Oh, Season 3....I don't really even know where to begin with you. Season 3 of Veronica Mars took a show I was obsessed with and turned it into a show I could barely finish because of the problems I had with it. And it really pains my heart to have to admit that. I had heard bad things about season 3 before starting, but when the season started off strong, and I was enjoying where it was going, I just chalked it up to people being annoyed with all the changes in the show. Because I liked the changes. I liked that there were three smaller mysteries that made up the season instead of one season-long one. I think this actually solved one of the problems of season 2 with not being able to sustain interest in the season-long bus crash mystery because they had to stretch it out so much. I thought the rape mystery and both of the murder mysteries were extremely well plotted, interesting, and had great resolutions (I don't think I guessed a single culprit). They also allowed for Veronica to be fully invested in each case, and by proxy, we were too. So there are no complaints when it comes to the big mysteries. I even really liked the new characters, Piz and Parker, and thought that they added a lot to the show. Heck, even the fact that she was in college and was in a different setting didn't bother me at all. So what did bother me? Where do I start?
First, the characters, or perhaps, the lack of characters. While there were a lot of characters on the show, it felt like a lot of them got the short shrift this season. I thought that Veronica and Keith got a ton of story lines and development, which was really great and not enough can be said about the awesomeness of Kristin Bell and Enrico Colantoni. But quite a few of the secondary characters who had bigger roles in the other season seemed to be tossed to the wayside. I was excited when the season first started because there was all this potential with Wallace and Piz and Parker and Mac, but I was disappointed in the end with the amount they were on screen. Wallace, if he was even in an episode, would only be on for like, a minute which really bummed me out. I missed him. And I just felt all around that the other characters, even poor dead Sheriff Lamb (who I kind of loved in the end), were wasted. The only secondary character who I did think got enough screen time and whose extended screen time greatly improved the show was Dick Casablancas. Not only is he hilarious, but his sadness and his growth over what happened to his brother as the season went on was pretty much the only link from this season to the other, better seasons, which always reminded me of how much I used to love the show.
My other problem? Logan/Veronica. Oh yes, I'm going there. And ok, I admit it, I'm a huge LoVe shipper so I'm incredibly biased, but I just thought that a lot of their story line was handled poorly. I was really excited to see them together at the beginning of the season, and was looking forward to seeing them happily together for a while (we haven't really gotten much of that in the other seasons), but instead, the writers had to find ways to make them fight every single episode over extremely stupid things. Couldn't they have just been happy for a while? And if it was painful when they were together, it was even more painful to see them apart. I think those two deserve each other and would have ended up with each other in the long run, but having them not be together in the finale, and only sort of reconciled? That hurt. As far as Logan is concerned, I really think they should have gone the route of season 2 and given him his own story line separate from Veronica. Because I love Logan so much, but his story line this whole season was Veronica, and because of that he became kind of...sappy. He lost a lot of the snark and bite of the old Logan we all know and love. He was still my favorite character, he was just different. And because Veronica was the one doing most of the dumping, there were times when I was really upset with her, and I didn't want that to happen. I expected a lot more on the Logan/Veronica front this season, and while they gave us a lot of them, it wasn't what I wanted and therefore, the end of the season wasn't as enjoyable.
Even though season 3 had a lot of things I wasn't too happy about, I still did like it, and it was still better than most things on television. The truth is, I was so upset with the end of the season it took me 3 weeks before I could watch the finale, "The Bitch is Back". But once I did, I felt a lot better about the season I had just watched. I know it ended on a cliffhanger, but the finale gave me some kind of peace, because while watching, I was reminded why I had once loved this show so much. This episode was like a checklist of things that had once made this show so great. There was Leo and Clarence Wiedman. There was Jake Kane and memorials to Lilly and pictures of Duncan. There was Mac hacking computers and Wallace helping out on a case. There was Logan acting completely reckless, but doing it all for Veronica. But most of all, there was a detective and his daughter, one who he loved so much he was willing to sacrifice his job over, and one who loved her dad just as much back. Veronica, she was back, but more than that, Veronica Mars was back. And when Veronica walked down that street after voting for Keith in the election, I may have gotten a little emotional. Because I finally realized, I wasn't ready to say goodbye to one of the greatest shows on television.
Farewell Veronica Mars! And thanks for all the memories...
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