VMI 3.050607 President Infidelity of Vice and Men transcript
Listen to this episode at VMIpod.com/3-050607
Content note: Veronica Mars contains heavy themes, and this episode includes storylines concerning rape, drugs and violence.
A LONG TIME AGO ON VERONICA MARS:
The Dean’s wife’s son is dying and they need Keith to track down her ex-husband and extract his bone marrow! By force if need be!
The college casino is robbed! Veronica thinks it was Weevil - but it was the campus security guards!
Turns out, Claire faked her rape. But the rapist is still real, still out there, and drugs and shaves Veronica.
Professor Landry’s new teacher’s pet is Veronica, so his old teacher’s pet, Tim, makes it look like she cheated on a paper.
Other people ARE cheating, though: Wallace and Logan, on tests; and the Dean’s wife, on the Dean - with Professor Landry.
Someone we don’t know, Meryl, comes to Hearst College to visit her boyfriend whom we also don’t know, so we don’t care that he’s missing, nor that he turns up, but we definitely don’t like having to stop in on the Fitzpatricks along the way.
Aaand Keith and Harmony are spending time together again. There’s a not a lot of plot, but there’s a lot of HOT.
Until Veronica cockblocks Keith. Again! Sorry, but there’s only one woman whom a man in Neptune is allowed to love. And her name is Veronica Mars. (Drink!)
JOY: Backside still smarting from all that horseback riding, I’m Jenny Owen Youngs.
HZ: And kind of gross, like a sack of DNA, I’m Helen Zaltzman.
You’re listening to Veronica Mars Investigations Season 3 Episodes 5, 6 and 7: President Infidelity of Vice and Men.
HZ: Well, shall we start with Dean O'Dell, whom we spend more time with in this cluster of episodes? And he seems a little bit evil.
JOY: He seems a little bit evil, but he sure is fun to watch.
HZ: Super fun. Ed Begley Jr., what a treat.
JOY: I love that he hates college students and confides this in Veronica.
HZ: Do you miss Principal Clemmons? Because I do. He's like our tertiary education Clemmons.
JOY: I miss Clemmons, but I think, you know, when high school shows transition to college, they have a lot to figure out and it can't just be new versions of the same thing. We've got a very different kind of head of faculty situation.
HZ: Yes, you're right. It's better than if Clemmons was like, "I just decided to get a job at Hearst College."
JOY: Right. I mean, literally everyone else in the cast managed to wind up there, and that's enough.
HZ: So, in episode five, the dean goes to see Keith Mars, along with his pretty wife, who is young.
JOY: And Porsche-driving.
HZ: Is that what that is?
JOY: Hell yeah.
HZ: I was just like, "Maroon car that is incredibly shiny."
JOY: So shiny, so aerodynamic and sleek. Very expensive.
VERONICA: Seriously, you blow a hundred grand on a car, I guess you think you can just park wherever you want. I wonder if the sense of entitlement came standard.
DEAN O'DELL: It did. And while we're on the subject of entitlement, maybe someday you can parlay your complimentary $100,000 college education into a lucrative career of your very own. Veronica, have you met my wife?
VERONICA: No. Has your wife met the hot chick?
MINDY: I believe there's a compliment in there somewhere.
HZ: And what's happening with The Family Dean is that the dean's wife, Mindy's son, is dying. Jason. He needs some bone marrow. This is a soap opera.
JOY: Man, this is a heavy, heavy... So heavy, out of nowhere.
HZ: Yes.
JOY: We haven't seen this kid, right? Oh, I guess we see him at the very end of the ep, but...
HZ: He doesn't really get any kind of role in this, but I suppose it is quite motivating, your child being on the verge of death unless you find his deadbeat bio-dad. Keith follows a trail of ex-wives.
JOY: Hey, we all have trails of ex-wives strewn out behind us marking our path. And when, when you see, you know, like a lot of them along a lot of the way, you know, there's sort of like two ex-wives per, you know, you know, in the past, and then you're, you go through the sand, right?
HZ: Mm-hmm.
JOY: And then, when you see just one ex-wife in a trail in the sand, when the... Because, yeah, when the trail of ex-wives narrows from two down to one, that's where the other ex-wife carried you.
HZ: Or buried the first ex-wife in the sand.
JOY: Also possible. Or ate the other.
HZ: Ex-wives get hungry.
JOY: They do. And it's, frankly, none of our business.
HZ: No. Just let them ex-wife in peace.
JOY: Mm-hmm.
HZ: But in this case, they have been followed to find Jason's biological father, Steve Botando, and Keith has already been in his apartment.
JOY: Ugh. Bleurgh.
HZ: And discovers that he's scratching out a living as a voiceover actor, which means Keith hatches an elaborate plan to broker a meeting between him and the O'Dells, and the great thing about this is that involves Cliff. First Cliff sighting of the season.
JOY: And Cliff doing voiceover work. There has to be about a thousand better ways for Keith to have made this happen, but no other ways that would have involved Cliff doing this, doing the, "Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!"
HZ: Ah, glorious.
KEITH: Clifford, you ready?
CLIFF: “Race fans, hot-rodders, the monster trucks are coming to Neptune, Neptune, NEPTUNE!”
KEITH: That's great, Cliff, but just remember -
CLIFF: “Sunday! Sunday! SUNDAY!”
JOY: Somebody, please make an app. Daran Norris, please make an app that's just you talking forever. It would be like Rain Rain, or like a white noise generator app, except it's just Cliff's sonorous, beautiful, rich, melodious tones, lulling you off to dreamland.
HZ: He might have done that, because Daran Norris has done hundreds of voice jobs. Does a lot of games, I think. And it's amazing that this show took more than two seasons to use Cliff's vocal capabilities. With quite extreme facial expressions for Cliff - he's not usually the most animated character. He's usually quite laconic, but when he's doing the, "Sunday, Sunday, Sunday," he's got the face to match.
JOY: Yeah, yeah. He kind of looks like he's figuring out what exactly Sunday is while he's repeating it over and over again.
HZ: This is all bait for Steve to come and do a voiceover audition, and they've put this sign outside Mars Investigations that says Mars Advertising Media Solutions. But nothing else about this looks plausible. They haven't dressed the office at all. The receptionist is Veronica wearing college clothes. And then, as Steve arrives, played by Richard Grieco, who also has a dazzling voice - very ASMR-y - Keith is also pretending to wait for the audition, Cliff's practicing his lines. And it's stupid, but I did love it.
JOY: It is stupid, and I also loved it. Two thumbs up. This is also Jenny-bait, it's not just Steve Batondo-bait.
HZ: But as soon as he's ushered into the office to do his audition: voice game over!
JOY: Helen.
HZ: I wonder why this was a better plan to get Steve and Mindy to talk rather than any other plan, like waiting outside Steve's apartment that Keith has already located.
JOY: Right? And don't you think like... I don't know. I guess, I get that he doesn't want to talk to his ex-wife or whatever, for his own reasons and whatever, but don't you think it's like way harder to ask somebody for something when you're also springing an unpleasant surprise on them? The unpleasant surprise of you? Like, "Boo! And give me your bone marrow!"
HZ: And also that they didn't get a job.
JOY: And he's wasting his precious audition time on this fake fucking audition.
HZ: Then there's this really soapy dialogue between him and Mindy where she's like, "He needs bone marrow! Then you can be his dad again," and he's like, "I could have been there for him. You turned him against me."
JOY: We just don't know enough to give a single fuck about this. The only thing that matters, I think, from this plot is just more of the dean.
HZ: Well, what you have is three adults acting like absolute tools.
JOY: Yes.
HZ: About bone marrow.
JOY: I do like when the dean says, "I'll suck it out of you myself if I have to." Now that's some accidental porn dialogue.
HZ: I'm so glad that you're finding this season so much richer than we expected.
JOY: I really... Listen. Good people listening to the pod: I rallied so hard for us to just basically skip this season, because I remembered a lot of bad things about it. But, watching it? I'm having kind of a blast. I kind of have my hands up at the top of the rollercoaster right now, dragging Helen unwillingly behind me.
HZ: Maybe because we went in with low expectations. It's like we went to a terrible theme park, and we’re like, "Oh, but the snacks here are surprisingly good."
JOY: Yeah, yeah.
HZ: Later, Cliff and Keith are having lunch, and Cliff's got a napkin tucked into his collar in order to eat what looks like a very sad little sandwich. But they're interrupted by Lamb, and Detective Sanchez from the LAPD. Keith is rumbled for pretending to be a building inspector called Adrian Monk. As in, Monk out of Monk.
