Wow. Unbelievable. It was a bizarre spectacle to say the least. Part season finale, part graduation celebration, part series finale, part confusing resolution to a bunch of storylines. And somebody in the picture to the right dies. It reaked of desperation for a series with flatlining ratings, trying to make a major mid-stream adjustment by killing off one of the major characters of the series, injecting new stories and new blood into the show and at the same time, acting like a series finale with all the goodbyes and the crying and the sappy melancholy songs. And this was all before the super sappy ending. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Well I kind of wanted to laugh, but it was all too strange. And I guess in a bit of a "Who shot JR?" kind of way, they've certainly piqued my interest into what will be the aftermath of the events of tonight's episode. But if they're all written as poorly as this one was, and as poorly as this truly dreadful season was, maybe it's best to take my cues from the characters and just say goodbye as well. None of them have enjoyed themselves for well over a year.
The plotline that we spent the past three months on - Seth lying about getting into Brown, smoking pot, and then burning down his father's office - got dealt with in about 5 minutes of screen time. Everybody made up, Seth got into RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) and he and Summer are still planning to live happily ever after. Ryan's mother showed up for graduation, and the graduation itself may have been interesting except that none of the kids seemed remotely interested in the ceremony and since school has not been a factor in their lives this season (although they spent several episodes trying to keep Marissa and Ryan enrolled), the whole thing fell flat. Marissa's sister Kaitlin returned for the ceremony, and plans to stick around in the future, mostly because their father gave Marissa an out of the blue offer to sail around the Mediterranean with him and she accepted. No college for her. Ryan will be attending Berkeley alone.
And of course, the other major plotline finally - finally - came to some resolution, as all the far-fetched disparate stories involving Volchok came to a head and he begins stalking Marissa on her final day in The O.C. before flying to Greece for the next year. Marissa and Summer say a tearful goodbye, with Rachel Bilson proving to be the only one on the series still not mailing it in, and then Marissa rides off with Ryan to the airport, with Volchok in his van tailing behind. Now it was pretty obvious at this point that somebody was going to die from the result of this. Fox had been pulling out all of the "One of these people will die" ads and by the way the episode was going (with Marissa having tearful goodbyes with everybody), it seemed pretty clear that the writers were following through. And so Volchok's van runs Ryan's car (a graduation present from his mother) off the road, crashing down a small ravine and causing - after a supposedly emotional scene, but only if Ben McKenzie could actually act - the death of Marissa. Buh bye. Nice knowing you. Good riddance.
So they did it. They killed off who was undeniably the very worst character in the show, a supremely unlikeable person whom the writers spent the last year of more trying to rehabilitate in the eyes of the audience but were just unable to succeed, sending more and more viewers away as the episodes focused more and more on the annoying and whiny Mischa Barton instead of characters that people actually wanted to watch. Ryan's horrible non-emoting didn't help the situation, but it seems like the producers finally just gave up and killed off the biggest thing wrong with the show. Marissa. Now it's certainly possible - maybe even likely - that Ms. Barton asked off the show or decided to move on or something, or at least that will be the story that is circulated, but I'd like to think that somebody somewhere hoped to save this show by making the drastic move of removing one of the four main characters. And they get a chance at a quick ratings grab as well!
Next season? Well, Kaitlin looks to have a prominent role, presumably as a regular in the cast. But other than that, who knows? For the first part of the year, Summer is supposed to be at Brown, Seth still at home, and Ryan in Berkeley. That probably isn't going to work as far as logistics go, especially for a show called "The O.C." Will they bring them all back together, maybe using Marissa's death as an excuse? Will anyone care about them after spending a season playing second fiddle to the Marissa-Johnny-Volchok love/hate triangle of horrible television? Will Kaitlin turn sixteen in real life so that the producers can start putting her in skimpy outfits? I don't know and I really don't care. But get back to me in a couple months. I'm sure I'll be right back watching it again.
Pitiful.
Posted by: LegFuJohnson | May 19, 2006 at 09:25 AM