“Veronica Mars” Season 4: A Marshmallow’s Reaction

It was March 13th, 2013 and the biggest entertainment news story that day was the launch of the Veronica Mars Kickstarter. It was unprecedented, having the viewing public fund a major motion picture themselves (because those losers at Warner Brothers were probs like “bUt Why WoUlD ANyONe WaNT To WATch a FeMAlE PrivAtE EyE?” Allegedly.) Now, being someone who needs to be part of the discussion to keep my fragile ego pumping along, I decided that I should probably catch up on the show. I found the first season on TheWB.com (lawlz) and started the binge. Mind you, it was 4th period my junior year, but it was a student government class and it wasn’t football season, so I had time to kill and French homework to copy, so I got to watching.

I became hooked. HOOKED, HONEY! Kristen Bell’s sardonic, intuitive, and snarky Veronica Mars instantly took a giant piece of my heart. I rushed through the first season in no time, always on the edge of my seat as I awaited finding out who on god’s green earth would kill Lily Kane, ESPECIALLY since I had watched it after seeing her sing so beautifully in Mamma Mia. Who would kill someone who invited her three possible father’s to the taverna?! I quickly jumped into S2 (only available, at the time, through pirating sites. Sorry Rob Thomas, I owe you $12 in residuals. XOXO) and then S3 (which has the best opening credit sequence of the 3 don’t @ me).

I donated my $25 to the Kickstarter, I saw the movie in theater, I contemplated “Can I be Team Duncan? Is that a thing?” and I went about my life, never thinking I’d head back to my beloved Mars Investigations.

Well, they done snatched my wig clean off my head when they announced last year that we’d be receiving an 8-episode season 4 on Hulu this year. Then they took my wig and put in through a paper shredder when they revealed at their Comic-Con panel last Friday that they were debuting the season a week early. I wasn’t ready! I had an audition and plans! How dare they stress me out knowing I couldn’t be home with a vat of hummus and the “next” button on my remote to start my marathon!

Luckily, Saturday I had the day to myself and I can fully tell you I did not move an inch from my couch. Instead, I lined all the free space around me with cheese and Triscuits and ate consistently for 8 hours going “oh my god. Oh My God. OH MY GODDDDDD” at various plot points throughout the new season.

Veronica is older, no longer the teenage private eye using her free time after school to solve murders and get people arrested. Instead, after the events of the movie, she’s back in Neptune. The pull of the seedy community, where class warfare is at an all-time high, was too strong to keep her away. Now, there is a bomber on the loose, trying to ruin the town as a spring break capital of California.

SPOILERS AHEAD. CRAZY SPOILERS. GAME-CHANGING, FAN ANGERING SPOILERS.

So, the mystery is a little convoluted, but the payoff at the end works. We find out the initial bomb was placed by “Big Dick” Casablancas to scare away beachfront businesses in hopes to drive his elitist plan to tear them all down and build expensive beach living. The subsequent bombs were placed by Remy himself, Patton Oswalt, after a quick brush with fame (being a witness to the initial blast) makes him greedy for attention. All well and good. Cute. Fun. Awesome.

And then it all hits the fan. Remy the bomber (That’s what I’ve deemed him. He loves soufflé, sauté, explode.) wrote everything in limericks, like a NERD. However, the last limerick is thought to be solved. Unfortunately, it isn’t truly solved until it’s too late. Veronica realizes the last bomb was planted in a backpack. In her car. Which Logan is about to move for the cleaners.

But the bomb goes off. Veronica went to warn Logan, whom she had been married to for a solid 15 ½ seconds before the big kaboom. She lays on her bed, gutted by the blast, with fear, sadness, and anger all bubbling beneath the surface. And then we cut to a year later.

So yeah, LOGAN IS DEAD. Let’s dive into that. Logan Echolls is a goner. Veronica’s one “constant” is now gone. The flash forward showed that a little part of her is dead, she is darker than normal, because her love is gone. The fan reaction online is completely brutal to this plot decision, but honestly, I think it’s a good move for the show. *thousands of laptop screens were just slammed down*

Hear me out! Neptune has always been a seedy, not safe place for Veronica, physically or emotionally. It carries so much baggage across the multiple deaths and family traumas she’s had to deal with. But that’s Neptune, and for some reason, even against her best interest, she has returned. She was becoming a high powered lawyer in NYC before she headed home (to help Logan, mind you), which without context was an incredibly stupid decision. But again, that’s Neptune.

This was how bad it had to become for it to be the final nail in Neptune’s coffin for Veronica. Her one love had to die tragically to finally get in her head that Neptune is not the place for her. Fans argue always for a happy ending. They are always mad when the characters don’t get the perfect story the want it to be. I get that, to a certain degree (for example, the Game of Thrones arguments are valid, as the new character traits came out of nowhere cause those two white guy writers want to go to their Star Wars and ruin that for people, too.), but for Veronica Mars, this has always been that show. The key character traits of Veronica Mars is that her life never allows her to catch a break. Before she turned 17 her best friend was murdered, she was raped, and her mom left her.

That is this show. Neptune is not good to her or for her. She needs to get out, and the set up for a possible (if not, I will storm the offices of Hulu and demand it) season 5 shows that she’ll be able to take on cases outside of the confines of her dark hometown.

Season 4 was darker, yes, but the wit and snark of our favorite private eye was still there. It remains my all-time favorite TV show and this marshmallow can’t wait to see what comes next.

Marshal Knight
Marshal Knight is a pop culture writer based in Orlando, FL. For some inexplicable reason, his most recent birthday party was themed to daytime television. He’d like to thank Sandra Oh.