The real reason fans are so upset
It’s so strange because on one hand I understand Rob Thomas wanting to do a darker show. Something completely different to the old Veronica Mars. I understand him wanting to do away with the old relationships and drama that twisted through Veronica’s life and dictated the decisions she made and the growth of her character. The thing is, he wants to get away from teen drama, be more “grown up”. But what is more grown up than marriage? Navigating a committed relationship? He wanted to get away from the soapy aspect of the show, but what is more “soap opera” than a car bomb killing off her husband AN HOUR after their marriage? We already know Veronica as a depressed and grieving, cynical loner. From season 1. What we don’t know is the Veronica who for the first time is the most toxic element in her own life. We don’t know Married Veronica. The Veronica who is alienating her friends and is now the villain of her own story. We don’t know that chapter of her life and we were so excited to see it unfold. The real reason fans are upset is because we’re grieving for a show that cannot be written now. We saw so many stories left to tell with ALL of these characters that would have taken the show in a darker, more noir, more adult direction. There is nothing more adult and nothing more dark and gritty than watching a damaged woman navigate adult relationships: a husband, a best friend with children, an angry man forced into the socio-economic cliche he tried so hard to escape, a chronically depressed actor, a father ailing in health. We’re mad not because we wanted the show to be exactly the same, but because we wanted a story that was earned, that deserved to be told, that was built from the ground up. It felt like everything was leading up to this, we’d all grown up with Veronica and now we were finally ready to actually START this part of her story. But it was ripped away, and we’re back to the beginning again, all because Rob Thomas didn’t WANT to write that story. And that’s his prerogative as the writer and owner of these characters. It just sucks because now this story is not only not going to be told, but cannot be told. At least when it was cancelled there was a sense of it still existing, still happening off screen, in that world. Now it’s not even happening there. It really sucks. But I imagine it the way I imagine fan fiction: it’s an interesting story and a new direction for the characters, but it’s not the real VM world. The way I cope with it is drawing a line between the two stories. Veronica is still married and will go on to live those stories we wanted told, while in this other world, that is separate from the original and true story, she goes off to have her Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Which is still worth watching, for novelty’s sake.
