Veronica Mars season 4 gets surprise-released a week early

Veronica Mars fans got a gift at San Diego Comic-Con: Hulu dropped the new season of the show one week early.

Kristen Bell, who reprises her role as Veronica in the Hulu-supported series, announced the news at the end of the panel, after its moderator asked her what she wanted for her birthday. (Bell turned 39 on Friday.) She responded that she just wanted everyone to watch the show’s newest season today.

All eight episodes of Veronica Mars’ new season, the show’s fourth, are now available. The show follows an older Veronica, now a co-owner of his father Keith’s (Enrico Colantoni) private eye business. as the duo investigates a serial bomber terrorizing Neptune’s spring break establishments. The show’s other focus: Veronica’s relationship with Logan (Jason Dohring), as the pair struggles to have a healthy relationship after all the trauma in their lives.

Season 4 isn’t the last time Bell hopes to portray the detective. When asked about more Veronica Mars, Bell said: “I’ll play Veronica until everyone in Neptune is dead.”

Even with her strong connection to the character, Bell did mention on the panel how the show was “a beast” to shoot. When she originally started working on Veronica Mars, Bell was in her 20s. Now, she has two daughters, ages 4 and 6.

“I was hesitant to do this show with two young kids,” she said during the panel. “I had to make the decision of ‘Am I gonna miss six months of bedtimes to put this girl back in the world?’ It was a hard decision at first, but then I was like. ‘No, you have to. You have to have this character, this superhero without a cape out there as an example for your children.’”

“I am so grateful to our writing team for writing a woman like this,” she continued.

The moderator asked Bell when she’d be willing to show Veronica Mars to her daughters, and she thought 13 was a good age. Show creator Rob Thomas agreed.

“My daughter was born during season 1 of the show, and when getting prepared to write this, I sat down and binged it with my 13-year-old daughter. Though she kept saying, ‘Oh my god, Dad, these things that come out of Keith’s mouth, you say them to me!’

“But it was great, because it felt like I had written a show for my 13-year-old daughter, and it felt really good.”

You can watch all eight episodes, along with the show’s three previous seasons (which aired from 2004 to 2007) on Hulu now.