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A long time ago, we used to be friends...
Veronica: Look at you, all helpful.
Logan: Hey, your peskiness being unleashed on Conner brings me joy. Annoy, tiny blonde one, annoy like the wind!
Veronica Mars was an hour-long teen drama that ran for three seasons on UPN (later CW). The brainchild of novelist Rob Thomas, the series combined the AmateurSleuth/ KidDetective with a healthy dose of Film Noir and class warfare.
The main character is, appropriately, Veronica Mars, high school junior and possessor of an elaborate Back Story. Here comes the Info Dump:
The unincorporated town of Neptune, California, is "a town without a middle class": the "09ers," from the prestigious 90909 zip code, are insanely spoiled children of insanely wealthy parents, while everyone else...works for the 09ers, mostly as domestics at minimum wage (if that). Veronica, daughter of county sheriff Keith Mars, wasn't actually rich enough to be an 09er, but had enough connections to them to be sort of an honorary one: her best friend was queen bee Lilly Kane (nicer than your average Libby, but similar), her boyfriend was Lilly's equally popular brother Duncan, and she was also a friend of Lilly's boyfriend Logan Echolls (son of movie star Aaron Echolls). The Kanes are practically royalty in Neptune—the father, Jake Kane, is a software billionaire, and the largest employer in town; when his company went public, the secretaries became millionaires. It may just be a reflection of her friends' popularity, but Veronica's life is enviable.
Then it all comes apart. Duncan dumps Veronica so abruptly and so seemingly out of the blue that she has no idea she's been dumped until Lilly tells her, and days later Lilly is found dead, her head bashed in. Veronica's father accuses Jake Kane of committing the crime, and the town reacts badly, holding an emergency recall election and replacing Keith with his deputy, Donald Lamb. Veronica stands by her father through the bad publicity, and ends up ousted from the popular clique. Most of her former friends turn on her, none more so than Logan, who becomes, in Veronica's words, a "psychotic jackass" to the world at large and her in particular. Soon thereafter, Lamb apparently cracks the case, catching Abel Koontz, a former Kane Software employee...but Keith and Veronica don't buy it. Keith hangs out a shingle as a Private Detective. Meanwhile, Veronica crashes a classmate's party—largely to spite those shunning her—and ends up roofied and raped. When she attempts to report it, Sheriff Lamb accuses her of lying and throws her out of his office. And, to add insult to injury, her mother turns to drinking and eventually vanishes, leaving Veronica a note saying she'll be back for her someday.
Veronica, now a social pariah, rebuilds herself as a hard-boiled detective, helping Keith with stakeouts and taking pictures of unfaithful spouses, and meanwhile solving mysteries for classmates. She doesn't have to like them, nor they her, but she can figure out who's leaving love notes, or find stolen laptops.
And that's before the first episode. As the story actually opens, Veronica reluctantly befriends new transfer student Wallace Fennel, and along with Wallace, Keith, and such allies as PCH biker gang leader Weevil Navarro and computer whiz Cindy "Mac" MacKenzie, she continues her side business...while also trying to figure out who really killed Lilly Kane, and who raped her.
The the first two seasons each had an overarching StoryArc. In Season One, of course, the big question was "who killed Lilly Kane?". Season two opens with a bus crash that kills several of Veronica's classmates. Season Three, where Veronica goes to Hearst College, deviated from the formula by having two short arcs and then a series of stand-alone episodes, ending with an awesome and heart-breaking series finale.
This show provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents - Too many to count:
- Most notably Logan who has a father who emotionally and physically abused him... and also slept with and then killed his girlfriend.
- There's also the religious zealotry of the Mannings, who lock their seven year old daughter in a closet because she's "not ready to be tested."
- There's also Big Dick Casablancas, who would have competitions with his oldest son to see who could make his youngest son cry.
- Implied for Rodney and Gia Goodman's mother, but we still have no idea what she actually did.
- Alas Poor Villain - Cassidy
- All Bikers Are Hells Angels - The PCHers.
- All Of The Other Reindeer - Veronica and Cassidy, with vastly different outcomes.
