Join Jenny Owen Youngs, Helen Zaltzman and our resident legal expert Lo Dodds to celebrate the completion of the second year of Veronica Mars Investigations, with a parade of outtakes - about what happens to police dogs when they retire, how old is too old to join the FBI, gambling with pasta, and the very real dangers of huffing petrol (especially at any point in time since the Great Depression).
Read MoreJenny Owen Youngs and Helen Zaltzman are joined again by Special Agent LaToya Ferguson to investigate Veronica Mars season 4 and try to solve its many remaining mysteries, including (but not limited to): who is the fifth lady of Veronica Mars? Will we ever get more Veronica Mars, and in which forms? Why has it taken so long for Veronica to have a fun night out?? Was Logan fridged? What IS 'fridged'? And was Jane The Therapist the criminal mastermind behind all of it???
Read MoreA LONG TIME AGO ON VERONICA MARS:
OK, here’s what we know about the bombings now: Big Dick did the Sea Sprite one. Clyde did the Perry Walsh one.
The rest are still unaccounted for - but there might be something in the FBI’s theory that a serial killer has been operating in Neptune for years, so the Marses investigate some deaths registered as accidental but maybe not.
Big Dick and Clyde know that Keith knows that they’ve been buying up property with all those shell companies and leaving dead ducks in Penn’s bed.
Places Veronica will go: the strip club, to see Vinnie; the Pi Sig house, to see some frats; Dodie and Alonzo’s room, to snoop; and Comrade Quacks, to get drunk and dance with her two sexiest friends Nicole and Leo.
Places Veronica won’t go: couples therapy with Logan.
Logan has been called back to active duty though in an undisclosed location for an undisclosed length of time, so their relationship will just have to fix itself in absentia.
Before he left, though, Logan managed to track down Daniel Maloof’s hacker, a neo-Nazi teen who has noticed that Daniel transferred a large amount of Bitcoin to two Mexican assassins.
Oh and in case you forgot, Veronica is into The Big Lebowski.
A LONG TIME AGO ON VERONICA MARS:
Nicole and Veronica get high together, shoot guns together, and tell each other their secrets - except one, which is that Nicole sold Comrade Quack’s to a buyer who is Richard Casablancas wearing a plastic nose and false moustache, stacked on top of two other Richard Casablancases in a really big trenchcoat.
Keith also does some shooting, when Clyde takes him duck hunting and leaves his phone unattended near a Mars. But the text messages Keith snoops into put him off the theory that Clyde and Big Dick are behind the bombings.
Instead, Keith realises all the bombs killed people who were sex offenders. Cmon, that’s just Neptune, where everyone’s on the registry! But he decides it means Nicole is the bomber, taking revenge on rapists.
Other tenuous bombing suspect of the week: Weevil! He’s receiving money from Clyde to sabotage the town, according to Sea Sprite Shitter Juan when Veronica puts the pressure on.
Then for our weekly bomb: this one goes off in Comrade Quack’s! Don’t you dare take our precious Nicole from us, show!!
Someone claiming to be the bomber has sent a note to the police, which keeps the murderheads busy, and forces Mayor Dobbins to streak through town!
Murderhead Carol deduces that the note was written by Richard Casablancas, and to celebrate, she and Penn kiss! But their passion is interrupted by a gross discovery.
Here are some palate cleansers though: Vinnie gets a free jacket, Alonzo and Dodie get into lavender lattes, and Cliff gets a puppy!
A LONG TIME AGO ON VERONICA MARS:
The themes of the season, bombs and beheadings, combine, as a spring breaker who’s been spiking women’s drinks gets a bomb strapped around his neck.
The Marses, Matty and the murderheads are still shuffling around their various theories about who the bomber is: Big Dick and Clyde trying to kill the Spring Break business for property prices; or the Maloofs, for reasons that nobody can really be arsed with any more.
Daniel Maloof is regretting ordering the hit on the Carrs, but too late! Dodie and Alonzo have video of them killing them…
...but one has survived? What a twist!
Not enough jerks for you? This episode features the reappearances of ugh Mercer and Lucky-in-a-wig and Toxic Max!
But in compensation we also see Vinnie, and... LEO! He’s now an FBI agent and divorcé with a jacket full of snacks, there to tempt Veronica as she struggles with domestic bliss with Logan.
A LONG TIME AGO ON VERONICA MARS: Mr Kiss and Tell, an original mystery by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham:
A young woman has been raped and beaten, and, once again, the Neptune Grand hires Veronica to investigate - only so they don’t get sued for hiring the undocumented worker who has been accused.
But, having cleared him, Veronica keeps going with the case, to get justice for the victim, Grace Manning - that’s right, Meg’s little sister. A decade on from being locked in a closet by her parents, and still having a shit time.
Grace is one of several sex workers who have been attacked by this man, a SPORTSBALL coach. I knew I was right not to trust sportsball!
