logline: After her best friend is murdered, and her father is removed as county Sheriff, Veronica Mars dedicates her life to cracking the toughest mysteries in the affluent town of Neptune.

According to Glamour, “Veronica Mars deserves to be counted among the greatest teen shows - and best teen heroines - of the modern TV era.” If you read the teens solving mysteries lenZ, you already got a hint of my adoration of this show. It’s honestly a feat to be seen. I watched this show maybe a year ago to get prepared for the fourth season being released on Hulu. I vaguely remember enjoying it and loving all of the cultural references that are infused within the dialogue. It had a short lived original run on the WB - only 3 seasons - but the die hard fans wanted more. Thus, a kickstarter movie and a fourth season on Hulu where they can CURSE (by curse, I mean they say sh*t occasionally, but you know) were born. So let’s get into it.

As I mentioned in my teens solving mysteries, most teen detective shows run out of ideas by the second-ish season. Most shows, in an earnest attempt to keep their audiences on their toes, go out of their way to confuse us. But Veronica Mars stays grounded in reality...for the most part. Let’s just say there’s a certain amount of plausibility when you watch it. In normal shows, you have to suspend your disbelief to a point of frustration. This is not the case with this show, because no matter how many laws Veronica breaks, the consequences are either nonexistent or reversed in an episode or less. It’s all a part of her charm.

But I should tell you, this show isn’t just chock-full with witticisms. It has some dark, depressing moments that deal with difficult subjects such as death, rape, child abuse, mental health issues, but the show doesn’t take them on in an over-dramatized way. Each character is complex on their own (and surprisingly well acted) and I adore every single one. This is a leg up on my usual teen drama diet. It’s surprisingly witty and smart but also deftly handles the dark previously mentioned topics. You wouldn’t expect this from a normal teen show, despite the premise being different enough. Of course, we have to stan a Kristen Bell vehicle where she plays a sharp witted teen private investigator. This show is wonderful and kick started Kristen Bell’s career. If you dislike Riverdale, you’ll probably love this. This is the show that Riverdale wanted to be. They even share a Veronica. There’s drama, there’s mystery, there’s wit, there’s attractive teens, there’s love-triangles. What more could you want?

My Favorite Characters:

Kristen Bell as Veronica Mars: KRISTEN BELL IS SUBLIME IN THIS. We all know Kristen Bell as the woman who can do it all (The Good Place, Frozen, Gossip Girl). But we must all bow down to Kristen Bell’s breakout role. I love her in this show. She portrays the conflicted and snarky Mars to perfection. It catapulted her to stardom and you’ll see why. She carries this show on her shoulders and it never weighs her down. Every episode, she just gets better and better. She’ll make you want to be a private investigator with a snarky attitude and a taser. No matter how much trauma Veronica endures, she always has her sense of humor and they can’t take that away from her.
Jason Dohring as Logan Echolls: really just Veronica’s sidepiece. They had so much sexual tension in this haters to lovers relationship. But, Logan’s had a tough life. Dohring played every intricacy of this extremely conflicted character. He also had a wonderful character arc from obligatory psychotic jacka*s to an honorable man. It’s cathartic to see a character with so much pain become an upstanding citizen in society. He was also one part of the love-triangle or love-square depending on your perspective. Are you Team Logan? Probably, most people are.
Enrico Colantoni as Keith Mars: Honestly, he’s just a cool dad. There aren’t many single dads on television who aren’t incompetent buffoons and Keith is a breath of fresh air. He will do anything for Veronica, just like a real dad would. Though she may hide secrets from him, they’re father-daughter relationship is built on love and respect. Colantoni is an underrated actor in many respects and I’m giving him his due credit in this review.

This show is rated TV-14. Here’s why:

Language
Violence and Gore
Alcohol and Drug Use
Frightening and Intense Scenes

My Favorite Part: Rob Thomas’s script is phenomenal. It’s the perfect blend of sarcasm and wit and depressing and tragic. His words are something to be marveled at. It’s far too sophisticated for a teen show. They talk like teenagers talk, or at least how I talk. With coded language and social cues. They don’t speak in Shakespearean tongue and convoluted language. They talk in pop culture references, not contrived diatribes. Every episode has a distinct beginning, middle, and end and you are hooked in every second of it. Each of the characters are uniquely developed with their own distinct personality. They all have secrets and they all have motives. Every character goes on a journey that entrances the viewer in its specificity. You would not confuse Troy VanDerGraff and Duncan Kane, at least not for long. I wanted to write a special section about his script just to give it the praise it deserves.

Fun Fact: After the work's transition from novel to television series, Thomas changed the character's gender from male to female because he believed a noir piece told from a female point of view would be more interesting.

Number of Seasons: 4

Where to Watch:

IMDb and Reddit Thread:

Veronica Mars

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