Although in recent times he has been the protagonist of a exploit not indifferent, the teen drama is certainly not a child of the Generation Z era. When the genre still didn’t have a name and the extraordinary advertising machine of streaming platforms didn’t exist, show like Dawson’s Creek e One Tree Hill they had already found the perfect language to stage loves, disagreements, disturbances and psychodramas of the very young. But it was with The OC that the story has been enriched by a realism with no expiration date, bringing to the small screen a photograph of adolescence that had very little to do with fiction. As much as Josh Schwartz’s series has managed to turn into an iconic piece of mass culturethere was no shortage of blunders in the plot and episodes which, perhaps, could have been easily done without.
From Marissa’s turbulent (but seen and revised) storyline with Volchok to the useless plot of Taylor and French ex-husband, we tried to select the 5 worst episodes of the series (here the best ones). Not so much to remember them and try to look at them in a different light as to highlight their mistakes even more and condemn them to an eternal and deserved oblivion.
5. The mortgage (3×18)
The focus of the story returns to be, once again, the thousand problems of the relationship between Ryan and Marissa (as if the public still needed to see gutted situations that it knows, perhaps, even better than the protagonists). While the boy tries to keep her out of trouble, Coop is naturally inclined to do everything that can harm her and to opt for the worst alternative out of a thousand. A relationship that, if at the beginning it seemed made of love and of two people who tried to smooth each other to fit together, over the episodes it turned out to be be absolutely toxic and very far from having a future.
The premises are excellent, you notice the effort to show a growth in the attitudes and decisions of all the characters (from Ryan, much more mature and centered than at the beginning, to Seth and Summer, who rediscover the lost balance) but everything gets lost in Marissa storyline. His exit from the scene was almost upon us and, rather than leaving a different memory to the fans, the authors stifled it again in a succession of self-destruction and fatal mistakes. Her relationship with Volchok takes her on the bad roads of the past until she is pushed to the extreme limit. While the others grow up and think about life as adults, Newport’s bad girl stays the same. Getting lost, this time forever.
4. Unmentionable secrets (3×09)
This episode is essentially a tremendous jumble of meaningless plots. After hospitalization following the accident, Johnny is discharged and Marissa returns to suffer from it again red cross syndrome who, as the most loyal to the series know, has never really abandoned it. A syndrome which, in almost all the cases in which it has occurred, has been none other than the nefarious antechamber of problems. And indeed the attention that Coop will devote to her surfer friend will make him fall in love with her and this crush will be just the beginning of a vicious circle that will lead to nothing good. And, this time, in a more or less irremediable way.
Leaving aside the storyline involving Kirsten, Julie and their decision to launch a high-class dating start-up and giving too much space to a character who really has nothing interesting to offer, Matt, Newport Group’s new acquisition, probably the most annoyingly nonsensical part is own the dynamic that develops between Summer and Seth in preparation for college admissions. The two enter into a competition that leads them to develop unjustified jealousies and envies, they lose the lightness and freshness that have distinguished them even in the most difficult moments (prologue to this crisis), and Cohen shows a part of himself that, perhaps, would have better done to keep hidden. In short, far too many ideas without rhyme or reason for a final result to forget.
3. The Lonely Hearts Club (2×12)
The 2×12 is the mid-season episode, the one that questions characters and stories to enliven the story. Actually, the desired effect does not correspond to the one obtained. The triangle formed by Seth, Summer and Zach becomes tiring and boring to unbelievable levels, Julie Cooper continues to be the Brooke Logan of the situation and, as much as she tries to redeem herself, she punctually ends up tricking someone for money or revenge (in this case, obviously , we talk about the very rich Caleb Nichol) and Marissa continues to wallow in an ocean of immaturity and pointless whining.
The only thing that seems out of the box but handled very badly is the storyline of Sandy and Kirsten.
In an effort to enfranchise the golden pair of The OC from the mantle of normality and boredom that buried them, the authors set up a sort of break, with Sandy kissing an old flame, forgetting the appointment with his wife on Valentine’s evening and signing his (temporary) prison sentence death. The effort to make the Cohen couple less ordinary is appreciable but wouldn’t it have been better to avoid the stratagem of the third wheel and, I don’t know, to have them compare more or less peacefully about their marriage? Of course not, because in the series like The OC the more the situation has apparently simple outlets, the more one pretends that those solutions do not exist. Even at the cost of sinking into nonsense more total.
2. The ex factor (2×09)
When it comes to romance, who doesn’t like a little angst. In this case, however, it is really too much. Probably because, lacking the basis, that is love, even the drama fails to take that extra step to be captivating in the slightest. In 2×09 two characters find themselves dealing with the skeletons in the closet of their past relationships: on the one hand, Seth remains traumatized by the discovery of the bisexuality of the bartender Alex, on the other Ryan, now engaged with Lindsay, unloads all his frustration on Marissa, deeming her guilty of having forced her girlfriend to drink only out of spite and to put her in danger.
Years later, I still haven’t figured out what the point of this storyline is, other than to make the boys look like Neanderthals with a narrower mind than a can of tuna. The low point, however, is not this. Because it’s just from The former factor that makes room for one of the most pointless stories in the universe of The OC, the one between Marissa and Alex, made of boredom, rebellion and revenge rather than clean feelings and new beginnings. Could we do without all this and rather dedicate an episode only to Captain Avena? Absolutely yes.
1. Peach season (3×10)
Coming to the fourth season, The OC has visibly begun to struggle in the ratings. With a few exceptions, the storylines seemed to be increasingly botched and far-fetched, completely far from the quality and originality that, on the contrary, had made the first and second seasons shine. The clearest proof of this effort is certainly the 4×10. An absolutely useless, if not terrible, episode that adds random characters for no particular reason other than to get to pack an episode in one way or another, and messes up the plot without any coherence. In the already complex and misguided relationship between Ryan e Taylor, a third wheel comes out. Out of nowhere, in fact, the girl’s French ex-husband, Henri Michel, appears. The arrival of him does not change things that much but causes, for the triliardesima time, Ryan feels out of place and, although he is no longer Chino’s teenager with runaway syndrome and certain disorders he should have learned to metabolize them, you start wondering again what his place in the world might be.
Like in a loop, it seems to always see the same scenes, always hear the same words, witness the same dramas.
But that is not all. Because Peach season further tangles things, looking in theangst the solution to a total lack of ideas. And here Summer and Seth are approaching the crisis again and Julie and Kirsten’s friendship, which over time has also become a business partnership, returns to be questioned by controversial circumstances. The feeling, at the end of 4×10, is essentially that of having rewatched two or three episodes of the previous seasons: the plots are proposed again but emptied, the characters seem to have lost all their enamel and the show tries, as it can, to scrambling to survive.
