Phoenix, sensing some context would help here, narrates over a black screen that he explained the Lotta situation to Gumshoe. Maya–still in the black screen, so this is totally meta–cries, “Nick! Try telling him sooner next time!” It’s not like she gave him a lot of opportunity to jump in there, but whatever. Gumshoe uses some ellipses to absorb this news and then says abashedly, “I see, pal. Sorry for shoutin’ at you.” And then, with a ding that may as well be a light bulb popping on above his head, says, “Okay! I, Detective Gumshoe, will aid your search for Gourdy!” Maya goes “H-huh!?” again, because hunting for Gourdy sounds great in her head but incredibly stupid when others talk about it. But Gumshoe, for what it’s worth, is trying to be practical. “I’ll loan you one of our newest secret weapons for finding evidence!” he tells them. “You can take whichever one you like!” I wonder if one of them is the Stone of Gaydar.
Phoenix is prompted to discuss these secret weapons, which I think we can all agree are probably phallic. Gumshoe calls these weapons his “best and brightest,” like they’re people, and that makes sense when he introduces the first, a dog named Missile. I’m pretty sure that name qualifies him as phallic. Maya stutters, “M-M-Missile?” like this is a Final Fantasy VI crossover and the dog is about to start casting Firaga. “He’s a K-9 police dog, still in training!” Gumshoe says proudly. He calls for Missile, and the little cutie shows up with a plaintive “Woof.” I’m sure someone will tell me I’m wrong, but Missile looks a little like my dog. And since my dog is a corgi mix with a long body, he is also phallic. Whatever! I just want an excuse to show off my dog!
Twinsies!
Phoenix, who I guess has never heard of a police dog before, thinks to himself that he doesn’t get what Missile can do to help. But Missile is obviously much more helpful than the second thing Gumshoe shows them. “Next, Secret Weapon No. 2…” he announces. “A fishing pole!” Ding ding ding! Hot dog, we have a wiener! Gumshoe adds that it’s his “own personal pole,” something he really only ever thought he’d present to Mr. Edgeworth, maybe in a gift-wrapped box. Phoenix, underwhelmed by the size of Gumshoe’s pole, tells him they’re looking for a monster. Wink. When Gumshoe doesn’t take the hint and goes, “Yeah!” Phoenix shrieks, “How are we supposed to catch a whole sea monster with a fishing pole!?” Gumshoe goes on the defensive and yells back, “Never know ’til you try, pal!” They’re both talking about Edgeworth and neither one of them realizes it.
Make him buy you dinner first, Gumshoe!
Finally, Gumshoe has one more schlong-like weapon to offer them. Phoenix blue-fonts, “No, please, I’m already overwhelmed by our choices,” because he’s being a snot today. I mean, it’s not like Gumshoe has to help them at all. Anyway, the third item is a metal detector. Phoenix tells Gumshoe they’re looking for something “alive,” like he suddenly believes Gourdy is even real. Make up your mind, Phoenix! As with the fishing pole, Phoenix gets pissy with Gumshoe for not generously offering them the absolutely perfect item for hunting a hypothetically real sea monster, and Gumshoe channels Mia and tells him to think outside the fucking box for once in his myopic little life. Maya, for her part, says, “I can’t make up my mind, Nick. They’re all so perfect!” Phoenix responds in his head, “I can’t make up my mind, either…for the totally opposite reason.” I feel like, when Phoenix dies of old age in 10 years, his tombstone is going to read, “Phoenix Wright. Husband, lover, below average attorney. He never knew how to say thank you.”
Because Maya would probably cry if he refused to use any of these items, Phoenix has to choose one. Of course, my first choice is Missile, because dogs are outstanding and maybe a cute dog will make Phoenix stop acting like such a fucking sourpuss.
Why do you think?
Now a crime-investigating party of three, our heroes return to Gourd Lake, stopping first at Larry’s wiener stand. “Hey, Nick…” Maya says suddenly, “Missile’s been acting strangely…” Phoenix, honest to God, replies, “‘Missile’? Oh, oh right. That little…creature of yours.” Yeah, you know, that dog you borrowed from the police a minute and a half ago. So easy to forget. Also, I never would have figured Phoenix to be a dog hater. That seems like it’d fit fussy Edgeworth much more than his doofy boyfriend. But as I think we’ve established, Phoenix is on his period. Larry pops in at this moment, and starts cooing “good boy” at Missile. But while Larry is a dog lover, and a wiener dog lover in particular, Missile is just not that into him. He goes “Grrraaaaaaarh!” and then full-on freaks out, filling a couple of screens with “yip yip yip yip yip!” And then, while Maya looks on helplessly, he runs off and buries his face in the Butz’s supply of Samurai Wieners, complete with a screen full of “munch munch munch munch munch!” Oh, I love Missile so much right now. He’s like Phoenix’s id.
