Veronica Mars season one rewatch: Lil’ gumshoe

I first watched Veronica Mars in the summer of 2006. Before then, I would see promos for the show and dismiss it as some cheeky teen girl drama. I was wrong. Before UPN and The WB merged into The CW, UPN was airing reruns of the show all the time. I was watching season two episodes, without context, and loving it.

I quickly decided that I needed to buy seasons one and two before season three began. It was August and I was watching several Veronica Mars episodes a day. The school year began and all I could think about in class was going back home to watch more Veronica Mars before Oct. 3. I finished some time in September and just waited for the premiere, but not without engaging with fans online — a forum here, a chat board there. Before I knew it, I was deeply emerged within the fandom. And when the end of season three reared its head, I did everything I could to make sure it didn’t get canceled. But it was no use. The CW president waited until summer to announce it was officially canceled, most likely to thwart off a negative reaction from fans. And May 22, 2007 was the last time I ever watched Veronica Mars.

I don’t know why that is, however. I still regard Veronica Mars as one of my favorite series ever. It’s been two years since Chuck (my number one favorite series ever) ended and I still haven’t watched it again, either. Part of me doesn’t want to relive what could have been, to be devastated once again at its cancelation and cliffhangers. Along with other Veronica Mars fans, I still held hope that a continuation would happen, most likely in the form of a movie. And once a Veronica Mars movie was announced, it was like going back to 2007 again. It’s been six and a half years, closer to seven once the movie comes out, and I’m about to embark on my first rewatch.

(Or at least I was about to embark on my rewatch when I first wrote that. When I began rewatching, I envisioned writing about every, single episode separately. But then the inevitable happened: I just began binge-watching it, pressing play on the next episode faster than I anticipated.)

One half of it is to refresh my memory. Six and a half years ago is like a lifetime ago. I had forgotten many, many details about the series. I haven’t forgotten the major plot twists, but the intricacies have escaped me. And I want to be prepared for when March 14 comes around.

The other half is that I was also a different viewer then as I am now. Hopefully, I’ll be able to see Veronica Mars through a more critical eye.

I’ve never been a fan of the Veronica Mars pilot, and I feel as though I’m in a very small camp with that one. It’s a prime example of a pilot that tells way too much. It’s the same as with the season two premiere episode, which was tell-y for no good reason. The truth is that there is a lot of information to dump on the audience so that they understand the story from here on out.

But that doesn’t mean I have to particularly like it. It’s a good thing that I was hooked in by the season two episodes because I’m not too sure how much the pilot would have kept my attention. “Why do I not like it so much?” you ask. Well, there are many reasons: That voiceover. I’m not the biggest fan of voiceovers as it is. Now, obviously, voiceovers are a staple of Veronica Mars, but the pilot is simply too OK with having Veronica explain everything that happened. Plus, part of the episodes goes a couple of flashbacks deep. We begin with Veronica staking out Jake Kane when Weevil pulls up, then we jump into a flashback of the first day of school, and then Veronica goes into flashbacks from there to tell the story of Lily Kane.

Goodness.

But, whatever, those are negligible things. One of the aspects of Veronica Mars that I enjoyed a lot more now — with the pilot, but also especially with many of the other episodes — that I was too dense to understand when I was younger was its complete homage to film noir. I mean, I was aware of that a bit back then, but watching it now is a completely different experience. I never understood completely why Veronica Mars was an almost exhausting experience, one that many times made me feel a bit hollow. And that’s because Veronica Mars never allows itself to be sensational. Body counts and violence are not just to shock the audience or for passive entertainment.

They’re used to ground this teen drama in a very real, and very dark world. Hell, the pilot episode involves a death and a rape, and it handles them with absolute maturity. It is for this reason, Veronica Mars’s ability to treat all elements of its show with utmost respect, that twists or plot lines that would be the epitome of frothy on a soap opera feel absolutely genuine here. Later episodes deal with domestic abuse and the possibility of incest. And, of course, the show has never shied away from classism and racial undertones.

Most importantly, I think, is that the show was able to cultivate such a fully formed character in Veronica. When we’re introduced to her, Veronica is this hardened badass, which is true for most of the series’ run. But as we begin delving into the season, we realize that she’s not just that. She yearns for her mother to come home, while simultaneously resenting her for running out on her family.

And one of the elements of the show I loved the most on my season one rewatch was seeing Veronica battle her inner moral compass. Her view of the world is almost black and white at the beginning of the series. “The hero is the one that stays, and the villain is the one that splits,” she tells her father when she tries to assure her mother isn’t the only one to blame. (And just as it was the first time, the relationship between Veronica and her dad is one of my favorites in all of TV history. Still resonates till this day.) Though it got a bit heavy-handed at times whenever Veronica realized at the end of cracking a case that life was sometimes in grey — I’m thinking of especially when a student tried to blame counterfeit IDs on her because his dad lost his job or some such, like who cares guy? — Veronica Mars was always up for revealing to its audience that its heroine was not Little Miss Perfect.

There’s also no denying that Veronica most certainly craves a bit of excitement in her life. The nice guy always comes in last with her because (A) sometimes they’re not always nice guys, like maybe they are secretly drug dealers who are using you, and (B) they’re boring. On first viewing, I thought the Veronica and Logan pairing came out of the blue. On second watch, I still think they could have built that up better, but having seen her development since the first episode, it seems much more natural.

I think my only real issue with the season is the rush into solving the season-long case during the last two episodes, when there was so much that could have been done throughout the other 20 episodes. I still say the Aaron Echolls should have had more of a presence during season one, but he was a memorable character regardless. All in all, a good choice — not completely obvious, but one that made sense.

They Became Famous Count: Five. Jessica Chastain, Aaron Paul, Max Greenfield, Adam Scott and Leighton Meester. Did I miss any? Does JD Pardo count? Paris Hilton was already super famous, no?

Anyway, I know you’ve heard or read all of this before, but I just felt like talking about season one a bit. I haven’t begun season two just yet, but hopefully I can get a bit more detailed (and less stern and serious) by covering those on a few-episodes-at-a-time basis.