5 Things We Learned about ‘Veronica Mars’ at the ATX Television Festival
On June 8, 2019, the ATX Television Festival hosted a Veronica Mars panel with Rob Thomas, Jason Dohring, Enrico Colantoni, and Percy Daggs III in attendance to discuss the upcoming new season and reflect back on the legacy of the show.
Here are 5 things we learned from the panel!
1. This Season on Veronica Mars
When first developing this new season, Thomas spoke about conversations he and Kristen Bell had. “The idea of like a miniseries, one big case, appealed to us a lot.”
Of course, we managed to get a few teases about the new season — slight spoilers ahead.
“I don’t think I’m giving anything away when I say there will be bombs in Neptune over spring break,” Thomas commented.
“Traditionally there are a lot of stories about men coming to this crossroads in their life,” Thomas began.
“The idea of commitment, family, mortgage, kids is one direction and then freedom, no responsibility, do whatever I want is the other direction, and I was interested in putting Veronica at that crossroads. So, a big part of the story has to do with what kind of life Veronica wants to live.”
Thomas also dropped a couple more teases.
Dick Casablancas, for instance, is “King of Neptune Spring Break,” Thomas shared.
We will also be treated to some familiar faces this season, according to Thomas.
“There are a lot of fun people who are going to drop into the show, people from the past…like Adam Rose who played Max on the show gets a moment. Logan’s old girlfriend Parker pops in.”
“Veronica has to drop by Chino prison and manages to meet a couple of the people she put in there, including her old teaching assistant Tim Foyle and rapist Ryan Devlin. There are going to be a lot fun drop ins in the show,” stated Thomas.
We can also expect to see Max Greenfield in “multiple episodes.” Sadly (or not, depending on your shipper preferences), Piz will not make an appearance, but Thomas said, “he does get name dropped a couple times.”
2. Welcome to Hulu
“When we pitched to Hulu, the pitch was ‘this is an adult private eye show,’” Thomas began.
“And we wrote the show believing we were going to be TV-MA. And then I turned the first draft in, we were about to shoot for the first day, and then I got a call saying ‘Oh no we want you to be TV-14,’ and the word ‘fuck’ appeared 18 times in the original script, literally.”
Don’t worry, Hulu gave Thomas “a lot of leeway,” which was evident in the new footage screened at the panel. No spoilers, but trust us, there’s a good bit of leeway.
According to Thomas, Hulu’s “thinking is they’re going to have all three seasons of Veronica Mars on their platform, and they would like people to be able to go back and forth, including fourteen-year-olds.”
This change in rating meant that Thomas had to go back and alter the script. “The first word of the script was Veronica at a call box going ‘fuuuucck,’ and I had to rewrite that.”
In the end, Thomas and the writers came up with a fun way to sort of keep the language in the show.
“So what we played in it was that Veronica and Keith have made a bet about who can go the longest without dropping an f-bomb, and so all the times you heard her saying ‘cuss’ [in the new footage screened] that is the replacement for everywhere that ‘fuck’ appeared in the script,” Thomas revealed.
Hulu will be dropping all 8 episodes at once, which made Thomas a bit worried.
“My concern, of course, is you write a mystery, and not everyone watches it all on day one, and so the possibility of the big reveals getting out in the ether, I mean that scares me as a mystery writer. You sort of like it being paced so everyone gets to the ending at the same time.”
So, as with all streaming shows, beware of spoilers when logging into social media. May we all watch it unspoiled.
3. Favorite Moments
A fan asked the panelists to share their favorite moments from the series.
For Dohring, it was a scene between Veronica and Keith on Veronica Mars Season 1 Episode 5, “You Think You Know Somebody.”
“In that scene when she says, ‘you can find anybody,’ and she breaks down,” Dohring recalled. “It ripped my heart out my when I saw that.”
Dohring then turned to the other panelists and asked, “Anybody got a happy one?”
Daggs chimed in next.
“One of my favorite moments was when I sang Papa was a Rolling Stone to Cress [Williams] in the Sac-N-Pac.” One reason why this is Daggs’ favorite moment is that his mom was also in the scene.
Thomas had a couple of scenes that came to mind.
“In the pilot episode, there’s a scene when Veronica wakes up in a strange bed, and she looks down, and she sees her underwear on the floor, and she picks them up.”
“When you shoot a pilot, you have actors come in, and they will probably read three or four scenes. One of those scenes is not ‘pick up your underwear off the floor and tear up,’ so that moment was totally new to me as I was watching it,” Thomas explained.
“I feel like a lot of actors can cry. There’s the ugly cry,” Thomas said, pointing out that in that scene, Kristen Bell exhibits a different kind of crying.
“It’s the ‘I am turning into stone while crying and a tear rolls down my face,’ and she does it take after take. It was in that moment where I go, ‘oh God, we could be good.’ It’s giving me chills each time I watch it. She’s a machine. It’s like, ‘how many tears? Which eye?’” Thomas said, earning laughs.
“I feel a lot of my favorite moments could be reduced to — god I’m going to get this wrong — gifs?” Thomas stated.
“There’s a moment where Veronica and Mac are doing their room up as Canada, and they put on Barenaked Ladies, and they dance for about three seconds, and it fills me with such a delight.”
For his final favorite moment, Thomas picked one from Veronica Mars Season 3 Episode 8, “Lord of the Pis.”
“There’s also a moment, very similar, with Dick Casablancas and Veronica as they find a bum to pull an egg out of a trash can. There’s a reaction shot in that moment that is priceless to me.”
4. Showcasing New Friendships
As the trailer revealed, we are getting to explore more relationships that we didn’t really see previously on Veronica Mars. A fan asked Daggs about how he felt getting to work with Colantoni and Dohring.
“It’s the best thing,” Daggs commented. “I’ll start with Rico [Colantoni]. Rico, when we got to set to shoot this fourth, this revival, in passing he gave me the biggest hug, as he always does, and he said, ‘guess what? Our scene is up today,’ and just that excitement of like ‘it’s me and you today, baby!’
“It’s the same with Jason. And now Logan, we like each other now,” Daggs noted. He continued, stating “It’s so fun to play because Jason is a genuine friend of mine these days.”
As for Colantoni, he’s also excited to work with Dohring.
“It was always one of those things where I go, ‘I want to work more with Jason and like him!’ So this past season has been, one of the joys of the show is to not hide my enthusiasm for Jason.”
5. The Potential for More
When asked if there is a chance that Veronica Mars could continue past this season, Thomas said there was, and then had second thoughts about his answer.
“I feel like in saying that I might be giving away that Veronica survives these 8 episodes, so don’t get comfortable.”
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Are you ready for the new season of Veronica Mars? Share your thoughts on the panel in the comments below!
The first three seasons of Veronica Mars drop on Hulu on July 1, and the new season premieres on July 26 on Hulu.
Check out all of our coverage of the ATX Television Festival right here. There is a lot more to come!
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Allison Nichols
Allison is in a love affair with television that doesn't seem to be letting up anytime soon. Slightly damaged fictional characters are her weakness. She loves to spend her free time curled up with a cat and a show to binge-watch. Allison is a Tomatometer-approved critic (Rotten Tomatoes).