After a quick stop back at the office, where Phoenix threatens that Maya will rot in jail forever if she misbehaves in court again; and a return to the detention center, only to find Edgeworth in questioning; Phoenix and Maya return to Gourd Lake Park. They’re interrupted in their discussion of the case by the sound of an irritating hick shouting, “Hey y’all!” I mean, maybe it’s Paula Deen with a basket of fried cheeseburger donut holes, but of course it’s Lotta. Maya looks like she wants to make a run for it, but Lotta’s already standing before them, smiling vacantly. “Y’all really did it today…” Lotta tells them. Phoenix thinks she’s about to rip his head off for ruining her scoop and her life, but she says instead, “Naw, I’m not complaining! See, I did a little thinking. A little…self-reflection, you might say. I realized that bein’ a witness is a mighty big responsibility. But I just went up there and started blabbing any old thing that came to mind.” I like that Jeanne had to deal with her shitting all over the witness stand, but I get to hear her apology. “So, you see, I want to make it up to y’all,” she declares. Phoenix repeats that back in scare quotes, like he’s terrified of what “making it up” means–he can’t think of a person on Earth he wants to see naked less than Lotta Hart. Not even Oldbag.
Trying to rid himself of these horrifying mental images, Phoenix rummages through the court record and starts throwing stuff at Lotta’s face. First, presented with her camera, Lotta wonders if she should make her phallic microphone “more sensitive,” hee, but warns Phoenix, “Y’all just be sure y’all don’t sneeze or nothing when you’re in my part of the woods!” Phoenix has heard of having an orgasm from sneezing, but he can’t say he’s ever had the pleasure. He’ll have to ask Edgeworth about that. When he reaches Lotta’s infamous photo, Phoenix continues to act like her photography was Edgeworth’s saving grace, and not an obnoxious waste of time. “If we didn’t have that,” Phoenix drama queens, “Edgeworth would be in prison now, or worse!” Clearly “worse” is “Prison would be inside Edgeworth.” For some reason, Maya chooses to attribute this issue to Phoenix’s woeful lack of courtroom preparation and penchant for last-minute ass-pulls, and not the fact that the case against Edgeworth is a load of trumped-up horseshit. Not that I’m disputing Maya’s assessment, but come on. Lotta asks, “What, are you always on the verge of horrible failure like this?” and adds that he’d better improve his lawyering or he’ll drop dead from the stress. Phoenix glares at both of them, thinking, “Thanks for the cheerful message of support!” This coming from the guy who is relying on a teenager to summon the ghost of his dead boss to win all his cases.
On the subject of the trial, Lotta repeats that she was just testifying to cross “Be a witness in a murder trial” off her bucket list. “Even though I didn’t really see anything,” she adds. “I kinda convinced myself I had though…” She apologizes again, and Maya, who went to fucking jail just to get the chance to tell her what a know-nothing sack of trash she is, generously consoles her by saying, “Well, memory is a tricky, vague little thing.” I guess it is when you’re old, delusional, or a lying asshole. Lotta has two of those covered! “I’ll be fine the next time I witness a murder!” she burbles cheerfully, like she can’t wait for that to happen. Phoenix thinks, “You mean the first time you witness a murder…” Would it kill him to say some of this stuff out loud? After Maya, again, went to jail for speaking her mind, Phoenix internalizing all his snide comments just makes him look like a jackass. What’s Lotta going to do to him, Photoshop a picture of his dick onto the lake and call it Gourdy?
Speaking of Gourdy, though I’d rather not, Lotta is still dead serious about turning a photo of Gourdy into her lifelong meal ticket. “Well, the way I figure,” she says, gritting her teeth in determination, “the trial’s only stoking the flames of Gourdy fever! I’ll get my exclusive photos and rocket to stardom!” Maya cheers her on with a “You go, girl!” but fails to snap her fingers in a circle, and she doesn’t have a penis, so she’s obviously not Kiyance. Maya then sighs that being an investigative photographer would be great, leading Phoenix to once again snark to himself, “Finish your spirit medium training first!” Of course, if Maya heard this, she’d just get sad, instead of replying, “As soon as you go back to law school and try taking notes this time around!”
Finally, Phoenix gets back to this notion of Lotta “making it up” to them. Lotta says she’s talking about providing him information, and not, thank God, swapping bodily fluids. “That von Karma didn’t want me to say nothin’ about it,” she pouts. But she’s not so interested in evening her karmic balance that she’s willing to give away this tidbit for free, and insists on doing an “exchange” of information. Phoenix points out how colossally fucked up that is, and then Lotta reverts to the babbling, defensive bumpkin we know and hate. “I see you thinking ‘my, how unsophisticated these southern folks are’!!” she screeches at him. “It’s written all over yer face! Let me tell you, most southerners are WAY more sophisticated than you… I’m just the exception, okay?” So she’s even more of a backward hillbilly than the people who want to make it illegal for the sea level to rise? And are we really using Phoenix as a baseline for sophistication? Because I am not okay with that.
