VMI 1.06: Return of the Kane transcript
Hear this episode at VMIpod.com/1-06
Content note: Veronica Mars contains heavy themes, and this episode includes storylines concerning violence and family abuse.
Spoilers! There will be some for this episode of Veronica Mars, but there will not be spoilers for subsequent episodes of Veronica Mars.
A LONG TIME AGO, ON VERONICA MARS:
JOY: We meet Logan’s dad - and swiftly wish we hadn’t.
HZ: Duncan’s dad makes him run for class president.
JOY: Also running for president: rebellious Wanda, a new friend for Veronica - or is she?
HZ: Logan’s got a new hobby: running amateur boxing tournaments!
JOY: Veronica finds out something majorly dodgy in Lilly’s murder files - I wonder who wrote that line?
HZ: Do you want to translate to into an Americanism?
JOY: Um… No, I think majorly dodgy is better than anything I could say.
HZ: And: Jane Lynch in alpha mode! My favourite flavour of Jane Lynch.
JOY: Winning alllll the Pirate Points, I’m Jenny Owen Youngs.
HZ: And painting NARC all over the school, I’m Helen Zaltzman.
You’re listening to Veronica Mars Investigations Season 1, Episode 6: Return of the Kane.
JOY: Logan's riding a motorised scooter down his long, rich person driveway to pick up the newspaper - do you think that he and Paris Hilton when they were briefly dating would ride their scooters around together?
HZ: Race each other? “First to pick up the paper is a poor person!” Logan is in his luxury sleepwear: he's got pond green pyjamas on, of course, with a low cut neck and a dressing gown. But there's a lot of people outside the house, which I assume he would have known about, because it doesn't seem like a particularly unusual occurrence for the Echolls house.
JOY: Yeah. Does this happen in London, or this purely a Los Angeles thing, Star Tours?
HZ: Yes, I think - I think it is primarily a Los Angeles thing, but do you think the Star Tours would go as far as Neptune, which is a good hour's drive out of Los Angeles?
JOY: Oh, that's an incredible point, that's a really, really good point. And for the uninitiated, Star Tours and companies like it: it's this sort of industry where you pay money to get on a bus and somebody drives you around and points at the homes of various celebrities, which is a thing people do.
HZ: Have you ever been on one?
JOY: I never have. Have you ever been on one?
HZ: I haven't. I haven't. It feels a little inappropriate. Because they're humans. And I was gonna say they're humans they're not zoo animals but also feel some discomfort about zoos so...
JOY: True. And also I feel a little uncomfortable about like Aaron Echolls being classified as purely human.
JOY: He's not making a good show of it in this episode.
HZ: He's like a piece of fruit leather come to life. And like Pet Sematary when they bring the animals back to life and they're mean. For some reason, despite the prevalence of tourists who've come to rubberneck at Aaron Echolls’ house fairly early in the day the gate is open. So Logan gets to criticise their choice to come and stare at his house. And then this the first sighting we get of an Echolls parent - his mother Lynn is at the front door wearing a silky nightie, asking him to come back into the house. Then the other Echolls parent arrives. They’re an IRL married couple, the Echolls parents!
JOY: Really?
HZ: Harry Hamlin and Lisa Rinna - been married since the 1990s. Hopefully happier than they are in the show.
JOY: What do you think Aaron was doing so early in the morning that he is getting back to the house and looking amazing, while his wife and son are still in their pyjamas?
HZ: I’m going to hypothesise a morning TV appearance.
JOY: Yeah, that seems really reasonable.
HZ: Especially because he's in a swanky car, which someone else probably paid for. And Aaron seems delighted to see all of these tourists staring at his house and makes Logan pose for pictures with them. And he's like, "Don't forget, these people pay for all this." Which... gross. And then we're at school with another dad-son situation: Jake Kane is helping Duncan go to school.
JOY: What's happening here?
HZ: It's weird, these parallel dynamics you get throughout this episode of Duncan and dad and Logan and dad. Jake Kane, for some reason, is helping Duncan go to school, and he has spotted that there's the class presidential campaign going on. And he's decided Duncan should run. There's a slogan and everything: “The Reign of Kane.” It rhymes so it's good.
JOY: This is a lot. But what's even more disturbing to me than this parental pressure to run for student government is that the first words out of Duncan's mouth in this scene are, "I polled the rest of the soccer team. None of them want to see my junk." What? What could this possibly mean?
HZ: I took it to be a reference to him needing to get his gym kit off his dad and make him leave? He's like, "Give me the kit or everyone will see my junk, and I polled them and they don't want to"? Or is it just setting up this whole episode for being about voting?
JOY: I thought this was like a naked-in-the-locker-room thing, somehow. Rounding out the parent-child dynamics for for this intro, we learn at the lunch table that Keith wants to take Veronica to the San Diego Zoo.
HZ: Like I said, I don't like the zoo - I would love to go to the zoo with Keith Mars.
JOY: That sounds great. Also, it seems that Wallace is a big cat man. And I don't know if we're supposed to take away more than just the face value of that.
HZ: Yeah, I think Wallace does genuinely really like the zoo. Let's not make it sordid. He's a kid who loves the zoo. But he drops this conversational bomb.
WALLACE: Me, on the other hand, I’d love to go to the zoo with my dad.
VERONICA: Wallace, don’t -
WALLACE: But he’s dead, so.
HZ: First real insight into Wallace's family life, I think. And it's tough because Veronica doesn't care enough to ask him about it.
JOY: Yeah, probably because how could Wallace have time to tell Veronica anything about himself when he's busy stealing student files for her nonstop?
HZ: She's like, “Yeah yeah yeah, now go and break three laws for me, thanks.” Wallace also has a crappy moustache.
JOY: Listen, not all moustaches can like - you can't just grow an amazing moustache the first time you try.
HZ: No, especially when you're 16, 17; it's pretty real that not every kid in this school is going to be able to grow the full Weevil ‘tache straight out the gate. And then we meet a character, Wanda Varner, who apparently Kristen Ritter auditioned to play and so they wrote a role for her in the second season of this show. And she's introduced as being a bit of a bitch.
JOY: Uh huh - she's ordering food for delivery for lunch, even though she's not allowed because she doesn't have any pirate points. And we learn this from Madison who apparently is just policing everyone's pirate points.
HZ: Yeah, she's so cool that this is how she spends her time: reinforcing the hierarchy. Madison looks a lot like Christine Taylor in the Brady Bunch movies.
JOY: You are right.
HZ: In an earlier episode, we were asking Lo in the LoDown about food delivery at school and she was like, “It just wouldn't be a thing, popular kids would leave.” And now there's a whole plotline precipitated by food deliveries at school from the popular kids because they earn enough pirate points to do it. And so Madison complains to Miss Dent that Wanda got food delivered and she's not allowed, due to her inadequacy of pirate points. And Miss Dent clearly doesn't give a shit, which I love.
JOY: Not one.
HZ: Zero shits. But it's thoughtful of Madison to exposit that pirate points are earned by being a contributing member of the school. So consider yourself giving a shit about the pirate point system, because it is relevant to the episode a bit. But I like this bit of dialogue between her Miss Dent where she's explaining that you get pirate points for participating in sport and Miss Dent is like, "Cheerleading?" And Madison's is like "...is a sport".
