TV: The OC, S1 Disc 7

 The closing of season one is a triptych that could almost get boiled into a three-hour TV movie, as the wedding of its two principal villains provides a better excuse for the "event of the week" scenes.   If the OC is the story of Ryan Atwood, the finale provides ample closure for nearly every major character; as at the first season's halfway mark, it provides a nearly perfect jumping-off point for the show. 

On a second look, it's certainly mine.




Episode 25:The Shower

Libra, always a catch!

Last week gave us divorce as the common bond; this week the strengthening of familial ties is the central theme.  Seth is thankfully relegated to the comedic C-plot.  He finally meets, badly, Summer's doting father. The horrible trainwreck that ensues lands clearly on the awkward side of the fence, and leads to later complications involving hookers.   Marissa, having been extorted into going along peaceably with the forthcoming unholy union of Cal and Julie, recruits her bitter, trailer-trash aunt to perform the entertainment at the dual shower.  And just maybe teach Julie a little lesson about life!

With two plots vying for laughs, the melodrama comes from Telenovela Theresa, as she yet again returns to the OC, her imminent arrival telegraphed by Seth asking about her out of the blue.  It's been four episodes; Ryan could just as naturally riposte with a question about Anna.  This time, Theresa is a battered fiancee in search of Sandy's legal advice -- and without Ryan's knowledge.  Given his hot temper and previous run-ins with her man, it's as reasonable a notion as it is doomed to failure; but after a few rote motions toward going to and killing Eddie, Ryan decides to let the Cohens' largess help her through this rough spot.

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Pros: Even domestic abuse can be funny!
Cons: Jimmy and Sandy's restaurant's not quite dead yet.

Then: B
Now: B

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Episode 26: The Strip

Then come the bachelor parties.  In a sequence that wouldn't be far out of place on Entourage, the male cast packs off to Vegas for Cal's bachelor party.  Thanks to Seth's fake IDs,* he and Ryan can parley his Bar Mitzvah money into card-counting megabucks at the tables so that Theresa can go somewhere on her own and not possibly have an abortion, no sir.

Is this really such a step down?

That's only because Ryan hasn't learned she's knocked up; for the most dramatic effectiveness,  Marissa learns this while the boys are in Vegas;  she gets to drop that bomb when he returns.

Also in Vegas: the most brazen, clean, and smart hookers in the world (one liplocks Seth and he doesn't even freak out!) who quickly get the boys in over their heads with Maurice.*  Luckily, Ryan's gambling ability* manages to save everyone.

In the C plot, the restaurant bangs amidst its whimpering exit. It seems Charles orchestrated the liquor license debacle in order to lowball the guys and then sell the entire coastline to a developer for another few hundred million.  There's an ivory backscratcher joke here, but I can't frame it.  Sandy kills the sale (on dubious ground, sure), but it's Jimmy, subjected to countless indignities throughout the season, who gets one sweet moment of payback by punching out his ex-wife's fiancee.

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* Seriously, where does this come from?

* Maurice is played by Kevin Rankin, whose lot in life is to be the poor man's Steve Zahn. And you thought you had it bad.

* This is one of those convenient skills that tv characters pull out of a hat when the plot needs and is then never seen again. Given the choice between he and Seth, I imagine this is the more plausible. What's odd is that while he mentions card-counting, he only ends up playing the trendy Hold 'em for cash.
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Pros: The early Vegas scenes are the OC at its best...
Cons: ...and they contrast starkly with the later Vegas scenes...

Then: A-
Now: B+


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Episode 27: The Ties that Bind

The season finale, clearly given more exprod attention than the previous dozen episodes, injects  into the teen-soap conventions some much-needed gravitas that's been more absent than not since the pilot.   There're callbacks galore, like Seth's rarely-seen boat, Summer's early-season drunken sluttiness, even Oliver,* as the cast takes stock of how much their lives have changed since Ryan arrived.

American cars: symbol of tragedy in OC.

Because he's going to be leaving.   It's far from stealthy in the manner his departure is telegraphed, but it is at least a well-played telegraphing.   Viewers expecting a typical "society event" episode have their expectations reversed for A and B plots, with the pregnancy scare given the lead and the actual wedding given a shortened, appropriately funereal air.  Still, the usual soap-opera twists occur, with the idea of a Ryan-Theresa baby rearing given some serious toying before she opts for the convenient abortion, and then chickens out, leaving do-the-right-thing Atwood headed to Chino* for the sake of the baby that may not even be his.   He eventually leaves town, accompanied by that soulful, melancholy, not-entirely-a-cliche-then Buckley version of Hallelujah.

In what's more of an epilogue than a full C plot, given Sandy's bravura performance in killing Cal's land deal involving the restaurant, you'd expect some fallout to darken the wedding.  But no, rescuing the restaurant plot's whimper, Kirsten talks Sandy into burying the hatchet.   Which in turn leads to a surprisingly candid Widmore revealing to Sandy  that the Newport Group is about to collapse, and the land deal Sandy killed was its last chance.  Thus one Cal subplot finally whimpers to expiration while sowing yet another for the next season.

* The cast continues to act as if Chino were somewhere in Arizona, or possibly New Mexico.  The Oliver reference also announces the callback of Seth's snickering, sulky, inner six year-old.
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Pros: Wraps up pretty neatly as a series, if it had just ended here.
Cons: "Finale" logic in play everywhere; status-quo altering decisions that would never go without challenge are made wholesale.

Then: A
Now: B+