Can’t This Family Go One Week Without a Crisis?

We’re sure that at least some of you were wondering what happened to The OC this past week. Truth be told, this show has been fairly enjoyable for the last couple of months and the season finale this week looks like it will be a good one. Whenever The OC strings together three or four good episodes, the talk is usually about how amazing it is that there were three good episodes in a row, instead of about the episode itself, so I’ve decided to buck the trend and leave that kind of hand wringing for others. We have too much to celebrate this week to let such things get in our way. Summer and Seth are back together, Marissa goes on a little road trip to visit her sister, and Sandy is named Man of the Year!When Ryan beat up Volchok last week, I thought that perhaps we had finally seen the last of that scrawny surf Nazi. Whatever happened to the middle class in this town? Isn’t there anything between the people who are famous lawyers, doctors, and real estate moguls and the people that are living in a trailer park or stealing from high school kids to pay the rent? Isn’t there anybody who like manages a Boston Market or Target or something? I guess it’s not that exciting to hear about the intricacies of rotisserie chicken and the benefits of your one-hour parking validation.

The only problem with Ryan beating up Volchok is that he seems to have done too good of a job at the whole thing. Well, that and the stupid let’s pretend to be JJ Abrams editing at the beginning of the episode. Despite what some people say, I don’t think it’s a stretch to see Ryan pounding Volchok in like that. As somebody said, Volchok is all abs and not much else. He doesn’t really have a height advantage on Ryan, definitely doesn’t have a weight advantage, and without his goons around, hasn’t demonstrated he is good at anything, including surfing.

Ooooh, red lights must mean DANGER

Although Ryan enjoyed beating him up, he still feels compelled to take him to the hospital. Just in case you couldn’t tell Ryan beat him badly, the paramedics were asking questions like “do you see the guys who did this?” and “it looks like you have been beaten by a baseball bat.” There also happens to be a bunch of police there, and so Ryan is worried about sticking around. As he gets up to leave, Volchok miraculously comes out of his fist-induced coma and says “meet me at my place tomorrow, this isn’t over.” Ugh, I wish they would just throw this kid in jail and call him Tweener and be done with this story line.

Earlier this year, The OC made big news with the return of Kaitlin Cooper, and for a little while, she caused a bit of a stir. We all wondered how she was going to continue to pay for her tuition at her exclusive school with her mom still walking around her house worrying that a man named Gus may be looking through the window of her trailer as she washed the ketchup stains out of her favorite Van Halen t-shirt, but Julie managed to marry up yet again, and now Kaitlin’s tuition problems are only a matter of a few hours of sucking fat out of a Newpsie’s ass.

Just because things are easier for Kaitlin back home doesn’t mean she isn’t getting into trouble back at school. She calls Marissa very early one morning to make sure that her older sister intercepts a message from her school. Marissa agrees, but you know that can’t be the last we are going to hear of the youngest Cooper girl this episode, which is great, because I think she is the more interesting Cooper daughter as well.

When Ryan left the prom to beat up Volchok, he left his date with his friends. Seth was taking care of Summer, Anna had left for Pittsburgh, and Marissa was fielding offers from homeless people who wanted to use her dress as a tent. To the many girls who e-mailed me about that dress and how expensive it is, well, it may have cost $10,000 in real life, but that only proves people will buy shit for $10,000 as long as they buy it on Rodeo Drive.

Theresa was left with Taylor, her date, and her date’s cousin in the limo. She didn’t give many details, but she thinks that Taylor might have offered to sucky, sucky, ten dollar, love both of them long time, etc. Anyway, Theresa calls Ryan with news that her guy friend at work was a little upset with her. She just assumes it is because a 28-year-old just can’t understand prom, much like we can’t understand 28-year-olds that are pretending to get the prom. All of this talk has made her realize that she was missing Ryan a lot. Although Ryan is being really defensive because of the whole Volchok thing, she offers to bring some takeout later so they can talk a little bit.

