VMI 1.18 Weapons of Class Destruction transcript
Content note:
Veronica Mars contains heavy themes, and this episode includes storylines concerning violence.
A LONG TIME AGO ON VERONICA MARS:
HZ: Something’s afoot at Neptune High - the bomb squad is sniffing around.
JOY: And there are two suspicious students: the one with a bedroom full of weapons
HZ: And the one who’s basically Christian Slater in Heathers with a car full of fertilizer.
JOY: Also we meet another new Duncan: Disappearing Duncan. Where’s Duncan gone??
HZ: Meanwhile, there’s romance in the air: Keith and Wallace’s mom are dating!
JOY: And on that note: there’s also the kiss that launched a thousand ’ships.
JOY: Hiding a bag of weed down the front of my underwear, I’m Jenny Owen Youngs.
HZ: Discouraging students from pursuing a career in journalism by setting them the most boring fucking assignments possible, I’m Helen Zaltzman.
JR: Wielding a replica of William Wallace’s sword, I’m very special guest Joanna Robinson.
You’re listening to Veronica Mars Investigations Season 1, episode 18: Weapons of Class Destruction.
JOY: Wow, what a blessed day. What a magical moment in time. We are here with Joanna Robinson to talk about this episode of Veronica Mars.
HZ: Joanna - tell the nice listeners a little bit about yourself, so they feel familiar with you and they trust you, and they're not terrified of new things and people.
JR: I am a podcaster and a writer for Vanity Fair, and I podcast about TV. I do a podcast about the TV show Lost and I’m wrapping up one about the TV show My So-Called Life. And yeah, I'm thrilled to be here in the mid-2000s with you. Here we are. There's so much fashion happening in this episode.
JOY: That's one word.
HZ: There's always a lot of fashion happening. I'm sorry that you missed the previous episode, which had a fuck of a lot of argyle in it. A lot of busy sweaters. We tend to keep watch on Veronica's tiny jackets, and Logan's tendency to dress like pond slime.
JOY: Right, all greens and browns, with the occasional orange.
JR: Absolutely. Yeah. The pointiness of his frosted tips - like what degree are they pointing and various things...
HZ: Is that the Logan happiness index?
JR: Yes. How emotive is his hair? I don’t know if you’re Friday Night Lights fans, but Coach Taylor had really like emotive hair on that show.
HZ: And how do you feel about the show Veronica Mars?
JR: Oh, so I love the show Veronica Mars. I think the first and second seasons are perfect.
HZ: Well...
JR: Well, no, mixed perfect. Um, but I have a really really soft spot in my heart for them and what they were doing for TV at the time, especially. And season three - not my favourite. And then I actually quite like season four. But yeah, I watched it when it originally aired. But rewatching it now. I don't know. It's interesting this many years later watching it and how quickly some things feel incorrect, you know?
JOY: Yes.
JR: But at the time - I don't know, it wasn't that long ago. But at the time - it's the same with Buffy, we were just so thirsty for a very capable young woman taking on systems of power that we sort of turned a blind eye to some other things that came with it.
HZ: Also the mid-2000s, a different time.
JR: Yes.
HZ: Not necessarily a better one. So this episode open strong with Leo and Veronica - in Britain - you don't have the word ‘snog’, I'd imagine, in America?
JOY: We know what it means!
HZ: That's what's happening outside the Mars front door.
JOY: A great deal of snogging. Joanna, I'll just let you know since since you're new here, I want to let you know that I am very pro Leo, and I'm very pro Weevil. That is my Veronica Mars Hot Guy Spectrum.
JR: Frankly, I'm shocked. Cuz you seem like a Duncan...
JOY: How the fuck? You are disinvited!
JR: Jenny, if you don't see the overlap between Duncan Kane and Riley from Buffy, then I don't know what to tell you.
JOY: All I ever said. Well, things have gotten out of hand on Buffering now; but all I ever wanted to say about Riley is that when compared with Buffy’s other paramours, he is a not a horrific boyfriend. He doesn't do anything that warrants the fan hatred of him. That is all that is. That was my mission. That was the message I wanted to spread and the thing I wanted to talk about on Buffering.
HZ: I would say that's also the case for Duncan in terms of Veronica's boyfriends: he's so incredibly bland.
JR: He's the donut - Riley and Duncan are both the donuts.
JOY: Riley is significantly less bland than Duncan. And that's saying something!
JR: But we can all agree on Deputy Leo, and Weevil frankly.
JOY: HOT! HOT!
JR: Deputy Leo. Come on. Yes.
JOY: Right. And he's always adorable. So nice.
JR: But how much older than Veronica?
JOY: 29 months.
JR: 29 months. That's too many months, maybe?
JOY: Is it? It's like two years and five months.
JR: But she's how old?
JOY: She is, I think at this point, 17. Here's the thing: if it was like two years prior, she would be a freshman and he would be a senior or a junior or something.
JR: I think I look askance at college age or post-High School dudes dating High School. I feel like you can date within the high school bubble, like a senior can date a freshman.
JOY: What if you're a sophomore and you're dating a senior and then your boyfriend graduates, then you have to break up until you’re in college?
JR: No, then he says, "Oh, it's my high school sweetheart." That's a different assignation.
HZ: With respect though, given what happens in this episode between Veronica and someone else, does it do to get too involved with the particulars of VLeonika?
JR: Beautiful! Well that's what I love about this episode is, I've rewatched season one, and I misremembered - I thought they were really telegraphing Logan and Veronica, not to skip ahead, but like what I really like about this kiss, and we'll get to it eventually, is the episode starts and she's smooching Leo and then like the episode has a lot to do with her relationship with Wallace, and Duncan, there's a lot going on. It's not like, you know, sometimes in these kinds of shows when there's going to be like a big kiss, it's just like Pacey and Joey in Dawson's Creek or whatever you're just sort of like, “Come on, we know this is coming, do it already." But this -
JOY: This show is like, “Who will Veronica kiss? There are so many candidates!”
JR: Every man in Neptune is in love with her, except her dad, who loves her for a different reason. Anyway, so.
HZ: It is upsetting because things are going so well with Leo.
JOY: And he's so HOT!
HZ: So it's it's almost a blow knowing that things are going so great at the beginning. And yet by the end all the dynamics will have changed.
JR: It's funny, I just always thought of Leo as like, yeah, I guess her dad is mostly not thrilled about it, but like mostly he's ok with it?
HZ: He's tolerating it. But from the scene we see the Leo has not yet been inside the Mars apartment.
LEO: Any chance I’m ever gonna get to see the inside of your apartment?
VERONICA: And what, exactly, are you hoping to see? Our good china, the screening room?
LEO: Wanted to get a really good long look at your bedroom ceiling.
VERONICA: Wow! College girls must be easy.
LEO: This is my A material. They swoon.
HZ: Which is quite direct.
JOY: Whoa! Keith's got a glass up against the door, sir, I would proceed with caution. Also, it's worth noting that in the last handful of episodes, Leo has saved Keith's life like twice, in various circumstances so, I don't know, if I was protective of my daughter I might think like, well this guy's a couple years older but also, if Veronica is about to be strangled by the E String Strangler, for example, Leo would be a good guy to have around to prevent that from happening.
JR: Plus, he's really cute. I don't know if you've mentioned.
JOY: He's super hot. Look at him go. My one qualm with Leo at this point is that he smiles in a way that indicates to me very clearly that he's like, “My smile works." You know what I mean? And I would likejust like tiny little bit more self-deprecation, but maybe there is no way for Veronica to be involved in with a dude who has self-deprecative tendencies.
HZ: Because she smells weakness and would destroy them?
JOY: Yeah, exactly. She would be like, “Backup! Get him!"
HZ: That's why Duncan was a decent boyfriend for her for a while because like he has no scent. He has no smell. He has no characteristics. So where's the weakness?
JOY: The faint afterscent of milk, I think, follows him from room to room.
HZ: So Leo leaves, Veronica goes in. Keith's there and unfortunately Veronica produces her Southern Belle accent again.
VERONICA: He’s a fine gentleman, pa. He’ll come up with the dowry to marry me, just you wait.
JOY: Please don't tweet at us if this is from Gone With The Wind.
HZ: Is it from Gone With The Wind?
JOY: Don't tell us. There have just been a lot of Gone With The Wind references so far.
HZ: We've not seen Gone With The Wind.
JR: Guys. It's great and bad at the same time.
