The O.C. is something special. It speaks to many different people from different walks of life, a remarkable achievement for a prime-time teen soap that was just as trashy and contrived as it was subversive and sharply written. Unlike its predecessor, Beverly Hills 90210, or the onslaught of teen dramas that aired soon afterward - including Gossip Girl - The O.C. stands the test of time despite horribly dating itself. How can this be?
Simple. It’s because the characters are endearing and mythical, the dialogue is sparkly and whip-smart, and the pitch-perfect soundtrack is half the fun. It’s also because The O.C. one of the only television series that makes the viewer feel like they’re part of a loving and stable family that can survive anything. Add all these ingredients together and you get a heaping helping of TV comfort food.
Despite getting an impressive amount of things right, The O.C. still had an enormous amount of slip-ups, whether they were in the form of creative decisions, questionable storylines, continuity errors, or gaping plot holes you could surf on a tidal wave through.
With this dark fact acknowledged, here are 20 Things About The O.C. That Make No Sense.
20. What grade were they actually in, anyway?
This is something that’s bugged everyone since season one: what grade were our favorite twenty-something-year-old troublemaking teenagers in, anyway?
When we meet them during the first year, the show states they’re all juniors. Then, in season two, they’re not exactly seniors, since that’s what they are in season 3. Many fans have suggested that they were held back, but it’s far easier just for everyone to pretend that they were sophomores than justify what is obviously a massive plot hole in The O.C. universe.
It’s conceivable that this fearsome foursome were held back because of their “extra-curricular activities,” but if they were, it surely would have been a major plot point that would have definitely been milked for its dramatic potential.
Just imagine Sandy and Kirsten’s reaction to Seth’s failing academic career. Bagels would be flying everywhere.
19. Atomic County
Seriously, this spin-off based on the botched comic project undertaken by Seth and Zach (who was his romantic rival for, like, five minutes) created to cope with the emotional hardships of season two was ingenious, ahead of its time, and highly amusing.
Seth reimagined The O.C.’s main cast as powerful and quirky superheroes like The Ironist, Little Miss Vixen, Kid Chino, and Cosmo Girl.
After the fighting with Zach in “The Showdown”, the Atomic County plotline is abandoned. This is a shame because it would have had a plenty of emotional resonance and be a source of drama for Seth if it had resurfaced in the fourth season post-Marissa’s death.
Oh well. At least The A.C. had a graphic novel and a ten-episode animated series in our reality.
18. Lindsay just disappeared
Lindsay Wheeler Gardener’s life is like a country song written by Susan Lucci. Her entire life was built on bald-faced lies that her family told her to prevent Lindsay from realizing one horrible, psychologically damaging truth: her father is Caleb Nichol.
Naturally, she had to find this out after trying to date Caleb’s unofficial grandson Ryan in season two. In other words, her life was just fine before she got sucked into the evil vortex of hot drama that seems to exist beneath Newport Beach.
Naturally, Lindsay had to move all the way to Chicago to escape its thrall- and never be heard from again, for some reason, even when her biological father died or her nephew (?) Seth got married.
17. Marissa Cooper's life choices
Marissa = drama. Anyone who’s watched The O.C. for two or three minutes knows this is the real moral of the series’ overarching story.
Originally written to be a tragic character, Coop quickly became a source of incessant melodrama that could fuel at least ten daytime soaps - and then some. She also drank enough to fuel a small experimental car for two years straight.
That’s why, most of the time, her behavior makes absolutely no sense at all. She could choose to be happy with Ryan, perhaps even enjoy her ultra-privileged life and get into Berkeley or Stanford, or some other school that encourages drinking and paint-by-numbers success. She could also decide to not be an emotionally manipulative and incredibly selfish person who spends her days being white-girl wasted and crying in her soup (which is secretly spiked with Vodka).
