VMI 2.16 The Rapes of Graff transcript
Listen to this episode at VMIpod.com/2-16
Content note: Veronica Mars contains heavy themes, and this episode includes storylines concerning drug- and alcohol-assisted rape.
A LONG TIME AGO ON VERONICA MARS:
It’s the return of two of our season 1 least faves: sex crimes, and TROY.
Veronica’s not pleased to see him either, but does agree to help him when he’s accused of raping a Hearst College student and shaving her head.
This entails infiltrating a frat house, which seems like the worst place in the world?
Meanwhile, Cliff has been handcuffed to a bed by a sex worker and had his briefcase stolen, full of evidence about Logan’s murder case.
And Sheriff Lamb and Madison Sinclair are hooking up?? Two wrongs do make a... wrong!
JOY: I have a zest for life, so sue me, I’m Jenny Owen Youngs.
HZ: And snorting a line of ants, I’m Helen Zaltzman.
You’re listening to Veronica Mars Investigations, Season 2 Episode 16: The Rapes of Graff.
HZ: There's a time and a place for wordplay, and rape is never it. And it's all because of the reappearance of Troy.
JOY: No! Hissssssss! Though he is slightly less hateable in this episode. Slightly.
HZ: You know those wonderful cards you have made, Jenny, so that we can distinguish all of these rich white boys from each other - available at VMIpod.com/cards - and when you did the cards for Troy early on in season one and you made a comment about his hair being the same shape as his head? Every time he's on screen, I can't forget that now. You've changed me.
JOY: He's like a GI Joe figure. He's like a Kewpie doll. It's just painted on. There's no topographical differentiation. It's just skin colour, hair colour...
HZ: Head shape, hair shape: why should they be different?
JOY: No!
HZ: Troy has reappeared to be on a three-day tour of Hearst College with Veronica and Wallace.
JOY: This is uncalled for. Cruel and unusual. Three days??? What are they doing for three days? What is Michael Cera showing these people for three fucking days? Like, "Here's a building, here's a building, here's a building, come to a party."
HZ: Alia Shawkat is also in this. The cousins from Arrested Development. And apparently Rob Thomas asked to cast them as soon as he heard that Arrested Development was getting cancelled, and they were like, "Fine, as long as we play characters very different to the ones we play in Arrested Development." Which she does.
JOY: Well, I mean, he does, in a way.
HZ: Hmmm...
JOY: He seems to have more autonomy. He's more of a self-starter.
HZ: His shirts are plainer.
DEAN: You have to tell your partner two facts and one lie and they have to guess which one is the lie. Right. OK, so ahead.
VERONICA: OK, I’m Veronica, I’m from Neptune, and I once shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.
DEAN: Oh, how did that go?
VERONICA: It was a bit of a letdown.
DEAN: Hmm. Well, I don’t believe that you’re from Neptune.
VERONICA: Wrong. Is that the end?
DEAN: OK, well, my name is Dean, I’m from Wheaton, Illinois; my father owns a Ford dealership; and I also shot a man in Reno, but it was not to watch him die, tt was for other issues.
VERONICA: Your father doesn’t sell Fords.
DEAN: That’s right. Toyotas. How did you know?
HZ: Zach McNees, who worked on season one of Veronica Mars Investigations, had an anecdote about Michael Cera, because they were playing poker together and Zach said, "I'm working on this show about Veronica Mars," and Michael Cera was like, "Oh, I was in Veronica Mars, I think I played a rapist." So he couldn't even remember what character he played. Unless that was the backstory he supplied himself for his character that is not recounted on screen.
JOY: Oh my god. Yikes. As we will see, that does not come up in this episode.
HZ: But anyway, Troy's there. He's got this disgusting sweater. Veronica's pretty pissed off to see him, but he says he's changed. We get an update of him.
JOY: Yeah, he says he's a good boy now.
HZ: Because last we saw him, he was fucking off with his, what was it, $8,000 worth of drugs? Off for a new life.
JOY: Except not, because Veronica flushed them into the Neptune water supply.
HZ: With his $8 worth of candy.
JOY: Right. So he, was running off with his ex-girlfriend, blah blah blah, but he's since been to private school, went to therapy, quit drugs, got rid of that girlfriend, and now he is a self-proclaimed mostly good boy.
HZ: It's a lot that happened, in a year.
JOY: Do you believe it, Helen?
HZ: He seems fine. Like the Troy that changed Veronica's tyre.
JOY: True.
HZ: Did you recognise Hearst College?
JOY: I didn't.
HZ: It is played by Torrance High School.
JOY: Oh my god, what?
HZ: Which plays the school in the first three seasons of Buffy.
JOY: I've been there!
HZ: This show knows two things happen at college: one, people talk about dead European philosophers, and two, parties! Horrible, misogynistic parties.
JOY: This must be your favourite thing that's ever happened on Veronica Mars, the scoring system that this one frat is employing. You love it, don't you, Helen? I know this is the kind of shit that you really love to see.
HZ: I'm going to start scoring everybody. There's this guy, Drew, who's pretty drunk, ranking Veronica with points.
DREW: So, you’re blonde – thirty points. And a natural, too, another twenty. You are super cute: fifty points. And you’re kind of like sassy.
VERONICA: So sassy’s good?
DREW: More like a degree of difficulty thing. Thirty points. And, you’re a pro-fro, eighty points.
VERONICA: So, if someone were to have sex with me, they’d walk away with 210 points?
DREW: That’s high. You should be psyched.
VERONICA: I am. Inside.
HZ: It's an additional 80, because she's a "pro-fro". What is a pro-fro?
JOY: Like a pre-freshman or something, which is like, yikes, extra points if you fuck somebody who's still in high school? Bleh.
HZ: Yes, well they're bad people.
JOY: Right. Right, right, right, right.
HZ: But he propositions Veronica - she's in great form this episode, she's not taking any of this shit.