Seth walks in (without knocking, of course), and talks about how great everything is now that he is back with Summer and he told the truth. When Ryan reminds him his parents still don’t know, Seth says the explanation will go better with an acceptance letter from RISD. What Seth doesn’t know is that Summer put that confession he wrote her in a nice purple envelope and put it on his father’s desk. Summer tried to tell him, but all that came out was some penne and kimchee.

Summer knows that she has to try and fix what she has done, but she is still hung over and throwing up. The easiest thing would be to tell Seth what happened, but if she did that, would Cohen hate her? Well, he is the one who screwed up with the lying, so if his parents find out all the bad shit he did, maybe he’ll have some incentive not to be such a complete idiot when it comes to life. If he was just calling her bluff that she wouldn’t hand over the letter, it says a lot about the relationship and how much Seth is taking her for granted. So as you might have guessed, I don’t think Summer has to apologize or should even sweat all of the problems she may have caused.

“I just had this nightmare that we went to the prom and you wore this awful dress.”

Last week we learned that Sandy could be investigated along with Dr. Griffin because of sketchiness surrounding the hospital deal. It doesn’t seem like that’s bothering Sandy at all though, especially after he discovers that he is going to be named Riviera Magazine’s man of the year.

Sandy tells Kirsten the exciting news and she can’t believe that the irony is being lost on Sandy. Caleb was also named Riviera’s man of the year once, so if winning that award now makes him happy, something really is wrong. Sandy is proud because they are calling the new hospital phase one of Orange County’s renaissance, which is kind of stupid because it’s not like there isn’t a ton of money flowing into the area anyway. People are also saying the hospital is going to be a model of responsible development, and that statement doesn’t pass the laugh test for Kirsten. The hospital was responsible for a lot of things like a couple Matt Ramsey beatings and the failing Cohen marriage, but as far as responsible development goes, that’s something else.

Ryan meets Marissa at the diner to give her the money from Taylor’s afterparty. I am sort of wondering why he didn’t just give the money over to Taylor himself. I guess he didn’t want to make it over to her house only to find she was screaming “SUNG LO” at the top of her lungs from the back of a Kia. When he hands the money over to Marissa, she knows that he went over to Volchok’s house to get it. Once again, she seems kind of surprised to hear that he is such a bad guy. I understand he rented The Sound of Music, but at some point you would think she would expect more from him than seeing he spent money on an old Julie Andrews film. Was she holding out until he saw Mary Poppins before making further judgment? Shouldn’t all his cheating with other women be enough? And if she still believes in second chances, shouldn’t the stealing and the drug dealing seal the deal?

The most disturbing part of this whole scene was that Ryan decided to buy Marissa breakfast. Normally, this would be a simple gesture of friendship, but in the hands of these writers, nothing is innocent, especially after seeing that goofy grin Marissa had on her face. Is this the beginning of Marissa and Ryan round five or whatever it is now? God, I hope not.

Summer had come over to Seth’s house and they were making out on his bed. She was still trying to figure out how she could get the letter away from his dad. A few minutes before, she tried to sneak into Sandy’s office to take the letter, and failing that, she was wondering if she should just tell Seth about what happened. Instead, she decides that she’ll just distract Seth by getting the blood flowing away from his brain and hops on top to enjoy the rest of their makeup hookup.

Don’t be a pussy, Seth. Grab some boob. It’s fun!

When Ryan makes it to Volchok’s loft, we see that Volchok is a little battered, but it’s not a TKO. Seven stitches and some broken ribs? Sounds like just a wacky night in Los Feliz to me, not something life threatening. Ryan is not going to apologize but he wants to get rid of Kevin forever, but Volchok is not game. He wants Ryan to help him with a little business deal he has going on the next day. Ryan doesn’t want to be forced into anything, but Volchok threatens to tell the police about Ryan’s assault, which would ruin his dreams for college. Ryan counters by telling Volchok he would tell the police about the stolen money, but Volchok says that without evidence, the police won’t believe him. I still say that Ryan has a pretty good self-defense case, especially since he took Volchok to the hospital, but there I go being picky again.

