“This face right here is my over the moon face.”
This week, Tracie and Emily welcome Joanna Church to share her Deep Thoughts about the television show Veronica Mars. Between trying to recap the telenovela-sounding plot to Tracie (coma babies! children switched at birth! a school bus that drives off a cliff and explodes!), Joanna explains how this hilarious teenage noir teaches us that there is no justice, people cannot reinvent themselves, only become who they truly are, and that all we can hope to have is meaningful relationships.
Grab your taser and make sure you bring Backup (the dog) while you listen to this week’s episode!
Mentioned in this episode:
Hark a vagrant! http://www.harkavagrant.com/?id=341
CW: Discussions of rape and sexual assault and abstract discussions of suicide
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon.
“This face right here is my over the moon face.”
This week, Tracie and Emily welcome Joanna Church to share her Deep Thoughts about the television show Veronica Mars. Between trying to recap the telenovela-sounding plot to Tracie (coma babies! children switched at birth! a school bus that drives off a cliff and explodes!), Joanna explains how this hilarious teenage noir teaches us that there is no justice, people cannot reinvent themselves, only become who they truly are, and that all we can hope to have is meaningful relationships.
Grab your taser and make sure you bring Backup (the dog) while you listen to this week’s episode!
Mentioned in this episode:
Hark a vagrant! http://www.harkavagrant.com/?id=341
CW: Discussions of rape and sexual assault and abstract discussions of suicide
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon.
I'm Tracy Guy-Decker and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? Today, my friend, joanna Church is going to be sharing her deep thoughts about the TV show Veronica Mars with me, emily, and with you. Let's dive in. Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just pop culture, what others might deem stupid shit? You know matters, you know it's worth talking and thinking about, and so do we. So come over, think with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit. All right, so we're talking about Veronica Mars today, and I am going to start by saying I've never seen it. The only thing I know about Veronica Mars is that there's a kick ass female protagonist. That's it. That's all I know.
Speaker 2:What about you Um?
Speaker 1:what do you know or remember about Veronica?
Speaker 2:So, uh, I knew that Veronica Mars was like the first, like big Kickstarter success. Success because it was Kickstarter that got the Veronica Mars movie. I think it was after the third season, like long after the third season. I got interested in Veronica Mars after the Good Place came out, because of Kristen Bell, because she is just a delight National treasure, kristen Bell, yes. So gosh, I think it was pre COVID. I think it was like 2018 or 2019.
Speaker 2:I was like, okay, I'm going to check this out. I watched the first episode and then I was just I was hooked. Now, part of it is I love mysteries, I love kick-ass female protagonists, I love that mix of humor and drama. So that's like what we love about Lucifer and Our Flag Means Death, which I just binged yesterday, and Good Omens, so that kind of like. There's a lot of humor, every episode is very funny, but there's also some serious deep stuff in there. And then I am a romantic sap and the bad boy redemption arc, which, honestly, I watched the first like two episodes or so, mentioned to people that I was watching it and people were like, oh, logan, and I was just like the psychopath, what are you talking about? Like what? And then a few episodes later I was like, okay, I can kind of see where this is going. And then after that I was all in and I watched all the first season, all the second season, basically one weekend.
Speaker 2:And then I started on the third season. About two or three episodes in it was clear that they were working on on breaking up uh, veronica and Logan I was like I'm out, I'm, I'm, I want to leave them happy and all of that and I'm um. And also I didn't find cause. She is a high school student, tracy. Uh, she's a junior in high school in the first season, so it's her first year of college. In the third and I tend to find shows have trouble transitioning from high school to college and it really didn't feel like they were doing a great job of transitioning. So I was like I'm out.
Speaker 2:And then when I learned what happens in season four, which came out recently, like past five years 2019 maybe, I found out what happens, then I'm like I'm just going to forget that, pretend it doesn't exist because I don't, I know, not interested, thank you. So that's what I know about it.
Speaker 1:So actually, I realize I miss a very important step in our conversation, which is to introduce our listeners to Joanna. Oh, yes, so we're about to hear from Joanna about Veronica Mars, but before I do that, let me introduce Joanna. So we know each other from when we worked together at a museum, and Joanna is, in fact, a museum registrar and sometimes curator, who tries to foreground the stories of everyday people, especially women from diverse communities, in her work wherever possible. Joanna also loves media. That does the same. So her favorite TV shows are Glow, which we actually just referenced in our Back to the Future bonus episode, alias, homicide, life on the Street and, conveniently enough, veronica Mars. So, joanna, why Veronica Mars? What's at stake? What's so special about this show?
Speaker 3:Well, as Emily so well put it. You watch the first episode and you're in. It's a strong female protagonist. It's mysteries. It's a Raymond Chandler sht. It's it's the high school stuff. I don't always like a raymond hard-boiled mystery, um, but with a high school girl it came out like I don't think I could watch a high school show today. I think it would be too too far out of my experience. But it started in 2004. I wasn't too far out of high school. As emily also says, I do love a we'll just call it a doomed romance and the. They shouldn't be together, but they are, but they're, they're they. Yeah, we can get into the logan veronica thing in a minute, but it's super funny. I mean, I watched it. I've binge watched a lot of it. I did my homework for this and I was like, oh, as so many shows from 20 years ago, you're like like oh, you couldn't do that now. I hope that no one would do that now.
Speaker 3:I feel like that actually could be, like that's the subhead of this show, Like ruining 20 year old media, but I think it holds up more than many shows from that era do. I think it holds up more than than many shows from that that era do. I don't know. It's something about the first episode. If it doesn't get you, my mom was like I don't know. I tried to watch it and I wasn't into it. This is not the show for you, because the first episode just encapsulates everything. And still I've seen the first season I don't know 10 times now maybe, and every time I watch the first episode I'm like this is gonna be so good. So it it holds up. It's good comfort tv, except then you're like I mean, I have not watched it in a while, so it's comforting until you're like oh wait, I forgot about that. Oh my god, why do they do that? There's bad, bad stuff happens. Can I swear?
Speaker 1:am I allowed to swear? Oh yeah, the name of the show is deep thoughts about stupid shit. Bad, bad stuff happens. Can I swear? Am I allowed to swear? Oh yeah, the name of the show is deep thoughts about stupid shit so bad shit happens.
Speaker 3:At some point you're like whoa, why? Why did they kill that? Oh uh, a lot of people die. A lot of people die, but it's so good. Did that make any sense? I make my enthusiasm for the show suddenly ran away with me. Yes, that's what we were looking for.
Speaker 2:So I tried to show my husband like I got super into it. I was just like you gotta watch the show and I showed him the first episode. He's like uh-huh and I didn't get. Didn't get that I should, because he does not respond to mysteries like I do. Um I think, is part of it, but I like, I was like keep going right and it just it didn't, it wasn't a fit. So yeah, you're right, if the first episode doesn't hook you, then it's not the show for you.