- Anti Villain - a few of the "bad guys" wind up quite sympathetic, such as Ryan in "Ahoy Mateys", Pete in "Weapons of Class Destruction", or Rick in "Clash of the Tritons."
- Arc Welding - Sorta (see Wall Banger)
- Arson Murder And Jaywalking - "Between here and Granger, you got rattlesnakes, coyote traps, scorpions, hippies doing mushrooms, all kinds of bad stuff."
- Ass Shove - In one episode, Chip Diller was drugged and had an Easter egg stuck up his ass.
- Ax Crazy - Lucky. Arguably Aaron and even Cassidy.
- Badass Biker - Weevil, obviously.
- Badass Decay - Logan, Weevil
- Betty And Veronica
- Inversion. In season 2, Veronica is torn between Duncan (Betty, sort of) and Logan (Veronica).
- In season 3, Veronica is torn between Piz (Betty) and Logan (Veronica).
- There's an episode in season 1 called Betty and Veronica, although the episode in question is not an actual example of the trope
- Big Bad - seasons 1 and 2; different in that you don't find out who the Big Bad is until the finale. Aaron in season 1, and Cassidy in season 2.
- Big Screwed Up Family - several; the Kanes, the Echollses, the Casablancases, the Mannings...
- Black And Gray Morality - Some of the things Veronica does are pretty gray morally (see: using Leo to steal evidence). Even the two most arguably moral characters in the show, her friend Wallace and her father Keith, do bad things; Wallace is in a car when it runs over a homeless person and
never reports it doesn't report it until weeks later and Keith destroys evidence that would implicate his daughter and has an affair with a married client.
- Black Best Friend - Wallace
- Born Detective
- Break The Cutie - Parker. Veronica came pre-broken.
- Break The Haughty - Jackie.
- Broken Base - Where did the Seasonal Rot start? There seem to be four groups: Those that think they didn't have Seasonal Rot. Those that say the Seasonal Rot started with season 3. Those that say it started with season 2. And those that like 1 and 3, but consider 2 a Sophomore Slump.
- Broken Bird - Veronica herself.
- Brother Sister Incest - subverted. Duncan and Veronica are not siblings, although both thought they were at different points.
- California University - Hearst College
- Chained To A Bed - Cliff in "The Rapes of Graff"
- Character Derailment - Nearly everyone by the end of season three.
- The Chessmaster - Cassidy in season 2. Seriously, he's behind everything.
- Come To Gawk
- Complete Monster - Aaron Echolls, who abuses his son, cheated on his wife and drove her to suicide, slept with his son's girlfriend then bashed her head in, then tried to set Veronica on fire.
- Continuity Lockout - Why the network demanded season 3 have smaller arcs than the season-long ones of season 1 and 2. They made it too hard to attract new viewers.
- Cop Boyfriend - Leo
- Corrupt Corporate Executive - Big Dick Casablancas
- Crapsack World - Neptune is a town divided into the rich section of town (the "09ers" and pretty much everyone else, as far as being a town where you are insanely rich or working low wage jobs for the incredibly rich. The town police is run by an evil jerk whose pettiness towards those who he doesn't like is matched only by his laziness, as well as filled with people who blindly support the wealthiest guy in town when he's accused of murdering his daughter. In addition, the county supervisor is a pedophile, the local business mogul is a Corrupt Corporate Executive, and the town's famous actor resident is an abusive psychopath and murderer.
- Crouching Moron Hidden Badass - Vinnie Van Lowe
- Crowning Moment Of Funny - "A PONY?!?"
- Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming - the test proving Keith really is Veronica's father.
- Dawson Casting
- Dead Little Sister - Duncan, of course, and later in the series Dick, a gender-flipped version.
- Deadpan Snarker - It would be a shorter list to name the characters with lines that weren't.
- Backup, Mandy, Inga. No, seriously. That's about it. Every other character on the show is a deadpan snarker or tries to be. And Backup is a dog.
