I've thought long and hard about why I'm not loving Veronica Mars as much this year. And I think I've figured it out.

Veronica Mars has lost its heart.

Veronica the character's always been a bitch. Logan has always been a prick. Duncan has always been ineffectual and distant. But beyond their bitchiness, prickiness and distance was Lilly. You knew that Veronica was being a bitch because her best friend was dead and her father crucified for screwing up the investigation. You knew Logan had no outlet for his anger, and attacked the one person he knew he could hurt.

And Duncan? Well, he thought he schtupped his sister. So, not so much about Lilly.

What does Veronica have to bitchy about these days? She's lying to her father all the time, treating Wallace like he's a handbag and taking Duncan's bullshit. All the 09ers tolerate her, and she doesn't even try to take Duncan out of that world or make the 09ers rethink their shitty attitudes. Is this really the same pint-sized heroine we knew and loved?

And I get it that the course of true LoVe never runs smoothly. But this season should have seen both Logan and Veronica learning from—or at least acknowledging—the events of last year. Yeah, sure, they had a failed relationship, but they both went through a lot of stuff together, and even if they aren't friends anymore they should remember that they used to really care about each other. Lately it's as if they're two strangers. Even Jackie and Veronica's barbs to one another have more heat than Veronica and Logan's half-assed insults.

Partly, it’s the vagueness of the bus crash. When it Lilly’s murder investigation took a week or two off, we always knew that it was on Veronica’s mind, because everywhere she looked she was being shunned. The bus crash doesn’t resonate with either the viewers or the characters the way Lilly’s murder did. Perhaps if they’d killed off some C-List high school kids, like Corny or Mandy or Wanda, instead of some teacher who couldn’t act and a bunch of kids we should have met (like the PCH kid) but never did, we’d care a bit more. But they didn’t, and so we don’t. At least Felix’s investigation involves people we know.

I never thought I'd say it, but I miss the high-school themed Mysteries of the Week. Why spend so much time creating interesting, three-dimensional characters like Dick and Beaver and Mac and Butters and Madison and Gia and Sean and Lizzie and even Jackie, if all you're going to do is ignore them? Why invest so much in creating a rich society if all you're going to do with it is tamper with juries and force only surviving parents to kidnap children that are legally theirs?

(On that note, are we really supposed to believe that Jake Kane—who, by the way, hired his former business partner to take a death penalty murder rap to save his son from the whiff of a criminal investigation—would allow his son to give up on school, being student body president, Triton senior management, a Future Business Leader of America and all around great student? No fucking way. They could have gotten that kid in a heartbeat if they'd wanted. I get that the show was done with the Duncan storyline, but don't treat us like we're stupid.)

I'm really looking forward to tonight's show, as we're finally getting back into the high school scene.