VMI 2.19 Nevermind the Buttocks transcript
Listen to this episode at VMIpod.com/2-19
Content note: Veronica Mars contains heavy themes, and this episode includes storylines concerning murder, vehicular crash, dead dogs, drug dealing, and violence.
A LONG TIME AGO ON VERONICA MARS:
We meet another misfit Neptune boy with a hobby for weapons: Harry, who has a bedroom full of arrows, a wall full of stag heads, and a dog that was killed by a driver of a green Barracuda car…
...which belongs to an old lady who doesn’t drive it, but guess who does? Liam fucking Fitzpatrick, to run his errands, such as:
i. Trying to kill Keith Mars, but instead getting whupped by our favourite power dad;
ii. Bullying the PCHers so they bring in more drug money;
iii. Mooning Gia Goodman;
iv. And being in league with Kendall Casablancas, who has a criminal record, a secret house, AND an identity she stole off a girl who died in car crash?!Oh and just in case you thought the Lilly Kane murder case was solved last season, here it is again, as Aaron’s Oscar has been dug up from the Kane garden, with Lilly’s blood and Duncan’s hair on it! Nothing’s ever really over.
JOY: Hoping I could pay you with meat, I’m Jenny Owen Youngs.
HZ: Giving you a pressed ham as I drive by, I’m Helen Zaltzman.
You’re listening to Veronica Mars Investigations Season 2 Episode 19: Never Mind the Buttocks.
HZ: Now I get the Sex Pistols reference with this title, but what is the Veronica Mars episode 2-19 reference in this title?
JOY: I think the pressed ham?
HZ: We don't even see the pressed ham. That is too tenuous.
JOY: Show us the pressed ham! The people have a right to know.
HZ: You can't name the episode after a minor, inconsequential incident that takes place off screen!
JOY: Don't tell Veronica Mars, the television programme, what reasonable things it should do. It does not adhere to your foolish Earth logic. No, no, no, no, no.
HZ: Sorry - even by Mars logic, though, come on. But it is hard to think of names for things, to be fair.
JOY: I think there have been worse title choices. That's what I'll say.
HZ: Oh, absolutely agree. The Rapes of Graff, that was an all-time low of all titles, anywhere, for anything.
JOY: Abominable. I love, for me, that previously on Veronica Mars, Kendall was hot and had a margarita by the pool; and I love, for you, that previously on Veronica Mars, they got a replay of one of the dream sequences in there for you. Ha! You thought you were done, Helen, but you were not.
HZ: Grrrr.
JOY: What happens? So many things happen.
HZ: That's a Veronica Mars episode (except the last one). So many things happen. It's plotful, and we open at a lawyer's office. Cliff is next to Veronica and a lawyer is questioning Veronica about her being a witness to seeing the tape of Aaron Echolls and Lilly Kane having sex, and whether she knows what sex looks like, because this guy must have met Duncan and been like, "No, there's no way."
JOY: Oh my god.
HZ: "These are not sexpeople." That's the lawyer, that's the lawyer talking.
JOY: Wow. Depending which Duncan he met, I mean, that might not necessarily be the case, or which Duncan he has seen photographic evidence of.
HZ: Are any of the Duncans sexpeople, Jenny?
JOY: Do any of the Duncans fuck? Let us recount.
HZ: They've all got the G.I. Joe plastic undercarriages. And then you just change their outfits and sometimes their heads.
JOY: Right, right, right, right, right. Sometimes you tie a sweater around the shoulders, sometimes you got a soccer jersey.
HZ: Duncan's like the opposite Princess Mombi, in that he has all these different characters, but just one head. Whereas she's always Princess Mombi but has a whole closet full of different heads.
JOY: Oh, this is from Return To Oz? I see, I see, I see. OK, cool.
HZ: Very important cultural artefact.
JOY: This lawyer also asks her if she's still in touch with Duncan and then she looks emotional, and we don't get an answer. Do you think they're secretly texting on burner phones?
HZ: Weren't all phones burner phones basically at this time?
JOY: Yes.
HZ: I mean, they could probably be faxing on burner faxes in 2006.
JOY: Right, they kind of did have a burner fax situation just a couple episodes ago. Right?
HZ: Yay.
JOY: Ah, OK. So we also find out that Big Dick was using this life insurance policy on Dick and Beaver as a tax shelter, and it had an eight-figure payout, and the beneficiary would've been Kendall Casablancas. You know how many margaritas Kendall could buy with eight figures?
HZ: It seems like more than the human body could tolerate.
JOY: Yes.
HZ: But then why would you make the beneficiary Kendall rather than... Oh right, because tax havens. I don't understand how tax havens work. That's because I try to be honest in my financial dealings, although my accountant hasn't been e-mailing me back for two weeks so I'm a little worried.
JOY: No! Perhaps like he made Kendall the beneficiary because they're married and like married couples have certain weird privileges legally, sometimes?
HZ: Got to be some reason to do it.
JOY: I don't know.
HZ: And if not crimes, what? Tea sets?
JOY: Why bother?
HZ: Yeah, buy your own. At school random locker searches are happening, and we go to a dimly lit classroom with tripods and bunsen burners, and butterflies pinned to the wall.
JOY: They have science at this school. Here it is.
HZ: Now, I was thrilled and delighted when watching this episode, Jenny, because there's a lot of Weevil in it.
JOY: Love Weevil. Would love to not have to see Weevil feed a rat to Buddy, the class python.
HZ: There's a lot of sound effects of anguished mouse squeaking.
WEEVIL: Someone was hungry, huh?
VERONICA: Someone is baby-talking a python.
WEEVIL: Yeah, we got a special connection, me and Buddy. Top of the food chain.
VERONICA: Well, on behalf of nature, thank you for doing your part in the circle of life.
WEEVIL: Hey. I got no problem sacrificing a rat.
HZ: Veronica looks uncomfortable. How much does she know about this or is she just speculating? No one seems to care that Thumper's no longer in town, no longer at school.
JOY: Maybe Veronica had a dream in which someone pointed her in Weevil's direction re Thumper.
HZ: That makes sense. I mean, in that it doesn't make any sense, yes.
JOY: Thumper did dethrone Weevil in the PCHers, so he would be a natural suspect if there was like a proper investigation going on.
HZ: Yeah, but nobody seems concerned about his prolonged absence. Or are they just like, "We can't tell those PCHer boys apart," and the ones in the PCHers aren't going to say anything? In fact, what do the other PCHers think about Thumper's absence?
JOY: Yeah. And what about Thumper's mom?
HZ: Mm-hmm.
JOY: You know when your locker gets searched and the cellphone interceptor that you borrowed from your friend at RadioShack so that you can listen to your ex-boyfriend's cellphone calls gets confiscated?
HZ: Such a bummer. I should be used to it by now, and yet every time a fresh pain.
JOY: Ha!
HZ: I get that Mac is hurting after Cassidy broke up with her, and you can tell that they've broken up because she's got red streaks in her hair again. But that is sad that she's been listening to Cassidy's phone calls. And sad for Veronica that she doesn't have a cell phone receptor herself.
