YMMV / Veronica Mars

• Accidental Innuendo: In a rare serious example, after the season 2 finale many fans thought Cassidy had raped Mac. He hadn't, and the writers never meant to imply that, but the scene, dialogue, and the fact he had raped Veronica threw people off. This isn't helped when a line by Parker in Season 3 implies that she, Veronica and Mac are all survivors of sexual assaults.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • For a lot of the fandom, Duncan Kane is not a nice guy with many fans feeling that he only projects this image because he appears a bit more amenable than some of the worse 09'ers, despite the fact that whenever something shady is going on that concerns the upper crust, Duncan is involved in it (if not actively, then just by letting it happen.) To run down a list: he ghosts Veronica upon finding out a possibly earth-shattering secret that directly concerns her; he has sex with a Veronica who is clearly not sober at all and then claims "he just thought they wouldn't talk about it" (but to be fair, it's revealed that he himself was roofied by Logan and therefore he also was not sober or in a position to consent); he stands by while Veronica is ostracized, mocked and abused, even if he does make a few half-hearted attempts to stop Logan's bullying; he is a Triton and takes active part in their activities, which put Veronica and others in harm's way; he allows his "political" rival to be smeared because it also suits his needs; he participated in Logan's homeless fighting ring; he lies about Meg's pregnancy to Veronica, not to mention leaving Meg for Veronica, even if he wasn't aware of Meg's pregnancy.
  • Logan is supposed to be a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, with extreme emphasis on the heart of gold but acts more like a Spoiled Brat. He stages fights between homeless people, provided Dick with the rape drugs that resulted in both Veronica's actual rape and the circumstances that she had no memory of consensual sex with Duncan, whom Logan roofied, bullied Veronica over Lilly's death when Veronica herself was still in deep pain (and had been raped!). His Freudian Excuse is pitiful compared to the suffering pretty much everyone else in the cast have especially those he continually hurts. He barely suffers any consequences for any of this behaviour because of his money and family name. Even after his redemption arc, he is still nonstop racist to Weevil, stokes the gang war between the rich and poor halves of Neptune. There is also his explosive temper, which is shown late in Season 3 where he assaults Piz in a case of mistaken identity and his jealously over Veronica.
  • Dick: a sociopathic rapist and bully who tried to drug Madison with the GHB and encouraged his brother to rape Veronica which he did, bullied Beaver for his whole life and gave his brother some semi valid reasons for committing mass murder rather than being found out as a rape victim or a genuine dumbass who was just too stupid and selfish to comprehend the consequences of his actions until the massacre and his brother's suicide left him a genuinely nicer person?
  • Beaver: Which side of him is truest? The part of him that seems to genuinely care for Mac and be honestly shy and nervous, or the evil genius who killed lots of people, including fellow victims of sexual abuse?
  • More specifically, there's a lot of ambiguity around Beaver/Cassidy's sexuality and why he couldn't have sex with Mac:
    • Is he Armored Closet Gay? Veronica seems to think so; she told him that he could only rape her because he was able to "imagine whatever he needed to. And the show has form with portraying each of Woody Goodman's victims as either gay or questioning.
    • Is he not interested in sex due to his previous trauma stemming from sexual assault?
    • Does he actually want to have sex with her, he just couldn't perform because of learning about Woody getting caught the minute before they were supposed to do it?
  • Moe and his reasons for helping Mercer commit the Hearst College rapes are left very ambiguous. Is he a Depraved Homosexual who is subservient to whatever Mercer wants? Is he equally sadistic, or was Mercer solely in control all that time? Was he genuinely broken by the Prison Experiment and how much of it was just a shared fantasy?
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • On both sides from Duncan and Veronica in Season 2 after the trauma of S1 for both of them. After a whole year spent apart after Duncan abruptly dumped her, the minute Duncan and Veronica learn for sure that she isn't his half-sister, they get together with no further problems. To say nothing of Duncan accidentally misleading Veronica into thinking she had been raped after they had consensual sex under the influence of GBH.
  • The bus crash is never really mentioned again after Season 2, and only obliquely by Dick, meaning that Veronica apparently shrugged off Meg's death and the knowledge that she was technically supposed to be on the bus that crashed, killing everyone else on board.
  • The last time we saw Dick and Big Dick, they were fighting over Beaver's mass murder and suicide, which Dick apparently unable to forgive himself or his dad. By Season 4, Dick seemed no different than he had prior to the revelations, and he and his father had a good relationship, with Beaver only mentioned offhandedly once, without reference to everything else that happened during that arc. Admittedly, this is several years later, so they may have worked through most of their grief. One can only imagine what Dick's reaction will be when he learns his best friend was killed in an explosion and his father was decapitated...
• Arc Fatigue:
  • The trial of Aaron Echolls in season 2, which only served to drag out the wrapping up of a story that got plenty of closure at the last season's end, to the point that people started wondering if the show was trying to make us suspect he wasn't the killer.
  • The Hearst Rapist is basically a standard mystery of the week story stretched out to half a season.
• Award Snub: Despite getting critical acclaim for her performance, Kristen Bell was not nominated for an Emmy for her work throughout the series.
• Badass Decay:
  • Logan, though while he may be less violent and manic by the series' end, he's a naval aviator by the movie, a la TopGun. Obvious conclusions can be drawn.
