LATOYA FERGUSON: The amount of things I never thought I'd have to care about in a TV show that are in this season. Incorporation. Airplane hangars. At least like when The OC did all its real estate plots, it was interesting. But like... Jesus, incorporation.
Read MoreHZ: I don't acknowledge dream sequences. You know this.
JOY: Ha, yeah.
HZ: Well, I don't acknowledge this one. Fucking Lianne Mars? I hadn't missed her, I'd forgotten all about her.
JOY: Yeah, I kind of forgot that she ever existed.
HZ: But she's bearing laundry, because, in this dream, she's the perfect mother - as in domestic, and just sort of smiling gently at everyone else who's more interesting. She's got a much bigger house...
ALANNA BENNETT: Yes.
HZ: ...and a pancake breakfast, and Keith's in sheriff's uniform, and Veronica body-shames herself.
ALANNA BENNETT: Yes, because she's still the Disney popular girl, and gullible. I like that in her head it's like, "I wish that I were still this, like, gullible little princess."
JOY: Ha! The good old days.
JOY: I was so busy thinking about Weevil and math together.
HZ: Yeah? That doing it for you?
JOY: Yes. Two of my favourite things, Weevil and algebra. Math that I understand.
HZ: I didn't know you were into algebra. There's so much I still have to learn about you.
JOY: I mean, it's not like my passion, but if I had a workbook right now...
HZ: You could algebra the shit out of it.
JOY: I would absolutely do it to take the edge off anything to distract me from the yawning void just outside of my peripheral vision.
JOY: Now that you've agreed to go to prom with me, Helen, but prom has been cancelled, could I interest you in a trip to the batting cages? A little batting cage romance?
HZ: It sounds a little sporty, Jenny.
JOY: A little drive through the Taco Bell drive-through? A little visit to Dairy Queen for some Blizzards afterwards? That's on par with prom.
HZ: Alright, yeah. What's the dress code?
JOY: Yeah, what is the dress code?
HZ: Are you going to get sick eating dairy? That would be very sad.
JOY: I would order a Blizzard and just stare at it in solidarity with you.
HZ: That's terrible. Could we go somewhere where you could eat the things?
JOY: OK, well, we'll just have to see what's near the batting cages, I guess everything kind of hinges on that.
HZ: Oh, so we still have to go to the batting cages?
JOY: Sorry, yes.
JOY: 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.
JOY: Here's some stuff that we find out that I don't care about: she had her ex-boyfriend's name tattooed on her ass after two weeks, then she got it removed, which took six weeks, so that the guy that she's getting married to would never see it, and also one of them lost her cellphone last night, and there was a guy creeping around them at the Happy Horseshoe. Here is what we find out that I do care about: they went to an all-male revue called "Packaged Meat".
HZ: Ew.
JOY: Ha! Helen! Get on my level. This is so great. This is wonderful news.
HZ: I suppose, any of the genders in revue, I'm a little uncomfortable with them.
JOY: Well, I guess this is where you and I, our paths diverge, and I take the winding road into the strippergram forest, searching for elusive woodland hunks to pop out, being granted modesty by strategically-placed fig leaves and branches, and that's just not what you're after.
HZ: It's quite the bucolic scene of male nudity and moss and branches and things.
JOY: Come on!
JOY: What is it about people and twins and threesomes? You ever think about that, Helen?
HZ: Not in a desirous way. I feel like it's a bit disrespectful of the family relationship between them.
JOY: The family relationship, the autonomy… The mystery of twins, and the pain and struggles that we shall never know as two non-twins.
HZ: I have nieces who are twins, but they are ten, so it feels like not the time to talk to them about it.
HZ: I have two other reasons that I think account for Veronica's hostility. One is: I think she senses that Jackie is a sexperson. She has already said in the previous episode that she hasn't dated a high school guy since eighth grade. She makes reference to actors she's been out with. She's a sexperson. But I think the true reason she dislikes Jackie is because Jackie also wears tiny jackets.