JOY: No, no, no, no. She throws not one, but two beers on this guy. So good. Then he grabs her fricking arm and then whoa! Out of nowhere, here's Troy trying to be chivalrous, but he gets punched in the face.
HZ: Which of these two do you hate more, Drew or Troy?
JOY: Drew. 100 percent. 1,000 percent.
HZ: I'm just working out your point system.
JOY: Troy's on a redemption arc. Drew is irredeemable.
HZ: Yes. For his mouth-punch trouble, Troy gets rewarded with the offer of a beer from Alia Shawkat, who's playing a character called Stacy, and we've briefly seen her on the way into the party talking to a guy we later find out is called Gordon, and she says, "Heidegger's fine - if you're a Nazi!" Because that's college party chat, Jenny. You remember, from college.
JOY: I was always talking about Heidegger at parties at school.
HZ: Except for when you were talking about Kierkegaard.
JOY: That was the only time, yeah.
HZ: Wallace has been having a great time talking to a cute girl about Kirkegaard. Wallace is living his best life again.
JOY: He paired up with that girl at the beginning of this episode who was giving him the eye. Hell yeah, Wallace.
HZ: Isn't he dating Jane, though?
JOY: Well...
HZ: He's got romantic intrigues going on. Jane, Jackie...
JOY: Wallace can't be tethered to one set of responsibilities. He's a leaf on the wind, Helen.
HZ: He must live.
JOY: Yes.
HZ: He's standing in a corridor talking to Veronica, and behind him is a poster which is the blown-up dictionary entry for the word ‘college’. The decor literally says ‘college’.
JOY: I saw that, but I couldn't tell what it was. I love you for just discovering this. What the shit?
HZ: Magnificent.
JOY: Dean - Michael Cera - checks in on Wallace and Veronica. He's checking in on them all the time. "How are you guys doing? How are you? How are you enjoying the... Wow, how about this?"
HZ: He's trying to sell the college to them. He probably gets an Amazon gift card if he manages, for every student he recruits.
JOY: Oh, yes. He asks Veronica what she and Drew were talking about, and she says, "Jane Austen, but he dissed Pride & Prejudice so I had to throw a beer on him."
HZ: You understand it now, Jenny, don't you?
JOY: Yes, I get it now, I mean...
HZ: I thought it was a bit weird to name Michael Cera's character Dean, considering there are also deans of the college in the episode.
JOY: In the episode, yeah it's weird.
HZ: Veronica is all colleged out after the toxic wankerdom of this party, and Wallace obediently goes with her. On their way out, they see Troy and Stacy kissing, and then leaving. She leads him away. And on the way out, she passes Drew chatting up another girl, and just tasers him for fun.
JOY: Fuck yeah! Veronica, yes!
HZ: Gets beer on him a third time.
JOY: Tase that guy.
HZ: Although that is aggressive.
JOY: Sure.
HZ: The next morning, is Veronica hungover or just very tired?
JOY: I read this as a hangover, personally.
HZ: Yeah, that kind of works. Although we don't see her drink, do we?
JOY: No.
HZ: She's woken by the sound of the phone. Keith is out on a puzzling errand, according to the massive note that he's left her. It's Troy on the phone, he's at the Sheriff's Department, so we go there.
TROY: You remember that girl from the party last night, Stacy? Well, I guess she got date-raped.
LAMB: Actually, no. When they use roofies to knock 'em out, then shave their head afterward, we drop the ‘date’ part.
HZ: Lamb seems smug as hell about it, even though he did not care when Veronica was drug-raped.
JOY: Yeah, what the hell? Well I guess he was... Are we to believe that Veronica was just bearing the brunt of the post-Lilly Kane murder, anti-Keith, pro-Lamb kind of vibe?
HZ: I think he's just an antagonist, so he has to be as much of a shit as possible. Whatever the circumstance, he finds a way.
JOY: In every situation, yeah. Well that's a talent, finding is a way to do that.
HZ: He's a very talented antagonist. So these are the problems for Troy: he's the last thing that Stacy remembers, his clothes had been suspiciously washed, and he's like, "All we did was fool around, PG-13 level." What does that mean, Jenny? We have a different rating system here.
JOY: Boobs. Touching boobs, probably.
HZ: Over or under clothes?
JOY: Probably under clothes boob-touching, but nothing below the waist.
HZ: Right, OK. And then she puked on him, that's why he had to go to the all-night laundry, to wash the one set of clothes that he had for this three-day tour.
JOY: Has anyone ever puked on you in a romantic setting?
HZ: No.
JOY: Good. Hey, that's good.
HZ: Have they puked on you in a romantic setting?
JOY: Hell, no, I don't think so.
HZ: Don't think I've been puked on. A friend of mine at school puked in a jigsaw box at my house. That was unfortunate.
JOY: Ugh.
HZ: And two different friends puked in my mother's wellington boots.
JOY: What? On different occasions?
HZ: Yes.
JOY: Or like one per boot, at different times?
HZ: Different times.
JOY: Why? Why there?
HZ: I don't think you can really accurately find out from someone that is drunk enough to puke into a boot.
JOY: OK. Was the second person aware that the first person had done it at an earlier point? Was it a copycat puking? Or no?
HZ: I don't think, again, if you're in a state where you're going to puke in a boot, that you have the presence of mind to think, "Oh, I'll make it a callback."
JOY: OK, OK, OK. You might be surprised, Helen, what people are capable of.
HZ: I should ask him. So Troy brought just the clothes he stood up in for a three-day tour.
JOY: Ew.
HZ: What is Troy's deal? Is he staying his father's house, because he and his father seem to be pretty much at odds? Has he flown in from some kind of military academy on the other side of the country?
JOY: Maybe now that he's a good boy, he's allowed to stay at home for college tour long weekends?
HZ: But he's not allowed clothes.
JOY: No, only one set of clothes. Be a good boy, Troy.