  • Weevil, though in his case it could be argued that he didn't so much decay, as grow up, and become a responsible adult, realizing that his old ways of behaving did not lead to great job security. Too bad it doesn't last long.
  • Sheriff Lamb, although some may argue that Lamb was pretty much... never a badass. It depends how competent you think he was beyond being a major Jerkass.
  • Veronica herself in Season 4, although this is majorly debated. Has she regressed into being an irresponsible Womanchild with an irrational fear of commitment and, who despite constant Character Shilling, is actually less mature than she ever was in high school? Or is she still the same genius badass, it's just that as she's gotten older, she expresses herself differently?
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • Courtney Taylor-Taylor's cameo. If you don't recognize him as part of The Dandy Warhols (who did the show's theme song), it's weird as hell to see the show pause for a couple minutes so we can watch some random guy at karaoke night singing "Love Hurts."
  • Also in the same vein, Britt Daniel of the band Spoon also flirtatiously sings "Veronica" by Elvis Costello to the titular character. The only way that Spoon or Daniel relate to the series at all is because they have a single song on the official soundtrack for the show ("I Turn My Camera On").
• Broken Base:
  • Many fans believe Seasonal Rot set in at one point, but no one can agree on which season - and many others enjoyed all three seasons.
  • The reveal in the season 2 finale that Cassidy raped Veronica. Is it a satisfying twist to the story, or a clumsy retcon that kills the flow of the scene?
  • The treatment of Lilith House and rape more generally: an exploitative demonstration that Veronica is Not Like Other Girls by having her forcefully reject institutional feminism, or true to its roots of showing all groups and authorities as inherently corrupt.
  • The structure of Season 1 and 2 vs. Season 3, notably Veronica's Girliness Upgrade in Season 3 and the decision to split the mystery arc into several shorter arcs. A refreshing change of pace or a Viewers Are Morons pointless attempt to grab more viewers?
  • Also, which arc (if any) is more satisfying in Season 3:
    • The Castle. Many people like it for being noir and personally involving Veronica and Keith, many people hate it for bringing back Jake Kane) and the general Downer Ending it gives the series;
    • The Hearst Rapist storyline. Some people like it for continuing with the recurring theme of violence against young women and giving Veronica a chance to be seriously badass - many people hate it for its use of Straw Feminists that dilutes the overall point. Also, there's equal conflict about whether the storyline is a) too short and doesn't have enough suspects; b) too long about what is essentially a predictable mystery;
    • Dean O'Dell's murder. Some people like it for the return to old-fashioned sleuthing, which can be a relief after the rapist storyline; some people think it's too predictable and Veronica behaves like a Jerkass throughout.
• Catharsis Factor: After seeing Lilith House treat Veronica terribly ^note  Ironic, considering they might have never known about the full extent of the Pi's "points" system were it not for Veronica herself exposing it the previous season. and being hell bent on getting the Pi's kicked off campus, it can be very satisfying to see Veronica finally give them "The Reason You Suck" Speech in "Lord of the Pi's". Not only does she (correctly) point out that there is zero evidence tying the rapes to the Pi's, but also that their attack on Chip Diller is indeed a rape, and faking Claire's rape will only hurt their cause.
• Complete Monster:
  • Season 3: Mercer Hayes stands out as one of the vilest rapists in the setting whose crimes are not treated as backstory. Hayes selects college girls with his accomplice who sets it up for him to drug random girls at the local parties, creating a panic on the campus. Hayes rapes the girls in their dorm bedrooms and shaves their heads afterwards just to humiliate them further. Hayes's reasoning for his depraved activities amounts to "getting into a girl's pants the normal way takes too long" and he doesn't see his accomplice as anything but a useful tool, beating him when the guy starts to worry that they'll be caught for their crimes.
  • Film: Stu "Cobb" Cobbler was a drug dealer in Neptune High. After graduation, Cobb gets invited onto a boat party by a group of friends for his supply, but when Susan Knight starts to overdose he lies to the others that it's nothing to worry about. When Susan dies, the others panic and Cobb advises them to dispose of the corpse. Cobb then uses this information to blackmail Gia, Luke and Carrie for ten years. Gia Goodman, the girl he lusted after in high school, is forced to have sex with him whenever he wants and live in an apartment without any blinds or curtains so he can ogle her all day from across the street. When Carrie breaks down, Cobb murders her in her own home and uses Gia to frame Carrie's boyfriend Logan Echolls for the murder in a state with the death penalty. When Gia finally confesses all of it to Veronica, Cobb snipes Gia through the window without a flicker of remorse or regret and tries to murder Veronica to cover it all up.
• Creator's Pet: Dick can come off as this, or more so his actor Ryan Hansen did at least, as he never receives any comeuppance for his part in Veronica's rape, even a decade later in the movie. In the web series "Play it again, Dick," which focuses on Ryan Hansen trying to create a Dick Casablancas spin-off, Kristen Bell outright states "Rob always had a blind spot for Dick."