Speaker 3:And it's something of. I mean some of the episodes. You're like this makes no sense as a single episode mystery, but for the most part it does a good job combining the season-long arc and the mystery of the week. Sometimes you're like, oh, that's right, they forgot that this happened. They better quick bring the rape back, which sounds bad when you put it like that. But some of the single episodes are just so well put together and they're not over-explained. There's one in the second season where it's where Duncan makes his great escape.
Speaker 3:This is where it gets told in the his great escape with the. This is where it gets tell on the Bella with his dead girlfriends. Baby, it's also his baby, it's a, it's a coma baby.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's fine. It gets very tell on the Bella in the middle of season two, all of season two, but it it's not over explained at the end, the viewer has to be like, oh, it's not over explained. At the end the viewer has to be like, oh, I get it, it was a fake breakup at the beginning. There isn't that whole like. Well, let me tell you what happened. You have to be paying attention and I appreciate that yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:Well, catch me up. Catch me and our listeners up. Like what's the deal? Who? Why is this high school student like? Why is there a lot of death and and telenovela for this high school? Like what's happening? Catch me up.
Speaker 3:So, uh, I knew you were gonna ask me this and I was like this will be great, I'll get it all summed up nicely. I will warn you that in college we used to recap days of our lives for each other whoever got to watch it during the day, and my recaps took longer than the show itself. But I will try. So Veronica Mars when the show begins, she's a junior in high school. It's the beginning of junior year. Her best friend the previous year had been murdered. She was raped at a party. Her father was the sheriff and her father, keith Mars who's very important decided that the culprit was her best friend, lily Kane's father. Lily's own father killed her, jake Kane, millionaire, very important in the community. So the town of Neptune where this all takes place, which is a horrible place, turns against Keith Mars, the sheriff, for ruining the life of amazing Jake Kane. The whole family's a pariah. Her mother can't handle what takes off. They're now living on the poor side of town. Neptune is very divided. There's the super rich people and there's the super not rich people, and Veronica had been in with the rich people, dating Lily Kane's brother. I feel like I need a chart. Her life is in tatters, basically. And so she does.
Speaker 3:What she thinks is this amazing full 180 reinvention of herself, because she was in the flashbacks. She's kind of a dumb blonde. She's hanging out with her friends and now she's this hard-bitten. Her hair is cut short, she's wearing bootcut jeans and giant combat boots and little jackets. She's got her giant camera. She's a PI now. Her dad's a PI After losing his job as the sheriff. She helps out in the office, which means she's out doing cases. That's all the first episode and then it just goes from there. So her stated purpose in the first season is to figure out who killed her friend, send a real culprit to jail Because there is somebody in jail for it, but they don't think he did it Figure out who raped her and get her mother back and get her family back together. And at the end of the first episode she's like I'm going to do this and you're already confused, tracy.
Speaker 1:Wait, wait. This kid's got a lot going on, so let me just recap. I don't usually do this, but I want to make sure I have it right before you keep going. So veronica lost her best friend lily. Yes to murder. Yes, she was raped at a party before or after lily died after lily died.
Speaker 3:It's a little and I just rewatched this. Lily gets murdered. Before before lily gets murdered, her boyfriend, duncan lily's brother, breaks up with her and she doesn't know why, so she's sad about that. Lily gets murdered. She she's still trying to keep her head up in town, even though everyone hates her now because of her dad, and so she goes to this party to be like no, no, I'm still the same person I am.
Speaker 1:She gets drunk and she's raped, and that's when she's like so that's why she doesn't know who her rapist is, because she was actually roofied.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of roofying in this show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she has a line in the first episode.
Speaker 3:It's like do you want to hear about, do you want to know, how I lost my virginity? So would I? Yeah, oh, ouch, yeah, so, oh, there's a voiceover. Oh, yes, that's very important. That's. That's where you get the like 1940s noir. Um, she's explaining it all in her cute kristin bell princess on a voice I do also want to make sure we don't forget backup.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, that's so. So part of the the first episode, she. It starts out she's on a stakeout at night in her car with her giant camera. She's, she's telling the narration and then it goes back a bit to the same time period and her dad says, okay, you can go out in the stakeout up and make sure you take back out. And she says, oh, I always do. And then it's the end turns out back up's the dog. He's an adorable dog. All the main characters are introduced. This is again just still the pilot. You get weevil, you get logan, you get duncan, you get get Wallace tied to the tape to the pole. You get the bikers, you get the teachers.
Speaker 2:And, most importantly, you get Keith Mars, who is the best dad on television, and their relationship, veronica and Keith.
Speaker 3:All this horrible stuff happens, happens to Keith, happens to Veronica, happens to everybody, but Veronica and Keith are just. I'm doing my little hands claps together. I realized this is only audio. The true heart, the real relationship of the show, much as I love Logan, is Veronica and her dad, and that's all in the first episode. You should watch it, tracy.
Speaker 1:I will, I will Okay. So what's the give me more? Give like like broad strokes. So mysteries, trying to solve a murder, trying to solve a rape. And find her mom, just to throw that in and find her mom and reunite her family. And then there's a psychopathic redemption arc Beast and Beauty and the beasts a little bit story um, so the the first season is about all the things we just we just said.
Speaker 3:So there's little mysteries of the week. She helps her classmates on various sort of high school versions of pi cases. But first season it wraps up. She figures out who killed lily. It was logan's dad, the famous movie star, she thinks. She figures out what happened at the party. Her mom is the worst. She tries to get her mom into rehab. Her mom, at the end of the movie, steals fifty thousand dollars from the family and is never seen again. So she's awful, but it's, it seems, wrapped up. The last episode yeah, it's pretty much wrapped up because I think rob thomas, the creator, I think he he originally planned it to just be one season, so it all comes together. In the second season it turns out a lot of what she thought was wrapped up is not wrapped up. The second season is mostly about somebody killing a busload of her classmates.
Speaker 2:She was supposed to be on the bus. Yeah, she only just got off the bus, yeah, killed on purpose.
Speaker 1:It wasn't an accident.
Speaker 3:Yes, so the second season is mostly about her and her dad trying to figure out why the bus was blown up and it went over a cliff. She spends a lot of the second season thinking it was because of her and it wasn't, and then it turns out that she was raped at the party, so she saw it. At the end of the first season. They frame it as her, her former boyfriend, duncan the quote love of her life at this time was was also super drunk, so it was like weirdly consensual sex work that none of them remember. Oh, but the main part of that fairy tale novella is the reason duncan broke up with her before the show started is he thought that he was her half brother and so he didn't want to go there anymore. But he didn't want to tell her because because Veronica's horrible mother was having an affair with Jake Kane, the father of Lily, and Duncan, the dead best friend and the boyfriend.
Speaker 1:This is, I feel like I need a whiteboard yeah it helps with a flow chart yeah, sounds like neptune is about as healthy as like sunnydale, it's they?