Ryan’s problems just don’t get any easier from there. Later that night when he is getting takeout with Theresa, she gives him an earful as well. She knows that the only thing that could make his hand look that bloody is another guy’s face. Ryan thought that being from Chino, Theresa would understand what he had to do, but that is not the case. Her life has changed. She has a good job, she has a baby, and she has a guy ten years older than her interested in getting into her pants. She knows that there are guys out there that don’t get into fights and she can’t be with a person like that. If that’s not enough, she goes on to say that her life isn’t built for the bad days that Ryan has. Theresa tells Ryan that she will always love him and then leaves, which I guess means that they aren’t together anymore. I guess it’s supposed to be a big deal, but they weren’t really together again in the first place. Ryan bought Marissa breakfast, so I am not sure why he was supposed to be upset about this.

And how is Marissa doing on her little road trip? The first person she meets is Hadley Hawthorne, who is her sister’s roommate. Hadley is great not just because she calls everybody “bitch,” but she works in what I consider the funniest reference to “The Valley” of all time. Whenever The Valley is mentioned on The OC, I always feel like the writers are a little full of themselves for talking in the third person. I still think they are full of themselves, but when Hadley chastises her father, who happens to be a producer of The Valley, for beating the same love triangle into the ground for three years and says that is the reason the ratings are so shitty, I had to laugh. Touché Schwartz! Good move. Now you only have to mention something about bloggers and nipple slips, and all is forgiven.

So, why did Marissa drive all the way up to Montecito? Her sister was once again having boy problems, but this time it wasn’t about stealing party money from a fraternity to pay for an abortion. Kaitlin was having some problems with Trevor Knightley, captain of the lacrosse team and “totally” into Adderall. Kaitlin refused to go to this lipstick party and become another lacrosstitute, so when he stole the school’s crest, he blamed it on Kaitlin. Now Kaitlin is in danger of being locked up all summer and Hadley is, well, Hadley is horny, but apparently that is normal. Marissa isn’t really known for her great ideas, but she did get into Berkeley, so she has something she thinks will work.

While we contemplated what sort of trouble Marissa was going to get into, Ryan stopped over at Volchok’s to see what sort of favor he was going to have to do. When he got there, Ryan learned that it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. One of Volchok’s friends is going to leave something for him in a garage; Volchok is going to pick it up. Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Well, it would be, except that this package Volchok is going to pick up is in a house in Ryan’s neighborhood. Hmm, I have a bad feeling about this already, and I am sure Ryan did too, but he agrees to go along.

At the Cohen’s house, Seth walks into his mom’s bedroom. OK, that’s not true, Seth actually knocks on the door and asks if his mom is decent, because he is worried that he would be inviting years of therapy if he sees her not so decent. That’s completely normal, but really, it just makes me wonder even more why Seth doesn’t knock when he enters the pool house. Is it worse to see your step brother or your mom naked? Seth sees that his mother is passed out, which is strange because there is a cup of coffee next to her bed, but then doesn’t seem so strange because it looks like the only thing she had in her coffee mug was vodka, AKA Ambien for winos.

A lot of stuff has happened to Seth over the last few weeks, but finding out his mother has started drinking again was really devastating for him. He puts a blanket over her, washes out her cup, and wonders how he should handle this whole thing. When his mom was going through all of this and took him to AA, she said that one of the things that gave her the strength to get through her illness was her son believing in her. It’s of course not Seth’s fault that she relapsed, but you can see why he might feel a little guilty about the whole thing. The next morning when she is awake, Seth tries to talk to her about what happened, but she is ironically on her way to an AA meeting, and he decides not to say anything.

Sandy might have been named Man of the Year, but it clearly wasn’t because he was spending a lot of time with his family. When he was named Man of the Year, he never told Kirsten that he was also in danger of being investigated for fraud. Kirsten had to find out from Julie, who found out from Neil, and while you can understand why Sandy didn’t want to worry his wife, they are still supposed to be together, for better or worse. Maybe Sandy doesn’t have enough time to be with her every second of the day, but at least he can be honest right? It’s not like she can testify against you because of anything that you say to her, so you might as well tell the truth.