JOY: Oh, true. Yeah. How does Veronica not have one that Mac could borrow? It seems exactly like the sort of thing Veronica would have in her bag of tricks.
HZ: Right. When Mac says, at some point in this episode, "I do the gadgets and you do the detectiving," I was like, come on, have you not seen the last two seasons? Wake up, Mac. Veronica is also being watched in the hallway by a random dude. Remember the random dude. Later, a woman rushes out the principal's office because Veronica has set off a car alarm. Can you identify your own car alarm, Jenny, if it's parked in a parking lot at a school?
JOY: Hell no.
HZ: And would you rush or would you be like, "Oh, that's gone off by mistake again"?
JOY: Every time a car alarm goes off in my neighbourhood, I spend the first 75 percent of its going off duration thinking, "That's annoying," and then the last 25 percent thinking, "Oh fuck, is that my car alarm?" I would have no idea.
HZ: You'd have to set off your own car alarm to know what it sounded like, right?
JOY: Which I have done, but I can't remember what it sounded like. Sorry.
HZ: So I'm not sure about this plan, but it works for Veronica, and she dashes into the office with her big bunch of keys, but what? Principal Clemmons has changed the locks.
JOY: Nooo.
HZ: Which means she has to take a different route, which is his son Vincent, aka Butters. Remember him from being creepy earlier in the season?
JOY: I do, and he's not, you know, chomping at the bit to help Veronica, but he does have a price. Everyone has their price, Helen, and Vincent's price is a prom date with Mac.
HZ: I could see this match working if it wasn't by coercion. If it was by mutual consent. Veronica has set this up without Mac's consent. because later they have 11 minutes in Clemmons's office, thanks to Vincent, and while Veronica's rooting through the box of confiscated stuff, he's flirting with Mac and she clearly doesn't know about this date.
BUTTERS: Just so you know, I'm an excellent dancer. So don't worry about that.
MAC: Oh. O…...kay, I'll try not to.
BUTTERS: Well, I don't have to dance though. I enjoy it, but I also enjoy a good conversation.
VERONICA: Look! Fake vomit. Courtesy of locker 213. And whoever is in locker 792 is sans one "Smell It Bitch" T-shirt.
BUTTERS: So, Mac, what colour dress are you wearing?
MAC: I'm actually wearing pants.
BUTTERS: Right. I just don't want the corsage to be, like, blue and the dress is red and you think I'm an idiot.
JOY: Vincent seems like he would be a great prom date.
HZ: He's thinking of everything. He's even asking about corsages.
JOY: So thoughtful. White limo would be his preference, but he's open to Mac's ideas.
HZ: That's sweet, that he's open to her ideas except for her consenting to who she goes to prom with.
JOY: Well, to Vincent's credit, he has no idea at this stage that Mac has no idea what has been agreed to on her behalf.
HZ: Maybe he's so used to all interactions with girls being awkward that he doesn't realise that she's being awkward because she doesn't know, not just because it's awkward to talk to girls that you fancy.
JOY: Well, that's high school and occasionally the rest of life. Awkward interactions.
HZ: Veronica finds a copy of The Anarchist Cookbook, which had being seized from Weevil's locker.
JOY: Anarchist Cookbook, haven't heard that name in years. Also, Weevil's locker number is 333, half of 666.
HZ: Is this like a bat signal for you, Jenny?
JOY: Yeah, hell yeah. If Weevil's locker number was 420, or 69, or 489 which is 420 plus 69...
HZ: Is that the ultimate?
JOY: That'd be pretty tight, but 333 is also worth noting. Yeah.
HZ: OK. Then we get a mile-long shot of Weevil's green car with a tiny Veronica perched on it.
JOY: And he says, "You look exactly like this calendar in my uncle's garage."
HZ: Tiny Jackets 2006 calendar.
JOY: Hah, yeah. Tiny jackets, big cars.
VERONICA: You seen Thumper lately, Weevil? It's just nobody's heard from him in weeks. He doesn’t show up soon, he's gonna miss prom.
WEEVIL: Yeah? Well, I'm sure he's crushed.
HZ: Weevil looks very amused by this joke. Now, Jenny, if you had murdered-slash-conspired to murder your ex-friend, would you be this jolly about it?
JOY: I like to think that I would be a little slicker, you know? And maybe a little more meditative and serious about it, and also interested in not getting caught, but also Weevil probably has a lot of dirt on Veronica.
HZ: Should hope so.
JOY: I think they kind of keep each other in check.
HZ: That's true.
JOY: So maybe he's just not that worried about her turning him in or kicking up dust about him.
HZ: I mean, I feel guilty about things I haven't even done.
JOY: Same.
HZ: So I can't imagine doing jokes about my murder victims. Veronica asks about The Anarchist Cookbook and espouses an absurd theory, based on the evidence that she has from the dream that the driver was the only one to die from the bomb.
VERONICA: You didn't just happen to be at the gas station out on the PCH. You were following us, Weevil. The explosion didn't kill those people. The drop into the ocean did. Who else could've timed it like that? You could've hit send on your cell phone, blown up the bus without me even knowing it.
WEEVIL: Except why would I blow up a bus with one of my boys on it, huh?
VERONICA: You didn't mean to. You and Cervando meant to take out the limo. You, Mr. I-Sacrifice-Rats, even put a dead one on the bus to force the rich kids into it.
WEEVIL: And what? We got the big yellow bus and the long black limo confused?
VERONICA: Nope. You put the bomb in Dick's goodie bag. You didn't realise he gave his bag to Betina.
WEEVIL: You really think any of those 09ers was worth all that effort to me?
VERONICA: Logan was.
WEEVIL: He wasn't even there.
VERONICA: He was supposed to be. Are you telling me you wouldn't off the guy who killed Felix?
HZ: I have a question about this dream evidence. So if the bomb was in Dick's goody bag, which Bettina had, how come that killed the driver, but not the passengers, even though she would have been sitting with the passengers, not beside the driver, and would have been the most killed by it? Bad theory. This is very Don Lamb of Veronica. Bad.
JOY: Yeah, I... This... I know.
HZ: Lieutenant Zaltzman says NO.
JOY: Ha!
HZ: Same school, different day: Veronica eats at the lunch tables and then the kid who was staring in the hallways before stands behind her. She can sense him without even looking. He's called Harry, by the way, and he has emotions because his dog has been run over outside his house. And Veronica understands dog-based emotions.
JOY: Having a dog herself. Finally, something she can relate to.
HZ: Do you think Veronica likes animals more than she likes people?
JOY: Yes. Although dogs can't do favours for you, so it's complicated.
HZ: Dogs love to do favours, if the favour is like giving you a tennis ball covered in saliva. They're all about it.
JOY: Yeah, and that's like the greatest gift they can even conceive of.
HZ: Yeah.
JOY: Giving or receiving. So, in a dog's mind, that's very thoughtful. Not thoughtful: naming your dog Apache. This is regrettable.
