American Vandal season 2, episode 3 recap: ‘Leaving a Mark’

On the previous episode of American Vandal, the filmmakers began to question Kevin’s innocence in the Brownout while also realizing that the police evidence was falsified.

This week, they look into another suspect – a star basketball player.

A New American Vandal Suspect

The third episode opens with DeMarcus Tillman of St. Bernardine and his basketball promo from BallInsiders.com.

He is ranked fourth in the country and his coach calls him a great all-around player. His dad also compares him to Kyrie Irving and Steph Curry. He is also overconfident, saying he has no weaknesses.

Tillman also talks about coming up from the bottom playing street ball to becoming a high school star. His nickname is “Mr. Untouchable.”

Related Story. American Vandal season 2, episode 1 recap. light

The documentary starts to look at who DeMarcus Tillman is. Since he is a huge star and his face is on the front of the school’s website home page, the school would lose a lot if it turned out that Tillman was the Turd Burglar.

Chloe said that she knows that she saw the Turd Burglar in his wallet while he was getting a Gatorade. This happened before the Brownout. “No other card looks like it. It’s poop.”

Chloe said that she has a great relationship with DeMarcus and has nothing against him. She said that when the girls play basketball, he will always come and cheer them on. She said she likes him but knows what he saw. Chloe also said that Trevor Gonzalez also saw the card, but he won’t talk about it because he is also on the basketball team.

Trevor said that he was with Chloe and he saw the card too. He said that the card was not a Turd Burglar card, but it was instead a punch card for a yogurt place (get seven punches and get one for free). He said that it was a chocolate swirl that just looked like “sh*t.”

Trevor said that the two cards look almost the same. The difference is that the Yummy Swirl card has sprinkles and a blue background, but the Turd Burglar card has a purple background and big googly eyes.

Chloe is still not sold. She said she saw the eyes.

Talking to DeMarcus Tillman

While Sam and Peter are not sold, they do wonder – if DeMarcus did it, why did he do it? Does he feel like an outsider?

Sam and Peter head to the gym with their cameras and hope to talk to DeMarcus Tillman.

They ask if he feels like an outsider. He said that he likes it there and he explains that he is no more important to the team even if he is better than everyone, he still feels they are just as important (and insults the other kids without seeming to realize it).

DeMarcus said that he feels like he is friends with everybody. He also said that being a weirdo is cool. He looks down at people – but with love. “Every handshake is like a McNugget – each one is unique.” He is so oblivious.

Peter: “What if this is a prank because DeMarcus thinks poop is funny?”

Sam: “Poop is funny.”

Sam: “Exactly!”

Woodland Knight Mascot Stolen

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This isn’t the first time that St. Bernardine has dealt with an elaborate prank. It also isn’t the first time that a star athlete was the one accused of pulling a prank off.

There was a contest that weekend and they had to rent a cheap knight costume and ended up losing the competition that year. A cheerleader named Paige Burton “flipped her sh*t.” She even posted on Instagram that three of her scholarships are “in the toilet now” thanks to the stolen costume.

There is a lot of toilet humor in all aspects of this show and they are all creatively placed.

Someone started posting photos of the stolen costume all over Instagram using an obscene screen name and included photos of Paige in all the photos – many of them with even more obscene suggestive quotes. There was even one where DeMarcus Tillman responded with crying laughing emojis.

The kids said that they knew who did it. It was Perry Coleman – a huge basketball prospect from 2016 and because he was a basketball star, nothing was done to him at all. As a matter of fact, people loved the prank and started joining in bullying her in the comments of the photos.

DeMarcus Tillman idolizes Perry Coleman and wants to be like him. Would he have pulled the Turd Burglar prank because he wants to be like Perry – who happened to post laughing in the comments of a Turd Burglar Instagram photo.

Would it be a prank he would get away with since the school turns a blind eye to the student-athletes?

Would DeMarcus Tillman Have Access?

The cafeteria hooks up Demarcus Tillman and loves him. The other students said that Tillman could get into the cafeteria anytime he wanted and get anything he wanted at any time.

The police said Kevin snuck in, but DeMarcus wouldn’t have needed to sneak in. He also could have walked right in through the front due to his friendship with the cafeteria staff. Also, his status could have given him access to the launchers – which are kept in the locker room that only athletes can get into.

Kevin doesn’t have access to that room.

Kevin is allowed to walk 200 feet away from his home at the maximum and is walking and talking with the filmmakers. He said imagine seeing the “Fruit Ninja” in the athlete’s locker room? He said it would be like seeing DeMarcus at the Philharmonic.

But, what about DeMarcus and Ms. Montgomery, the English teacher with the Poop Piñata? Would he have access there? They have a history together because of “The Poem.”