- Downer Ending - Oh, how to count the ways. Veronica's father is under indictment because he destroyed evidence of her breaking-and-entering. His (presumed) successor as sheriff will be Vinnie Van Lowe, a corrupt rival private investigator whose campaign was financed by the local crime syndicate. Veronica's dating Piz, a milquetoast who's incompatibility with Veronica becomes crystal clear when Dick Casablancas emails a video to everyone on campus of the two having sex, leading to Veronica vowing reprisals against the man responsible for creating the footage versus Piz wanting to ride out the crisis, much to Veronica's shock and horror. And when Logan does avenge Veronica's honor by publicly beating up the man who gave Dick the video to circulate, the guy vows revenge against Logan, which given the fact that his father is a hired killer for the Russian Mob, means that Logan's possibly finally fulfilled his longstanding death wish.
- Draco In Leather Pants - Sheriff Donald Lamb and both Casablancas brothers. Logan in Seasons One and Two.
- Driven To Suicide - Lynn Echolls, Cassidy
- Dude Wheres My Respect
- Eating Lunch Alone
- Veronica, until Wallace sits with her in the first episode.
- And whoever Veronica needs to talk to will also be conveniently doing this most of the time.
- Economy Cast - Neptune contains exactly two private investigators (Keith Mars and Vinnie Van Lowe) and one lawyer (Cliff McCormack).
- Embarrassing Nickname - Poor
Beaver Cassidy.
- Evil Counterpart - Arguably Cassidy, who experienced similar things to Veronica (All Of The Other Reindeer and Rape As Backstory), but they became very different people for it.
- Expository Hairstyle Change - Flashbacks of Veronica during season one and Logan's stubble and unkempt appearance during his depression in Postgame Mortem due to his break-up with Veronica.
- Fallen Princess - Veronica
- Fan Preferred Couple - Veronica and whomever she wasn't with at the time. She's with Duncan? the fans wanted Veronica/Logan. She's with Logan? The fans wanted Duncan back. Not to mention those who wanted her to get together with Weevil or Wallace.
- First Person Smartass
- Flashbacks a-go-go
- Foe Yay - Logan/Weevil, Veronica/Lamb. Technically text with Veronica and Cassidy, on his part at least, what with the rape and all.
- Freudian Excuse - Sheriff Lamb, Cassidy, and while Logan's not really a villain, he fits the trope.
- Getting Crap Past The Radar - Watch just about any episode.
- Gold Digger - Kendall Casablancas
- 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.
- Guile Hero
- Hey Its That Guy - Oh, so many. Christopher B. Duncan as Clarence Wiedman, real-life married actors Harry Hamlin and Lisa Rinna as Logan's parents, Veronica's own dad is played by Enrico Colantoni, Kyle Gallner as "Beaver" Casablancas, the longest run on television of Amanda Seyfried, Percy Daggs from the Nestle Crunch with Caramel commercials with Shaq and a bunch of shows, Kyle Secor as Jake Kane, the list goes on. Not to mention it's how Kristen Bell became Sarah Marshall.
- Hey Its That Voice - Daran Norris plays the slightly shifty lawyer, Cliff McCormack.
- Hollywood Nerd - It could be argued Mac falls into this category, and even Veronica to a certain extent.
- How We Got Here - The season one pilot is pretty much info-dump city as far as establishing Veronica's backstory; season two's first episode also info-dumps an entire summer's worth of plotlines that happened in between the end of season one and the start of season two.
- Incredibly Obvious Bug - Pretty much everything
- In The Blood
- A rather sedate example - Cindy McKenzie, who was Switched At Birth, seems to have inherited every one of her personality traits from her biological parents, and exactly none from the people who raised her for her entire life. The same goes for the girl she was switched with.
- A more overt example is the implication that the men in the Echolls family are inherently violent and sadistic, which (according to Veronica) is a major source of worry for Logan as far as him continuing the circle of violence with any children he might have.
- Insistent Terminology: "My name...is Cassidy!" In fairness to him, it is.
- The Irish Mob - The Fighting Fitzpatricks.
- Its All My Fault - Veronica after the bus crash and Parker's rape. Dick, of all people, after Cassidy's death.
- Jerk Ass - Logan, Dick Casablancas, Don Lamb - and pretty much every adult male in Neptune, especially when they are rich.
- The Libby - Madison Sinclair
- Like You Would Really Do It - Who really fell for it when they pretended they killed off Keith in the season 2 finale?
