daddy?
HZ: Who’s your daddy? Where does he keep his drugs?
JOY: Well away from me. Unfortunately.