Veronica Mars

Season 4

Spring Break Forever

1. Cho's pizza makes an appearance, its first since season 2 episode "Kanes and Abel's" from the show's original run
2. Throughout the first couple of seasons, there were several times that Keith would mention he had something for Veronica and she would exclaim "Is it a Pony?!" Now she has a dog named Pony.
3. The frat teen at the bar is seen wearing the same stripes blue shirt worn by Duncan Kane, Logan Echolls, and Stosh Piznarski wear at least once throughout the show's original run
4. At the town meeting, Veronica asks her father, "How the hell did we let a crooked real estate tycoon come in here and seduce us into longing for a bygone era?" To which Keith responds, "An era that never existed." This is likely a veiled reference to the 2016 presidential elections.
5. Kirby Howell-Baptiste was on Season 3 of The Good Place which also stars Kristen Bell.

Chino and the Man

1. About halfway through this episode, Patton Oswalt's character mentions he's part of a group called "Murderheads", who devotes their free time to solving cold cases, including a specific serial killer. In reality, Oswalt's first wife, Michelle McNamara was so obsessed with the Golden State Killer that, not only did she write a true crime book about the 44-year-long case, but by doing so, helped capture the infamous murderer.

Keep Calm and Party On

Heads You Lose

1. After Leo leaves Logan and Veronica's house, they discuss a San Diego detective and a rape case at The Grand. This was a reference to the plot of the second Veronica Mars novel "Mr. Kiss and Tell" in which Veronica and Leo worked together to catch a serial rapist.
2. When Veronica visits Mercer Hayes (Ryan Devlin) in prison to try to get some information about the case she is investigating, he complains about how long he has been in prison: "I've got a parole hearing coming up. It's about goddamn time, right? But we get the news in here. Ya know, guy at Stanford, he gets six months. Guy at University of Wisconsin gets three years for multiple rapes, and yet, here I am. Hmm? Learning harmonica and dragging my tin cup across the bars of my cell, well into my second decade. Where's the justice?" These are both references to real-life rape trials that received extensive press coverage and notoriety for what was widely perceived as their very light sentences for the rapists involved. The "guy at Stanford" was Brock Turner, a member of the Stanford swim team who in 2016 was found guilty of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster but (despite the prosecutorial recommendation of a six-year prison sentence) was nonetheless only sentenced to six months (of which he only served three). Outrage rose after Turner's father protested that even a sentence that short was "a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life"; the judge was later recalled and removed from the bench largely due to public dissatisfaction with his Turner sentence (the first time since 1932 that a judge had been recalled by California voters). The "guy at University of Wisconsin" was Alec Cook, who was convicted of raping, stalking, and/or choking multiple women (crimes to which he admitted and for which he could have received a maximum forty-year sentence), but he was only sentenced to three years. Six Wisconsin politicians, including several state representatives, wrote an open letter to the judge, expressing their dismay at the leniency of the sentence, saying in part that it amounted "to a slap on the wrist for a serial rapist whose violent and sadistic sex crimes will haunt his victims for years to come. . . . we are concerned about the impact that the perpetrator's privilege had on those factors in this case. The message your sentence sends to Mr. Cook's victims, to the UW campus community, and to our community at large is clear: In just three or fewer years, this predator will be back on the streets because men like Alec Cook, men with privilege, are above the law."
3. While visiting Tim Foyle in a California state prison, Veronica says he doesn't appear to be taking advantage of the copious free weights. The California Dept of Corrections and Rehabilitation doesn't allow inmates access to weights.

Losing Streak

Entering a World of Pain

1. The teleplay for this episode was cowritten by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (with his writing partner Raymond Obstfeld). Although he is by far best known as one of the all-time greatest basketball players ever in the NCAA and the NBA, he has also had a second career as a writer. He has authored or coauthored fifteen books (including memoirs, fiction, and nonfiction) and numerous published articles and essays. In an April 2019 interview on TV Line, showrunner Rob Thomas told the story of how Abdul-Jabbar came to write for Veronica Mars: Thomas said that Abdul-Jabbar published a column on the five young adult novels that everyone should read, including Thomas's novel Slave Day. Thomas asked Abdul-Jabbar to write a foreword for a new edition of that book, and Abdul-Jabbar agreed--on the condition that he could play a zombie on Thomas's show "iZombie." On that set, they started discussing Abdul-Jabbar and Obstfeld's interest in writing for TV, and Thomas suggested that they could start by joining the Veronica Mars writing staff to "see how a television show works? And so they did. There was not a day in the Veronica Mars writers' room where, when Kareem walked in, it [didn't] sort of weird me out. It's a stunning thing....They handed in a terrific script that I'm excited about."
2. Vinnie calls Veronica "Katniss". Katniss Everdeen is a character of "Hunger Games" trilogy.

Gods of War

Years, Continents, Bloodshed

1. Episode title references Logan's "epic relationship " speech in Season 2, Episode 20 "Look who's stalking"
2. Logan's therapist, Mary McDonnell (Jane) starred in "The Closer" in which JK Simmons (Clyde) was one of the leads.
3. The title of the episode is also a quote mentioned from the final minutes of the Veronica Mars movie shortly before Logan deploys.