HZ: Veronica goes to investigate at the frat house and just lets herself in, and there are all these guys sitting outside that sort of look askance at her, but none of them try to stop her.
JOY: Yeah, what's up with frat houses?
HZ: Why are you asking me?
JOY: Conveniently - is this normal? I guess I can't ask you, Helen, but there's a big old thing with photos of everybody in the frat, right there with their names, for easy identification. I don't know if this is standard practice or not.
HZ: Yeah, and who's in this frat? Awful Drew, and the guy, Gordon Peters, to whom Alia Shawkat was saying, "Heidegger is a Nazi." But then she's interrupted by someone called Chip, who's like, "Only brothers are allowed." She asks to see Gordon because he was the other guy coming on to Alia Shawkat at the party, Stacy, but he's away having his stomach pumped after 18 shots of vodka.
JOY: That's so many shots of vodka, Helen. OK, you know the thing where you're on a three-day college tour, and then you're accused of raping someone, and then, instead of going on the tour, you just like skulk really close to the tour?
HZ: Tour-adjacent skulking, yes.
JOY: This is such a curious choice for Troy.
HZ: That's Troy all over, isn't it? One set of clothes, one place to skulk. Just doesn't have the range.
JOY: He does not. But what he does have is a memory that he left his name and number on Stacy's message board, and why would he do that if he raped her, he asks Veronica, who doesn't necessarily take this as proof of anything.
HZ: No. She trusts him little enough that she's going to go and check, which is a good thing. On Stacy's door, it's a bit rubbed-off, but Troy's name and number do appear to be there, along with the letters "CCC" in a circle, and a big red "WE GOT UR BACK, GIRLFRIEND".
JOY: Oh, thank you, friends.
HZ: Which seems a bit threatening given that it's not attributed to anyone, and it's in red.
JOY: Yeah, true. [Makes the stabbing noises from Psycho] Don't turn around.
HZ: Another thing I wondered about is that this room is like the end of a corridor, and there's a big poster for a student production of Midsummer Night's Dream in the corridor right next to it, but why would you put that there when like one or two people are going to pass it?
JOY: Got a poster quota to fill, Helen. Got to get those posters up.
HZ: Why are they not thinking about the foot traffic? Stacy emerges wearing a bucket hat. Then there's this rape survivor-to-survivor moment from Veronica.
JOY: Yeah. It's interesting. Veronica says, "It sucks a lot, and then it'll suck a little less." You know, Stacy might benefit from a little bit of context. Just hearing that from a rando who you don't know, I feel like, would be possibly disconcerting.
HZ: "It sucks, and then it sucks less when it's retconned so that it was your boyfriend that you didn't feel raped by."
JOY: Right, yeah.
HZ: She whips off her hat and her head is very neatly buzzed.
JOY: Very neatly buzzed in a "I'm wearing a skullcap with a shaved head" look to it. That's a solid point, Helen: would whoever did this to her have managed such a tidy shave?
HZ: I did wonder, how easy is it to do? Or maybe they did an untidy shave and someone has tidied it up afterwards, with her permission. But, yeah, there's this box on the floor by the door full of hair. Not her hair, though.
JOY: Yeah, I wonder if I saw a box of my own hair, or like a box of hair that was kind of like mine, if I would be able to be like, "That's not mine." You know? But she's confident.
HZ: I gave both my parents haircuts at the weekend. That was a weird experience.
JOY: How did it go?
HZ: It went alright. I mean, my dad is mostly bald.
JOY: So little work to do.
HZ: Yeah. But then there's this little wreath of silver hair, and it's so curly that when you pull it out, it's actually really long.
JOY: Oh, wow.
HZ: So I just had to prune that back. But my mum asked for it to be long in the back and short on top, and I just was not willing to do that. And I was the one with the scissors, so...
JOY: Your mum wants a mullet?
HZ: I don't think she realises that it's not a good thing to want. So I gave her a better haircut than that, and everyone else likes it. You know, I feel bad to have gone against her will, but...
JOY: Protecting our mothers against mullets is one of the most important things we can do. Now more than ever, Helen.
HZ: A concerned citizen named Jen runs up and tells Stacy that Veronica's helping Troy, "Don't trust her." Undeterred, though, Veronica goes to a wig shop because she deduces that if this box of hair is fetched up, it's from another victim of this rapist. So maybe someone is already on campus wearing a wig, and she is ready to give an Emmy-worthy performance to find out.
JOY: Oh my gosh. She's weaving a tale, a tale of desperation, sorrow, people torn apart by circumstance.
HZ: There's all this sentimental music under it:
VERONICA: Ma’am, she’s run away. She’s scared and she’s alone; we don’t even want to know how she’s making her money. She’s given up on life. And she thinks she’s sparing us the pain, but not knowing where she is or what name she’s using or whether she’s safe, it’s torture. Please, ma’am, she’s my sister!
WIG STORE ASSISTANT: I’m sorry, this girl was Hawaiian.
JOY: Hey, hasn't this person ever heard of blended families or adoption?
HZ: Seriously.
JOY: Come on.
HZ: So off she goes then to Michael Cera's room, which has a backlit Hearst College crest on the wall.
JOY: Good lord. Why, sir?
HZ: He probably got that as a bonus gift for recruiting students.
JOY: Yikes. Helpful Dean. Veronica notices a "CL" on somebody's message board and is like, "Hey, I saw a triple C, and now I'm seeing a CL, and what does it all mean?" And Dean says, "Ah that's like Roman numerals, Pi Sig, they do this thing where they, like, assign points to girls, and that means 150, and if you don't score high enough," he says, "if you don't bang enough ladies and get enough points, they shave your frickin' head, the Pi Sigs." Lot of head shaving going on in this episode.
HZ: It's all a conspiracy by Big Clippers.
JOY: Big Clippers and Big Wigs.
HZ: I don't know why they would choose Roman numerals for this, because I imagine a drunk frat boy wouldn't be able to work out anything that wasn't like rounded up to 50 or 100.
