Review: Veronica's excellent misadventure

[Still Dirrty]

He did it. No, he did it. No, the dog did it. Everybody and her pet bulldog comes under suspicion in tonight's whodunit-solving season finale of UPN's sinfully underrated sleuth saga "Veronica Mars." A twistier capper than this, you haven't seen in eons. Everything that seems clearly solved isn't, right up to the last, lingering moment of this action-packed hour.

But there are plenty of payoffs, including the season-long hunt for who killed Lilly Kane, the rich-kid best friend of Kristen Bell's title high school outcast and part-time detective.

It's no Nancy Drew world for Veronica. Her sunny California beach town is awash in wealth, show biz, politics, gangs, substance abuse, tense DNA tests and teen fun-runs to Mexico. Veronica herself has been reeling all season from Lilly's messy murder, her mother's disappearance and her own apparent assault at a wild party she barely remembers. Last week gave us the truth about the latter: Veronica had been drugged but actually had consensual relations with Lilly's half-crazed brother Duncan - who we'd previously learned might also be her half-brother, thanks to the troubled Mars mom's indiscretions.

A lot to follow? Yeah, but worth the effort. "Veronica Mars" reverberates 10 ways from Tuesday. It's a kick-butt mystery in which Bell's Veronica is no perky little snoop but a shrewd investigative partner for Enrico Colantoni as her affable ex-sheriff dad on cases of Internet blackmail and other sordid threats. It's a gritty family drama, with mom Corinne Bohrer popping in and out of their lives while battling her own demons. It's a sweet romance for Colantoni, who's recently been hitting the dance floor with Erica Gimpel as the mom of his daughter's best bud, and for Bell, whose giddy fling with Jason Dohring's bad-boy Logan recently flipped to her suspecting him in Lilly's killing.

It's also a look at the underside of wealth and fame through Kyle Secor's controlling cyber-tycoon Kane and Harry Hamlin as Logan's detached movie-star dad. It's even a teen soap with a keen-eyed view of high school jockeying.

The youth angle is never discounted, despite Veronica's adult wranglings. As the season-ender's circuitous solution puts her through a seemingly unending wringer of perils - is it six times or 12 that we fear for her life tonight? - Bell reacts not just like a sharp sleuth but like a terrified kid. For every clever tactic she concocts, there's a genuine freak-out. That underlying reality is what makes "Veronica Mars" so potent. A fight here looks like a real fight, all grappling and stumbling. Even good news seems sublimely poignant. And the fear Veronica feels is palpable, inspiring at-home holding your breath as she thinks/screams/battles her way to safety.

The acting is first-rate, though in a non-showy way unlikely to earn awards. Like adolescence, it's an internal process. The filming, too, has an unaffectedness idiosyncrasy, all those offbeat angles suiting the cockeyed way its heroine might view her life. Veronica Mars knows too much, yet not enough. She's learning and growing. So is her show (which UPN has savvily renewed for next season). It's grown on us, that's for sure.

VERONICA MARS. Sizzling season finale of the underappreciated mystery-drama. Tonight at 9 on UPN/9.

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