JOY: Oh, wow.
HZ: Nice.
JOY: Little cross-network reference.
HZ: Also, Enrico Colantoni and Tony Shalhoub, both in Galaxy Quest.
JOY: Oh, hell yeah.
HZ: So, yeah, Keith shouldn't have broken into Steve's apartment, and he's pretty glib about it. He puts his hands out in a kind of jokey way, going, "Go on, arrest me," and they're like, "Yeah, good one. He's missing, and you're the chief suspect."
JOY: Ah! Sure, I mean, as the last person who was in his apartment, and who got in there under false pretenses, I guess that makes sense, kind of?
HZ: This is why they should have done the boring, voiceover-less plot where they just waited outside the apartment, and then Keith wouldn't be in shit.
JOY: No! No, Helen, I won't allow it. I won't stand for it.
HZ: But Cliff's there to be Keith's lawyer.
CLIFF: Excuse me, officers, but if I don't bring up the law, then this won't be considered a billable hour. Do you plan on charging my client? ...Great. If you'd like to talk with him further, call my office. I'll set an appointment. My card.
LAMB: I know your number. It's all over the bus benches. "Call Cliff and get off."
CLIFF: Plus, it's a radio jingle: "Call 555-12" - well, you know the rest.
DETECTIVE SANCHEZ: We'll be keeping an eye on you, Mr. Mars.
HZ: As the police officers leave, Cliff uses his sad little sandwich like a puppet.
JOY: Ha. Listen. I'm trying to think of a way to say, "Cliff can show me his sandwich puppet at any time", without it sounding the way that it unfortunately just sounds.
HZ: No.
JOY: It has to sound that way.
HZ: You just wanted to be like the Mister Rogers of sandwiches, but it came out like innuendo.
JOY: Yes, exactly. It came out like [more porn soundtrack-style "bwow-wow" noises].
HZ: Now we have the term "sandwich puppets", and people can do with that what they must.
JOY: They sure can.
HZ: But Cliff thinks the O'Dells kidnapped Steve and forced him to donate the bone marrow, and then they'll probably kill him because it's better to murder someone than for them to wake up and be like, "My bone marrow was stolen while I slept."
JOY: Yeah. What? I'm not 100 percent on board for the speculative aspect of this deal-making.
HZ: We've noticed in other episodes, when someone says something to the Marses and they're like, "Right, well, that must be true, let's go off and accuse someone." Veronica does a bit this episode, where she's like, "Have you seen this man? He's a rapist." And here Keith is like, "Have you seen Steve? He's been murdered for his bone marrow."
JOY: Ha!
HZ: So Keith rushes to the dean's office, yelling, "Where's your wife? Where is Steve? Where's the child? Where's the bone marrow?" And the dean says, "They're in Mexico." There's quite a lot of Mexico in these episodes as well. And so Keith and the dean are going to Mexico. Just a quick trip, then, to a Mexican hospital, where Keith gets a call from Cliff saying, "They're actually in a hospital in San Diego, you sucker."
JOY: Oh my god.
HZ: Where Mindy's oncologist uncle is doing the operation. Can you just take someone's bone marrow against their will?
JOY: This is what I'm saying. What did they do? Like, knock him out?
HZ: "Yes, we've brought our boy in for an operation, and we've brought the bone marrow with us. Is there a corkage charge?"
JOY: Yeah, yeah. "Could you, could you just get this open?"
HZ: BYOBM.
JOY: Exactly.
HZ: But the dean was like, "We had no choice but to hatch this completely stupid, unnecessary trip to Mexico." So then, to the other hospital. It's probably the same set, isn't it, from the other way around? And then there's some real trolley problem shit, where the dean is like, "Keith, don't stop the operation, or my stepson will die." And Keith's like, "If I don't stop it, Steve will die."
JOY: Argh!
HZ: And the dean's like, "We weren't going to kill Steve! What did Cliff tell you?" Fucking hell.
JOY: So, wait: do we see Keith make a decision here?
HZ: Well, the dean says, "What would you do if it was Veronica?"
JOY: Oh right.
HZ: And Keith is like, "I'd snap open his bones and fucking drain them myself."
JOY: Yeah, yeah, ha!
HZ: But the outcome is a little ambiguous, because you then get this shot of the O'Dells watching over their son in a hospital bed; not sure whether that's after he's had the surgery, or if that's while he's dying. And then we get a jump: one week later, the Sheriff's Department. Has this show done time jumps before? Because usually the time jumps are indicated by a big smeary flashback, but we haven't had a flash forward.
JOY: Right, right, right, right. Exactly.
HZ: What would they do for a flash forward? Make things crisper, rather than smeary?
JOY: "Enhance."
HZ: Ah, that's what enhance is, it's the passage of time in a forward direction.
JOY: Right, of course. So Keith brings Batando into Lamb's office, and Steve is just pretending he was out of town. He's so embarrassed, he didn't even realise a whole fuss was being made, but he's fine, and he's alive, and you can drop the the search and the potential charges and all of that stuff. Then Keith and Steve step outside and we learn that Chekhov's Porsche has changed hands. It now belongs to Steve. Did he even want that Porsche? I guess he could just sell it. Or maybe he really, really wanted one.
HZ: I think the implication in the show is, just like everyone must love Veronica, everyone must want the Porsche.
JOY: Yeah, OK, great point.
HZ: Steve is like, "Yeah, I don't know owe my wife any alimony or child support, she's got my marrow." And then he speeds off in the car and it's just really squeaky. I guess he's still learning to drive it.
JOY: Well, I think Porsches only come in stick, and then a weird semi - like something halfway in between automatic and stick. Like, you can't get a purely automatic Porsche, I think.
HZ: I see.
JOY: Is that still the case?
HZ: You are asking the very wrong person for this question.
JOY: Yeah. If my dad were here, he would have plenty to say, and any residual Porsche knowledge or semi-knowledge that's knocking around in my dumb brain is all from my dad, and not up to date, I'm sorry.
HZ: But this isn't Veronica Cars Investigations.
JOY: Ha! No, you know what, Helen? Let's go to college, and, if you don't mind, let's do a joint presentation on our friend Weevil, the reformed criminal.
HZ: For about ten minutes before he's accused of another crime.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: Yeah, he's Veronica's specimen. "From the age of six, he was crime-ing," and most of the students are just hot for Weevil. We should sell them some Gay for Weevil pins.
JOY: Yes, yes. I mean, look at him. He is a man. He is doing... Do you know how many times I wrote "Weevil with a toolbox" in my notes? He's freaking all over the place with his big red shiny toolbox, looking very capable, very handy.
HZ: How many explicit tags are we going to have to put on this episode?
JOY: Ha, yeah.
HZ: How do you feel about Veronica's "Here's a criminal for you kids, he's a real criminal, watch him rotate" presentation?
JOY: I hate Veronica's "Look at this exhibition I'm putting on of this fucking human being's life story, without any sort of context or whatever." But I love Weevil's episode of The Moth. It rocks.
WEEVIL: Well, we were at it pretty late, you know, a little too much juice, a little too much smoke. So, it's like three or four in the morning. One of my boys, Hector, comes in, wakes me up. He's like, "Yo yo yo, somebody keyed my bike." We find this guy's truck parked on the street, hotwire it, take it to my cousin's shop, 'cause, well, that's where the car crusher is. We end up leaving the cube, the one that used to be his F250, in his driveway with the license plates on top. Found out later we had the wrong guy's truck.
HZ: There's a pretty girl introduced in this episode - although not for long - played by Dianna Agron, who later turns up in Glee.
JOY: Dude, there she is, doing almost nothing. Flying right by our eyes.
HZ: After the class, Veronica and Weevil are walking, and he comments on Veronica's necklace, which is almost too small to see. And she's like, "Yes, it was Lilly's, and it means so much to me, this episode and no other episode."
JOY: Ha! And Weevil is like, "I can pick out anything that belonged to Lilly from fifty paces."
HZ: Yeah, he's like, "I used to put secret notes in that tiny necklace. On microfiche."
JOY: Ha!
HZ: He asks her what she's doing for Halloween, and she's going to the campus casino with Logan.
JOY: Oh my f-...
