<em>Veronica Mars </em>Has a Bitter New Edge
Hulu's Season 4 is moodier than the original series and less nostalgic than the film revival. But its darker sensibility yields a strangely cynical story.
In the canon of 2000s teen TV protagonists, Kristen Bell’s plucky private eye Veronica Mars carved out a category all her own. She was “,” as Nolan Feeney once wrote for , a hero who stood up for the outsiders and who, despite her somewhat improbable side hustle, felt real. When the series began, she was at her lowest point, as a former member of the popular crowd whose life fell apart after the murder of her best friend. On the outside, she was confident and dryly witty; on the inside, she was insecure, traumatized, and angry. Her