JOY: Well, does it have to do with perhaps the the closeness of Greek and Roman cultures?
HZ: Could be, or just so that it's not immediately obvious that it's a number. Keep us going through this episode.
JOY: Right.
HZ: I was like, "Is it Creative Commons, that CC?" Good news for Veronica, there's a Pacific Islander student gathering at the weekend.
JOY: How handy.
HZ: Back at the fucking frat, Pi Sigma Sigma, Wallace is getting shown around by awful Drew. Do they just show round anyone that wants to?
JOY: Sure. Prospective pledges for next year.
DREW: If you get that scholarship, you got to join. When I got here, I was like, I totally want to be a Pi.
WALLACE: Uh, yeah, yeah. Once when I was little, I wanted to be ice cream.
DREW: Dude, Pi Sig Sig. You’re hilarious. You’ll totally fit in.
HZ: Our sweet Wallace. What a blessed boy.
JOY: Indeed.
HZ: As he goes round, he effortlessly unlatches a window so Veronica can sneak in.
JOY: So slick, Wallace. He's done so much training. He's been training years for this moment.
HZ: He's a good deputy at this point. She effortlessly slips into the basement, and finds the board covered in trophies, such as underwear. And a photo of Veronica?
JOY: Also, she's sleeping. Who got this photo and when?
HZ: Yes! Or maybe she's just blinking and... I don't know.
JOY: Yeah. A long, nice long blink. Also, what, did he go to the 24-hour, the one-hour photo place, to get that developed? What the fuck?
HZ: I have questions. Did they get it beforehand?
JOY: Do you, in order to go on the Hearst three-day college tour, do you have to submit a photo of yourself sleeping?
HZ: Yeah, there's a lot of questions about the presence of this photo. So presumably he's lying about having had sex with Veronica, so that makes this whole board redundant, basically. If people are not playing by the rules, then what kind of contest is this? It's not a fair fight. She looks for a 300 score, because that's what the "CCC" meant on Stacy's door, and there is one next to the name Ice Man - coincidentally the character played by Troy aka Aaron Ashmore's twin brother Shawn Ashmore, in the X-Men films.
JOY: Oh my god. Wow.
HZ: But shit! Gordon interrupts, and then he calls the Ice Man down, and fucking Ice Man is Chip from earlier, pulls her away from the board, and then she accuses him of the rape.
JOY: And apparently he got these 300 points for sleeping with the Dean's wife.
HZ: Suuure.
JOY: Sure, dude. Sure.
HZ: Gordon is short-haired, which he wasn't in the first scene he was in in the episode. Where did his long hair go? Into a box, perchance? And then the one who has Veronica's photo pinned in his section of the board is "Bird Dawg", who turns out to be fucking Drew.
JOY: Ew. Go home, Drew.
HZ: I suppose he is home. In his toxic bachelor cavern.
JOY: Alright. Yeah. He comes down and Veronica's like, "Get your clippers, boys, because this guy and I did not have sex." Not that he has much hair to shave off.
HZ: No, exactly. What kind of punishment is that? Outside, Veronica finds that Pacific Islander lunch club, sees a girl with bright pink hair, and asks her where she can get custom wigs made for a theatrical production. Whoops! It's that girl's own hair!
JOY: How dare she?
HZ: Naturally bright pink.
JOY: But don't worry, somebody else at the table does have a wig store recommendation.
HZ: So Veronica waits for her until she's finished lunch. Not at all weird. And then assembles in a church-looking lecture hall with the Dean, Stacy, and Dawn, who's the girl with the wig, and she's like, "It couldn't have been Troy that raped Stacy because Dawn was raped a month ago, and Troy was across the country then. And the hair in the box wasn't even Dawn's hair, it was Gordon's hair. He was angry to have failed the pledge, and had to shave his head." Veronica shows the Dean the pictures she has taken of the scoreboard in the basement, which she somehow managed to develop in the time it took her to walk from the basement to the Pacific Islander lunch to this meeting.
JOY: Ha! It's all happening so fast.
HZ: The Dean just purses her lips. I'm not sure that actor's been paid to speak so she's got to do a lot of face acting.
JOY: Right, right, right, right, right. And it's the end of the three-day tour.
HZ: Troy Troys up. The charges have been dropped, and also the frat is on probation for a semester. No mixers, parties, or sports. Who's going to enforce all that shit, though?
JOY: No idea. And then, everyone's favourite form of vengeance. Stacy and her small dog visit Gordon at the frat house and throw his bag of hair into the fan, and the hair goes everywhere.
HZ: It's like Breaking Bad.
JOY: Everywhere, all over their shitty, messy frat house.
HZ: They're just going to leave it there. Again, what torment is it to them if they are not that houseproud anyway?
JOY: Yeah, it's... Hmm.
HZ: So Veronica looks happy, and I suppose Stacy has a sort of outlet, but the rapist is not caught.
JOY: No.
HZ: There's not many loose ends being tied up this episode.
JOY: No.
HZ: If that that's what you came for, tough shit. But you don't have to see Troy again, ever.
JOY: Hooray!
HZ: So there's that loose end tied, snipped off, encased in concrete, and dropped into the ocean.
JOY: So what's your second favourite plot this episode?
HZ: I don't know how I feel about this, Jenny: Cliff's in a pickle, calls Keith to rescue him, because he's been abandoned, handcuffed to a headboard, in the Neptune Grand, wearing only socks.
JOY: I'm Jenny Owen Youngs and I approve this sub plot. Hell yeah, Cliff. Get some. Nice, nice, nice, nice, nice, nice, nice.
HZ: It's not clear that Cliff got any. He could have just got handcuffed and then left there without getting any. Surrounded by champagne bottles, so at least he got some drinks.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: It's amazing how he managed to phone.
JOY: I mean, he's a flexible guy.
HZ: Must be. He's lucky it was button phones, not touch screens.