HZ: And this is their exchange - because they don't truly get on as a couple, really, except in crisis. So they both get to do what they love: him gambling, and her, she says, "Dressing up and giving out candy to trick or treaters." We know she loves dressing up, but it's usually to honeytrap somebody. And then she notices some white flakes on Weevil's shoulders. Chekhov's Drywall Dust.
JOY: There it is.
HZ: From renovating the student union. And Weevil only now finds out that Veronica's back together with Logan, and he's like, "What, after what he did to Lilly?"
JOY: What did he do to Lilly?
HZ: Was there some implication of violence between them?
JOY: I've never felt so qualified to talk about a TV show. I can't even remember what Weevil would be bummed about, except the fact that he and Logan and Lilly were briefly in a love triangle that unfortunately never moved to its natural conclusion. Once the third party was no longer alive, they failed to take it to the next level.
HZ: So sorry, Jenny. And then what did you think about Loganica's couple Halloween costume, Jenny?
JOY: I didn't know what the fuck it was until I was just reading your notes, and now I see that they are the White Stripes for Halloween.
HZ: Yes. I'm not sure I would have noticed had I not been told, because I thought, "Is he doing Shaggy from Scooby Doo?"
JOY: Right. Like, what is that wig? The wig is not quite right.
HZ: The wigs are never right, Jenny.
JOY: The wigs are never right.
HZ: Even though she's got a whole wardrobe of wigs for her various sting operations. She makes more effort dressing up to do a sting than she does for this Halloween.
JOY: It's true. And has anybody told them that the whole thing with the White Stripes is, like, are they brother and sister or are they a couple?
HZ: Oh, that's some season one shit.
JOY: Exactly.
HZ: Get Duncan back in here!
JOY: That would be a Duncan and Veronica costume, exactly.
HZ: I would have had a lot more respect for Duncvonica if that had been their Halloween couple's costume of choice.
JOY: Yeah, go as the Lannisters, you cowards!
HZ: But Logan's not there yet, actually. It's just Veronica on her own waiting for the other White Stripe, so she's just someone in a wig and a top.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: But then there's shouting, and two people wearing rubbery presidential masks, holding guns. Jimmy Carter demands everyone remove their jewellery and put them into Richard Nixon's bag, which is shaped like a pumpkin, because Halloween. A lot of Nixon references as well in this cluster of episodes.
JOY: Yes.
HZ: Nixon and The Big Lebowski. Those are things Rob Thomas has heard of. And both of them come up enough times to make me fed up of seeing references to them.
JOY: Yes. Jimmy Carter is speaking with... I don't even know how to say this.
HZ: It's a deliberately distinctive accent.
JOY: It seems like he's trying to sound...
HZ: Foreign?
JOY: Yes.
HZ: He asks Mercer for the cashbox. There's a lot of Mercer as well, an increasing amount of Mercer.
JOY: Ugh, than anyone ever asked for.
HZ: Would you like someone who is like the worst bits of Logan in season one, without the charm or the redemption arc? Here you go.
JOY: Yeah. Who is this for?
HZ: And Mercer's like, "Well, here's the box; I’m not going to give you the combination," and so Jimmy Carter hits the blackjack dealer to the ground and then Mercer's like, "OK, here's the combination."
JOY: Why not just hit Mercer? You know what I mean? Not to encourage violence, but if I was the gunman I think it would be more of an incentive to do violence at the person who is withholding information from you.
HZ: Yeah, especially as Mercer doesn't seem like the kind of person who would be that bothered by someone else being hit because of something Mercer was doing.
JOY: Exactly.
HZ: You're implying that Mercer has a conscience, which... TBD.
JOY: Yeah. Haven't seen it.
HZ: And then, the tiny necklace becomes a thing as President Carter rams Veronica against the wall and rips it off her neck.
JOY: Rude.
HZ: Thus giving her motivation to solve this crime.
JOY: Otherwise she would have just let it all slide.
HZ: I feel like Veronica is quite unmotivated in most of these episodes, actually.
JOY: Huh. What do you think that's about?
HZ: I think it's about them not really having figured out anything for anyone to do this season, except maybe Keith, who does seem like he has a life beyond what we see on screen. But it seems like they haven't got enough for Logan to do, or Wallace to do, or Piz - although they still dangle him in front of the camera as if we're supposed to take that bait.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: And I think, for Veronica, she just happens to be in the room where crimes happen, so she'd better investigate them. Rather than because she's getting paid or has a personal tie. Post-robbery, she looks very upset. Someone is wearing a Dude costume from The Big Lebowski.
JOY: Jesus.
HZ: The campus security guards are investigating, and they tell Mercer that he shouldn't expect them to help because they told him to shut the casino down twice. And then Logan arrives in his Jack White from White Stripes thing, and a new necklace. You know those belt buckles that are like a big metal oval?
JOY: Oh yeah.
HZ: It looks like that.
JOY: Yes.
HZ: But on his neck.
JOY: Yes.
HZ: And allegedly he was just in class. What class is that late?
JOY: Yeah. I feel like class is done by like, what, 8pm?
HZ: Maybe it is 8pm, it's just the lighting in this place is... It makes it so hard to call what time, it could be like 3am.
JOY: Dude, the land of eternal night.
HZ: Lamb shows up, and he's holding his belt like in a really crotch-pointy way. Or, as if he's about to do some line dancing.
JOY: Ooh, I hope it's the latter.
HZ: But he doesn't.
JOY: Oh, alas.
HZ: So disappointing.
JOY: Give us what we want, Veronica Mars, the show!
LAMB: Well, well, what do we have here? An illegal gambling establishment. Underage drinking. Public displays of affection. It's like Sodom and Gomorrah in here. Barker, start collecting IDs from everyone in the room.
VERONICA: Er - we had our wallets stolen?
HZ: Well, she's suddenly like, "I'm sure I know who did it, based on fuck all."
JOY: Based on nothing. Well, based on Chekhov's Drywall Dust, I guess.
HZ: Weevil gets home, and there's a Veronica in it, with a Backup.
JOY: This is not what you want to see when you come home from a long day of toting your very masculine toolbox around campus, you know?
HZ: With the big heavy wrench in it.
JOY: Yeah. Exac-... Mmm, ha, how many times can I sing porn music at you today, Helen?
HZ: There's so much heft to that wrench.
JOY: Yes, exactly! You get home, you're exhausted, you turn on the light - ah fuck, fucking Veronica Mars is on your couch? With Backup?
HZ: At least Backup's there.
JOY: Yeah. Actually, Weevil and Backup clearly have something special.
HZ: They have an understanding.
JOY: They're buds.
HZ: And she asks where he stashed her necklace, even though the thieves looked a lot taller than Weevil.
JOY: Right?
HZ: And had very different voices.
JOY: I just feel like she's not... She's really not on her game.
HZ: Not at all. But it does give Weevil the opportunity to make more allusions to the amount of action he's been getting off-screen.
JOY: Hell yeah, Weevil. Get it, sir.
VERONICA: Where's Lilly's necklace?
WEEVIL: Someone left a bracelet in my bed last week. Oh, wait, was it a hoop earring?
VERONICA: I'm not playing with you.
WEEVIL: Don't you get it? I have no idea what you're talking about.
VERONICA: Oh, you don't, huh? Let me spell it out. I tell you about a working on-campus casino. Six hours later, it's held up by a guy your size, wearing a mask, who happens to be covered in a thin film of drywall dust and the stench of Drakkar cologne.
WEEVIL: My cologne stinks? So, all this play I've been getting is from pure sex appeal?
VERONICA: You just told my classmates that your old life of crime was calling. You just asked me about Lilly's necklace.
WEEVIL: I can't believe you think I'd do that. To you! After all we've been through!
VERONICA: After all we've been through, can you really blame me?
HZ: Another thing that Veronica does a lot in these three episodes is just act like everyone has done her wrong. So she's always like, "Every man in my life has disappointed me."
JOY: Dude.
HZ: "After all we've been through, can you really blame me?" Like, yeah, fucking can blame you.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: This is based on nothing. Well, it's based on being covered in a thin coating of drywall dust, and wearing cologne. We have a lot of cologne smell clues as well, all of which seem to be bullshit. Also, if Weevil was drywalling, other people would be in the vicinity of the drywall.
JOY: True.
HZ: It's exhausting.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: But, the good thing is we get to see Logan and Weevil together again. It's not their best work.
WEEVIL: Hey, Joe College!
LOGAN: José Lunchpail! The living breathing embodiment of the American dream.
