Veronica Mars as a film shouldn’t really have worked. In some ways, it did. But in other ways…well. If you’re already a fan of the show, then you already know what you’re getting yourself into. When I watched this movie the first time, after it was originally released, I was simply delighted to get more time with my favorite tiny, blonde detective. Who doesn’t like getting together with old friends?

The movie holds up pretty well on subsequent viewings. I’m so mad, though.

Cutting for spoilers. I do this for your own good, you know.

I am so utterly pissed off at the way things were left at the end of the movie. I am, perhaps, even more aggravated at Thomas and co. for the lack of an ending than I was with the finale of the television show. I can forgive them for the show; they didn’t necessarily know that they were filming the SERIES FINALE when they were finishing up with season three.

But the movie? For GODS EVER LOVING SAKE! Even if Thomas knew that he was getting a book deal, the motherloving cliffhangers make me want to tear my hair out. Who murdered Sacks? I mean, obviously somebody from the sheriff’s office, right? Because Sheriff Lamb the Second is comfortably in the ultra-wealthy’s pocket, and he’s not about to let his little kingdom fall just because Keith Mars is onto him, and Jerry Sacks is the obvious mole if there was one. It’s so obvious.

However, if one was paying attention to almost any episode of the original series, things are seldom what they seem. Who, for example, called in advance that Tim Foyle murdered Dean O’Dell? Because that was one hell of a twisty moment. Further back, who among us looked at all of the possible people who might want to send a bus over a cliff in season two and thought “Ah ha, it’s that baby-faced Cassidy who is the evil mastermind! Just wait and see!”

I think not. I don’t trust the obvious answer. Veronica would be proud of me.

Secondly: did Weevil really just rejoin a biker gang after how many years away? And if so, wasn’t the PCH gang made up of mostly teenagers? Did he literally just get the old gang back together? What about his pride that he’d reformed himself, married a gorgeous woman and fathered a beautiful daughter? I suppose I can forgive him for deciding that he was going to take justice into his own hands. Something something leopard spots.

Nevertheless, leaving these two giant, dangling, plot cables (because I cannot, in good faith, call them threads when they are so fucking enormous) was incredibly lazy on the writers part. Knowing that you’ve got a book deal, and that there will be two novels, does not, in any way, excuse you for leaving us hanging AGAIN, Rob. Shame on you, Rob Thomas. Shame on you.

I’ve re-acquired the books (had them when they first came out, lost them in a calamity that I don’t want to talk about), and have kind of lazily started the first volume, The Thousand Dollar Tan Line. Yes, it does sound like a pulpy detective novel title from the golden era of when that was a thing. I see you what you did there, Rob. From what I remember from my initial reading (which I will admit to not entirely remembering correctly), the novels don’t wrap up these plot holes. Somebody, please teach this creative team how to land the ending.

I say that I’ve lazily started it because the same day that I picked up the book to start reading it, I received a notification from NetGalley that I had been approved for an ARC that I’ve been dying to read. That has to take priority. You’ll have to visit me over at Speculative Chic for that review. Likewise with a review of my fourth book of 2019, The Rust Maidens by Gwendolyn Kiste. That particular review will be going up tomorrow, (February 5). I hope you read it! I have so many thoughts about The Rust Maidens that I could write a proper research paper if I had the time.

The ARC review will be going up as soon as I can finish the book and pull my brain back together afterwards, because I just know that something horrible is going to happen.

At least I know that there’s going to be a resolution of the plot in the book, UNLIKE WITH SOME OTHER PIECES OF MEDIA THAT I’VE CONSUMED RECENTLY.

Me? Bitter? Annoyed? Wherever did you get the idea?