JOY: On behalf of cheerleaders everywhere, I just want to say cheerleading is a sport, gets a bad rap. It's very physical. It both requires a great deal of physicality and gymnastic skill, projection, you know. And also, it's kind of the only school activity that's designed to support your fellow students, like the whole purpose of cheerleading is to make the players feel good and make the spectators inspired to cheer on the players, which in turn makes the players feel good; so that, you know, it's very positive. I feel like there are a lot of negative stereotypes around cheerleading. And that is my spiel on cheerleading. But as we've discussed, there are no cheerleaders in England. So Helen, what do you think?
HZ: Just dourleaders. Well, we have a lot of singing at major sporting events. So maybe the audience is providing the cheer.
JOY: That's nice.
HZ: Perhaps Miss Dent has just never seen Bring it On, and therefore doesn't appreciate the athleticism and cheer of cheerleading.
JOY: This is a possibility.
HZ: I feel sad for her.
JOY: Well.
HZ: No, come on. That's a wonderful film. Madison decides to level up her ratting out of the Chinese food to principal Clemmons and he says Wanda needs to contribute more to school but Wanda's wearing a T shirt that says ‘sex and drugs’ over a purple mesh top with Doc Marten boots. So she's clearly a rebel. She's clearly not in it for the pirate points. She gets up on Madison's lunch table and stamps on her pizza.
JOY: You know, Vice Principal Clemmons is confiscating Wanda's food, which seems like - I mean, if he's following the Sheriff Lamb policy, he's just taking that food back to his office and eating it. But more likely, I assume he's gonna throw it in the trash, which is a tremendous waste. It’s not just mean, it's also totally wasteful. So I back Wanda's reflexive reaction to this.
HZ: Well, Wanda's just wasted a pizza. Two wrongs don't make a right, Jenny.
JOY: Okay, you're right. You're right.
HZ: And Veronica says to Wallace that she and Wanda used to be in pep squad together and Jenny, enlighten me: what is the pep squad?
JOY: Okay, so thank you for asking. We didn't have a pep squad in my school. But I think it's sort of like, if I had to guess: I think the pep squad, don't they like bake cookies, like each pep squad young woman is assigned to a player and they have to decorate the player's locker and bake things for the player and they're the behind-the-scenes cheerleaders, the emotional- and sugar-based cheerleaders for individual players?
HZ: There seems to be a tremendous amount of resources devoted to the cheer and pep of sports players.
JOY: Well, those sports players are contributing the most to the to the school as we just learned, so don't they deserve it?
HZ: I'm not convinced. It seems like the feudal system to me, and I feel like they need to spread the cheer and pep to the masses.
JOY: That would be nice. I would prefer cookies too and I didn't play sports.
HZ: No pep for you.
JOY: No, alas. So 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.
HZ: I would love to be your osteopath. And Veronica is preparing dessert for dinner. It's a sundae.
KEITH: Shouldn’t we eat something at the base of the food pyramid?
VERONICA: [gasps] What is that? A maraschino cherry?
HZ: Keith quips, “If Child Services find out they'll take you away.” So I ask you, Jenny: we know Keith Mars is a great dad. But is he a good dad?
JOY: Wow. Um, well, I think there's stuff on both sides of the scale here: dessert for dinner, probably not the greatest dad vibe; letting Veronica work for him and endanger herself on occasion; and also just work really late into the night when she has school going on and stuff. All of that falls into the not-good dad side of the scale, I think. But then he also is so loving and supportive, and they don't always have ice cream for dinner. And he's teaching her valuable life skills.
HZ: Lots of transferable detective skills.
JOY: More positive than negative for sure.
HZ: And she's getting all that calcium from the sundaes. And the Marses are trying to enjoy their dessert for dinner, but here comes a big shit right on top of their sundaes: a TV news report saying that Lilly Kane's alleged murderer Abel Koontz has fired his lawyer; he's forfeiting further appeals; and he's scheduled to die by the death penalty next year. And Veronica's like, "Dad, what are you going to do about it? You know this is not right." And he's like, "No one cares what I believe". And then there's a flashback to Lilly Kane, calling Veronica by her full name, of course, drink!
JOY: Drink!
LILLY: Check you out, Veronica Mars, you’re like a rocker chick now.
HZ: And Lilly Kane knows that this is some bullshit as well, so her ghost is prodding Veronica into some action. It's not really a flashback, is it? It's a proper haunting.
JOY: Yeah, it kind of looks like Veronica wakes up after right? Maybe it's like a haunty daydream or something. Lilly's going through Veronica's closet, and says, "You're like a rocker chick now," which I guess compared to how Veronica was dressing when she was wearing that long wig all the time, I guess maybe it's leaning a little bit more in that direction? But still feels a little bit of an overreach by Lilly's ghost.
HZ: Lot of lime green and pink.
JOY: Not really the colours I associate with rock. And Lilly says her soul is doomed to walk the earth until justice has been served. But she says it kind of with a wink. It seems true, but also like she's making it a joke or making it spookier than it inherently is.
HZ: She's the ironic ghost. And she also says, "As kind of a side project, dispense fashion advice," which we know the earthlings need.
JOY: Just in time, Lilly! They need it so bad.
HZ: And Veronica asks:
VERONICA: Did Koontz do it?
LILLY: Wish I could tell ya.
VERONICA: Why would he have wanted to kill you?
LILLY: Honestly. I was awesome, right?
HZ: Classic Lilly Kane.
JOY: We're all with you, Lilly. Why couldn't he have killed Duncan instead?
HZ: Because I think everyone would be like, "Oh, well, that's made a bit of a mess, back to work". And then we're at school in the media classroom, which is so dark. I'm obsessed with the lighting on this show, because for such a sunny town, everywhere is so dimly lit. It's unbelievable. How are these kids even functioning? And Miss Dent asks Veronica to cover the student election. And then what should pop up on the student TV is Wanda's campaign video, in which she's wearing an Avril Lavigne-style black and pink necktie.
JOY: Oh my god. Yeah, and saying that she wants to do away with the unfair and elitist pirate points system. If she can't order food, nobody can, says Wanda! That's her campaign slogan. I think.
HZ: Yeah, I'm into it. Pirate points for everyone or no-one! And the people love it, though we're shown a whole art class just so they can clap.
JOY: And as we all know, nobody that makes art can also play a sport, so this makes perfect sense.
HZ: Finally, a chance at equality! Everyone loves it, except for Logan - Logan does not love it. And he's trying to pressure Duncan into running to protect Logan's pirate points - what's Logan getting them for anyway? He contributes nothing to school life, except for pain and meanness.
JOY: Oh, maybe in addition to sports and Student Council, people who are really rich get them. I wonder if that's the case.
HZ: Just give a further advantage to the advantaged. But Logan's like:
LOGAN: We're not giving up these points, man. You gotta run.
DUNCAN: Actually? I don't.
HZ: And I cheered Duncan for once.
JOY: Yes, hooray Duncan. This might be Duncan's best episode, so far.
HZ: I think so, so far. Titles! Then still at school. There's an enormous Wanda poster. That's pretty cool. And Veronica is interviewing Wanda. Veronica is wearing sludge green. I don't know whether this is meant to imply some kind of sympathy for Logan? Or whether they're just both shopping at the same pond store.