JOY: So, this is a vote, you're casting a vote in the direction of us watching Gone With The Wind.
JR: I think there should be a special episode where you watch Gone With The Wind.
HZ: I've been pitching that to Jenny.
JR: Yeah. And if you enjoy an adult beverage, drink every time for racism and you'll have a really...
HZ: Well, I'm allergic to alcohol, so I would be dead. But I looked this up and I did not see it as a quote from a real thing. But then, exciting news from Keith: a few episodes ago, we saw him slip a cup of coffee to Wallace's mom. And when Keith gives you coffee...
JOY: You know where it's headed.
HZ: It's heading to a dating situation. Keith and Wallace’s mom, Alicia, and there's an actual record scratch.
<record scratch>
VERONICA: What? Who?? Alicia???
HZ: And a crash zoom to Veronica and then a cut to Alicia delivering the same news to Wallace - it’s great news to us, not such great news for their teenage children.
JOY: I'm kind of shocked at how negatively they each react.
HZ: It’s such a gorgeous match. How could you not admire?
JR: I love it. I love Keith and Alicia together. Also I'm here to declare my love for Wallace. I'm a big Wallace fan.
JOY: Love Wallace! What's not to love?
HZ: Before we started this podcast, I thought, “I've got nothing to say about Wallace,” but he's the MVP, he's an adorable pure-hearted spirit.
JR: He's perfect. Honestly for me it's Wallace and Mac are the most important parts of the show.
HZ: Is that the one true pairing for you? It never transpires.
JR: Not even like shipping them, I just want them in every scene and sometimes the show forgets that they're so important and I'm like, “Excuse me. I haven't seen Mac for a while, where is she?”
HZ: I don't think they've even shared a scene yet, Wallace and Mac.
JR: A travesty.
HZ: At least we approve the match but the kids don't, the next day at school Wallace and Veronica are being really awkward with each other whilst Veroncia is teasing Wallace about the prospect of them becoming siblings.
JR: It would be so cute.
JOY: It would be cute. Think of the bunk beds, think of the bunk beds.
HZ: Bunk waterbeds. You'd have to get a second free waterbed.
JOY: Can you put a waterbed on the top bunk? I guess you'd need a very specific, very sturdy bunk bed frame.
JR: I wouldn't try it.
JOY: The possible risks seem greater than the reward.
HZ: When Wallace leaves Veronica notices some graffiti scratched into the table saying killemall.net - file that away in your mind. You don't have to file it away from very long, it’s all over this fucking episode.
JOY: Chekhov's URL!
HZ: And then in the media room Duncan walks in, he seems in a great mood. And Veronica is representing argyle, you'll be pleased to know; she's wearing a tiny green, sky blue and brown argyle over a polo shirt in another bright colour. It's visually busy. Maybe that's why they keep the media room so dimly lit - just to tone down the clothing
JR: Because I believe our journalism teacher is rocking an argyle skirt in this scene.
HZ: Is she? Good spot! Joey Lauren Adams. But justice for Sydney Tamiia Poitier, because she's been gone for so many episodes and now they're like, “Wow, it's really sad that Miss Dent had to leave because she's pregnant.” But why? I'm still not over it. Sidney Tamiia Poitier was not pregnant, though. She could have come back.
JOY: They had the budget for Joey Lauren Adams and Jonathan Taylor Thomas In this episode, but no budget for Miss Dent?
HZ: For STP.
JOY: Also, I would like to call a foul as Veronica in her voiceover refers to Duncan as a ‘super cute boy’ twice. Objection.
HZ: In a sort of Ken Doll way, I can see why that would have happened.
JOY: I guess if he holds very still, and then you enclose him in a plastic box, and he never speaks or moves...
HZ: Maybe they didn't want to bring Miss Dent back because they didn't want to have to fire her at the end of the episode. And they didn't want her to be absolutely terrible at being the media teacher because she's like, “Guys, we don't want to do your stories about serious stuff” - because Duncan's pitching a story about oxycontin, and she's like, “What about a story about Pirate Pride, or about this French teacher that's worked here for a million fucking years or about the janitors?” and everyone's like, “Urgh” and then, luckily, the everything is interrupted by a fire bell, again - it's a lot of fire bells at school this week.
JR: I will say, points for Duncan for wanting to do that oxy story, right? That's a legit good story. And ahead of its time.
HZ: That’s the thing about Duncan, a lot of the time he spends off screen he's kind of decent because he's a socialist, and he's quite switched on about what's happening in the school and the different organisations, like the animal welfare organisation, and the drug problems. And yet on screen is just this sort of...
JR: ...Donut.
HZ: ...paperweight. So, because Joey Lauren Adams is a pretty dull media teacher, she's like, “Hey, Veronica, why don't you do a story about all these fire alarms we've been having?” Wow.
JR: I guess that is a bad assignment.
JOY: Your brain doesn't file it that way because it like leads somewhere, it leads to the whole episode -
JR: - But clearly that's a really bad assignment. Also, aren't we supposed to read her as we're on her side?
HZ: I am not on her side. She's not a qualified teacher.
JR: She sure is trying, Buckaroos.
JOY: She's got a great attitude, a great smile.
HZ: Her previous job was as the pep teacher.
JOY: Yeah, hell yeah. I'm here for that energy.
JR: Anti-authoritarian sort of vibes, "We're going to print it anyway!”
HZ: Don't you think that's weird, though? At the beginning she's like, “We can't print bad news. Hey, happy news, boring stories about janitors!” How does she then become this truth-sayer later?
JOY: I think she's feeling kind of like everyone's comparing her to Ms Dent -
HZ: - I know I am.
JOY: - What is the pep squad teacher doing teaching journalism? Duncan is even pitching on her, “This is what newspapers are supposed to do. We're supposed to like, break stories and spread information that maybe certain powers that be don't want spread." And she's like, “I hear you Duncan. Fuck yeah." She flips the table. She's like, “Send it to print.”
JR: I really feel like she went home, and she went to her local Blockbuster, and she rented All The President's Men, and possibly also His Girl Friday, and was like, “Oh, I get it now. I'm ready to take on the system." Because we're supposed to be on her side when like the principal you know, says like, “This is what you get for having someone from the booster squad…” So, you know, we like her. But you're right - “study the fire alarms” is a terrible assignment.
HZ: I think the assignment sucks, but where it takes us is interesting. So Veronica goes to see Vice Principal Clemmons; always a treat for me to see him. And she's like, “Why are there so many fire drills? We usually have one or two a year," and he's like, "We've got a backlog for the semester." And then Veronica calls Miss Roush, who is the person with the intel about fire drills.
JOY: And a very conveniently imitatable voice.
HZ: <Roush Voice> "There’s just one drill per semester," something like that.
JR: If you are new to Veronica Mars, and you're watching along with this podcast: pay attention anytime you hear a voice on the other end of the phone that sounds like Veronica could imitate it later. She will.
HZ: Also, I will just say there was no one credited as Miss Roush on IMDB for this.
JOY: So it's probably Veronica the whole time.
JR: It's probably Kristen Bell.
HZ: In the corridor there's Corny, who occasionally pops up as sort of dimwit character - well, he's acting very stoned today, because he's at his locker and he's like "I can't remember what I wanted..."
JOY: Hey, in Corny's defence, I do that about 75 times a day without being high.
HZ: I do that, but that's because I'm hurtling to middle age.
JOY: Right, not in the bloom of youth at the tender age of 17 any longer like Corny.
HZ: Then he fair shits himself because he sees police officers with dogs enter at each end of the corridor - but they go right past him.
JR: Because they're not drug-sniffing dogs!
HZ: No, not interested in the weed that he shoved down his underwear.
JR: They're bomb-sniffing dogs.
JOY: And each of them is very handsome. Great looking dogs. Beautiful. Love to see it. Hello, shepherds, welcome to the show.
HZ: You're not allowed to pet bomb dogs, Jenny. They're busy. They're working.
JR: Are you not actually allowed to?
JOY: Well, probably not while they're working, like a service dog; but, when the dog is ready...
HZ: Well, like the dogs at the airport sniffing your luggage for drugs. You're not supposed to pet them either.
JR: No, but if they're outside and the person who is handling them is having a coffee break...
HZ: I would ask before petting a bomb dog, just saying.
JR: You know what, I think that's a really good life lesson; I'm gonna put it on a pillow.
HZ: I would ask before petting anyone who's at work.
JR: Okay, even better. I'm gonna cross stitch X out the last phrase and put that one on there.
