MICHAEL DESMOND/HULU, 2ALAN SEPINWALL
belated-sequel seasons is that
they try to act like nothing
has changed for any of those
groups when, say, a 32-year-
old Rory Gilmore shouldn’t
still be acting like a 20-year-
old. This issue should be
especially acute for Veronica
Mars, which in its original
run drew much of its power
and verve from presenting
a hard-boiled gumshoe who
looked like she had just quit
the school dance team. (She
had, actually, in the wake of
her best friend’s murder.)
But the new eight-episode
Hulu season is keenly aware
that its heroine is stuck in
neutral. It’s less surprising for
her as an adult to be doing
stakeouts and fending off
gangsters at gunpoint. But it’s
also sad and self-destructive —
in a very film-noir kind of way
— that she’s retreated to the
role she had before she wasE
ARLY IN this revival
season, Veronica Mars
(Kristen Bell) visits
one of the many men she put
behind bars as a teenager. Re-
alizing that she’s still working
as a private investigator, he
snipes, “That was your job in
high school, right?”
Television shows are a
product of a particular time
in the lives of their charac-
ters, creators, and audiences.
One of the biggest problems
with the recent trend ofold enough to vote. When her
high school frenemy Weevil
(Francis Capra) asks what’s
wrong with her, she cracks,
“You know, there are a range
of opinions.” She spends as
much of her narration beating
herself up for mistakes and
character flaws as she does
helping us follow the compli-
cated case that’s brought herVeronica Mars
NETWORK Hulu
AIR DATE Available now
STARRING Kristen Bell
Francis Capra
Enrico Colantoni
Jason Dohring
Patton Oswalt
J.K. Simmons
4The setting works even better
amid our present-day class
warfare, and the plot involves
a series of bombings that may
be connected to a movement
to drive out the city’s few
remaining mom-and-pop
businesses. Chief among the
early suspects: “Big Dick”
Casablancas (David Starzyk),
a real-estate mogul (and hold-
over from the original series)
publicly insisting that “we
need to get back to a better
time.” There’s a healthy mix
of new faces, including Patton
Oswalt as a fame-mongering
amateur sleuth; J.K. Sim-
mons at his most charming
as an ex-con now working
as Big Dick’s enforcer; Kirby
Howell-Baptiste as a bar
owner Veronica befriends;
and Izabela Vidovic as a teen
reminiscent of Veronica back
in the UPN days. And Veron-
ica of course works the case
with her beloved father, Keith
(Enrico Colantoni, appealing-
ly relaxed as ever), while still
trying to make things work
with high school flame Logan
( Jason Dohring, who appar-
ently lives at the gym now).
This is the second time
Bell and Co. have returned
to this world: A 2014 movie
introduced us to Veronica as
an adult. Perhaps because the
film was funded by Kick-
starter, Thomas and Diane
Ruggiero-Wright (who also co-
wrote the new season) leaned
hard into fan service, with a
mystery that was largely an
excuse to bring back as many
favorites as possible. It was
fun in spots, but a violation
of the bleak noir ethos of the
original series, which was at
its best when it denied the
audience what it wanted and
gave them what the story
demanded. The Hulu version
also features a host of familiar
faces, like Max Greenfield as
Veronica’s ex Leo (now an
FBI agent looking into the
bombings), but they turn up
only when the plot calls for
them. And the ending to this
new mystery feels satisfying
both to the narratives and to
the themes of Veronica’s life
as a woman who can’t stop
looking for the truth, no mat-
ter how much it hurts. It’s a
terrific return to form for one
of television’s all-time great
underseen gems.back to television. And Bell is
just as charismatic, vulnera-
ble, and slick with the banter
as she was when she could
pass for an 11th-grader.
Veronica creator Rob
Thomas presciently set the
series in a California beach
town with no middle class
— only the ultrarich and the
people who work for them.Oswalt
seeks a
crowd.RE-WATCHING THE DETECTIVE
In the ‘Veronica Mars’ reboot, our high school P.I. is all
grown up — but the series stays true to its noir rootsTV
Bell and
Colantoni
search for
clues.88 | Rolling Stone | August 2019 +++++Classic |^ ++++Excellent |^ +++Good |^ ++Fair |^ +Poor