JOY: Yeah. Oh, from the first moment we laid eyes upon Cliff and heard the sort of like caramelly goodness of his sonorous voice, we knew it was always just a matter of time until he ended up in this position, and I, for one, am stoked.
HZ: He sounds very short of breath. Takes his beautiful voice a while to recover from the ordeal of being clamped to the headboard.
JOY: Now, what had happened was Cliff swung by this annual OB-GYN convention because, he said, they are the most sued speciality group of doctors, and he likes to spread his card around. But that's not all he was trying to spread around, and he met a lady named Daphne at the bar.
KEITH: And you met a hell of a lady doc?
CLIFF: Hell of a lady, yes. Doctor? We met at the bar. I was extremely charming, and an hour later, I’m invited up to her room. Champagne is ordered. One thing leads to another…
KEITH: Why don’t you think she was an OB-GYN?
CLIFF: Well, one, she appeared to know less about medicine than I do. And, two, she seems to have stolen my briefcase.
HZ: There's some extremely stripy shirts in this episode, and Cliff is wearing one. It's really an eyesore. Cliff is letting me down this episode, Jenny.
JOY: Oh, because of the shirt, or because of his - Helen, don't shame Cliff for being a sexperson.
HZ: I think Cliff has always been a sex person, but I think sex people should take off their socks.
JOY: That's true.
HZ: Or at least if they're just black business socks, get rid. Just ruins the mood.
JOY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
HZ: At Mars HQ, Cliff take some painkillers whilst Keith loads up some Neptune Grand security footage.
JOY: Keith got really close with the Neptune Grand security guys while Veronica was dating Duncan, who was living in the presidential suite. Very nice, Keith.
HZ: On sight of Daphne, Keith is surprised Cliff could have thought she was an OB-GYN, which is very rude. OB-GYNs are allowed to be sexy.
JOY: Very rude. But also, how did you interpret Cliff's look at Keith - did you interpret it as, "How dare you, OB-GYNs can be hot also," or did you interpret it as, "No, I didn't think she was a gynaecologist, you moron"? Which way?
HZ: I think because of the way this show is, where it wouldn't be like, "Hey, sexy people can do smart people jobs," I don't think that's this show's kind of shtick.
JOY: Yeah, no. Now, Helen, you know me, I'm Jenny, and I've been waiting for one thing this whole podcast, and it's Cliff motorboating this woman in the elevator. Come on! Keith says, "Cliff, you're like a wild animal," and he is, and it rocks.
HZ: Also, we find out what was in his stolen briefcase. There were case files for a drunken assault, lewd conduct, fraud, divorce, an address book, receipts, some keys, a copy of Elle magazine, although he forgets why, and Logan's murder case files, and a key to the evidence locker. Woops. And then what's this on the security footage? Lamb with a lady!
JOY: We see Lamb making out with this girl, but we don't see the girl's face. Then we see Daphne get in the elevator and Lamb and the woman separate, like, "Whoa, don't want to get caught," and then Lamb and Daphne talk to each other, and then she leaves, and then Lamb's making out some more and oh my god it's Madison Sinclair, Helen!
HZ: Convenient of Veronica to drop in just at this particular moment so she can identify Madison Sinclair. She's just dropped in to do a Planet Zowie search which she could have done on her computer at home. It's nice that Madison's older guy thing has been teed up gently in the last few episodes. She really has a taste for awful guys, from Dick to this.
JOY: Truly atrocious.
HZ: Would you rather...
JOY: No. I would not rather.
HZ: I don't know that either of these guys is probably going to work for you anyway.
JOY: No. No, no, no Helen.
HZ: Just what's your flavour of evil?
JOY: A brief history of dudes on this show who can get it: Weevil. Wallace. Logan.
HZ: I didn't think Logan was your type.
JOY: Cliff.
HZ: Leo, Jenny!
JOY: Yeah, the king-prince, Leo. Logan is not my type, but I can appreciate his appeal and charm and his weird magnetism.
HZ: He shows in this episode that he can switch it on when required.
JOY: Mm-hmm.
HZ: Anyway this is an exciting discovery for Keith and Cliff. They go to the Sheriff's Department and Keith is beaming. He looks so excited.
JOY: Oh my god, this!
HZ: So funny. He asks Lamb if he knows Daphne and show some photos, including one of Madison.
CLIFF: I want to emphasize, this should not be construed as coercion. We’re just showing you a picture.
KEITH: That’s Madison Sinclair, who I believe takes World History with my daughter.
LAMB: So what, this isn't blackmail? She’s 18. That’s legal.
KEITH: Sounds like a swell campaign slogan for the next election.
HZ: And they've mocked up a flyer with that picture of Lamb and Madison with "18: It's Legal" at the top and "Re-elect Don Lamb" at the bottom. That was a wonderful joke.
JOY: Yeah, really well predicted and well played that that's exactly what Lamb would say when confronted, and then they've already mocked up the flyer.
HZ: It's great watching both Marses with their favourite sidekicks this episode.
JOY: And we learn from Lamb finally that Daphne - I don't know why he wouldn't just say this to begin with, god, he's such a dick - Daphne is an escort, and she she works under the name Sugar Jones.
HZ: Which means that Keith gets Sugar Jones to come to the Mars home. Packs Veronica off to do her blog or whatever the kids do, and Cliff emerges wearing foundation that is a really different colour to his neck. I found this very distracting.
JOY: Oh no.
HZ: He's sort of orange in the face, pink in the neck.
JOY: Oh no, Cliff. And we don't get too much information out of Sugar Jones. She just got paid triple the rate to seduce Cliff and swipe his briefcase. That's all we know. Who did it?
HZ: We still don't know. Another ongoing plot in this episode, another loose end. One plotline does close this episode, and it is Logan and Hannah. At the beginning he has not yet dumped Hannah, because he doesn't know what to say. But then he walks out of school and gets high fived a bunch because his charges have been dropped. Hannah's there, puts a hand up for a high five, and he leaves her hanging.