Speaker 3:make that? They make that joke at least in the movie. When she brings her normal boyfriend back for the 10-year reunion. He's like this place really is the hell mouth um, neptune. Neptune is horrible. And it becomes like by the end of the movie and the fourth. The movie happens between the third and fourth seasons. Basically, neptune has ruined her dad. He's just trying to get by. It sucks everybody in and it's awful.
Speaker 2:Another reason why I was like I'm good. One of the things I remember while I was reading it because I really liked the AV Club and so I was reading AV Club reviews and something people really didn't like and I don't remember the actor's name, but the actor playing Duncan how like not wouldn't, but he seems like very affectless and the actor was saying that he did that intentionally because this is a kid dealing with PTSD, and so one of the things that I really appreciated about the show was I felt like it did a good job in a lot of ways of showing how people respond to trauma. Yeah, because there is so much trauma, and it particularly also logan's story arc just through the second season, because in the first season logan loses his mom. She, she, uh, dies by suicide. Yeah, and then by the end of it it turns out that his dad had been sleeping with a friend of his Best friend's sister.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, Lily's his girlfriend. Yeah, Like at the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had forgotten Lily was sleeping with her boyfriend's dad.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Lily is a heck of a character. She's also dead. She's dead from the beginning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but she's played dead, but she's dead from the beginning. Yeah, yeah, but but she, um, she's played by amanda seyfried and she's in I wouldn't say every episode, but most episodes, with through flashbacks and things like that. So you do get to know her pretty well. And that's actually one of the the clues, that's that veronica has the day that lily died, um, she said to veronica something along the lines of oh, I've got a secret and it's a good one yeah, and you also find out that um, was it aaron eccles?
Speaker 2:was that the father's name? Yeah, yeah, that aaron had like video camera set up without his conquest's consent. Yeah, in in the uh like, so he was a perv in lots and lots of ways he was awful he's awful, yeah, he like it.
Speaker 3:You find out he like is beating his son. He's really awful to his stepdaughter. But he's played by harry hamlin who comes across and there's some episodes where they're clearly like let's get some sympathy for washed up harry hamlin and he sells it really well. And it's a second to last episode. I think veronica's starting to figure it all, all the pieces out and she finds the tapes because lily, before she died, lily was like oh, this perv is filming me, I'm gonna steal these tapes and then I'll make some money, which is why aaron eckles follows her and kills her. But she's hidden the tapes.
Speaker 3:So veronica finds the tapes, so she and logan aaron eckles son, she by this point veronica and logan are sort of together. They're watching the tapes and they're like, oh god, it's tape of lily having sex. And there's this great jump scene where you're like who, who's he, who's she having sex with? And up comes Aaron Eccles space and this is like, ah, because the basically last two episodes are a horror movie, with the like she's running for her life and Aaron Eccles is chasing her. So it starts with this terrifying jump scene, jump, scare.
Speaker 1:Veronica is running for her life, or Lily is Veronica. Okay, all right, all right, all right. No, it's okay.
Speaker 2:that's that's how this goes and then it also didn't duncan's parents think that duncan had done it?
Speaker 3:yes so. So part of the problem is that the reason keith thinks that jake came, the dad is guilty, is because jake came thinks his son did it, so they cover up for for duncan who is, I see.
Speaker 1:So jake was trying to protect duncan. Yeah, duncan didn't do it. Yeah, duncan didn't do it.
Speaker 3:And although they tried to bring that back in this in the second season too, because so the second, another part of the second season is that aaron eckles is acquitted, he's not. He's found not guilty of doing all this, so that just messes up all the veronica and logan's lives at this point once again. Wow, actually back to the third season.
Speaker 2:I've lost track no, okay, that's the second season, yeah okay all right, cool.
Speaker 1:So I think I have enough of a sense of the plot. I, I don't, but I do. I have enough of the sense of the plot for us to like. Let's dig in. Like, what's your analysis here? Like, what are the lessons? Good, bad and ugly that you know.
Speaker 3:Little like 2004 joanna was receiving from this show that you loved so I don't know whether I was getting this the first seven times or so till I watched it all. But watching it again, that's my homework. But the themes I was getting were reinvention. But it's not reinvention. You can't reinvent yourself. You are who you are.
Speaker 3:And then that there is no justice. It's actually quite grim. You never get what you think you want. Keith never really gets to be sheriff again. Veronica's mom never comes back. She's just bad. This is the no justice part. Veronica's desperate to go to stanford, which in the end she does eventually get to stanford in the in the parts that aren't filmed of her life. But she ends up back in neptune. She does not get to go off and be in the fbi or the high-powered lawyer her own, her own choice back in neptune. She does not get to go off and be in the fbi or the high-powered lawyer her own, her own choice, but also neptune sucking them back in. Weevil, who we haven't really talked about but who is amazing, yes, can't get his life back together. He doesn't even get to graduate in the second season. He's arrested during the graduation season. Um, and the horrible sheriff the new sheriff won't let him graduate. Nobody gets what they want Half of them die. So, yay, life is great.
Speaker 2:But the reinvention thing that does come back to the noir inspiration. I mean that is very noir.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So the reinvention, the introduction to the show is, veronica has has reinvented herself from the, from the blonde, you know girl in the in the cute little dresses, to this hard-bitten pi, and a lot of people just sort of take it. Some people try to call her on out on it, but my thinking is it, it wasn't a reinvention, she was actually. She was that person all along, because nobody else in this show ever gets to reinvent themselves. In the movie, which is, she goes back for her 10-year high school reunion, weevil who's this badass biker? He's like oh, I'm married, now I have a daughter, I haven't been on my bike in 10 years and by the end of the movie, he's been sucked back back into it.
Speaker 3:He's putting on his helmet. You get to the bike and you're like evil. No, you can't reinvent yourself. Logan tries so hard to be the nice guy and he can't help himself. He has to go beat people up, which is handy for veronica when she can call on me. There's a line in the one of the second season episodes where he's like well I'm. She goes to this bar, which she should not go to, and her life is actually quite in danger. And Logan does come in and try to rescue her, which she's very angry about. But before she goes into the bar she's like if I need someone punched into the face, I'll whistle, because that's what Logan is. Is the?
Speaker 3:human version of back up the dog. But he can, he can. He tries so hard in the movie. He's joined the navy and he's wearing his like naval lieutenant's outfit and it's hot, yeah, which is for the fans. But also, he's, he's trying hard, but by the fourth season it's not, it doesn't work. So, my, my, my, thinking myself talking to my sister about this last night. It's, it's not so much that veronica has reinvented herself as she keeps framing it. She was that person all along. She is more her dad than her mom so, yes, which?
