‘The Veronicas: Blood Is For Life’ S1E2 Recap: Lubing Up With My Eccentric Husband

Now we’ve seen the second episode of The Veronicas‘ reality show, we have to wonder why on Earth they made the premiere that.

Thankfully, this week’s genuinely funny, engaging episode makes it clear that the Origliasso twins have a lot more to offer than cooking pasta in a microwave and having fake fights — something we thought before the pilot painted them by-numbers bland. With a lot more happening this time around, the twins don’t have to construct storylines: just being themselves is enough.

While the stakes were never terribly high this episode (even with a broken car and a missing outfit), it was a step above and beyond the pilot, which was almost exclusively filler.

This week, we peer a little more behind the curtain and meet Jess’ and Lisa’s respective partners, musician Kai Carlton and actor Logan Huffman. Flying over to the US for a spate of Pride month shows, the duo split up for a few days for some couple time, with Jess and weeks-new boyfriend (and now fiancé) Kai going on a road-trip, while the married Lisa and Logan spend some time in their lavish LA garden-bed. Assumedly the garden has a house attached to it, but we never go inside, and we wouldn’t be completely surprised if Logan slept outside.

Splitting The Veronicas up also establishes that they are different people. While it remains impossible to tell them apart, it was nice to see them apart with a bit of breathing room. At least until they had to squeeze into tiny and lung-constricting latex outfits for a performance. All in a day!

‘It’s More About The Journey, Not The Destination’

Before we head to the US, Lisa and Jess give their mum a call, who is currently in care after being diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy and lewy body dementia.

They chat to the camera about how their mother was once the “third Veronica”, accompanying them everywhere before she got sick. The moment isn’t overplayed too much, nor tidily wrapped up, which we appreciated: just like a parent’s illness, it lingers, but they have to keep going on.

Here, the episode forks, with Jess heading to Sedona with Kai. Their car breaks down on the way, and we get lots of handicam footage which suggests they were largely left to their own devices on the trip.

We’re sure a producer was in the backseat (you can see their shadow in a shot or two), but it’s nice to have a show talk about R&R and (kind of) accomodate it. They’re a cute couple, especially since Kai, a musician, isn’t super comfortable on camera: for most of the trip, whenever Jess films him, he lets out a “woo!” noise and makes a face, clearly unsure of what else to do.

It’s also really nice that the show didn’t really make a deal out of Kai being a trans man — about halfway through the episode, Jess uses ‘he/his’ pronouns a few times talking about him, and it’s never ‘explained’ or given its own ‘plot point’.

Sure, the show makes us watch Jess “learn” how to check the oil of her car, but we’d prefer that to some overwrought trans 101 segment. Maybe it’ll come up later in a semi-organic way; even so, it was nice we were allowed to meet Kai as a dorky person, rather than just an identity sub-plot.

We do, however, absolutely demand an explanation of Logan, Lisa’s eccentric husband.

He’s an actor probably most famous for playing a character everyone hated on 2009-10 sci-fi show V, though Lisa says she loved it because it was about “UFOlogy”, an incredibly obtuse way to say aliens. He also loves gardening, and waxes lyrical about living farm-to-table and how you “don’t need a lot to live wonderfully”, ignoring how expensive their LA place with an alcove must be.

Later, they couple invite people over and have a forgiveness ceremony taught to Logan by a Native American elder, for which he emphasises great gratitude in being asked to carry on an important tradition.

It’s …odd, and you somewhat get the sense Lisa just goes along with his various quirks and ideas. Sometimes it’s a forgiveness ceremony; other times, it’s a failed bartering system for neighbours to trade produce; all the time, it’s his penchant for suspenders. But she puts her foot down on Logan hanging a child’s rusty bike, found on the side of the road, in their lemon tree. Good for her.

‘I Have 10 Bottles Of Lube, And No Latex’

Soon, The Veronicas reunite to kick off their pride tour with a performance at Heaven Party, an ‘underground’ queer party in LA. It’s apparently their first US performance in seven years, and they’re in trouble: Lisa forgot her latex bodysuit! Oh no!

The bodysuits were a massive part of this episode. We see the twins visit Trashy Lingerie to buy them, see Jess buy lube so they can squeeze into them, and then one goes almost missing while they’re backstage ready to perform.

Lisa’s left it at home, but Logan is on it, and goes and gets it just in time. Phew. There’s a slight tension where Jess has, in her own words, “no patience” for the drama: it’s a frustration that feels real and deep, the kind you get from seeing your sibling do something dumb they’re wont to do.

While Lisa waits for her bodysuit to arrive in an Uber, there’s a dramatic count-down back stage, but it’s edited much better than last week’s skin-rash drama, which went back-and-forth endlessly as Jess and Lisa repeated themselves. The camera crew go a bit rogue and create artful shots like the below.

There was also one other perfect shot this week, when Logan asks a CVS worker what aisle the lube’s in.

He carries such a teenage boy giddishness into the scene that ultimately seems to be extreme horniness, since lube means sex, even though it doesn’t here. He keeps smiling and giggling at dumb jokes, and somehow it’s incredibly endearing. We just want to get stuck talking to him at a party about his spiritual experiences on iowaska, and nod politely while paying absolutely no attention?

Then it arrives, and the show goes on. As does this one, for four more weeks: this episode was a lot more promising than the first, providing some sort of genuine insight into the girls’ lives while remaining entertaining. So long as they don’t rely on fake drama too much, it should remain fairly light, well-done tv –maybe not the funnest to recap,  but more enjoyable to watch.

Then, again, who knows: on the night of airing, The Veronicas appear to have deleted their Twitter instead of following the hashtag. Earlier that day, they claimed the Qantas staff member who had them escorted off a flight in September was the same one who Will.I.Am alleged discriminated against him on a domestic flight.

It would probably be more insightful to see how these scandals are dealt with behind the scenes — the cogs behind them, the frustrations from both band and label — but we’re probably not going to get much depth here, but we’re accepting that. Whether a larger audience beyond their fanbase will is the bigger question.

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The Veronicas: Blood Is For Life is on MTV each Sunday at 6pm AEDT, with episodes available to stream for free on their website.

Jared Richards is a staff writer at Junkee, and co-host of Sleepless In Sydney on FBi Radio. Find him on Twitter.