Veronica Mars is the fictional protagonist, occasional narrator (through voice-overs), and antiheroine of the American television series Veronica Mars, which aired on UPN from 2004 to 2006 and on The CW from 2006 to 2007. The character was portrayed by Kristen Bell through the duration of the series. Following the show's cancellation, Bell reprised the role in the 2014 film continuation. The character, created by Rob Thomas, was originally male and the protagonist of his unproduced novel Untitled Rob Thomas Teen Detective Novel, which eventually became the basis of the series. After the work's transition from novel to television series, Thomas changed the character's gender from male to female because he believed that a noir piece told from a female point of view would be more interesting.
Before the show starts, Veronica's best friend, Lilly Kane, has been murdered, and her father, Keith Mars, has lost not only his position of sheriff in the fictional town of Neptune, California, but also his reputation, status, and wife. The series begins with Veronica at the bottom of her posh high school's pecking order, having lost her popular status and popular friends because her father accused her boyfriend's father of involvement in the murder.
Character history
Background and details of plot
At the beginning of the series, Veronica is a 17-year-old junior at Neptune High in her the fictional town of Neptune, California, which is someplace near San Diego. According to series creator Rob Thomas, Veronica's birthday is in August. After (and sometimes before) school, Veronica works for her father, private investigator Keith Mars, the former sheriff of Balboa County, California. Veronica has few friends until she meets and helps Wallace Fennel, who becomes her best friend.
Back-story to season one
Veronica's story is told via voice-overs and flashbacks fitted into the main story. The year before the series picks up, Veronica was part of the in-crowd at Neptune High. Her best friend was popular junior Lilly Kane. Veronica was dating Lilly's brother, Duncan Kane and she was dating Logan Echolls, Duncan's good friend. The four were at the forefront of the school's wealthy and popular "09er" clique (named after the 90909 zip code, a wealthy area of Neptune) that dominated Neptune High's social scene. Though Veronica did not meet the economic status of the other 09ers, she was accepted into the clique because she was dating Duncan, and because of her father's influence as sheriff.
Duncan broke up with Veronica and stopped talking to her with no explanation. Lilly refused to explain to Veronica what went wrong. Shortly afterwards, Lilly was found murdered at the side of her family's pool. Sheriff Keith Mars accused Lilly's father, Neptune beloved software entrepreneur Jake Kane, of involvement in the murder. The citizens of Neptune were horrified, and Keith quickly found himself voted out of office and turned into a pariah by the wealthy 09er community. Keith's credibility took another blow when his replacement as Sheriff, former Deputy Sheriff Don Lamb, arrested disgruntled former Kane Software employee Abel Koontz, who confessed to Lilly's murder.
The shock and loss of income destroyed the Mars family. Veronica's mother started drinking heavily and abandoned the family several months later.
Veronica sealed her fate as an outsider when she refused to denounce her father. Duncan stopped speaking to Veronica, and the rest of the 09ers followed suit. Veronica found herself banished from the exclusive 09er social scene and friends.
Two months after her death, Veronica crashed an 09er party, thrown by Shelley Pomroy, to prove to her ex-friends that she did not care what they said about her. At the party, Veronica's drink is spiked with GHB and she awakens the next morning in a guest bedroom without any recollection of the night before and without any underwear. To her horror, she realizes she was raped. When she reports the crime to Sheriff Lamb, he calls her a liar and throws her out of his office.
These events change Veronica. She became cynical, filled with contempt and disgust towards her classmates and Neptune's wealthy elite. A pariah like her father, she funneled her time and energy into helping him in his own detective agency. But when a chance encounter with new transfer student Wallace Fennel led to her gaining a new friend, she began to use her investigation talents to help her fellow students and to go head-to-head with the 09'ers.
Veronica slowly begins to outgrow her cynicism, with the help of new friends Wallace Fennel, Cindy "Mac" Mackenzie, and Meg Manning.