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We spoke about Thomass reasons for making that decision, how long hed been planning it (years!
), and why he felt it was necessary soVeronicacould move forward.
Spoilers, obviously, for the fourth season ofVeronica Mars.
It was full of dessert seeing all the old characters.
Even thoughFargowas not on any streaming platform, it would fit well on a streaming platform.
So we wanted to make this more adult.
It would start showing its age.
Those characters all made sense because I knew how they were going to flow into the big murder mystery.
It does become a littleMurder, She Wrote.
Sure.One of the things that I feel like I need to do is take Veronica out of that world.
So that was part of the thinking.
How does someone who has made a career out of catching cheating spouses ever say yes to marriage herself?
It felt almost like a reversal in this season.
I like that it was a work in progress for Logan.
But you know, there were certain things we put in there for very intentional reasons.
Heres her best friend who is doing the things normal people do.
So all that was done just to take a stab at highlight that story for Veronica.
Is she ready to, for lack of a better term, settle down?
You also bring in Matty, this younger character who becomes a teen-Veronica stand-in.
Is that part of the same calculus?
These bombs were all happening to people she had no connection to.
Veronica, you made a whole career doing exactly that!
Or when Keith can see Matty doing the same things Veronica does and Veronica seems oblivious to it.
Those were moments we very much enjoyed writing.
But yeah, it was fun letting Veronica observe Matty and kind of coach her through her grief.
Because on the one hand, who could be better at understanding what shes going through than Veronica?
And on the other hand, Veronica has not been great at doing that for herself.Right, right.
One of the other major additions to the cast in this season is Patton Oswalt.
You never get those people.
I mean, thats just who you would like, in a perfect world.
Then luckily, and I meanreallyluckily, Patton was aVeronica Marsfan.
And it was lucky because he was doingA.P.
Biothe same time he was doing our show, so we were reliant on the goodwill ofA.P.
Biofor us to schedule him into our show.
Like, hes the comedy-relief tagalong.
Hes the hangdog, wrong-side-of-40 pizza delivery guy there for comedy.
So that felt like the right kind of misdirect for that character.
If you put in somebody who just played sleazy, people would be onto you too quickly.
Being a true-crime investigator ispretty close to home for him.
I love the moment when the Murderheads cant help themselves and start looping back to discuss Lilly Kanes murder.
But we always struggle in those moments.
Will they sit there and say,Oh, Im missing something; this show isnt for me?
That was a time where we said, What the hell?
Thosereturning rolesfeel different than the nostalgia of the movie, though.Yes.
Heres Neptune, heres the town you love, poof, giant bomb.
How much was that intentional?
Im terrified seeing the reaction.
I almost feel like it will grow sad, in a way.
Like, it will be a process of diminishing returns to keep being the thing we always were.
But I could be wrong.
You know, I could be wrong, and I know that.
If thats the case, then I placed the wrong bet.
This version of it.Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so talk to me about killing Logan.
When did you know you wanted that to happen?I probably figured this out years ago.
Because its hard to write badass private detective and her boyfriend.
So it was in my head probably as far back as 2014.
Did you always know it was going to be right at the end of the last episode?
Did you play with timing at all?The timing was really tricky.
Would I have liked a few more pages to do that?
Possibly, but you cant play another episode after the mystery is solved in a murder mystery.
I felt like I could have the last ten pages to deal with it.
Youre gonna kill a beloved character.
The voice-over for the whole season is filled with a sense of dread.
Its telling the audience something bad is gonna happen.Oh, shes gonna cheat.
Shes gonna self-sabotage and cheat on Logan with Leo.
Thats the bad thing Im worried about.
Oh no, Keith is going to die in this bomb.
Thats the thing Im worried about.
And then,Oh no, Logan isnt gonna show up for the wedding.
Truly, I wont know for a while.
I wanted to create a hotbed of both class and race issues.
Weevil was in a biker gang.
Few and far between, but there were some.
That was the goal there.
Make it a good, interesting part with interesting dialogue.
What I wanted was likeFargo, some guy whos capable of violence sort of traipsing haphazardly through our adventure.
I think I would feel bad about it if I just gave them trope-y dialogue.
That was written in 2004, and it feels like we were way ahead of our time.
So now, times have caught up with us with a vengeance.