JOY: Tiny jacket competition. They have to have a tiny jacket-off.
HZ: Who's got the tiniest jacket? And also, Jackie's name is so close to ‘jacket’.
JOY: Wow. Yes. Also really regretting saying 'tiny jacket-off'.
HZ: It was funny to me how watching it before, just the only things that stuck were kind of the long arcs and the emotional relationships between like Veronica and Keith, and Wallace and stuff. None of the mysteries of the week stuck. And I also didn't really notice some of the things where you're like "hmm" now that I'm watching it multiple times and taking copious notes on it for a podcast.
JOY: I didn't watch it until right before we started making this podcast. I watched the whole series.
HZ: Not even suspecting what was about to crash into your life?
JOY: Having no idea what kind of havoc was about to be brought down upon me, Helen.
HZ: Veronica's not avoiding Logan today.
JOY: No, even though she's supposed to be I think steering clear from him she can't resist going in for a little no-costume undercover work pretending to still be into it so that she can see what he has to say for himself.
HZ: Yeah, right. We know that she's shitting him, for some reason.
JOY: I'm sorry - "shitting him"?
HZ: Yeah, do you not say that in America?
JOY: Oh, like like she's like lying to them or playing him or something? Like "you gotta be shitting me."
HZ: Right. Exactly. She's shittting him. But he doesn't know he's being shat.
JOY: See, this really starts to fall apart once you start conjugating.
HZ: Does it? You knew what I meant! He is beshat.
HZ: In Vegas, Keith's guest Cheyenne arrives wearing a black dress with charm chains draped over the shoulders. Keith's hotel is quite beige and drab, and also, the TV is angled so you can't watch it in bed. What the fuck? What piece of shit hotel would do this to you? What is the point?
JOY: Yeah, that is cruel and unusual punishment.
HZ: Keith's still kind of in caring dad mode, asking Cheyenne if she's hungry.
KEITH: Are you hungry or anything?
CHEYENNE: I think not having to buy me dinner first is kind of the point. Why don’t you come sit over here with me and relax, okay?
KEITH: Well, maybe we could go sit out on the balcony.
CHEYENNE: You’re still gonna be married on the balcony. Now. I want you to tell me exactly what you want. That one thing you can never get the little woman to do. And we’ll start there.
KEITH: Actually, I’d like to start by talking about Abel Koontz.
HZ: Wow, Keith, that is one hell of a kink. Bet she doesn't get that request often.
JOY: “The little woman just won't discuss Abel Koontz and the Lilly Kane murder with me the way I'd like.”
HZ: In the background of the Echolls living room, there's a cabinet containing many framed photos of Aaron. We're used to that from the set dressing, but also a bunch of awards, including two Oscars.
JOY: Damn, I missed that. What do you think those are for?
HZ: I don't know, because I thought they'd built up Aaron to be quite a shit actor, just doing these crappy action films and sequels.
JOY: I was wondering if - when they they said that when Veronica later says that she got caught making out by the star of Breaking Point and Breaking Point 2, I was wondering if that was supposed to be a Point Break reference, if Aaron was supposed to be a Patrick Swayze type.
HZ: Maybe one of the awards is for Dance Dirty and Dance Dirty 2 then.
Read MoreJOY: Logan is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.
HZ: Yeah, although you do assume that the chocolates will be brownish green and a bit out of date. What what? But still delicious. Delicious, but bad for you.
Read MoreHZ: At school Veronica is at the lunch tables questioning Yolanda's friend Gabrielle who's just talking, talking, talking, talking. And I love how Veronica says in voiceover some stuff that really illustrates the daddy-daughter dynamic chez Mars.
VERONICA VOICEOVER: One thing about an ex-cop for a dad is that some boring Sunday when you’ve seen all the reruns, he might kill time describing, for instance, how to tell if someone’s lying in an interrogation. Take Yolanda’s friend Gabrielle here: the indirect eye contact, the smile that doesn’t crinkle the eyes.