• Designated Villain: Sheriff Don Lamb can come across like this. While certainly a deeply unpleasant man who has done some shocking things (dismissing Veronica's rape in the pilot may as well have been stabbing a puppy),he is not the type the writers are clearly trying to show him as. The fact that people seem far more comfortable putting their trust in a teenage girl and rarely, if ever, actually report crimes kind of makes the argument for incompetence difficult. He never really asked for the job but came into it when Keith was forced to resign for chasing a lead (which later turned out to be wrong anyway) and that he is likely just trying to keep his job (seeing Keith fired was probably a sobering lesson in the virtues of not upsetting the apple cart). This, combined with his backstory of parental abuse, as well as the fact that he seems to be at least somewhat liked and a good boss to his men, can make one far more sympathetic to him than the writers had probably intended. The 2014 movie remedied this by replacing him with his older brother Dan Lamb, who was noticeably more venal and corrupt.
• Die for Our Ship: Anyone who dares to get in the way of Logan/Veronica. Duncan, Leo, Hannah, Piz and Parker all got the brunt of this.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • Sheriff Donald Lamb.
  • The writers did intend for Cassidy to be a likable character up until the climactic scene in "Not Pictured", however. And interestingly, the scene in which he is revealed to be evil is even a Shirtless Scene.
• Drinking Game: If you're watching on DVD, take a shot every time Veronica asks someone for a favor. Seeing as it usually occurs at least Once an Episode...
• Fan Wank: The reason for why Sheriff Lamb was killed off was never officially stated by actor Michael Muhney, Rob Thomas, and the rest of the writers. As such, two theories have persisted as the reason for such a controversial move: 1. Writer Revolt as far as Rob Thomas and the writers being appalled by fans liking the character or 2. Michael Muhney was caught leaking spoilers to fans of the show, leading to CW ordering him fired.
  • And more fuel was added to the fire when he was fired from The Young and the Restless in 2014 for groping a co-star.
• Fanon Discontinuity:
  • While not very common, it is possible to view the first season finale as a fitting conclusion to the story, especially given a lot of what the characters go through afterwards.
  • It's become much more common for fanfic to disregard Season 4's ending, specifically Logan's death, and to simply pick up from Logan and Veronica's wedding.
• Growing the Beard: The first couple of episodes of the series were extremely hit or miss, in particular the show's second episode which feature a network mandated guest-appearance by Paris Hilton. It wasn't until episode six ("Return of the Kane") that the show truly found its footing.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The kidnapping and "reprograming" of Casey Gant, played by Jonathan Bennett, by his parents because they didn't approve of him joining up with the Moon Calves, can feel even more uncomfortable than it already is even since Jonathan Bennett has come out, considering how this is the sort of thing that many homophobic families would do.
  • A couple of incredibly creepy ones from "A Trip to the Dentist" given that episode's later Retcon Beaver being told to "suit up, you don't know where [Veronica]'s been," is very ironic, given he gave her the STD and Veronica's "You're here!" to Duncan when he finds her, given that Cassidy just raped her.
  • Dick picking on Jackie when her dad is suspected of the bus crash.
  • Logan yelling at Duncan, "This is my dad's tux!" in the flashbacks in episode 4 after Duncan sprays champagne becomes this two episodes later once it's revealed that his dad beats him.
  • Similarly, rewatching the pilot and seeing Veronica frame Logan with a bong in his locker (and his intense tone when mentioning what it cost him) becomes much less funny when you realise that his car and Veronica's fender probably weren't the only casualties of this plan.
  • Lamb's callous attitude towards rape, after Michael Muhney was fired from The Young and the Restless for groping a co-star.
  • In the movie, Dick's claim that his marijuana stash is legally prescribed for chronic depression is less funny when you take his delayed breakdown over Cassidy's suicide near the end of Season 3 into account: despite his flippant demeanor and attempts to make a joke about it, it's quite likely he really is still suffering from depression ten years later.
  • Again in the movie, Veronica taunts Gia for having a rich, secretly gay fiancé while carrying on an affair with their mutual best friend, Cobb, whom Veronica refers to as Gia's "lap dog". Knowing that Luke wants to preserve his beard by marrying Gia so as not to hinder his political career, Veronica tries to rattle Gia by asking what it is she's getting out of the arrangement. Later, it turns out that Cobb has actually been blackmailing Gia for sex on demand and controlling most aspects of her life ever since Susan's death. Marriage to a gay friend probably seems appealing because, after nine years of Cobb's control, Gia must be so traumatised that a sexless marriage is the thing she wants from Luke.
  • The Hearst Rapist storyline, especially when the college's "Take Back the Night" feminist group concoct a false rape story to frame the local Frats in light of how more and more stories of how schools have covered up or half-assed punishing actual rapists, not to mention the alleged rape of Lena Dunham or the Rolling Stone Magazine's much maligned rape investigation that proved fruitless. If this was made in the world of 2015, this arc would likely never aired.
  • The death of Felix has become this as of Brad Bufanda's suicide in 2017.
  • In the season 2 finale, before Veronica and Keith go to NY, Keith asks if she's all packed. Her response? Yes, including pepper spray, "in case we run into this 'Trump' character." Fast forward to 2016 and all of the many allegations of sexual assault against him.
  • After Season 4, Logan's badass declaration in the Season 3 finale that he'll die "someday" isn't so fun anymore.
  • In the penultimate episode of season 2, Weevil jokes to Cassidy (who is helping him with algebra, long story): "If this is your idea of terms I'll understand? I'm going to kill you. Or myself. It's a toss up." One episode later, Cassidy commits suicide.