HZ: And then the true prize, I think, of this whole fire drill shit happens, because Principal Clemmons receives a phone call supposedly from Miss Roush.
CLEMMONS: Hello?
”MISS ROUSH”: Van, I received a call from a very pushy student of yours who’s doing a newspaper story.
CLEMMONS: Yes, I know the girl that you’re talking about. She should never have called you.
”MISS ROUSH”: Well, she did, and she has quite a fresh attitude.
CLEMMONS: Yes. I spend half my waking hours trying to keep her out of my hair.
”MISS ROUSH”: Mr Clemmons, she gave me the impression that you’ve been exceeding your fire drill limits.
CLEMMONS: No. Look, I’ve been trying to keep this under my hat but we have had a series of bomb threats; and as a precautionary measure, I brought in the bomb squad.
HZ: And so that's a story for the paper: the bomb squad! Joey Lauren Adams is like, “Yeah, print it." This is all happening in the same day like they are able to spend all day doing newspaper research and writing - when are they doing this?
JOY: Finding that that image of that bundle of dynamite sticks to like, place very large on the cover?
HZ: And then another implausible thing about this whole student media shit is that the next morning everyone is reading the paper - everyone!
JOY: That's the most unbelievable thing about the episode - you ever read your high school paper?
HZ: There wasn't one.
JR: Not a one.
HZ: And so they've all got a copy. It's the talk of the school, and havoc ensues. Havoc - from a school paper.
JOY: Yeah, people are like, “Fuck this, I'm going home. I don't feel safe."
HZ: I suppose the school does have quite an advanced media program, because it also has the TV station of destruction. Joey Lauren Adams is in some trouble about this, because Clemmons is like, “What are your journalist credentials?" and she's like, "I worked on the high school yearbook..." Veronica is lucky not to be suspended. There is this beautiful reveal of Veronica doing her Miss Roush voice:
VERONICA [as Miss Roush]: Mr. Clemmons, the fresh girl gave me the impression you had been exceeding your fire-drill limits.
HZ: Then we meet our guest stars in a classroom which is headed up by my favourite pissed off teacher, Miss Murphy. She's the one who's an astrologer in her spare time.
JOY: Don't you love when all the guest stars are in one period together?
HZ: How convenient. We've got Michael McMillian, who is in True Blood and Crazy Ex Girlfriend. He's a delight. And we have Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and everyone on Twitter is like, "Can't wait for the Jonathan Taylor Thomas episode!" We didn't have Jonathan Taylor Thomas in Britain; please enlighten me as to his cultural value.
JOY: Okay. Well, first of all, he was the middle child on Home Improvement.
JR: Absolutely the cutie pie...
JOY: ...The shiniest hair you've ever seen…
JR: ...Dimples for days...
JOY: He was the scamp, he was like in every issue of Tiger Beat - did you guys have Tiger Beat in the UK?
HZ: No.
JOY: That is a magazine for -
JR: For teens only.
JOY: Yeah, for teens. Pretty much target market teen girls. It's just loads of pictures of people like Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and Jonathan Brandis, and Mario Lopez, and Mark Paul Gosselaar, and Jason Priestley, and Luke Perry...
HZ: I've got a strong picture, and there's a lot of frosted hair in it.
JR: There's a lot of like gel, crisp gel.
HZ: The Logan Echolls hair was strong in Tiger Beat?
JR: Like a little longer, because because JTT, as we called him back in the day, was a 90s - this is JTT a little past his prime.
JOY: Think centre part. Sun In.
JR: Curtains. The curtain hair.
JOY: Also think The Lion King.
JR: Yeah, he's the voice of Young Simba.
JOY: He's Young Simba in The Lion King.
JR: JTT was very important.
JOY: Helen, what the fuck.
HZ: I've never seen The Lion King, sorry. Let's not get into those weeds.
JR: Let me just make you feel a little bit better about our excitement about JTT -
HZ: I feel happy for you!
JR: Let me promise you that he did not have this hair in this episode in the 90s.
JOY: I think this might be the worst hair I've ever seen on anyone.
JR: It's 1,000% Boone from season one of Lost.
JOY: But like if Boone's hair was actually growing at - or if Boone lived and his hair kept growing at the same proportionate - he would have this like shaggy mullet, long mullet.
HZ: But you know why he has this hair, right? It's because they are styling him to be like Christian Slater playing Jason Dean in Heathers. So it is that slightly spiky slightly mullety...
JR: I wish he had been like, "Greetings and salutations” and sealed it up for you. Yeah, so JTT is here, and then also Theo Rossi, who I love -
JOY: Hell yeah, Juice!
JR: Juice from Sons of Anarchy. I love Theo Rossi.
JOY: Also shades!
JR: Theo Rossi is so cute in this episode that I wanted Veronica to go to the Kurosawa retrospective with him.
JOY: Can you believe there's another boy in Neptune who's in love with Veronica Mars.
JR: It's going to stop there, right? We've hit our limits.
HZ: Throw him on the pile. We head off now to the Mars home. Wallace has arrived. He is displeased to find that his mother and Keith are watching a movie. What could be worse? Keith's got his arm around her.
WALLACE: What’s happening?
VERONICA: They’re still watching a movie. He has his arm around her.
WALLACE: Uh, he’s not…groping her or anything, is he?
VERONICA: No, but earlier I saw him cutting a hole in the bottom of his popcorn bucket.
JOY: I just want to take this opportunity to tell you, since it comes up in this scene, that I am 100% of the time always here for a ‘dick in the popcorn bucket’ joke. It's so hilariously impractical to think about: the butter, the salt. I don't know what it's like to have a dick.
HZ: You'd imagine also just the cardboard would give you the danger of -
JOY: Of chafing...
HZ: Of chafing + salt!
JOY: Papercut. Oh my god. Yeah, exactly what I'm saying.
HZ: It's a high risk strategy to get an accidental handy. Because you're entrapping the other person into doing it...
JR: A high risk strategy. I've never thought about the salt and the papercuts.
HZ: It’s all I can think about.
JR: Not to mention the butter. And what is she's kind who likes nutritional yeast on her popcorn?
HZ: Or toffee? Or she likes to put some M&Ms in for the sweet-salty combo?
JOY: And even if you manage to get the entrance down with no papercuts of any kind, the salt is still going to create an exfoliation factor if there's any kind of motion.
HZ: What if people wear a condom to do their popcorn boner trick? If you prepare ahead, maybe. I still don't approve of it. I'm just saying - I mean I don't approve of trapping people into touching you nonconsensually.
JOY: Imagine a world where this is like a consensual recreational activity. You'd think that a condom would make sense.
HZ: It would leave at least protect you from stinging.
JR: A sodium prophylactic.
HZ: But because they're at home I think they're eating popcorn out of a bowl that has not got Keith's penis in it.
JOY: It’s really hard to cut a hole in the bottom of a ceramic bowl.
HZ: I feel like it's not the Keith Mars way either to try and get a nonconsensual bit of penile touching. It's in the bottom of a cup of coffee.
JOY: I would never think that Keith would do something non consensual, but he is...
HZ: Well, except for break into people's houses.
JOY: Break into people's houses; splatter his own daughter with a dye pack, which he used to boobytrap his own safe a couple of episodes ago.
HZ: I would assume this relationship is not yet on pranking terms.
JOY: Right; it's new and magical.
JR: Alicia feels like she'd be down for pranks.
JOY: Yeah, she’d probably get Keith a lot better than Keith would get her.
JR: Maybe not like a popcorn bucket prank.
HZ: Yeah, she's too classy for that.
JOY: It would be war.
HZ: Wallace is very agitated about this parental relationship. Veronica is like, “Relax, they’re gonna break up, because when my mom comes out of rehab, then my parents will get back together!" And that not does not make Wallace feel better at all, he's fucking pissed off!
JR: Of course.
VERONICA: Wallace, wait, do me a favour and just wait a few weeks.
WALLACE: I gotta say, Veronica. I’m getting a little tired of doing you favours.
JOY: Mark your calendars, sound the air horn.
HZ: Finally - eight months into their friendship?
JOY: It's just like Wallace is a natural born favour factory.
HZ: He can't help himself.
JOY: And finally we found his limit. Or Veronica did.
HZ: So Veronica is keeping all of this a secret from Keith, that Lianne's in rehab and Veronica wants her to come home.
JOY: What about what Keith wants, Veronica, have you ever thought about that?