HZ: Do you think in his case it's because he's another weapons hobbyist kid, and Apaches are helicopters. Or is it arrows-based?
JOY: I'm going to guess arrows-based.
HZ: He offers to pay Veronica with meat.
JOY: Hell yeah. What kind of meat are we talking, dude?
HZ: I'm assuming meat that he has killed himself.
JOY: Yeah are we talking turkeys, are we talking venison? What can you bow hunt in the San Clemente area? That's what I'd like to know. I'm going to add that to my list of questions for Lo.
HZ: Other people's dogs?
JOY: No!
HZ: Maybe some mountain lions?
JOY: I think you don't want to eat a predator because they're usually stringy and muscular.
HZ: I mean, I wouldn't.
JOY: OK, so first foray into solving the mystery of who killed this dog, Veronica visits our old friend private-eyes-with-a-zed dot com. You know it. I know it.
HZ: Thanks for translating. Otherwise I wouldn't have known it.
JOY: It's more fun to say zed than zee.
HZ: Only because it's newer to you, Jenny.
JOY: No, no, no, no, no.
HZ: He's identified the car that ran over his dog. Luckily it's an unusual one, a Plymouth Barracuda, which seems to have been a fairly limited in time edition of car. But according to Private Eyez, none are registered in Neptune, and you can't drive over Neptune borders, so this case is unsolved forever.
JOY: No, impossible.
HZ: Later, though, at the Neptune Navigator offices, the editor, Jack, is stressed. Where's the kid who's supposed to file a ten-inch story on the price of graduation? Probably just like bored to the point where they can't move.
JOY: Helen. Helen. Helen. Helen. Helen. Have you considered my new segment, "Accidental Porn Dialogue On Veronica Mars"?
HZ: Oh, I would love to consider that. I sense a montage.
JOY: This guy says, "He owes me a ten-inch story on the high price of graduation." Then he says, "We've got a hole to fill." Helen!
HZ: It's like they wrote this episode for you, Jenny. A lot of Weevil; some bawdy talk...
JOY: Weevil, dog talk, muscle cars, and, yeah, porn dialogue. Love it.
HZ: Well, that's a bold new interpretation that is more enjoyable than the other interpretations.
JOY: "The Editor-In-Chief Of The Neptune Navigator Needs That Story Yesterday, 1080P HD."
HZ: Just hungry to have that hole filled.
JOY: Ha! Yeah, Helen, yeah!
HZ: Veronica asks how much to run an ad in that ten-inch hole, and it's only $40. So she's taking care of business. In the hallway, Jackie asks Veronica a favour, which is less onerous than Veronica's usual favours because it doesn't require any lawbreaking. She just wants her to put in a good word for her at Java The Hut, where she's applied for a job because all of her family's assets are frozen and there are repossessors at home and she needs a job, even if it's only $6.75 an hour.
JOY: I, can I tell you, love Jackie. I love Jackie.
HZ: We love Jackie. At the Neptune Onlyplace, lite piano jazz plays and Veronica asks the cute-as-a-bug manager about Jackie's application.
JOY: Veronica looks like she's swallowing glass while she says, "My friend... My friend put in an application." She hates saying it. Veronica, stop.
HZ: It's, what, a couple of months now since Wallace And Rashard Go To White Castle, in which Jackie was a great double agent? Proud to have that friend. Cute-as-a-bug manager is a lot more subdued than she was at the start of the season when she was like, "Oh my God, your dad's on TV news and he's so hot!"
JOY: Yeah, she's having a very different kind of day.
HZ: At home, Veronica walks in on Keith napping on the sofa, supposedly reading from some documents in the dark.
JOY: He has keen Mars eyes.
HZ: That makes sense. He's probably got some special kind of surveillance equipment installed in them. Now Keith's question is why would Logan have received three calls from Kendall Casablancas on the day of the crash? And Veronica reveals they were sexpeopling together. So now it's Veronica's job to find out if Logan was with Kendall at the time of the crash, which means Logan and Veronica have a scene and, dammit show, you're makinge me miss Loganica, because they just really sizzle together.
JOY: They do, they're like two slabs of bacon in the pan, Helen.
HZ: Slabs. Slabs, what a sizzling word. Slabs. Veronica asks Logan about bus crash day, which was at this point,, what, eight months ago? How's he going to remember?
LOGAN: As a rule I like to start every school day with a hot blonde waiting for me in the parking lot.
VERONICA: Me too!
LOGAN: I'm not blonde!
VERONICA: Or hot. Got a question for you. Remember back when you were doing the deed with Dick's stepmom?
LOGAN: Hm, vaguely. I remember she thought I was hot.
VERONICA: Were you with her on the day of the crash? You two talked on the phone a few times that day.
LOGAN: Man, you're obsessed with my sex life. Do I need to start carrying around a webcam from now on?
VERONICA: Logan!
LOGAN: Day of the crash, day of the crash...uh. I'd really have to consult my Feelings Journal to be sure.
VERONICA: Kendall stood to make millions by sending Dick and Beaver over that cliff. There was an insurance policy.
LOGAN: Kendall requires a domestic staff to make cereal. You think she could really plot a murder?
HZ: It's not that smart to tell him the theory about the insurance and Kendall, is it?
JOY: No. Wouldn't you keep that, keep it close to the vest there, Veronica?
HZ: Keep it close to the tiny jacket.
JOY: I love that Logan starts listing his conquests, his various conquests for her, but doesn't do it in, like, any kind of chronological order. It's just kind of chaotic.
LOGAN: Oh, I got to second base with Tammy Forrester in eighth grade in Duncan's closet. And last summer, I made this townie girl moan without even using my hands. Is any of this relevant? Should I make a list?
HZ: Is Veronica the townie girl he's talking about?
JOY: Oh! Oh my god. Oh my god. OK, running away from that and running towards, now, finally, at long sweet last, the titular butt. Helen! The butt of the title.
HZ: Gia stops Veronica because she's read the paper. All of it. Enough to see Veronica's ad about, "Have you seen a green Barracuda?" And she has because it mooned her when she was in the limo, on bus crash day, just a few minutes before the bus crashed. She's so good at remembering. She remembers there was a mascot sticker in the window, so maybe they were college kids. And she also remembers she was on the phone with Woody Goodman at the time because he needed her to pick up her brother Rodney after his piano lesson. Remember, remember, remember - all the remembering of this day so long ago.
JOY: Yeah. How could it be? How could it be that she remembers all of this? This is not how life is.
HZ: Well, hopefully being mooned is a rare enough occurrence that that part would seem a novelty, but the part about your dad doing family admin seems unmemorable.
JOY: Yeah. Well, maybe all the kids who were in the limo, like everyone who kind of like was around when the crash happened, had to, like, get interviewed by the police, so maybe she remembers it from kind of having to catalogue all of it for them.
HZ: That's true. And then, I love Jackie. I love Wallace. But I worry that Wallace and Jackie makes Wallace a bad Wallace. He's blaming Jackie for him being attracted to her, and that's not cool.
WALLACE: Okay, I tried. It doesn't work. You want us to do this platonic thing, you gonna have to make some adjustments.
