Stagnant - the Veronica Mars story #BurntMarshmallows
Welp, we finished Season 4 of Veronica Mars tonight and I have feelings.
So, I haven't been a hardcore Marshmallow since the movie. My love for the show is really just that I love and adore Kristen Bell. When I went back to do my rewatch before the movie came out, I was really disappointed in how the show played out in my second viewing. The first season was still really good, but the second and third were...not. And the movie...I honestly do not remember ANYTHING about it and I know I had a big viewing party when it came out because I backed the Kickstarter and got a digital copy for free...yet...nothing.
But my hopes were up for season 4. Now we had an older, more mature Veronica. It was time to find out what kind of person she had become after all this time!
And the show started and I remembered how the movie ended - with Veronica right back where she was at 18. Even though she went away to college, spent years studying law, she somehow is exactly where she was at 18.
Okay, well that is just physical location! Surely, she has grown as a person! None of us are who we were when we were 18, right?
And again I remembered, Rob Thomas apparently doesn't believe in character development, at least not for his lead character. While Logan has gone to therapy to deal with his anger management and Wallace is married and has a kid and is hosting house parties, Veronica is still scraping by, working with her Dad as a P.I. and literally acting the same way she did when she was 18. She isn't applying what she learned at school. She hasn't used her knowledge to make Mars Investigations a better business. She just went right back to her desk and sat down.
All of her behaviors were the same too. I know we are all there for the Veronica snark, but the kind of snark you can get away with as an adult vs a teen...they are different. It's not charming or endearing. It's just kinda sad. You can be a certain way at 18 and get away with it. But to have this 30-something character still behaving that way was just depressing.
But, I thought, maybe this is the season arc, that she will grow as a person and become stronger and more confident and...NOPE! NEVER MIND! We're going for the cliche ending where the angry woman finally asks for help only after tragedy and then runs away from her feelings.
But I'll come back to that. Let's talk about some other uncomfortable things in this season of the show. How about stereotypes? Not only do we have Mexican drug cartel members sent up into California for revenge murder, we also have redneck yokels saying racist things to a Muslim Senator character. Oh and don't forget the possible neo-nazi/racist teen hacker who can track Bitcoin. What some might call "ripped from the headlines" I'm going to call LAZY ASS WRITING. It's like Rob Thomas just opened up his News Feed on his phone and wrote down headlines while brainstorming characters.
Oh, and of course, rape because apparently that is a requirement for Veronica Mars, someone must have something tied in to sexual assault.
Weevil kept trying to explain to Veronica that she was privileged but that never went anywhere. She never realizes that even though she thinks her life is rough and what not, there are tons more in Neptune that have it bad.
And was anyone else kind of uncomfortable with Patton Oswalt playing a character that had the same hobbies/interests as his real life DEAD EX-WIFE? I know that is kind of a meta-thing to be distracted by, but it bothered me (If you want a good story about real life "murder heads", read her book "I'll be gone in the dark").
Oh, and guess what? Remember the creepy age difference between Veronica and Leo back in the show? It still exists. Yes they are both adults now, but it still feels weird. And I know it was just put there for that awkward Logan jealously thing.
Right, so Logan. I was never a LoVe shipper, but Thomas is so I knew it was going to go that way. Logan seems to be the only character that thought was put into. He is going to therapy, he has a job that takes advantage of all of his skills, he has grown as a person and I actually like him now more than I did as a high school boy and THAT MAKES SENSE. And as soon as I saw the vague complaints popping up online, I knew that something happened with him. But the whole blowing him up seemed unnecessary and over the top. It was only done to hurt Veronica because apparently the only way she "grows" is through horrible pain and torture.
I know Veronica Mars is a noir show, meant to be dark and gritty. But it doesn't mean that Veronica has to be miserable ALL THE TIME. She doesn't have to hate herself. Her baggage was a matched set.
As the final voice over went on about how the city had high property values and no more cheap places to eat, there was no epiphany for Veronica. No closure. Nothing to make me want to return to this show and this character. Because it was just going to be more of the same.
In short: I watched Veronica Mars because I liked Kristen Bell. But Thomas' lazy writing was just too much and I don't think I will revisit the series any time soon (and I know some of this is on me, I had similar complaints about iZombie. I guess I hoped that perhaps the weakness of that finale was the distraction of Veronica Mars).
It's not Game of Thrones bad, just more disappointing. It would have been so much easier to fix these problems and make a better show, a quality show. It didn't need to have a happy ending and a tidy bow, but it could have had something that felt less manipulative and cheap.