HZ: It seems like a terrible plan. Then we go into the living room and we see Alicia and Keith snuggled watching a movie, which is the 1951 film Storm Warning, which starred Ginger Rogers, Doris Day, and Ronald Reagan. And the plot is: Doris Day's husband is secretly a Klansman and a murderer. And it looks incredibly bleak. What a weird snuggle relationship movie to watch in the early phases.
JOY: Sexy Date Flick.
JR: I really hope that Alicia was like, “You know who I love? Ginger Rogers and Doris Day." And Keith's like, "No prob. I got you. You love song and dance blondes? I've got the film for you."
JOY: Great, great.
HZ: “I just blew into a Klansmen rally."
JOY: I'm sorry what the fuck was that?
JR: She was doing some Calamity Jane but with the KKK.
HZ: Klan-amity Jane? No. No, excuse me. It's not joking matter. I just thought this was a surprise choice.
JR: Really.
JOY: Really odd date movie
HZ: But then the cultural references in this whole series are baffling.
JR: Veronica Mars is sort of dancing with the like noir 40s world and always, like, everyone's always sort of pretending that that's kind of the world we live in. And so I think it makes sense to me that a lot of the references would be older because I feel like Rob Thomas is just like, “Let's throw a bunch of old references in there."
HZ: But isn't it also the case when people are writing teen dramas, they throw in references that were the sophisticated references to them when they were teens because it was a little over their heads, but then it's just like middle-aged people putting references in teenagers' mouths? Like everything cultural that Rory Gilmore references.
JR: Oh for sure; all of Dawson's Creek where you're like, Dawson, give it a rest - Dawson's the most insufferable teen.
JOY: Take a nap, sir.
JR: I was actually thinking about on the way over here to this recording that Veronica Mars strikes me as a very Gen X show. But it's a millennial show, right? But it's written by a Gen Xer, Rob Thomas is a Gen Xer, and I think most of the staff is. And so it's very, like, anti authority, like all this sort of stuff, but that's not really the millennial vibe. So it's this weird clash of setting and timing but like attitudes. Do you know what I mean?
HZ: Yeah, right. She has a bit more cynicism maybe than... But here's some good news: the next day at school, we see Mac! And it's been ages since we've seen Mac.
JR: She’s the best.
HZ: She's having a heated argument with the single episode guests star, Pete, played by Michael McMillian.
PETE: Wait, how can you even have an opinion on Ubuntu if you haven’t tried it? Two six kernel, Live CD, they even had GNOME 2.O the day Warty Warthog came out.
MAC: I’m sorry. I’m perfectly content with OS X. I have all the awk, grep and sed I want without any need for that pitiful font de-uglification.
PETE: But the fonts are de-uglified - and it’s free. Yep, fine, you know, live in the dark ages.
MAC: I know what I like!
HZ: I can't follow this - I assume that is deliberate because it's like, “Oh look, deep nerd happening."
JR: This seems like the kind of guy who could fake a lot of emails and a website.
JOY: Who also probably got bullied earlier in his school career.
JR: Also could hack - quote unquote - an un-password protected wifi network next door.
JOY: Oh, the golden age of unprotected wifi networks.
HZ: Veronica, of course needs a favour, which is she needs Mac to go and fix her laptop. And Pete wants to talk to Veronica, I suppose because he knows that she's nosy and will be poking around upon everybody, so therefore he's feeding her this information which later proves to be false.
PETE: Hey, Veronica, can I talk to you about something?
VERONICA: Yeah, sure.
PETE: I have some information for you. Confidential information.
VERONICA: My favourite kind!
HZ: It's really brilliant line delivery. Pete says he passed by a vacant lot and he saw Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Theo Rossi, aka Ben and Norris, throwing exploding tennis balls at stray cats.
JOY: Do you know what else explodes besides tennis balls?
HZ: If you put a grape in a microwave?
JOY: Ok, but do you know what else?
JR: Mentos in a coke bottle?
JOY: You know what else?
JR: A bomb?
JOY: Yes. Where were the sniffing dogs?
JR: Not chasing those tennis balls!
HZ: That would be a such a confusing time for them.
JR: Isn’t this very Crucible? “I saw Goody like Whatever murdering cats in the stray parking lot."
JOY: Yes. Okay, let's file this away for future use.
HZ: And then what's going on Veronica is at the lockers with Wallace:
VERONICA: Hey, last night, you said something. Am I really your best friend?
WALLACE: Who else are you seeing in the running? Quit smiling at me.
JOY: Yeah, not a lot of competition - Polly the Parrot, maybe.
HZ: Wallace has got loads of offscreen friends, he's very popular. Everyone treats him nicer than Veronica, everyone!
JOY: Yes And then immediately as soon as this ground is regained, and it's established that she is in fact, Wallace's best friend -
JR: - She asks him for a favour!
JOY: She turns it right around!
HZ: Of course, she ruins it. But I just remembered Wallace in Episode Four was wooing adorable girl Georgia. They got together, and then she's never seen again. What has happened to Wallace's romantic life?
JOY: Maybe that's the mystery Veronica should be investigating. What's happening to all the women that Wallace dates for one episode?
HZ: Realistically, Wallace is cute, Wallace is a sportsball champion.
JOY: Yep, he's got a lot going for him.
JR: Sports ball champ Wallace Fennel, love it.
JOY: Maybe his relationships can't last because no one can get closer than Veronica.
HZ: Right. She’s like, "Back off bitches!" Because the other episode there was this cute girl that's like, “Hi Wallace!” in the corridor, and Veronica basically called her a whore.
VERONICA: Who's the hoochie?
WALLACE: Nadine? She's in our grade.
JR: Wow. Yikes.
HZ: Veronica and Wallace see Ben and Norris looking kind of sinister up the corridor.
JR: But also, on Theo Rossi's part, handsome.
JOY: So handsome.
HZ: You can be sinister and handsome.
VERONICA: Doesn’t he look like total bomb threat material?
WALLACE: I’d check out his friend. Clemmons made him turn his shirt inside out.
VERONICA: Why? What’d it say?
WALLACE: “Kill ‘em all. Let God sort ‘em out.”
JOY: Which is exactly the sort of thing somebody in high school would wear on a shirt.
HZ: Veronica visits the website killemall. Jenny, please describe what you see, because we watched the episode together and she screamed for minutes upon sight of this thing.
JR: Tell me all about it.
JOY: Oh my god, it's like a ticking countdown clock, and I think there's like a demonic laugh that happens right when the page loads and it's like, “Hahahahaha," it's counting down. I also think there's like a some kind of demonic visage somewhere on the page. It’s like “Something demonic is gonna happen in 48 hours and 15 minutes and 22 seconds, suckers.”
JR: It's great. It's great stuff. Beautiful design, I love the red, it really pops.
JOY: It really pops.
JR: Love that font, it is like borderline Papyrus, I think.
JOY: Like evil Papyrus.
JR: Yeah, Demonic Papyrus.
HZ: I used that on my wedding invitations.
JOY: Something is being threatened. Who knows what? It doesn't specify. It's just counting. And it looks real goofy.
JR: I like to think that Norris, such a stylish, handsome young man would design a better website that, so I think assuming that he designed that is just a silly leap of logic. How could Veronica Mars ever think that someone as lovely as Theo Rossi would design something so hideous?
HZ: Well, we know that Mac is a computer whiz and she's designed many websites for this show but they don't necessarily look good. They have flash intros, they have annoying noises.
JOY: I think they're advanced for her age and the time.
HZ: At lunch, Veronica is, of course, alone. Meg and Duncan walk by. Duncan is particularly static in this episode. Meg makes them go to sit with Veronica, so has to bend his doll legs and arms into seated position, and they make some awkward chat. Meg asks if Veronica's working on some cool cases. Veronica references The Maltese Falcon like any mid-2000s teen.
JR: Sure, this is why she and Logan are made to be.
HZ: Duncan looks as uncomfortable as if he was sitting on pine cones. And then Veronica starts talking about “this one case that's sort of interesting”. I can't tell whether it's real or whether she's like, “Okay, I'm going to paraphrase a film and pretend it's a real case."
VERONICA: You know, there is one case that’s sort of interesting. I’ll just leave out the names. Successful entertainment attorney, divorced his wife, owed her like half a million dollars in alimony and child support money, literally erased himself off the face of the earth.
MEG: How do you go about doing that?