Perhaps the reason why Sandy thought that he could get away without telling his wife was that he was trying to work out all of the problems first. Like when somebody you know asks you to take care of their cat, and you accidentally opened the front door because you didn’t know the cat would bolt and you never hear from the cat again, but you try and find a replacement because perhaps the sight of another cat will prevent them from slapping you in the face? That never happened to you? Well, just imagine for a moment that it has. Sandy met with Gregg Otis, the DA of Orange County, in order to see if he can buy a new cat, or uh, save his marriage.

Gregg and Sandy are old friends, and when they see each other, Gregg says that the courtroom misses Sandy Cohen. Sandy says that he misses the courtroom. I can see where the courtroom misses Sandy, but does Sandy miss the courtroom? In his first season, he spent more time starting a restaurant than in the courtroom, and while he had his own practice last year, the only reason he needed an office was so he wouldn’t have to drive his surfboard back and forth from his house. This year, he is obviously not in the courtroom. His greatest accomplishment in court has been getting Marissa reinstated at that school board meeting. Maybe the reason Sandy was a public defender was not because he wanted to help poor people, but because nobody would actually pay him to defend them. As for Gregg Otis, he tells Sandy that if Griffin goes down, the hospital will go down. We all know that Sandy got some sort of incriminating evidence, so it looks like he will have to choose between the hospital and helping out with Griffin’s prosecution.

While the DA was getting his case against Sandy together, Marissa was about to put her plan into action to help her sister. Her plan involved a short plaid skirt, pigtails, and…did I mention a short plaid skirt? I always make fun of Mischa Barton for having an abnormally sized head and generally awkward look about her, but she did look absolutely amazing all dolled up like she was. It just goes to show you that you don’t need a one of a kind dress from a famous designer to look good, and I am not just saying that because I liked the ribbons in her hair. Let Mischa’s life be a train wreck off the show, but please let Marissa dress normally once in a while!

Marissa couldn’t help but turn heads, and she went straight up to Trevor Knightley, looking very masculine and scary in his pink polo shirt. Marissa first tried to go with the “I’m an exchange student and I need a tour of the school,” but Trevor didn’t fall for her fake accent. I didn’t know this, but commenter Pie mentioned that Mischa was born in London, so you think she would be able to fake it a lot better than she did. Marissa then tries to say that his friends hired her to strip for his birthday, but of course, it’s not his birthday.

Luckily for Marissa, guys Trevor’s age aren’t going to pass up a free show, so they decide to go back to his room, or at least that is what he thought. Marissa instead takes him to some storage shed, and while he is starting to wonder what is going on, he still wants to stick around until he sees some boobies. Marissa tells Trevor to take off his pants, sits him in a chair, and begins to tie him up with her hair ribbon. Things are just about to get interesting when she bends over, grabs the keys out of his pocket, and then runs off. By the way, if the captain of the lacrosse team can’t get out of a Marissa Cooper knot, then Montecito must be a pretty weak team. Marissa locks the door behind her, and she and Kaitlin run off giggling. Hey, maybe Trevor was just in the pool; there’s no need to laugh at the poor guy. Anyway, to see the whole thing click here.

Summer got another shot at trying to get her letter away from Sandy, but she failed miserably. Sandy finds the letter and reads it, so Summer tries to explain why she wrote it. In the middle of her explanation, she mentioned that Seth wasn’t going to Brown because she didn’t know that Seth had been lying to his parents as well. Oops! Your son has been smoking pot and he didn’t get into college. On the one hand, it’s nice that you don’t have to pay for college, on the other hand, well, your son is now a dumbass for all you care. Explaining it away with a VCast and a RISD acceptance is not going to make it go away.

Sandy sees Seth a little while later, and he is about to give him a piece of his mind, but Seth is not in the mood to take it. He went to one of his mom’s AA meetings where she was very honest about her relapse. Kirsten said that she is the only person who can make herself take a drink, but that she just really wanted to he with her husband. Seth is so upset with Sandy, he can barely listen to him. He tells his father that he is away so much that he has barely noticed that mom is passing out before dinner.