HZ: But Lamb is here to search Weevil's car, and Sacks finds some jewellery, which means Lamb gets to arrest Weevil again.
JOY: But a girl probably just left it back there while he was getting some action in the back of his Impala.
HZ: So off we go to the Sheriff's Department, where Veronica is. Not to help Weevil, but to get her necklace back.
HZ: "I'll prosecute my friend to get my necklace back."
JOY: Yeah, she's really not her best self this ep.
HZ: Given that California has the three strikes rule, and Weevil is already convicted of assault, wouldn't you be a bit reserved about getting another strike on his record about this necklace?
JOY: Yeah, this is very careless. Very cavalier. I do like when Lamb is arresting Weevil and asks if he wants to do like a harmony on his Miranda rights, as Lamb reads them to him. Alas, we don't get to see that.
HZ: Lamb is quite great this episode.
JOY: Yeah, Lamb is, like, just shitty enough.
HZ: He's quite helpful, and...
JOY: ...and he does the robot.
LAMB: Does not compute.
DEPUTY: Hey, Sheriff's doing the robot again.
LAMB: Does not compute.
DEPUTY: I'll get my camera phone.
HZ: It's clearly a regular occurrence.
JOY: Yeah, this is definitely a go-to bit for Lamb, and it shows. It shows he's put the hours in, because it's pretty good. It’s good enough.
HZ: Well, it computes with my back story for him that he was in a boy band but retired at 22.
JOY: Oh, hell yeah.
HZ: Then we have another pizza crime: someone is trying to pin this on Weevil by using one of the stolen credit cards to order a pizza to Weevil's apartment.
JOY: Rude.
HZ: Is that enough evidence for anything?
JOY: That would automatically make me want to exonerate, like I would take Weevil off my list if that happened, because it's just too stupid.
HZ: He's not new to this. They've just established he started crime-ing at six. Why would he be in with this amateur hour pizza shit?
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: Fuck's sake. Then Veronica goes to visit him in his cell and they banter about the decor.
WEEVIL: I'm thinking of some curtains over here, maybe a koi pond in the corner.
VERONICA: Where's my necklace?
WEEVIL: I don't have it. It was a frame job, V. Look, a prepaid pizza was delivered to my apartment. I didn't order it. Come on, what's a working man gonna do in that situation?
VERONICA: So, when I look into this - and I will look into this - I'm gonna find out you didn't order that pizza?
WEEVIL: Or you could just save yourself the trouble and take my word for it. ….Okay.
VERONICA: That was good. Well done.
HZ: At which point I thought, "Is Veronica just kind of a horrible person this season?" She's not nice to anyone. She's very self-absorbed. She's off her game detectively.
JOY: She is, I feel like, funnier than usual? Or maybe I should say even funnier than usual. Maybe not. I really, like, enjoy when we get to the bit where she's talking to the theatre kids and she does her whole, like, "Try the veal, and scene," all of that stuff. I like that kind of jaunt in her vibe. But, you know, not to detract from the bad, bad vibes that are coming out of her, and her decisions.
HZ: Well, the next place this plot takes her to is the pizza shop, Mamma Mia, and there's a very young-looking guy behind the counter called Danny, and when he sees her he looks like he's seen a ghost, but it's because she's such a celebrity.
JOY: He's a big fan.
HZ: “Veronica Mars!” Drink. "Hey, I remember you cut someone off the flagpole in episode one. You stopped some guys blowing up the school in episode 18."
JOY: Ha!
HZ: And then some 2006 internet: Weevil's pizza was ordered via the internet, but only the manager, Mr Wolfcastle, can request that from the ISP. So, they call the ISP on the phone and pretend to be Mr Wolfcastle.
JOY: Oh my god. It's right up there with Veronica's accent work.
HZ: I did quite enjoy Danny doing this.
JOY: Yeah, he's like a little mini-Veronica.
HZ: Is this a tribute to Rainier Wolfcastle in The Simpsons who's this Schwarzenegger-style action hero with a strong accent?
DANNY: Hello, this is Walter Wolfcastle. Listen, I need a favour 'cause my hands are full. I need you to track an internet order. ...Of course I want it now. What, should I wait 'til Tuesday?
HZ: Do you remember the olden days, Jenny, where you could just call your ISP and get an IP address off them?
JOY: Sure, yeah.
HZ: But guess where this computer was that placed the internet order? 40 feet from drywall! You know who was in that vicinity? Fucking loads of people!
JOY: Yeah, but especially Weevil! Oh my god... Yeah, this is totally insubstantial.
HZ: And then, she gets up to find she's sat in some purple gum.
JOY: No. This fucking sick burn from this child.
VERONICA: Hi. Any idea how this gum got from your mouth to that chair?
OBNOXIOUS KID: I thought this was supposed to be a good school. Shouldn't you be, like, smart?
HZ: You think it's going to be Chekhov's Purple Gum, but it's actually Chekhov's Obnoxious Kid.
JOY: Exactly. Yes. Haven't seen the last of this kid, unfortunately.
HZ: When Veronica goes back to see Weevil, he's alone in his huge cell, which is very atmospherically lit so there's a bit of light on him, like he's in a Rembrandt painting, and then the toilet is under a spotlight as well.
JOY: Ha! Lovely. Lovely. We find out here - are you ready? - the guns from the casino hold-up were fake.
HZ: Shit. Off we go to the theatre department, and you know what happens when you get actors at college: they stand in a line all looking in one direction across the room, unhappily, because someone has covered the stage in cooking spray, to sabotage.
JOY: No!
HZ: It was the fucking short film festival, jealous of them having the same opening night! Listen. One of those things is not taking the audience of the other thing.
JOY: Right? Just let it happen.
HZ: Just try to be on the same side. Why this enmity between drama-based societies?
JOY: Unknown, unknown. They have more in common than they have in conflict. So Veronica goes in search of the film department people, and wow, they're having this short festival, right? And what's featured in this short but a bunch of guns and some president masks?
HZ: He explains that the props were stolen a week ago, but the campus police tracked down all of the stuff except for the guns and the masks. Are we near the end yet?
JOY: Oh my god, we're clawing our way there, and... Knock, knock on the doorstep of the campus police guy: wow, it's Veronica and Backup. She's got some questions, she wants her necklace, she'll let it all slide if he just gives her a freaking necklace.
HZ: And he's just trying to buy Girl Scout cookies from her because that's his only gag, and it just keeps going.
JOY: It just goes on forever. Veronica's like, "You will not believe how much hair there is in this mask, isn't that sick?"
HZ: The police are on their way as a siren gets ever louder, and she's wearing a wire, and she's like, "Yes, I can do a racist accent, ooh!"
JOY: Oh, god. Is that the end of the...
HZ: No!
JOY: Oh no, it's not, it keeps going!
HZ: At least there's some good music. There's Johnny Cash's ‘Busted;.
JOY: I love that song.
HZ: Lamb's doing a press conference outside the guy's house? Like, this would be a local news story? Come on.
JOY: Seems pretty iffy.
HZ: Veronica looks very jaded and depressed because she still doesn't have her necklace back, so investigating this crime was all for nothing. And then she gets a dressing down from the little girl, who calls her a stupid cow.
OBNOXIOUS KID: You think you're such a big deal, but you're so not. You did this. You set up my daddy, you stupid cow. Go back to Hearst where you belong. You come into this town and treat everyone like dirt.
JOY: Rude. So rude.
HZ: What does she mean when she's like, "You think you're such a big deal but you're not, you come into this town and treat everyone like dirt"?
JOY: I don't know what she's referring to.
HZ: But, aha, little girl's wearing the necklace, so Veronica rips it off her neck, even though that probably breaks things.
JOY: And finally:
HZ: Veronica versus the shitty child! Who will win??
JOY: They're about the same size.
HZ: I think shitty child won, both times.
JOY: Yeah. Veronica's going to be thinking about it a lot longer than the kid is going to be thinking about it, you know?
HZ: But at least that plot is done.
JOY: Over. Hooray.
HZ: Doesn't apologize to Weevil. Just another thing in their complicated friendship. And then we have a theme of cheating. Wallace is working really hard but just not doing very well in a mechanical engineering class, which is devastating, because he always wanted to be a mechanical engineer ever since he was a tiny little boy.
JOY: Even though this is the first time we're hearing about it.
HZ: It's always been a primary motivator for him. He basketballs, because mechanical engineering. He eats cookies, because of cookie mechanical engineering. He does favours for Veronica in case there's mechanical engineering involved.