JACKIE: Like what?
WALLACE: Like that. And this.
JOY: Gestures generally at her face and form.
JACKIE: What do you want me to do, Wallace? My burkha's at the cleaners.
WALLACE: Let me drop this dumb pals act?
JACKIE: Wallace, I told you -
WALLACE: It's been two weeks. That's like a decade in high school years. Jane's got a date this weekend. Why you so worried about what other people think? I mean, you're already that girl whose dad blew up the kids. Think anyone's out there saying, "Yeah, but at least she keeps her hands off of other girls' ex-boyfriends"?
JACKIE: Thanks for breaking it down, Wallace.
WALLACE: Hey, come on. You know what I'm trying to say.
JOY: Wallace, this is strikes one and two in very short order.
HZ: You can see Jackie's blood turning cold when he says that, and she walks off shaking.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: I don't like toxic Wallace.
JOY: Don't worry, Helen. I have a feeling he's gonna turn it around a bit before the end of the episode.
HZ: Didn't fully for me, Jenny.
JOY: Well...
HZ: We go to Harry's house, where there's an unnecessarily long shot of Veronica parking and then walking to the front door. I was wondering whether they were a little short on material this week and they didn't pad out the Previously enough.
JOY: Right?
HZ: Because they're like, "Well, we can't play too much of last week's because it was all unnecessary."
JOY: Maybe part of it is like getting the dog igloo in the shot, to indicate there once was a dog who lived in this igloo, but now...
HZ: While the dog igloo also gets a long, loving shot, a boy with a really livid black eye opens the door. This is Harry's younger brother, Billy.
BILLY: Yeah?
VERONICA: Hi, I'm Veronica.
BILLY: Yeah, you go to Neptune, right? You're, like, a cheerleader or something?
VERONICA: Or something. Can you tell me where I can find Harry?
BILLY: What'll you give me?
VERONICA: Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar? And as a bonus, I won't beat you silly.
BILLY: I might like that.
[Veronica flicks his black eye]
BILLY: Ow!
VERONICA: No, I don't think you would.
HZ: Veronica flicks him in the bad eye to get what she wants, which is very Jack Bauer of her.
JOY: Brutal. Helen, if I ever have a black eye, please don't flick me in it.
HZ: I wouldn't even flick you in your good eyes.
JOY: Oh, thanks, Helen. Same.
HZ: Honestly, I feel that's the least a friend to do, is not flick you in the eyes. Maybe your standards have got low, Jenny? I won't stab you with a fork. I won't put a pool ball in a sock and hit you with it.
JOY: Thank you.
HZ: Don't thank me.
JOY: Right now I'm cohabiting with a 12-pound animal who is constantly trying to gouge out my eyes with his ridiculous, clumsy paws. You know?
HZ: You can't reason with puppies. Harry's out the back and so are some pairs of antlers, and he is firing arrows into a lifesize fake deer. Why is it that when Veronica goes to the homes of boys who are of normal wealth, rather than super wealth, they're very into weapons?
JOY: This is worth asking. I don't know. Do you think they're trying to say something about class in some way?
HZ: So you're either a rich, white, odious boy, Wallace, or We Need To Talk About Kevin. Anyway, they have some very weird chit-chat, and Veronica asks if he remembers a sticker on the car. Now, I'm not sure I'd remember the details of a car that was killing my dog. And he says it was dark. This interaction could have been a text, but then I suppose we wouldn't have seen Harry shooting a deer model.
JOY: Yeah, important visual.
HZ: Shoots the deer in the eye, so when he finds out who killed the dog, they're going to fucking get it.
JOY: Look out. (Can't look out.)
HZ: Is this the plot of John Wick?
JOY: Spoilers for the John Wick franchise: his poor, sweet, gentle puppy dying is the inciting incident that leads to the rest of the first movie, and second movie, and third movie.
HZ: But all we get is this one episode of Veronica Mars. More exciting Weevil scenes, Jenny.
JOY: Weevil working under a car alert! Weevil working under a car alert!
HZ: Sleevelessly.
JOY: It's a good look.
HZ: He sees Hector's shoes approach, attached to Hector's feet, and slides out, and Hector's there for forgiveness. He made a mistake!
HECTOR: It's the Fitzpatricks, Weevil. They been all over us. Just treating us like they bitches.
WEEVIL: My guess would be that's because you are their bitches.
HECTOR: It's just been getting worse, man. We need help.
WEEVIL: You still here, Hector?
HECTOR: You remember Arturo? That freshman you wouldn't let join up? He got a cigarette lighter to his face when he missed a payment.
HZ: The Fitzpatricks love torturing children, actual children. Arturo was, what, 14?
JOY: Something like that.
HZ: Although Veronica did unlawfully tape him to a pole, so that's also not cool. Hector warns that Weevil's people will die, and Weevil does some very soulful eyes. Just for Jenny.
JOY: I love his soulful eyes.
HZ: Sadly you're going to have to wait to see more of them because, back to Mars HQ, Veronica's scrolling Classically Used, a used classic car site, when Keith arrives with the yearbook featuring the young Kendall Casablancas. Well, Kendall Shiflett. But...
JOY: That is a different fucking person, Helen!
HZ: Not played by Charisma Carpenter, who is in fact a teenager named Priscilla Banks.
JOY: Several years older than Kendall Shiflett.
HZ: And also, Keith has found a newspaper report of Kendall Shiflett dying, age 15, in a car accident, and the car was driven by Priscilla Banks, age 17.
JOY: Also, Priscilla Banks banks did a wire fraud one time.
HZ: Keith thumps his chest with satisfaction at his PI chops, but Veronica ignores him, which is rude given how he's done all this work very swiftly. She gets an IM from AnonCuda411. It says, "That green car you're looking for? PayPal me the reward and I'll send address. Strictly anonymous."
JOY: You'd think a PayPal address would kind of make it not anonymous.
HZ: Unless they've set up AnonCuda411@hotmail.com to receive the payments. So off she rushes, and parks in the burbs next to some extremely green grass verges. So green. She knocks at a door and a grandma in huge sunglasses answers.
MARY: Who are you?
VERONICA: Uuuuh, hi! I was just wondering if you've seen a green muscle car around the neighbourhood, a Barracuda?
MARY: Young lady, I haven't seen anything since my cataracts came back.
VERONICA: I'm sorry, I -
MARY: What do you want with my car?
VERONICA: Wow. It's yours? It's just that my dad is super into them and he's always talked about getting a souped-up 'Cuda.
MARY: That car belonged to my dear departed husband, bless his soul. And it's staying right where it is in that garage until they carry me out in a box. Now, excuse me, but I'm missing Vanna and Pat.
HZ: Veronica doesn't see why a blind person would be watching Wheel Of Fortune, and therefore breaks into the garage. Of course.
JOY: Yeah, there's the car, and oh, lo and behold, somebody took a leprechaun sticker off of the window without using Goo Gone to remove the glue left behind.
HZ: I was kind of amazed that they managed to get the sticker off. I'm sure everyone has tried to remove a sticker and half of it has remained.