JOY: Sale rack, sure, sure.
HZ: And Wanda is wearing a shredded yellow kilt like punk Clueless.
JOY: Bleeech! Yeah, they’re really going hard on her outfits.
HZ: Yeah. Albeit not in a particularly original way. But Wanda is saying a lot of things that Veronica loves to hear about the haves versus the have nots.
WANDA: It’s class warfare, the haves versus the have-nots. You, more than anyone at school, should understand that.
VERONICA: But it’s more quotable if you say it out loud.
WANDA: Okay. The rich kids, they run things around here. They’re the minority and they’re corrupt. They get away with murder.
HZ: 09ers? One percenters more like, am I right? Vive la revolution! Et cetera. It seems like Veronica and Wanda are becoming friends in this episode - and yet I always feel like Veronica is kind of acting at how people would be friends. She seems more at ease with men.
JOY: That's true. Although I guess we just see her interacting with men way more often - her dad, Wallace, Logan and Duncan, Troy. She interacts with Lilly in her flashbacks.
HZ: Yeah, that's her female companionship, and I don't know whether it's just because they chose not to write more female characters for the show, or whether it's just Veronica's kind of a cool girl type. Are you familiar with that trope? Where it's a girl who looks hot, loves sports, can down beers and eat everything, so the men are like, “Wow, yeah, she's really cool and fun just like one of the guys except I can bang her!”
JOY: Bleurghhh, so violent.
HZ: It is, it is, it's propagating noxious behaviours.
JOY: Yeah, and what does the "She likes all the same stuff as me and she's just like one of the guys except I want to bang her” really say about the guy who's thinking it? Does that open a door in anybody's mind?
HZ: So this scene to me is a bit like someone said to Veronica, “You really need to get some female friendship in your life,” and she's like, "Well alright, I'll try." But it's not something that really comes naturally to her. At the gas station now, and Logan rolls up a bunch of lads get out of his car, including Duncan, Dick and two fillers. So don't get attached to them.
JOY: Two fillers! Yeah, they might die this episode.
HZ: They're just from their stock of bland rich boys of Neptune.
JOY: And this gentleman comes up to to clean Logan's windshield, and Logan is immediately super rude.
HZ: Yeah, "not paying you". And he points at a sign saying he's a homeless vet accepting donations. He's ex-Marine Corps.
JOY: And hey, that gives Logan an idea.
HZ: “Ding! Come compete in my amateur boxing tournament,” which is Logan's new hobby?
JOY: Why is this happening?
HZ: “Logan, you can earn pirate points for sports,” and he's like, “Bingo!”
JOY: Oh god, no.
HZ: The way that things operate in this town... And the vet isn't up for this at all. He says to get out of his face before he beats Logan’s ass for free.
JOY: Hell yeah. Somebody beat Logan's ass for free, please.
HZ: Later they will, unfortunately. Logan's wearing a light brown shirt over a pond green T-shirt: classic palette, if you’re just keeping up with that. I was a bit worried earlier because he appeared to be wearing a long sleeve black t shirt but he was in that very dark classroom so maybe just couldn't tell the pond greenness in the lighting.
JOY: Yeah, yeah. It was like deep algae green, next level pond: you have to get under the surface to see green that dark.
HZ: What's that point of water where light can no longer penetrate? That's where that shirt was from.
JOY: It's called the the Loganasphere - something like that.
HZ: I think that's what I heard David Attenborough call it. And then back to the school media classroom and spin the Duncan Kane wheel, who are we getting today? Reluctant class president!
JOY: And all around righteous dude.
HZ: On the TV is a Jake Kane-produced campaign bit for Duncan's campaign, which even Duncan doesn't seem to know about. And Aaron Echolls is hosting it outside a trailer, thus establishing that he is a busy working actor - and also, there's some weird circus style music on it.
AARON ECHOLLS: National Honour Society. National Merit semi-finalist…and all around righteous dude. Hi, I’m Aaron Echolls, and I’ve known Duncan Kane for a long time. He’s the real deal.
JOY: I think that's like kind of some traditionally patriotic jam, but it does sound circusy, doesn't it?
HZ: Yeah. Duncan is hard cringing at all of it.
JOY: He's not stoked at all. Why wouldn't he just say, "I withdraw my bid. I don't want to run. I didn't enter this race"? Why wouldn't he just say, "No thank you"?
HZ: Right. He presumably has done zero campaigning at this point. Except for this thing his dad has done. And then Madison comes in to hand Miss Dent the ballot papers, and she wishes Duncan luck and she is wearing a bright pink striped sweater over a baby pink shirt with sheaves of long blonde hair - could she be any more feminised?
JOY: Yeah, I think maybe when Paris Hilton left town she left in a hurry and left all of her pink clothing behind, and Madison inherited it.
HZ: Presumably Paris Hilton is still in town.
JOY: I don't know, I haven't seen her, Helen, I think she got, I think she got out, I think she ran.
HZ: Maybe one embarrassing episode and that's it. And Miss Dent writes the list of presidential candidates on the board explaining to mark a bubble on the papers. This is important later, even though it sounds like it's boring now when I describe it. And Duncan says, “Whatever you do, please don't vote for me.” I love you in this episode Duncan. I'm sorry for all the things I said.
JOY: Yeah - favourite Duncan of all time.
HZ: And Veronica votes B for Wanda.
JOY: And then! And then, Helen, and anyone listening. Then we get a tour of Veronica's state of the art crime file on the mysterious death of Lilly Kane. What is this program? Listen to my voice and understand my words when I say that this program puts like little manila file folders on your screen with a different name on each one, and when you click on the name, someone's photo starts really tiny and then expands until it's as tall as the file folder, and then you click on it and it's like: bullet point! Here's a piece of information about this person that has something to do with the murder. Bullet point! Here's another piece of... it's so ludicrous. Also, there's like two bullet points per person. Veronica, get a notebook.
HZ: May I say: it's so dark, it's very dark. It's so incredibly dark at the Mars office. Why is it so dark?
JOY: Because there's a mystery, see? Automatically brings the wattage down.
HZ: The reason why Veronica is looking at her extremely unsubtle big files about each Kane - there’s one for each of them, one for Abel Koontz, one for Logan. She's looking because the Kanes no longer have alibis after the parking ticket revealed that Lilly's time of death was a little bit of bullshit.
JOY: Yeah, what could it all mean?
HZ: She opens Keith's safe, looks at the autopsy report, can't read it because it's too fucking dark. And then there's a very dramatic shot in the darkness at the beach. It's night, and there's this overhead shot of a ring of car headlights. And there's a bunch of guys with beers; there's some thrashy music; and there's Logan commentating his amateur boxing fight. So this is a better lit scene than Mars HQ, which has lamps, but is only lit by the light from the fish tank. I feel like they're slowly building Logan up to be as much of a total douche bag as possible, before later this episode just really breaking your heart.
JOY: What possesses a person to do what he's doing? This is so bananas. And there are so many of them there being like, "This is cool. This is a fun way to spend our spare time".
