Note: Some screen caps for this episode are from Jason-Dohring.com

South of the Border and the Brigadoon Diner

Not a LoVe moment but I have to confess that I love the introduction to this episode with Logan dry-heaving in the front seat of Troy's father's car. Logan is just so funny-looking in this scene and his fake jovial grin at the customs officer at the border checkpoint is also absolutely hilarious.

At the Brigadoon Cafe (USA Border Grille and Diner), Troy goes to the bathroom and returns to where Luke and Logan are finishing their meal. When they go to the car park, they stand before an empty parking space.

"Isn't this where we parked? Tell me that this isn't where we parked. Please, someone tell me that you can see my father's car and this heart attack that I'm having right now is for nothing." Troy demands in a panicked voice.

"Well maybe it's like Brigadoon. If you come back in a hundred years, it'll be right back in this spot." Logan comments unhelpfully.

I think it's hilarious that Logan can reference Brigadoon. It's possible that because his parents are in show business he knows of the movie, it's possible that Neptune High once put on a production of the musical. No, the fact that he knows about musicals doesn't mean he's gay.

"Troy, did you lock it?" Luke demands in a panic.

"Did I lock it?" Troy demands half laughingly, half, "you've got to be kidding".

Logan lies down in the parking space. Lucky he's not in China, you never know what might be on the ground there, big boy.

A little later, we return to the boys where Luke is betraying signs of definite distress.

"What's your problem? It's not even your ass on the line," Troy comments.

"Yeah, I know. This just really sucks, man...." Luke mutters.

"Wow man, that's profound," Logan says sarcastically. I feel like saying: "Hey he's your buddy, man." Remember, I didn't like Logan yet.

"My parents come home in five days. If the car's not back before my dad is, I'm going to be singing hymns and doing rosary beads before you can say The Passion¨"

Veronica pulls up in front of them. "Dude! Where's your car? " she demands teasingly.

When Troy frowns, shakes his head and is not laughing, Veronica looks contrite. "Sorry".

Troy walks towards the car. "Ah ..." Veronica says aloud and points to Logan as he also walks towards the car.

"Your monkey's gonna have to ride in the back," she taunted. Hee hee.

"Ha-ha. Nice car,"Logan retorts as he climbs into the back seat. "God, it must have been a huge cereal box," he comments. Hee hee.

Veronica is about to fight back but then Troy interrupts the bickering couple and deflects the attention to himself. When we return from the credits, it's daylight. I have no idea how long it takes to drive back from the border but presumably quite a while.

Veronica pulls up outside a large house and Luke and Logan climb out. Luke doesn't say thank you but interestingly enough, Logan's the one who says teasingly, "Thanks for the ride. Does this mean you're gonna play nice now?"

"Walk in front of the car, we'll see," she dares him invitingly with a very arch tone in her voice.

As Logan walks in front of the car, Veronica revs up the engine with a smile on her face.

Logan also smiles and he slaps the hood of the car with his jacket in a very playful fashion.

The above moments between Veronica and Logan were very playful and flirtatious. At first I tried to rationalize it away given that Veronica accuses him of being involved in the drug smuggling later in the episode but when I thought about it, they were genuine moments of playfulness which were consistent and within character. Logan had had a long night - tired from all sorts of exertion, very hung over and also very tired from what was presumably quite a long drive. He was not in any mood or condition to be dissembling so what you get here is probably Logan at his most unguarded and spontaneous.

The whole monkey / car from a cereal box exchange was extremely cute and I was giggling uncontrollably. For the moment they had forgotten their AEF (Arch Enemies Forever) moniker and fallen into being friends who insult one another playfully at every single opportunity.

Then the scene in front of Luke's house when Logan thanks her - he didn't have to do that, and she does the car revving and he does the jacket slap - that was just chock full of Logan / Veronica playful flirtiness. Both of them had cute little smiles on their face and it was an unguarded moment. If Troy had cared to notice, he would have seen that Veronica's never had an impish expression on her face for him.

Luke's confession, Veronica's instant suspicion of Logan

I have to include this because of Veronica's classic line about steroids, but tangentially I will shoehorn it into my commentary because Veronica instantly suspects Logan of being involved. Besides, this isn't a school paper - there's flexibility permitted in these commentaries ;)

Before I comment on it - was Luke dumb to not only go back to the gym when he had lost the drugs, but why on earth did he lie down and start doing bench presses? He might as well have got a gun, put it in scary steroid guy's hands and said: "Hey, there's something I gotta tell you."

Anyway, Luke has found Veronica. He needs her help.

"Look, I need your help. There's kind of more to this car thing than the-the car. There was a pinata full of steroids in the back seat. I did a run for Hank Zigman. He owns the Zig Zag Sports Club. I wanted to get pumped for Varsity baseball. I was pretty much down for whatever."

"Including shrunken testicles and acne scars. Well, speaking for the women of America, Good plan! Wait. What did Troy and Logan know about this?"

"Nothing. I swear."

Veronica looks skeptical.

"Yeah, all right, Logan knew but he wasn't - he wasn't in on anything."

Hee hee, hee hee. Sorry, Veronica was so funny there and yes, it's a bit typical how she automatically suspects that Logan knew about the plan.

More Logan suspicion: Now he's a car thief?

Normally I wouldn't be giving much commentary on Troy / Veronica dialogue but again, Logan is tangentially involved as Veronica is suspecting him again (this time of wanting to steal Troy's car) but also, Troy is pretty funny in this scene.