VERONICA: First, you get your hands on all the cash you can. Using cash is key. Ditch your cellphone for a pre-paid jobber, move around in a rental car paid for with a debit credit card and a fake driver’s license; cross over the border if possible. If you’re really adventurous, you buy an old passport off eBay and do an extreme makeover on it.
HZ: But it's foreshadowing! What is making Veronica choose this case to tell them about that then turns out to be useful information for Duncan later, for how to fuck off?
JR: It's so confusing, isn't it? It's very bad writing. Because the way she delivers it, it almost seems like she's trying to test him about something. But then no, then later, it's just like, no, he may have used this information to disappear. Yeah, so that is just convenient. And so then her delivery should have been more like, “Oh, there's this really cool case” - like less you directed at him. It's a really weird like choice of how she delivers that story.
JOY: It's almost as if they just like needed to have this happen for the way they wanted the plot of the episode to go.
JR: Maybe. I do want to note another fashion moment in this sequence, which is Veronica, throughout this episode, is wearing one of my least favourite mid-2000s accessory, which is a skinny scarf. It's a skinny, sparkly scarf.
JOY: Because her head is actually severed from her body and it’s the only way she can keep her head on, and she can't take the scarf on until she marries someone. Then on her wedding night she takes the scarf off, I think is the...
JR: No, she says like,”Don't pull, don't pull on my ribbon. Don't pull this green ribbon." It's about marital trust and he pulls the green ribbon and her head falls off.
JOY: And that's what you get, men.
HZ: Can I posit a different theory? We know that Veronica has a lot of disguises, and we're always referencing her terrible flashback wig. But: what if she has a Return to Oz-style Princess Mombi head closet and she just slots on a different Veronica head depending on who she has to play to get people to give her information?
JR: When I was a kid, I had all these Barbie dolls. I was a big fan of them. I found out that because they've got a little pop socket for their heads, you can pop their heads off and swap their heads instead of their clothing and it's just a faster way to change outfits. And my parents called me Mombi as a reference to Return to Oz. That was a nickname my parents gave me growing up!
HZ: But anyway, Duncan leaves and Meg's like, "Duncan's been acting weird all day," and then a sudden flashback to wig times. You can tell from the wig that this is when Veronica and Duncan have recently broken up, and she's just staring at Duncan having a good time, unlike just then. And then some jock fires some crap through a straw into Veronica's hair, which is a bad move because then it draws more attention to the wig as she tries to comb it out with her hand. And then Norris walks by, shoots some crap through the straw at the jock -
JOY: At point blank range.
HZ: Yeah, ouch, that's a lot of spit, and then stares at him till he leaves, so Norris is kind of acting a bit of a hero to Veronica.
JR: I mean, handsomely.
JOY: Handsomely. And then Theo Rossi and Veronica's wig smile at each other.
JR: His thermal winks at her polo.
HZ: Back in the present, Veronica goes up to Norris and Ben at a table, and it's Heathers time. This show is finally referencing Heathers: Veronica pretends she's doing a poll.
VERONICA: Hi. I’m doing a poll for the Neptune Navigator.
BEN: Wow, how vital.
NORRIS: What’s the question?
VERONICA: Okay. World War III starts tomorrow. You can share your bomb shelter with three other people. Who would they be?
BEN: You know what? I actually think I’d be a casualty of war, so I don’t think the question really applies to me.
NORRIS: Bruce Lee, Joe Strummer, Sam Kinison.
VERONICA: They’re all dead. Okay: “Other.”
JR: For me, it's Jenny and Helen and Wallace Fennel. We'd have a good time, right?
JOY: Hell yeah! No edits.
HZ: Done. Wallace has obtained the files for Veronica. Norris was suspended from middle school for violent behaviour, but nothing since. Ben does not even have a file. This is a predicament we have not encountered before. Veronica has files on every human alive.
JR: Norris's file, by the way, is extremely thick. That is one thick file.
JOY: He's done some shit. He's seen some shit.
HZ: But not since middle school!
JOY: But that stuff carries over. You know, he really made it count. My question is: Why doesn't Veronica look up Ben on private eyez with a z.com?
HZ: Great question. Is Ben his real name? She doesn't use that website as much as you think, do you think you have to pay per search and that's why she hasn't just searched for every fucking human every episode? And then this is a rough scene: Veronica goes to the media room, which is extremely dark as usual. Duncan is sitting alone.
JOY: This framing, this framing, this framing.
HZ: We've got a new Duncan: spin the Wheel of Duncan Kane and we have Scene Submitted To The Academy For Consideration Duncan.
JR: I feel like the actor that plays Duncan -
HZ: Teddy Dunn.
JR: Thank you so much - Teddy Dunn woke up that morning, went to work without having his breakfast. He was feeling really peckish when they filmed this and he's like, “I'm just going to eat all the scenery. I'm just gonna chew on that scenery instead of eating a breakfast today."
HZ: Also he hasn't had that many things to do through the season so far. He's kind of had to keep things low key because they're trying to keep your expectations of Duncan confusing deliberately. And this is his big time to emote.
JOY: And boy does he do something.
HZ: With his mouth, but not with his face. There's very little emotion registered in the face.
JOY: He has the deadest face, no matter how hard he's shouting.
HZ: He looks a bit like he is a visual effect, rather than an actual actor.
JR: This is hard because like it's one thing to be boring, but then they're like trying to make it like boring yet dark. If it's a combination someone can pull off, it's not our pal Teddy Dunn, I will tell you that much right now. It's just not.
HZ: It's why he's now a corporate lawyer.
JR: Oh, is he? These are not two tastes that go that tastes great together, you know, the blandness of Duncan and then the darkness.
JOY: Right, right. No, it's very confusing.
VERONICA: That was either a really poor warm welcome or an excellent cold shoulder.
DUNCAN: Logan told me you’ve been carrying on your own investigation of Lilly’s murder. That you have files of everyone in your computer.
VERONICA: That’s true.
DUNCAN: Is there a file on me?
VERONICA: There’s a file on everyone who was connected with Lilly.
DUNCAN: What does mine say?
VERONICA: It says that you have Type IV epilepsy, that you have mood swings, violent outbursts, that you’re taking medication.
DUNCAN: How do you know that?
VERONICA: Doesn’t matter.
DUNCAN: It does matter. You’ve been prying into my private life. If I wanted you or anyone else to know about that, I would have told them. Who the hell do you think you are?
HZ: And then Veronica says, “Do you remember what happened that day?" as in the day Lilly died, and Duncan, who's been leaving the room, turns around really slowly as if he's standing on a Lazy Susan.
JOY: Yeah, he's a mannequin in a Christmas display, like Bloomingdale's window or something that's on a rotating disc.
JR: Did you know that the movie Mannequin is based on true story?
JOY: Is it the story of Duncan Kane?
JR: Yeah, it's a documentary about Duncan Kane.
JOY: “A mannequin that comes to life and still has very little to do or say or think or feel."
JR: No, my sister sent me this article - Mannequin, apparently, is based on some dude in New York who used to carry a mannequin around with him.
JOY: Romantically?
HZ: And if you're into that kind of story, I recommend listening to the Love and Radio episode A Girl of Ivory.
JR: I will get right on that because, honestly, and I'm not kidding, Mannequin the movie is my jam.
HZ: It's less sweet than that. I don't want to spoiler it, but do it. And then Duncan is furious.
VERONICA: Do you remember what happened that day?
DUNCAN: You think I killed Lilly. How could you think that, even for a second?
VERONICA: Duncan, calm down.
DUNCAN: What, do you think I’m gonna have another episode and kill you too?
HZ: And then he just twitches a lot, and then runs out the room. So I don't know whether they're like, “Duncan, we've set you up to have a load of mental health stuff that is not specified. Can you just look as mental healthy as you can think?" And so he's just twitchy, twitchy, twitchy.
JR: Just be all the things at once. Because it's epilepsy, right?
HZ: We have mentioned many times over the course of Duncan having been revealed to have these conditions that the show is just using them as a way of like “Anything can happen when you have epilepsy and mental health stuff."
JR: Absolutely.
HZ: Which I don't like. Outside, Veronica is doing some surveillance. She's spying on Ben and Norris. Ben is wearing a camo jacket. That's a flag. She follows him in her car. They go to the Camelot motel from the pilot but daytime, so it's probably easier to take surveillance pics of it.
JOY: Yeah, yeah. And get a load: we haven't seen a lens this long in a little bit.
HZ: Drink!