HZ: Yeah, well, it's because toxic masculinity runs in the water of Neptune, including the sea water that laps onto the beach, never forget. Back to the Mars office, and Veronica's looking at photos of Lilly's room - and her shoes are in her room. Therefore, they were not at Abel Koontz's house at the time she supposedly died. And to me the true mystery is how Veronica can see this just by the streetlight through the stained glass windows.
JOY: They've referred a couple times to the place where they found Lilly's stuff as Abel Koontz's boat.
HZ: Ah, yes, sorry. It's daytime again. And it's kind of light, because we're at the lunch tables, which the only place in Neptune that's not dark.
JOY: They haven't found a way to dim the sun on this show. Yet.
HZ: They could probably knock it out the sky. And Veronica is wearing pond green and blue. It's like both Duncan and Logan are represented on her clothing in this episode that draws so many interesting parallels between them. She watches as Duncan eats Chinese food. No more delivery lunch after Wanda wins. But over the tannoy, Principal Clemmons announces the results.
JOY: What's a tannoy?
HZ: What do you call them? PA? Speaker system?
JOY: Yeah, PA.
HZ: I'm so sorry. I thought was an American word.
JOY: I mean, it might be but is it a brand? Is that like the Kleenex of PAs?
HZ: Yes. Could be. Is Clemmons not the principal, he's the vice principal?
JOY: Yeah, he's he's currently the vice principal.
HZ: Oh tits, I've been calling him principal this whole time.
JOY: Well, I'm sure he'd appreciate that.
HZ: He will always be principal to me. Shit news for Duncan - he has won! He's horrified, and so is everyone else.
JOY: Yeah, people are pissed, it's clear that Wanda was carrying the popular vote. So how could this have happened? Well, great news, because zoom in on Veronica. Now she's got a story. Finally, something to investigate.
HZ: When the shit goes down Veronica, feeds. In the classroom, it's very dark. It's dark like that underwater in the pond that Logan's clothes are from; there's this dramatic composition of lines of desk and floor leading, in the distance, to JANE LYNCH! Jane Fuckin' Lynch - is her official title.
JOY: I like when Jane Lynch is like kind of villainous, but also kind of lovable; but in this episode, she's just kind of shitty.
HZ: Yeah, she's very much in classic Jane Lynch bitchy high status mode. I reckon this is the role that made them think, “oh, Glee, she can do the Sue Sylvester thing.” Cutting through the character though - she does wear a knotted sweater over her shoulders. You know, when people knot the arms of their sweater, like it's the worst kind of superhero cape? Like if superheroes belong to golf clubs.
JOY: Yeah, not not a look I long to see ever.
HZ: Well just don't go to golf clubs and it’ll probably be fine. Veronica is hitting up Jane Lynch because she wants the ballots to be recounted. Jane Lynch is hard no.
JOY: Yeah, this is disturbing - what could this faculty member's motivation possibly be? Because she doesn't act like, oh, it's just an inconvenience. She acts like she's on the 09ers side; she seems not neutral.
HZ: Well, who do you think paid for the knotted sweater? She's wearing those knotted sweaters at 09er country clubs, isn't she?
JOY: Maybe we're just supposed to see that sweater as a class symbol. But But she accidentally lets slip that Veronica just needs a faculty sponsor to get the recount going. And even when Veronica comes back with your favourite teacher and mine -
HZ: Miss Dent! Who still doesn't give a shit.
JOY: She tries to convince Sydney that she's being manipulated by Veronica.
HZ: And she's like, "Maybe I am but I don't give a shit about anything. So I'm going to take you on Jane Lynch" is what I got from this dialogue. High quality passive aggression on both sides.
JOY: So they managed to get the recount moving. But running those ScanTron sheets through the ScanTron reader, if anybody remembers what a ScanTron is - Duncan continues to come out on top with like 700 and something votes?
HZ: 743 votes - that's a high turnout.
JOY: Out of - what's their graduating class? Jesus.
HZ: Is there compulsory voting in these things?
JOY: I guess they were all doing it in every class, so it's everybody.
HZ: Yeah, but you could still be like “whatevs” or you just draw a cock and balls on the ballot paper.
JOY: As I always do.
HZ: Jane Lynch comes into the room just to say:
MRS DONALDSON: You can toss those ballots in the recycle bin when you're done uncovering “corruption”.
HZ: And then leaves. I love it when Veronica Mars just pushes a character in to deliver one line and then just wheels them out straight away. Veronica's scrutinising a ballot that has ‘Wanda rulez’ scrawled on it, but they voted for Duncan. What?
JOY: Then she gets her magnifying glass and she takes a nice deep drag on her tobacco pipe and squints through the smoke.
HZ: Backup sniffs at the ballot paper.
JOY: She’s ready. She's fully engaged.
HZ: Wallace looks up which kid did that ballot he's someone who has art class first period, which explains why we saw the art class applauding for Wanda earlier. And Veronica goes to the art classroom and discovers that the list of candidates is in a different order to how Miss Dent wrote them on the board in Veronica's class. So the numerical ballots went to the wrong people.
JOY: Hey, that boring thing from before is finally important!
HZ: Chekhov’s boring thing! And who was it who photocopied the ballot instructions on behalf of Jane Lynch to pass out to the teachers?
JOY: Who else but Madison? Bah! I dislike her. I dislike her!
HZ: You’re not meant to like her.
JOY: I know, I know; and I'm always going on about how I don't like the people who we are obviously not meant to like, but I can't help it. Such a strong response is elicited from me by so many people on this show. Also, I just want to let you know that one of the other people running for president was Steve Whacker, I noticed.
HZ: Whacker?
JOY: Whacker - what a last name.
HZ: Whacker. Clemmons announces that there will be a new vote, using an SM57 mic, microphone fans. And do you think that if you're one of the three candidates that evidently no one gives a shit about cos they're not Wanda or Duncan that you would be feeling a bit miffed that no one gave a shit about you, and you'd been effectively ruled out of the race?
JOY: I would feel bummed and also, they do a revote just for for Duncan and Wanda, and it seems kind of messed up that the other three candidates are not included.
HZ: Given the one of the candidates didn't want to run and has done no campaigning, and the other one has been disobediently ordering Chinese food to the school and doesn't care about the system! They're both being rewarded for bad behaviour.
JOY: Everyone else deserves a chance. I mean, why waste the paper and student power to begin with of photocopying and distributing those voting lists when they have a PA and they even have a video system within the school?
HZ: Great question.
JOY: It doesn't make any sense.
HZ: Over in Veronica's bedroom, she's taking a closer look at the photo of Lilly's shoes - enhance enhance, enhance, enhance to see there are hearts drawn on.
JOY: My favourite part of any procedural: the enhance segment.
HZ: We all know how much clearer things get when you zoom in on them. Clear enough to read that, in flashback, Veronica had drawn those very hearts on Lilly shoes while Lilly was still alive and wearing them. And she wrote ‘Duncan’ in them -
JOY: I mean!
HZ: - on her boyfriend's sister's shoe.
JOY: So weird. Why would you do it, Veronica?
HZ: And in the present day, Veronica calls up someone called Hank and asked for a video copy of the news piece about Abel Koontz that she and Keith watched the other night over sundaes. Make it a regular feature of dessert for dinner night at the Mars house, why not?
