1.03: Meet John Smith

A Long Time Ago on Veronica Mars: A squeaky little freshman hired Veronica to help find his missing father; Duncan threw his medication down the drain, with hallucinatory results; Keith developed a crush on Veronica’s guidance counsellor; and things heated up between Veronica and the supposedly sexy and charming Troy, but still aren’t as hot as her hot’n’heavy Duncan flashbacks. Join Jenny Owen Youngs and Helen Zaltzman to investigate Veronica Mars Season 1 Episode 3: Meet John Smith, and ponder such mysteries as whether or not it’s creepy that Keith used his PI Powers to track down his crush to her regular coffee shop; how Veronica can even pretend to enjoy Troy’s prank tales; and whether the writers knew what they were doing with Duncan, or just threw dice at the beginning of each of his scenes to decide whether to go with ⚁ silent but helpful Duncan, ⚂ milky Duncan, ⚄ sardonically-toasting-the-former-family-dog Duncan, or ⚅ one-man production of Grease Duncan. See more about this episode, and a transcript, at the podcast’s official site VMIpod.com/1-03. Find @VMIpod on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. This episode was edited and mixed by Zach McNees; the music is by Martin Austwick and Jenny Owen Youngs; the logo is by Hrishikesh Hirway; Lo Dodds gives us the LoDown. Distributed by PRX.org. This week’s challenge: burn someone a mix CD with the new 311 on there.