Thursday night's O.C. featured a disappointingly brief appearance from Seth Cohen's favorite band, Death Cab for Cutie, in an otherwise disappointingly boring episode. They sang a few short notes off "Title and Registration" and "The Sound of Settling" (from 2003's Transatlanticism) and a bit longer from"A Movie Scripting" (2001's The Photo Album), but the music was muted for the most part as the characters continued their dialogues in the small and sparsely crowded club. Plus, Seth missed most of the show and didn't seem much to care, more concerned about Summer being upset than missing the band that he had name-checked in at least a dozen previous episodes. Lame.
But in honor of the immortal Death Cab, I will dedicate this episode review to them, with plot points that mirror their song titles. Let us begin...
Blacking out the Friction (from The Photo Album)
Caleb returns from an extended absence in Europe to find Julie Cooper-Nichol (his porn star/slut/bad mother of a wife - and I don't mean that in a "Sam Jackson is a bad mother" sort of way) dressed in a negligee in bed with roses around her.
"Welcome home, sailor," Julie seduces.
"What's all this?" Caleb replies, annoyed.
"What does it look like?"
"It looks like one of your movies," he says flatly.
And then he announces that he can't get over her pornographic past and will be consulting with his lawyers the next morning. Julie is upset and goes to see her ex-boyfriend/pornographer for unknown reasons, but after he suggests again that he will kill Caleb for her, she tells him that she's not a murderer and neither is he and writes a check to get him out of her life. Of course, the previews made you think that she was writing a check for him to kill her husband, but when have the previews ever lied before? This must be the first time. Julie and Caleb make up in a later scene and decide to give their marriage another try.
Prove my Hypothesis (from You Can Play these Songs with Chords)
Ryan and Marissa seek to prove that Trey is innocent of supplying Ecstasy to a high school student who passed out in the pool at his birthday party/Newport "rager" from the previous episode, by trying to find which of the 200 unknown guests who crashed the party was the actual drug dealer. It's a surprisingly easy task, as they figure out the suspect about 17 seconds into their investigation. Columbo has nothing on them.
"Jess Sathers? Why are you looking for that coke whore?" Summer asks.
Marissa shoots her a look.
"What? She is!"
They find out the source from the coke whore and Marissa frames the guy into selling her some X while Sandy, a bunch of policeman, just-free-from-jail Trey, and the local prosecutor all wait nearby to arrive the moment Marissa gives a signal. No mention is made of how they were all there or when they knew about the "sting" or anything else, except that Trey's charges are suddenly dropped because they found some guy with drugs on him that Ryan was beating up at the beach. Really, Columbo needs to take some pointers from this crack crew. We should send them to find Osama next.
Debate Exposes Doubt (from The Photo Album)
Kirsten ends up going on a "work assignment" with Carter to a winery, where many hours of wine tasting for a magazine article ends with both of them being drunk and horny and ending up in a hotel room since neither of them are conveniently able to drive. While Carter showers, Kirsten seriously contemplates cheating on her husband with her younger and much less Jewish co-worker. He comes out of the bathroom and asks her if she wants to shower - but doesn't mean together, or does he? The sexual tension rises almost to a Queen Amedala/Anakin Skywalker level before Kirsten informs him that the winery has found a car to take them home so they won't be having sex tonight. I guess seeing Lowell Mather's ass while he bangs a Chinese chick ruined it for everybody.
The Face that Launched 1000 Shits (from Something About Airplanes)
In the fastest developing comic book/graphic novel deal in history, Seth and Zack's venture gets fast tracked to the point that they're invited to a publishing party where a bunch of media people throw around compliments about the brilliance of the comic and how to turn it into a video game/television/multimedia extravaganza. Seth is a little floored, but can hardly bask in the attention because Summer's turned into an irrational shrew who thinks every moment of her boyfriend's life should be about her. Maybe she's been hanging around with Marissa too long. She gets Zack to take her home, and he leaves the party giving Seth a shit-eating grin as if to say "look comic boy, I'm getting her back."
All is Full of Love (from The Stability EP)
Ryan and Marissa finally make out. Then they go to the pool house, presumably to do it, but it's not shown. In the meantime, Trey arrives home to find the coke whore "Jessica" in his apartment, wanting to hook up again. Somehow she (a) found out where he lived, (b) broke into his place, (c) found out that he really is an ex-con and likes that he is, and (d) doesn't mind that he just sent her boyfriend to jail not an hour earlier. This scene stretches believability even more than Ryan Drese's strikeout rate. And yes, I realize that I'm one of only two people in America who follow both The O.C. and Major League Baseball, but maybe the other person is reading this. (if so - hey!)
On next week's episode, lots of exciting shit happens - or at least it better. This season is really starting to bore the hell out of me. Can we bring the lesbians back? Please?
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