JOY: Just watch that clip over and over again. Meanwhile, the Kane bois are eating some some food that they're ashamed of, some secret food at a roadside spot.
HZ: Tacos of shame!
JOY: Don't tell Celeste please. Or Celeste's personal trainer. Okay.
HZ: Yeah. Hide our Pleasure. Pleasure is Shame.
JOY: “Pleasure is Shame.” That's right up there with Reign of Kane - what a snappy motto!
HZ: “Reign of Kane, Pleasure is Shame.” Jake is still pressuring Duncan about the student president thing. He's suggesting they make campaign bumper stickers, and by “they make”, they mean get a Kane Software graphics employee to do it. And Jake says, "Look what you accomplished without even trying," which I would say is privilege, rather than accomplishment. But I do understand that these characters don't really understand.
JOY: Also, yeah.
HZ: Duncan is still not keen and Jake is tired of Duncan’s cynicism. Like you can deduce enough from Duncan to work out whether he's cynical or just quite tired, or dealing with all his psychological trauma, or the writers just haven't decided to wind him up that day.
JAKE: Your happiness is all I’ve ever wanted.
DUNCAN: What if I find happiness living in a grass hut carving figurines for tourists?
JAKE: I feel confident you have grander ambitions than that. But, if you’re happy and committed to driftwood carving, be the best driftwood carver you can be. After you’ve graduated from Stanford. Law school. Summa cum laude.
JOY: I think this exchange is like interesting, I think it makes sense that Jake, who has accomplished so much in his life, and who also has suffered a great loss, just wants the best of all possible futures for his son? But doesn't know how to really go about encouraging him except at this sort of top tier, Emily Gilmore style, like, “You can carve driftwood if you want, after you graduate Stanford law school, summa cum laude.”
HZ: Jake is sweeter in in this scene than we've seen him before. And he says he just wants to see Duncan enthusiastic about something. Forcing him to run for election against his every wish clearly isn't it though, Jake; read the room. I also have a couple of questions about this scene: one, where is this taco stand? Because there's a stack of hay bales behind Duncan. Two: is Duncan wearing Luke's green Adidas top from episode five?
JOY: I don't know. But we do know that there's a lot of wardrobe-sharing over the course of the show between the many young gentlemen of the Marsverse.
HZ: Back at school - What the shit? - a load of sabotage Wanda's posters all have to work NARC scrawled across them. They've also painted NARC across Wanda’s locker and across her car.
JOY: Yeah, this is an unfortunate turn of events for for Wanda. And I just wanted to check I was like, “Narcoleptic? what is narc short for again?” It's of course short for narcotics agent, a federal agent or police officer who specialises in laws dealing with illegal drugs, please carry on.
HZ: I'd love it if they were scrawling NARC because "Wanda's a narcoleptic, she can't do this job, it's too much stress."
JOY: Yeah, she's too sleepy.
HZ: Veronica invites Wanda over to her house to make some new posters, because they're best friends now - Veronica has assimilated that this is a thing that a friend might say and do.
JOY: And finally someone has been brave enough to invoke the name of Avril Lavigne, who's basically until this point the looming Cthulu-esque dark lord in the background of this episode, and Wanda feels like her emissary, or avatar or something...
HZ: Wouldn't be entirely surprised to discover that they had asked Avril Lavigne to play Wanda. I have no proof. But it just seems like maybe they would have, and she was busy, because it was 2004.
JOY: Yeah, yeah. Wow. I hope that's true.
HZ: In the media classroom of sepulchral darkness, Veronica accuses Logan of wrecking the posters. They're all in brown: Logan brown T-shirt, brown plaid shirt; Veronica, pale brown. What does it mean?
JOY: What does it mean, but NARC is written in black everywhere, so Veronica should know it couldn't have been Logan.
HZ: You know his trademark.
JOY: He only works in browns and greens.
HZ: Logan says, "Isn't it time you found another bad guy? I just don't have time to be responsible for every little thing that goes wrong in your life".
HZ: And so Veronica turns around and interrogates Duncan instead. He's got a blue pencil behind his ear so that you can tell him apart from the greeny brown one.
JOY: Thank heavens.
HZ: And Duncan's a bit pissy in this interchange.
JOY: Yeah, I mean, the guy just wants to be left alone with his thoughts. But everybody keeps bugging him entering him in student body government election, harassing him about how he allowed himself to be entered into said election. Duncan just wants to like nap, eat a burrito, you know, in peace.
HZ: Yeah. And she says:
VERONICA: You don’t initiate trouble. You don’t initiate much of anything anymore.
DUNCAN: Don’t stop there, Veronica. Say it. What’s my usual way?
VERONICA: You stand idly by.
HZ: That's a good thing, isn't it, if initiating things is setting up an illegal boxing thing?
JOY: By comparison I prefer Duncan's inaction to Logan's action. Yes.
HZ: But uh oh, Logan's fight has appeared online on The Smoking Gun. Remember that? And Dick is like, "Dude, you're famous". Who videoed the fight? And how did that video get disseminated in this pre-YouTube pre-smartphone time? It's kind of an effort, isn't it, to, what, mail a video tape to the smoking gun's PO box?
JOY: Hmm, maybe. Okay. Well, for the first part of the question, maybe somebody borrowed Veronica's camcorder.
HZ: Good point.
JOY: The second part, I really can't speak to.
HZ: It seems like Logan would be the person most likely to video the fight, because he's shown earlier in the show that he has some talent for video editing. And yet, presumably not him, because he seems rather concerned. Girls’ Night in Veronica's room, and Wanda asks Veronica if she ever had a thing for Weevil.
WANDA: So, what’s the story with you and Weevil?
VERONICA: Weevil? There’s no story. Why?
WANDA: No reason. Just thought you might have shared your friend Lilly’s bad boy thing. But I guess I was wrong.
VERONICA: Lilly had more of a boy thing.
WANDA: Are you sure? Lilly and Weevil never, because I heard -
VERONICA: Never!
WANDA: Okay.
HZ: Step aside. He's Jenny's!
JOY: That's right. Step aside! He's mine. Everybody, don't even look at Weevil. Thank you.
HZ: This is like the second intimation that Weevil and Lilly maybe had a thing after we saw Weevil tearful Lilly's memorial in episode four.
JOY: Yep, yep, maybe there's something here. Let's keep digging.
HZ: And then it's night time in the Echolls house, which unlike everywhere else in Neptune is still quite well lit even when it's dark. Logan encounters his father Aaron in an armchair waiting for him. Aaron can't sleep because the press keeps calling about Logan's Skid Row Boxing - as he terms it. There are lots of headshots of Aaron around, if just one Aaron face wasn't menacing enough.
JOY: Yeah, I mean, it's not just his home office, it's the living room. That's a bridge too far, my dude, that is too many of your face.
HZ: It's the Museum of Aaron Echolls' Face. There's this very sinister low shot of Aaron walking over to Logan, obviously very displeased with him. And then he holds him in this terrifying way and then shouts and throws him violently. This is showing us that one of the reasons maybe why Logan is such a dysfunctional human prone to violence and cruelty is because that's what he's being served with at home.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: And then Aaron says:
AARON: Do you have any idea what you just cost this family? Of course you don’t. You never had to work for anything in your life. Now, tomorrow, after school, you’re going to get your first lesson in public relations. Logan. Don’t you ever embarrass me again.