JOY: Drink! You gotta cut a hole in the bottom of the popcorn container and shove that lens up there.
JR: What do you think is longer - Norris's file or Veronica's lens?
HZ: Lens, because the lens wraps around the world and then comes right back..
JOY: You can take a picture of your own ass if you angle it just right.
JR: Guess where I never want to be during daytime? The Camelot motel.
JOY: Oh yeah, what's worse: the Camelot motel at daytime, or a Camelot motel room with a blacklight?
HZ: I’ll stay outside. If it helps, they also go to the garden centre, where she sees Ben load sacks of fertiliser into his car. And then Logan calls and they sound like proper friendly now, even though Veronica could be pissed off at Logan for having told Duncan that she's got all these folders on her computer about him and his family.
JOY: And, maybe, just if you're going to give somebody a heads up about that, maybe give them a heads up before the person finds them.
JR: I feel like we glossed over something really significant, which is not just that he's loading sacks of fertiliser into the trunk, but there's an enormous gun also in the trunk of that car. He's like, “Let me move this enormous gun to make room for the sacks of fertiliser,” and Veronica Mars is like “Oh," and then takes the call from Logan.
HZ: But then the call is interrupted - Ben gets into the car, and Logan hears all of this, and Ben makes Veronica drive.
BEN: I’ll say this, Veronica. You’re a pesky one. You’re screwing everything up.
VERONICA: Listen, I really think you’re making a mistake, I don’t know anything.
BEN: Quiet. I need to think for a minute.
JOY: Dude. Given what we're about to learn about the true identity of this character, the way that he's like, “You're a pesky one. Quiet, I need to think.”
HZ: Wouldn't it be just so much easier - rather than him making her drive him in a kidnappy way to the motel, wouldn't it just be easier for him to say, “I'm an undercover agent" now? And that would have saved him from what is about to happen when he marches Veronica up to his room at the Camelot, and he is felled by a punch from Logan Echolls, who we know has great form in punching faces.
JR: Okay, listen: Logan Echolls is one of my most problematic faves. Like top of the list, maybe number two, maybe number one. But when he punches that dude - here's what I love about it, OK? And I will just defend my position. So I'll say: they're immediately, working together, silently, perfectly. Veronica leaves her phone open and she goes “Oh What are you doing here?" loud enough so Logan can hear.
HZ: “Don't make me go to room 217 of the Camelot, whatever you do!"
JR: “Where are we going?” And Logan is just like boom, zoom - like must have immediately run to his disgusting yellow Hummer and sped over there because he beats them to the Camelot, you know?
HZ: I believe it's actually a Nissan.
JOY: I believe it’s an Xterra.
HZ: I've been calling it a Jeep this whole time, but it’s a Nissan.
JR Oh, I really apologise to Logan for calling it a Hummer.
HZ: People are often carsplaining to me about the cars in this thing and I'm car blind, so they're all just cars to me, but his is yellow so I remember it. But yeah, also Logan's in the swanky part of town, how close is that to the Camelot motel?
JR: I'm saying he got his car so fast to come to defend her.
JOY: To come to her rescue!
HZ: He uses whatever wormhole it is that Veronica uses to drive to San Quentin within about 20 minutes.
JOY: Right right right.
HZ: She's got the Hyperloop before Elon Musk has even built it. So now we learn, because Ben's federal agent ID falls out of his jacket through the force of punch -
JOY: How handy!
HZ: - That he that he's an undercover agent. And then Logan actually makes a reference from the late 20th century culture.
BEN: Is it all right if he goes outside? I’d like to talk to you.
LOGAN: Dream on, Jump Street. I’m not leaving you alone with her.
HZ: Ben is undercover at a school, there we go.
JR: What's funny is that that reference is before the movie revival, right? So it's in a real uncanny valley of Jump Street references.
HZ: It's still retro. Wouldn't 21 Jump Street have come out before Logan was born?
JR: Maybe not. He's a teenager in 2005, like Jump Street was while he was like a toddler.
HZ: They were born like in 1987-88, these characters, so I think it was done. But then I can also imagine the Echollses having videotapes of it and watching it. More than Brigadoon.
JR: I bet you Aaron Echolls was ON Jump Street.
HZ: Yes! Then Ben explains Norris has been using flagged words online like ‘Columbine’ and ‘fertiliser’. And then he's like, “Hey, Veronica, how about you be a honey trap? Because Norris really likes you. I haven't been able to get into his bedroom. I'm sure you can do that."
JOY: “Try as I might.”
HZ: Lucky Veronica.
JOY: It's like - JTT, get a haircut, then maybe you might get a little bit closer to that bedroom.
HZ: Or at least use some of your agent skills, for fuck’s sake. You're a professional. She's an amateur.
JOY: He makes a big deal about how many arrests he's gotten, like he's responsible for at his young young age.
HZ: Although, given what you see later, maybe all those arrests are bullshit arrests.
JR: Yeah, do you think his strategy with Norris was being like, “Hey, so death, right? Death rules. Hey, Death."? Norris is like, "I don't wanna hang out with that guy; he's a real creep."
But yeah, Ben’s undercover is not tiptop. Plus his hair.
HZ: Then Veronica leaves the room. Logan is waiting.
JR: Here we go.
HZ: Over to you, Joanna
JR: The kiss - she gives him the like ‘Thank you, kind sir, for coming to my rescue’ kiss, walks away he grabs her, pulls her back, and then it's just five alarm fire as far as I'm concerned.
HZ: It is a hot kiss!
JR: And like they have been so - like, if this is the noir - if Veronica Mars is noir, it's also screwball comedy like, like classic screwball comedy, and classic screwball comedy is the romance of “squabble squabble, kiss kiss, I don't know whether to kiss her or kill her,” whatever. These two actors, these performers have oozed so much natural chemistry that - like I don't think the plan from the start was for this to ever happen and I think they were just like, “We can't keep these two spitfires apart, we’ve gotta -"
HZ: "We’ve gotta make them fire spit into each other."
JR: Eurgh.
HZ: Sorry.
JR: Sure.
JOY: Yeah, okay, five alarm fire. Sure. The only thing that's the one hose on this is the wretched song that they choose to play underneath this kiss.
JR: Yeah, the 2000s were not a primo…
JOY: No, no, no, no.
HZ: I like to keep a watch on Logan's garments, and the exterior of the Camelot motel is very beige, has beige railings, taupe walls, and then it's got red and white strips on the ceiling. Logan is wearing a beige suede jacket with white and red strips on it. So he is dressed to match the fucking building.
JOY: He's come to take the Camelot motel to prom!
JR: That's House Logan - he's the white knight, he comes the rescue, they’re in Camelot, it's a whole thing.
HZ: But then the kiss stops and Veronica leaves really awkwardly.
JR: Well, it's awkward because it's like -
HZ: - They were enemies until recently,
JR: Not just enemies, but also like...
HZ: She's dating Hot Leo.
JR: She's dating hot Leo. He’s her best friend's ex. It's like the wrongest choice for her. He's an 09er, we don't like them. He's the worst 09er. He does bad stuff. She knows she's made a mistake but also, like, that’s a good kiss.
JOY: That's a good kiss. And so Veronica flees from Sawyer. I mean, Spike. I mean, Jamie Lannister. I mean, Logan,
JR: All my favourites!
JOY: Seriously. This is tailor made for you.
HZ: She goes off to the home of another guy who's in love with her, Norris.
JR: Oh my god, who could keep track of all these men?
HZ: I love her cover story. She's like, “My dad's having trouble identifying some weapons in one of his cases," and he's like, “Cool. Come and see my large collection of ornamental weapons. Is your dad struggling to identify these throwing stars? Is he struggling to identify this replica sword from Braveheart that I have?"
JR: Follow up question: where did Veronica Mars get her binder full of weapon photos? Did she go home and make that binder?
JOY: She kept it on a shelf with that binder full of wedding hotel plans she busted out a couple episodes ago. She's got so many binders!
JR: She's like Leslie Knope basically - but was the premise, she's saying “Every weapon in here my father doesn't know how to identify”? I don't understand the premise.
JOY: Well it's like, some bunch of weapons have been stolen; ostensibly, this is somebody's weapon collection binder and she's like, “These have all been stolen, what is the market value on all of these blades? My dad can't identify them."
HZ: But she doesn't really need to know, she just needs him to start weaponsplaining.
