thePeanutBloggery

‘Twas the week before Christmas…and everything was a re-run, except The O.C., because they love their New Year’s Eve episodes. Since I have the extra space, I’m going to take this opportunity to address you on the overall state of The O.C.

Although there were some gratifying moments in seasons two and three (Summer kissing Seth as he hung upside down in a Spider-Man mask, Caleb’s plot-twisting heart attack and plunge into the pool), overall the two years were disappointing. Then Vulchok sent Ryan and Marissa rolling down the hill, and everything changed.

Season four started with a controversial episode in which Ryan takes up cage fighting to help work out his complicated feelings about Marissa’s death. The episode is controversial to me, because critics everywhere denounced the episode as a Fight Club rip-off. Now I don’t believe it was a great episode, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the bulk of the previous season, and, more importantly, comparing it to Fight Club betrays ignorance of both the movie and The O.C. There are no cages in Fight Club, and I’m pretty sure Ryan isn’t beating himself up in his cage. What are The O.C. writers obsessed with? Comic books. And in what film is a character found exercising his demons by cage fighting? The X-Men. This no Fight Club rip-off; it’s a Wolverine tribute.

After Ryan returns to the pool house, the series takes a serious turn upward. Marissa’s little sister Caitlin is proving to be a delightful Julie Cooper (Nichols Roberts) clone. Seth has learned to nurture his relationship with Summer by supporting her philanthropic interests rather than sabotage it as he’s done in the past. Still the biggest improvement is the arrival of Taylor Townsend. Of course she was around most of season 3 as an amusing distraction with her Elle Woods enthusiasm and her Korean boyfriend, but she’s now shifted in to leading lady position, and she is delightful. She’s still annoying, but we love it. We can see why Ryan is attracted to her, and we are fully behind this relationship the way we were behind Pacey and Joey during season three of Dawson’s Creek.

Now for this week’s slightly New Year’s Eve themed episode: while it was good, it worries me. They’re rocking the Seth and Summer boat again, which makes me wonder whether they shouldn’t have sunk it a year ago. Still worse is the surprise arrival of Ryan’s father (played by Hercules himself, Kevin Sorbo). It was okay when Ryan’s ex-girlfriend came to town, but Ryan’s mother and his brother Trey were hazardous to the precariously balanced show. Don’t do this to us again. Please.

What They Said

Seth: Cohens are natural sandwich artists.
Sandy: It’s like our very own super power.
Seth: Yeah. I don’t know if it qualifies us for The Justice League though.