Quite a bit of turmoil in the Cohen house, no? Well, Ryan Atwood is still the king of crazy, and he gets into another situation with Volchok. It was bad enough that it was all going down in Ryan’s neighborhood; it was worse when one of the Newpsies recognized him just sitting around in the Range Rover, and you knew something had to go wrong when you learned that Volchok was going to steal a car. Ryan and car thefts don’t do well as we all know, so he is completely freaked out. The jerk that told Volchok about the car didn’t leave the keys, so instead Volchok has to hotwire the car. He does this very elegantly by breaking the driver side window, which gets the neighborhood patrol’s attention, and then messing around with some electronic device below the dash. Who knew Volchok has such knowledge of electronics? He starts the car and tells Ryan to get in, but Ryan is not stupid. He did a lot of dumb things that day, but he’s not going to get caught doing this one. Volchok runs away and Ryan heads for the woods.

Sandy might have been a huge asshole lately, but he can admit when he was wrong. When he realized what he did affected his wife, he really started to think about it. I do give him credit, but as Kirsten said, if it takes her drinking to get him to pay attention to her, there is something seriously wrong with the relationship. However, now that the dialog had started, it looked like the two of them were going to work through it. Personally, I hope they find something for Kirsten to do besides being this sad victim all the time. No offense to all of you stay at home mothers out there, because I was lovingly raised by one, but now that her kids are old enough, she needs to find something to help her along. I thought it could have been NewMatch, but the writers apparently forgot that even exists.

The only thing left for the evening is Sandy’s big Man of the Year ceremony. Although Seth didn’t want to go, Kirsten convinced him that Sandy would be able to fix whatever is going wrong. She has to leave for the ceremony, but asks if Seth wouldn’t mind picking up a concept drawing of the hospital from the Newport Group for his father, and Seth agrees. When he is at the Newport Group, he is once again feeling sorry for himself. Luckily, he still has some pot left over, and decides there is no better way to take care of his worries than smoking a little bit of the tenth letter. Unfortunately, his mom calls and ruins his buzz. He picks up the painting in question and leaves, but fails to put out his joint. The roach falls in the trash and starts smoking. Then it starts to burn, and then it burns some more. Then we realize that the Newport Group doesn’t have any sprinklers and, well, you can guess the rest from there.

Does anybody remember when they had time for this cover photo shoot?

It’s really too bad about the Newport Group because Sandy’s party went really well. As he accepted his award, he finally realized what a huge hypocrite he was being and said that he couldn’t accept the reward. He said that he was going to cooperate with the DA’s investigation and take steps toward being the husband and father of the year, two positions that may be even more important than his award.

Everything is going very well until the cops show up. The Newport Group is up in flames, and they think that Seth may have done it. He’s taken away in handcuffs, and it looks like we are in store for one great season finale. When the cops showed up at Sandy’s party, Ryan and Marissa were just arriving. Ryan had just convinced her to be his alibi, but didn’t tell her why he needed an alibi. The cops coming for Seth was a great twist, but I think that overall, the writers are still a little melodramatic about the drug use. Smoking a joint makes Seth into the accidental arsonist, but abusing Adderall makes Trevor Knightley a well-adjusted teenager.

He’s just invited himself into years of therapy.

Still, I am excited for the finale. It looks like Ryan and Marissa are on the way back together AGAIN, but it’s good to see Sandy and Kirsten mend things. Julie and Neil are so boring, it’s like they’ve been married for years already. My only real disappointment was with Marissa going to Kaitlin’s school. Overall, it was very enjoyable, very funny, and fit so very naturally with the rest of the show. So what was my problem? Why didn’t we get more of that shit over the last two years? That’s the type of trouble we are expecting these kids to get into. Again, I’m just happy they have turned things around so I can look forward to the fourth season.

What did you think of the episode? What will happen to Seth? Will the cops come looking for Ryan?

“Hey!” Count: Episode – 16, Season – 487