Everyone dies of shock as they witness Koala's reluctant praise.

"Here's a thought. If Tijuana was Logan's idea then stealing the car could've been the master plan." Veronica suggests.

"It was more of a meeting of the minds, if you will," Troy tells her.

I love the way Veronica thinks Logan is such a cockroach that he would stoop to stealing cars! In one episode, I want Logan to say: "Veronica honey, even though I wasn't born yet - I confess. I killed Elvis."

Veronica then asks Troy: "Ah, so what was on the menu for this night of grand debauchery?"

"Let's see. From, uh, eight to nine, we brainstormed on how to overthrow Kim Jong-Il. From nine to ten, we deleted the records of the black voters of Florida. After that it was, uh, yeah it was all donkey shows."

"So the usual?"

"Pretty much." Hee hee. All right Troy, hanging out with Logan has sharpened your wit.

Veronica then asks: "Did you meet anyone odd or were you followed? Did you see any suspicious activity?"

"How about all of the above and have you ever been to Tijuana?"

Hee hee. Hee hee. Sorry nothing from me here except hee hee. Ahem.

I'm sure Jerilee is now wishing she had asked someone articulate to do these scene commentaries. {Ha!! Hee hee is one of my most favorite response to things hilarious :) I'm just glad that Logan's witty repartee has rubbed off on Troy.}

Veronica accuses Logan

Logan is crouching down beside his locker. He has a locker on the lower level now - he used to have one on the top level. Maybe after the bong incident in the Pilot, the vice principal kicked him down to a lower level in punishment?

Veronica approaches him, bending down. "Time for a chat?"

They both straighten. "Well. Think if hell froze over, maybe it'd be on the news." He certainly has frosting in his hair so maybe it has.

I don't know whether he means hell must have frozen over for Veronica to approach him to speak or hell would have to have frozen over for him to want to speak with Veronica. A minor point but I'd be interested to know what he meant.

"I just wanna hear more about the steroids you bought last weekend," she explains to him.

"You mean the steroids Luke bought. Wow! You suck at this Nancy Drew stuff. You should get a new hobby." He sort of has a point, she does keep accusing him when he didn't do it, but that's just part of their verbal foreplay I guess. He narrows his eyes very cutely when he tells her he should give up this hobby.

"So you knew he was doing it," Veronica cross-examines him although she has a bit of a smile on her face, too.

"You actually think that I would tell you anything?" he asks her.

He gives a little smirk and then glances over his shoulder when he sees that someone has caught Veronica's attention. He sees Troy coming and says "Hmmm". He then does his standard "okay" gesture with his thumb and finger in a circle. "I guess we're done here, Officer".

Troy walks up to them, Logan whistles and asks: "What's up, T?"

He walks between them, gives Veronica a long, hard stares and then walks away with his football in hand.

This is yet another instance in which Logan when falsely accused of something does not defend himself or offer any information. He first did it in Credit where credit's due, when Veronica accuses him of the credit card transactions and he will do it again in An Echolls Family Christmas when Duncan voices Veronica's suspicion that it was Logan who stole Weevil's money at the poker game. I love the fact that Rob Thomas and the writers are so consistent with the way they write Logan - no defences, no excuses, no giveaway as to his guilt or innocence. He has a kind of: "f*ck you" mentality to accusations of wrongdoing as if he genuinely doesn't care. This is extremely intriguing especially when you consider that there is one time when he does get upset, protest and try to explain....... Can you remember when that moment was?

Confession from Koala

This episode is great for many, many reasons. We discover Troy is a smarmy bastard, Veronica takes sweet, sweet, sweeeeet revenge on him and Koala is sooooooooooo happy it's not funny.

Now that I am a LoVe supporter, this episode has some beautiful little gems in it for crumb-seekers. I will be honest with you and tell you that at the time I first watched this episode, I was not yet a LoVe supporter. Accordingly, at the time none of the Logan/Veronica moments registered on me at all because I still had zero interest in Logan and thus zero interest in a Logan/Veronica relationship.

I'm not sure why I'm explaining this but I guess I just want to be honest and let you know that the observations here are from the point of view of someone who is a LoVe supporter going back in search of scenes that point to an LoVe relationship. It's a bit different from someone who was watching it, saw a scene and thought: "Wow, that could potentially be a relationship".

Now in hindsight, I really love all the little exchanges between Logan and Veronica in this episode, they're just so great and grin-worthy.

Non-LoVe comment - did anyone else laugh uncontrollably during the scene where Luke is listing his Barry Bonds' ball on an internet auction site???

"I mean, two thousand bucks with four bids? These people have no idea what a Barry Bonds' ball's worth."

"No, it's classic bidding strategy. They wait ‘til the end of the auction. Try hitting refresh."

"Classic bidding," Luke says unhappily.

"See, there you go. Twenty-eight hundred. We're almost there."

"No, we're not almost there. I can't do this. I mean, you have no idea what I went through to get this ball. You have no idea what it's going to be worth when he retires!!!"

Veronica holds up her hands, Marcel Marceau'ing a pair of scales. "Luke. A ball or your life. You do the math."

Luke thinks about it and Veronica exclaims in exasperation: "It's a ball!!!!!"

Hee hee!! I love that "could you be any more of a loser" snap in her voice.

Return to the Episode Commentaries' Index