  • Dick manages to give two painful FAMs in one episode ("Ain't No Magic Mountain High Enough"), first by being Cassidy's brother and ripping into Jackie, because she's Terrence's daughter. Second, he mocks Mac and Cassidy by asking her "You gonna pop his cherry? 'Cause you gotta take it easy. Don't go busting out any tricks, you don't want to spook him. Just take it gentle and slow," not knowing about the sexual abuse Cassidy has suffered. And inflicted.
  • There are tons of this with Dick in general, especially his innuendos about Beaver's perceived lack of masculinity and virginity, which qualifies on two levels: 1. he raped Veronica; 2. he was himself a victim of sexual abuse and a lot of his motive comes from trying to hide it.
  • Season 1's "Like A Virgin" features someone pretending to be Veronica sending an email to Duncan, saying she had VD when they were dating. Late in season 2 it is revealed Veronica has chlamydia... which she contracted being raped by Beaver, on the same night she slept with Duncan. It sucks to be Veronica.
  • Also in "Like A Virgin", the plot becomes darker when you realise just how bad Meg's parents really would have taken it.
  • There's the rather odd discussion of Chlamydia/Crazy Bitchy Teacher between Veronica, Gia and Dick, which is a bit uncomfortable to watch given Veronica got chlamydia being raped by Dick's brother, who got it being molested by Gia's father.
  • S 1 E 4 "The Wrath of Con" sees Veronica flashing bqck to last year's homecoming that she spent with Lilly, Duncan, and Logan. In the limo there, Logan dares Lilly to kiss someone in the car. Lilly chooses Veronica, to which Duncan, disgusted, says "That's my sister and my girlfriend." Given that Duncan breaks up with Veronica because he finds out she may be his half-sister, the line takes on a second very unintended meaning.
  • The presence of a Very Special Episode about Invisible Children is off-putting now, as the organization's reputation was stained by the "Kony 2012" debacle.
• He's Just Hiding:
  • Good luck finding a significant portion of the fanbase eager to accept that Logan is really dead after season 4.
  • Carrie being recast in the movie before dying there causes some fans to half-seriously wonder if that was the real her that died there or an imposter.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • When Veronica and Duncan overhear Logan and Kendall having sex Veronica utters the line: "Attempt to outmoan them."
  • Adam Scott plays a teacher attempting to seduce Veronica. Bell would later be cast as a love interest for Scott on Party Down.
  • You could also say any time Veronica uses a taser.
  • In the flashbacks to the school dance in the first season, while everyone's waiting for Lily to come down, in the background Veronica spends an excessively long time taping Logan in his tux just leaning against the wall. Given they end up together, this is nearly foreshadowing.
  • Logan's "Please say "High School English Teacher". Please say "High School English teacher"" Considering Jason Dohring's latest role...
    • In similar fashion, Logan saying he avoids places with stained glass and pretending to be burned when placing his hand on a Bible becomes funnier when you realize he later played a vampire, then was killed by vampires.
  • Leighton Meester as "the gossip queen of Neptune High." Also her character's last name is Bishop.
  • Katie LeClerc's first television appearance ever is in the episode where it's revealed that Mac was Switched at Birth.
  • In the episode "Driver Ed", Wallace claims he got the idea a reporter might be posing as a high school student from the movie Never Been Kissed. Cress Williams, who appeared in the movie, would show up an episode later as Wallace's long-lost father.
  • Duncan is last seen in Australia with his daughter that he abducted. In 2013, a similar case surfaced with a girl living with her mother who had abducted her being found in Australia.
  • If the show was made a decade later, Veronica's mock obsession with ponies would come off rather differently.
  • Several related to Kristen Bell's later role as Princess Anna in Frozen:
    • Veronica tells Meg she could believe birds braided her hair like a Disney princess.
    • Also Dick's repeated insistence in "Donut Run" that Veronica "Let it go."
    • Plus, in "Blast From The Past," Logan calls Veronica an "ice princess."
    • In "Mars, Bars," Veronica tells Logan, "You've nearly warmed this cold, cold heart of mine." Fitting, considering how in Frozen, Princess Anna ends up with a frozen heart.
    • In "Papa's Cabin," the fake name Veronica uses when talking to the last person Landry called is Anna.
  • A decade after her recurring role on this show, Krysten Ritter played the title role of Jessica Jones (2015), racking up a lot of comparisons to Veronica.
    • In the episode Veronica helps Gia figure out who's stalking her, Veronica comments that Gia may be cut out for the PI life.
  • In "The Rapes of Graff," Wallace tells Veronica that he had just been having a conversation with a girl about Kierkegaard. Over a decade later, Kristen Bell would star in a series that not only deals with philosophical schools of thought suggested by various moral philosophers, including Kierkegaard, but also has one of its characters suggest making a Kierkegaard-themed rap musical.
  • In season 3, Veronica's criminology professor at Hearst College, Dr. Hank Landry (Patrick Fabian), is revealed to be sleeping with his boss Dean O'Dell's (Ed Begley Jr.) wife, with the latter threatening to kill him after he finds out before promising to instead ruin Landry's professional reputation. The two actors would be reunited more than a decade later in Better Call Saul as lawyers Howard Hamlin and Cliff Main, respectively, only now Begley's character is genuinely concerned for Fabian's well-being as he witnesses Hamlin's professional reputation being destroyed by the machinations of the Villain Protagonist.