JOY: Ha!
HZ: But he's distracted from his studies by a friend from basketball called Mason, and some girls.
JOY: Ugh, girls.
HZ: Which means he's really stuck when he's got a test, so he goes and buys the test from a tutor - supposed tutor, who's like, "$100 for the test, $100 for the answers," and initially only buys the test. I think you're supposed to think, "Oh, Wallace, he is cheating, but not as much as if someone gave him the answers, he's willing to do the work."
JOY: Right, right. But then it's too, too much. And by the end of the episode, we're seeing his teacher receive this test and look very displeased, right?
HZ: Max, the guy who sells him the test says, "Oh, Professor Winkler always does the same test for the last three years," but I guess this whole system is rumbled. But the professor is quite forgiving to Wallace. It seems that people who might be pissed off with Wallace and jeopardise his college are actually trying to help him.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: The professor wants him to do better. He's like, "It's a lot of workload, we don't usually take athletes on my course because it's too much work." So then Wallace tells the basketball coach he might have to de-basketball because of his dream to be a mechanical engineer, and the coach is like, "Well, you can keep your sports scholarship even if you're not doing any sport."
JOY: What?
HZ: Even the characters in the show want our precious Wallace to be OK.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: Having retired from basketball temporarily, Wallace is pictured taking notes in class and being like, "Oh, I get it now." So it was sports that were ruining his life all along.
JOY: Aha. Wicked, wicked sports.
HZ: And that's all Wallace gets to do, because the rest of the time they just pack him off to be studying in a motel in Twentynine Palms. And then Logan also does a test and he carries on writing for ten seconds after the bell, so he's cheating, but, pfft, do we need to pay attention to it, Jenny?
JOY: Really couldn't tell you, Helen. I don't think so?
HZ: He gets away with it because he's alpha. But then the more important cheating is Veronica. In episode six, she's Professor Landry's new favourite because she's written this amazing essay. But then she's accused of plagiarising it, and has an arbitrary three days to prove her innocence, which is the true project of sorts.
JOY: Oh, god. Could we, like, zoom out for a second, Helen? I'm curious how you feel about this. How do you feel about this?
HZ: Well, because we get a lot of scenes in Landry's lecture theatre, I noticed that the backdrop is always changing. So at one point it's like posters of fingerprints, when Veronica's doing her Weevil presentation. Another, it's all blackboards. In another, it's all whiteboards. What does that mean? Forensic it, Jenny. What does it mean?
JOY: Well, in order for me to forensic it, I'm going to need a nice little montage. The fingerprints are lighting up around my face as I stare at them and like I'm the math lady meme personified, with some kicky, like, maybe like a Who cover.
HZ: [To the tune of ‘My Generation’] “Talking about set decoration…”
JOY: Hell yeah.
HZ: And did you think it appropriate for Landry to be doing food court stuff with Veronica, and offering her a rib?
JOY: No. Although, this is less offensive than certain things that I can recall from my college experience, professorially speaking.
HZ: Out of these episodes, one of the things I found potentially most interesting is Veronica versus Lucky In A Wig. And I also liked having to witness him trying to be villainous whilst wearing that wig. That is a very difficult acting challenge.
JOY: Ha! It really is. I mean, he's doing a pretty good job, I think, considering that he has to be in that wig the whole time. Imagine what he would be capable of if that was not the case.
VERONICA: What did you need to see me about?
TIMOTHY: You know, Hearst has a pretty strict policy when it comes to plagiarism. VERONICA: Yes. Did someone plagiarise?
TIMOTHY: Well, you did. One of your classmates turned you in. There's a program we run to check papers. It scans online for similar phrases -
VERONICA: I know how it works, but I -
TIMOTHY: Your paper lit up like a Christmas tree.
VERONICA: What? I didn't copy my paper!
TIMOTHY: So I assumed, but… Well, that's your paper there.
VERONICA: There's no way. Someone is trying to screw with me.
TIMOTHY: You think it's me? You think I'm trying to get you out of Landry's class because I don't like you?
VERONICA: Wait. You don't like me?
JOY: We've got Veronica's accuser, Jeff Ratner, who I find particularly offensive because I know somebody named Jeff Ratner, who is the chillest, nicest guy.
HZ: Aw.
JOY: And this guy seems neither chill nor nice. Although maybe he's just having a reaction to Veronica, I know she can be very offputting and it has, you know, mutated and snowballed into something greater than the sum of its parts.
HZ: I think what I appreciate about Jeff Ratner, and Lucky In A Wig, is that both of them are immune to Veronica's charms.
JOY: Yeah, and it's good to see that. It's also great to see a man in a shiny vest on this show. For once.
HZ: Veronica's suffered so many shiny vests.
JOY: Yes. No, see, Jeff Ratner and Veronica Mars have more in common than they may realise.
HZ: True. But she's fundamentally on the other side of the room service experience in this episode.
JOY: Ugh.
VERONICA: Okay. So, I wrote that paper, and now someone in this class has accused me of plagiarising it, which I absolutely did not. So, I was kind of wondering who it was.
[Nothing.]
VERONICA: So, is this silence, like, it wasn't any of you? Or like no one wants to face me?
VERONICA VOICEOVER: Or like no one actually did it and our weaselly TA is trying to -
JEFF: I did it. Jeff Ratner.
VERONICA: Ratner. Um, have we met before?
JEFF: We have, but you probably don't remember, so, whatever.
VERONICA: So, you reported me. Why did you -
JEFF: Why? Maybe because I'm a common man kind of guy, and I like it when some teacher's pet who's destroying the curve for everyone, gets exposed as a cheat. Yeah, you cheated. I caught you. Deal with it.
JOY: How do you get the match? Like, how did they get her actual paper into the programme to see, to run it and see if there was, you know, whatever it was, like a 90 percent match or whatever?
HZ: That is a question for the tech ops at Hearst College, Jenny.
JOY: That is a question for WHO CARES?
HZ: Yes. So she goes to Max's room to help Wallace cheat on the test. He finds that it was posted by a rory.finch@hearstcollege.org, which is about the most normal email address we've had on this show so far yet.
JOY: Yeah, but Rory Finch never has been a student. Rory Finch doesn't exist.
HZ: She's got a big bunch of keys. They're Weevil's. He's away at his cousin's wedding - therefore Veronica has his keys? What?
JOY: Sure, why not?
HZ: And she's doing that to get at Rory Finch's email files? That are kept in a physical place in the dean's office? The dean is also in the office, so Veronica has to think on her feet because she didn't plan a cover story on the way, and she's like, "Uh, uh, I lost an earring, and... I'm female," and he's like, "Sure, do you like boxing? I'm eating, I don't give a fuck."
JOY: Are the dean and Veronica going to become boxing buddies?
HZ: No, because she only like sports that are done to music, Jenny.
JOY: What if I told you... [starts beatboxing "Eye Of The Tiger"]. You know? Didn't you just see boxing in your mind just now?
HZ: I...
JOY: I'll work on it, I'll work on my song, I'm sorry.
HZ: But he doesn't give a shit because he's watching the boxing, eating a thing, and smoking a cigar, and disobeying his wife, which means she can just carry on fucking around in the files. And the weird thing is she finds out that rory.finch@hearstcollege.org was an email set up at an IP address at the Neptune Grand three days ago, and she found out all of that, somehow, but had to go into physical files to find it? Never mind.
JOY: Dude.
HZ: Never mind.
JOY: It's none of your business! Move along!
HZ: Does the dean like his wife, or not?
JOY: This could be an ungenerous reading of the dean, but my sense is that he's got a hot wife, and he likes that, but then she makes a lot of rules for him, and he doesn't like that. So does that even out, perhaps?
HZ: Well, I think they probably should maybe communicate better about what they want from each other in the relationship.
JOY: That sounds like something adults would do. Sure, yeah.
HZ: Off we go to the Neptune Grand, and luckily Logan's got an in with the nice lady at reception, Tina, and finds out all about Rory Finch, who's got a post office box instead of a home, and cash. Whatever next. Jeff Ratner's here, serving up some room service.
JOY: And some salt.
VERONICA: This is the guy who's trying to get me tossed out of Landry's class.
JEFF: You should be. You cheated.
VERONICA: Now it turns out you work at the Neptune Grand which happens to be where the fake paper was posted from. Strange, huh, Rory Finch?