Speaker 1:if that's the case, then I mean the tv. The showrunners are saying like well, that's a damn good thing, because mom's awful yes, yes is there. Do you think there's a commentary on sort of fashion, the sort of blonde fashionista, whatever consumerism Like? Is there a feminist or misogynist critique with the mom and that's not who she really was, or am I like I haven't seen it?
Speaker 3:I think it's more taken for granted than that. I mean, I think that might have been different. As I was watching it again this last time, I was like how different would this be if it had been created by a woman? I mean, there certainly were women on the writers team and at some point, I think the third season, which gets awkward, because the third season has some terrible, terrible sexual politics. I did not re-watch the third season this time for a reason, and not just because logan and veronica keep getting together and breaking up again, which is depressing, I think it's. It's kind of like fashion isn't even a thing. There's no, I mean it to the extent that that's the signifier in high school. Wanda is a goth kid, max is a nerdy girl, but it's just sort of taken for granted. It's more about with the mom, it's more about she's an alcoholic, but I think she's a horrible person anyway.
Speaker 2:There's also, I feel like they give very complex readings between Veronica and Lily because both of them could be like, oh, just dizzy blonde, you know, because they're both very, very pretty, blonde, popular, all of those things. And Veronica is underneath this hard-bitten PI.
Speaker 2:Like that's who she is and Lily is not someone I would like you know the way that she conducts herself, but she is very savvy and very do, whereas if she had survived and she had been a 36 year old playing that, playing Aaron Eccles like that, I think she would have survived and thrived and been done, done wonderful things, things, and you know, these are all things that I don't personally prize in myself or in necessarily in people close to me, but I don't feel like the show makes it seem like she's a bad person for that right, right, it's just a role model in a way.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yes, that's who she is. She makes no apologies for it and she is happy to be that person um and I I really I appreciated that and they like there's an understanding of why she and veronica are friends, like they kind of make sense together, like the, the hard-bitten pi and the femme fatale, basically yeah, no, I like, I like that there's no apologies for lily.
Speaker 3:She knows who she is. If, if anybody on the show, she probably, she and Keith probably know best who they are. And unfortunately, in Lily's case, she does underestimate Aaron Eccles and that's that's it for that.
Speaker 2:In terms of reinventing yourself, like the other thing that I find interesting thinking about. That is because logan is is trying to reinvent himself, but who he is at heart is is a big softy, right? Yeah, in a lot of ways, because I'm thinking about like early on, like like the second or third or fourth episode, they did stunt casting and had paris Hilton play his girlfriend it's the second episode.
Speaker 2:I was like all right, paris, yeah yeah, and the way that they show him interacting with her, because I didn't really notice it the first time through, but watching it the second time, I was like oh, he's someone who really likes to dote on his girlfriends. Yeah, like that's who he is. And, in terms of the like, if I need someone punched in the face, i's who he is. And in terms of the like, if I need someone punched in the face, I'll whistle. He is Mr Protective, like that's his other thing.
Speaker 3:Right, right, that's his MO. Yeah, and it comes out as rage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's actually why he seemed like a psychopath in the first episode. He takes a crowbar to car, to veronica's car. I was just like this is gonna be the love interest? Absolutely fucking not. But that was protective too, because it was because of duncan.
Speaker 3:If I remember correctly, it's been a while I think so, and then weevil comes and rescues her. Veronica does require a lot of rescuing physically because she's very she's kristin bell yeah, yeah, who can fit in your pocket?
Speaker 3:yes, logan. Well, so the the Logan thing's interesting. I was watching it as it, the show as it happened, and it was the television without pity days, where each week you'd watch the show and then you would desperately wait for the amazing recap on television without pity. But it it wasn't this era, I mean, like the fourth season, I did get spoiled. I knew that, tracy, no spoilers for you. But yeah, logan dies at the end of the fourth season by the time it gets to. My favorite episode is the Christmas episode from the first season, where Logan and Veronica have a lot of cute snippy banter and I was like oh, okay. And then a couple episodes later he comes charging to her rescue, rescue, and then they make out on the deck of the hotel and I was like it is so.
Speaker 2:I did not know I needed this and it is amazing I actually watching that episode just the point where he uh like she is in trouble and like they, they're on the phone, yeah it like he calls, they're having a normal conversation and then all of a sudden she's in trouble, um, and and so he knows that something's happening, uh, and so he comes and and basically like knocks out the guy who appears to be kidnapping her and like just the fact that he showed up to knock her out, like I rewound and watched, and rewound and watched that several times and then like 10 minutes later they're kissing. I'm like man, I should have saved my uh, yeah, because it is hot, but him, him hitting the, the guy is like hot as hell I know and I don't want to be that person, but I'm like.
Speaker 3:This is where, like, and the one where she goes in the second season, where she goes to the bar and he comes in and then she's like well, you could have been killed, why did you do that like? But he, but, he had to.
Speaker 2:Although at the same time I also loved the moment, like when he realizes his mom really is dead and cause they had some belief that maybe she faked it. And uh, and he, like, collapses in her arms, sobbing because he's, he's underneath, he's got this soft underbelly. But, uh, my view of Logan started to change in the episode. There's an episode where it starts off with him hiring homeless men to fight.
Speaker 3:Oh, the bum fights. Oh yeah, that's a good episode. Where then the? Um sorry, you tell it yeah.
Speaker 2:So so you start with that and I'm I'm like this. This guy is not, is irredeemable. This is horrifying because he is a child of extraordinary privilege and then by the end of it, you are very much seeing how badly broken he is because the bum fights come out. And it's bad for Aaron Eccles, who is a movie star, because his son is doing this and so, for PR, they go and serve food at a soup kitchen and Logan, to tweak his dad and knowing what's coming we don't know, but we know what's coming, but he knows what's coming Says like I'm so proud of my dad, he's giving a million dollars to the soup kitchen. And so the end of the show is logan picking a belt from his father's closet while his mother just sits and drinks and listens to the the sound of the, the belt hitting his back so it's, it's.
Speaker 3:It's something I mean like if you, if he's not an actor, I'd be like oh so attractive, so handsome, but he, he sells it. There's I was reading some trivia on imdb this week and there's something early on where logan wasn't supposed to do much in the episode and rob thomas was like give that boy something else to do and they, they, they give him a big dramatic scene. I don't remember which scene it is, but it just, it just works. I think that's what mom was like. There was no. You know, I watched the episode. I didn't really get it. They're just teenagers and there was no really good love interest. I'm like you have to keep going. But she wasn't. She wasn't here for it.
Speaker 1:I want to go back to something that, um, I want to go back to something that Joanna said while you were talking about it, because I think hidden in what you said is kind of why we do this show. You said I don't want to be that person, but I was like, oh about about Logan rescuing her repeatedly and like how that pulls on your heartstrings or whatever the right metaphor is for that, like that satisfaction from that. And you were just talking and you were like I don't want to be that person. Can we dig into that a little bit? About like what, what this show is like activating that you, your your intellect is like I shouldn't like that, but your heart is like damn I mean, is it just because I read too many romance novels and read them too young?
