TV: The OC, S1 Disc 2

If the first four episodes were about delaying Ryan's change of address,  the purpose of the next few episodes is todelay Ryan's change of Facebook (Friendster?) status.




Episode 5: The Outsider

The OC's second disc continues digging in to the "stealth" elements.  In the A plot,  shamed by the Cohen generosity, Ryan takes a restaurant job at the Newport Peach Pit.   Shamed by Ryan's reluctance to completely sponge off Sandy and Kirsten, and further inflamed by the resulting quick friendship Ryan forms with his fellow lower-middle-class workers, a sulky, resentful Seth (note: big stretch!) begins acting out.  Sarcastic petulance that felt sharp and amusing five years ago now seems more a 12-year-old's tantrum.

Always sensitive, those boys named Sue.

Things come to a head when Seth's horrible attempt to fit in with the working class exposes the family Range Rover and Luke to shock and damage while simultaneously keeping Ryan from putting the make on a home-alone Marisa.  Twice.

In the B, the adult world is centered on the scandalous behavior of Jimmy Cooper.  While he and Sandy strike up an unexpected friendship as they prepare Jimmy's legal defense, Kirsten takes up Jimmy's cause during a horror-filled spa weekend with Julie and the hideous greek chorus of Newport Wives.  It's an excuse for both Cohens to demonstrate their pragmatism and moral superiority to their peers (Kirsten blows through a litany of questionable behavior of all of her alleged friends in twenty seconds).  Sandy, as usual, draws the better scenes.

Pros: Luke gets shot!
Cons: Villain of the week, complete with the sideways 1990s gat grip.

Then: C+
Now: C-

--

Episode 6: The Girlfriend

The series begins to scoop on the plot-complicating supporting cast as we meet Kirsten's father, Charles "Caleb" Widmore.  Already established as the richest, coldest bastard in the OC, Cal nevertheless enters the series with "The Lear jet got me here quicker than I expected," which unnecessarily further exposits both his wealth and overbearing personality in one horribly smug line.   Seth receives no better: "Still not a football player," he appraises.   Moving on, he at least justifiably high-hats "the boy who burned my model house to the ground," and, to wrap things up,  summarily demotes Kirsten from her job of running his empire when he's out flying his Lear Jet.

Caleb's in town not only for his birthday, but also to show off his new girlfriend, 23-year-old Missy Robinson, or as Seth would call her, grandma.  She's bored but well kept, and when Ryan helps alleviate her boredom, it allows Marissa to catch them compromised. Which urges her to finally give her virginity to a recovering and momentarily-penitent Luke.   Meanwhile, Summer has once again used Seth to network, affecting contrition herself when Seth calls her on it.    By the end of the episode, neither Cohen boy is any closer to being with his desired girl.

--

Pros: Seth beginning to grow, deliciously thick melodrama as Marissa informs Ryan he's too late.

Cons: Summer and Caleb are used as props, not as characters.

Then: B
Now: C

--

Episode 7: The Escape

It's Comic-Con week!  Seth has been making this "highlight of the year" trip ever since he was but a wee bairn, but this year, now that he can drive the quickly-restored Range Rover,  he instead plots to whisk Ryan, Summer, and Marissa to Tijuana instead, where the school's ruling class holds court for the same four day period.   Bizarrely, Seth flips from anti-Newpsie to vocalizing at length his solidarity with them.  Now the non-drinking, non-water-polo, emo-listening, comics-reading nation is an embarrassment to humanity.*

TJ? Actually, a strip-mall in Anaheim.

The contrivances pile up as the foursome are stuck in close proximity, allowing Marissa to regret and pine, and Summer to continue bickering.  Then they "surprise" Luke in a club that's several orders of magnitude cleaner than anything actually in Tijuana, as he's sucking body shots off one of his many bimbos.  Marissa loses it, of course, and publicly receives the further news that Luke's been with, well, everyone as he waited for Marissa to give it up.  This sends Coop out on a rail with Summer's mom's oxycontins; it ends predictably well.


--

* I don't know that I'll get to Doogie Howser, M.D., here, but this scene reminds me of how that series dealt with Doogie: the brainy outsider who really only wants to be a normal, beer-swilling jock douchebag.   It sounds more like the writer's secret wish.   Second, Brody would be lining up the chicks at Comicon.  And if he can't find a way to get stupid drunk there, he's doing it wrong. Just saying.

Pros: Continues the series streak of good music cues.
Cons: Marissa's breakdown is told from odd angles, diluting its impact as an off-reflected upon Major Moment of the series.


Then: B+
Now: C-

--

Episode 8: The Rescue

Marissa's in the hospital, and like Gerald Ford, still unconscious.  Julie, of course, blames Ryan while plotting to have Marissa committed to a mental hospital, further throwing roadblocks in the way of their eventual coupling.

Much more of the episode deals with the Cohens pushing for Ryan's acceptance into the cushy private school the rest of the main cast attends; demonstrating the pilot-episode moxie that he has then buried for most of the time since, Ryan talks his way into a chance at the entrance exam.  Which he then blows off when Marissa emerges from her pharmaceutical coma.  Naturally, this has only positive consequences:  Julie learns how estranged she's become from her daughter, Ryan inches ever closer to being Marissa's boyfriend, and, despite the blow-off, the principal of the posh private school can only admire the boy's character and offer the timeworn admonishment if you ever pull a stunt like this again...  Wait a few episodes.

--
Pros: Ryan's intellectual scrappiness makes an appearance.
Cons: Julie, never more than two-dimensional, slips into self-parody.

Then: B
Now: C