JEFF: What are you talking about? I don't ‘happen’ to work here. I've worked here two years. You've seen me a hundred times but you don't notice the little people, 'cause you're too busy lounging with Captain Moneybags here.
LOGAN: That's Admiral Moneybags.
JEFF: I trust the steak's to your liking.
LOGAN: Always.
JEFF: Goodnight then.
LOGAN: Well, that's my girl, spreading sunshine wherever she goes.
VERONICA: That boy doesn’t know it yet but he's the living dead.
HZ: Next, Tina has called Veronica: Rory Finch is back, in room 906, but it's... Mrs O'Dell! Taking a break after a very stressful bone marrow time, or ready to meet a man in a henley, Jenny - but not your favourite man in a henley.
JOY: But hey, I mean, putting a henley on automatically bumps Landry up a little bit in my estimation. I'm starting to see what everybody has been talking about.
HZ: But Veronica knows that somebody is Rory Finch in a henley. let's go back to Lucky's office to wrap this fucking plot up.
JOY: Please, and send it down the river. He's all, "Heh heh heh, maybe I wanted you to see what friggin' Landry is really all about before you get in too deep with him," and then he twists his moustache and, fucking, the train's coming down the track.
HZ: There are easier ways to teach you what Landry's like.
JOY: Right?
HZ: Unfortunately, Veronica has already framed Jeff Ratner by filling his car boot with tiny toiletries.
JOY: Hell yeah.
HZ: Something of greater note, as Veronica is in Lucky's office, is that he's got a serial killer wall of clips about the campus rapes, with the red lines between them. Veronica sees something in these clippings, but we don't know what yet.
JOY: Does she even see it, or is she just fucking with Lucky In A Wig? It feels like, if I was Veronica Mars, the thing I'd be doing is planting a seed of doubt in that man's mind at every opportunity.
HZ: Shall we just do our review of where the campus rapist plot is at?
JOY: Yes.
HZ: The frats versus the feminists: we don't see frats, but the feminists go down a few rungs in the rankings even worse than before, because Claire, who was raped in the last episode we covered, there's this picture Veronica's got of her taking cash out of an ATM with this Asian guy behind her who's not the Asian guy from the frat, but he is wearing a Camp Waterloo t-shirt...
JOY: Enhance, enhance, enhance.
HZ: I don't want to get into this, because it's ultimately for nought, but Veronica calls up Camp Waterloo in Virginia and has to pull out the ol' Scarlett O'Hara.
JOY: Boo.
VERONICA: I'll tell you what, I'll be sugar and sunshine if you could help me. I am trying to organise a camp reunion, and I was hoping you could send me a roster of the campers for the last five years. Yes, ma'am, I sure do miss it! My backside still smarts from all that horseback riding. Ha! Well, aren't you sweet.
JOY: Wretched. It's so bad.
HZ: Anyway, the upshot is the guy is actually Claire's boyfriend, even though she says she doesn't know him.
JOY: Oh my god, Claire, that is, like, something that it would be very easy for people to find out you're lying about.
HZ: Yes.
JOY: Ma'am.
HZ: Claire's got the worst of all of the baldy caps with hair clippings stuck on, and, because now we find out she faked the rape so the feminists could implicate the frats, did she also fake the head shaving? With the terrible baldy look? Is it meant to look terrible?
JOY: No, I think they all look so bad. This does look wretched, but it doesn't look any worse... In my opinion, for my money, it doesn't look any worse than all the other bald wigs.
HZ: As if this show needed to be worse at covering rape, it also adds to the mountain of people discrediting accusations of rape, which is not what the world needs.
JOY: Great, yeah.
HZ: This show hates the feminists, as does Veronica Mars, because she wrote an article about it. Claire and Nish, the paper editor, end up at the dean's office. Claire is expelled from college, and Nish is kicked out from being the editor of the newspaper. Why does he react more to the fake rape than loads of the real ones?
JOY: Now that's a fucking question, Helen.
HZ: It is!
JOY: You know what else happens? Parker. Parker meets Mercer, and she gets a very bad vibe from his cologne, immediately.
HZ: Yeah. Even though he's like, "Well, there was a cologne sample in GQ magazine," and you're like, "Who knows that?"
JOY: Maybe somebody who chooses their cologne based on magazine samples?
HZ: Parker's in-universe wig is actually the actor's real hair, isn't it?
JOY: Yeah. They don't go back to any wiggy stuff for Parker, I think, from this moment forward. She just has the best wig on the show because it's actually her hair. So, Veronica takes the liberty of just letting herself into Mercer's room and discovers a hair clipper. She tips Lamb off, but then Logan is all, "Mercer didn't do it. I know, because we were together at the time of the crime. I can't tell you why, though."
HZ: It's just like Baby in Dirty Dancing, not being able to exonerate Johnny.
JOY: Yes, it is just like that.
HZ: Logan knows who Veronica is; what is the point of being like, "I have a secret that I can't tell you"? Because that is the thing she is most likely to find out about. Just don't even bother. But what we do find out, ultimately, is that what they were doing is being in Mexico, and Mercer was setting fire to a hotel room with flaming cocktails, and ladies.
JOY: Ew.
HZ: And it doesn't even matter, because the police don't need that alibi because Veronica stops by the radio station so that we can get another clip of Piz's worst radio show in the world.
PIZ: Join us next time when we ask: why does everyone hate America? Is the rest of the world crazy, or just stupid?
JOY: That's his big question to the listenership.
HZ: What will it be next? "George W Bush. Bit of an idiot, am I right?" And she sees the schedule for the radio station that reveals that Mercer was on air doing his dance music show, live, while Parker and Stacy were raped, and that explains why in the first episode of the season, when Veronica goes in to Mac and Parker's room to get the cinema tickets, there's a loud burst of college radio.
JOY: No offence to the portion of our listenership that is really into club and house music, but Mercer so would have a club and house music college radio show.
HZ: Yes. And Mercer would go as one of the droogs from A Clockwork Orange to Halloween.
JOY: Actually, I think they know more about Mercer than anybody else, the people making the show.
HZ: It's true. He would make flaming cocktails.
JOY: Yeah. He would wear that shiny, blue button-up shirt. Bleurgh.
HZ: Lamb has other evidence about Mercer, which is the cash box that was stolen in the robbery also had GHB in it.
JOY: That's right.
HZ: The same drug that was used on two of the rape victims. Why would you keep your rape drugs in the cash box?
JOY: Very weird.
HZ: But never mind, because, for now, Mercer has an alibi, which means the rapist is still at large.
JOY: And, oh no, Helen, because, oh no, because Veronica got some food at the dining hall. She took it to her table. There was a hair in it. She took it back, but she left her drink at the table, and when she came back she had some sips, some glugs, if I may, from the drink, and then the world became very fucked-up looking, and time is speeding up and slowing down all over the place, and colours are weird. Veronica is drugged as hell, and it is scary and bad.
HZ: It's horrible, and especially because she knows this feeling. She's been through this shit.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: She walks to her car, and you would hope that she would not drive when drugged, but she collapses before she can get into the car. Resourcefully, hits the car alarm button, even in awful circumstances she's still got the Veronica Mars smarts, which means Logan, who happens to be walking around and looking for her, sees her car lights flashing while a person wearing latex gloves picks up the keys and switches the alarm off, but scarpers before Logan gets there and discovers that a large patch of Veronica's hair has been shaved. They've done a really horrible job as well. There's a lot of raw, bloody patches on her skin.
JOY: No thank you.
HZ: The nice thing is that Keith and Logan are there when she wakes up, looking after her. They're all snuggled up on the couch together. She's not on her side, which I think she probably should be just in case of tongue-swallowing and vomiting.
JOY: Right, right.
HZ: So now she has the personal tie to the case that maybe she needs to make the next few episodes a bit more compelling.
JOY: Hurray.
HZ: But I'm guessing, Jenny, you have a particular favourite part of these episodes.
JOY: I'm so all about - what are we calling it? Keitharmony? Heith?
HZ: Marmony?
JOY: There it is - fucking loving this passionate heat! They're going to friggin' movies together, they're getting martinis together…
HARMONY: You know what they say about martinis.
KEITH: Something involving breasts? One's too few, etc...
JOY: Harmony gets a hotel room, just in case they want to use it, and Keith, oh my god, god bless Keith, he's in such a moral crisis, and he's like, "You know what? I'm going to fucking, against all odds, I'm going to resist this temptation and leave." And then he's driving home and he gets T-boned. Which, obviously, when something like this happens to you, your priorities are brought into new perspective, and he's like, "Fuck that, I'm going to race back to the hotel and get H-boned instead," you know what I mean?