It was a poem that DeMarcus wrote called “Out of Bounds: A Ballers Promise” and Ms. Montgomery gave it a 99% grade. She even wrote “beautiful” on it and said his poem was like “bliss.” She then compared herself to Sandra Bullock from The Blindside. She also published it in the school paper without asking him and people started to make fun of the poem.

Students from rival teams started to quote the poem when he was playing, and it really threw him off his game. “I don’t really do homework so when I thought I’d try, I thought it would be fun.” He was disappointed that she shared it without permission. He then said that Shakespeare’s first poem was probably “trash” too but he ended up as one of the most famous white people ever.

Ms. Montgomery said she felt bad and lets him use her classroom now when he needs a break or a place to nap or wants to listen to music. “I have even grown to like some of his music.”

This means that DeMarcus Tillman had special privileges to all three rooms the Turd Burglar struck in. When they asked the coach if DeMarcus was questioned about the crimes and the coach seems horrified they would even mention that about his “star basketball player.”

The coach claims that DeMarcus Tillman was with him during all three of the pranks at lunch. If that is true, then DeMarcus could not have committed the crimes. While they are saying this, the coach seems to be thinking about something with a concerned look on his face.

Kevin: “I do not go to an academic institution with a basketball program. I go to a basketball business with an academic façade.”

Would the School Cover Up for a Student-Athlete?

A faculty member said that the school would not have all they do without the basketball program, but they have a motto: “greatness on the field, excellence in the classroom.” They then go to a student who calls is “fu**ing bulls**t.”

A look at DeMarcus Tillman’s report card from junior high showed he had an A in PE, an F in Geometry, and C’s and D’s in all the other classes for a 2.04 GPA – along with eight absences and 14 tardies. Then, a look at his St. Bernardine High report card showed four B’s, four A’s and a 3.41 GPA for his senior year.

The athletes take Zoology with questions like “What Animal is This?” with a picture of a zebra as a test question while regular students take microbiology. DeMarcus Tillman said that people make fun of Zoology but look at math – “you deal with imaginary numbers. They’re not real, bro. They’re imaginary. It’s pointless.” Zoology is important. “Did you know dolphins aren’t fish? Dolphins are mammals, bro. That’s crazy. They’re just like us but they swim and have smoother skin.”

DeMarcus can get phone calls in class and get away with it. He can also get a hall pass, he just needs to go to Coach Devlin. Chloe said that the school would fire the principle before they would fire Devlin since he brings in all the money.

A kid said if an athlete does something, they get a warning. If a regular student does the same thing, they get detention or suspended or expelled.

Grayson Wentz

Perry Coleman got away with stealing the mascot uniform and bullying Paige online because he was an athlete. However, Grayson Wentz did almost the same thing and was expelled.

The story is that a few years back, the school forgot to block Twitter, so kids were logging into their Twitter accounts and sending out tweets at school. However, some of the kids forgot to log out. Grayson messed with too many people.

A member of the faculty said that he caught Grayson – who normally was a troubled kid – tweeted some unsavory things. Wentz was tweeting dirty jokes on people’s Twitter accounts and the teacher called it cyberbullying. They expelled him, while they ignored everything that Perry Coleman did – which was much, much worse.

Grayson Wentz is working at a kiosk in a mall. He said that he was caught tweeting out a joke and now he works in a kiosk at the mall.

Kevin said that what Grayson did was irredeemable, but it was the exact same thing that Perry Coleman did to Paige Burton.

They interviewed Paige, who said that everyone thought it was funny. She said that it was humiliating. She said that she went to the administration and no one would even question him. Grayson did three or four tweets and was expelled. Perry tormented and cyberbullied Paige for months and got a scholarship to UCLA.

Grayson said that guys like DeMarcus Tillman can get away with murder, but guys like he and Kevin are “easy scapegoats.”

“That’s why they end up at UCLA and we end up with ankle bracelets and with a f***ing job at Kirkland Mall.”

American Vandal Blames Demarcus Tillman

The guys sit down with DeMarcus Tillman and say that they have reason to believe that Kevin McClain is not the Turd Burglar. They mention that Perry Coleman was a notorious prankster and DeMarcus thought that they were accusing Perry of it because he lives in Los Angeles.

They then said that Perry set a precedent that said student-athletes can pull pranks and get away with it. That is when DeMarcus realized they might be blaming him for being the Turd Burglar.

They ask DeMarcus Tillman if he is a fan of yogurt, seeing if he might have the yogurt card in his wallet to prove his innocence. He said he likes yogurt and walks off, clearly not knowing that they were trying to clear his name. DeMarcus said that he is just sensitive, and he is there if they need anything because he isn’t going anywhere.

Next. American Vandal season 2, episode 4 recap. dark

If you were DeMarcus, “Would you feel untouchable?”

The episode then ends with a huge twist. Peter gets a text message from the Turd Burglar: “Peter. If you’re trying to find me … … you’re doing a sh***y job.”

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