JOY: Ouch.
HZ: And he leads her off, looking nauseous.
JOY: Oh, no.
HZ: The janitor has helped her break into Logan's locker to leave a surprise in there. Yikes.
JOY: Yeah. I don't know about all that, but man, this is like tough, tough to watch, especially the part where she thinks maybe it's a joke or something.
HZ: "If this is a joke, I could use the laugh right now..." Which seems like a strange reaction, but I guess there's so few reactions where you feel like you can retain any dignity when you're being dumped. The surprise Hannah has left in Logan's locker is a get-out-of-jail-free cake. Good lord. But then Logan is interrupted by Dick and they celebrate being free men because Dick is no longer encumbered by Madison, because of her more mature boyfriend, whom we now know is Lamb.
JOY: Yeah, she met someone more mature. Debateable.
HZ: They trade barbs, and both of them are aiming at the immaturity of someone. And in Logan's case, it's Dick, and in Dick's case it's Logan's girlfriend.
DICK: So are we hanging this weekend, or that chick still have your sac locked up in her Easy Bake Oven?
LOGAN: Actually, I am now a free man.
DICK: The way we should be, man.
LOGAN: ‘We’? What happened to Madison?
DICK: Bailed. According to her friend, she met someone more mature.
LOGAN: Where, at Lego Land?
DICK: Whatever, man. Maturity’s like one of the two most over-rated things on the planet.
LOGAN: The other being?
DICK: Chicks.
LOGAN: Oh, so this worked out great for you.
HZ: This weekend they will “party like Ozzy”. I suppose they mean Osborne?
JOY: Yes. That's the only partying Ozzy.
HZ: 2006-era Ozzy didn't seem all that well. He was recovering from that bad quad bike accident. Generally this century he hasn't seemed in all that great form, party-wise.
JOY: Well, I think he already had wrought such a legacy for himself. I remember him being on MTV a lot around this time, or like just before this time, so I think he was definitely in the consciousness enough that his peak partying was like in public awareness of young people.
HZ: Their version of partying like Ozzy is playing some punchy game at the Neptune Grand, surrounded by empty bottles. Like a little two-person frat?
JOY: Yeah, I don't know if this is Mortal Kombat or some game where you have, like, access to characters from Mortal Kombat and other games, but one of them is playing as Scorpion, and Scorpion wears a little mask that actually looks a lot like the masks we're all wearing now, nowadays. He has a little face-covering mask and he's always like, "Get over here," when he like throws this little harpoon at people, and like hooks them and then yanks them in. Dick does this thing where he's like, "We are partying, look at Exhibit A," and he gestures to beer, "and then look at Exhibit B," and it's a glass table, and I was looking really hard for coke, because I thought that's what would naturally be on a party-associated table that is made of glass. But I didn't see any. Did you?
HZ: I wasn't looking. I wasn't thinking as savvily as Detective Youngs. Dick does make a reference to snorting a line of ants.
JOY: That's true. That's something Ozzy did.
HZ: Maybe there were some ants on the table. Wouldn't show up. He says, "Come on, we're free men who reject the rule of women." ‘Rule of women’? Women have a shit time on this show with very little power! What the hell?
JOY: It's true. But they need to tell themselves something so they can justify their shit behaviour. Dick cuts into that frickin' cake and there's a file in it. Hannah's adorable and I love her. What a thoughtful...
HZ: Classic prison cake joke.
JOY: Uh-huh, uh-huh, and Logan is like chug, chug, chug, trying not to cry.
HZ: Trying to drink the pain away. How are these kids getting all the beers?
JOY: I don't know.
HZ: But then Logan's waiting for Hannah after her track meet, and it takes only three lines to get her to forgive him and start nuzzling him. But he doesn't even say sorry.
JOY: No, what the hell?
HZ: Barely says anything.
LOGAN: Your dad dropped his testimony so I’d quit seeing you.
HANNAH: I figured. So did you ask me out so he’d do it?
LOGAN: Yes.
HANNAH: And you want me to forgive you.
LOGAN: Yes.
HZ: Then, back at the Neptune Grand, Logan and Hannah are getting it on. Her top's off.
JOY: To Tegan and Sara.
HZ: Yes.
JOY: Seems like a strange choice for Logan.
HZ: For this rampant heterosexual.
JOY: And then Mr Griffith, with the aid of a hotel guy, just fucking pops in and then takes Hannah away.
HZ: Dr Griffith grabs Hannah's arm. I feel like her arms are always getting grabbed in this show, and I feel referred pain.
JOY: She must be a bruised, bruised little gal.
HZ: He pushes his face into his pond shirt, looking very distressed. Once again, alone.
JOY: Yeah. And then at school, he checks in with her friends. Not sure we've seen these friends at the carnival before or something, and they're like, "Haven't you heard? Hannah got sent to boarding school in Vermont." In less than 24 hours? She got booked at a boarding school and shipped away?
HZ: Are schools just waiting for overnights?
JOY: Totally.
HZ: Is it just like if you pay enough, then fine?
JOY: Vacancy.
HZ: Also, isn't boarding school rather expensive, and Tom has some financial problems that are key to this whole situation?
JOY: Right? Yeah. It doesn't make a ton of sense.
HZ: What a weird punishment as well for a parent just to be like, "Well, you've disobeyed me twice, so I'm gonna put you far away from where I can parent you."
JOY: It's very weird.
HZ: It's very Bill & Ted. But that's that. It's the end, I guess, of Logan being accused of murder. And the end of Logan and Hannah. Whatever next? Then one other little thing that is set up in this episode, during pissy Mrs Murphy's class, one of my favourite teachers at the school, she says, "You don't have to do your work on James Joyce anymore, you're all being made to participate in Mayor Woody Goodman's essay competition, and the prize is a week's internship with Woody, and you get to stand next to him on live TV and press the detonator when they demolish Shark Field," which makes Logan seem faintly interested.