JOY: Well, you get a little razor blade and scrapescrapescrape.
HZ: Or lighter fluid.
JOY: Lighter fluid.
HZ: Dissolves adhesive.
JOY: Again, Goo Gone.
HZ: Why did they take the sticker off, though?
JOY: That's unclear.
HZ: I thought it was quite resourceful of Veronica to dust the window with some handy chalk powder to see the outline of the leprechaun. Lucky, also, that it was a leprechaun outline sticker and not just to circle or a square.
JOY: Right. That is some good luck on this show.
HZ: She gets into the car. It's not locked?
JOY: It's unlocked, it's in a garage.
HZ: She plants a bug, and a tracker.
JOY: She also finds a gun in the frickin' glove compartment!
HZ: Nicer scenes: it's an overhead shot of Mars HQ, so you get a good view of Keith's glowing scalp, which I found weirdly comforting. He's calling Priscilla Banks's father on some alumni pretext, but they don't know where she is either. All they've got is a postcard from her a few months ago with the postmark of Neptune, since which her mother has died.
JOY: Oh, that sucks.
HZ: What doesn't suck, Jenny, is that Weevil arrives, and what's he wearing?
JOY: Mmm, hell yeah Helen, Weevil's here! And he's not just wearing... He's not just wearing a henley, he's got those fucking, what Veronica calls "Maybelline lashes", Helen!
HZ: Sure does.
JOY: They just go on for miles.
HZ: I'm not naturally a fan of the henley, Jenny, so I had been unmoved by your Weevil-in-henley feelings before, but I got it, this scene.
JOY: Yeah. It's very compelling.
HZ: He also makes a dick joke.
JOY: He really does, and if anybody's gonna make a dick joke, I want it to be Weevil.
VERONICA: You here to confess? Is that your tail I see between your legs?
WEEVIL: No. But I can see how you might get confused.
HZ: He needs the carved paddle from the carnival episode. He noticed the paddle when he planted the cash in Thumper's locker, and several episodes later he's decided he needs it.
JOY: He tellingly refers to Thumper in the past tense.
HZ: He noticed that the paddle has licence plates engraved on it. Why would you put this information on a wooden paddle, Jenny? What would your motivation be? Harder to destroy than paper?
JOY: Yeah, I don't know, man. I really don't know. Plot convenience?
HZ: I just really don't want to go up the suspecting-Weevil-of-the-bus-crash path. Give us a break, please, show.
JOY: Yeah. Come on, man.
HZ: Weevil explains that he thinks Thumper made it as a kind of insurance policy, because the Fitzpatricks turned the PCHers into slave labour. Maybe he made the paddle to smack the Fitzpatricks with on the buttocks?
JOY: Now, that is a bigger reach for the titular buttocks. But I like it a lot, Helen, great thinking.
HZ: He died too early to make it happen.
JOY: Uh-huh.
HZ: Keith is off out, and on his way out there's this tiny little exchange between him and Weevil.
KEITH: Eli.
WEEVIL: Sheriff.
HZ: I inner-screamed when he called Keith "sheriff".
JOY: Oh my god, that that slid right past me, Helen. But I love it.
HZ: After all that pleading, Veronica gives Weevil the key - but ha ha ha, because the locks have changed. But good thing she made a copy of the paddle, and she put it in a nice folder.
JOY: Probably not a lot of people running around Neptune playing tricks like this on Weevil. He's not the kind of person you would want to like potentially anger, I feel like. But Veronica doesn't care.
HZ: He doesn't have the patience for your pranks.
JOY: Except he's got patience for Veronica's pranks.
HZ: Well, that's because she's got something he needs. But I feel like it's why his friendship with Logan is only occasional, because Logan has a kind of pranky vibe and Weevil does not have the time.
JOY: No, no, no, no, no.
HZ: What Veronica has got is the ability to look up licence plates, and she's gonna. Neptune Onlyplace, Jackie is rapidly and gracefully serving customers. Veronica's voiceover is very impressed.
JOY: Crushing it.
HZ: Although when she's taking a moment at the pass, she looks like she's struggling. Veronica says, "Well table eight's requested you," and she goes over and it's Wallace.
JOY: Wallace! OK, on one hand, love an apology. On the other hand, maybe there could be more of an apology. And on still yet another hand, why is everybody always trying to have, like, these important conversations at somebody's place of work?
HZ: Yes.
JOY: So stressful to me.
HZ: It's very selfish. It's adding a problem to the problem you already created. But also, even though she seemed annoyed with him earlier, and rightly, she's like, "I'm not annoyed with you. It's just that I've got a place at university in Paris." It's like a little mini retcon.
JOY: Yeah. What do you think, Helen? Complications aside, and also your existing husband aside, if you and an age-appropriate Wallace encountered one another, and it was very exciting, but you knew that you would have to be separated in five weeks' time, would you, like, go for it and live in the moment and make the best of what's right in front of you? Or would you be like, "It will hurt too much, thus I shall protect myself"?
HZ: If I was Jackie in this situation and I'd already had to mend myself after someone Wallace breakups, I'm not sure I'd want to reignite that pain. And also, I hate packing and I'd know that was ahead of me.
JOY: Well, but if you hate it, then what better way to distract yourself and procrastinate than by spending time with Wallace?
HZ: That's true. But she hasn't got the time because she needs to pay to go to university in Paris on this $6.75 an hour job. That sounds busy.
JOY: Yeah, that'll take care of it, right?
HZ: If it was a new thing, maybe I'd have the torrid five weeks. But because it's something with quite a lot of baggage and pain, probably no.
JOY: And then, quid pro quo Helen, you can't ask Veronica Mars for a favour and expect to get out of the episode without her reciprocating. She needs Jackie to cover tables for the rest of the night.
HZ: She's got her laptop under the counter and she's seen the Barracuda is on the move. And then a stakeout. The Barracuda razzes by, so she tunes into the bug on her car radio and she hears someone singing along. I think you're meant to think that this is embarrassing, but I thought it was OK. I thought was a reasonable human thing to do. The least worst thing this person's done on camera.
JOY: I was far more fixated on the fact that Liam Fitzpatrick, just like Angel in Buffy, has a Claddagh ring.
HZ: Oh, there's a crossover with the Buffyverse.
JOY: That's right.
HZ: Do you think he is in a throuple with them?
JOY: Helen, no. Well, definitely not with Buffy. Depending whether - spoilers for Buffy - Angel is currently souled or, like, ensouled or not ensouled. Good Angel would not get with Liam Fitzpatrick, but Evil Angel might. They might sow the seeds of chaos together.
HZ: Liam loves to sow chaos seed. Veronica pulls up in a pool of light, which I thought wasn't ideal really, because she then gets out the long lens that we haven't seen for a while to take pictures of the car pulling up. We don't yet know it's Liam, but we do see a long-haired woman getting in. And she calls Keith who's like, "Pull up out front of the house and keep the engine running," because he's inside the house!
JOY: Oh my god, this is so stressful.