Speaker 3:um, that part of me is like but, but what I like about it is in this particular instance is, yes, he comes to rescue her, but veronica does an awful lot of rescuing too, of everybody. At the end of the first season, her dad literally runs through fire to rescue his daughter. But veronica rescues keith at various points. As much as I mean they make a big thing. I mean, at one point in the third season, she, she breaks into someone's house through the dog door and of course it's keith who's investigating and the guy's like nobody could have gotten into that door, it would have been a tiny burglar. And keith's like, okay, well, I know who did that.
Speaker 3:Um, so they, they do like to to make a point about how she's this extremely small, blonde, hard-bitten private detective. But she does her fair share of rescuing. She's, she's smart about it and they do. I mean, it bothers me. Sometimes there's episodes where she gets real shrill and weepy and I'm like, come on, be the continual badass, but she's 16 and she thinks her dad died. So I have to give her some slack and this is off your point tracy. But I I like, yes, part of the viscerally I'm like, yay, he's coming to her rescue. But I also really love that it goes the other way Veronica's rescuing people, sometimes physically. She has a taser and she will use it repeatedly. But yeah, I'm not sure what it says about me that I still watch the show. I'm a middle-aged lady and I'm like, yay, he burst in and he punches out the narc, yay.
Speaker 2:There's also. There's something about how, as a culture, we're primed to like the bad boy, love redemption arc, love the the rescue, but also like what's different from this media to media that might've come out in like the sixties, maybe even is that Veronica is competent and is capable, and there are times when she gets in over her head and needs help rather than it being like, oh, what should I do? The entire time? Yeah, but there is still like I would watch the hell out of a show where a woman is able to get herself out of it. So I mentioned this in a in a previous episode the movie Atomic Blonde. I don't know if you've seen it.
Speaker 3:I have seen that.
Speaker 2:So that one. What I really liked about that is it's Shirley's Throne and it has her doing stuff and she's like spy. Has her doing stuff, uh, and she's like spy. Has her doing stuff, like uh, taking on like three, six foot four 250 pound men at once. And charlie's throne is not as as short as uh, as kristin bell, but she, if you fold her, you could also fit her in your pocket. Yeah, but they have her.
Speaker 2:The fight choreography. Choreography is such that it's clear that how someone who is that size would be able to prevail against opponents who are so much bigger than her and so like. There is there's something very, very viscerally satisfying about that, because I still come back to that, those fight scenes in my head, over and over and over again. But I've re-watched veronica and logan many, many, many, many, many times, so there's something that just sings about that. That's that sense of and like some of it's, the mutual need for each other. I mean the fact that she is able to see his soft underbelly and like takes care of him when he is, is like completely lost.
Speaker 2:And I don't, I don't know what that says. Is that entirely conditioning? Probably not. Some of it is is wiring. You know, just, I was talking to my spouse yesterday about how much I love love stories and he's like I just can't relate and I'm like I don't get that, like I just like I just don't get not being interested in that. And you know, I don't think that that's a male, female thing. I really do think that's a brain chemistry thing.
Speaker 3:Right, it's, it's very the emotional connection, like in the movie and in the fourth season season and every season. They can't, they know each other and that's part of the reinvention thing is who you can know. She knows his daughter, he, he. There's even something, I think, in the first season when Veronica and Keith are talking about their, her mom and why she left, and there's a lot of like the, the one who loves you is the one who stays, and I think there's even something about knowing who your people are, but knowing them, like Veronica and Logan know each other. And it's true of other people. I mean, in the very first episode, wallace, who we haven't talked about but who is great, is just her friend. Wallace says you know, underneath Veronica, you're a marshmallow, and then that like took off. The fans call themselves marshmallows.
Speaker 3:Veronica references it in her voiceover, so he can already see that there is it's not complexity, there's layers to people, but a lot of people on this show don't bother to look or they are, are just unknowable. And that's what I love, one of the things I love about veronica she has, she's, she's genuinely friends with weevil, the badass pch or um, that's the name of the gang you know and and yes, veronica uses people. She's always like I need a favor, can you go do this thing? Wallace is always endangering his status as a basketball player to steal files from the principal's office for. But people also know they can come to Veronica. At one point she says Veronica, I need a favor, veronica, I need some help. She says if I had 50 dollars for every time someone said that. And then she points out that is her fee.
Speaker 3:It's very funny. Um, because she's like, haha, she's like no, literally I need 50 dollars before I can help you. It's also a very funny show. I'm not sure I'm conveying that very well, but it's hilarious, it's. I mean I like romance novels because of the emotional connection I love, and you don't always get that so much when it's hum. I mean I like romance novels because of the emotional connection I love and you don't always get that so much when it's Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor there's, there's witty banter, nothing against their acting skills, but in the TV format you have the time to build those relationships and Keith and Veronica, just it's worth watching the show, even if you're like I don't care for any of these plot points or you know, and logan does nothing for me but keys and veronica.
Speaker 1:It's so worth watching for the father daughter because they both bend over backwards for each other and it's amazing you know I'm thinking, since I haven't seen it the parent-child, father-daughter relationship is is one that is really it can be very satisfying to watch. I'm and I'm hearing about a lot of unsavory mothers. Are there any good mothers? Because I feel like in literature, in media in general, mother mothers of of any gender, kid good mothers, mother kid relationships that we want to see and emulate are kind of rare. Is that true also of veronica mars wallace's?
Speaker 2:mom is pretty good, isn't she?
Speaker 3:wallace's mom is is great. She's also part of the keith's tradition of dating people he shouldn't date because it negatively impacts his daughter's life. But um, wallace's mom, she kind of trails off at some point, but she's important and she is a protective mother. She's pretty great. And there's an episode and it gets me every time.
Speaker 3:So one of Veronica's friends is the computer nerd of the high school played by Tina Majorino, who is delightful. She is delightful. And then there's this girl called Madison Sinclair who is awful and is consistently delightfully awful through the entire thing. And it turns out Mac, tina Majorino and Madison Sinclair were switched at birth and so they've grown up with the wrong parents and it's like cartoonishly obvious that they're in the wrong house when, when mac goes to madison sinclair's house, it's filled with books and there's all these wonderful things. And so mac's biological mother, who is not her, her mother.
Speaker 3:There's a heartbreaking scene. At the end the mom figures out that's, that's who mac is, and she sits in the car and they put their hands on either side of the glass. So, yes, there's a good mother and her name is mac's mother. I don't even find out her name, but. But she doesn't get what they don't get, what they need, because it's neptune and nothing good ever happens. That's where, that's where my name went, and then I'm like oh yeah, wallace's mom is pretty great too since you've seen it more recently.