Miss Congeniality here wants to know if they have a deal or not, and since Phoenix’s only real lead is to realize that nothing about this case makes any sense, which would only make his head hurt, he agrees to deal. “Okay. How much?” he asks. Lotta looks at him like he just sexually harassed her, and the music even stops to communicate that Phoenix just committed a terrible faux pas. “You completely off your rocker?” she asks, eyebrows up in her stupid bushy ginger fro. “I may not be sophisticated, but I’m not trying to rob the poor!” Phoenix just got called poor by someone currently living in her car. That’s a burn. But what she meant by an exchange of information, shockingly, is that she wants Phoenix to give her information. In exchange. DURRRRRRR.
So you’re not a Republican?
Naturally, there is only one thing Lotta would want to know about, because everything else she needs to know about the world is either in her Bible or on a Chick-fil-A menu. Now, when reading the following, pretend, as I am, that “Gourdy” is actually Lotta’s nickname for Jesus. “What I need from you is information about Gourdy!” Lotta says. Even Maya, who has given every indication of thinking herself that Gourdy is real, is all, “Whoa-whoa-whoa! G-Gourdy!? What are you, a fucking idiot?” Phoenix tries to be delicate: “B-but Gourdy doesn’t… I mean, Gourdy might not exist!” But Lotta insists, “Then bring me proof that shows he don’t!” At least she’s willing to entertain that idea and isn’t calling Phoenix a liberal elitist heathen.
Once Lotta leaves, Maya basically says, “Well, you heard the lady, let’s go hunt for a mythical lake monster!” Much like the female body, Phoenix has no idea how to handle this. He jokingly blue-fonts about a “monster myth specialist,” like that’s way crazier than, say, a spirit medium consulting on a murder.
Filing this problem in the back of his mind, behind all the images of naked Edgeworth, Phoenix grabs Maya and moves on. When they reach the beach, they find that Larry has done a little redecorating for his wiener business. He still hasn’t gotten rid of his sad Christmas wreath and trail-of-semen-like tinsel string, but he has strung some tacky, miniature international flags from the trees. And the pièce de résistance, blocking the view of the lake people actually come here to see, is a giant inflatable Steel Samurai, complete with tubby man boobs and a Japanese flag fan. It looks like Larry robbed the Japan booth at the local community college’s Night of All Nations. And, as if it’s not annoying enough that Phoenix and Maya unnecessarily confirm out loud to each other that this monstrosity is in fact the Steel Samurai, the show’s theme starts playing in the background, like I haven’t heard enough of it to last twelve lifetimes.
As they gape in horror, Larry appears, out of his pink Santa fursuit and back in his orange pleather jacket. “Yo! Maya!” he says cheerfully, so we don’t forget Larry is all about the ladies. Now, it should be plain enough to Phoenix that Larry’s changes are intended to play up the Samurai Wieners theme, but Phoenix still has to shriek, “Larry! What the heck is this!?” He too was hoping never to look at the Steel Samurai again. Worse, Larry tells him proudly, “Oh, it was my girl Kiyance’s idea… She was all ‘if you like, put this here, it would be, like, really cool!’ Dude, she gave it to me along with the banner!” A giant Steel Samurai out of his nightmares, and it’s a gift from Larry’s “girl”? Phoenix is going to come down here tonight with the Samurai Spear and stab the shit out of this thing.
For the last time, Phoenix, put your pants back on.
Examining the new additions to the scene just causes Phoenix to bitch at length about Larry’s terrible eye for décor, so let’s just skip to seeing what Larry has to say since yesterday. Now that we know the three of them were all butt buddies school chums way back when, Larry is now dying to know what’s going on with Edgeworth. Phoenix is all, “Well, he’s not dead yet, but just you wait–I’m going to have to come crawling back to your sorry ass yet.” Maya, the subtext of their conversation whooshing over her head, asks, “Hey, Larry, did you know Edgeworth’s secret weakness?” The birds in the sky, the squirrels in the trees, and fucking Gourdy all scream, “PENIS!” but Maya doesn’t hear. “He’s terrified of earthquakes!” she shares with her conspiratorial face on. “He acts like a little boy!” Butz shares Phoenix’s confusion since Edgey wasn’t like that for the whole year they knew him. Phoenix thinks to himself that the DL-6 Incident was the reason for his transfer, but that Larry, the dolt, obviously is unaware of this.
