Veronica Mars season 4 | Consequences bypass the powerful (review)
Have you binge-watched the Veronica Mars fourth season yet? I did. It’s only eight episodes, but I remember her from my teenage years and thought it may be cool to catch up with an old friend.
Veronica is the friend I’m referring to.
I have to admit, it was nice to see Veronica Mars back in action. However, I also have to admit I was completely perplexed by the number of people that got away with their crimes by the end of the season.
Tread lightly, if you haven’t watched it yet. As you continue to read, I will refer to information that could be considered spoilers below.
One thing I loved about season four of Veronica Mar is that it was very messy. It had a great spiderweb to follow. You had the initial bombing that put everything in motion. Decoy story lines that kept the main story buried so that you couldn’t see the ending coming. And, it dealt with a lot of mature themes that kept the show interesting.
The creators of the show did a great job with maturing the context of Veronica’s life to match where viewers of the show (when it was on in the early 2000s) are currently. It’s like we grew up together only she’s slightly older than me.
But I digress. I noticed a few things about Veronica’s personal life this season. She is not that great with relationships. She’s oblivious to her dad’s health, doesn’t want to get married to Logan at one point, and ruins a cool friendship with a character named Nicole.
I also noticed that the show creators used the way Veronica had sex as a representation of where her emotional state was at the time. When she’s not in the best place emotionally, it’s dark and raunchy. But, if she’s in a good place those scenes don’t exist even though they are implied.
She is still rough. But her mess never really factors into “the mess” of the show.
Spoilers Plot Details Ahead
Okay, quick overview. I’ll stick to important facts. All names are not important to follow the story.
A real estate agent is pushing for a form of gentrification in Neptune. So he, along with his friend from jail, plans to devalue the area so that they can kill spring break and buy up real estate for a low price.
A bomb goes off during spring break in Neptune. It kills a hotel owner, a rude frat guy, a congressman’s brother’s fiance (the brother lost 3 fingers), and a relative of the fictional cartel leader El Despiadado.
A pizza guy is also injured in the process.
There’s a chain reaction to try and solve the mysterious bombings before someone else gets hurt.
Queue Veronica and Keith Mars.
They are commissioned by the congressman to find out who is behind the bombings as he suspects his blackmailer is responsible. But he doesn’t trust the police, because they are short-staffed.
Muggings and sexual assaults are overtaking the area during spring break and when the bomb blows, they are overwhelmed and the chief of police is very prideful which doesn’t help.
Anyway, the cartel sends two henchmen to track down the person responsible for the hotel bomb that killed their family. So the entire show, they are on a chase and never get a lead. But they do run into the congressman who is being stalked and attacked by 2 rednecks (relatives of his brother’s deceased fiance’) about a wedding ring they have no claim to.
They save the congressman’s life for a price and try to kill Veronica Mars at some point because she was snooping around their hotel room. Eventually, they get their guy and head back to Mexico.
The congressman ends up in the hospital, but he survives. He gets his hands dirty during the season, but he also goes on to live his life without consequence for his actions.
The hotel owner’s daughter becomes the protege of Veronica and ends up helping Veronica and Keith figure out who the bomber is and save the sort of.
There’s a big plot twist at the end and it is confusing and bogus. I won’t spoil, but I did not understand why that needed to happen.
It’s like the “good” guys didn’t win at all.
In fact, most of the bad guys, or people who did something shady during the season, never experienced any consequences for their actions. Even when they catch the culprit only one person suffers serious consequences.
Why should you watch Veronica Mars?
Besides the drama that’s played up through the entire story. Some of the happenings in this season show a lot of what happens in neighborhoods that have a great location but undesired occupants.
Think about it, a real estate tycoon moving to build up luxury condos on the beach against the will of the surrounding community. It happens in neighbors every day. The other issues in the season were just distractions.
The truth from this story is consequences bypass the powerful.
I wouldn’t say the season is amazing, but it is entertaining at points. There are a lot of annoying characters, Veronica being one of them at times. However, I need to stress this. Please do not make a spin-off called Mars Investigations.
At the end, it felt like they were trying to spin-off to Veronica’s protege a little bit. I don’t think that’s a good idea. Don’t do it. This is Veronica’s story. Keep it that way.