Speaker 2:I'm wondering how the there is a single episode where it's a classmate who we never see again, because that happens who works at a video store, who wants help finding his father's name is john smith, who turns out to have transitioned yeah I just remember that they it was a cis woman playing his parents um, yeah, which they? They would not. I don't think they do these days I hope they wouldn't.
Speaker 3:That was one of the ones where I was like I hope they would have done that. Um, that's, I think it's like the third. I'm looking at my notes because I took notes while I watched. Yeah, it's the third, the third episode, so they weren't pulling any any punches. It is a cis woman. It's Melissa Leo playing the, the um transition biological father. But it is, I think, at least for the time, very sensitively done. There's no blame. Veronica even says, like, look, so so can I do this succinctly? There's this kid who works at a video store and has he's been told that his father died, but he thinks it's not true, so he hires veronica to find his dad. Meanwhile they keep showing at the video store. Melissa leo, the actress, keeps coming, coming in and special ordering DVDs. I mean, like you're so helpful, johnny, I'm making the name up. Thank you so much. You always have such good advice for me.
Speaker 2:At the end it turns out that this woman who keeps coming in to get these special order videos is in fact the parent that the kid is looking for and it's like an hour drive away, so like comes in once a week, yeah, just to, just to see, to see her kid, her kid, because, um, the, the mother will not allow yeah uh contact and it's.
Speaker 3:It's not a magical like oh yay, reunion because it's neptune and it's life. Things don't happen that neatly. But Veronica even at this point she's 16, I guess is like she drives an hour to see you once a week. Think about it. Because this kid's like that's weird, I don't like this. This is making me very unhappy. And Veronica's like sit with it and think about it. No-transcript, because I was like oh no, am I going to be? Is this going to be that good to watch? Now that it's been, you know, but I think it was handled fairly well. Hopefully nobody will come at me in the comments.
Speaker 2:I remember that episode really stuck with me, even though it didn't have a lot of the things that I kept coming back for, would like the romance and like the long story arc about Lily and all of that, because it felt true in a way about you know how a parent being stuck in this double bind like either not be herself or not see her kid and and so like, was doing the absolute best that she could with the situation that she had and had found a way to check in on her kid on a weekly basis and like it just there.
Speaker 2:There was something about that that really warmed my heart, in that, like in this really awful unfair world that we live in that is so negative and dismissive towards anyone who is marginalized, anyone who is different, that there are still ways to find your way through, and and that's like this in 2004, this, this TV show, showed this and showed it as a positive, not not positive, I mean, like it's all tragic, but that there is. There is a positive ending, that the kid is able to accept that their father is a human being, Right, and she loves him and she is doing whatever she can to both be herself and be in his life.
Speaker 1:You know, it's really interesting that the main lesson one of the main lessons, joanna, that you started this with was that you can't reinvent yourself. You can only be who you are, and I take if that is in fact one of the overarching lessons of this series that their third episode was about a trans woman yeah, who I mean? You said you can't reinvent yourself in this show, so this, but you can't come you can't become who you are you are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so ultimately in in my mind that my mind that is an embracing and endorsement of the humanity and the sort of truth with a capital T of this trans identity. In the writing I think the casting of a cis woman to play that part is a different conversation. But in the writing, to be in this universe where you can't reinvent yourself, you can only become who you are, to sort of say like this is who she is and she's working to continue to be your parent and be who she is, that actually feels really good to me, just as a outsider listening to to you two describing this episode, especially that it's episode three yeah, there, it's right out of the gate, yeah so I mean the casting.
Speaker 1:I think I hope we would do better today. Yeah, not, and cast a trans woman to play a trans woman, but but the writing sounds really trans, accepting and, and, and even embracing and celebrating. Yeah, within the world of the noir where there is no justice.
Speaker 3:Which is part of what's so jarring about the third season, because suddenly that sort of sensitivity and and thoughtful like there's a couple episodes about the closeted gay students on campus and part of me is like, oh, you couldn't even write this episode now because things have changed so much. But it also could have been a much more tragic episode if you write it now. But then you get to the third season, which is problematic because it's a college, so you're not in your same safe Neptune High. As Emily said, shows often have trouble transitioning, you lose some of the main characters or it's like really unrealistic because they all went to school together.
Speaker 3:It's not quite, mr Feeny suddenly also being your college professor, right right, a linguist teacher. And then they switched from having and it was a deliberate choice, but it just didn't work they switched from having one overarching big plot to having three overarching, like we wrapped up one, we wrapped up one, but then it also gets real squirrely and anti-feminist and just I mean there's some problems throughout. I mean the whole season, the whole plot of the show starts because veronica was drugged at a party and raped, and then there's a couple times there's once in the first season, once in a second, and then there's a whole third season where she sees a friend of hers in a vulnerable state at a party and she leaves them there, and that's that really bothers me and it's not not because she's like feeling unsafe herself and protecting herself.
Speaker 1:It's not.
Speaker 3:There's in the first season Meg's not drugged but she's unhappy at a party or drinking I don't know something. I wrote why did you leave her there? And Duncan's like she'll be fine and like walks around and go away and she's like I'll go deal with something else. And then the second season Jackie is super drunk at a party wandering around and yes, she's mad at Jackie, but those two things really bother me. And then you get to the third season and you're like what is happening.
Speaker 2:That was another aspect of why I abandoned the third season, because it was clear that it was. I thought it was going to be overarching for the entire season, but there's like a serial rapist on campus who cuts off the the hair of the the women he rapes yeah um and so like. Not only are these women going through this trauma, but they are visually like. You can clock them like. Oh well, she must have, that must have happened to her too. She's got no hair.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but so and that's played a little even like that. That that starts in the second season and that's an episode that's hard to watch, cause Veronica has an issue she gets better at it where she jumps to conclusions too soon and often that's that's like part of the plot of the mystery of the week where, like she's totally wrong, um, and it comes back to bite her but also comes often comes back and ruins the life of somebody else. So she does that in the second episode where she's visiting the college she ends up at and there's the she. She learns about this serial rapist. But and this is why I don't watch the third season again one of the little plots in the third season is the feminist sorority. They fake a rape to like call attention to something, and so veronica has no, you're liars and I'm like why am I watching this?
Speaker 3:what happened to my show? No, that's. I had a visceral reaction just now.
Speaker 1:It's, it's that and that was because I've forgotten that I was like I know there's a reason I don't this whole the weird thing and it's, it's that and that was because I've forgotten that.
Speaker 3:I was like I know there's a reason I don't this whole the weird thing and it's sexual politics and it's. And then on logan and ron keep breaking up and they do the stanford experiment and, as my sister said, why would hearst? College is a messed up place? And then I was reading you know, I'm like, oh, that's why I don't watch this, because it's there's a hark of vagrant comment with a straw feminist that are like and it's pretty much you'll have to go look at it.
Speaker 1:Um sorry, I don't know what that means. What does hark of vagra mean?
