I think part of the problem with The OC was with how it found its initial success. When Fox aired it that first summer, it enjoyed wild success, largely thanks to the non-stop, frenetic pace with which everything happened. When your season is ten episodes or less and you don't know if you are going to exist in a few months, this sort of thing is necessary. Unfortunately, the producers haven't figured out how to successfully keep this pace going over a full season. Although they are able to string together several good plotlines, we too often have to wait through a bunch of barely watchable episodes for the pay off. And yet, I still let the producers flog me, because when it is good, it's really good. I just don't happen to think this last episode was all that great.

When I learned that this was going to be an episode about searching for colleges, I knew that there would be trouble. Previously, the writers tried to build it up so we would all believe that Ryan was destined for the gutter if he didn't get into a top ten school. I would have probably even have enjoyed the story line, but I think that any person, no matter how irrational you think they are, would take more than a couple of days to decide to drop out of high school and go fishing, literally. And if the pressure was getting to him, surely there could have been somewhere in between the Ivy League and a fishing boat where Ryan could have been happy? Still there would have to be some good drama with a college story line because Ryan wouldn't be the only person struggling with what to do after high school, as Marissa, Summer, Seth, Taylor, and even Johnny and Chili are going to have to find something to do after graduation.

For some people, the answer is simple. Seth has wanted to get the hell out of Newport for a long time, and the only thing that might have kept him from a boarding school is when Ryan entered his life. Seth wants to go someplace where the people walking are less interested in plastic surgery, Porsches and Souplantation, and more interested in things like wool sweaters, Volvos, and chowdah. The only question in his mind is whether he should be a big fish in a small pond, or a small fish in a big pond, but when he asks Ryan for advice, Ryan says (with all the seriousness that his dreamy eyes can muster) that he never imagined Seth wanted to live in a pond. That is, of course, why they call it a metaphor, you idiot.

Part of the reason I didn't like the Ryan must be saved from, as Summer would say, the life of a Gordon's fisherman plot, was that sometimes if you do bad shit in life, you face consequences. That is not to say that Ryan would never be able to get into a good school, but I am saying that there is no shame if he has to take a slightly more difficult route to get there. Likewise, it is hard for me to feel a whole lot of sympathy for Marissa Cooper when she is feeling left out of the conversation during this whole opening sequence. I am not saying that shooting Trey should leave a black mark on her record for all time, I am only saying since she never showed an interest in any college beforehand, it seems odd that she would just care all of a sudden now.

I happen to believe that there are lots of places where Marissa could go. Provided that she had around a B average and some 75th percentile scores in her entrance exams, there are a lot of places that would accept her despite her disciplinary problems. And yet, I am thinking that Marissa would really be the type who moves to Los Angeles, becomes a waitress, takes acting lessons and waits for that big break. Maybe she goes to nursing school, meets a nice doctor, and then becomes the trophy housewife her mom was always hoping she'd be. I'm just sayin'. SHE HAS OPTIONS. She could even do what Chili has decided to do, which is become part of Johnny's entourage. Johnny is going to become a famous surfer, and of course there will be nothing to stop him, barring some sort of catastrophic injury that will put his hopes of a surfing scholarship and plans to buy his mom a new house without his father’s blood and brain matter stains on the sofa, and maybe a dishwasher, to rest.

Posted by J-Unit on December 5, 2005 11:31 PM