So Veronica and Leo team up, dress up and wig up to go to Vegas and bust this man. A golf course is involved - sports really come out of this novel badly.
Meanwhile, the sheriff’s election looms into view, with a new candidate, Marcia - with whom Keith has history. Tense sad history, not sexy history. We assume Keith’s pelvis is still knitting itself back together.
Keith and Cliff put together a civil case, Weevil vs the sheriff’s department and their evidence planting. But which does Weevil need more: justice, or to stop his family falling apart?
And Logan is ashore! He and Veronica are having problems, with her overwork and his months-long absences - but, they do get a puppy! And the puppy’s called Pony! A satisfying conclusion to Veronica’s years-long pony joke.
A LONG TIME AGO ON VERONICA MARS:
Veronica has choices to make! NYC or Neptune? Lawyering or detectiving? Piz or Logan? Try to guess, go on, guess.
Armed with her favourite tools, a bug, a long lens and a taser, Veronica closes in on Carrie’s murderer...
...And it’s not any of the candidates you thought it might be in the first half of the movie - it’s the guy you barely saw at all, Cobb! Who? Cobb! You remember Cobb.
Cobb!
The death toll rises - Deputy Sacks, Gia, possibly a cat - and our beloved Keith ends up in ICU.
Sheriff Dan Lamb is happy to frame Logan, doesn’t want to catch the real killer, and plants a gun in Weevil’s hand to make it look like Celeste shot him in self-defence. Veronica can’t resist getting her teeth into all that Neptune corruption.
Join Jenny Owen Youngs and Helen Zaltzman to investigate the second half of Veronica Mars: the 2014 movie, and delve into such mysteries as: and delve into such mysteries as how long Pizvonica have been a thing, why Sweaty Luke is just there for some kind of gross 1950s-style plot, and whether these kids ever needed to cover up Susan's death at all, but especially after the statute of limitations has elapsed.
Read MoreA LONG TIME AGO ON VERONICA MARS:
As we know, sex people never prosper in this show, and Piz is bruised from Logan’s attack and Veronica is humiliated - and ready for revenge.
Veronica’s search for the sex tape culprit takes her from Piz to Logan to Dick to Chip to some other asshole Dominick to some other other asshole Gory to the secret society The Castle to JAKE KANE!?!?!
Of course, to cap a season that began with the Stanford Prison Experiment, we get the Milgram Experiment; and, unfortunately, it is performed on Wallace as he helps Veronica investigate the Castle.
Veronica breaks into what turns out to be Jake Kane’s new lonely bachelor mansion, steals his hard drive, but leaves a shred of her sweater snagged on the doggy door she shimmied in through, and is caught on the neighbour’s security tapes.
Keith destroys the security footage of Veronica - and maybe also his chances of winning the sheriff election. Did he win?? Find out next epi- oh but then the show was dormant for seven years.
Join Jenny Owen Youngs and Helen Zaltzman to investigate Veronica Mars season 3 episode 20: The Bitch Is Back, and consider such mysteries as how this show, even in its last moments pre-cancellation, finds ways to introduce new awful white boys, each more revolting than the last; how many supercomputers this college contains; and whether Jake Kane painted the big terrifying portraits of his children himself.
Read MoreA LONG TIME AGO ON VERONICA MARS:
Rock star Paul Rudd is here to play a show at Hearst College, to fundraise for Piz’s awful radio station - but oh no! His backing tapes are missing! Presumed stolen! They’re not. A crime-free mystery!
New campus celebrity Apollo has written a hit memoir about being a child soldier in Uganda - but WAS he? - and Veronica is hired by someone claiming to be his dad - but IS he? Yes to both. Another crime-free mystery! How relaxing.
Until! Remember when Weevil was falsely accused of stealing Veronica’s necklace, and falsely accused of stealing the fairground cash box, and… anyway, in today’s edition of “Let’s fuck up Weevil for no good reason,” he’s accused of making fake IDs.
Someone has leaked a sex tape of Pizvonica! Nobody wants to see that! Especially not Logan, who beats up Piz.
Acting Sheriff Mars is investigating a string of Fitzpatricky burglaries, that threaten his sheriff campaign AND his friendship with Cliff.Vinnie is also running for Sheriff, and might be involved in the burglaries too?
And Big Dick Richard Casablancas is back to spend some time with Little Dick before going to prison for all his crimes in the first two seasons. And at long last, Dick Casablancas shows some human emotions.
Join Jenny Owen Youngs and Helen Zaltzman to investigate Veronica Mars season 3 episodes 17, 18 and 19: I Know Weevil's Wobble Tapes, and consider such mysteries as what Wallace has been up to in all the time he has not been on screen, what a Weevil-based Law & Order spinoff would be like, and whether that's Rob Thomas in a wig? After all the wigs he has inflicted on others!
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