  • The episode "Ruskie Business" has Veronica quip about how nice it would be to have glasses in the kitchen that didn't have the Hamburglar on them. Leo's actor Max Greenfield would later portray the Hamburglar in a series of ads for the third pound sirloin burger in 2015.
  • In one episode, an associate named Roger appears, and he is played by Ryan Drummond of Sonic the Hedgehog fame. Years later, Sonic would eventually end up being voiced by an actor named Roger.
• Ho Yay:
  • Logan/Weevil, Logan/Duncan, Logan/Lamb.
  • Logan/Dick in Season 3 and still present in Season 4 and the movie, where they live together.
  • In Season 4 Keith starts hanging out with Clyde simply to keep an eye on a major suspect in the bombings, but is surprised to find himself genuinely enjoying their time together, to much teasing from Veronica. Even after Clyde’s role in the scheme is revealed, he asks Keith if they can still be friends, saying how rare it is in their line of work for two people to truly “enjoy each other.”
• Iron Woobie: No person should go through as much crap as Veronica does, and the majority of people would have some kind of breakdown - but no. She'll move on with a plan and a quip, and try and help people.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Logan might just be the personification of this trope.
  • Less on the "jerk" side, and more the "complete psychopath" side, there is Cassidy, a true testimony to the power of a Freudian Excuse.
  • Hell, even Dick starts to fall into this in season 3.
  • Veronica herself may be an unintentional example. While she is put through a truly gobsmacking amount of suffering (see Woobie for further details), she can be manipulative, inconsiderate, single-minded and just plain unpleasant to a lot of the people she meets (just look at the way she talks to Tim Foyle in the season three opening, even if he's a bit obnoxious himself). In fact, she seems to see nothing wrong with using friends and various other people for her schemes. The only thing that redeems her is that she uses her skills for good and does have a genuine desire to help people. She's still a good character but it's difficult not to wish the writers had a greater sense of awareness about her personality.
  • As noted above, Duncan is not the greatest character, but he was also raised by an emotional abusive father, found out that he may be related to the girl in was in love with, discovered his sister's beaten and bloody body after her murder, lived under a cloud of suspicion from his parents for a year while being simultaneously forced by them to take anti-depressants which left him in a near-constant stupor, finally got back together with the love of his life only to discover that he accidentally got his ex pregnant and then almost loses his daughter to her abusive grandparents, which results him in having to kidnap his own child and leave behind Veronica, his friends and his home.
• Les Yay: Veronica/Lilly, Veronica/Meg, Veronica/Parker.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • Who really fell for it when they pretended they killed off Keith in the season 2 finale?
  • Wallace getting shot with blanks the episode before.
  • In a non-lethal variant, like a network TV show would have its main character having committed incest, no matter how unintentionally.
    • This example was only played straight because of Executive Meddling. Originally Rob Thomas had every intention of doing exactly that until the network said no.
    • It wasn't so long after the show was done that CW greenlit Gossip Girl and allowed them to do numerous variations of incest by marriage.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Clarence Wiedman is the head of security for Kane Enterprises and The Fixer for the Kane family in general. Wiedman helps the Kanes cover up the murder of Lily Kane when they believe their son Duncan to have accidentally killed his sister, tampering with the crime scene and paying off a terminaly ill Kane employee, Abel Koontz, to take the blame for the murder and repeatedly scuttling Veronica's private investigation into her friend's death. Wiedman also moonlights as an assassin for the Kanes, tracking down and killing the boyfriend who murdered Koontz's daughter after she tried to extort more money from the Kanes at the boyfriend's behest, and on Duncan's order, executing the monstrous Aaron Echolls for his murder of Lily. A very dangerous man who is only loyal to his employers, Wiedman can easily match wits with Veronica herself.
  • Clyde Prickett is an amiable ex-convict who used to rob banks without actually using a gun. Sentenced to ten years for racketeering, Clyde pays off some other inmates to threaten the recently imprisoned real estate mogul "Big" Dick Casablancas Sr., so Clyde can offer him "protection" in exchange for getting a job at Dick's company out of prison. Clyde becomes Dick's highly efficient Fixer, as well as engaging in some extralegal activities by paying the PCH biker gang to increase petty crime across Neptune to drive down real estate prices, which are then bought up through shell companies owned by Casablancas. Clyde becomes unlikely friends with Keith Mars, even as Clyde becomes a major suspect in the spring break bombings. Disgusted with Dick's involvement with the bombings, which Clyde had been kept out of the loop on, and worried that he won't keep his promises to Clyde, he arranges his death by selling Dick out to the Mexican cartel. Clyde gets away scott-free, ending his friendship with Keith on reasonably amicable terms, and starting a classic car shop.
• Mainstream Obscurity: The series was frequently mentioned in the context of "The fact that this show is struggling is proof that humanity is in trouble," yet its ratings were always mediocre. It frequently made lists of "The Best Shows You're Not Watching," but no one really got the hint.
• Misaimed Fandom: Sheriff Donald Lamb.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Many fans thought the revelation of Dick's role in Veronica's rape served as this for him. The show didn't seem to think so.