Changing the subject to–yay–the Steel Samurai, Phoenix asks again what the deal with it is. I have no idea what his hangup is on this. It’s just a fucking promotional balloon, Phoenix! Get over it! But Larry replies, “I’ve had that for about a month, yeah. It’s a big hit with the kids!” When Phoenix asks, “Why wasn’t it there yesterday?” Larry admits, “Th-the compressor was busted.” He points out the “little unit” near his wiener stand, and says with it away for repairs he couldn’t inflate the Steel Samurai. I know what an air compressor looks like, but now that he’s talking about sticking his “little unit” into the Steel Samurai and pumping, I can’t picture it as anything but a dong-shaped metal cylinder with two round air tanks attached. “And here I thought you’d inflated it yourself,” Maya says with some measure of disappointment. She should ask Phoenix if Larry’s blowing skills and stamina could possibly be that good.
Larry has nothing else to talk about, so Phoenix and Maya leave the beach and continue their tour of the lake. The boat rental shop is–surprise–still closed. Phoenix comes up with a new excuse for its continued non-operation every time he walks by, which is a giant clue that it will not be closed in the near future, but for now, they move to Lotta’s campsite. Lotta is back, rejuvenated in her quest to find Gourdy and prove evolution is a lie. Phoenix and Maya are forced to admit they’ve found nothing to help her on this fool’s errand. “Well, keep moving!” she chides them. “It gets cold out here at nighttime.” Maya agrees that it’s chilly, and then announces, “I… I think I have to sneeze!” Who only notices it’s cold because someone says something about it, and then immediately has to sneeze from cold alone? I mean, other than Maya, apparently. Lotta goes, “Dammit all, NO NO NO,” Maya sneezes, and Lotta’s camera, spurred on by the overpowering sensations coming from its mic, kliks a thousand times, then lights up a cigarette. “I told y’all NO SNEEZING!” Lotta yells, as if they were supposed to take that remark seriously. “See, I set the camera to respond to things a little softer than a ‘bang.’ It’d trigger on one of von Karma’s finger snaps now!” I don’t really see how this helps her Gourdy search, since in theory she’d just end up with way more wasted film and false alarms. Then again, I’m not the idiot who thinks Gourdy is real. Of course, Maya is browbeaten into asking poor Phoenix to pay Lotta for the film, so that at least is not a problem.
‘Now it’ll also pick up on gentle love-making.’
Lotta’s new conversational options are a mix of boring and grating–she reiterates her desire to exchange info on Gourdy for info on the case, and pledges to quit her paparazzi job if she finds out Gourdy isn’t real, which just leads to more idiotic talk of “yoofohs” that I refuse to inflict on other people. Still wondering how he’s going to get Lotta to tell what she knows, Phoenix returns to the police station to see if Gumshoe has any ideas. Ha, good one, me.
Gumshoe frowns at Phoenix as soon as he shows his face. “You look out of sorts,” he says. “Wait… you didn’t go and do something to hurt Mr. Edgeworth’s case again!” Phoenix is offended by this, because he’d never hurt his sweet Edgeworth, unless he asked first. “Whatever, have a seat pal,” Gumshoe says. “I’m here for you if you need anything. Besides money, that is.” I bet money was the first thing Phoenix was going to ask for, too, since Edgeworth will post Maya’s bail but refuses to be Phoenix’s sugar daddy.
When Phoenix asks how the investigation is going, Gumshoe says, “It’s not, really. We have another meeting coming up… We’re supposed to talk about Mr. Edgeworth’s motive…” Motive is yet another concept Maya is unfamiliar with–and why not, when she was charged with and tried for murder with no discernible motive whatsoever–so Gumshoe explains their thinking on this one. “See, Mr. Edgeworth’s father died in the DL-6 Incident… And the guy who got the lone suspect declared innocent was the victim in this case… Robert Hammond. They’re saying that’s why Mr. Edgeworth shot him.” Phoenix thinks, “And Edgeworth never talks about his past… I bet they’ll drag that out and hit him with it in court tomorrow, too…” It’s funny–for once, the prosecution has a pretty good motive they can ascribe to the defendant, which they need since they have basically no evidence. And yet, they had no idea who the victim was until–well, I’m not even sure when they figured it out. I don’t think the name of the victim even came up in court. The whole thing just underscores how shoddy this case has been from the word go. Nonetheless, Gumshoe says it “doesn’t look good” for our favorite effete prosecutor.
Everyone is sad for Edgeworth now, so Maya decides to lighten the mood and ask, “Do you know ‘Gourdy’?” Gumshoe replies, “Not personally, no,” which is great. When Maya, not really thinking about how it sounds, tells him they’re on the hunt for the monster, Gumshoe flips his lid. “Huh!? Are you out of your minds!?” he screams in poor Maya’s face, the white flashes and explosive sound effects indicating that he is pummeling her with his feelings. She just goes “Eeek!” because Gumshoe is hella scary when he’s acting on behalf of his beloved Edgeworth. He continues to yell, “You got time to go wild monster hunting!? How about doing a little questioning for me then!?”