[Obviously spoilers for S4 abound, so scroll past if you don’t want to see them!!]

What most upset you about Veronica Mars S4?

It wasn't so much the death itself. Character's die. Sometimes the actors want to move to other projects. Sometimes the narrative necessitates a death. Sometimes the genre itself necessitates that characters die frequently. It's fine, I love a lot of shows and book series where death is to be expected.

So it wasn't the death itself. It was how it was done. It really felt like a slap in the face - or more even like a punch to the gut, frankly. They treated the relationship as mostly happy but rocky throughout the 8 episodes, which is fine. As much as Veronica and Logan love one another - they have a lot of issues both individually and as a couple to work out, and I was happy to watch them navigate all of that. But to have them finally come to a point of being happy, to watch them struggle through some of that and come out the other side just to watch Logan die violently in an attack meant for Veronica? That hurt.

And on top of that to have it be the climax of a mystery that really should have been solved a lot quicker than it was - I mean Patton Oswalt's character basically TELLS her what he's doing and Veronica is Smarter than THAT. So to have it happen that way, so violently, and against all narrative reason just really bummed me out.

Then to get online and read that the whole purpose of it was to get Veronica on her own and free to be out and about solving mysteries by herself? Another gut punch. The show was never about just Veronica. I love Veronica, and Kristen's portrayal of her, but I also love all of the other characters in the show. I love the town of Neptune and all of the darkness and corruption just waiting to be dug into and resolved. It was never a murder of the week show. That's not what it was about. It was about some very flawed and troubled characters doing their best despite their surroundings and circumstances.

Do you feel like you were misled by Rob Thomas regarding the new season?

Yes. Big time. If what he wanted was basically a sleeper pilot for the kind of show he really wanted to be making? He could have just done that. Should have just done that. Just cast Kristen, make the Logan death a backstory, and start with her already on her own. He didn't have to drag us through what was mostly a good season just to give a terrible end that soured us all on the whole thing.

He obviously knew most of the fans would not be on board for the vision he had. So it was very misleading and disingenuous to pretend to be giving us what we wanted only to yank the rug out from under us by the end.

What did Veronica Mars mean to you? Has that changed since the new season dropped?

It meant a lot to me. Beyond just being an entertaining show, with a fantastic romantic ship, and a delightful cast, it meant more personally to me. I struggled a lot in high school myself with a lot of bullying in a similar kind of community as Neptune - with most folks being either very rich or very poor. I did my best to stay strong and stand up for myself and others. Years later, watching Veronica pick herself back up after all of her traumas and tragedies and come back swinging and very often winning against people much more powerful than herself was empowering to watch. 

Her close relationship with her father was also very special, and rare to see on a TV show. To watch Logan overcome his own traumas and tragedies to become a better version of himself was amazing - and the way he loved Veronica was wonderful. To see such a troubled young man stand by a strong woman and encourage her and accept her definitely meant a lot to me. Getting to see Weevil, Mac, Wallace, Jackie, and so many other characters learn to step away from the problems holding them back and really shine was incredible.

The show never did handle stories around sexual assault very well, in my opinion, but at that time - dealing with that subject matter in a serious and sensitive way at all was rather new and also meant a lot to me.

And yea, a lot of that has changed for me since season four, and especially since seeing Rob's interviews about it. I feel like he really doesn't understand what it takes to make a strong female character. That instead of wanting to allow Veronica to grow and become better and stronger - he wants to keep holding her back and re-traumatizing her over and over again. He doesn't seem to care for the other wonderful characters he's created. Weevil and Wallace have stagnated, Keith didn't get much development-wise, and Logan? Logan got all kinds of development just for him to be violently and needlessly killed in the end.

Well, @vmheadquarters... I’m not sure how many I have or even really how controversial they are, but I’ll bite... 

1) Wallace stopped being “good” in the second season when he was a dick with the whole Jen/Jackie thing. Kissing Jackie against her express wishes, blowing it off to Jen as nothing and “I made a mistake, look at how cute I am, you shouldn’t make me feel bad/should immediately forgive me” thing was just gross. Redeemable, mind you, but it booted him well out of the “an actual good guy” collective.

2) Lilly was a manipulative spoiled brat, and I regularly question the sincerity of her friendship with Veronica. Did she actually like Veronica and want her around, want to know her and be her friend and help her grow into an interesting human... or did she just like having someone around who wouldn’t overshadow her, who would give her the undying adoration without expecting anything back? Logan loved Lilly, and might have forever if she hadn’t died, but his love came with a price--he wanted her to love him back, he wanted her devotion and fidelity, and she *refused* to give that to him.

3) I think Logan platonically liked or even loved Veronica before Lilly died, and probably found her attractive, but I don’t think he loved her in a romantic or sexual sense until the aftermath/during the first season of the show. Additionally, I don’t know if their relationship would have developed into the epic love story it did if Lilly hadn’t died. Veronica had to lose her naivety, had to toughen up and deal with the harsh real world, had to learn to stand up for herself and others, had to live through and learn from some traumas of her own, had to learn to hate the world as it is right now with class and cultural and racial and gender and sexual differences. If Lilly hadn’t died, I don’t know if she would have had to deal with those issues, and without having to grow up in that unfortunately traumatic and heartbreaking way, I don’t know if she and Logan would have been able to connect like they did after Lilly died. If Lilly lived, the worst her life may have been was Duncan breaking up with her for mistaken paternity and her having to get over that heartbreak. (Accordingly, Piz could have been a viable long-term partner choice for a LillyLives!Veronica.)

