#Versonica Mars Season 4

[clamydomona]

Veronica Mars Season 4 (Spoilers)

I had zero expectations going into this season, didn’t watch any interviews or trailers or look up spoilers because I didn’t want to get my hopes up. Most revivals I watched in the last years were ony so-so and most of the time when I was looking forward to something I ended up disappointed. Wth that in mind, I enjoyed a lot of what I saw.

Positive stuff:

- I loved that Veronica had a new dog that she named Pony, but I’m disappointed that he didn’t get to go on any of her snooping adventures with her like Backup in the old days.

- I’m glad that Wallace ended up married and with a cute baby and a good job and that he seems genuinely happy, that guy deserves it.

- I could listen to Cliff for hours and still enjoy his relationship with Keith and Veronica immensely. I like that he seems ridiculous but good at his job at the same time.

- Same goes for Vinnie. I can understand why the police chief is reluctant to trust PIs if most of her interactions are with Vinnie. Less so with Keith and Veronica. But at least she seems more qualified for her jobs than the Lambs ever were.

- I enjoyed what we’ve seen of Dick, but I’m glad that it wasnt more than that.

- Big Dick’s right hand man reminded me so much of Mike from Breaking Bad I sometimes confused those guys.

- The thing I enjoyed most of all was Veronica and Keith’s relationship, their teamwork and their banter. That was one aspect of the show I liked the most and I’m glad this season had so much of that.

- Logan’s character development was great as well. I loved that he ha help working through his issues to move beyond his anger and resentment that drove him so much of his life, while still being enjoyable and recognizable as a character. I also absolutely loved the scene where Logan came home with blood on his shirt, acting like nothing happened. And that Logan seemed to have very positive relationships with Keith and Wallace, after their earlier animosities.

- I also liked that scene where the murder heads were all arguing about who really killed Lily. Seems very reflective of all the True Crime culture nowadays.

- The mystery was interesting enough and not as convoluted as some of the previous mysteries.

- I also enjoyed many of the Leo-scenes, there was some pretty good banter and I liked how they snapped out of their drunkenness to draw their guns withing two seconds. Could have done without the sex dream, though I never for one second thought that thing was real.

- Nicole was a very fun character and I’m sad that her storyline ended the way it did.

So-So stuff:

- While pizza guy Penn was an interesting character, after a while he became very annoying being featured so heavily.

- Matty was interesting as a mirror of Veronica’s teenage self, though I’m not sure I would have let her be unsupervised in the office after some of the stuff she pulled beforehand.

- While earlier seasons were certainly violent enough, I could have done without so much casual beheading. Seemed way over the top for me.

- After watching Jason Dohring in iZombie, I was relieved that his head didn’t look as tiny in comparison to his very defined torso as it did in that show. For some reason that was extremely off-putting to me last year.

Negative Stuff:

- Why so little Wallace? They could have found something for him to do, it can’t be that hard. Also I’m disappointed that he was treated as so disposable by Veronica. She treated spending time with him more as an obligation than anything else. Was that the same in the show, it’s been a few years since I saw that.

- No Mac. She was missing so much.

- Why they felt the need to rob Weevil of every positive thing in his life and regress him to the character he was in season 1 I will never understand. I understand that the falling out between him and Veronica was described in the books, but without knowledge of those, their relationship this season just seemed very weird.

- Why the hell did we spend so much time in the first episode with the spring break kids before the bombing, when nothing of that seemed to matter, the scenes could have been cut out and the story would have been just as easy to follow?

- Why did none of these people, except the brother of the congressman and Matty, seem in any way trauamtized or sad that they lost their friends/family in a bombing when they instead expected to have fun partying?

- Why was Veronica belitleing Logan’s therapy so much? Didn’t their relationship fall apart numerous times because of his destructive tendencies? Shouldn’t she be happy that he sought help, even if she is incapable of getting it herself (when she, let’s face it, probably needs it more than any other character apart from Logan)? After a while I honestly didn’t understand why Logan wanted to be with her, when in earlier seasons it was mostly the other way around.