- Lovable Rogue - Just about the entire cast - most notably Veronica, Logan and Weevil.
- Love Makes You Crazy - Got an hour?
- The Mafia - Gangs gangs everywhere
- Magnificent Bastard - Veronica (obviously) and many, many others, including Logan and Cassidy.
- Missing Mom - A good part of the first season involved Veronica's quest to find her mother, as well as the emotional fallout from the abandonment.
- Motive Rant - Used a lot in the show, by the bad guys to explain their actions.
- Narrator - Veronica, natch.
- Never Found The Body - Lynn Echolls and Kendall Casablancas.
- Never Speak Ill Of The Dead - one of the Fitzpatricks mocks Keith in one episode for speaking ill of the late Sheriff Lamb.
- Never Suicide - Dean O'Dell
- No Fourth Wall - Creator Rob Thomas once put his own books prominently in the background of one scene, and in the series finale, a character quips "Rob Thomas is a whore" (see below)... although in the context of the scene he's referring to the lead singer for Matchbox 20.
- Noodle Incident - a bit more seriously than most: Who on earth is "Sally?" We will never know.
- Pacman Fever - Much of season 1 episode 4 constitutes one of the most painful examples this troper has ever seen. Also includes Totally Radical.
- Papa Wolf - Keith. Also, hitting Aaron's daughter? Bad idea.
- Parker Lewis Ferris Bueller
- Perpetual Poverty - Pretty much half of Neptune, as far as perpetuating the class warfare subplot of season two and three. Veronica and Keith also fit this trope during the first half of season one but do ultimately rise out of it later on.
- Pitbull Dates Puppy - Veronica dating Piz
- Plucky Girl
- Posthumous Character - Lily
- Private Detective
- Private Eye Monologue - Starts the whole series
- Product Placement - A good deal of it, and more and more in season 3—the final episode parodied this with the "Rob Thomas is a whore" comment.
- Prom Baby - Trina is revealed to have been a Prom Baby in season 2.
- Promotion To Opening Titles - Many in season 3, although ironically most of them didn't get a bigger part for it. Also, Dick and Beaver in season 2
- Punny Name - Tim Foyle
- Rape And Switch - Arguably the victims of Woody Goodman: one was gay, one was "on the fence", and one, well, no-one quite agrees about him.
- Rape As Comedy - Two Words: "Community soap."
- Rape As Drama - Most of the time it's used.
- Rape Is Love - Not quite the rape trifecta, as it only half-uses it: At first she thinks she's been raped and is pissed, then it turns out that she just had inebriated but voluntary sex with her ex-boyfriend who didn't know she'd been accidentally dosed with a date rape drug, like he'd been, which made it okay. Later it turns out the big bad of season 2 actually did rape her earlier, which ends up giving her a clue to his nefarious plot.
- Rape Is Ok When It Is Female On Male - Partially averted, partially played straight. Veronica bluntly points out that what the members of Lilith House did to Chip Diller was rape and he is clearly traumatised by it. On the other hand he is such an Asshole Victim that it is very difficult for the character to invoke sympathy.
- Rape Of The Lock
- The Rashomon - Used in "A Trip to the Dentist" to explain the story of how Veronica was raped.
- Really Gets Around - Lily was like this. Also, Parker (for a while).
- Real Song Theme Tune - "We Used To Be Friends" by the Dandy Warhols. A slower, Darker And Edgier version replaced it in season three.
- Reality Ensues - The series finale, where Veronica learns the hard way that her actions had very real consequences.
- Red Herring Twist
- Rescued From The Scrappy Heap - over the course of season 2, fans grew to accept Jackie.
- 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. Veronica turning into a smug, self-righteous jerk-ass didn't help.
- Shipping - Veronica and Logan, Logan and Weevil
- Shirtless Scene - Weevil, Logan, Dick, Don Lamb, Cassidy...
- Shout Out - The references to The Big Lebowski are so frequent they may overlap with Author Appeal, to say nothing of the time a scene was briefly shown while Veronica and Duncan were watching TV.
- Soundtrack Dissonance - "That's Amore." While also providing something of a Visual Pun.