HZ: Aaah, so tense when a Mars is staking out a house. He hangs up ominously. The man enters. The man is revealed to be Liam, and he's got the gun, from the glove compartment presumably.
JOY: He says, as he points his gun at Keith Mars, "Maybe it is true about the luck of the Irish." Who's writing this show?
HZ: People who have only a very scant awareness of Irishness. We've got leprechauns, Lucky Charms, luck, Claddagh rings...
JOY: The Catholic Church.
HZ: Probably they cut out some stuff about Riverdance. They love to play pool at the River Styx because the pool table's green, and everyone knows everything Irish is green, right?
JOY: Mm-hmm. Definitely.
HZ: Large families. Drinking. Irish stuff!
JOY: OK. So, this is very tense. Liam's going to shoot Keith, but there's no bullets in the gun. Isn't that convenient?
HZ: Keith lunges at him. Action Keith! Do you want to know what his training regimen is? Because he looks like a schlub, but he's good in a fight.
JOY: Yeah, he's tough. Hot Action Dad.
HZ: And outside, the woman who got into the car turns out to be Kendall. She approaches Veronica wanting to know what she's doing and who's in her house. Her house, Jenny!
JOY: Her house!! What?
HZ: Well, now she's got a broken window because Keith and Liam fly through it, onto the grass outside.
JOY: Oh my god.
HZ: Keith's got the upper hand in this fight. I say hand, but elbow. He elbows Liam a lot, and then escapes.
JOY: Hell yeah. Hot dad!
HZ: Quality dad fight. What would he have done if Veronica hadn't happened to be tailing the Barracuda on a completely unrelated mission, and been right outside ready to be his getaway driver?
JOY: Also how did he get there? Is his car parked somewhere nearby?
HZ: She's gonna have to give him a lift in the morning to pick it up.
JOY: Around the... OK. But hey, he got Kendall's flippin' hard drive. What do you think about that?
HZ: Well, it means that they get Mac in to break into it.
MAC: Bingo. Alright, you guys are in.
VERONICA: Ah, thanks, Mac.
MAC: I'm not speaking to you. Butters asked if he should rent a room for prom night. I'm doing this for your dad. Mr Mars, what else can I do for you?
KEITH: Do you mind printing every email, every document?
MAC: Your word is my shift-command. Little computer humour for you there.
VERONICA: I liked it better when you weren't speaking to me.
HZ: Don't print out emails, people. The paper wastage of this is mountainous, although I guess lucky for them that she's clearly got like a localised e-mail account and it's not all on the cloud. Now, you know the dark pylon where the PCHers love to meet and they're always there ready in formation before whoever their meeting turns up? Which in this case are a load of Fitzpatricks led by Liam, who calls them "ladies", cause he's a real basic like that?
JOY: Uh-huh.
HZ: "What have I got in my hands?" Some very simple insults and violence. Hector throws an envelope of money to him, which evidently is not enough.
JOY: I will say, to his credit, Liam lists off some really great marketing strategies for raising drug sales.
HZ: Yeah, Future Business Leaders Of America kind of shit happening. It's capitalism.
HECTOR: Supply and demand. That's all the people are buying.
LIAM: Then create demand. You act like the rich kids are the only ones with money. Throw a rave, on the beach. You've got finals coming up, right? People need to stay awake, people need to study. It's called ‘pusher’ for a reason.
JOY: Then they fucking tie up Harry's little brother. Hang him on a hook.
HZ: He's already tenderised.
JOY: He's already tenderised. They're going to tenderise him some more, and punch him until "This hat is full of bills."
HZ: You know I hate everything about Liam, but one thing I particularly hate is he just laughs mirthlessly a lot. So he's like, "Look at this tiny amount of money, ha ha ha!" And then all the guys flanking him are like, "Yeah - ha ha ha!" "Beat up a child? Ha ha ha! Yeah, great.”
JOY: Until... Until, Helen, until fuckin' who should appear? Hark! What headlights through yonder fuckin' dark alleyway break? ‘Tis fair Weevil, in his fuckin' Henley, and fuckin', "The PCHers are not dealing for you anymore," he says. Then he gives Liam a copy of the little paddle with all the licence plate numbers and he's like, "Hmm, how good do you think your business is going to be if I suddenly blow up your spot by identifying your many, many, many famous clients?" And I don't know how many famous clients there are living in Neptune, but I think, yes, we can suspend our disbelief and rejoice in Weevil's victory.
HZ: They can probably deal across Neptune borders up into Huntington Beach, down into Dana Point. Get all the kids in Laguna Beach on the drugs. They've got TV money.
JOY: That's true. Ha!
HZ: It seems very easy, actually, to get the Fitzpatricks to back off. Just business, you've just got to talk business to them.
JOY: Yep, yep, yep. So Weevil extricates the PCHers from the Fitzpatricks, and then he says, "You're on your own boys," and he GTFOs.
HZ: Their hearts break as they watch him drive off. Or maybe they're just reading his back windshield, which has some massive letters in it. I think they say "LATIN STYLE", but I was reading it backwards in a dark moving shot.
JOY: Wow.
HZ: If you were blocking out your back windscreen, what word would you have?
JOY: Wow. So many choices.
HZ: "YOUNGS WITH AN S"?
JOY: "YOUNGS WITH AN S", "GAY FOR WEEVIL"...
HZ: A lovely tribute.
JOY: "JUSTICE FOR JACKIE", "CLIFF CAN GET IT"... You know, there's a lot. There's a lot to tell the world.
HZ: Well, that's a lot of windshield space. At Mars HQ, Veronica looks tired. She's still in her Java The Hut uniform. Must be like a pretty traumatising evening as well, to save your dad from possibly being shot. But they have found that the Barracuda owner was Liam Fitzpatrick's grandmother, and Veronica's like, "Well, my theory is Liam Fitzpatrick blow up the bus to get Cervando," even though it doesn't really make sense because he would have just popped him on a meat hook, and punched and punched, and then made him make more money. But she can't find a connection between Kendall and Liam - but Keith did.
JOY: Aha! Are you ready?
HZ: Not really.
JOY: Buckle up, because Kendall used to be partners with Cormac Fitzpatrick. Yet another Fitzpatrick.
HZ: There's lots, because they're Irish. It's established that what the show knows about Irish people: many family members.
JOY: They did a bunch of fraud together, and she even took a stint in jail to protect him from a third strike situation. So the theory here is that the Fitzpatricks are indebted to her. And they wanted to help her blow up the bus so that she could cash in on that life insurance policy.
HZ: Again: she lives with these boys. She could have just put some poison in the swimming pool and taken care of business. Not blown up a whole bus.
JOY: It's true. There are lots of people who would be suspects in poisoning the swimming pool of Dick Casablancas.
HZ: Precisely. Just everyone in town could pop a little vial of poison in there. So, yeah, I think these theories are stupid. I see every theory in this episode about the bus crash as annoying and stupid. Logan's not an alibi for Kendall, because of being kicked out hours before the crash, because he keeps a very detailed diary about his sex peopling from months ago. At the Neptune Onlyplace, Wallace is still there because he's ready for this five-week romance, and screw the happy ending.