JR: Oh, I know. I understand her plans. I just am envisioning her at home, printing out these photos of weapons and sliding them into plastic sleeves as she makes this binder.
HZ: Did she just put Google Images up and was like “weapons” and prints out -
JR: "Exotic ornamental weapons”?
JR: Ancient - ancient weapons, specifically.
HZ: He's also just like, "There's a girl in my room!" too much to even question any of it.
JR: Oh, sure; maybe the back two thirds is just like unicorns?
HZ: Or it's just the wedding album but the other way up.
JR: Okay. And then, I'm usually I'm often on Veronica's side, but when she pulls out a magazine that says Taut Blondes and she's like, "Guess I'm his type."
JOY: What the hell! Veronica: DELETE.
HZ: She is not reliable on any sexual matters. She has some strange attitudes. I like when Norris is like, “Welcome to my weapon collection," she's like:
VERONICA: You must feel really safe at night, when the dragons come.
HZ: So she can't resist mocking this guy that is helping her.
JR: Oh, but like when he pulls up his browser, the web page he's on is something like dragonslayer.com, it's like really cute. I love him.
HZ: He seems really quite adorable in this scene, because he's like, “You want to go and let off some steam by throwing some throwing stars in my garage?” And she seems to love throwing stars. And he invites her to a Kurosawa retrospective. How can we hate this guy?
JR: We love this guy.
HZ: They’re* really not trying to build him up as a villain particularly, are they, because it's a nerdy collection of weapons rather than a trunk full of fertiliser and guns.
JR: And this is pre Game of Thrones, so he's a Thrones-head before Game of Thrones is a thing.
HZ: He's Braveheart.
JR: I bet he plays D&D , and he just doesn't talk about it. Anyway, um, yeah. Unpassword-protected wifi.
HZ: We learn his family has wifi because his dad works for Kane Software, so they get all the latest technology - and kids, there was a world before wifi. It was dreadful.
JOY: Yeah. Many moons ago, when your children were babies.
HZ: We had to get the internet out of taps. Faucets, sorry.
JOY: Yeah, you would hook a hose up to the kitchen faucet and just run it.
HZ: Between 5 o'clock and 5.15 every week on Saturday.
JOY: A loud noise would happen that was sort of like <modem noise> -
HZ: That was really good.
JOY: Thank you - as the internet connection would flow from your kitchen faucet directly into your your desktop computer which was plugged into the wall. And then you could look at dragonslayer.com.
JR: Can I try to make a sound? Yes, I think it goes like this. <slightly more convincing impression of a dial up modem>.
HZ: That was like a human theremin at one point. I loved it.
JR: Delete that.
JOY: No no no! We're taking this show on the road, Joanna.
HZ: I've got nothing to offer. It's very sad. Outside, I guess Veronica makes some excuse about the Kurosawa thing, but I feel like there's quite good chemistry between them. But she's already dealing with two hot matches this episode, so this is too much. She goes outside, sits in her car, she tries to connect to the family wifi. It's all too easy, really. She calls Mac.
JR: She makes a reference, like an older reference -
JOY: 2001: A Space Odyssey.
JR: Yeah, she makes a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey and then she tries to like explain it, Mac's like, "Hey, hotshot. I know what 2001: A Space Odyssey is. Thanks. Relax. Have you seen the streaks in my hair? I'm really cool."
HZ: We've already seen Mac's very cultural bedroom.
JR: Mac rules. I would like to be gal pals with Mac.
JOY: And then - hey, who's that? Who’s that next door?
HZ: Oh, yeah. Michael McMillian lives next door.
JOY: What are the odds?
HZ: At school the next day Veronica tries to warn Norris that Ben has been tricking him and he's after him. And then Ben and the ATF arrive in a big black van and they arrest Norris. Ben opens up Norris's trunk and reveals fertiliser...
JOY: ...and a very familiar extremely large gun.
JR: So large, that gun.
HZ: And Veronica's like, "God dammit, he must have planted that when I was there enjoying the throwing stars!" She can't get any relaxation without something bad happening. In the media room, Veronica calls Pete, saying she's running a story, for the extremely popular but boring newspaper, that Pete ran fake internet traffic via Norris - so presumably, the flag words like “fertiliser” were Pete doing that using the family wifi next door.
JOY: Yeah, ”retribution".
HZ: And he set up that website and he invented the whole exploding stray cat story. Toxic Neptune strikes again. But Pete's excuse is that Norris bullied him every day for years, took his lunch money, and his dad was like, “Well, just punch him in the face son; that's how we do in Neptune, face-punching." And he punched him in the face, and got face-punched back to the point of hospitalisation.
PETE: You wanna know what my dad said then?
VERONICA: What?
PETE: He said he’d wished he’d had a son.
JOY: Oh my gosh.
HZ: Toxic masculinity runs through the water. But okay, here's my question. He lives next door to Norris - every day for years just outside of school would presumably be a nightmare. But also an opportunity for revenge, closer to home? But also doing any revenge would be... maybe he was trying to get him arrested to take him out of his home environment, basically.
JR: I think I need to retroactively dock Norris a few hot points for the fact that - yeah, it hasn't been since middle school, but he owes his next door neighbour an apology. If he's a young man who goes to Kurosawa retrospectives now, apologise to that guy who lives next door to you.
HZ: Absolutely. Pete hangs up and then Meg is the next concern immediately - she reports that Duncan is missing, he withdrew $10,000 from the bank.
JR: It's so late at night at school. She's at school so late at night, and Meg also wanders into school late at night to be like - she doesn't call Veronica! She goes, "Hey, I'll go to the media room. Veronica, have you seen..." Or maybe she's looking for Duncan.
HZ: Well, because they're putting the paper to bed, I guess, for tomorrow, because there's this constant news cycle at this school and Joey Lauren Adams is like, "Wow, Veronica, you've got a story about Ben planting evidence. Well, I suppose we have no choice but to print it, have we?" So her two modes are like, “Guys, do a boring story about the French teacher," or “Okay, let's print it!" That's all she does. I suppose that is pep, isn't it? Because she's encouraging the kids.
JOY: Yes, yes.
HZ: "Do the journalism. I won't check whether it's supposed to be done this way." And she gets fired. But she seems pleased about it. Because she has so much pep.
JOY: Yeah. And I think she's just pleased with a job well done.
HZ: Well, ish.
JOY: She didn't cave under pressure from the administration, the authority.
HZ: It's because she has no idea how the job is supposed to be done.
JR: I'm team Joey Lauren Adams.
JOY: What if I told you she's hot?
JR: What if I told you I've seen Chasing Amy a lot?
JOY: What if I told you - you think I don't know Chasing Amy? There used to be a time when there was pretty much only Chasing Amy. Now it's like, everyone's gay everywhere, all the time, which is great. But at one point in life -
JR: - just Joey Lauren Adams.
JOY: - that was all we had to think about.
JR: She was the one. And yeah, I do like her, she tries. And then she walks down the hallway - like Logan makes fun of her earlier, when he does her little like cheer routine.
MS STAFFORD: Okay, Pirates. Single file. Straight line.
LOGAN: Heads up, chests out, big smiles. Ready? Okay.
JOY: Love to see Logan as a cheerleader, honestly.
HZ: In a pond green little skirt. Brown pom poms.
JR: But then we hear we hear Veronica being like, "All right, buckaroos. Let's do..." Joey Lauren Adams is so happy as she walks down the hall, she's like, “My influence." Yeah. And then if she were in The Breakfast Club, she would have pumped her fists in the air.
JOY: Freeze frame and then 🎶 Don't you forget about me 🎶
HZ: Joey Lauren Adams is another person who appears in Veronica Mars who has been in the TV show Switched at Birth!
JOY: Oh my god, there's some kind of grand conspiracy here.
JR: Was there like producer crossover?
HZ: There must be; it's too many to be an accident. And that's the end of the episode - Joey Lauren Adams's triumphant pep strut off to unemployment.
JR: “Triumphant pep strut off to unemployment."
HZ: Well, to run through which crimes have been committed in the course of this episode. Let's check in with our resident legal expert and Southern Californian marshmallow Lo Dodds for today's LoDown.
THE LODOWN
HZ: So Lo, one of the main perpetrators of crimes in this episode is an officer of the law.
LO DODDS: Yeah! Cute as a button Jonathan Taylor Thomas.
HZ: Is he though?
JOY: Did you see his hair?
LO DODDS: He's a cute as a button super shady ATF agent.
HZ: So what are the consequences for planting evidence in a school kid's trunk?
