Season 3, transcriptVMI PodVeronica Mars, Rob Thomas, Kristen Bell, Enrico Colantoni, Keith Mars, Logan Echolls, Jason Dohring, Wallace Fennel, Percy Daggs III, Weevil Navarro, Francis Capra, Neptune, California, Jenny Owen Youngs, Helen Zaltzman, VMI, television, TV, recap, review, drama, teen, teenage, college, Hearst College, mystery, detective, PI, private detectives, Marshmallows, cases, crime, law, season 3, Professor Landry, Patrick Fabian, Tim Foyle, James Jordan, Piz, Stosh Piznarski, Chris Lowell, Parker Lee, Julie Gonzalo, Mac, Cindy Mackenzie, Tina Majorino, Dick Casablancas, Ryan Hansen, Sheriff Lamb, Don Lamb, Michael Muhney, Deputy Sacks, Jerry Sacks, Brandon Hillock, Mindy O’Dell, Jaime Ray Newman, Steve Batando, Richard Grieco, Ken Marino, Vinnie Van Lowe, Cliff!, Cliff McCormack, Daran Norris, Mason, Robert Ri’chard, Josh Barry, Jonathan Chase, Tom Barry, Matt McKenzie, Kathleen Barry, Tracey Needham, Coach Yeager, Todd Christian Hunter, murder, death, suicide, assisted suicide, jailbreak, insurance fraud, Mexico, boats, paintball, paintball guns, Valentine’s Day, romance, treasure hunt, ocean, beach, sea, bravado, Kama Sutra, Sheriff, life insurance, jail, Caged Heat, CJD, quoting, Cultural References, MASH, insurance, yachts, Ernest Hemingway, vandalism, racism, Islamophobia, military, Iraq, war, warfare, service, alcohol, bars, drinking, underage drinking, IDs, fake IDs, Sheriff Keith, condoms, Titans, sex, Gilmore Girls, Lane Kim, MySpace, Neptune Grand, elevator, cake, face cake
HZ: In the third episode, this is the one where Dick is trying to fix heartbroken Logan, and it's probably the best use of Dick we've seen thus far. The professor tells Dick that if Logan keeps not coming to class, he's going to fail, and then Dick gets to the hotel suite and there are two staff members, including Jeff Ratner from that other episode, waiting outside the door with a cart of food. And they're like, "We can't leave unless Logan gives us back some trays, and we're out of salt and pepper shakers in the whole hotel."
JOY: Dude. He's really been Howard Hughes-ing it up. Hoarding room service trays... Not allowing them to clean...
HZ: Guzzling pepper...
JOY: Guzzling pepper, ha! Keeping his eyes perpetually moist with the pepper, and all just in case Veronica drops by he wants to look repentant.
HZ: Crying extra-salty tears.
LO DODDS: It's interesting. California, because unsolicited dick pics - pun intended...
HZ: Richard pictures, in formal.
JOY: Ha! Dude, when Helen and I launch our our porn production company, it will be called Richard Pictures.
HZ: My brother Richard's going to love that.
HZ: 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: I love that Piz's radio show, his first episode, is just like... Pretty much the only thing he says is, "Oh, they've got a good point, actually." And that's it. Who let this man? Who let this man? Trish. Trish did.
HZ: Yeah, well, because Trish was distracted by being dumped for her terrible plot. But the one good thing Piz does, I think - because he's an annoying, self-absorbed pest in this episode; having been reasonably endearing when introduced, in this he just seems entitled - in the debate, he says:
PIZ: Alright, let's flip a coin to see who goes first. And it's the head of a white slave-owning patriarchy, which means we will go with the gents.
JOY: "The head of a white slave-owning patriarch," maybe should have gone to the ladies?
HZ: Yeah. For reparations.
JOY: Mmm.
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.
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HZ: 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.
HZ: There's quite a lot of setup this episode for this guy Lucky, but we see him for about 30 seconds, so just don't peak too soon.
JOY: Chekhov's... veteran?
HZ: Chekhov's really saving him for another play. "You know what, I'll seed Lucky in the first act of Uncle Vanya, but I won't get on to him until Three Sisters."
JOY: I'm laughing like I have any idea what Chekhov wrote and in what order, but I don't.
HZ: Anyone? Anyone?
JOY: Why on god's green earth does this show refuse to show me anybody doing reps that I would like to watch doing reps? Why is this our fate? Here's a list of people that could do reps at any point on the show: Wallace; Cliff...
