TV

Hulu's Veronica Mars revival: Let's rank all the best new characters

From amazing new BFFs to totally evil scumbags, here are our new favorite Marshmallows.

By

Published on July 20, 2019 01:00PM EDT

Warning: Spoilers ahead for the finale of Hulu's Veronica Mars revival. Read on at your own risk!

Every Veronica Mars fan has a favorite character. Whether you obsess over Veronica (Kristen Bell) and Logan (Jason Dohring), or you live for every dirty Dick (Ryan Hansen) joke, or Keith (Enrico Colantoni) makes you cry with every fatherly hug and quip, there's truly someone for everyone in the original three seasons and 2014 movie.

But Hulu's Veronica Mars revival shakes up everything you thought you knew about these Marshmallows by introducing instant fan-favorite characters and reintroducing old ones that may have you questioning your previously solid opinions. (You thought you were a LoVe fan for life? Just wait until you see Leo D'Amato's [Max Greenfield] new dynamic with Veronica…)

With so many new characters to keep track of, EW is here to help. From amazing new BFFs to totally evil scumbags, here are all of the best new characters introduced in Hulu's revival season ranked from least to most memorable.

10. Unnamed bar patron (Sarah Hyland)

Modern Family star Sarah Hyland has two memorable scenes in Comrade Quacks as a bar patron who rebuffed Dick's offensive flirting and then zeroed in on a guy trying to roofie drunk college students. I'm so here for her take-no-prisoners attitude and confidence, but why did she only get two short scenes? And why didn't her character even get a name?! For someone as well known as Hyland, I expected more.

9. Carson (Eliza Coupe)

This divorcee (Eliza Coupe) knew how good it felt to get even. She hired Veronica to investigate why her smart home "hates" her, only for Veronica to discover it was just Carson's ex-husband bugging the house to drive her out of her mind. It turned out to be a huge payday for Mars Investigations, which was a big win, but Carson only appeared in the first scene of the season.

8. Catalina Heat movie star (Josh Duhamel)

We never actually get his name, but Dick's costar (Josh Duhamel) in Catalina Heat definitely deserves a shout-out for that stellar acting. I desperately need to know the plot of that movie and what the actor's relationship was like with Dick on set.

7. Congressman Alex Maloof (Mido Hamada)

At first glance, the congressman (Mido Hamada) had it all. He had the looks, the deep calm voice, and the political ambition to be a true new TV crush. But, as more of his secrets got uncovered, we saw him for the coward he truly was. He was blackmailed by a kid! He ordered a hit on the men who racially discriminated and tortured him, only to turn back around and try to rescind the hit out of guilt and fear! The more you learn about Maloof, the more you hate him. Sorry, not sorry.

6. Alonzo (Clifton Collins Jr.)

The more memorable of the cartel hitmen duo, Alonzo (Clifton Collins Jr.) carried himself with a chilling, calm glee that made his murders all the more terrifying. He was never without a smile, and he never worried, even when he killed the wrong person. He even managed to find a girlfriend (Weevil's sister, no less) while on a murder assignment in Neptune. You definitely do not want to get on Alonzo's bad side.

5. Don McNaughton (Clark Duke)

Is there anyone more immediately easy to hate than Don (Clark Duke)? This "murderhead" was smarmy, condescending, and overly confident...so it was hard not to get excited when he was exposed as the Neptune bomber. But, just a short minute later, the heartbreaking truth was uncovered and you actually felt empathy for poor Don. He may have deserved to get knocked down a peg or two, but he certainly didn't deserve the fate he suffered in the finale.

4. Matty Ross (Izabela Vidovic)

Hello, Veronica 2.0! The teenage daughter (Izabela Vidovic) of the hotel owner who died in the first bombing was more than just your average victim. She refused to take things lying down and fought back against injustice, even if that meant barging into a gang hideout with violent criminals packing heat, or taking on the richest and most morally bankrupt man in the city. She barely even flinched while watching a beheading, and could lose a tail as good as Veronica over and over again. It's a good thing she stuck around Mars Investigations to help out Keith because she's going to be the new shining star of the P.I. world. Plus, her moral gray area (using the stolen engagement ring to fix and reopen the Sea Sprite was just smart thinking) was exciting to watch.

3. Nicole (Kirby Howell-Baptiste)

In all my wildest dreams, I can't think of anyone better suited to be Veronica's new best friend than Nicole (Kirby Howell-Baptiste). She's smart, sarcastic, hilarious, able to keep up and fire back at Veronica's quips, packs a mean right hook, and has no patience for sexual assaulters. Howell-Baptiste was just as entertaining here as she was with Bell on The Good Place, just in a completely new dynamic. Hopefully, Veronica didn't ruin their friendship for good by bugging Nicole's office, because, by the end of season 4, things were not looking good for these former BFFs.

2. Clyde Pickett (J.K. Simmons)

Big Dick Casablanca's (David Starzyk) right-hand man (J.K. Simmons) was a formidable new villain on Veronica Mars, if only because you never actually knew if he was a villain or not. He genuinely seemed to want to be friends with Keith, and he wanted to reunite with the girlfriend who took all his stolen money when he went to jail — not to kill her or for retribution, but to actually get back together with her. And all he wanted was to open up a classic car shop. But he also ordered Big Dick's violent death and barely batted an eyelash while watching the bloody beheading. Because he's played by Simmons, every word is laced with a dark foreboding of which you never want to be on the wrong end. By the end of the season, Clyde got everything he ever wanted and Neptune suffered. Now that's one impressive new villain.

1. Penn Epner (Patton Oswalt)

The pizza guy of Neptune seemed harmless at the beginning of the season, even suffering some collateral damage from the first bombing. But, as the season went on, it was clear that there was more to Penn (Patton Oswalt) than meets the eye. Not only was he clearly desperate for internet fame, but he was also willing to endanger the lives of others to get it by prematurely revealing theories and hypotheses about the identity of the Neptune bomber. And that all pales in comparison to the reveal that Penn was the bomber himself. He wasn't even upset that Veronica and Keith foiled his "final" bomb, since he had "contingencies" in place not only to make himself even more famous but also to knock Veronica down from behind bars with his actual final bomb that killed Logan. His gloating just made his last kill even more despicable.

Penn might be one of the evilest villains ever on Veronica Mars, if only because he played everyone so well from the start. He wasn't some traumatized kid like Beaver was — he was a grown adult obsessed with serial killers, emulating their worst qualities. His shame and anger drove him to enjoy killing. This evil scumbag was, if not the best, then at least the most memorable new character this season.

Veronica Mars season 4 is streaming in full on Hulu.

Related content: