3.11 "Poughkeepsie, Tramps and Thieves"

Aired Jan 30, 2007

Speculation

Wherein Inigo's dream of being Gene Kelly is shattered...

Inigo: I'm speccing on my own
Just speccing on my own
What a glorious feeling
I'm-
wyk: So what's your spec?
Inigo: Oh, hey. Welcome, stranger. Okay, last week grim and I were working on the Mindy/Chip To Die For theory, right? Well, that still works, with Chip or anyone, but I've got a Tim theory that I'm starting to like a lot.
wyk: Tim? Why him?
Inigo: For Tim, one has always been stuck on a motive. The answer is that O'Dell's murder had nothing to do with O'Dell. He's a pawn. The motive was to frame Landry. Using the staged suicide exactly as Veronica wrote it was deliberate and with the intent of having it be investigated. Tim did a dry run when he set up Veronica to find Rory Finch. He knows he can manipulate people on the course of an investigation. The direction he wants it to go is straight to Landry, who is, as Mindy's lover, a prime suspect in O'Dell's death.
wyk: Why use the line in Veronica's paper?
Inigo: To alert Veronica and Keith, with whom he, like Landry, is completely familiar, to the fact the "suicide" isn't suicide. Tim probably wouldn't have known about the scotch and needed something to make the Marses suspicious.
wyk: What was Tim doing on campus that late at night?
Inigo: We know he was at the Pi Sig house.
wyk: To track down Bonnie at the party.
Inigo: Or set up an alibi by making a very public scene that everyone will remember.
wyk: He would need some reason to be on campus the night Dean was killed.
Inigo: Wyk! That is the night the dean was killed. Have you been smoking something? And he's a TA. He doesn't need a "reason" to be on campus.
wyk: He would need a reason to be on campus that late at night.
Inigo: Tim had a reason to be on campus. He was there to attend the frat party. He also has an office on campus. As a teaching assistant he can always claim, if challenged, to be working in his office.
wyk: If he intended to kill the Dean that night, why would he go to the party and have tons of witnesses who can say that he was on campus? Wouldn't it better if no one knew he was on campus?
Inigo: He needed to make an impression at the party that his focus was on Bonnie and her adultery. He needed to be on campus to kill O'Dell. This way, if anyone saw him, he could claim to have been there because of the party, and wandering around because of his being upset, something that many could attest to.

How wicked is adultery really?

wyk: He could have just exposed the affair to get back at Landry. Why go through the trouble of killing someone when there is a chance that he could go to jail for murder?
Inigo: Why does anyone kill anyone when there's a chance they could go to jail? What would exposing the affair achieve? Landry is a philanderer. It's not going to hurt his reputation too much to be found out having an affair with the dean's very attractive wife.
wyk: Who else besides Tim knew that Landry fooled around?
Inigo: Fair point. But he is ogled by his students. He's unmarried. In what way is he harmed if the affair is made public?
wyk: The publicity from the sex scandal could pressure Landry into quitting, which would make Tim happy. Getting Landry fired is a less risky alternative than killing the Dean if Tim just wanted to get rid of Landry.
Inigo: I think it goes much deeper than getting rid of Landry. Landry is the target, the reason why he's doing this. As far as I know, getting rid of Landry won't make him the criminology professor and I would think a new criminology professor might want his own selected TA. This isn't about making Landry jobless. It's about making Landry suffer/pay.
wyk: Public humiliation and being fired seems like it would cause a person to suffer.
Inigo: I don't see what's humiliating about having an affair with a married woman. He's a criminology professor, not an ethics one. He wouldn't be a hypocrite.
wyk: The media attention from the affair would be humiliating. She is not just a married woman. She is woman who is married to the Dean of the school and the mother of a kid who just had bone marrow transplant.
Inigo: Meh. For me, it's "so what?" People have affairs all the time and unless you're in the White House or make your living pretending to be pure, I don't see it as any great shakes. If Tim wanted to simply expose Landry, he could have done it any time. He didn't. So, either he is the murderer with a motive against O'Dell, of which we've had not a hint, or he's after Landry to do more than humiliate him in the eyes of those who would think it humiliating. Or he's innocent of any foul play. I'm positing that it's the middle one.