HZ: It's so useful. I wish I'd had such a useful dad. He probably could have told me how to like cut down a tree or something - but then I wouldn't have been allowed to touch his chainsaw.
JOY: OMG, a chainsaw!
HZ: Oh, my dad loves his chainsaw, yeah.
JOY: <psycho music>
HZ: Not like that; you would never besmirch it with human flesh, it would clog the chain! God, Jenny.
JOY: Oh my god. My mistake.
HZ: Have some respect for the implement!
HZ: Veronica's playing with the stapler, partly as a sign of rudeness and partly so she can swap it with a spy stapler! Is there an office supplies catalogue has identical models of the most common stationary items but with cameras in?
JOY: And had Veronica noted what kind of stapler she had before? Like on a previous trip to Miss James’s office?
HZ: I admire the research.
JOY: The important questions of our times.
HZ: And also does it function as a real stapler?
JOY: Oh, great question.
HZ: I suppose it must, because otherwise it would arouse suspicion.
Read MoreHZ: At Mars HQ, Keith and Aaron are having some coffee. Keith asks Aaron to pull a file out which he's got tucked into his armpit, which I found really cute. But I was wondering also whether Keith had a kind of game plan of informality with Aaron and cosseting him a bit where he's like, "So, you fucked someone that's not your wife, but my memory is not so good, either. So it doesn't matter that you lied to me."
JOY: Aaron seems like somebody who's gonna lie to make himself look better, until he doesn't have the opportunity to do so but still wants to feel good about himself. So I think the trick to getting Aaron's to cop to stuff is give him soft ways to backpedal for sure.
HZ: Keith is very smart. Then he's like, "I'm not going to tell Lynn that you cheated, because you didn't hire me to tell you that you cheated, she hired me to protect you. So here's a list of people who were at the Casablancas Halloween party. Can you circle the people that you slept with?" And Aaron's like circle circle circle and Keith's like, "No just the people you slept with whilst at the party." Amazing. And Aaron's like, "Ooof. I was on the hard cider." Now, anyone who's been 15 years old in Britain can identify.
Read MoreHZ: Logan, and Weevil are stuck in detention together, and Weevil rightly complains that he got zero in the test for talking, where even though it was Logan who was talking to Weevil, and it was Logan who insulted the teacher in front of everybody. And Weevil is really on about the injustice in this town - and rightly, I think.
JOY: Yes, the injustice is real. But if the injustice didn't exist, we might not get to watch Weevil and Logan start playing poker together and they just can't stop flirting with each other.
HZ: It is beautiful. Thank goodness they're stuck in this detention unsupervised, and that they seem to have found an alliance so quickly. Unfortunately, the card game is short-lived because Mr. Daniels comes in scoops up the cards.
WEEVIL: Aw, come on, man!
LOGAN: What the hell? We were playing a game here.
DANIELS: This is punishment, gentlemen, not party time.
LOGAN: Well, that would explain the absence of balloon animals.
JOY: And gives them a full week of detention - and I'm so happy for them that he didn't confiscate the money in addition to the cards, because I feel like that could have easily happened.
HZ: That is a good point. I feel like Mr. Daniels isn't after their money in the way that Sheriff Lamb, say, would have been.
JOY: Yes, exactly.
HZ: He just hates everything - but that includes financial gain from children.
Read MoreJOY: No, alas. We plunge headlong from this into a really beautiful father-daughter scene where Keith and Veronica are doing their detective bit together.
HZ: Yeah, their detective a bit from when they were alive in the 1940s.
JOY: Yes, exactly.
VERONICA: Tough day?
KEITH: That ain’t the half of it. See, this dame walks in and you shoulda seen the getaway sticks on her. Says something’s hinky with her old man.
JOY: If you think I'm ever referring to my legs as anything other than ‘getaway sticks’ from here on out, you are sorely mistaken.
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