HZ: That's not really fair, saying Logan never had to work for anything in his life because his parents made the choice to raise him in that privileged way.
JOY: True? True!
HZ: Why do you think Logan set up the boxing anyway? Is it just because he's like, seen Fight Club a lot? He's the right kind of age where he's been watching Fight Club since he was 12 and thinking it's the best thing in the world.
JOY: Right. And also, I feel like at this point in time, this was a trend. Am I wrong about that?
HZ: If it was, it was one that hadn't reached me, I'm afraid, but then I'm often a late adopter. But I also wonder whether it's just Logan has to go to all these extremes to feel anything.
JOY: Or maybe this is like a desperate flail for attention, you know, subconsciously, based on what we've seen of Aaron and Lynn, it doesn't really seem like they're very involved attentive parents. They just seem pretty caught up in their vibe.
HZ: Right. So he's just searching for transgressive behaviours.
JOY: Anything to say "fuck you, dad".
HZ: At school the next day Veronica is giving out ‘Vote Wanda’ bumper stickers. Weevil, however, doesn't want one, and not just because he rides a motorbike that doesn't have a very big bumper.
JOY: Yeah, apparently, Wanda and Felix hooked up and Felix has been collecting all the Welcome to Neptune signs and immediately after they hooked up the sheriff found out that he was hiding them. And he got some roadside cleanup for the next four weekends. Who else could it have been but Wanda?
HZ: One of Felix's parents? Whoever lives with Felix and has noticed the high traffic of Welcome to Neptune signs in his room? So Wanda’s not a narc on the gang’s more subterranean activities. She's narced on this activity of stealing signs, which is quite a common teenage bit of rapscallionism.
JOY: Rapscallionism! Maybe it's the only hard evidence thing she could offer. Like, these signs were stolen and here's where they are.
HZ: I didn't fully understand what I was supposed to glean from this interaction. But I did deduce that Veronica's tide was very much turned by it. And also it showed that Veronica trusts Weevil more than she trusts most people.
JOY: Which I love.
HZ: He's very honest. Weevil's a straight shooter.
JOY: So Veronica decides immediately on the spot that she's going to lay a trap - an ecstasy trap. A desert rave trap for Wanda.
VERONICA: Well, I think we should celebrate this weekend, win or lose. I heard about this rave out in the desert, and we can make it if we leave directly after school tomorrow.
WANDA: Bitchin’. I’ll tell my mom I’m spending the night at your place. Do we need any… provisions?
VERONICA: Provisions? With a capital E, absolutely. But I know a guy.
WANDA: Oh, jealous. Wish I knew a guy.
HZ: Tingly music to suggest that something naughty is happening. And then Principal Clemmons over the school TV system reads out the list of candidates to vote for - which, as you said, Jenny, would have saved them so much trouble if they'd just done that first time round.
JOY: We wouldn't have even had to have this episode.
HZ: They could have saved themselves so much time and money. We could have just spent the whole episode with Keith Mars doing his 1940s gumshoe impressions.
JOY: 1940s detective bit, hell yeah. Hell yeah.
HZ: What a joy, just having a massive sugar crash and then building himself back up. Veronica voiceovers:
VERONICA: On the one hand, the hot and cold ex-boyfriend; on the other, the potentially duplicitous new friend and champion to the disenfranchised.
HZ: Not the other three that never get a look in for this bloody election. And then a flashback - curious little flashback this, less obvious than their usual flashbacks. It's a bunch of the kids outside at the lunch tables, Logan in a jaunty dark green polo with white stripes, very fresh; Veronica bright pink with, of course, tiny sleeves. Some nauseous-looking extras at the far end of the table. Dick comes along, tries to kick off one of the nauseous-looking extras to another table; Duncan says nauseous-looking extra can stay, Dick should find his own spot, showing Duncan as a nice guy, defender of the weak, looking out for all of the people; social status and riches mean nothing to him. Veronica loves it.
JOY: Yeah, and she's filling in that ScanTron immediately following this beautiful flashback.
HZ: Back at the gas station, Aaron Echolls is on the phone whilst filling up; there's a lot of signs around and gas stations now that you're not allowed to use mobile phones at the pumps. He's driving himself today. He's got a fancy white car. He's arranging a shoot at a homeless shelter that he clearly doesn't give a shit about or do volunteering at at any other time.
JOY: Except when he needs good PR.
HZ: Today, cameras are ready. Echolls redemption time. Logan is wearing red, but a weird kind of blotchy shirt like a wooden fence that has been painted red but the paint is partly worn off so you see the pale wood beneath. Aaron is keeping up the family khaki though, with his jacket, and he says Logan's going to work at a soup kitchen whilst Aaron does some interviews for TV and Logan shows some contrition. And then he's on the phone again about a part in some shit movie. But then he's like:
AARON: Son, how do you argue with eight figures? You can't! Can't be done.
HZ: And the conscience of this scene is the homeless veteran from earlier who just wanders in to say the line, "Hey it's Don King, you found a sucker who's willing to make a bit of himself for cash?" and then wanders off again. But he's dropped this truth bomb. It feels like this is a moment where Logan is realising that there's some rot in him and it came from Aaron, and he may have money but he doesn't have dignity. The vet is this magical conscience character.
JOY: Hmm. Just popping in to start Logan maybe on - could it be? - a path in some positive direction of self-improvement?
HZ: Maybe he's thinking "this person I've looked down on is better than me". Aaron oblivious of course, because eight figures. You know.
JOY: Who can see past eight figures?
HZ: At the soup kitchen Logan is serving, he's wearing a white apron. He seems to be having an okay time. But then Aaron has to ruin the good time, because he's doing some public dadding for cameras. He said, "My father told me a good heart is worth all the heads," which I have to disagree with because brainpower is useful as well as decency.
JOY: Yeah, be reasonable.
HZ: Logan's head was in the wrong place, but he had a good heart. Logan looks super uncomfortable, like he's going to throw up. But he apologises, he says:
LOGAN: I only hope that one day I can live up to my dad’s good example.
HZ: He's very tearful. He says, “I love you, dad.” The reporters are all smiles. And I was like, what is the emotional undercurrent happening here?
JOY: It's really good because Logan finds a way to give it right back to his dad by saying on camera in front of a room full of people:
LOGAN: Okay, look, I know that you didn’t want to make a big deal out of this, but I’m just so proud of him that I, I can’t keep it a secret. Dad told me on the way over that he’s donating half a million dollars to the Neptune foodbank. Way to go, Dad.
HZ: Wow. Oh boy. Aaron does not like that.
JOY: Everyone else is applauding except Aaron.
HZ: Baller move, Logan - until the next scene, which is set in Aaron's belt closet, which is better lit than most of the daylit rooms in this show. And it's such a devastating scene of Logan having to choose the weapon of his own punishment that is about to be doled out. And he takes it into Aaron’s study which is filled with posters of Aaron Echolls, as if it needed to be more terrifying. And Aaron shuts the door as Logan raises his shirt and the sound of belt lashing rings out and it pans over to Lynn Echolls - Logan's mom - just sitting on the sofa sipping from a tumbler. So is she desensitised to this? Is she supportive of the corporal punishment being dealt to her son? How do you read it?