HZ: "I'm not going to wait for my car to be towed."
JOY: No, no, no.
HZ: Seize the day.
JOY: Yeah, exactly.
HZ: I'm not sure we've seen Keith locked in passion with someone.
JOY: No, no. They're like two tidal waves, crashing into each other.
HZ: Two planets smashing together.
JOY: Yeah, it's fucking intense, man.
HZ: Yeah. And of course, if Keith is getting some, Veronica has to ruin it.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: It's like, if Miss James hadn't been a kind of boring wet towel of a person, it's just that again, where Veronica is like, "I don't like it, and I'm going to withhold myself and not stay at home until you have shut down your sex life. Again."
JOY: Yeah, this is a huge drag.
HZ: Also, Vinnie then pops up to blackmail Keith because he's got extremely well-shot pictures of Keith and Harmony together. Beautiful. You'd frame them.
JOY: Yeah, I will. You may remember this is what is known around town as "The Vinnie Special", where you hire him to prove that your spouse is cheating, and then he gets the pictures and then offers the other party a chance for him to withhold the pictures for double the money. You hate to see it happen to Keith.
HZ: I really do, because it means Keith breaks up with Harmony, although probably more for Veronica than for the blackmail.
JOY: Keith!
HZ: Why can't she let him be happy? Why is it she makes people sacrifice so much?
JOY: Everyone must adhere to her strict moral code, except her?
HZ: And this is it for Karmony. Marmony.
JOY: We never see another moment of this?
HZ: No, nothing. All we have is memories. Unfair. And yet we get a lot of Piz, doing essentially nothing.
JOY: Hurray.
HZ: He's on screen so much. He's on the radio. He's got more than one guitar. He's got an acoustic.
JOY: Oh wow.
HZ: He goes bowling with Parker, and Parker gets a crush on him, but he's not into her because he's too in love with Veronica.
JOY: Uhh...
HZ: The show is really trying the hard sell with Piz. It's like you were online shopping, you put something in your basket, then decided not to buy it, closed the tab, and then you keep getting emails where they're like, "You haven't finished your transaction. You haven't finished. How about ten percent discount? Please? We'll give you two." That's what they're doing with Piz. But nothing's happening with him; there's not enough for Piz to do. There's not enough for Wallace to do. There's not really enough for Logan to do, so all they do is just try and create conflict between him and Veronica, which, I get that they're pretty boring when they are in a stable relationship, and that means Logan probably would start to act out. And also, she doesn't trust him, and he plays up the untrustworthiness.
JOY: The trust thing is really... That's a very difficult hurdle.
HZ: That can really corrode a relationship.
JOY: People. How are we going to make this work?
HZ: But at least he gets to play hero at the end of episode seven.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: They go bowling, and that means when they get back to the Neptune Grand, Logan can change his shirt, and therefore there's some skin on this show.
JOY: And the people rejoice.
HZ: He just drops in that Horshack, the guy who was being tormented during the prison experiment, got caught doing two tests for Rafe, Rider Strong, the evil tormenter.
JOY: Dude, ew.
HZ: Just tuck that away in your mind for a rainy day. I did notice that the bowling alley has, on Wednesdays, a "Big Lebowlski".
JOY: Wait, what?
HZ: Big Lebowlski. LeBOWLski.
JOY: No. Nope.
HZ: Oh, yes.
JOY: Oh my god. What a competitive bowler Parker is, she talks so much shit in the bowling alley, I love it.
HZ: "I'm not really into bowling," strike!
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: "Look at your with your seven pins down, you useless shit! Go and stick your dick in a blender, that's what you deserve, Piz!"
JOY: Oh my god, ha!
HZ: I think this show just makes college look like a really boring, miserable experience, except for in brief moments. Parker is a fun person, no matter what they do to her, and good for her.
JOY: Yeah. Parker rocks.
HZ: Do you want to blast through the episode seven plot of the week?
JOY: Well... [Singing the entire plot, while clapping] There's a girl named Meryl that we've never seen before. She's looking for a boyfriend, his name is Sully, oh, yeah, wow. It sure seems like Sully's cheating on her, and he's out on a bender, but what's actually going on is that the Fitzpatrick's got him really drunk and took his wallet and they're charging stuff to his credit card, hey!
HZ: Ah, Jenny!
JOY: What do you think?
HZ: That made it all worthwhile.
JOY: OK, I know that this is wrong. I know that this is wrong on a fundamental level. But I like Meryl. She is way too old to be in college.
HZ: Well, she's not in college; she's just visiting. She could be 45.
JOY: But lshe's either a 45-year-old dating a college student, or just, like, someone miscast, similar to Mandy with the pigtails. Right, Mandy? With the missing terrier?
HZ: Aw, Mandy.
JOY: And what I really like about this whole thing is Meryl's unflagging belief in Sully, which Veronica cannot possibly for one moment entertain. Right? And what we see in this episode is that Veronica has a really hard time having faith in anybody else, and she gets to see a relationship between Meryl and Sully, where Meryl just believes so much in Sully, and just won't give up on him, and her whole motivation is she cares about Sully, even when Veronica suggests, like, "Maybe he's just trying to take the coward's way out of breaking up with you?" Meryl's like, "Well, you know, I hope that's the case because that would be better than him being hurt." Whereas I feel like if their positions were reversed, Veronica would be like, "Fuck him! Wah!" You know?
HZ: So Meryl shows up to visit Sully, who didn't pick her up from the airport. So they break into his room, which is next to Piz's room, where Veronica's staying because she's cross at Keith. Moe the RA is there, offering tea, because that's his thing, but otherwise completely unnecessary.
JOY: And saying that RAs have key to everything.
HZ: Yes, that's important. They find this The Facebook, you know, the physical book of faces, with a woman named Scarlett ringed in red, as if that's not creepy. And Meryl's like, "That's not Sully's ring, his rings are too perfect, because he took a draughtsmanship class," which is amazing.
JOY: I believe her. I believe that she knows about Sully's circles.
HZ: And then when they track down Scarlett at the food court, and Veronica's like, "That jezebel, dressed up!" and Scarlett's like, "Yeah, it's Friday night, I'm going out." And Veronica goes off and leaves her and Meryl talking and they hug. Without Veronica, the women are supporting each other.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: But the thing I like the best about Meryl was her theory.
JOY: Oh, hell yeah.
MERYL: I was just thinking: Sully told me that in his physics class, they're working with lasers. So, what if Sully accidentally discovered some new technology, you know, like some kind of laser cannon that could assassinate people from space or something? He could be running from, I don't know - sinister forces!
VERONICA: Have you ever heard of Occam's Razor, Meryl?
MERYL: Is that a space laser? Has it already been invented?
VERONICA: No.
HZ: My husband used to be a laser physicist, so I loved this a particularly large amount.
JOY: Do you have any special insight?
HZ: This was always my fear, if he was late home: what if he'd discovered some new technology, and be running from sinister forces on his way home from work at the cancer laser facility?
JOY: But that never, that never happened?
HZ: It did not.
JOY: Oh, thank god.
HZ: This plot gives us a few golden moments, but it also gives us a lot of Piz, bleh, and fuckin' Fitzpatricks in the River Styx, where Sully's phone is, and Liam comes and picks Veronica up and shakes her about, which is, again, genuinely menacing.
JOY: Yeah, but don't worry, Vinnie's there, pretending to be drunk, pretending to have a camera in his phone.
VINNIE: Say "cheese"! Click! Got it, and, send. Hey, Keith Mars is gonna love this one, Liam! Think of his face when he opens up this email. Up high! ...Alright. Ooh, better yet, how about one of you licking her face?
JOY: Amazing.
HZ: That's a kind of 2006 bit of technological prankery. And then it all turns out that Sully's in the drunk tank, and he's asleep in a wetsuit.
JOY: Probably going to have a rash. How interesting it must be for Veronica to have to reckon with the reality of somebody who has complete faith in their partner, and whose faith in that partner is rewarded and justified.
VERONICA: I'm so sorry that I, you know... jumped to the wrong conclusions.
MERYL: It's okay, Veronica. I never would have found him without you and I know what it looked like. If I hadn't been in love before, I wouldn't have believed it, either.
