I have, like many of you, recently binge-watched Netflix’s Nobody Wants This, a show that has been marketed at people exactly like me, who grew up burning CDs filled with Seth Cohen’s favourite songs (the official The OC Mixes never included all of them), downloading Marissa Cooper’s ringtone into our pink Motorolas, and inevitably falling in love with one of Rory’s boyfriends. While the show’s popularity has led to an Adam Brody renaissance, with TikTok becoming an ocean of Seth Cohen edits, it led me not to a The OC rewatch, but rather to yet another Veronica Mars binge.
Set in the fictional town of Neptune, California, Veronica Mars follows the adventures of its titular character, a high school student who works as an assistant at her father’s P. I. business. While Keith Mars had been Neptune’s sheriff, he was voted out after he “botched” the Lily Kane murder investigation. Lily, in case you are wondering, was Veronica’s best friend (in a brilliant early performance by the amazing Amanda Seyfried). Her brother, Duncan, was Veronica’s boyfriend. Although a disgruntled former employee confesses the murder, Keith suspects the Kanes are somehow involved. Thus, the Mars become outcasts. Veronica solves a standalone mystery per episode, but each season also brings a longer investigation of a more complex mystery arc. The show had three seasons (2004-2007), a fan-funded movie (2014), and a forgettable and disappointing fourth season (2019).
Veronica Mars is, I have come to realise, my favourite show of the 2000s. In a way, I feel that it dared to go where no other teen show ever did in terms of characterisation. While we did have complex, flawed characters at the centre of shows of the genre that came before and after, Veronica was unapologetically many things at once. Both self-centred and prone to self-sacrifice, she was always too complex, I fear, to be allocated into any kind of pre-fixed category, maybe even by today’s standards, but most certainly by those of the noughties. She is the kind of character that would perhaps be better suited for literary fiction. A Catherine Earnshaw of sorts, who will never bother to ask for sympathy or even for you to like her, but that will have you glued to the page as she makes her mistakes.
Veronica had, of course, her own Heathcliff in Logan Echolls. A character as problematic and as traumatised as Veronica herself, Logan may be a fan favourite, but he is also the subject of many variations of a Reddit thread titled “are we supposed to root for this guy?”. That reticence is fair. Veronica and Logan’s relationship wasn’t textbook healthy, but their own personal circumstances were not at all healthy either. In a world of absent, abusive, and even criminal parents, Keith Mars was the only wholesome exception. Neptune was a wilderness; Veronica and Logan reacted accordingly. But why do we need them to be good for us to root for them? I do not subscribe to the idea that art must represent life as it is or as it should be, but if angelical people are not the rule in reality itself, why should we expect to find them in fiction? Escapism is fine, but it should never be boring. In that sense, I do applaud Rob Thomas’s gutsiness in refusing to allow cliché to slide its way into his stories. By placing Veronica and Logan at the centre, the show retained its power, a restlessness that drew it apart from the others. Unlike most teenage bad boys on TV, Logan’s behaviour was not a personal signature or an aesthetics. No motorbikes or leather jackets were required. No soliloquies on being weird or an outcast. He actually was quite good in fitting in while being constantly involved in or creating trouble. But then again, so was Veronica when she needed to.
In a lot of ways, the subtleties that made Logan’s relationship with Veronica so addictive to the viewer are as much a credit to Jason Dohring’s acting as to Rob Thomas’s writing, if not more. Logan is fascinating in the same way that any troubled outcast played by Marlon Brando was. It is not just about screaming “Stella”; often it is a look, a gentle touch, a gesture, or even how one handles a glove that makes a scene. In one of LoVe’s (yes, they did have the most perfect ship name) most famous scenes, Logan’s attempt at a reconciliation with Veronica does not go according to plan.
I thought our story was epic, you know, you and me. Spanning years and continents. Lives ruined, bloodshed. EPIC. But summer's almost here, and we won't see each other at all. And then you leave town... and then it's over.
This scene is extraordinary is every possible way. Jason Dohring delivers one of his best ever performances. Kristen Bell communicates in one look both Veronica’s vulnerability and her impulse to shut it all down to protect herself. The soundtrack, the lightning, Logan’s speech, Veronica’s speechlessness. This is exactly what romance lacks, I feel, even in more mature works (or maybe I should say, in works with a more mature target audience). The fleshing out of mismatched expectations. Not just miscommunication, but the awkwardness of the attempts. Some grit.
Logan and Veronica are far from exemplary, but they are extremely relatable, even if their personal contexts are likely to be more extreme than that of the viewers. And I suppose it is a bit disappointing that art like this is more and more unlikely to get produced, at least on that scale of mainstream television. While I don’t delude myself into thinking that TV wasn’t always about numbers - Veronica Mars itself got cancelled due to low ratings - it is particularly bad in the age of content. Everything is thought of in terms of content: will it make it into TikTok? Does it have a catchphrase people are likely to adopt and turn into a viral moment? Did people stream it all at once and if they did, were they quick to watch the whole thing again? And even that might not be enough: for all its gen-z-service and hype, the highly addictive My Lady Jane still got the ax. On the other side of the same doomsday scenario, we have AI being pushed and meekly adopted as the future, a booster to creativity, a booster to productivity, a booster to [fill in the gap].
Logan and Veronica are probably not the first thing people think of when they think about art. Or even about performance, or drama. It is to me one of the best answers to the uselessness of AI or content discourse when it comes to it, however. The reason I love art is that it helps me understand myself, as a human, better. It is highly intentional. Every word, every gesture, every breath is filled with meaning, even if that meaning isn’t necessarily verbal. It is depressing to think that from academics to “creatives”, people are so quick to relinquish their priceless ability to just say something, anything, that will make a connection possible. It can be bad, it can be misguided, but it is still human. And that’s the only thing worth hanging on to in times like our own.
Postscriptum (contains Veronica Mars S04 spoilers)
Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell made an insane error in judgement in supposing that Veronica Mars was just about, well, Veronica Mars. I suspect, like many other fans, that Hulu had something to do with how Season 4 ended on a ridiculous note. There is something to be said here about misguided intentionality as well, but I will always prefer a bad human choice in an artwork to AI bullshit.