JOY: I read it as she's drinking to numb herself out, and that's something that she's been practising for the duration of her relationship with Aaron, and probably all of Logan's life.
HZ: I really didn't think that much could be bleaker than the Kane family's dinner scenes.
JOY: Yeah, this really sucks.
HZ: And then at school, we're in a very, very dark room, of course, Veronica is faintly lit by a light box and someone whose face is not in shot hands around a corner and says that the deputy wants to inspect her locker. And there's deputy Sachs and Principal Clemmons searching her locker. Break it down for me, Jenny: what are they looking for?
JOY: Well, they're looking for ecstasy. But what they find instead is a Dr. Seuss hat, which is probably a TV show writer’s most readily available association to a drug like ecstasy.
HZ: Yeah, that's the thing - when they pulled that out, I thought, “Oh, they've got her costume for the desert rave,” not thinking, "Oh, Veronica never intended to go to a desert rave."
JOY: But maybe she just like threw that in there for fun, like “Haha, I'll put this in here and they'll assume that the drugs will be under it,” because what else would be in a bag with a Cat in the Hat hat? Besides drugs?
HZ: It's a wonderful point. But Clemmons does some fantastic face work whilst Veronica says:
VERONICA: There's a couple of suckers... in the bag, if you want them.
HZ: "Brand we don't have an England" pun. And then the tannoy/PA is back on and Jane Lynch this time - not Principal Clemmons - announces that Duncan Kane is president. The students rejoice - do people really care this much, Jenny, in American schools?
JOY: No, no, but except the only people that I could imagine really caring that much would be the 09ers who want their pirate points to stay in place.
HZ: Which, judging by this scene, is a majority of people.
JOY: And also the people who maybe feel betrayed by Wanda because they believed in her and then it was revealed through, I guess, a campaign of spray paint that she might be a narc? Nobody cares about student elections like this!
HZ: I don't really understand though, what kind of chicanery has happened off screen to scupper Wanda's campaign? Because I feel like scrawling “narc” across her posters wasn't gonna make a load of people go, “Ok then, I'll vote for the rich guy who doesn't really say anything.”
JOY: Maybe enough of her base was disrupted by word of mouth about Felix.
HZ: Maybe it was the sweet sweet Kane Software bumper stickers.
JOY: Also those, they looked really great. Very presidential. And Veronica confronts Wanda because she has no fear in her heart ever for anything. And we find out that Wanda got busted on possession the previous year, and the only way she could keep it off of her record was to narc on other people. Veronica's like, "Oh, so you'd wreck my future to save your own?" But then quickly decides she doesn't care. And also let's Wanda know that she didn't vote for her. So ha!
HZ: Because of good guy Duncan. Veronica take some pictures of Jane Lynch announcing Duncan as president in a very dimly lit classroom, Jane Lynch's cuff and stomach are way brighter than her face. Duncan makes a speech - everyone's very excited initially, because he says no one will lose their pirate points, and everyone's like “Yay!” But he's expanding the programme to band, vocational trades, etc. and everyone’s like, “Urgh.” The applause peters out as they realise he's a class traitor.
JOY: But Jake Kane is so proud. I think this is really nice. It's the best thing we've seen Duncan do by far.
HZ: Love class traitor Duncan.
JOY: And I endorse it.
HZ: Absolutely. And also, I don't care enough about the system of pirate points that seems only to exist in this episode. I don't care about that hierarchy at all; I do enjoy Duncan upending the hierarchy. Other than that, am I supposed to sympathise for these 09ers who are disappointed that they'll no longer have the edge? How did this system get instituted in the first place? Makes no sense that would only pertain to rich people.
JOY: Yeah, I'm happy to see this system get expanded and also we'll never hear about it again, so there’s that.
HZ: Yay. Job done. And now poor Duncan's got to be president. So it's a good thing it's really about only choosing which candy they sell and not a real political position.
JOY: I think this might reinforce the the idea that the best person for the job of president is not the person who wants to be president the most.
HZ: Right. I do agree politics would be better if people who really wanted to be in politics weren't allowed.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: And in the Mars offices, Veronica is back trying to open up Keith's safe, and discovers that Keith has changed the combination.
JOY: He knows. He knows!
HZ: He knows - of course he knows, he's Keith Mars. He knows what the pirate point system is about, he knows everything! And then when she gets home, there's a package for her from the news station. She lies to Keith that it's something to do with journalism class project. He doesn't say anything, doesn't need to say anything for her to turn around and say, "I'm lying, you know I'm lying". Brilliant.
JOY: Keith knows all, Keith sees all. Veronica is like:
VERONICA: I don’t want things to be like this between us anymore.
KEITH: Like what?
VERONICA: Like our own game of spy vs spy. You know I was in the safe. And I know you’re still investigating Lilly’s murder.
KEITH: I was. I’m not anymore.
VERONICA: Why not? Dad, we’re running out of time.
KEITH: I used to think that solving the case was the key to our happiness. Solve the case and my reputation is restored. Solve the case and your mom comes home. Solve the case and you go back to being a normal teenage girl.
VERONICA: So let’s do it, let’s solve the case -
KEITH: Wait, Veronica. What I believe in now is that we make the most out of what we have here and now. I believe in going to the zoo with the person I love the most.
JOY: However! Just when he thought he was out, Veronica pulls him back in with her super enhanced photo of Lilly's shoes with a Duncan heart on them in Lilly's room after she died that were allegedly on Abel Koontz's boat, but how could they have gotten there unless they were planted after her death?
HZ: I like the fact that in the news report, the shoes are in bags held up by Lamb, and the bags have ‘EVIDENCE’ written on them in huge red letters. Is that what that look like?
JOY: Yeah, well, when you go to Target, you know, there's the section that has all like the Saran wrap and the aluminum foil or aluminium foil, depending on where you’re from.
HZ: Thank you, no, it's fine, I understand.
JOY: Depending on where you're from, all of that stuff. And then there's the the Ziploc bags and you've got like your freezer bags, you've got your Ziploc bags that have the zip that you pull across the top, and then you have the evidence bags. Those are off to the far right usually and they're more expensive, because they have ‘evidence’ printed on them.
HZ: And Keith wonders, "What are these shoes doing in Abel Koontz's possession?" Veronica says, "Good question." Then the episode just stops. That's not a satisfying narrative conclusion! It's not a good bit of end voiceover.
JOY: Veronica and Keith need some time alone to break out more magnifying glasses and prepare for this new phase of their life, the phase in which they will team up to solve this murder.
HZ: They'll be unstoppable. I'm so excited about it. While they’re combining forces, let's check up on the southern Californianess and criminess of this episode with the Southern California lawyer and Marshmallow Lo Dodds for today's LoDown.
THE LODOWN
HZ: Is it a crime to rig the results of a student election? This plot we all care so much about.
LO DODDS: I don't think that would be a crime. I think that Madison Sinclair with her terrible wig would probably not be charged with anything in that episode, but she would probably supposedly get some sort of reprimand from the school - but it sounds like she didn't in that episode; they never mentioned again what happens to Madison for doing that?
HZ: She's rich and blonde, so nothing.
LO DODDS: Exactly. And a cheerleader.
