"Veronica Mars," Year Four (With All the Spoilers)

Spoilers ahead, guys.  I mean it.

Still here?

Oh my god, they fridged Logan Echolls.  They literally let him get married to Veronica and then blew him up for maximum emotional damage.   And from all the interviews and post-mortems I've been reading, this was definitely intentional and on purpose.  If the show continues, he's not coming back. I've been watching the fallout from this all over the internet, and clearly some of the fans are thoroughly pissed off.  I would be too, I guess, if I had been invested in the Logan/Veronica relationship since 2004 and put money in the Kickstarter, and cheered on the revival thinking I was going to get more of these two together.  There are many claiming that his death has killed the whole series. But wasn't that kinda the point?

The best take I've seen on this so far is a piece written by Linda Holmes for NPR, "The Crowd Fundeth, And The Crowd Taketh Away: The 'Veronica Mars' Problem."  It makes the case that Logan has always been a problematic type of character that only became more problematic over time. To make a long story short, he went from angry bad boy to Prince Charming, largely because Rob Thomas tried to give fans what they wanted for the 2014 Kickstarter funded "Veronica Mars" movie by having Veronica and Logan end up together.  However, this was a misstep that removed everything interesting about Logan, and simultaneously ensured that he would be a huge presence in Veronica's life and all her future adventures.  

Rob Thomas's reasons for killing off Logan are very sound.  "Veronica Mars," both the show and the character, have been stuck in a state of arrested development, and a big reason is this epic high school love story that they've never been able to move past.  "Veronica Mars" can't remain a teen drama in 2019, because none of the main characters are teenagers anymore and it's well past the time for them to mature into adults. One of the big themes of the fourth season was Veronica finally letting go of Neptune and leaving her old life behind for good.  The impetus for that could have been Keith Mars dying, which was a possibility the show alluded to all season, but removing Logan solves a lot of existing problems and forces Veronica to confront others. 

It's part of the move to push "Veronica Mars" away from its origins as a teen soap and toward traditional detective noir territory.  Noir traditionally does not have happily ever after endings. This isn't a hard and fast rule - Bogart usually got Bacall in the end - but the writers never figured out a way to have Veronica and Logan in a stable relationship together and remain interesting.  You could tell in season four that they were stretching to keep Logan involved in the action. And as much as I enjoy Jason Dohring, he wasn't given enough to do and it didn't feel right to have him be the mature and well-adjusted one to Veronica's self-deluded basket case.  The show could have broken them up again, had Logan relapse into bad behavior, or just sent him off with the navy, but I can't fault Rob Thomas for just wanting to walk away from the whole thing.     

Of course, you can't be mad at the fan reaction either.  They killed off Logan! They barely let us see any of the aftermath and ended the episode with Veronica resolving to move on a year later.  We didn't see the reactions of any of the other characters, the funeral, the grieving process, nothing. It felt like less of a goodbye to a beloved character than a rude shove out the door.  It felt like Rob Thomas just didn't want to deal with it. I sincerely hope we get little more acknowledgement of the impact of Logan's death next season. And if there's not a next season, I will be very upset.    

Part of me is kind of impressed at the writers' chutzpah for taking the risk and going through with this.  And yes, it actually feels kind of progressive that the straight white guy is the one getting horribly murdered to further his significant other's character development, even though I hate that trope.  It bodes well for whatever "Veronica Mars" is transforming into. I'm going to miss the old show that we're never going to get back, not really. But I also want to see what Veronica does next. 

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