16. The unreleased score
The O.C. wouldn’t be quite the same without the music, would it? The soundtracks were bestselling affairs, with numerous mixes being released throughout the series’ brief yet legendary four year history. Music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas can be thanked for getting introducing many an audience member to an early aughts indie musical act or two.
However, the actual episodic score itself has yet to be released officially anywhere. The O.C. was scored by two different composers during its run - Christopher Tyng for seasons one and two and Richard Marvin for seasons three and four. Both played a huge role in determining the tone of The O.C., so giving fans a chance to their music on iTunes makes sense, right? Apparently not.
15. Where did Oliver go?
Oliver Trask. His name sends a chill down many an O.C. fan’s spines, causing them to cringe uncontrollably and hiss like really angry cats. And for good reason: Oliver is considered to be one of the worst decisions the show - and Marissa Cooper -ever made, if not an indication of the extent of her mental instability.
After Oliver was carried off by police during “The Truth” and sent into rehab, though, his character completely vanished - for better and for worse.
Rumors abounded that Oliver would make his comeback towards the end of the second season. These persisted throughout the subsequent year, mostly because Josh Schwartz and the writers made continuous references to his apparent resurgence.
It never came about, but think about how interesting it would have been if he came back for at least an episode. Imagine if he came back for an episode in season four.
14. Josh Schwartz’s lack of involvement as the show went on
In case you didn’t know, Josh Schwartz is the creator of The O.C. This typically means that he wrote the best episodes of the show ever. He also created NBC’s Chuck, executive produced CW’s Gossip Girl, and helped with Runaways and the new Dynasty reboot. In short, he’s a pretty prolific guy.
What’s interesting to note, though, is that as the The O.C. went on, Schwartz’s script output for the show became less and less. To provide some perspective: in season one, Schwartz wrote at least 10 episodes, either by himself or with co-writers. By the time seasons three and four rolled around, he was only writing two episodes, if that - typically the premieres and finales. What gives?
12. The “Free Marissa” campaign
Marissa Cooper was a barrel of laughs in season three. She shoplifted a lot, shot someone, and then things got significantly less funny. But what was really ridiculous was the pre-social-media social media campaign known as Free Marissa, which inspired hundreds of caring and ing classmates at Harbor High to take a stand and ask for their favorite underage lush to be un-expelled from The Harbor School.
But why? What did Marissa do for anybody? Sure, she was involved in committees and things, however she was never actually “involved” in them, was she? She was mostly off running around trying to get into juvenile detention.
That her “friends” at school would basically hold a candlelight vigil for Coop made no sense whatsoever.
11. What happened to Hailey?
Often described as “the black sheep” of their family, Kirsten’s sister Hailey Nichol used to be a wild child much like Julie Cooper - which, come to think of it, is probably why Jimmy Cooper fell for her. But when she took a job in Tokyo as a fashion designer and started focusing on her career instead of being weird and unstable, her wool was soon dyed a different color.
Hailey (played by Colony’s Amanda Righetti) was a more or less a member of the ing cast during the first season of The O.C. She made a couple more appearances in season two to help Kirsten bury their father Caleb and overcome her alcohol addiction. A
fter that, though? Not even mentioned at all, even in ing. Season 4 could have used a dose of Hailey to bring things full circle, that’s for sure.
10. Sandy and Rebecca
In a blatant, shameless attempt at creating friction between Sandy and Kirsten during the show’s second season, the character of Rebecca Bloom was introduced. This one-time girlfriend of Sandy’s nearly tore apart the Cohen household and inadvertently caused Kirsten to go all Marissa on everyone and start drinking booze nonstop.
Thanks to her dying father’s request, Sandy was sent on a mission to find Rebecca, who had been a victim of a convoluted backstory taken from a Resident Evil cutscene in which a lab burned down and she was framed for it. After he accomplished this, his old flame (who didn’t start that fire) stuck around just to stress everyone out for no good reason besides drama.
The question is: why would Sandy choose this suspected arsonist over his baby mama? Answer: to eat up screen time and make things juicy. Duh.