Episode Report Card Sara M: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT It's All A Lie
By Sara M | Season 4 | Episode 1 | Aired on 11.01.2006
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close. Five months after we left Ryan holding a dying Marissa in his arms, everyone is grieving her death in an emotionally dysfunctional way that would make her proud. Julie alternates between taking pills and attempting home improvement chores, the latter with "hilarious" results. Dr. Neil is puffier than ever, despite working out in his home gym and getting a new girlfriend on the side -- the Stepmonster. Kaitlin has Luke's twin brothers doing her bidding and smokes weed in public like a moron. Taylor Townsend is supposed to be in France at school, but is actually back in Newport for some reason and trying to keep that a secret while also patronizing every single restaurant in the town. Seth is working at the comic book store and hanging out with all the Newport adults he used to despise or who used to despise him. Summer has become your typical rich white liberal-arts-college kid, complete with the desire to recycle, a friend who wears a Che shirt, and a general insufferable-know-it-all only-I-can-save-the-world-from-itself attitude. She does manage to help save Ryan, though, who has somehow gotten a job at a dive bar even though he's definitely not twenty-one. He lives in its atmospheric, dimly-lit back room that I think is the same set that used to be Volchok's apartment. Sometimes he goes out cage-fighting and gets the crap beaten out of him because of the angst. He doesn't visit the Cohens or Marissa's grave until Summer gets him to go to the comic book store, where Seth has made a comic all about him and what a great addition to the Cohen family he is. That convinces him to move back to the poolhouse. It also convinces him to take the file Julie's private investigator has compiled on Volchok's current whereabouts. Looks like that cage-fighting practice will be coming in handy soon⦠Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously on The O.C.: Marissa died, and this show promised us that it would rise from her ashes. I have my doubts, but I'm determined to be more positive about this show this season, so I'm going to hope for the best.
We open five months after Marissa's death, because why show us the aftermath of such an important, show-changing event when we can watch five months after it and hear everyone talk about how sad they were before and see how/if they've moved on? Ryan's in a dingy room that I'm pretty sure used to be the set for Volchok's apartment, and Placebo's version of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" is playing. This show just loves to use covers of really good '80s songs instead of the real thing, doesn't it? But I love both versions of this song, so I'll accept it. Ryan's face is all banged up and he answers his cell phone. He tells whoever's on the phone that he'll be right there, and then Sandy pulls up in his Lexus. Ryan lives in the back room of the Bar of Despair and Sadness, and Sandy pushes past the dregs of society to knock on Ryan's door. He begs Ryan to talk to him, because they're all worried about him and miss him, but Ryan takes off out the window instead. He gets in the Jeep he somehow owns (I guess between his other car getting totaled and his inability to function after Marissa's death, he went car shopping) and takes off.
Julie takes some pills out of her bathroom cabinet and goes to leave the house which, I'm rather surprised to see, has no remnants of the no-doubt huge "Have A Nice Dirt Nap, Marissa!" party that was thrown. Or maybe that party only existed in the viewers' homes. Anyway, Julie finds her daughter (the living one) putting on some hot leather boots and asks her why she isn't in school. "Because it's eight o'clock at night. And a Saturday," Kaitlin says. "Oh, that's nice," Julie replies. It is, isn't it? I love Saturday nights. Julie picks up the keys to her Lexus (Lexus: the Official Car of the Sinking Show) and leaves, despite Kaitlin's reminder that she isn't "supposed to be driving at night anymore." I guess they've decided that after Marissa's death, no Cooper may drive at night. Julie blows her off and Kaitlin tries to act worried.
Ryan pulls up to the Mermaid Inn and knocks on a door. Julie answers. "Hey, Ryan," she says, "c'mon in." If they're sleeping together, that would be so awesome.
Yay! Taylor Townsend's in the opening credits! Boo! Kaitlin is, too.
It's now thirty-six hours earlier. See, we're going to change the timeline up to make the show edgy and cool again. Seth brings us up-to-date on the current goings-on via a message on Summer's college answering machine: Ryan deferred college and got a job at the Bar of Sadness and Despair, even though he's too young to work in one; Sandy's back working as a Public Defender and spending his lunch hours with Seth; and Kirsten has undergone absolutely no character development, nor does she appear to be involved with her and Julie's stupid dating service anymore. Instead, she invites the Newpsies over and Seth spends time hanging out with them and laughing way too hard at Taryn's jokes. Seth also spends time with Dr. Neil now, and says he's been doing a lot of "bonding" with adults lately. Well, someone's got to act like an adult since Ryan obviously isn't. Kaitlin has taken up with Luke Ward's twin brothers Brad and Eric (one of whom is hot, the other of whom is not), who just stare at her body and exchange fist-pounds. And Taylor Townsend is enjoying France.