This entry was originally posted at https://orangerful.dreamwidth.org/1333273.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
So, I haven't been a hardcore Marshmallow since the movie. My love for the show is really just that I love and adore Kristen Bell. When I went back to do my rewatch before the movie came out, I was really disappointed in how the show played out in my second viewing. The first season was still really good, but the second and third were...not. And the movie...I honestly do not remember ANYTHING about it and I know I had a big viewing party when it came out because I backed the Kickstarter and got a digital copy for free...yet...nothing.
But my hopes were up for season 4. Now we had an older, more mature Veronica. It was time to find out what kind of person she had become after all this time!
And the show started and I remembered how the movie ended - with Veronica right back where she was at 18. Even though she went away to college, spent years studying law, she somehow is exactly where she was at 18.
Okay, well that is just physical location! Surely, she has grown as a person! None of us are who we were when we were 18, right?
And again I remembered, Rob Thomas apparently doesn't believe in character development, at least not for his lead character. While Logan has gone to therapy to deal with his anger management and Wallace is married and has a kid and is hosting house parties, Veronica is still scraping by, working with her Dad as a P.I. and literally acting the same way she did when she was 18. She isn't applying what she learned at school. She hasn't used her knowledge to make Mars Investigations a better business. She just went right back to her desk and sat down.
All of her behaviors were the same too. I know we are all there for the Veronica snark, but the kind of snark you can get away with as an adult vs a teen...they are different. It's not charming or endearing. It's just kinda sad. You can be a certain way at 18 and get away with it. But to have this 30-something character still behaving that way was just depressing.
But, I thought, maybe this is the season arc, that she will grow as a person and become stronger and more confident and...NOPE! NEVER MIND! We're going for the cliche ending where the angry woman finally asks for help only after tragedy and then runs away from her feelings.
But I'll come back to that. Let's talk about some other uncomfortable things in this season of the show. How about stereotypes? Not only do we have Mexican drug cartel members sent up into California for revenge murder, we also have redneck yokels saying racist things to a Muslim Senator character. Oh and don't forget the possible neo-nazi/racist teen hacker who can track Bitcoin. What some might call "ripped from the headlines" I'm going to call LAZY ASS WRITING. It's like Rob Thomas just opened up his News Feed on his phone and wrote down headlines while brainstorming characters.
Oh, and of course, rape because apparently that is a requirement for Veronica Mars, someone must have something tied in to sexual assault.
Weevil kept trying to explain to Veronica that she was privileged but that never went anywhere. She never realizes that even though she thinks her life is rough and what not, there are tons more in Neptune that have it bad.
And was anyone else kind of uncomfortable with Patton Oswalt playing a character that had the same hobbies/interests as his real life DEAD EX-WIFE? I know that is kind of a meta-thing to be distracted by, but it bothered me (If you want a good story about real life "murder heads", read her book "I'll be gone in the dark").
Oh, and guess what? Remember the creepy age difference between Veronica and Leo back in the show? It still exists. Yes they are both adults now, but it still feels weird. And I know it was just put there for that awkward Logan jealously thing.
Right, so Logan. I was never a LoVe shipper, but Thomas is so I knew it was going to go that way. Logan seems to be the only character that thought was put into. He is going to therapy, he has a job that takes advantage of all of his skills, he has grown as a person and I actually like him now more than I did as a high school boy and THAT MAKES SENSE. And as soon as I saw the vague complaints popping up online, I knew that something happened with him. But the whole blowing him up seemed unnecessary and over the top. It was only done to hurt Veronica because apparently the only way she "grows" is through horrible pain and torture.
I know Veronica Mars is a noir show, meant to be dark and gritty. But it doesn't mean that Veronica has to be miserable ALL THE TIME. She doesn't have to hate herself. Her baggage was a matched set.
As the final voice over went on about how the city had high property values and no more cheap places to eat, there was no epiphany for Veronica. No closure. Nothing to make me want to return to this show and this character. Because it was just going to be more of the same.
In short: I watched Veronica Mars because I liked Kristen Bell. But Thomas' lazy writing was just too much and I don't think I will revisit the series any time soon (and I know some of this is on me, I had similar complaints about iZombie. I guess I hoped that perhaps the weakness of that finale was the distraction of Veronica Mars).
It's not Game of Thrones bad, just more disappointing. It would have been so much easier to fix these problems and make a better show, a quality show. It didn't need to have a happy ending and a tidy bow, but it could have had something that felt less manipulative and cheap.
This entry was originally posted at https://orangerful.dreamwidth.org/1333273.html. Please comment there using OpenID.