  • The pilot featured Sheriff Lamb crossing the horizon towards the end of the episode via the reveal of what happened the morning Veronica attempted to report being sexually assaulted.
  • In season 4, "Big" Dick Casablancas trully crosses it. He was already a grade-a Jerkass with his blatant bullying of his son Cassidy and his real estate fraud, but after he gets out of prison he uses the contacts he acquired there to plant bombs around Neptune to drive down property values, killing numerous innocents in the process.
• Narm:
  • Mercer's Motive Rant, which happens completely out of the blue for no reason other than it's the end of the storyline and they needed to talk about his motivation somehow. And even then, it's incredibly simplistic after the mysteries of seasons one and two.
  • Jake Kane bellowing Veronica's name in the series finale, giving about the same performance as John Lithgow's "For free!" in Santa Claus: The Movie. Then again, anytime he gets angry is this. His yelling in certain episodes are Narm-worthy.
  • Lamb's extremely forced Wizard of Oz references in the pilot. Thankfully this was quickly dropped.
  • The plot about fake IDs and underage drinking in the episode "Unamerican Graffitti", particularly the way it's treated as an incredibly serious problem. If you come from a country where the legal drinking age is eighteen, it can be hard to see what everyone is so worked up about.
  • The "cuss" Running Gag in Season 4. Funny at first, but then it just keeps going throughout the whole season and just makes you wonder if they legitimately didn't know you're allowed to say "fuck" on Hulu. (It turns out that Hulu didn't want the F-bomb, but that's not the point.)
  • Also in Season 4, the repeated mentions of the frat boy's death as occurring "three spring breaks ago." The word is "years," Veronica, and you even have every reason to prefer using it.
• Narm Charm: Logan and Veronica's "epic" conversation in "Look Who's Stalking," which is saved by being completely believable as two teenagers' idea of what a romantic conversation is. Plus, Logan was drunk. When the "epic" speech is repeated by Logan and Veronica at the end of the movie, it seems quite a lot like they're Lampshading this, indulging in a bit of nostalgic irony for that teenage romantic ideal, now that they're finally in a grown-up relationship together.
• Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize:
  • For the TV show - c'mon, obviously Harry Hamlin, Steve Guttenberg (though he didn't actually do it, he's guilty of something that many people might consider worse, or just as bad), and, of course, James Jordan's return to the show with a wig and fake beard.
  • For the movie - Inverted. Cobb is one of the few characters in the film who won't be familiar to fans of the series. Also played with Gia, who never got as much to do as her prominence in the story as Woody the paedophile mayor's daughter would imply.
  • Averted in Season 4 with several pieces of big name stunt casting that still leaves the question of which one it is.
• Never Live It Down: The writers didn't predict that the combination of Jackie being so rude to Veronica in Jabba the Hutt and her saying she hated Pride and Prejudice would be result in her becoming The Scrappy. However, she was Rescued from the Scrappy Heap...after she changed completely.
• Replacement Scrappy:
  • Fans of Duncan feel Piz is this, even more so since Piz is in the movie and Duncan is not.
  • In Season 4, Matty to the Veronica of Seasons 1-3. Like the younger Veronica, Matty is a troubled, impoverished teenager whose father is unjustly pilloried by Neptune and her father is framed.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Over the course of season 2, fans grew to accept Jackie. Character Development certainly helped.
  • Parker got redeemed with the second half of season three given how her brief relationship with Logan won fans for the character, given how Parker brought out the good side of Logan. It also helps that she played a roel in catching the Hearst College Rapist.
• Retroactive Recognition: A long time ago, these people used to be guest stars:
  • Amanda Seyfried is possibly the most visible example, playing Lily Kane in flashback throughout season one.
  • Krysten Ritter plays Gia Goodman throughout season two. This is combined with Hilarious in Hindsight as every scene featuring her feels very different once you've seen her as the title character in Jessica Jones (2015), which could basically be described as "Veronica Mars with superpowers".
  • One time guest stars have included Jessica Chastain, Aaron Ashmore, Leighton Meester, Aaron Paul, Jane Lynch, Armie Hammer and Michael Cera.
  • Tessa Thompson played Season 2 series regular character Jackie.
  • The late Nelson Ellis, who won awards for his portrayal of Lafayette on HBO's True Blood, guest stars in the season 3 episode "I Know What You'll Do Next Summer."
  • The Season One episode "You Think You Know Somebody" features an associate named Roger played by Ryan Drummond, more known for voicing Sonic the Hedgehog in the Dreamcast era. This is combined with Hilarious in Hindsight as an actor named Roger would eventually take up the role of voicing Sonic.
• Romantic Plot Tumor:
  • Parker and Logan, mostly because of the sheer amount of romantic angst that their plotline involved, and because the fact that Parker had been raped earlier in the season never came up between them.
  • Veronica and Piz's plot got a lot of this, too, mostly due to the fact that their final plot was both of them complaining dramatically about being separated over vacation, when Veronica had been nearly killed multiple times.
• The Scrappy:
  • Duncan due to Veronica and Logan being the One True Pairing, which can fall into Moral Myopia given that Logan is not the nicest guy either. Hannah, Parker, and Piz all fall into this in later seasons, due to splitting up Veronica and Logan and, in some cases, being a Satellite Love Interest with little character development. A grand total of ONE of these doesn't fall under Die for Our Ship.
