I really enjoyed the fourth season of Veronica Mars
I saw a lot of reviews mention that Wallace was very underused, and I agree that he wasn’t in it that much, but it made sense to me? It’s not like high school when he and Veronica can work cases together, he’s married and with a responsible job now, so it would just feel forced if he had a big part to play in the main case. It makes sense that he was only around for friendship scenes with Logan and Veronica, and there are only so many of those scenes you can fit in 8 episodes when you have a case to solve.
That was apparently also the reason that Tina didn’t want to return, because they didn’t have any interesting storylines for Mac outside of helping Veronica with computer hacking. I totally respect why just being Veronica’s sidekick wouldn’t interest her as an actress, but I also get that they only had a limited time to tell their story with 8 episodes, so there just wasn’t time to give everyone meaty character development and their own storylines outside of the main arc of the case. Saying that, Mac was the character that I missed the most though, especially after the movie had established that she would be working at Mars Investigations with Veronica. I must have missed the explanation for why she wasn’t there, I was expecting it to be dealt with a bit more than it was?
I did love the intro of Nicole, and it made sense to see Veronica hanging out with her more as she and Wallace were on such different paths in life, I loved all the scenes of them dancing together and just acting crazy lol. I thought they had good chemistry too, I was almost expecting them to kiss at one point early on XD It was really a shame how that new friendship ended for Veronica, I hope they have some scenes together in the possible fifth season to work things out! (Also kind of sad how Keith’s new friendship with Clyde ended, J. K. Simmons was fabulous as always). Both of those characters give me hope with whatever new characters Rob Thomas may be planning to introduce in the future, as he did do a great job with those two, but we’ll see I suppose!
I wasn’t as keen as Matty as the new teenage Veronica though, I thought that she was a bit overused towards the end quite honestly. The actress was fine, but she didn’t really have the charisma and snappy delivery that Veronica had at her age, and that kind of stands out when you want to push a character as a badass younger version of your protagonist. The actress wasn’t bad or anything by any means, but I didn’t feel like she was as awesome as the writers apparently did either, and also Matty’s reaction to Dick’s beheading just felt off to me idk. Even 17 year old Veronica would have been more freaked out than Matty apparently was lol, I was almost wondering for a moment if she was the secret twist behind the later bombings, just because she came across as almost sociopathic in that moment of basically seeming completely underwhelmed at seeing a man’s head cut off...
Oh and I was very sad to hear about Weevil’s family leaving, he was so cute and proud of them in the movie :( I don’t fully understand why he even went back to crime, surely if the settlement was that good then he had enough to set himself up in a legit business? I was also sad to see how much his relationship with Veronica has deteriorated, I did like the last moment between them, but still I hope that Weevil does make an appearance in any future seasons so that they can end things on a better note
And I actually thought that Dick was underused more than Wallace was, it was puzzling to me that he didn’t have more scenes with his Dad, and that we didn’t get his reaction to his father being killed? It felt like he was a character that had earned more of a role in this particular story considering that his father was one of the main villains. But then I felt the same way with season 3 after Cassidy’s death when the show barely touched on it, so I suppose that the show has always used him more for comic relief and never really allowed him to be more than that. Also I do remember Rob Thomas saying in an interview that they wanted to use Dick for more episodes, but Ryan wasn’t available, so I suspect they had to use him in the first three episodes only because scheduling conflicts prevented him showing up at the end of the season?
All of the cameos were fun in their own way, although Parker’s probably felt the most pointlessly random to me, but it was still a nice touch to see so many old favourites again. I had been spoiled on most of the actors returning though unfortunately, the only big surprises were seeing Jake Kane in the finale, as well as Clarence Wiedman’s brief appearance, those were both nice surprises
Finally the cussing was mildly funny in the first episode, but that whole in-joke went on for way too long imo. I don’t know why they needed to include it so much for anyway, yeah sure let Veronica swear occasionally when the moment calls for it, but she was never swearing every other sentence before, it felt a bit out of character. It also makes me wonder what kind of show Hulu were expecting if they had requested that season 4 have no swearing, I wonder just how clear they were in the beginning on what Rob was planning on doing with this version of the show?
And I feel like I almost need a whole separate entry for how much there is to say about the backlash to the big twist!
Personally I wasn’t all that devastated by it I’ll be honest, although I do agree with viewers who are saying that it felt a bit abrupt, it was weird to not even include a shot of the funeral to really tug on our heartstrings. I kept thinking that it was intentionally ambiguous, but Rob Thomas has said since that Logan is definitely meant to be dead, so I guess not? Part of me is still wondering if it’s a massive twist that they’re trying to keep under wraps, but that is looking less and less likely with the interviews that have been released since
I do think that it was very ill-advised of Rob Thomas to go there and not understand just how great the backlash would be, I especially worry about what it means for the show going forward, but I must admit that I’m more frustrated at the moment that the twist seems to be all that most people want to talk about. Some fans are getting seriously obnoxious about it too on twitter. There was a lot of interesting stuff in season 4 that it would be cool to get into, but it feels like all of the focus is just on how it ended, in retrospect it’s a shame that the episodes weren’t released weekly so that there could be more time to discuss them and digest it all. It didn’t help that some fans decided to watch the last ten minutes first, and then proceeded to spoil it for a lot of other fans, including myself :(
And finally I will say that I’m not madly keen on the interviews that I’m reading with Rob. I can live with them killing Logan, but having a season set entirely away from the supporting cast I’m not so sure about... Neptune was always such a big part of the show and a completely solo Veronica will be quite an adjustment. I’m willing to see where they take it though as I did mostly like the new additions this year, but it will be a bummer if season 5 doesn’t feature any of the current cast outside of Veronica
That was apparently also the reason that Tina didn’t want to return, because they didn’t have any interesting storylines for Mac outside of helping Veronica with computer hacking. I totally respect why just being Veronica’s sidekick wouldn’t interest her as an actress, but I also get that they only had a limited time to tell their story with 8 episodes, so there just wasn’t time to give everyone meaty character development and their own storylines outside of the main arc of the case. Saying that, Mac was the character that I missed the most though, especially after the movie had established that she would be working at Mars Investigations with Veronica. I must have missed the explanation for why she wasn’t there, I was expecting it to be dealt with a bit more than it was?