4) Even trying to be “normal” between the end of the show and the movie, Veronica would have NEVER gone into corporate law. She fucking hated those moneybags, she knew the consequences of the divides (class, racial, etc.) increased and encouraged by corporate law. I can see her going into law as a “safe” or “normal” alternative to investigating, to try to continue her justice streak... but she would have definitely still done criminal law. Veronica equated normal with “feeling like I have a heart and soul again”, and corporate law would have never made her feel like that.

5) Mac has never been straight, which was one of the reasons that she was trusted to be the administrator of the Pirate’s SHIP website.

6) The MaDi (Mac/Dick) pairing gets a lot of flack in fanfic circles, but I can actually see them being good for one another. Dick would need a lot of therapy before they could be a healthy couple, no doubt, but I can see their complementary aspects: joining his wild streak at times, trusting him even when she’s not there/not being the super nagging or jealous type; encouraging him to explore other interests that may not jive with his partyboy facade; them being supportive of one another when they’re bombarded with obtrusive anxiety/trauma-related thoughts; both understanding the struggle of figuring out who they are outside of the weird/sucky/hard/shitty family situations they’ve found themselves in, including understanding that family of choice is as important--maybe more important--than family of origin; having similar senses of humor; Dick not giving her flack for not being “girly” enough or whatever because of her computer skills or gaming preferences or for her stubborn independence, Mac never making him feel emasculated for wanting to please her or see her smile or for needing to be around her, touch her, talk to her; Mac kicking his ass at poker every time (let’s be honest, Mac and V would hold the Casablancas and Echolls fortune, won via poker, if the boys wouldn’t stop playing them). No pairing is perfect, but I can see how they would work.

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Questions for Veronica Mars fans (I’ve been a fan...

@carrycateThinking of Liam being Logan’s “father figure” is a big fat NO in my mind. Logan has had too much shit to deal...

Exactly. And even if it turned out that he'd gone to work for Liam “undercover”, with his own secret agenda to help bring him down etc., I still can’t be fully on board with the idea that he had to distribute drugs for the Fitzpatrick family at some point, even undercover. I’d like to think that Logan would never be involved in drug distribution after he’d learned what drugs did to Veronica and Duncan (with his unconscious assistance). I could see him using drugs himself in the state of severe depression during his self-destructive, self-loathing downward spiral, but consciously selling them to others? No way. I don’t want that for the character, and hope RT won’t try to retcon his backstory in that direction in the future. I’m also impressed with Logan’s progress as a character so far (such an amazing, complex, layered character deserved this kind of development, and I’m just glad that RT seems to love him almost as much as he loves Veronica, so he’s doing him justice at the moment). He became so strong that he could be “stabilizing influence” for others, and he can certainly be V’s solid rock now, when they are adults and continue to grow and mature as a couple.

As for Piz -- I’m also always baffled when people consider him to be anything more than a mere plot device, as I always thought it was made abudantly clear by the way the show always treated him. The poor guy hasn’t ever got any character at all, let alone any character development. There’s nothing “noir” about him, and he never fitted in the universe, he was just used as a “not-Logan”, “not-noir” alternative for V, both in season 3 and in the movie. He doesn’ even fully fit “the good guy” trope, as from what little we see of him in the series, he actually never does anything “good” or selfless, and in the movie it’s made crystal clear that he doesn’t get the real Veronica, and he doesn’t even need the real Veronica (notice how he immediately shuts her up when she tries to make an impression of his boss in the movie -- and who would Veronica be without her “dudes” impressions?). He just has some illusional idea of a “perfect creature” in his mind, a creature he could boast in front of his colleagues and parents, and he had absolutely no interest nor desire to learn what makes the real Veronica tick (not to mention to fight for her honour when needed). No wonder he “bores the shit out of her”. :) 

I've stopped followed discussions - it isn't worth the grief. Holding a minority position takes passion and patience, and the anti-everyone-except-Logan crew has killed that dead.

See, and I feel like this is an example of some that defensiveness right here.

I've not encountered a single person in this fandom who is anti-everyone-except-Logan - much less a whole crew of them.

Yes, there are a lot of Logan fans, even Logan stans, in this community. But these people almost always, for example, also love and adore and even stan for Veronica. Lots of them have secondary characters that they are willing to die on the hill of defending - Parker, Wallace, Weevil, Keith, Mac, Gia, Jackie, Cassidy, Dick, Casey, etc. There are even a few who don't have any negative feelings towards Piz believe it or not! Even some who don't hate Duncan!! Hell, there's even one or two will critically analyze someone like Lamb or Aaron in ways that aren't entirely negative at times!

There's so much nuance and just general love for the whole show from the fans that I see. And yes, there's a mega-ton of Logan love here. That's true. And I can understand why that can set some folks on the defensive who aren't as fond of him (or are fond but want to talk more critically about him), and/or who want to talk more about their faves. I do get that.

But I think sometimes that defensiveness can cloud things a bit. Just because there's an overwhelming amount of love for Logan doesn't mean we hate all other characters, nor that we aren't willing to discuss Logan's flaws.

I personally, as you know, love Weevil as much as I love Logan and V. I'd love to see more posts about him - more gifsets, more meta, more "I love this guy so much because" posts, etc. I also adore the crap out of Jackie, Mac, Cassidy, Keith, and others and wish there more posts going around about them to reblog.

I'm also totally willing to take the journey of exploring some of Logan's darker sides - as long as it's done with respect. Again, if it's insulting his character overall without being at all nuanced about his good qualities, I'm gonna kinda roll my eyes (just as I'd imagine anyone who likes Piz does at my anti-piz posts, hence my always tagging them anti-piz so they can be freely blocked). And if it's insulting to the people who like Logan, then that's gonna make me angry (I'd never insult people who like Piz btw. Just because I don't like him doesn't mean other people can't!!). But if it's done with respect, then hellsyea. Let's go there. I love flawed characters and I know that they're flawed and I've no problem digging into their flaws.