Butz screams “C-cannibal!” at the dog, but it’s too late, and all of the Butz’s wieners, save one, have disappeared down Missile’s gullet. And he’s only putting that one in a hot dog bun if Phoenix asks nicely. Phoenix apologizes, but Larry shrills back, “‘Sorry’!? ‘Sorry’ don’t pay my bills, Nick!” Phoenix laughs out loud at this irony, and adds to himself, “It’s going to have to this time…” I’ll permit this use of Phoenix’s inner snark here, because it’s not like Larry would respond all that well to Phoenix calling him a deadbeat.
Just to fuck with Larry some more, Phoenix presents Missile to him from the court record. “K-keep that mutt away from me!” he demands, breaking out in Phoenix-esque flop sweat. Then, crying his anime-style rivers of sparkly tears, he wonders, “What am I going to tell the big boss?” Maya thinks this means the wiener stand “is a front for a mafia money laundering scheme!!!” In response, Phoenix tells Maya to rein in her overactive imagination and to be nice to Larry since it’s, I guess, her fault that Missile scarfed down all those wieners. And then it doesn’t come up again. But what if Maya is right? Maybe Larry is in deep with Dee Vasquez’s mafia connections. And assuming Dee Vasquez has a penis–a possibility I’m open to–she is kind of how I picture Larry’s girlfriends. All that said, I assume his big boss is Kiyance, because it’s funny to picture her as a beefy Guido bear in drag who says “you go girlfriend!” in a deep, Italian-accented voice.
They leave Larry in tears and return to the woods to show off Missile to Lotta. She just wonders if Missile would be able to sniff out Gourdy, and what he smells like, because she’s a goddamn imbecile. Sadly, that’s really all that can be done with sweet little Missile, so Phoenix returns to the police station to borrow something else.
She’s cooking meth in that SUV, isn’t she?
Of course, Phoenix can’t request another item without demeaning Gumshoe’s manhood, so he asks, “Can we borrow that flimsy-looking fishing pole?” Gumshoe takes it in good grace and hands it over, only adding, “Oh, if it breaks, be sure to dispose of it properly, okay?” Phoenix replies, “Er…right,” since he has no idea what that means. My guess is that Gumshoe wants his “fishing pole” sent out on a flaming boat to the middle of Gourd Lake so it can go to Phallus Valhalla.
Phoenix can learn a little more about this pole if he presents it to Gumshoe, and it’s well worth doing. “It’s funny, one day I woke up and I wanted a fishing pole,” he tells them. Maya asks if he likes fishing, and he admits, “I’ve never gone. I just wanted one so bad, I went out and bought it. I’ve never used it, actually.” Well, that just can’t be true. No pole in this universe goes unused. Phoenix reflects to himself, “Must have been one of those mid-life crisis things…” I mean, yes, most mid-life crisis purchases are some kind of penis substitute, but it’s unbelievably sad that Gumshoe’s was a shitty fishing pole, and not a car, or a prostitute with silver hair and fuchsia assless chaps.
Even though it will likely be fruitless, Phoenix and Maya return to Gourd Lake to see what they can fish up. Butz tells Maya that Gourd Lake isn’t really that good for fishing, but she responds, “I’m not after small fry. I’m after the biggest fry of them all…Gourdy!” Butz is all, “Uh, really?” and Maya affirms, “To save Edgeworth, yes!” Larry thinks about using that tiny phallic object to lure out a larger phallic object, all to save Edgeworth’s penis, and tells Maya, “…Brings a tear to my eye, in more ways than one.” Gross, Larry.
Next, it’s back to Lotta’s camp. I wish Maya could have picked a different fishing spot, one that doesn’t have obnoxiously cheery music, but I’m sure the game designers didn’t want to draw a different beach background just for this. Phoenix still doesn’t know what she wants to do at the water, with this fishing pole, until Maya says, “Time to do some fishing!” Thinking to himself, “She’s serious…” like no shit, Nick, he says out loud to Maya, “Umm… What are you going to use as bait?” Well, the pole is phallic and Gourdy is phallic, so a nice fat penisy earthworm is the only appropriate thing she could use to complete the chain. But Maya didn’t think as far as bait. “I figured something like this would happen,” high-and-mighty Phoenix announces, like the only problem with this scenario is what to put on the hook. “We should have brought Missile along with us, too,” he adds. “At least then we’d have bait.” Ugh! Can he stop being a dick for like five seconds today? Maya, outraged, punches him in his fat head.