Wyk flushes the theory down the toilet

Inigo:Further possible substantiation: The "thing" down the toilet in the faculty lounge is something that incriminates Landry.
wyk: Girl, get your mind out of the toilet. Why would Landry all of the sudden flush evidence down the toilet six weeks after the Dean's death?
Inigo: Either Landry found it and tried to get rid of it (which I doubt, he should be smarter than that) or Tim did to make it look that way. The timing is interesting. Just when Keith picks up the case and applies for the police report. Almost as if someone was giving him clues to lead him to Landry.
wyk: If Tim wanted Landry to go down for the murder, why make it seem like a suicide? Why not plant clues and make it more obvious that Landry killed the Dean?
Inigo: What advantage is there in leading such a merry dance? Let's see, firstly, the police are out of the picture, because they've ruled it a suicide. This means that the only ones likely to be investigating are the people that you think you can control. If the police were investigating a murder properly, from the outset, there's more chance of them finding evidence against the actual perpetrator. Secondly, pride — knowing that one can manipulate and is smarter than everyone else.
wyk: What would make Tim think that people would investigate the suicide after the police dropped the case?
Inigo: Because he ensured it by using Veronica's Perfect Murder. Thirdly, torturing Landry? I don't know. This is all speculative.
wyk: Both Keith and Veronica bought the suicide story at first.
Inigo: Yes, they did. And if Mindy hadn't gone to Keith about the insurance money, Veronica may well have gotten a nudge from Tim about the suicide note, although he may actually have predicted Mindy's venal nature.
wyk: How would Tim know about the suicide note?
Inigo: Because he wrote it?
wyk: How would Tim explain to Veronica about how he knew about the suicide note?
Inigo: He's seen the police report. He's already established that he likes keeping an eye on local events and that he knows of Landry's comings and goings.
wyk: As per the rape case, Tim doesn't like to share info with Veronica.
Inigo: Except when he wants to.
wyk: Why would he nudge her about the suicide note?
Inigo: Because it's the whole point. He wants her and her father to investigate down the path he's laid out. I'm wondering if Landry slept with Bonnie. Maybe Tim wrote most of the profiling book and didn't get the credit/cash he feels is due. Good reason to remind us of it.
wyk: I'm wondering if Tim knew that Landry was a druggie.
Inigo: Yes, I suspect Tim does know that Landry gets stoned on occasion. The only reason I like Tim better than Mindy right now is that I'm struggling with Mindy's motive in killing O'Dell. Maybe there's a pre-nup and he threatened to divorce her, but other than that...I don't know. The use of the Perfect Murder paper seems too thought-out in advance to have been decided on that same night. Have you got a theory?
wyk: I don't have a theory. I'm just here to punch holes in your theory. :-p If Tim wanted to bring Landry down, exposing the affair or tipping the cops off about Landry's drug habit seems like a lot less risky way of getting revenge on Landry.
Inigo: But with much less satisfaction and with limited effect on Landry. A second reason for not exposing the affair could be Mindy. In other words, both theories are right, just that Mindy's accomplice is not Chip, but Tim, and Landry is the accomplice who needs to be turned into the patsy.

As long as it goes, who cares what the model is?

wyk: You haven't discussed the Volvo yet.
Inigo: Well, if Nish was telling the truth, and if Nish could definitively say it was the dean's Volvo (I assume there's more than one in Neptune), then it was there. That means that someone with access to it visited the campus. That could be Mindy or Landry, as both were at the Grand where the car was, or Gram who's already taken it once. And the fact that they were there doesn't make them the killer. Or O'Dell may have driven the Volvo back from the Grand and the minivan was swapped for it later.
wyk: When Nish and the girls banged and rocked the car with the dean inside, was it the Volvo or minivan?
Inigo: Minivan I believe. Although I think the dean was in the Volvo at some point in that episode. I might have to go back and watch.
wyk: Any theories why the Lampoon didn't mention the dean's office being egged?
Inigo: I assumed they didn't know. I've looked back at the scene where his car is egged. I don't know what it is. I've just realised that I've never seen what I would call a minivan. What do Americans call a minivan?
wyk: Google images for minivan.
Inigo: Okay. He's in the minivan when he's egged. All Volvos look like boxes to me. (And drive like bloody tanks.)