Speaker 3:it's, oh, it's. She's a cartoonist from like maybe 10 years ago and she's very funny and I'll send it to you. But she has a very funny comment about the straw feminist that just walk around and like kissing at you.
Speaker 1:Oh, got it got it okay, we'll include that in the show notes, yeah yes, so I don't.
Speaker 3:I did watch the last episode because because it it did not get renewed after the third season and then later they had the amazing kickstarter which I was a part of and had the movie and then, five years after that, they had the, the fourth and final season. I thought the ending of the third season was good and was appropriate. I mean, I did kickstart the movie but I was. I was okay where it ended, but a lot of people really wanted more. But that's the only one I'll watch is I'll watch the last episode.
Speaker 2:Wow, wow.
Speaker 2:So, well and what's frustrating to me to to learn that I like cause I. I I quit season three. Before we got to the, the, the straw feminists was. Uh, I felt like the show did a relatively good job, talking about sexual assault in particular there. I think it was season one, it might've been season two. There's the young teacher who she loves who someone accuses of season two. There's the young teacher who she loves who someone accuses of oh, adam Scott, yeah, played by Adam Scott, and so, because Veronica really likes him, he's a great teacher she refuses to believe that it's true and then learns that she's wrong. And I really appreciated that episode because it made it clear how abusers use other people to give themselves cover you know, and and I thought that it was really really well done.
Speaker 2:And then, like Adam Scott is so good at playing like genuine and charming and also like real creepy yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, that's, that's a good, a good episode, and yes, and that's another one where she's making the assumptions and she is called out on it in a big way and it has a big impact yeah, of course that's how she would respond.
Speaker 2:Like she doesn't have the life experience to understand what's happening and like in her life experience, people who treat her well are good people and people who don't are the bad people, and so clearly he can't be a bad person. Right, it felt like it was very well done and a really good, because even as I was watching it, I was just like I was watching it as an adult, but I was like huh, I wonder what's going on. Like I had a moment of like I don't want to believe it of him either right, in part because he's adam scott and he's adorable and charming and and, but at the same time, like walks like a duck, talks like a duck yeah and it turns yeah, if someone's accusing him, there's a good reason for it, Because you know, like why would you do that?
Speaker 2:Like, a 16 year old girl is not going to do that, for no reason not actually the one he assaulted.
Speaker 3:She's doing it for her friend, yes, but it was true, unlike in the third episode where they're like we'll get attention for our cause but by lying and it's. It's not the same in the third season so we've been talking for a long minute.
Speaker 1:Joanna, you came to tell us a number of things. Did we get through the things that you wanted to make sure that you shared about your analysis of Veronica Mars?
Speaker 3:and he's my favorite part. And then I'm sorry, tracy, but I'm tangenting. Um, my favorite part is that in like the fourth episode or something, ryan hansen, who plays dick casablanca who's very important later, but he's he's in the background of the bros doing something on the bleachers and he's credited as dick casablanca's like. He doesn't even have any lines and they knew who this kid was, who this character was, and he's delightful. I mean, he's sort of awful but he's delightful.
Speaker 2:He's. He's another one where, like everyone's more complex than you think they are yeah, cause he is. He is just a bro, but he's not. There's more to him than that. There's more to him than just the the bro and that I find really fascinating. And one of the things that I really love about the show is it makes it clear that no one is just a stereotype.
Speaker 3:Right, but yes, so we covered much as I would love to talk about, and I mean Tessa Thompson's in the second season and she's awful.
Speaker 3:And then you love her and then she never comes back, and then she's Valparais in the Thor movies and it's fun and there's just hilarious guest stars. It's really. The first two seasons are delightful, and then you skip the third season and then you watch the movie and then the fourth season is a little disappointing. But yes, thank you for letting me invent my reinvention, because Jackie Tessa Thompson's character plays into that too.
Speaker 2:I was thinking about that when you were talking about the reinvention. I was just like oh yeah, that's, Tessa Thompson is another version of that.
Speaker 3:Because you do. You're in high school. I mean, my youngest sibling did this and then later really did it. You're like I'm going to try something new. So Jackie's character shows up, new student, and she's like this highfalutin very bitchy princessy and like this highfalutin very bitchy princessy, um, and then it turns out it's all a lie. She, she was sent away from new york where she has a son and like it's revealed in the very last episode. But she, literally she says I tried to reinvent myself and I, I it didn't. I mean, it didn't take. She becomes a nicer person and she, she goes back to new york to take care of her because she's trying to be a good parent.
Speaker 3:all these bad examples of because her dad is not great. The one who lives in Neptune, gia Goodman's dad, turns out to be the murderer. A lot of dads become murderers. So it's not just that the dads are great. Most of the dads aren't great either.
Speaker 2:It's really just Keith Mars and Jessica Jones. The actress who plays Jessica Jones is Gia.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I was looking it all up trying to see what shows came out. She wasn't Jessica Jones until after the movie. Yeah, she dies in the movie. Yeah, and then I really will stop, tracy, I promise. The other fun person who's on this show is Max Greenbaum, who's Schmidt on New Girl. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but on this show in the first few seasons he's not Schmidt like at all, and then in the movie he's been Schmidt and he can't get back to Deputy Leo. He's too Schmidt in the movie.
Speaker 1:It's kind of funny.
Speaker 3:Because Deputy Leo's like Veronica. What's going on?
Speaker 2:he's not how schmidt talks not very bright and very, very handsome and uh well, I mean, that actor is just amazingly handsome, but he's very like a slow deputy. Yeah, he's deputy dog.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Goodman says he's tough but mumbly which is, which is not great, that's a great description and then in the movie I'm like, oh, he was Schmidt by now, and so he can't quite pull back.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm done. Well, you're not done, but let me reflect back to you what I heard and then Joanna, you and Emily can nuance or edit or correct me. So Veronica Mars is what I'm getting is that Veronica Mars is a modern take on a film noir kind of genre, placing a high school, a petite, a very petite high school girl, as as the detective in the in the film noir. So the overarching themes, the overarching lessons that are true, with a capital t, in the universe of veronica mars, or that you cannot reinvent yourself, you can only become who you are. You can only be who you are or become who you are.
Speaker 1:Life is tragic, terrible things happen and continue to happen and there will be no justice. Yeah, and there can be real and genuine relationships amidst that tragedy, where you show up for one another as much as you are able. Those are the fundamental kind of lessons that I heard you describing. So some of the other kind of sub pieces that I heard was that no one is a stereotype, like we all have nuance and layers. No one is a stereotype Like we all have nuance and layers.
Speaker 1:And some of the good things about the show are that we, we, it allows us to kind of indulge our romanticism of rescuing without being, without needing to self insert as a helpless damsel in distress. I also heard about sort of not judging, for instance, the Lily character, who is maybe not someone that like. I heard from Emily and I think a little bit from you, joanna, that Lily's not someone that one necessarily the average viewer kind of would aspire to be, and yet we don't judge her as bad. She's savvy, she's, uh, likes sex, she uses that to her own advantage and we don't judge her for it or we don't sort of the show doesn't right.
