Entertainment

Logan Echolls Was In Love With Veronica Mars IRL

by Alanna Bennett

The Veronica Mars movie still has a couple more months of existence in the tragic limbo of not being out, but in that time there's surely one thing to look forward to: Tons and tons of Veronica Mars-related interviews, tidbits, and general press. Like when Jason Dohring AKA Logan Echolls sat down with Buzzfeed to talk about how Logan went from Rosemary's petulant baby villain to broodingly irreverent and eminently lovable leading man.

And so what did we learn about Logan Echolls, and about Dohring? Well first of all, there's the moment where Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas realized that the chemistry between Dohring and Kristen Bell was worth pursuing on the show:

Around Episode 6, Rob pulled Kristen and [me] off to the side and said, ‘OK, so, you’re going to end up together.' It was like, ‘Are you fucking kidding me?!? No way!’ [...] I always love Rob’s ideas. He has this very quiet way of speaking, but when he talks to you, you can’t help but get excited by what he’s saying.

At the time it seemed almost impossible that Logan's horrifically-behaving petulant rich boy character could ever be redeemed in the eyes of the audience to a degree that would make his relationship with the show's leading lady believable or something to root for. But they pulled it off — thanks in part to story tidbits outlining the ongoing emotional and physical abuse of Logan at the hands of his father, as well as his mother's suicide — and Logan and Veronica's relationship now stands as one of those legendary ones of TV fandom history.

There might have been something else to that, too:

"A lot of that emotion was very real for me. I think I was in love with [Kristen] for the three years we made that show,” he says. “Like, I truly felt like I would die without her, and I think that’s what underlined everything people loved about them as a couple."

It should be noted here that throughout the duration of Veronica Mars filming, Kristen Bell was in a serious relationship and Dohring was married, making these comments complicated to say the least.

It should also be noted, however, that the way it's phrased within the original article and most of the posts that pulled from it (this one included) leaves some room for missed context and/or misinterpretation. Regardless of if he meant Bell or the character of Veronica, and regardless of if he meant romantic or platonic love, though, there's no doubting that the chemistry that these two had was, to steal a phrase from Logan himself, epic.

Image: Tumblr