JOY: Boys love blowing stuff up.
HZ: True, I am just surprised that this is part the prize, and then this is put away and forgotten about for most of the episode, but then later at home when Veronica has sort of dealt with the campus rapist, she looks at the piece of paper detailing the essay competition and it's all in kind of, I don't know, 12-point font, and then at the bottom of it in like 24-point bold it's like, "...and the prize is detonating some shit!" I know what gets people excited.
JOY: Yeah. Destroying things. Wheeee!
HZ: While chatting to Keith about explosives, she puts two and two together that the explosives from the cupboard will be used in the demolition. So off we go to the stadium, and you can tell that she's on a mission because she's got a short skirt on and a lot of pink. She's asking a man about explosives, and he shows us some C4, which is just like black slabs, the same as what she saw in the hangar, and then she notices one of the other workers is Danny Boyd from that episode where she went to the Fitzpatricks' bar and nearly got a tattoo to the face.
JOY: Yeah, that can't just be a coincidence, can it Helen?
HZ: Seems unlikely at this stage. You know, we're ramping up to rattle towards the grand finale. So did the Fitzpatricks frame Terrence? Did they crash the bus?
JOY: Oh my god.
HZ: Ugh, Fitzpatricks. So I guess we'll get see how this all plays out, in episodes that aren't this one.
JOY: Hurray! How exciting.
HZ: That's basically everything, isn't it?
JOY: I think so.
HZ: Wallace got the scholarship to Hearst. He's super happy. That's nice to see.
JOY: Love to see Wallace happy.
HZ: Wonderful to see him and Veronica collaborating. Always enjoyable. And how deliciously gross Lamb and Madison are as a prospect.
JOY: Ew. Love it.
HZ: Probably should be illegal, but it isn't. But let's find out what has been illegal in this episode with our resident legal expert and southern California marshmallow Lo Dodds, in today's LoDown.
THE LODOWN
JOY: As much as we all wanted to see Drew get tased, Veronica does it not in a self-defence way, maybe more just in a defense of women kind of way.
HZ: Just for fun.
JOY: Does this qualify as assault, or what is this?
LO DODDS: Yes. She could be charged with assault and battery. She's tasing him without provocation. But it would be the equivalent of punching someone in the face without provocation, which Drew just did. So he doesn't really have the moral high ground here, so I doubt he would make much of this because, you know, Troy is probably just going to turn around and try to press charges against him as well.
HZ: How is it that the shit that happens in frat houses is legal?
LO DODDS: It's not. We talked about hazing before. Hazing is illegal. Hazing can be charged as a felony. You cannot participate, or make people participate, in initiation activities that are going to subject them to like serious injury. It's a specific hazing law for potential students or students.
HZ: Obviously, rape is a crime. But what crime is it to cut someone's hair without their consent?
LO DODDS: It's still going to be battery. So it's going to be assault and battery. And obviously, you have rape. It's a felony to drug someone in order to commit a felony. So there's a felony there. And then they would also be charged with assault and battery for cutting her hair. And she could also charge - this is like the tattooing-against-their-will all over again, you could definitely have civil damages here. She could sue for intentional infliction of emotional distress, and battery under the civil code, and all of that as well.
HZ: Onto Cliff: is it a crime to leave somebody handcuffed to a bed?
JOY: Especially Cliff?
LO DODDS: Oh, it's so much worse of a crime because it's Cliff. Yeah, it's false imprisonment. So it's the same sort of crime as trapping someone in a small freezer and leaving them there to die. But because Cliff was not in any real apparent danger, it would be charged as false imprisonment. If he had suffered some sort of further injury from that, that could be a problem. So obviously, the woman we saw in the previous episode had been charged with attempted murder because they were leaving, he was leaving her there in a place to die, where she definitely would have died the longer she stayed there; whereas Cliff was handcuffed to a bed, he's going to be fine the minute housekeeping shows up. Sugar Jones! She commits false imprisonment, she commits theft. The people who got her to steal the briefcase are committing conspiracy and are going to be charged with receiving stolen property.
HZ: Are there any particular consequences to legal documents being stolen in case files. Would that compromise a trial?
LO DODDS: No, not really. So the defence doesn't have the same duties that the prosecution does to preserve evidence, to hand over exculpatory evidence. The defence has the opposite duty. If you have evidence that your client committed the crime, you don't have to turn that over to the prosecution.
HZ: What?
LO DODDS: The prosecution has to prove that. Like the way the evidence locker is compromised, that's going to cause a problem for the prosecution, but Cliff's losing his client's files, which, let's be honest, they're not gonna have anything in them. They're going to be copies of witness statements. They're gonna be copies of photos. They're not going to be, I mean, every file I ever had was essentially a paper print out of something that was already on a computer. He's not going to be walking around with actual evidence because that's going to be in the police evidence locker. Cliff is not going to be given control over any sort of hard evidence. The police wouldn't, the police would have to keep it in the evidence locker and he'd be allowed to use it for trial and stuff like that. Examine it, he'd be allowed to have his experts examine it if it was like the knife in Logan's murder case, but he's not gonna be walking around with evidence in that kind of manner. And he's probably going to be more in trouble with the bar. You do have obligations to your clients with respect to work product and attorney-client privilege. But as far as compromising the case or whatever, I don't really see that happening.
HZ: But would he really be given a key to the evidence locker?
LO DODDS: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No defence attorney would just have keys to the police evidence locker. That doesn't make any sense to me at all. The police evidence locker is not something they just let defence attorneys in.
JOY: Not even a very handsome, well-dressed, smooth-talking, caramel baritone-type guy? Not even him?
LO DODDS: I mean, I'm sure they would make an exception for Cliff, but for the most part there probably wouldn't be a whole lot of conviction. They're making it sound like all public defenders, if they had a chance, would go and destroy a bunch of evidence, which they definitely would not. But, yes, definitely not going to give you the keys.