I did love the intro of Nicole, and it made sense to see Veronica hanging out with her more as she and Wallace were on such different paths in life, I loved all the scenes of them dancing together and just acting crazy lol. I thought they had good chemistry too, I was almost expecting them to kiss at one point early on XD It was really a shame how that new friendship ended for Veronica, I hope they have some scenes together in the possible fifth season to work things out! (Also kind of sad how Keith’s new friendship with Clyde ended, J. K. Simmons was fabulous as always). Both of those characters give me hope with whatever new characters Rob Thomas may be planning to introduce in the future, as he did do a great job with those two, but we’ll see I suppose!
I wasn’t as keen as Matty as the new teenage Veronica though, I thought that she was a bit overused towards the end quite honestly. The actress was fine, but she didn’t really have the charisma and snappy delivery that Veronica had at her age, and that kind of stands out when you want to push a character as a badass younger version of your protagonist. The actress wasn’t bad or anything by any means, but I didn’t feel like she was as awesome as the writers apparently did either, and also Matty’s reaction to Dick’s beheading just felt off to me idk. Even 17 year old Veronica would have been more freaked out than Matty apparently was lol, I was almost wondering for a moment if she was the secret twist behind the later bombings, just because she came across as almost sociopathic in that moment of basically seeming completely underwhelmed at seeing a man’s head cut off...
Oh and I was very sad to hear about Weevil’s family leaving, he was so cute and proud of them in the movie :( I don’t fully understand why he even went back to crime, surely if the settlement was that good then he had enough to set himself up in a legit business? I was also sad to see how much his relationship with Veronica has deteriorated, I did like the last moment between them, but still I hope that Weevil does make an appearance in any future seasons so that they can end things on a better note
And I actually thought that Dick was underused more than Wallace was, it was puzzling to me that he didn’t have more scenes with his Dad, and that we didn’t get his reaction to his father being killed? It felt like he was a character that had earned more of a role in this particular story considering that his father was one of the main villains. But then I felt the same way with season 3 after Cassidy’s death when the show barely touched on it, so I suppose that the show has always used him more for comic relief and never really allowed him to be more than that. Also I do remember Rob Thomas saying in an interview that they wanted to use Dick for more episodes, but Ryan wasn’t available, so I suspect they had to use him in the first three episodes only because scheduling conflicts prevented him showing up at the end of the season?
All of the cameos were fun in their own way, although Parker’s probably felt the most pointlessly random to me, but it was still a nice touch to see so many old favourites again. I had been spoiled on most of the actors returning though unfortunately, the only big surprises were seeing Jake Kane in the finale, as well as Clarence Wiedman’s brief appearance, those were both nice surprises
Finally the cussing was mildly funny in the first episode, but that whole in-joke went on for way too long imo. I don’t know why they needed to include it so much for anyway, yeah sure let Veronica swear occasionally when the moment calls for it, but she was never swearing every other sentence before, it felt a bit out of character. It also makes me wonder what kind of show Hulu were expecting if they had requested that season 4 have no swearing, I wonder just how clear they were in the beginning on what Rob was planning on doing with this version of the show?
And I feel like I almost need a whole separate entry for how much there is to say about the backlash to the big twist!
Personally I wasn’t all that devastated by it I’ll be honest, although I do agree with viewers who are saying that it felt a bit abrupt, it was weird to not even include a shot of the funeral to really tug on our heartstrings. I kept thinking that it was intentionally ambiguous, but Rob Thomas has said since that Logan is definitely meant to be dead, so I guess not? Part of me is still wondering if it’s a massive twist that they’re trying to keep under wraps, but that is looking less and less likely with the interviews that have been released since
I do think that it was very ill-advised of Rob Thomas to go there and not understand just how great the backlash would be, I especially worry about what it means for the show going forward, but I must admit that I’m more frustrated at the moment that the twist seems to be all that most people want to talk about. Some fans are getting seriously obnoxious about it too on twitter. There was a lot of interesting stuff in season 4 that it would be cool to get into, but it feels like all of the focus is just on how it ended, in retrospect it’s a shame that the episodes weren’t released weekly so that there could be more time to discuss them and digest it all. It didn’t help that some fans decided to watch the last ten minutes first, and then proceeded to spoil it for a lot of other fans, including myself :(
And finally I will say that I’m not madly keen on the interviews that I’m reading with Rob. I can live with them killing Logan, but having a season set entirely away from the supporting cast I’m not so sure about... Neptune was always such a big part of the show and a completely solo Veronica will be quite an adjustment. I’m willing to see where they take it though as I did mostly like the new additions this year, but it will be a bummer if season 5 doesn’t feature any of the current cast outside of Veronica