  • It also doesn't help Piz's case that his musical background and love of Guitar Hero make him seem like a self-insert for Rob Thomas. Piz was hated so badly by the fandom that even his actor has said during an interview, "Everybody fucking hates Piz."
  • Jackie in Season 2. Her overblown dislike of Veronica and jealousy of her and Wallace's relationship made a lot of people strongly dislike her from the beginning, and her general rich-bitchiness (which was later subverted, which may make this trope better or worse depending who you talk to).
  • Matty and her plot line in Season 4. She's supposed to be a younger Foil to Veronica, but she's often pretty bratty and her role clearly fulfils a lot of elements that some feel would have been better suited with prior characters like Wallace or Mac.
• Seasonal Rot:
  • The third season departs completely from the format of the rest of the show, with the last third featuring stand-alone episodes. It also didn't help that the show spent the first third doing a rape mystery that utterly danced around Veronica being raped and how Sheriff Lamb refused to believe her, or that the second mystery was pretty much solved by most fans as far as the killer, leading to weeks of drawing out an arc that everyone else had figured out. And then came five more episodes of aimless standalone stories. Veronica turning into a smug, self-righteous jerk-ass didn't help, nor did the arbitrary breaking up of the Veronica/Logan pairing, the lack of fall-out from season two's ending, and Sheriff Lamb being killed off in anti-climactic fashion. But of course, see Broken Base.
  • The fourth season to some fans, with it being unfavorably compared to Season 3. Opinions differ, but reasons range from a compressed episode number that leaves no room for mystery of the week, Logan's sudden and anticlimactic death, Veronica and Logan's relationship becoming even unhealthier rather than more healthy as it was in the books, too many new characters that led to Mac not returning and Wallace being short-changed, and a mystery that felt either contrived or mostly involved new or minor characters until the end.
• Shipping: Veronica and Logan, Logan and Weevil, and Logan and Sheriff Lamb
• Special Effect Failure: The show has some of the most obvious pieces of Driving a Desk since the '80s.
  • The crew seems to have forgotten that Parker was supposed to be wearing a wig after a couple episodes.
  • The burning of Logan's home in Rats Saw God. What were the special effects group thinking?
• Squick: Veronica's immediate reaction when she realizes that she and her ex-boyfriend Duncan might be siblings. Her running narrative even stops mid-epiphany for a Vomit Discretion Shot.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • In Season 3, Moe, Mercer's accomplice on the Hearst College rapes feels like a hugely missed opportunity for a villain. The revelation that Mercer had an accomplice is mostly just treated as a mystery twist, with no depth given to his motivations or their relationship at all before he's dealt with.
  • Rob Thomas openly admitted that coming up with stuff for Logan to do in Season 4 was a huge struggle, as he's just plain no good at writing happy, steady romantic couples in an interesting way. This is of course why he's killed off at the end of the season, freeing Veronica to go on to whatever the future of the show is without any baggage.
  • Tina Majorino mentioned this was why she didn't come back as Mac in Season 4 - she loved Mac and didn't feel she was being treated with the respect she deserved. Fans were not happy.
  • In Season 4 too, Dick is back to his happy-go-lucky "normal" self, and also plays a very minor role after being a recurring role in Season 1, and a regular in Seasons 2 and 3, and being left by the TV series.
  • Carrie Bishop, The local "Gossip Queen" who is shown to have some Hidden Depths in her first appearance and comes to to more of an understanding with Veronica, is played by the star of Gossip Girl and apparently had a relationship with Logan during one of the Time Skip's is only in two episodes of the show (and only in one scene of the second) and a few minutes of the movie, Where she's killed off as the first victim.
  • Matty seems like a wasted opportunity considering that she's around the age where she could be Duncan's daughter and was not revealed to be so.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The Hearst Rapist storyline: fans where anxiously awaiting this storyline since it would have meant that there would finally be a confrontation between Veronica and Sheriff Lamb over his treatment of Veronica when she tried to report being raped, especially after the season two finale revealed that Veronica had indeed been raped after all. What could have been an epic showdown that had been built up since day one of the show (as well as a way to flesh out the character of Sheriff Lamb) got ignored save for a single, by-the-by line of dialogue where Lamb told Veronica that he still did not believe that she had been sexually assaulted. Plus, rather than the varied and interesting pool of suspects in seasons one and two, all we get are a bunch of interchangeable and equally unlikable randy college guys, making it pretty hard to care about who the rapist is. Tying in to that, after the complex motivations of the season 2 culprit, it's rather a letdown when the entire motivation of the rapist is "Because I want to." Then again, he's probably one of those folks who just wants to see the world burn.
    • Doubly wasted given that the show implies the reason Moe even helped Mercer with the rapes was because taking part in the Prison Torture experiment made him subservient/submissive to Mercer. This is foreshadowed by the account of Horshack and the aggressive student in Wallace's experiment: Horshack ended up taking notes and exams for him later on. There was an opportunity to explore the nuances of consent, but instead picked a cartoonishly evil villain and henchman duo.