JOY: Yes, screw the happy ending. "Will you go to prom with me? When will we ever meet another like each other ever again?" Jackie says yes, and Wallace is going to rent a top hat and a cane, and I hope he's not joking, I hope he's not playing with my heart in this fashion.
HZ: I hope this doesn't happen off-screen. We need a montage of Wallace trying out canes.
JOY: Oh my god, imagine a Wallace-trying-on-various-tuxedos montage.
HZ: Why make me imagine it? Why not have it in the next episode?
JOY: Yeah, please.
HZ: And then at the Mars home, Keith calls Veronica in. There's a TV report on about Lilly's murder weapon. You thought, last season, she was killed by an ashtray found in the swimming pool? Well, you're a dingus, aren't you, for thinking that. Now why, if you had bludgeoned your sister to death with someone else's Oscar, would there be a clump of your own hair on it? Would you give yourself a light head bash with it on the way out?
JOY: Also, OK, so we're assuming we saw Kendall with the fucking tweezers in the drain in the "Previously on..."
HZ: Chekhov's Shower Drain Hair.
JOY: Yes, exactly.
HZ: Then how did they manage to get Lilly's blood on it?
JOY: This is what I'm curious about. Where did Lilly's frickin' blood come from?
HZ: Also, Jenny, in episode 6 of season 2, the Echolls house burned down. Implication being everything went with it, because Logan is homeless and possessionless thereafter. Aaron's Oscars were in there. But the “Quid pro quo, Mrs C, quid pro quo" thing wasn't until episode 15. So what do they do? Resurrect the Oscars from the ashes in order to bury them at the Kane house? I say bullshit.
JOY: That's a really good point.
HZ: Those Oscars wouldn't withstand a fire. And one last scene: Veronica goes back to Harry's house. Billy answers again, both his eyes are bruised now. At least Veronica doesn't flick them this time.
JOY: And Veronica has clocked his motorcycle, and she's like, "Aha, I know what people with motorcycles do. They join the PCHers, and that means that Liam Fitzpatrick must have killed your brother's dog, and you knew it, didn't you?" And he's like, "Yes, but my brother will go after Liam Fitzpatrick with his compound bow and arrows and kill him, and I don't want him to go to jail, so please don't tell him this tale."
HZ: Which is a bit of a dilemma for Veronica because she looks like she wouldn't mind if Liam got shot by an arrow.
JOY: This just makes me feel weird. This just feels like a weird conclusion to this plotline.
HZ: Yeah. She goes up to Harry's room where he's carving an arrow, because he's very into weapons, by the way, and his room also has antlers in it.
JOY: Did you know he hunts and he likes arrows?
HZ: It's slowly dawning on me that these are his interests. He'd love to have Liam Fitzpatrick's antlers on that wall, I'm sure, but no, because Veronica says she could not find the dog killer. I hope she gives him the meat back.
JOY: Ha!
HZ: That's it. So shall we find out what crimes were committed with our resident legal expert and marshmallow Lo Dodds, in today's LoDown? It's a rhetorical question. It's going to happen. It's happening now.
THE LODOWN
HZ: Lo, is it reasonable for a prosecution lawyer to ask whether a witness knows what sex looks like?
LD: Yes. So I know this seems like a dick question, but he's doing the right thing for Aaron in the sense of the crime is statutory rape. The crime is sex with a minor, right? And in order for the prosecution to prove that, they need to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Aaron, you know, inserted his penis into Lilly.
JOY: Gah.
LD: Fortunately, you can't see that on the tape. So he is doing what he should do as Aaron's lawyer in saying, "Hey, you need to tell me that you know what you're looking at, you know what you're looking for, and you tell me exactly what you saw." And what she saw was them rolling around in sheets.
JOY: Statutory sheet rolling.
LD: Exactly.
HZ: As you do with all of your partners’ dads.
LD: But I mean, in the sense of saying did they have sex? Or would this more be indecent exposure? Or lewd and lascivious conduct with a child? Normally has to be a child of 15 and under. So even Lilly wouldn't qualify for that, so I can see where he's going with this.
JOY: This sort of like pre-interview, is this part of the standard prosecution has to, like, get all their evidence and then say what all their evidence is before the trial starts kind of deal?
LD: Yes, totally. So if you are in any sort of trial, criminal trial or a civil trial, you're going to depose your witnesses, because there's a saying for lawyers, "Never ask a question that you don't know the answer to." That's why you do the deposition though, you're going to ask all your questions so you know what they're going to say, and then when you get them on the stand at trial, if they say something different, so say Veronica got on the stand and said, "Yes, I did see them have sex. I saw Aaron, you know..."
JOY: Argh!
LD: I won't say it again.
JOY: Thank you, Lo.
LD: He could pull out her deposition testimony and say no. It's called a prior inconsistent statement, makes her look less credible. So that's what that's for. But, yes, it would happen in pretty much any trial, any litigation that went to trial.
HZ: And then, are cellphone intercepters legal? It seems not legal that Mac would be listening to Cassidy's phone calls.
LD: No, it's definitely not legal. It's wiretapping, but Mac, being hanging out with Veronica all this time, probably assumes that wiretapping is just something you do to all your friends.
HZ: That's a freebie.
JOY: We learn in this episode that Big Dick Casablancas took out this life insurance policy on his sons and made Kendall the beneficiary. Is there some kind of reason that he would specifically choose Kendall? Like I'm thinking about husband and wife privilege, in terms of like his assets being frozen, but maybe she can access the assets. You know what I'm saying?
LD: I don't really understand this. The life insurance is normally money that someone else gets if you die. So they originally said in this episode that Dick and Cassidy were the beneficiaries, but that doesn't make any sense if it's their life insurance policy, so if they die, someone gets the money. The money should go to Dick, but he's sent it to Kendall. He may be trying to protect those assets, and since Kendall did all that criming with him, I mean, he must trust her to some extent, think that she might not double-cross him, which she definitely would. But I can only see that being the reason he wanted to separate it from his own. And also, it gives her motive. Maybe he's just trying to set her up.
JOY: Aha!
LD: I actually had this conversation with my mother recently that a lot of people, even who are married, make sure that their money goes to their children when they die and not to their spouse, even if they love their spouse, because they don't want their money going to, say, a new spouse, or new spouse's children. They want their money to go to their own children. So it is even weirder that Dick would make Kendall a beneficiary unless he was pretty sure that she wasn't going to double-cross him.
HZ: Someone, presumably, has been paying it since he fled.
LD: Oh, yeah.
JOY: Maybe it's on auto-pay.
LD: Yeah, yeah, mine is, I don't like to think about it.
HZ: But if his assets are frozen...
LD: I don't know if you can buy it with a lump sum as opposed to the payments that you would make over the term. I don't know. It feels like Dick doesn't think that far ahead, Dick Senior, so...
HZ: What do you mean he doesn't think ahead? He had a helicopter waiting on the roof!
