MY FIRST SENTENCE IS ALREADY A HUGE-ASS SPOILER, SO SIMPLY SCROLL THROUGH THIS POST IF YOU HAVENâT SEEN VERONICA MARS SEASON 4 YET (AND YOU PLAN TO WATCH IT).
I feel like Iâm alone in this, but Iâm not pissed about Loganâs death the most. Itâs bullshit, yes, especially with Rob Thomasâ reasoning, but as much as I enjoyed a lot of things in this season (and honestly I did), boy, did they drop the ball for me on LoVe much earlier⌠But more on that later.
The ending and our segue way into the highly likely season 5 is that Veronica always gets back up⌠Alright.
We already saw that though.
How about showing Veronica actually learning to enjoy the life that comes after getting back up? How about delving into why she said no to Logan in episode 1? How about acknowledging that she was constantly mocking âTherapy Loganâ and explaining why exactly she was? How about writing an interesting, IC character arc for the main character? You want to move away from the teen soap, Rob? Writing difficult emotional situations where everything isnât black and white, death or survival, this guy or that guy, is the way to achieve that.
The sad thing is that the interesting character arc and an actually IC, adult (!) relationship drama between Veronica and Logan was right in front of Rob Thomas. But no, we had to have the Leo love triangle, a sex dream and a near death experience for Veronica to realize that she wants Logan⌠And Iâm sorry, WHAT. This is supposed to be a revelation? We already knew Veronica loved and wanted Logan. (Thatâs why love triangles stopped working after season 2, just saying.) And it wasnât even why Veronica said no in episode 1 in the first place. She told Logan why she was saying no, so why not examining her actual reasoning instead of creating new, bullshit ones?
We had to revisit the dilemma about what Veronica really wanted. Iâm sorry, wasnât this the very thing we had a whole movie about? The life Veronica is supposed to have (being a big-shot lawyer in New York and being with the ever-stable and trustworthy Piz) vs. the life Veronica actually wanted (living in the corrupt Neptune as a poor PI, and getting back together with her ex)? Did I only dream that? Arenât we already past this? So why include Veronica doubting her choices⌠again? And more importantly, why include it but never asking what exactly she doubts?
We also had to have Veronica mocking Logan for trying to get better. We had to see Veronica missing some violent, damaged version of Logan, when we had watched her for three seasons, quite rightfully, never putting up with that Logan. (Season 2 episode 1 break-up, anyone?) Veronica did not fall in love with the self-destructing Logan, she fell in love with the Logan who was maturing, trying, who was caring, hot-headed sometimes, yes (he still was in season 4 by the way), but never someone who actually scared Veronica. We brushed aside the whole episode 2 sex scene and cabinet breaking without ever properly acknowledging how fucking cruel it was of Veronica to do something like that. And the worst of all, we never got any explanation for why Veronica was acting the way she was.
I mentioned earlier the character arc and IC, adult relationship drama that imo should have been in the season instead of⌠whatever it was that we got. For me Veronicaâs ânoâ, her dismissal of Wallaceâs family life, her doubts, all the mocking directed at âTherapy Loganâ boils down to this: Veronica, simply put, was afraid. She knew self-destruction, violence, fighting against odds, loved ones leaving, loved ones dying, etc., she already knew how to deal with those, but happiness, marriage⌠Veronica wanted those, ofc, but was afraid of wanting them. She saw how easily she can lose those things. She was afraid of being happy, being certain and content, because she was so afraid of losing the things that made her happy, content, etc. So in true Veronica fashion, she tried to destroy them (you know, instead of listening to Logan, and ask for help from a therapist and learn how to let herself be happy).
Am I the only one who thinks that this would have been a much better (or not even necessarily better, but at least existing) character arc for Veronica?
Because sure, moving past a trauma and earning happiness is an exciting story, but what about learning to enjoy that happiness, to not letting the trauma color every major choice you make in your life?
In my ideal season 4, the cabinet punching would have been the culmination, and Logan, while never denying that he loved and would always love Veronica, would have put his mental health first (because he was fighting so hard for it between season 3 and the movie and still now in season 4) and would have fucking left. (I know, sorry, but that conflict was so much bigger than the writing pretended it was.) And Veronica would have been forced to actually think about her emotional baggage, fears and doubts that had nothing to do with Logan. Quite honestly, itâs a little insulting to Veronicaâs journey that the later episodes, especially the whole Leo storyline, but even having Veronica go to therapy only because of Loganâs death, framed like they were ever about Logan.
Keithâs struggles with memory loss would have fitted into this narrative perfectly, too, just like the bombings. Because finding happiness past traumas isnât about forgetting and erasing the bad things, itâs saying that yes, bad things can happen, itâs remembering that they already happened, acknowledging that happiness can be ruined any moment, and still not being afraid of happiness but choosing it and choosing to enjoy it. How is that for adult storytelling?