Femme fatales and safe villains

Inigo: Where was Mindy rushing off to? She was on her way out of the hotel room when O'Dell arrived. Was she going home, meaning the Volvo was there? Or somewhere else? Don't know.
wyk: If she told Dean that she was at Junior League meeting, that means she couldn't stay all night with Hank.
Inigo: Perhaps, although the implication of Keith's report to O'Dell was that the meetings with Landry were instead of the Junior League meetings, not in addition to them.
wyk: I know. These trysts at the Neptune Grand lasted only a few hours, they weren't overnight stays, because Junior League meetings would only last a few hours.
Inigo: Of course, which implies that she was on her way home. It's not unreasonable to think she may have followed her husband. And she has the smarts to set it up all herself. She was a grad student, after all.
wyk: Grad students = murderer? Oh dear. How many grad students do we have on our team again?
Inigo: Grad students = smart enough to plan a murder that one thinks one can get away with.
wyk: Is it common for insurance policies not to pay out in case of suicide?
Inigo: It's common in dramas. I believe it's common in real life.
wyk: If Mindy didn't know about the suicide clause, then she would have good reason to kill Dean and make it look like suicide. But if the suicide clause is common knowledge, then she wouldn't have made his death look like a suicide.
Inigo: I would expect her to know of the clause. The money is a big question from last week. Why does she need money? Is she not the beneficiary of O'Dell's estate? If so, is the estate less than one would expect of a College dean (a consequence of his gambling, perhaps). If she thought she didn't need the insurance money, and only found out later that the money was on the meagre side, that might motivate her to get the official cause changed. Also, if she was involved in the death, the insurance clause could be the excuse to get Keith to investigate, with a view to leading him to a patsy/accomplice who is now expendable.
wyk: The gambling and the medical bills from Jason's surgery probably took a big chunk out of the Dean's bank account.
Inigo: True. Why would Mindy want to kill O'Dell? That's what I stick on. Apparently, not for money, because he doesn't seem to be that loaded.
wyk: She might have just wanted to get rid of him because she didn't want to be married to him any more. Sometimes people hire hit men to get rid of an unwanted spouse instead hiring a divorce attorney.
Inigo: Yeah, maybe, although she seemed to be enjoying her life.
wyk: Besides Kendall, this show hasn't had much of a femme fatale yet. Maybe the writers got tired of making the white guys be the bad guys, and decided to go noir and make the femme fatale guilty.
Inigo: Maybe, but God help them if it's anyone other than a white male. Have they learned nothing from suggesting that some feminists might be capable of doing bad things to win a worthy battle.
wyk: Bitter much?
Inigo: At the writers. Not at all. Appreciated the bravery. In modern times, I've only ever seen active feminists treated with kid gloves and a pc message. At the reaction. Maybe.
wyk: Could forensics tell whether or not the shooter used a silencer on the gun?
Inigo: No idea.
wyk: Assuming that a silencer wasn't used, since Fern and Claire didn't report hearing a gunshot, I guess this means who ever walked into Dean's office didn't immediately off him.
Inigo: Depends how loud it would be, I suppose, which depends on calibre. It was a revolver, wasn't it? Noisy, I think. And yes, there is nothing to say the visitor we saw was the killer, in fact I'd expected it not to be. Could even be Nish, who's lying about the Volvo (she assumed he was in it when she lied to Keith).
wyk: I wonder how the Lampoon found out about the other eggings.
Inigo: Well, I expect they heard about the Pi Sigs attack. As for the statute, anyone walking by would have seen that.
Inigo: Anyway, I think we've exhausted our readers, if any got this far. Anything else?
wyk: Not really.
Inigo: Okay, thanks for your company.
wyk: Okay, thanks for letting me tell you that you are wrong.
Inigo: Why have you change the habit of a lifetime?
wyk: Yes, but this time we get to put it on the site and air our mutual disdain for all the readers to see.
Inigo: Yay?