'Veronica Mars' Creator Rob Thomas On The True Crime That Inspired Season 4 [Spoiler Interview]

/Film asked to speak with Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas in advance of Hulu premiering the new fourth season. Then, in a surprise move, season 4 premiered on Hulu while the cast was at Comic-Con. Hulu still took care of us though, bringing Thomas for lunch with the Television Critics Association.Now that Marshmallows have had a chance to watch the fourth season of Veronica Mars, we got to do a spoiler interview with Thomas instead of a preview. We talked specifics about the bombing mystery, the tragedies that befall Veronica, her friends and family, and an update on Thomas' adaptation of The Lost Boys for The CW. All four seasons of Veronica Mars are now streaming on Hulu.

And yes, the spoilers begin now.

You'd often talked about bringing Veronica Mars back as a limited series. Was this mystery always the idea you had?No. I didn't probably come up with this particular mystery until, I'm from Austin, TX and there was a serial bomber in Austin. I want to say that was a year and a half ago maybe. That's when I started thinking about this particular mystery.Did you always know where the characters were going to be for a limited series?I've known for a long time that if we had an opportunity to keep going, that it would probably be the end of Logan, that we would get one more run with Logan and that would be it. So I'd known that for a while. Only because I just think a show about your kick-ass private detective works better than the show about the kick-ass private detective and her boyfriend. That's a more compelling show for me so that I had in the back of my head. If we had taken this pitch out and nobody had bought it, then Logan would be safely with Veronica back in Neptune and everyone's memory, but if we have a chance to keep going, that's why this plot point had to happen for me.Was Keith's health crisis something you'd always had in mind for the future?No. I think we landed on that shortly before we started writing it. Was a bombing plot something you probably couldn't have done on a CW series or an indie movie?No, I think we could have done it. In fact, I don't think you'd notice a big difference in the level of gore or blood on this season. The head was pretty graphic.Maybe the decapitations, yeah. That's probably pushing the far edge of what we'd even want to see on Veronica Mars. On a show that relies so much on being snappy and funny, the gorier you get, the less those jokes are going to play I think.Was Tina Majorino not available for season four?When I called Tina, she said, "What's my storyline?" And I said, "I have to be honest, series regular characters aren't going to get their own storylines. You would be a friend of Veronica who helps her with computer stuff.' And that wasn't that appealing to her.Did you ever toy with a possible appearance for Piz?No, no. He's done unless for some reason Veronica's adventure takes her to New York. One thing I'm not going to do is now pair up Veronica with some new guy.So not Max Greenfield either?No, I wouldn't be surprised if Veronica and Deputy Leo may run into each other someplace down the line, but I'm not going to get her together with a guy. She may have lovers but she's not going to have a romance at the center of the show.Was constructing a mystery for eight hours much different than doing it for 22?Yeah, in some ways it was great but the thing about 22 is you can introduce more red herrings. That's the biggest thing I felt. In eight episodes, you look at the cast of it, there can only be like five people who it could've been. The nice thing about 22 is you can introduce more people. You can create more people you can imagine having done the crime. In eight episodes, you only have room for about five people to maybe even be considered the possible murderer.Was Logan watching Harlots, a Hulu shout out?It was not meant to be. Yes and no. It's hard to mention another network's show. Networks don't like it. If we had mentioned some HBO show, they would not have been thrilled, but it was really more for the joke, just the word Harlots. Because that happens right in the wake of Leo's been over all day and Logan is just kind of needling Veronica and he's like, "What do you wanna watch, Harlots?" So that was only meant for the word. It was not meant to be a plug and I've read a few people who thought that we were somehow trying to get a Hulu plug in there.Have they given you any sort of timeline for when they want a season five?No, and nothing is guaranteed on that front. They've been incredibly happy with the show creatively and they've been happy with the number of people who've been watching the first three seasons. I think they're happy with the critical response so I think it just comes down to the numbers that we do.CW's redoing your Lost Boys pilot. Does that change your idea for the show with the Lost Boys through the decades?Yeah, that idea has been scrapped. They want something closer to the movie and so that's what we're trying to give them.The movie but in modern day?Oh no, it's not going to go back to the '80s. It would be a present day. Mine got pretty far away from the original movie. They want something closer to the original movie.And closer to their Vampire Diaries/The Originals/Legacies series?It'll be closer to those than my crazy stab at it was.