LD: He really just had a helicopter on the roof just in general to, like, go on joy rides and stuff. So it was just convenient that it was there.
HZ: Kendall has Don Drapered herself and stolen the identity of a dead person. Is that allowed?
LD: No, no. I didn't think that is, you know, taking someone's identity, and without their consent. So it's even easier to prove if you're using a dead person's identity, because they can definitely not consent to the use of their identity.
JOY: Are you suggesting that I could assume someone's identity with their consent?
LD: Yeah, well...
JOY: Helen! Come on!
HZ: I'm happy to.
JOY: Yes!
LD: You're probably thinking more along the lines of power of attorney, or giving someone consent to sign for things for you, or -
JOY: No, I just want to take over The Allusionist.
HZ: Oh, please, it's very stressful. Have it. You also have to go to my dad's birthday tomorrow.
JOY: OK.
LD: Oh, there you go.
HZ: He's 79.
JOY: Ten years too late to be a party birthday.
HZ: But what do you really get if you're stealing Kendall Shiflett's identity? Because she could just change her name legally to Kendall Shiflett and presumably that would be legal, right?
LD: I think most people steal identity to get credit. So if you have taken over someone's social security number, you're going to use that social security number to apply for credit cards that you don't plan on paying back, buying boats and things, or qualifying for an apartment you don't qualify for. Stuff like that.
HZ: But when someone is registered dead, is someone else not going, "OK, we're going to strike this social security number off the books"?
LD: I don't know how people... I mean, I don't think it's very common to steal dead people's identity because of that. It's going to show up that they're deceased, that their accounts have been closed. Social security numbers can get reused as well. Jenny and I might have social security numbers that have high numbers, but, like, my children, who should be much higher, actually have much lower numbers than me because they're obviously reusing some dead person's number, but lawfully.
HZ: What crime is mooning?
LD: It's indecent exposure. And I don't see Liam Fitzpatrick being a mooner. I'm assuming it was the other dude, the six-pack.
HZ: Danny Boyd?
LD: He seems like the mooning type, and so, yeah, it's indecent exposure. It's going to land you on the sex offender registry list along with everyone else in Neptune.
JOY: Can you explain what, in practice, it means when someone's assets are frozen? And why would Terrence Cook's assets be frozen? Maybe he just pressed them up against a frosty window?
LD: I... Sorry, I'm just picturing that now.
JOY: Nice.
LD: Normally, assets are not frozen in criminal cases except when it comes to financial crimes. You're thinking white collar crime, if you've got someone who's being accused of embezzlement or fraud, the government is going to go in and seize and freeze their assets to make sure that money doesn't go anywhere and the government can get at that money. It is less likely to happen in a murder case. However, the example is when you have a criminal case for murder, and you have a civil suit as well from the relatives of the victims, of the deceased, they're going to bring a wrongful death suit, they could go to the judge and say, "We need you to freeze all his assets," because, like with Terrence, we know he has a gambling problem, there's eight kids that are dead, this is going to be a lot of money, you need to make sure he doesn't start offshoring all of his funds.
JOY: Ah.
LD: But that's kind of what I'm thinking is happening there, because in just your regular old murder case, it wouldn't seem like you'd have enough justification to freeze Terrence's assets, especially if you could see that he has sufficient money to cover the penalties there are for murder.
JOY: Gotcha. What crime is a dog hit-and-run?
LD: Yeah, that... Dogs are, for some inexplicable reason, still considered property. So when you hit a dog, you're damaging someone's property, and the California vehicle code says that you need to try to find the owner. If you can't find the owner, you still need to call the police and report the incident so that they know what happened, and if you don't, if you don't follow those rules, you could be charged with a misdemeanour.
JOY: OK. Doesn't seem like enough.
HZ: But then the penalty for a misdemeanour is just like, "Don't be naughty," so what kind of deterrent would that be for a Fitzpatrick?
LD: It's, yeah, obviously, because, you know, it's not like hitting a... Felony hit-and-run would be hitting a person and leaving the scene of the crime. But, yeah, for a dog...
JOY: Oh wait, but if the dog was worth more than $800 or whatever?
LD: Yeah, like if you had a pure-bred dog that cost you like $3,000.
JOY: OK, what if your dog didn't cost you that much, but your dog ate thumbtacks and had a net $1,300 surgery after insurance picked up their share of the bill, would that compound into the worth of the dog? The value of the dog?
LD: I would make that argument for you in a civil lawsuit.
JOY: Thank you, Lo. I appreciate that.
LD: You're welcome. I'm gonna need receipts.
JOY: Not a problem.
HZ: Well, Jenny, my least favourite line was probably Mac's, "Your wish is my shift-command."
JOY: Wow. Brutal, Helen. Zero wordplay policy.
HZ: What was your favourite line this episode, or were all words transcended by the presence of henley?
JOY: Well, listen, I can appreciate words and henley simultaneously, especially when Veronica says, "Is that your tail I see between your legs?" And Weevil says, "No, but I could see how you might get confused." Nice.
HZ: I would have put $1,000 on you choosing that line.
JOY: Ha!
HZ: But no bookie would take that bet.
JOY: No, no, no, no. A fool's bet. Was there anything you did like?
HZ: I did like Keith being proud of himself, even though Veronica's not really taking the time to congratulate him, and he's like, "Well, I thought it was some pretty sweet detectiving." It is some sweet detectiving.
JOY: Yeah, he did a good job.
HZ: What did you make of this episode overall, Jenny? A good job?
JOY: You know, some stuff got moved along, which is good.
HZ: Well, they tried to backtrack a bunch. "Hey, how about Weevil doing the bus crash? How about Kendall doing the bus crush? How about Liam doing the bus crush? How about Liam's grandma doing the bus crash and mooning out of the window of her car?"
JOY: Yeah, I don't know. After last week it's easy for it to feel like a shit-ton of stuff happened.
HZ: Yes. That's very true.
JOY: Mostly my points are entirely for Weevil and his many looks, and his eyelashes, and his working on a car and stuff, for which I shall give, pretty much just Weevil, 3.75 full-size deer replicas chock full of arrows. And you?
HZ: Yeah. I enjoyed it a lot more than last week. It's jus, because they're throwing so much plot into this season, and so many red herrings, it just feels a bit like just jerking from one thing to another. Each episode is like, "And then this! And then this! And then this! And then occasionally these things intersect!"
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: Rather than feeling like it's being well-crafted. But it was a dog-based plot that I felt was sad and had some emotional heft to it.
JOY: Yep, yep.
HZ: And some relevance to long plots. I love Action Keith.
JOY: Love Action Keith.
HZ: Action Keith and Hot Weevil, those things really like bump this episode up a few points.
JOY: Hell yeah.
HZ: I will give it 3.5 impossible melted Oscars.
JOY: Ha! Well, I suppose, unless you have any objections, Helen, that that's this episode of Veronica Mars investigated.
HZ: Well, I'll say case closed, and then in another season we'll come back and reopen it with some bullshit new evidence.
JOY: Nice.
HZ: So case closed... For now.