LO DODDS: As you can imagine, it's a really bad thing for a police officer to plant evidence. It's a felony. It's actually happened before with the ATF, and the actual ATF agent that was accused of planting evidence planting drugs, he was charged and pled guilty to conspiracy, civil rights violations. He's got probably perjury on his record now too, because presumably Jonathan Taylor Thomas has done this before, so it is going to call into question all of his previous convictions and any cases that he's got going on right now, because no prosecutor is now going to call this guy because his credibility is shot. So yeah, he's probably going to prison; he's probably getting fired. One would hope.
JOY: Now that he's been exposed by a local high school paper, his career is over.
HZ: And just a day before, that paper was trying to tell boring stories about an old French teacher.
JOY: is it legal to make up a fake bomb threat and maybe like a countdown website and a bunch of other supporting whatnot to mess with your childhood bully? Not that I have anybody specific in mind!
HZ: But don't cross Jenny Owen Youngs, because she will fucking take you down.
JOY: Don't cross me!
LO DODDS: Yeah, I wouldn't do it, Jenny. I wouldn't do it; because obviously nowadays this would be taken super seriously. In California it's a misdemeanour or a felony, depending on how bad it is to make bomb threats. You could also be charged with making a terrorist threat. The problem here is that we don't know what happened with the bomb threats that they made to the school. We don't know what Pete said to Clemmons; we don't know if he targeted a particular person or just called and said "we're going to put a bomb in the school." The severity of the threat is what they use to determine whether or not they're going to charge it as a misdemeanour or felony or what kind of sentence you're going to get. The website doesn't target any particular person or group so -
JOY: Graphic design is definitely under attack.
LO DODDS: What, you didn't like that? I thought that was pretty advanced for 2004.
HZ: That font's illegal in 28 states.
JOY: Absolutely.
HZ: And then Duncan buys an old passport on eBay, we're led to believe - is it legal to buy an old passport on eBay?
LO DODDS: Yes.
JOY: Wow. Expired government documents are whatever?
LO DODDS: Yeah, I had a little fun with this actually: you can buy passports on eBay -
JOY: “I had a little fun with this, I bought so many passports!”
LO DODDS: I have so many! Yeah, apparently people collect them. And when I was looking this up, there was an eBay auction for Carrie Fisher's old passport. But nobody ended up buying it. You can buy a passport once it is obsolete. But apparently the definition of obsolete is a bit vague, because basically your passport is valid for 10 years, and then you can still use it for five years after that to prove your citizenship. So technically, it is definitely illegal to do it before 15 years, but after that, yes, eBay's rule is 20 years.
HZ: But if Duncan had bought a passport that was not expired, that is illegal?
LO DODDS: Yeah, the passport doesn't belong to you actually - it is, once again, Jenny, government property. It doesn't belong to you.
JOY: It's government property until it becomes obsolete and then it's just whatever?
LO DODDS: Just whatever.
HZ: You know what I would have done if I had been Duncan wanting to skip the country? I would have strapped myself into a big box with like cellophane front, with like 'Ken Doll' written on it, and got myself shipped to whichever country has no extradition or whatever.
JOY: No extradition for dolls.
HZ: oanna, were there any lines in this episode that stood out to you particularly that you loved?
JR: For me, it's almost always going to be a Mac line. And in this case, I don't know if people have said it already on the show, but at one point she just goes, “Earth to Mars." And I liked it, Mac saying "Earth to Mars."
HZ: Also, where is the spin off for Mac and Wallace? What a dream team. Jenny. What line floated your boat?
JOY: I liked when Theo Rossi was unlocking the enormous padlock on his bedroom door. And Veronica said, “Hmm. Probably more effective than the ‘Mind your own beeswax’ sign I have on my door, although there is a picture of an angry kitty on it."
HZ: And also, no one needs to break into Veronica’s room, because there's probably bugs and surveillance cameras rigged all over it. I liked when she's getting Norris to explain weapons and he's like, “You want to sit down?” and she's like, “Are you kidding? I want to look at these weapons. They're so pointy." And how do you rate this episode overall?
JR: Oh, five alarm fire.
HZ: That's incredible.
JR: No, it's not a five. It's not a five episode at all. But the Logan-Veronica kiss is such a moment in the show that it's hard for me to see anything; but when I start to really look at the bigger picture, I have to factor in JTT's mullet. So, it's like a 3.5, probably, I would say.
HZ: So like 10 out of 5 for the kiss, then like minus seven for the mullet?
JR: Yeah.
HZ: Jennifer, what do you reckon?
JOY: Yes, so many positives. So many negatives, love Joey Lauren Adams, love Theo Rossi. I don't really care about the True Blood guy, but he's fine.
HZ: You don't get much time with him. His most humanising scene is when he's arguing with Mac, and you're like, “Oh, Mac's got a fellow nerd, but they don't agree."
JR: I think a later this show does a better job of seeding - you know like we see Corny in this episode, I think later the show becomes better at using those B and C characters, or seeding them in earlier so that when they are involved maybe in a crime later, it means more than like your guest star of the week.
JOY: Yes.
JR: I don't think that's a spoiler, I'm just saying I think the show gets better at this. Right now it's selling me mainly on the fact that JTT - I also think of this is the JTT episode, and then Juice is here, and so then I'm involved. But other than that, we don't get enough character development on them to care about them.
JOY: Yeah.
HZ: I think you get more of a sense of these characters than you sometimes do where there's a single episode character, because Norris is really so sweet. in just that scene.
JR: D&D. Kurosawa. Padlocks on his room,
HZ: But he seems like a real person, and you get the flashback where he's nice; but then you hear the knowledge that he's been bullying Pete for years in the past.
JR: He contains multitudes. Plus, we haven't really mentioned it, but he's named Norris.
JOY: Amazing point.
HZ: I bet the defence brought that up as mitigation.
JR: In his defence: Norris.
HZ: I was very pleased to see Keith and Alicia dating. Very happy for both of them. I was displeased by Veronica stressing out Wallace and being like, "<Friends, friends, friends>, do me a favour” and him being like, "Oh, still." I quite liked the mystery. Again, they're doing a lot in quite a short space of time by flipping your expectations all the time as to who the guilty party is. Are there going to be significant consequences for this agent who's been like falsifying arrests and things? You don't know, we never find out. It's never returned to. Presumably Veronica is going to have to testify in some kind of hearing about that. When's she gonna find the time? I'd give this episode, overall, three out of five popcorn boxes with a hole in the bottom.
JOY: Whoa. Helen!
JR: That's too many popcorn boxes with a hole in the bottom
JOY: And since I didn't quite get there previously, I'm also on the three out of five scale. I'm going to give it three out of five shockingly full heads of Theo Rossi's hair. I can't totally process it.
JR: It's too much, I need less, go back to the mohawk.
HZ: I'll have to look this up.
JR: Juice. He's so hot on Sons of Anarchy.
HZ: Well, that's this episode of Veronica Mars investigated.
JOY: Case closed.
JOY: That was Veronica Mars Season 1, episode 18: Weapons of Class Destruction.
HZ: Watch season 1 episode 19 and join us next time to investigate it.
JOY: Find the show on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @VMIpod.
HZ: The website, where the show lives alongside a copy of Taut Blondes magazine under the bed, is vmipod.com.
JOY: I'm Jenny Owen Youngs and you can hear more of my speaking voice on my other podcast Buffering the Vampire Slayer and you can hear my singing voice by visiting jennyowenyoungs.com.
JR: I’m Joanna Robinson. You can find my work on VanityFair.com; you can follow me on twitter at @JoWroteThis; and if you want to hear me podcasting elsewhere, you can find me on the Little Gold Men podcast, the Storm podcast, the Still Watching podcast where we're watching The Mandalorian, or The Boiler Room podcast where we’re watching My So-Called Life.
HZ: I’m Helen Zaltzman and you can hear my other podcasts The Allusionist at theallusionist.org - that is an entertainment show about language - and Answer Me This, a show in which we answer questions from the listeners about myriad topics, at answermethispodcast.com.
JOY: This episode was edited and mixed by Zach McNees.
HZ: The music is by Martin Austwick and the multitalent 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, Joanna?
JR: Keith Mars?
HZ: If only!
JOY: The eternal answer.
HZ: And if he’s busy, who’s your reserve daddy?
JR: Backup daddy?
JOY: Backup daddy! That’s the magazine I have under my bed.