HZ: Because she's also on at Keith about how she's seen too much at Mars Investigations to really believe in trust and love and stuff... But she could learn it from Meryl and Sully, reuniting through the bars.
JOY: Yeah, they're very cute.
HZ: And it's nice that it's sort of more innocent than it seems. It's just a relief, isn't it, Jenny?
JOY: A huge relief, and just nice to see wholesome people being wholesome on this show.
HZ: Not sure why he ended up in the River Styx, but...
JOY: We may never know. Let us now reach through our own personal bars towards a bright light, a beacon of knowledge, our resident Southern Californian and marshmallow, Lo Dodds, for this week's LoDown.
THE LODOWN
HZ: Hey Lo. Can you force somebody to donate bone marrow, and if you're a doctor, can you just take bone marrow from someone who has not given an enthusiastic consent and may be unconscious?
LO DODDS: Yeah, no - that's totally a crime.
HZ: Oh, cool.
LO DODDS: That would not, that would not be performed whatsoever.
HZ: OK.
LO DODDS: So when you donate, obviously, when you go through a medical procedure, especially donating bone marrow, you have to go through a bunch of procedures beforehand to make sure that it's going to be safe, that you're... I know they said, "Oh, you're a match because you had a paternity test," yeah, that's not the test. And you'd have to sign an informed consent. So there's no way in hell that this guy would risk his medical licence. The hospital would get sued. The doctor would get sued. They would also be charged. It's a crime to, you know, cut someone up without their given consent. So, yes, there's no way this would happen, and there's no way they would perform on him while he was unconscious. It's just the most outlandish thing that has happened on this show so far.
HZ: Wow.
JOY: Damn. Extracting someone's bone marrow, a doctor extracting somebody's bone marrow without their consent, is just Human Centipede shit.
LO DODDS: And if her brother is a doctor who can extract bone marrow, you'd think that, like, you'd use that leverage to get yourself just...
JOY: Bumped up on the list?
LO DODDS: Yeah. People donate bone marrow all the time, it's not like donating a kidney.
HZ: If you give the victim a Porsche, does not make it all better?
LO DODDS: As long as that victim signs a really, really airtight release, then, yeah, let's go with that.
HZ: Cool. Is it a crime that Veronica filled Jeff Ratner's car with miniature hotel toiletries?
LO DODDS: Yes. I mean, I would totally sue if I were Ratner. I'd at least take Veronica to small claims if I lost my job; and he's probably got a better case, too, because he has been employed at the hotel for two years, so he has better proof that he would have still been employed but for her little prank. She's also presumably stole all of those mini shampoos, so she could be charged with theft.
HZ: Well, maybe she's been collecting them in the year that Logan and Duncan have been living there.
LO DODDS: That's absolutely true. So she could have said - like, if she really wanted to save Ratner at this point and avoid anything, she could go in there and be like, "Oh, I stay here at the hotel all the time, I've just collected them, I put them in my friend's car." I think she could get Ratner out of that.
JOY: OK, elsewhere in the Neptune Grand: what about this Tina character at the front desk handing out info about hotel guests? Is this crime-y?
LO DODDS: Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, this does happen. There have been several reports of women saying that a hotel has given out their room number to men who have said, "Oh, I'm her boyfriend, I'm her husband." And usually you're not going to face criminal liability unless, you know, an actual... Something really bad happens. Then the hotel might be facing a criminal negligence charge, or that person. The hotel surely has a policy against this, but you'd definitely be facing civil liability. And California in particular now has super serious rules about protecting consumers' information: the California Consumer Privacy Act, where you can get some very stiff penalties. But the Neptune Grand, I don't know, is it part of a massive chain? If it's not, it's probably not subject to the CCPA.
JOY: Rounding the bend down one more long hallway at the Neptune Grand, and since you said "stiff penalties": Vinnie's blackmailing Keith? Is Vinnie blackmailing Keith with those sexy photos?
LO DODDS: Yep. Vinnie should not be committing extortion; he's committing attempted extortion. If Keith pays him, it's extortion. He can go to prison for like three years.
HZ: Oh, so is it less of a crime if Keith doesn't pay up?
LO DODDS: Yeah.
HZ: Ah.
LO DODDS: So if he doesn't complete the crime, if he doesn't take the money, then it's attempted extortion because he didn't actually get paid. And I don't really understand, because cheating is not a crime in California. Unless you have a pre-nup, it's usually not a thing that anybody's going to care about.
JOY: Harmony's husband could probably use it against her in some way, potentially, if they were to get a divorce?
LO DODDS: They can't really. California's a no-fault state, So we don't care what you guys did.
JOY: Huh.
LO DODDS: You could potentially use it - like I said, if there's a pre-nup, which conditions, you know, certain amounts of payment on not-cheating, or lack of infidelity, or whatever, that's usually when it comes into play. But generally speaking, California doesn't care.
JOY: Alright. Nice.
HZ: I suppose we can't avoid having to ask you about the penalties for false rape accusations.
LO DODDS: We've talked before about what happens when you make false statements in general to the police. If you provide false testimony, you sign - presumably Claire signed an affidavit or a statement when she went down to the police station, and yeah, it's criminal penalties, it's a misdemeanour, she'd probably have a fine or whatnot. Probably wouldn't face any jail time for it. What is usually more of an issue is if you get sued by the person that has been accused, which in this case is no one, so there's no one to sue Claire for any sort of defamation or libel or anything like that.
HZ: What about perverting the course of justice or something?
LO DODDS: I mean, they could charge her with various... Obstruction of justice or... They're going to have a whole slew of things, if she signed anything under the penalty of perjury. I don't know what they'd really do to her in this situation, other than slap a misdemeanour charge on her.
JOY: Does the FBI really take interns? Maybe like a podcast co-host who does, like, sort of TV recap stuff, and then singer-songwriter business on the other side? Is that kind of what they're looking for? Or college freshmen?
LO DODDS: Yes, you can go get an internship with the FBI, they do take interns. They're normally college students or graduate students, so I'd suggest you just enrol in a graduate course and apply.
JOY: No problem.
LO DODDS: But yeah, they do. They do take interns, and they're paid.
HZ: Wow.
LO DODDS: Which is nice.
JOY: Oh, well, well...
HZ: And can you get somebody one to stop them blabbing about your sexpeopling?
LO DODDS: I don't think you can ever stop someone from talking about your sexpeopling, because truth is always a complete defence, usually, unless you have some extra protection. I don't think Landry's sex moves are trade secrets, so I'm going to guess she's in the clear if she wants to disclose that.
VERDICT
HZ: Jenny.
JOY: Oh, Helen. Light of my life.
HZ: Which lines in these episodes made you think, "Thank god I'm doing a recap podcast of Veronica Mars season three"?
JOY: One line reigned supreme, and that line is when the theatre kids are like, "The stage is covered in Pam," and Veronica Mars, with her fucking eyebrow up in the air, is all, "Who's Pam?" Nice.
HZ: Well, I suppose some good had to come of that awful scene. I think I have to choose Cliff going, "Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!"
JOY: Hell yeah.
HZ: Let that lull me to sleep on my deathbed. And what did you make of this triptych of episodes overall, Jenny?
JOY: I liked this little trio. I had a blast watching it. I really enjoyed Dean O'Dell. You know I loved seeing Weevil carry his big, shiny toolbox around. And I inexplicably kind of loved Meryl. So here we are.
HZ: Meryl was pure.
JOY: She's very pure. I'll happily give this this trio of episodes 3.9 sets of sexy nurse duds that I'll be changing into later.
HZ: I found them a little bit of a drag, because Veronica is just a toxic person in them.
JOY: Mm-hmm.
HZ: And she even makes Piz sleep on the floor in his own room that she is needlessly invading.
JOY: Brutal.
JOY: But there was some nice bits. I liked that she was being nice to Parker. I think Parker's a nice character. I liked Keith and Harmony. I hated that Veronica made them break up. You know, I'm not loving the whole fake rape thing.
JOY: No.
HZ: In a whole rape plot that I do not love anyway.
JOY: No!
HZ: So I think I'm going to give these three episodes 2.8 sandwich puppets out of five.
JOY: Wow.
HZ: And it's mainly the sandwich puppets...
JOY: Delicious little sandwich puppets.
HZ: ...and Harmony earning that score.
JOY: Well, Helen.
HZ: Yes?
JOY: That's this trio of episodes of Veronica Mars investigated.
HZ: Cases closed.