I kind of wish Maya would use Phoenix as bait at this point, but she apparently decides an empty hook is just fine and gets ready to cast. “Just try to not reel in any empty cans or boots, okay?” Phoenix reads out of his Big Book of Lame Fishing Tropes. But as Maya casts, she shouts, “Ack! M-my leg!” and hits the ground with a “whump,” I guess with a hook stuck in her calf. Just to add insult to injury, Lotta’s fucking camera starts kliking away at this noise. So once again, Lotta yells in her tardbilly accent about her film and Phoenix has to dig some cash out of his pockets. This investigation is going great. Seven thousand words deep and all they’ve done is talk about a mythical sea monster and feed a dog some wieners.
Presenting the fishing pole to Lotta just makes her agree with Maya that fishing for Gourdy might actually work, and that makes me want to stab myself in the leg with Gumshoe’s rusty fishing hook. So finally, it’s back to the police station to borrow the one arguably useful item Gumshoe had to offer, the metal detector. Of course, Phoenix openly questions what they could possibly find with a metal detector. I have to tell myself at this point that he’s being willfully obtuse because of his shitty mood, because the alternative is too depressing. Gumshoe tells him encouragingly, “Remember: you’re hunting for a monster! Anything is possible! Anything!” He adds, after Phoenix presents it, that the police use it to look for bullets embedded in the ground, and that, “If you can find that monster with it, all the better!” Phoenix is still skeptical, because in the back of his mind, he wants to believe there’s a big old flesh-and-blood penis monster in Gourd Lake.
Back to the lake! Thank Gourdy this is the last time I have to do this particular back and forth. Phoenix skips talking to Larry and Lotta, because I’m trying to preserve what sanity I have left, and moves directly to the boat rental shop. As soon as they arrive, the metal detector starts going crazy. I can’t imagine there is only one thing made of metal in this area, but obviously they’re only going to find something relevant to the case. Phoenix thinks, “Whatever it is, it must be in those bushes…” And there’s no way he’s going near some scary unkempt bush, so he sends Maya in. Maya whines about this, but agrees to sack up and do it. When she comes back, she’s holding a cylindrical metal tank covered in international flags. Instead of going, “This is clearly Larry’s phallic air tank,” which would be any sane person’s immediate reaction, they derp a bit about the tank’s broken valve and the fact that Maya thought Gourdy was made of metal and hanging out in the bushes. Jesus. Only after they’ve wasted time discussing these crucial items does Phoenix notice the incredibly conspicuous flags wrapped around the tank. And even then, neither one of them says, “Hey, where have we seen flags like this?” They just shrug and say they should take it with them since they bothered moving it from its hiding place. Phoenix internally whines, “It’s heavy…” but picks up the “air tank of dubious value.” This is getting silly.
It was Free Buttplug Day at the United Nations visitors’ center?
Seemingly at random, because we know Phoenix hasn’t actually put this together yet, they return to the beach and show the tank to Larry. Butz plays dumb, leading Phoenix to ask him, “Have you seen it before?” or “Is it yours?” When Phoenix chooses the first option, Larry puts on his “confident liar with a tic in his cheek” face and insists he’s never seen it in his life. Phoenix knows this face from experience and presents it again, asking this time, “Say…is this air tank yours?” WHAT WOULD GIVE YOU THAT IDEA, PHOENIX.
Phoenix points out the string of flags and finally says, “It’s just like the string of flags around your Steel Samurai there.” The Butz, flustered and sweating again, insists this is a coincidence. “There’re strings of flags everywhere these days! L-like elementary schools! A-and used car dealerships!” A used car dealership that markets to elementary school children, incidentally, must be where Kiyance found that inflatable Steel Samurai, and Phoenix points out that Larry could have used an air tank to inflate it. The “Phoenix finally figured something out!” theme is playing in the background as this interrogation takes place, by the way. So I guess we’re supposed to think this is a big moment for Phoenix, deducing that a) an air tank with international flags on it might belong to the guy with the giant balloon and strings of international flags, and b) Larry is a lying shithead.