- Straw Feminist - Lilith House doesn't care who actually is doing the raping, they just want to pin it on the Pi Sig fraternity so they can shut it down. They even have a member falsely claim to be sexually assaulted to further this agenda. How's that for commitment?
- Story Arc - Several storylines spanned the whole of a season, while others took up large chunks of one
- Strange Bedfellows - In season two, Veronica has to team up with Clarence Wiedman.
- Switched At Birth - Mac and Madison
- Thank You Mister Evil
- The Summation
- Techno Wizard - Mac; also uses a Magical Computer
- Turns Red - The rather ridiculous amount of punishment Aaron Echolls soaks up even before his fight with Keith makes you wonder why Keith, trained to actually fight and bring down people quickly as a cop and who would have kept his skills sharp by chasing down bail-jumpers—as opposed to just making it look good on camera, like Echolls—didn't make shorter work of him. Oh, right. Aaron was angry.
- Unbreakable Weapons - You'd think, given her reliance on it, Veronica might have run out of charge for her taser at least once. Though it did get taken from her at least twice.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee - Season 2. Pick an episode.
- Valley Girl - Gia.
- The Vamp - Where to start, where to start...
- Vertigo Effect - Last ep of season 2
- Very Special Episode
- Villain With Good Publicity - Woody Goodman.
- Wake Up Go To School Save The World
- Wall Banger
- Season 2 finale: who blew up the bus and killed 6 students? Was it the murderous actor Veronica busted last season trying to kill her in revenge? Was it the Fighting Fitzpatricks, Neptune's #1 crime family, trying to silence a gang banger who bragged about ripping them off? Was it the pedophile mayor trying to bump off two of his victims before they went public? NO! it was the quiet, sweet, nerdy, constantly put-down boyfriend of Veronica's hacker friend who was a victim of said mayor in his youth and not only blew up the bus but also killed another guy, orchestrated a massive misinformation campaign to distract everyone, blew up a plane with his cell phone, and, oh yeah, apparently raped Veronica like two years ago. A friend told this contributor the twist; he still doesn't believe her, even after watching it.
- YMMV, of course. This troper found the twist believable, and kinda impressive - that's one good Chessmaster.
- This Troper's main problem was The Reveal. The diabolical mua-ha-ha-style Motive Rant was really not necessary; it could have been done in the same style as his Last Words and been much more effective
- Also, the trial of Season One's big bad. As mentioned several times above, the way it was written was beyond farce, leading to many to point to the trial-centric episode being the moment where the show's seasonal rot hit the point of no return.
- The fact that Veronica seemed perfectly friendly and civil towards Dick despite the fact that he arranged the circumstances of her rape! Even when there was a point that she didn't think she actually got raped, it's hard to believe that she was willing to just let that slide, especially considering how she takes being wronged in all other circumstances. Not to mention that she seemed willing vent all her vitriol regarding this situation on Madison Sinclair when, from one perspective, she was just as much a victim of the whole thing (not that there weren't other legitimate reasons to spew vitriol at her).
- Wham Episode - "Not Pictured."
- Why Would Anyone Take Him Back - Veronica and Duncan... and Logan.
- The Woobie - Mac, Logan, and arguably Veronica herself. Subverted with Cassidy... Kinda.
- Wouldnt Hit A Girl - Subverted, in that most of the bad guys on the show are not afraid to raise a hand to a woman. (That's how you know they're bad guys.) On the other hand, there are relatively few female antagonists, and almost none who get unreasonably violent, so there's no way to know if male protagonists would go easy on a female antagonist in an actual fight.
- Writer Revolt - Why Rob Thomas killed off Sheriff Lamb.
- Xanatos Roulette - The whole deal with kidnapping Duncan's daughter, Cassidy's far-reaching scheme, and the season three plotline where a teacher's assistant kills the head of the college in order to destroy the life of one of the professors at the college, as payback for him giving a bad reference for the assistant where he basically slagged him and cost him a teaching job at another college.
- Yangire - Cassidy, big time.
- You Look Familiar - the same person played Lucky in season 2, and Tim Foyle in season 3.
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