{"id":7395,"date":"2019-09-16T13:00:16","date_gmt":"2019-09-16T20:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=7395"},"modified":"2019-09-03T07:01:41","modified_gmt":"2019-09-03T14:01:41","slug":"mark-watches-veronica-mars-s04e08-years-continents-bloodshed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2019\/09\/mark-watches-veronica-mars-s04e08-years-continents-bloodshed\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Veronica Mars’: S04E08 – Years, Continents, Bloodshed"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the eighth and final episode of the fourth season of Veronica Mars<\/i>, I guess? If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re intrigued, then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Veronica Mars<\/i>.<\/p>\n

You know, up until that final sequence of events, I was ready to say that this season was pretty much exactly what I wanted. Dark and gritty and immensely funny, with in-depth character studies of people living on the margins, of people in a sea of moral grayness. AND THAT SWEET KEITH-VERONICA BANTER. I did feel like Wallace was severely underused, just like he was in the film, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably my only major criticism of the season. Otherwise? This truly was an excellent experience, and I was deeply satisfied by the resolution of the bomber plot line.<\/p>\n

Until the end.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s real<\/i> hard for me not to just devote this review to dissecting what feels like the most bizarre misstep in the show\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s history. Look, I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t liked every writing choice on this show, but I never felt like the various writers didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand the show, or didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand the audience. I mean\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 the movie? The whole movie felt like a love letter to the fandom! And I also want to make it clear that creators should feel free to make the stories they want to make. They should feel empowered to tell their own stories! I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need a show like Veronica Mars<\/i> to hold my hand or tread lightly. Half the fun of it is seeing just how far they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll push the darkness and the lightness in each episode.<\/p>\n

I say all that because this ending, in every lens I can think to view it through, just does not work.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Before I get to that, I still want to acknowledge what a wonderful thriller \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Years, Continents, Bloodshed\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is as a whole. So much was set up to get us to this point, and then the dominoes fell, and it was glorious<\/i>. That whole scene at Big Dick\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s home? Terrifying. Weirdly funny. Poetically spot-on. I loved that Alonzo once again toyed with a white person\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perception of him, and he was able to buy time by (badly) attempting to pretend to be Big Dick\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gardener. And I bet Big Dick had a real moment there where he thought, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Shit\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 is<\/i> he my gardener? Does he actually<\/i> work on my azaleas and my hedges?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also poetic because Matty gets to witness someone avenging her father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death, and she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to get her hands dirty in the process. Alonzo and Dodie did it for her. He died afraid and alone, and what more could Matty ask for in any real sense? She knows who the bomber really was, and the court system wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have ever given her the justice she desired.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From this point, this episode is just one shocking reveal after another, and each one is so damn good<\/i> in terms of crafting a mystery. A really good whodunnit will have the reader\/audience believing new reveals each time, at least in the immediacy of an accusation. I should be able to think, after a suspect arises, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh, damn, they do<\/i> seem like they could have done it!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Though props to mystery writers who can pull out the non sequitur suspects and still hinge a great story on them. I also like ones where I scratch my head and then all the details settle into place way later.) So, I say this because as soon as the delivery ticket said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Don,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I felt like everything had<\/i> fallen into place. Oh, Don was SO horrible, and he knew about the nail shrapnel, and he absolutely would have done a ton of things to humiliate Penn, and IT MADE SO MUCH SENSE. FUCK DON. And I bought it, right until they got to that abandoned power plant, and then\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand only then!!!\u00e2\u20ac\u201ddid I realize that this was too<\/i> easy.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking back on this season\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 lord, I actually called it as Penn (sort of?) pretty early on, but the part that kept tripping me up was that I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand why he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be willing to harm himself at the Sea Sprite. So, Bravo on there being two<\/i> bombers, because that made this so much more complex and fun to try to figure out. And once you know the truth about Penn, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so easy to see how utterly terrifying he is, especially when view some of his behaviors through the lens of his actions. The Murderhead meetings? Him hiring Keith and Veronica to exonerate him, thinking they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll buy all the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153evidence\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he planted? Oh, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just SO MUCH, and I really do think it works incredibly well. The big climactic scene where Keith says he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll try to get Penn to diffuse the bomb, risking his own life in the process? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s heartbreaking and terrifying and exactly the right emotional moment for the show to hit. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the culmination of Keith\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arc this season. He was going to retire anyway, right? So why not go out while trying to save the people of Neptune?<\/p>\n

I could even buy much of what happens after this, but only if the ending didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t happen. The thing is: the marriage is an important part of an emotional subplot for Veronica! She spent this entire season struggling with the notion of marriage as a commitment; she made fun of Logan going to therapy; she was tempted to cheat on Logan with Leo. But in the end, she did not act on her temptations, and she finally came around to appreciating Logan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s genuine statement of love. He wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t trying to get the upper hand on her; he truly had changed as a person, and the marriage was Veronica\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s acceptance of that.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Logan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death, which unfolds after<\/i> Penn has been arrested, makes virtually no sense. How could Penn know that Veronica or Logan would be anywhere near Veronica\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s car at that time? From a logistical standpoint, the odds are astronomical, and what was most likely to happen was that Veronica\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s car would be destroyed. Boy, you really won there, Penn!<\/p>\n

Except from a story perspective, and from a character perspective, and from literally any means of analyzing this, Logan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death is just flat-out cruel. All of the character growth Veronica goes through in these eight episodes is just gone<\/i>. Gone! It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter anymore! Oh, I think this script wants<\/i> us to think it does, since she finally goes to see Jane, the therapist Logan used. But no? That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not how this works? Why the cynicism? Why the grim ending? Was this Veronica Mars<\/i> saying that growth and happiness is incompatible with the show? Because I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be honest: one of the most interesting things about season four was that it showed two adults in love<\/i>. They had drama and conflict, but it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the same sort of emotional turmoil that we got in seasons one through three. And if this show was gonna give us Veronica in her 30s, I wanted to see her deal with the sort of shit that those of us in our 30s are dealing with. IT DID! It did it so well!!! And now, all the potential of showing how Veronica would deal with marriage is gone<\/i>. That shit is fucking interesting!<\/p>\n

And that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even touch how cruel this feels to Logan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s character, who, may I remind y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, started off this show as basically the biggest psychopath in the cast. (Which is saying a lot, given how many truly awful people there are on Veronica Mars<\/i>.) Yes, there were some huge jumps in character growth for him, particularly between the end of season three, through the film, and then to this point. But it worked<\/i>. I was so happy to see it. I was so thrilled that a man who should have been The Worst actively pursue therapy and try actively<\/i> not to be a toxic individual.<\/p>\n

Now it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all gone. Why? WHY??? Like, I feel like there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s another angle here that fucks me up. Did Rob Thomas feel like Veronica can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be happy? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get it! It seems so fucked up, but not in that way where the show has traditionally dealt with heavy, dark subjects. This feels like deliberate cruelty, and I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t imagine there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good justification for it.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hell, maybe I can just develop a big headcanon to deal with this. Because no one actually says<\/i> Logan is dead in the final ten minutes. They just speak of him as if he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not around. So maybe he left to go deal with his injuries or something, and then next season\u00e2\u20ac\u201dif there is a season 5\u00e2\u20ac\u201cit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about Logan and Veronica reuniting.<\/p>\n

Christ, this was a stellar episode, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll ever wash out the bad taste that ending gave me.<\/p>\n

The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Years, Continents, Bloodshed\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n

– The paperback edition of my debut, ANGER IS A GIFT, is now OUT!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"