- Is Logan an addict of any kind or not? I thought he was, since he was a sponsor in the movie, but he drank (and did drugs, did I understand that “E” correctly?) with Nicole, Veronica and Dick in one episode, so I guess not?

- If for some reason the show gets another season, it’s reasonable to expect that they will drag out Duncan again, right? He’s the only ex-boyfriend they haven’t used in any of the newer incarnations of the show.

 And then the ending:

I wasn’t spoiled, but it did not exactly come as a surprise to me, because Rob Thomas so fas has been incapable of writing a relationship that survived a whole season intact (at least on Veronica Mars and iZombie, I don’t know about any other products of his. I learned not to get attached to any of Liv’s reationships, because why bother when he kils all of them off anyway?). I honestly thought there was a bomb in her car when Logan reminded her on Skype to move it and expected the bomb to detonate when she went to move it while the cartell guys were watching her apartment. I expected the other shoe to drop the whole episode, so I couldn’t even get into the wedding because it was so obvious to me that the whole thing was far from over without any explosion in the finale.

I wasn’t surprised that the bomb went off, though I am surprised that the show seriously went there and appearantly killed off one of the main reasons people still want to watch the show. After watching so many supernatural shows (and a few soaps), I remain highly sceptical that he’s actually dead without showing the explosion itself, the body, the funeral or anyone mourning at all. Especially after they did something similar in season 2 but didn’t kill off Keith.

But after catching glimpses of interviews going around, I am stunned that the death at least seems to be intended to be permanent and I don’t get that argument at all. Why the hell is it necessary to kill of one of the main attractions of the show in order to “save” it? Who wants to tune into a show that killed off one half of a couple that became an essential part of that show? Seemed to me more like he wanted to make sure he would absolutely not get another season, and providing extremely shitty closure in the process. It just didn’t seem like the show to me. In previous finales, while Veronica went through harrowing experiences, the show still managed to end on a somewhat positive note (which might arguably be the case with Keith getting healthier and Veronica willing to see Logan’s therapist, but all of that seemed extremely hollow to me). Plus, the death was so tagged onto the case storyline, not intrinsic to it at all, but just added after the resolution. Random deaths might be true to real life, here it just seems to be shock for shock’s sake, but not necessarily good storytelling. Furthermore it’s just depressing to pile on more and more trauma onto Veronica without any of the relief of healing.

Also, I completely disagree that the show would not be interesting anymore with a married Veronica. Why couldn’t the conflict and drama come from the cases itself, while her private life was stable for once? I’ve really grown to hate this notion that couples are not interesting once they are in committed relationships, so they have to do will they/won’t they, cheating and love triangles. I’ve read tons of fanfiction that somehow managed it, why are so many showrunners incapable of seeing any appeal in that at all? Honestly, the show would have been more innovative if it had let Veronica be married and at least a little attempting to overcome her trauma. But I guess a happy Veronica is not an inspiring Veronica to the showrunner.

I honestly think Rob Thomas overestimates Veronca’s appeal as a character without any of the other elements. No Neptune, not Keith, no friends, no Logan, just Veronica going around solving cases does not sound appealing at all to me. If he wants something like that, it would probably be better to create a whole new show based on that kind of premise, or write this season like that to begin with. Just kill off Logan off screen in a war and start Veronica as a lonely and depressed PI somewhere other than Neptune if that’s what Rob Thomas wants to write so much.

I really have to thank the absolutely terrible finale of HIMYM. After completely screwing over my favorite couple, I just stopped being invested in any couple to the degree I was before. I never assume anymore that the story will go in the direction I expect it to go, no matter how obvious that outcome seems to me, because who knows how differently the showrunner envisions their work and what they see as “good storytelling” (which somehow often means killing someone off right before the end, how fun!). I am kind of surprised by how angry I am about Logan’s death despite my low expectations and diminished investment in the couple since I first saw the show. At least here I can ignore the ending much more easily than in HIMYM.