HZ: Cliff would be hilarious. Cliff would do it in like a white undershirt and some massive blue boxers and black business socks. And a tie.
JOY: And that would be fine. I would like to watch Lilly Kane do some reps...
HZ: Oh, yeah. Alicia doing reps.
JOY: Oh hell yes. Weevil...
HZ: I don't think I'd want to see Weevil doing reps. It just doesn't seem like his thing, like he'd rather be alone whilst he's exercising.
JOY: Oh, OK, well whatever Weevil wants, obviously.
HZ: Jackie's shivering. It's so cold, this is so wrong. And then fucking Madison is there missing the balls, so she just goes over to the lever and she's like, "I told you to stay home," and dunks Jackie with the lever, which is so horrible. And the teacher who wouldn't let Wallace misthrow balls is just like, "Yeah, whatever, sure." And Veronica has a face of concern. But does she do anything? No.
JOY: You know, Helen, in my elementary school, we had a summer festival thing where our principal was in the dunk tank, and I, some way or another, won the privilege of being the first person to get to throw balls to try to dunk my principal, and I missed all three times. And then I did what Madison did, but in a fun way. But watching Madison do this really made me call into question my fifth grade mentality.
HZ: Isn't the point there that the hierarchy is temporarily suspended or subverted?
JOY: Yes.
HZ: Whereas this, it's someone in a superior position in pretty much every way in society being a real shit to someone else.
JOY: Thank you for making me feel better, Helen.
HZ: Yeah.
JOY: About me, not about this episode.
JOY: Have I told you that my mom used to save birds in the freezer? If a bird would fly into one of our windows and die, she would save it in the freezer for some reason.
HZ: Was she hoping that they would be reborn after three days?
JOY: Possibly? When I was quite small our dog killed a baby raccoon and I was really upset about it, and so then, as a response, my mom had the raccoon taxidermied.
HZ: No!
JOY: For my birthday.
HZ: She's angry at Logan as well for carrying a gun, because she's scared that he's gonna get killed. He's in a reckless mood. He was like, "It's all right, the gun's not loaded, and it was a present from Dick's dad." Like, what a comfort.
JOY: First of all, why is Mr Casablancas running around just doling out guns? He's like, "Oh, it's Halloween, trick or treat, here’s a fucking firearm."
HZ: Well he was probably like, "Logan, you're like an extra son to me. Have one of my precious guns." They had a good time at the range. Also maybe he was like, "This is not going to fit through the shredder, you'd better have it."
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.
VERONICA on phone: Have you had dinner?
DUNCAN: No, I'm tired of room service. [Opens door: it’s Veronica, holding up a bag of food.]
VERONICA: Then may I suggest dim sum, and then some?
JOY: Ew. Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew. Ew. OK, I'm going to say this, and then I need to go get some Listerine. "Dim sum and then some"?
HZ: It gets worse. It gets worse, Jenny.
DUNCAN: What if we start the evening with ‘and then some’ and work our way back to the dim sum?
VERONICA: It's officially under consideration. May I ask you something first?
DUNCAN: Yes to costumes, no to props. Does that cover it?
JOY: Helennnnn!
HZ: Veronica does have a lot of costumes, but her props are bugs and tasers. So I can understand why he didn't want to use those.
JOY: Yeah, I guess. I guess that makes sense.
HZ: Then Veronica ruins the dim sum and then some, or the then some and then dim sum that Duncan's angling for, by saying, "Why didn't you tell me how often you'd been visiting Meg since the accident?" And it's hard to carry on the sexy chat after that kind of line.
JOY: Yeah. It's not great.
HZ: She's really done the roleplay badly there.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: “I'm roleplaying as one of the Manning parents.”
JOY: Ugh. Sick.
JOY: Do you think that in this context, pantsing refers to just Butters's pants coming down or him getting fully exposed?
HZ: I'm trying to remember what we would have called it in England; it would have had a different name; pants would definitely unambiguously be undergarments in British English.
JOY: Oh right, so you'd be like, "Oh, he got troused" or something. Sorry if I've offended anyone.
HZ: When you've pantsed people in the past, Jenny, which I'm sure actually I'm sure you've never done because you're a kind person.
JOY: Honestly, I'm not a pantser, but Jess pantses me on the daily.
HZ: She romantically pantses you? And when she does it, is it overpants and underpants?
JOY: Just overpants, and then an impish scurrying away.
HZ: So we should clarify: Jess is your girlfriend.
JOY: Yes.
HZ: She's not your high school bully.
JOY: Or a ghost.
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.