    • TRIPLY wasted since the show traversed the same topic, much better, throughout the first two seasons
  • Lamb's death also counts; some fans think he should have died during the denouement of the Hearst Rapist storyline, possibly being killed by the rapist's accomplice, the nerdy RA after arriving on campus to help Veronica arrest the rapist. Instead, Lamb was completely absent in said episode (having essentially slept through the entire unmasking of the rapist at his home) and was killed off several episodes later, in a lame collateral damage death in the second mystery arc).
  • The revelation that Lamb had been abused as a child in the same manner that Veronica suspects Meg's sister is looked like the start of some serious Character Development. Lamb even lets Veronica and Duncan go and seems seriously unhinged by what he saw going on. And yet he is back to being the writer's go to bad guy next episode and the issue is never once brought up again even when Veronica is trying to rescue Duncan's daughter so she will be spared similar treatment.
    • Tying into this, nothing more is heard about Grace, and for all we know she's still stuck in that closet at the end of the series. She eventually reappears in the second novel, Mr Kiss and Tell, set over a decade later... and yes, she basically did spend the next several years waiting for someone to come back for her.
  • Very little is done with Keith losing his trust in Veronica in "Donut Run." Probably justified since he really loves her that much but it still could've been developed better.
  • Mac never interacts with any of her biological family again.
  • In Season 4 we never see Dick’s reaction to his father being behind the motel bombing, and then being gruesomely murdered himself, plus his best friend being killed by someone copying the crime. It’s especially odd since his confrontation with his father in Season 3 showed that Ryan Hansen definitely has the acting chops to pull a scene like this off.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring:
  • Season 2 is very dark, the finale especially. Woody Goodman is a pedophile and serial rapist of children, Cassidy blows up his plane after revealing himself as the bus bomber and one of Woody's victims, Veronica learns that she was raped by Cassidy and that was how she contracted chlamydia, Mac is left totally broken and in despair, which led many viewers to assume that Cassidy had raped her.
  • The movie can suffer from this. As one fan put it, "Every minor and secondary character I've ever really grown to like has turned out evil, dead, or both."
• Unintentionally Sympathetic:
  • Madison Sinclair, who Veronica blames for her rape. Yes, Madison is a petty Alpha Bitch who spat in her drink and gave it to her...but she had no idea it was drugged. In fact, it was drugged by Dick so he could rape Madison, and Dick is treated much more sympathetically in-universe.
  • In Season 4, Veronica and Keith have endless disdain for Police Chief Langdon, who we're apparently supposed to see as lazy and incompetent in the tradition of the Lamb brothers. Despite which, she never once comes off as anything less than earnestly wanting to do good police work and is simply hampered by working with a very broken toolbox. We also see her suffer racist and sexist condescension, which can come uncomfortably close to making our heroes seem like it's also their problem with her. Her finally shutting Veronica up by revealing she'd already come up with the same idea about where the last bomb could be is quite a bit more satisfying than it was probably meant to be.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Lily Kane is revealed to have been murdered by Aaron Echolls to cover up the affair he had with her, and since he was already shown to be an Abusive Parent, he becomes an irredeemable scumbag at this point. Lily herself however is never really presented in a negative light for what she did to her boyfriend Logan by cheating on him with his own father.
  • Logan, too, at least about his romance with Veronica. Given that he bullies and shames Veronica relentlessly for the first part of Season 1, and is also extremely racist throughout Seasons 1 and 2, it can be hard to see him as the Jerk with a Heart of Gold the writing implies he is.
• Vindicated by History: While critically acclaimed, it never got a huge audience leading to cancellation, in no small part due to simple bad luck. The show's first two seasons aired during UPN's dying days, when not having a flagship Star Trek series essentially left it cut adrift, and its third aired on the equally troubled first year of the CW's existence. It would be difficult for any show to build momentum under those circumstances, regardless of how good it is. Through reruns and the publicity from the Kickstarter project, it's gotten another look and is now considered one of the greatest teen dramas of all time.
• Wangst: Veronica and Piz going on and on about being separated for three months while doing their internships like it's the hardest thing any couple in history has ever gone through.
• Why Would Anyone Take Him Back?:
  • Duncan lets his friends bully Veronica for a year, and ghosted her for a good several months before that due to finding out that they might be related. She forgives him and they spend the end of Season 1 and most of Season 2 together.
  • Logan bullied and slut shamed Veronica relentlessly after Lilly's death and provided the drugs which resulted in her being raped. They break up after he tries to trash the town and cause chaos, during which he sleeps with her enemy Kendall Casablancas. Later he also sleeps with Veronica's Arch-Enemy, Madison, when they're broken up over Logan's fears for Veronica's safety. There's also his explosive temper, which shows up significantly when he beats Piz to a pulp over the false idea that Piz himself had created & leaked his sex tape with Veronica. By the end of the original run of the show Logan was far more likely to end up in jail than ever becoming an officer in the military.
  • Veronica herself mocks Logan for seeking therapy in Season 4, resists any of his attempts to get her help, and tries to drag him back into self-destruction by doing drugs with Dick, but they still end up getting married at the end of the season.
• The Woobie:
  • Mac, Logan, and arguably Veronica herself. Subverted with Cassidy... Kinda.
  • As of the movie, Gia. Her father is revealed to be a pedophile & promptly dies in an explosion, she gets hooked on drugs, her friend overdoses, and then she spends a decade as the sex slave to the creepy Big Bad. Then gets murdered.

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