HZ: Is it legal to hire a sex worker to have sex with someone who doesn't know that they've been hired to have sex with them? Or is that like a crime by deception?
LO DODDS: This is kind of becoming a theme. This is like the second time we've seen this, hiring a sex worker that the other person doesn't know is a sex worker.
HZ: Oh, yes.
LO DODDS: So prostitution is illegal, solicitation is illegal, in California. Cliff's defence would obviously be that he did not pay her and did not know she was a prostitute, so he's getting off, pun intended, from that as well, but there are categories of rape where it's rape by impersonation or rape by fraud, but this wouldn't really fall into those categories. That's more for like when somebody impersonates your spouse.
JOY: OK. If we had a deal, if we had a beautiful, sweet deal, where I promised to stop dating your teen daughter - I'm also a teen in this scenario, of course - in order for you to retract your false testimony that could potentially get me in jail, and then I just start dating your teen daughter again anyway, what can you do? What are your possible paths of recourse? Can you put your testimony back out there? What's the deal?
LO DODDS: You can do fuck all. You cannot have a contract for illegal purposes; they're unenforceable. So you can't try to go to court because somebody reneged on your deal for a contract killing. You can't go to court because somebody refused to sell you the stolen property you agreed to buy. You can't have those kind of contracts. The good doctor, the bad doctor, he's obviously gotten rid of his testimony somehow, and, like I said last time, he probably just went to the prosecution and said, "I'm going to be a shit witness, don't put me on the stand."
HZ: Shitness.
LO DODDS: Hah, yeah. To try to go back now and rehabilitate that, like, "No, I'm really telling the truth now," there's no way. So, I mean, in theory, they could still try him, they still charge him, as long as it's not beyond the statute limitations, and if Griffith came forward again and said, you know, "I'm ready to testify," but again, he's gonna be such a bad witness now. But he has done them both a favour, being that she is, what, 14? 15?
HZ: Is she?
LO DODDS: And Logan's 18?
JOY: Oh my god, he is just a stone's throw away from the very popular Neptune, California sex offenders’ register.
LO DODDS: Well, Logan has now beat a murder charge, what, twice now? So, I mean, I'm guessing at this point he'd probably think, "Statutory rape?"
JOY: He's feeling bulletproof.
LO DODDS: Yes. He's feeling invincible, and totally willing to have sex with his... Ugh. Seriously, she's a freshman, right? So she's, what, 14 years old?
HZ: Is she a freshman?
LO DODDS: I thought she was. I thought she was a freshman.
JOY: Do we just think she's a freshman because she is so young in the face?
LO DODDS: I thought somebody mentioned that she was a freshman.
JOY: I just did a cursory checking up on veronicamars.fandom.com, and will let you guys know that Hannah Griffith is a sophomore.
LO DODDS: So she's still 15?
JOY: So she's, yeah, two years younger, two grades below. If she hasn't had her birthday and Logan has, then they're three years apart, but if they've both had their birthday or neither of them has had their birthday then they're two years apart, or whatever. But she seems extra young.
HZ: What the fuck is it with offering, as a prize for students, blowing up a stadium?
LO DODDS: I love this.
HZ: Sure.
LO DODDS: I would totally have done this if this has been offered in high school.
HZ: Seems fucked up.
LO DODDS: It does seem fucked up, but it also seems like it would be fairly dangerous, the liability for it. The fact that they're offering it to the senior class makes me think maybe like they're all 18, and this will be a fine lesson in what happens when you agree to things when you're 18 years old. But, yeah, it does seem strange. They actually blew up a building in our downtown recently and they made everybody vacate the city and told everyone they had to vacate the area around the city, but of course, miraculously, there were videos all over the internet of the building blowing up, like from right up close. So clearly no one was paying attention to that. But I would think that you would not be doing that because you not want any kind of liability if something went wrong.
JOY: Did you have a favourite line in this episode? I know tradition dictates that you ask me first, but I'm asking you first. I'm turning the tables. I can't be tamed.
HZ: You also cannot be blamed.
JOY: Thank you.
HZ: There were quite a lot of lines I enjoyed this episode, actually. It was nice to have a plethora to choose from, and I still can't quite decide. I liked Wallace saying, "When I was little, I wanted to be ice cream." Such an innocent, but he can pull off this joke. But maybe should give it to today's guest star Michael Cera, who says, "I also shot a man in Reno, but it was not to watch him die, it was for other issues." Classic gag.
JOY: I'm a big fan of Cliff saying, "I have a zest for life, so sue me." I'll be tattooing that somewhere on my body. But also, I really love when Lamb said, "She's 18, that's legal," and Keith said, "Sounds like a swell campaign slogan for the next election," while producing a flyer with that exact slogan.
HZ: That was an incredibly slick move. The line was great, but then to follow it with the flyer is just end game.
JOY: Hell yeah.
HZ: Magnificent. So what would you score this episode, Jenny?
JOY: Helen, I had a really good time watching this episode, even though it included a lot of content that I'm not generally here for, like yet another instance of sexual assault, frat culture, I'm really not into any of these things. The fact that this episode was a blast to watch, even with all of that in it, I think is a testament to its quality.
HZ: Yeah.
JOY: So I'm willing to give it four and a half bags of somebody else's hair.
HZ: Yeah, I think you're right. Felt like kind of a classic, and that really surprised me.
JOY: Yeah, oh my god, it had Troy in it and it was still good.
HZ: I think it was because both Marses were on great form, they had their pals with them, and the fact that the plots that touched on the longer-running arcs didn't get resolved felt realistic enough.
JOY: Yeah. Plus, Sex Cliff.
HZ: So I think I'm going to give it four out of five blown-up dictionary entries for the word ‘college’.
JOY: Hah! Well, I guess that's this episode of Veronica Mars investigated.
HZ: Case closed.