When does J-Unit's busy schedule become Umnata's blessing? When the big guy doesn't have time to post The O.C. recap, that's when! I'm the first to admit that this show pretty much has been heading to TJ in a hand basket since mid-season 1 (yeah, I'm talking to you, Oliver). Obviously things reached their nadir when Johnny showed up and stumbled off a cliff and the only way to salvage the show was to kill Mischa Barton in a horrific car accident. Now many people out there were ripped to shreds when Coop died in the arms of Ryan at the end of last season. I had my own mixed feelings about it. Was 90210 ever really 90210 post-Brenda? The answer is no. But the difference here is that I knew Brenda Walsh, and YOU Marissa Cooper are NO Brenda Walsh. I suspected that the show could benefit from the loss of Mischa's stiff acting and bony back. Sure I had concerns - would this mean that Ryan's soul mate would turn out to be, barf, Theresa? Will the show be pretty enough without Mischa (who say what you will about her, err, talents is rather easy on the eyes)? Would Seth explode if he didn't reach a new limit of 250 obscure pop culture references per episode?

So let's just say I had already drawn my line in the Newport Beach sand when I heard that the Newpsies would be up against the new loves of my Thursday life, The Seattle Gracies. Sorry, Atwood, Sethala, Kiki, JuJu, Sum and Sandy Cohen's eyebrows, but we've broken up and I've found someone else. A little older, a little more mature, and with lots of great prescription meds at their disposal. But a funny thing happened on the way to The Pomp. There was a Blitzkrieg of Madonna-Baby-Adoption proportions PR touting Season 4 as The O.C.'s best yet. Since I'm an American under the age of 25 raised on MTV and video games, all I know how to do is jump on a bandwagon and believe everything that the press tells me. Could it be? The best OC season ever? Better than Ryan holding Coop in his arms as she overdoses in TJ? Better than Seth confessing his love to Summer atop a coffee cart? Better than the constant bombardment of overly ironic, distractingly knowing self-parody set to painfully sincere covers of painfully sincere alternative songs of the last 15 years? This I would have to see to believe...