Veronica Mars is one of the sharpest and most unique TV shows from the past two decades, which is probably why it has been resurrected twice after its premature cancellation in the mid 200o's. There's a reason the ion for this series has never died, and it's no surprise that the streaming service Hulu decided to capitalize on its undying fan base by releasing a fourth season of Veronica Mars this summer.
But while Veronica is a tightly written detective thriller, there are, of course, things about the show that don't really make any sense, just like with any show ever made. Most plot holes and inconsistencies are easy enough to overlook for the sake of enjoying the story itself, but there are a select few that are just too glaring to ignore. Here are 10 things that don't make any sense about Veronica Mars.
Keith's Unjust Firing
One of the main plot threads of Veronica Mars in the early seasons was the unfair firing of Keith Mars from his position as sheriff of Neptune. After Lilly Kane's murder, Keith accused Jake Kane of being the one who killed her, and that torpedoed his career. And while Keith's instincts that Jake wasn't telling the whole truth were accurate, he was completely wrong about Jake being the one who did it.
So the audience is meant to sympathize with Keith for being fired... because he was actually totally off base about something? Firing was probably too much, but Keith wasn't exactly vindicated by the truth, either.
Veronica's One-Sided Friendships
Veronica Mars opens with Veronica being a complete social outcast in her school and in her town, and Wallace Fennel is her first friend in quite a while. As the show goes on, Veronica builds up more genuine connections, and by the time season four ends, it looks like she actually has a pretty solid group of pals.
However, it's sometimes hard to understand why. Everyone in the audience knows and loves V, but she tends to vacillate between using her "friends" for her own benefit or outright insulting them and still expecting them all to be her friend, which they inexplicably are.
Aaron Echolls Getting Away With His Crimes
The revelation that Logan's dad, superstar Aaron Echolls, was the one who actually murdered Lilly Kane was the shock of the century. And although he deserved to go down for what he did, it's Veronica Mars, it wasn't all that shocking that he wound up being acquitted of the murder charge.
But what's really confusing about that is okay, he's acquitted for Lilly's murder, but was he even charged for everything else that he did? He was pretty much caught trying to murder Veronica among other things, and it's never even addressed through the legal system when it was a slam dunk case.
Lilly's Ghost
Veronica Mars is understandably haunted by the unsolved murder of her best friend Lilly, and the show has Veronica literally imagine conversations with Lilly on a nearly constant basis in season one.
While it's a very effective plot device for showing how Veronica is thinking things through, these are clearly just her thoughts, Lilly isn't literally haunting her. Or is she? Most of the scenes with Lilly are in Veronica's own head, but in season two when Veronica is about to get on the bus that will ultimately crash, Lilly intervenes, and the show never explained what was up with that.
Veronica's "Strength"
At the beginning of the show, Veronica Mars was a teenage girl who was trying to cope with a seemingly never-ending line of traumas that she had to deal with. And she dealt with them by withdrawing into herself and toughening her outer shell into steel.
That is understandable when you're a teen, but Veronica is a full-grown adult now. The fact that she hasn't done anything to actually emotionally cope with everything she's through (or learn how to function in society as a relatively well-adjusted human being) is a little weird.
Veronica Being A PI In High School
Yes, Veronica Mars is a show set in high school that is also a noir detective series, so there is a lot of suspension of disbelief that is required to go with the flow. However, Veronica working as a P.I before she even gets to college is a little hard to believe.
It doesn't seem like Veronica even had any interest in investigations before Lilly died, and she is oftentimes shown to be as good or even better of a detective than Keith, someone who has probably been doing investigative work longer than Veronica has even been alive.
Duncan Abducting His Daughter
Duncan Kane abducting his own child from the deranged Manning family was a storyline that added lots of drama and that conveniently forced Duncan to disappear and allow Logan and Veronica's relationship to fully blossom, but it was a storyline that made absolutely no sense.
Duncan did get what he wanted, but he's one of the richest people on the planet and he's the only living parent of his child. There are a million ways that Duncan could have easily gained custody of his daughter that wouldn't have required him to ghost on his entire life.
Veronica's Unaddressed Trauma
It's one thing that Veronica wouldn't want to seek any kind of outside help for her experiences, but it's quite another for everyone in her life to just ignore it or accept that her reactions to that trauma are just her personality.
Veronica has a lot of people that love her, and it's extremely hard to believe that Keith didn't practically force Veronica into some kind of treatment after her best friend was murdered. Veronica's traumatic experiences also cause her to mistreat a lot of people in her life, so it's very surprising that no one she knows has ever forced the issue.
Logan's Death
Logan's death at the end of season four was one shocking gut punch, but after a second thought, it's a plot twist that completely falls apart. We're meant to believe that Penn Epner is the kind of diabolical villain who can outsmart everyone in Neptune, including Veronica and the rest of her crew.
And his final twisted performance is presumably killing Veronica, but Logan winds up biting it instead. But we're supposed to believe that Veronica wouldn't have noticed a strange bag in her car and that Penn set the bomb to go off hours later, when it was actually way more likely that no one would even be in the car?
Logan's Death As Fuel For Veronica
At the conclusion of season four, it seems clear that Logan's death is supposed to be a catalyst for some dramatic change in Veronica's life. Which might make some sense if she hadn't experienced pretty much nonstop trauma for half of her life already. Losing the love of her life is probably her most devastating experience yet, but at this point, it just feels like yet another instance of the show making Veronica suffer unnecessarily for sport.
It's certainly not something that Veronica needed more of, and it's honestly not something the audience wanted to see more of either. And Logan had more value as a character than just as the guy Veronica loved.