#we are Serious Bloggers here we present unbiased opinions of television shows from the 2010s

[micamicster]

I finished the first season of Veronica Mars! And decided to stop after a couple of episodes of season 2. Idk, I guess I got tired of the lack of closure for many plot lines. The finale was interesting tho, I loved the final villain.

Share your thoughts on the show (here's supposed to be a question mark but tumblr wouldn't let me)

Hi bestie I'm sorry it's taken me so long to talk to you about this show! I'm gonna make up for taking forever by writing like, an essay haha brace yourself

I think that Veronica Mars is a good show that runs into some classic 2000s tv stumbling blocks, manages to do some things that infuriate me personally beyond reason, but ALSO manages to have some elements that are so powerful and so well executed that I'm honestly astonished it got made. These kinda peter out and become muddled over the years, but oh well, we'll always have season one <3

In brief, the 2000s messiness, in varying degrees of offensiveness to the world and to me personally:

The aforementioned plot lines that go nowhere <3

It's case-of-the-week, some cases are gonna suck! What can you do lol

The black best friend who doesn't ever really get any satisfying arcs or attention given to him as a character who contributes beyond letting our protagonist have dialogue with him rather than exclusively monologuing in voiceover

How they handle race in general ofc. Like while I think that in the actual plots of the show there are good intentions (and sometimes good material!) in depicting the racism of this insular hiarchical society, racism in the real world affects the writing by giving the characters of color very little to do, and over all they are taken less seriously by the narrative.

Veronica's rape plot line. I actually think this plot started out very strong! But the minute the show focuses directly on it the writing gets lost in the weeds of plot twists and rival love interests, and I really think the points they were originally trying to make get buried.

Deadbeat Mom ran off she's got a single dad raising her (i feel like the number of single dads in media is exponentially larger than the real number of single dads in life. it's propaganda. and its misogynistic. but I digress)

The stuff I personally hate:

The romances :) lol. lmao, even. (I would love to rant about this but I really think that's not something that deserves to be on what is currently a measured review of the show as a whole)

The stuff that's great:

The noir homage: It's just. It's so good. It's so fucking good. This is to noir detective stories what american vandal will be to true crime 20 years later. I want to give whoever first thought "hey, being an ostracized teen girl is kinda like being a hardboiled noir detective," a raise and a kiss MWAH <3 A+ for tone! Veronica lives on the edges of her society (high school), allowing her to see all of it's pieces and hypocrisy, turning her cynical and aloof. And she's a teenager who solves crimes :D She's funny and self aware of her role, but never in such a way that it feels like lampshading or winking at the audience. They take it seriously--they take HER seriously, and that makes the show work.

Lilly: The central case of the show, the murder of Veronica's best friend and Veronica's revenge-driven mission to find her killer, is where the first season gets its power. Veronica gets to have the noir detective plot line of being haunted by the death of a woman she loved and driven by revenge, and it is so much more powerful here than I've ever seen it in its original form. Lilly is a tragedy, she is an unflinching look at the sexual exploitation of teenage girls and the casualness with which violent men will turn that violence on them, she is a messy bratty bitch of a sixteen year old, and Veronica loves her. Lilly gets to be complicated because Veronica, who knew her and loves her, is telling us her story. There are a lot of people who are affected by Lilly's death, but this show is about Veronica, and her reaction to the murder of her friend is what matters to the writers and the viewers. Once again, the show takes Veronica (and her grief and her rage and her love) seriously, and there is a lot of power in that. I think the reason the later seasons struggle is because they simply can't stand up to the emotional intensity that made up the core of season one.