More Like The OC-ya later!

After four glorious seasons (well, the first half of the first season was glorious, the second half and the entire second seasons were ironically glorious, the third season was less-than-glorious, and the final season has been jump-the-shark uproariously glorious), Fox will air the final episode of everyone's favorite ironic-but-not-really, faux-indie, guilty pleasure, set-in-high-school-but-situations-obviously-based-in-college dramedy, THE OC. Let's face it -- last season's killing off of horrible actress/excuse of an actor Marissa/Mischa Barton was the beginning of the end of this show, but when all is said and done, we at The Blogulator are going to shed a few non-ironic tears that this show has gone off the deep end too soon. In honor of tonight's final episode (Thursday, 9 pm), here are some of The Blogulator's favorite moments of The OC.

Seth Gets Two Girls to Like Him

I started watching this show when Paal called me into the living room of our apartment my Junior year of college and said "Check this out, this guy has two totally hot girls who want him!! He's so lucky!!!!" I was also amazed by his luck. I mean, if this handsome, obviously not actually 16 year old guy with form fitting sweaters and an obviously great geek-chic thing going down can get two girls, why can't we?!? Okay, maybe we weren't as charming or handsome as Adam Brody/seth, but it provided some hope to us all. Plus, they referenced Death Cab for Cutie about 17 times. The OC became appointment viewing after this.
-qualler

Death Cab for Cutie/The Walkmen guest star

i wish this gimmick would have been a weekly event. what's better than playing "indie" rock in the background to highlight emotionally dramatic moments? having an "indie rock" band play at the venue that seth works at and forcibly alter the script so that the climax occurs at the band's concert every episode! of course! it's like watching conan except instead of off-the-wall skits you have the off-the-wall meta-dialogue and instead of sitting through another interview with brian williams you sit through another scene with the adults doing boring adult stuff.
-chris

Rooney!

Rooney Rooney Rooney! Rooney Rooney Rooney Rooney? Rooney Rooney Rooney!! (The band Rooney was featured in an episode. This is close to what the dialogue of the episode really was like.)

-qualler

The Obligatory Lesbian Story Arc

This made absolutely no sense. First, this supposedly edgy chick from First Avenue Lite (i.e. The Bait Shop) totally decides that she is bi enough to want to make out with Marisa, aka a shell of a character that is an alcoholic, has no discernable personality, and has what looks like serious eating disorder issues? Doesn't matter -- THEY KISSED!!! BOOYAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-qualler

George Lucas Shows Up

What a cross-promotional tie-in! Wait, so you're telling me that the audience for The OC might also be interested in the new Star Wars movie?! And when Georgie showed up, he came to tell Seth that the biggest regret of his life was -- no, not making crappy Star Wars prequels, or casting Hayden Christensen as the ultimate badass villian teenager of all-time, or filming the entire new trilogy in front of a green screen -- it was not going to his prom. You got us there, George.
-qualler

Marisa Dies

obvious i know, but when this death rattle of the show occurred, i not only realized i didn't want to watch the o.c. anymore because it had gone off the deep end, i also realized i SHOULDN'T watch the o.c. anymore because one of my students came up to me the day after this episode and said, "i know you probably don't watch the o.c., but last night they killed off a main character and i like totally thought of the stranger (by albert camus) and how it just didn't totally matter what mersault (the stranger's main character) did because he was going to die anyway..." and then i interrupted her and said, "because no matter what ryan could have done, he couldn't have prevented marisa's inevitable demise? i know! existentialism is like totally everywhere!" okay maybe i didn't say that last bit, but i may as well have.
-chris

Ryan and Whats-Her-Face Enter an Alternate Dimension

Joe (iJFP) couldn't stop talking about this late-series episode that aired around Christmas (Christmakuhh?) in which Ryan and the annoying replacement of Marissa girl (I know her name is Taylor, but come on -- who cares?!) fall off a ladder and go into comas where THEY ARE BOTH IN THE SAME ALTERNATE DIMENSION!! What a wacky world where Summer is a valley girl and Marissa isn't dead (but then she dies anyway! The 7th grader in Chris' class is right!!!) and something something Seth mentions that they "may be in an alternate dimension, trying to fix something that is wrong in this world to make it better." Looks like The OC took a cue from Season Six of The Sopranos (where Tony was shot and was also in an alternate dimension and there was some 6th grade symbolism.)
DEEP!
-qualler

So in the end, while it looks like we can't help but do anything but bash the flawed logic, middle-school symbolism, empty characters, and poor acting of this show, we cannot help but get a little misty-eyed when we think about the things we will miss: Peter Gallagher being the only credible actor on the show, Seth's sweaters, getting ridiculously excited when Anna shows up (SO much hotter than Summer!!), boring adult plotlines (the Newport Group is corrupt?! Whoa!), witty dialogue (yes, it's true), the constant eating of bagels in the Cohen household (did you know they were Jewish?!), meta-fiction (they watched "The Valley"), and outrageous deaths of major
characters. At least McG is still making movies. Wait, no, that's not a good thing. Most of all, though, we will miss getting together as a group of friends to watch it together and both ironically and seriously enjoy our little program that could together. Just as together as Peter Gallagher's eyebrows.

p.s. I can do lists too! Chec out the Listulator for MY Top 10 Songs of 2006!!

This entry was posted by Unknown, on Wednesday, February 21, 2007. You can leave your response.