Speaker 1:that's what I mean. The show does not sort of. The show doesn't Right. That's what I mean. The show does not sort of say to us well, she's just a slut and she deserved what she got, which is what we might see from a dead promiscuous teenager in other shows.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Let me see. What else did I hear? Neptune is awful Like on par with Sunnydale, as which is over the hell mouth.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:And you didn't say this, but I heard some critique of. I heard some critique of capitalism and or maybe better stated, critique of sort of glassism and sort of the stratification and extreme privilege, Because you described this movie star and his family of extreme privilege being like so dysfunctional, toxically, so dangerously so, and they were shown as sort of being super hyper privileged. So in that I'm I'm hearing a critique of extreme privilege and classism.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I think it's another viewer would would make more of that, and rightfully so. I mean, a lot of the show is about so that there's an invented zip code where the rich people live, not 90909, so they're all o-niners, are the rich kids I mean. A lot of the second season plot is that the guy who turns out to be the big bad in this season wants to incorporate the town of Neptune, which would leave all the rich people in the middle and everybody else, just you know, starving on the outside of the walls. And Keith, bless his heart, he's very easygoing, but he's like you. You realize it. If I became sheriff again, I wouldn't be able to afford to live in the town I was sheriff of, which is like maybe the closest to a verbal critique other than veronica complaining about the o-niners. But the plots it's. It's really clear that the classism in this town is tearing it apart, and it gets worse as the and more explicit as as the seasons go on.
Speaker 3:That's actually a lot of what the fourth season is about, too is about the rich people trying to kick all the poor people out of town, and that comes up. We didn't. We didn't talk much about weevil and the, but a lot of weevil's plot lines are about um and his name is eli, and and keith, bless his heart, is always very careful to call him eli, not weevil but a lot of his plot lines are about the, the class divide, and how it's ruining, ruining lives of the rich people, of the poor people so I also heard.
Speaker 1:Well, we spent a little time talking about the trans mom, the trans woman plot line from an early episode and we talked about there how, though the casting choice would not be made. Today it sounds like the writing was actually quite progressive, especially for 2004 and general. I'm hearing, until season three, fairly feminist and progressive writing in the series in general, and then like a switcheroo in season three where straw feminists are hissing at us on the college campus. So that's sort of an interesting thing to note as one watches and an interesting thing for us to note as viewers that we see the brand and the series, we want to think of it as a comprehensive whole, but the actual people involved in making it change, and so we have different writers and directors. The actors stay the same, which is how we mainly engage with TV shows, but the, or often, the actors stay the same. I guess they don't always, you know, but they recast Darren in Bewitched all those years ago.
Speaker 2:But the writers and the directors, and don't forget Becky and Roseanne Right.
Speaker 1:So you know, I think that's a really important thing for us to remember as consumers of media, is that each of those anti-racist whatever the thing is that we're looking for, just because it starts that way, doesn't mean it stays that way.
Speaker 3:And vice versa. There's that, and also, I think a lot of what they were trying to do from the beginning was to sort of like cynical, be suspicious, certainly as Veronica's MO, and it just took a turn it shouldn't have taken what did I forget in terms of highlighting our conversation, or what did I miss?
Speaker 2:the idea of a redemption arc, I think is interesting just because of where that leaves us with Logan. But then there are others who have kind of a redemption arc, but all of them, like what you were talking about, joanna, is like no one actually changes, it's just your perception of them changes. So the character of Jackie, like she was trying to reinvent herself and she was trying to to be this thing that she wasn't, and so there there was, like it's not just people's perception of her changing, but it's also a perception of herself.
Speaker 3:yeah, yes, people working through it, like the fourth season, which I did not have time to re-watch, but I read like logan has a therapist and I think that it's not just he's decided to be a well, some might say more boring character, when he's not just a total bad boy, he's trying to work through it, he's trying to to help himself be the better person and he dies in like the last two minutes of the show.
Speaker 2:It's bad because, that's you know, it's jupiter right, no justice, neptune, neptune it's neptune and it does.
Speaker 3:I think it does. This is me reading totally into it, because I don't think they intended to make any more after that. But it kind of frees veronica because she can go do the tv plot that's gonna make you break up and get back together and make up and get back together. They can't she. She really can go do what she wants. I need to watch the fourth season now that I've got this whole redemption thing in my reinvention thing in my head yeah, I think that.
Speaker 1:Thank you for bringing that back up. I think that's important because I think the redemption arc in general is a trope that we viewers as a culture have been trained to appreciate, and so the interesting take on it here in Neptune is is worth noting. Any other final thoughts.
Speaker 3:No, I promise I won't just start texting you. And then other thing, I will send you the comic strip I'm thinking of with the yeah, and we will link to it in the show notes.
Speaker 1:Joanna, thank you so much for joining us. It was really great to have you.
Speaker 3:Thank you, this was fun.
Speaker 1:Good to spend time with you again, so the next time we meet, emily, I believe it's my turn again.
Speaker 1:And I'm going to be bringing us my deep thoughts about the Electric Company, which was hey you guys, precisely Now viewers here at Guy Girls Media. As the older Guy Girl, when we watched the Electric Company when we were kids, I genuinely believed, I really truly believed, that at Joanna's house they said, hey, you churches. And then at your house they said, hey, you insert your last name here. I genuinely believe that as Tracy Guy, your last name here. I genuinely believe that as Tracy guy. So I'm looking forward to revisiting this show that I haven't seen in I don't know, 35, 38, 40 years, but I think about all the time because of hey you guys. Emily, do you have any listener comments that you want to share with us? I do.
Speaker 2:I have two listener comments about Reality Bites. From Jen, she says as a teenager I was all about Ethan Hawke's character. As an adult it's like go with Ben Stiller. Jake, who is Jen's spouse, watched Reality Bites for the first time just a couple of years ago and didn't understand why there was any debate there. Yeah yeah. And then from my friend Megan, about Reality Bites. She wrote sigh, I blame my poor romantic choices of the late 90s on Ethan Hawke and Christian Slater too. Yeah Right, I'm like same same, megan, same same.
Speaker 1:Totally, totally Well, listener, if you have deep thoughts about our deep thoughts, we would like to hear them for real. So you can email us at guygirlsmedia at gmailcom. You can go to guygirlsmediacom and leave a comment on our listener forum, or you can find us on social media. We are everywhere, almost everywhere, either under our own names or under guy girls media. So until next time, until next time, thank you. Do you like stickers? Sure, we all do. If you head over to guy girls mediacom, slash, sign up and share your address with us, we'll send you a sticker. It really is that easy. But don't wait, there's a limited quantity. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin MacLeod from Incompetechcom. Find full music credits in the show notes. Until next time, remember, pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head?