JOY: And then what kind of crime would it be if I was going to steal all of the Welcome to Neptune signs?
LO DODDS: It is theft. And it's theft of government property. He'd be charged with theft, and Felix is a juvenile, so depending on how much those signs were worth, he's probably end up doing roadside cleanup, which actually, that is what he got sentenced to, if I remember in the episode.
JOY: And, okay: if you did plant some evidence, such as, for example, shoes, decorated with puffy paint, just a random example I’m pulling out of the air: what kind of penalty would that elicit?
LO DODDS: I don't really know what would happen to whoever did that, because you're going to get charged possibly with obstruction of justice, with conspiracy, you could be charged with fraud. But in that situation, you're probably worried more about the victim, because in that sense, the police, you know, if you've obstructed justice, you're going to get something for that; you've tampered with evidence, again, also going to get something for that, we learned that was a misdemeanour. But in that case, you'd probably be more worried about a civil suit from the victim who's going to sue you for damages for the life that they have lost while they've been sitting in prison, convicted of a crime that they didn't commit.
HZ: It seems pretty major to me.
LO DODDS: It is major, but you have to remember Abel Koonz confessed. So this whole idea of his trial, his appeals, all of this stuff and everything, Abel Koonz presumably did not go through a trial at all. It sounds like he pled guilty, he confessed to the crime, which also would make it really unlikely that he would get the death penalty. And it's entirely unlikely that his death penalty would be carried out in a year.
HZ: But he said no to federal appeals, hasn't he?
LO DODDS: He did. But if you have been convicted of the death penalty in California, there's a mandatory appeal that happens, and he could fire his public defender; he could not appear; he could, obviously, thwart that process a lot. But you still would not be anywhere near getting executed within a year. Nobody has been executing California since 2006. And California Governor just put a moratorium on that completely. So now the gas chamber is closed. But there are hundreds of people sitting on death row who have been sitting there for decades.
JOY: And then let's turn to our angry young man of Neptune, Logan - is it a crime to run an amateur boxing night?
LO DODDS: This is actually based on a real case! Roughly around this time, there were two kids that got charged for setting up an illegal boxing - well, illegal boxing videos between homeless people, and bribing them with very little money and/or booze and setting them up to do terrible stuff. And I looked into that, and it wasn't as clean a case as really you think it would be for doing something as horrible as that the people that they videotaped, were mentally ill or were addicted to alcohol, addicted to drugs and willing to do pretty much anything for that. They were convicted, and I think they didn't start anytime they serve some probation, but then they violated their probation and ended up in like 180 days in jail. And so I think that Logan could have been convicted for something, but like the two white boys that in this real life case, as somebody in the case said - the actual DA said this - "This was just some bad decisions by some good kids."
HZ: "By some rich kids."
LO DODDS: Exactly. So that is pretty much what would have happened with Logan. What I did find out though, was that Aaron Echolls, because Logan Echolls is under 18, would have been sued. And because Logan is under 18, Aaron Echolls is responsible for Logan's behaviour and the father of the kids in the real case ended up paying like 300 grand out of his homeowner's insurance policy because his son did this horrible stupid thing.
HZ: Wait - homeowners insurance is valid for that? WHAT?
LO DODDS: It is a little weird. So that's probably why Aaron was for the most part doing the whole public relations gig to avoid being subject to a lawsuit, because I'm pretty sure the Echollses have a pretty sweet homeowners insurance policy.
HZ: It also explains why he's so angry about it. Although he is, of course, too angry about it.
LO DODDS: He's so angry and so violent. Yeah. It also makes him look bad. And I think that he clearly gets off on looking like the dad of the year.
HZ: What was the best line of the episode for you?
JOY: For me, this is not the typical style of best line that we pick. But my favourite line in the episode is Keith Mars saying, "I believe in going to the zoo with the person I love the most."
HZ: Oh my goodness. You went for the heart, not for the getaway sticks.
JOY: The getaway sticks are amazing. But oh, it's so sweet; he just wants to go to the zoo with his daughter.
HZ: I'm going to stick with the zoo theme and award the best line to Wallace for saying, "I'd love to go to the zoo with my dad. But he's dead. So."
JOY: Wallace! Well… How would you rank the mysteriousness of the mystery of this episode?
HZ: I found a lot of the mystery a bit baffling and based on a pirate point system, and student politics about which I did not care. So I'll give the mystery itself 1.5 knotted sweaters out of five. But I will say that class traitor Duncan is the best Duncan so far. And I think it's really interesting how this episode is showing the parallels between these two privileged rich boys, Duncan and Logan; and Logan is leaning into his privilege to a disgusting extent by organising these fights, whereas Duncan is trying to, if anything, extract himself from the privilege and drop out and just defuse the system that he could enjoy but doesn't.
JOY: I have to agree with you. I love that aspect of this episode, even though I also really didn't care about what was going on in terms of the - in very loose quotes - ‘mystery’. It was really interesting and really sad to see more of Logan's life because we have so little context for him up to this point. And really nice to see a little bit more than then we've seen - actually significantly more than we've seen - from Duncan up to this point. He's reluctantly getting involved, but it seems to come naturally to him to make decisions that benefit everyone and not just himself or his similarly rich friends.
HZ: Yeah. And it's not inconsistent with the Duncan of other episodes. It doesn't feel like Duncan has been particularly like, “Hey, look at me, I'm so rich, all of you are scum.”
JOY: No, but it feels like he actually is doing something active, I guess, is really the thing. Engaging with his fellow students and and making positive change.
HZ: I'm going to reward socialist Duncan five out of five hammer and sickles.
JOY: I will back that, and also award the mysteriousness of the mystery one out of five hearts that I drew on my best friend's Ked and then wrote my boyfriend/their brother's name in because I am a psychopath.
HZ: Do the opposite of enhance to get away from that.
JOY: De-enhance! De-enhance!
HZ: OK! That’s another episode of Veronica Mars investigated.
JOY: Case happily closed.
HZ: That was Season 1, episode 6: Return of the Kane.
JOY: Watch season 1 episode 7 and join us in a week to investigate it.
HZ: Find the show on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @VMIpod.
JOY: The website, where the show lives along with a fistful of falsified ballots, is vmipod.com.
HZ: I'm Helen Zaltzman, and you can listen to my other podcasts Answer Me This and The Allusionist; also The AIllusionist is going on a live tour of the US and Canada in October, November and December. So go to theallusionist.org/events to look for listings and ticket links. You should come, it’s very good.
JOY: I'm Jenny Owen Youngs, and you can hear some of the music I make at jennyowenyoungs.com; I've got three new songs out that you can hear on my website or on Spotify or wherever you stream music.
HZ: They're bloody good. You should do it.
JOY: Thanks. Or you can hear me talk about another show about a tiny, badass little blonde young woman on Buffering the Vampire Slayer.
HZ: This episode was edited and mixed by Zach McNees. Music by Martin Austwick and Jenny Owen Youngs.
JOY: The sheriff of this town is Hrishikesh Hirway.
HZ: Distributed by PRX.
JOY: Until next time, who’s your daddy?
HZ: Who’s your daddy? I hope he's nicer than Aaron Echolls.
JOY: He's definitely nicer than Aaron Echolls.