Watch the first episode of the Veronica Mars spin-off Play It Again, Dick

Less than a year after the long-awaited Veronica Mars movie finally hit theaters, the series is back with a web-only spin-off — but there are no twisty cases or noir-influenced monologues in the first episode of Play It Again, Dick, which premiered on CW Seed today.

Instead, Play It Again, Dick is built on a convoluted, meta-referential premise: Ryan Hansen, the actor who plays Dick Casablancas in Veronica Mars, is trying to convince his fellow cast members to sign up for a spin-off in which Dick becomes a private eye.

"Dick Casablancas was an entitled, hedonist, self-obsessed moron — and, if you were really paying attention to the story, a likely date-rape enabler," says Veronica Mars star Kristen Bell, playing herself as an actress reluctant to sign up for the project. "Also, why would you have Dick be a private eye? Was there ever a moment in the series that would make one believe that Dick had either the smarts or the inclination to help solve someone else's problem? Why don't you have a spin-off called Bros, or Douchebag City?"

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Hansen and Bell are the only Veronica Mars cast members to share an extended scene in the brief first episode of Play It Again, Dick, but the closing credits reveal that Jason Dohring (Logan), Enrico Colantoni (Keith Mars), and Percy Daggs III (Wallace) will appear in future installments. Maybe Hansen will get his dream spin-off after all — if only in the web series' bizarre alternate universe.

Watch the first episode of Play It Again, Dick here.