'Veronica Mars' Trailer: Veronica Hunts A Bomber In Neptune

Spring break in Neptune is more explosive than ever in Hulu's revival of Veronica Mars. The fictional coastal California hometown of the eponymous private investigator is being plagued by a series of bombings, and Veronica (Kristen Bell) may be the only one who can find out who's setting them off...and why. Check out the latest Veronica Mars trailer below.

The 2014 feature film, funded in part by donations from fans on Kickstarter, felt way too much like fan service: it was an inessential, underwhelming story that didn't capture the spark that made the TV series so great. Sadly, it just served to remind me of the lyrics to the show's theme song: "A long time ago, we used to be friends..."

But thankfully, this Hulu revival of the series feels like a return to form for Veronica Mars. Perhaps the fan-service aspect of the movie felt exacerbated by the film's two-hour runtime; now that the story has more time to breathe, hopefully that feeling won't be present this time around. It's definitely nice to see some familiar faces, but maybe it's not necessary to check in with every single character we knew from the original show this time.

Veronica is back in Neptune working cases with her father (Enrico Colantoni), and as great as it is to see their dynamic play out again – they had one of the best father/daughter relationships in the history of television – I do wonder if that will change at all considering how much older Kristen Bell is all these years later. She's not a teenager anymore. Meanwhile, her relationship with Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring) seems to be in a good place, and I do like the thematic symmetry of the bombs exploding across Neptune and Veronica referring to herself as the destructive force in her relationships. I wonder how deep they'll probe into that territory in this new batch of episodes.

Meanwhile, there are some new faces in the mix as well: J.K. Simmons as possibly the man behind the bombings, Patton Oswalt as a pizza delivery guy who either knows more than he lets on or has just seen All the President's Men too many times, and Kirby Howell-Baptiste as the owner of a nightclub in Neptune. I'm guessing things aren't quite as cut and dried as they seem in this trailer, but I'm looking forward to diving in and seeing what series creator Rob Thomas has up his sleeve this time out. Whatever happens, it can't be worse than the movie...right?

Season 4 of Veronica Mars premieres on Hulu on July 26, 2019.