Veronica Mars: The Complete Third Season

Review By: Andrea Tuccillo
AndreaTuccillo@TheCinemaSource.com

A combination of 1940’s noir and modern day Nancy Drew, Veronica Mars remains as sharp and sassy as ever in its third and final season. Never a ratings-bonanza, it unfortunately became a casualty of the fledging CW network. While the first two seasons contained gripping over-arching mysteries culminating in a climactic season finale, season three took a different approach in a bid to generate more viewers.

After a tough high school experience (the first two seasons had Veronica solving the murder of her best friend, a horrific school bus crash, and her own sexual assault), Ms. Mars is off to college and hoping for a fresh start. She excels in her criminology class and finally starts to realize that dabbling in her father’s private investigator business could be the beginning of a lucrative career. Mind you, season three is not all sorority soirees and frat parties. The sweet-and-sour heroine (played to perfection by Kristen Bell) still has some cases to solve, starting with a college campus serial rapist.

This mystery is the first of three separate arcs, and Veronica’s crusade to find the rapist holds personal and emotional significance. It all comes to a head in the suspenseful ninth episode Spit & Eggs. While this episode wraps up the rape storyline, it also deftly launches the season’s next mystery—the death of college dean Cyrus O’Dell (Ed Begley Jr.). The season closes with a third mystery, which is intriguing but feels a bit rushed. Let’s just say it involves a sex tape, a Skull and Bones type society, and a familiar face from the past.

Mars never claimed to be warm and fuzzy, and it’s the show’s darker elements which set it apart from other more formulaic teen dramas. The transition from high school to college is the smoothest I’ve ever seen on a television show. While some criticized season three for simplifying the plot twists, it’s almost a welcome breather from season two’s complicated, overlapping storylines. Mars still has wit and bite, dialogue that can be both hilarious and poignant (especially Veronica’s insightful voice-overs and smart-mouthed comebacks), and a truly loveable cast of characters.

While Veronica is amazingly good at what she does, she’s not all work and no play. This season she still finds time to bond with her dad Keith (Enrico Colantoni), hang with her pals Wallace (Percy Daggs III) and Mac (Tina Majorino), and cozy-up with her charming-yet-troubled boyfriend Logan (the magnetic Jason Dohring, master of the sarcastic quips). Their surprising love-hate relationship was a fan favorite throughout seasons 1 and 2, and it continues to entertain here as Veronica wrestles with trust issues and Logan tries to move past his bad-boy ways. A great line of Veronica’s sums up her views on relationships, “Now, maybe people would say they'd never install a tracking device in their significant other's car, but I think that's just because they don't know how.” To make matters more complicated, Wallace’s adorable roommate Piz (Chris ...