Veronica Mars Season 4 was better off for not allowing Veronica to evolve

Vulture

"She is older, and that is it," Anne T. Donahue says of Kristen Bell's Veronica shown in Season 4. "But the lack of evolution between her teen and 30-something selves doesn’t take away from this latest installment of Veronica Mars. In fact, it makes it better. Because while I’d love to have watched her championing therapy, communication, and shutting up when Weevil explained this lack of choices, I love even more that we’ve been set up for a complicated, 'What the f*ck, Veronica?–type of relationship traditionally set aside for male leads of prestige TV shows. Especially since, while rooting for Veronica, we’ve never been shielded from her at-times problematic nature nor her mistakes. She’s not an antihero, but we’ve been given a front-row seat into the realities of a person whose coping mechanisms aren’t effective or helpful anymore. In fact, they’ve tethered her to a life she isn’t happy with at all. And, because she’s never learned to communicate, she lashes out and clings to old habits despite how damaging both things can be. Which is so frustrating to watch, but it’s also an opportunity for redemption. Because as we’ve learned from the characters we tend to remember and romanticize and bring up the most, it’s the question of whether someone will grow or whether they will continue to self-destruct until they hit rock bottom. The end of Veronica Mars’s fourth season alludes to the arrival at said bottom. Meaning that come season five, which creator Rob Thomas says he was actively pursuing with said ending, Veronica finally has nowhere to go but up. Or at least nothing to do but evolve." ALSO: Rob Thomas doubles down on controversial twist ending, emphasizes the need to move past being a teen soap/mystery show.