Date of airing: September 16, 2003 (FOX)
Nielsen ratings information: 8.77 million viewers, 5.7/9 in Households, 4.1/11 with Adults 18-49
A trip to Tijuana to make all worries forgotten and maybe kill yourself – must be Tuesday night on FOX. The episode was pretty solid, and I have to say that Marissa’s arc has the right amount of tragedy and drama and messed-up emotions, with a nice little cliffhanger to end the summer season of THE O.C. and have the audience wait a month and change for the conclusion, to find out whether she overdosed for real or if she will survive the experience. The latter is more likely, considering Marissa’s repertoire character status and how her life was crumbling under her feet within 24 hours, which is more than a great storyline for a primetime soap opera and can't just be killed off by killing off the character.
But it was a little weird how Marissa seemed to have been losing her grip on her own life this quickly. Granted, she seemed to have a special connection to her father, so naturally, she would take the news of their separation and impending divorce seriously and dramatically. And maybe she was truly in love with Luke, which means she takes his behavior with other girls seriously (even though she might not have been in love with Luke if she was thinking of Ryan that much lately). Both things happening within 24 hours gives you pause, but swallowing a whole bottle of pills with alcohol somewhere in a shady Mexican bar and sinking yourself to the dirty surface in an even shadier back alley over all this? It kind of looked like the writers wanted to make it look like Marissa’s life was supposed to end in that alley, and if it wouldn’t have been for Ryan, the new boy in her life, the outsider, the stranger from Chino, she really would have been six feet under. Or maybe Seth and Summer would have found her instead and they wouldn’t have known what to do, even if Ryan pretty much didn’t administer CPR and such.
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| This is a good way to wake up in the morning. |
Pack your bags, put gas in your tank, and prepare your body for a lot of alcohol, because the teens of Newport Beach are on their way to Mexico to celebrate the near end of their summer vacation. School starts again very soon, so this is the best chance to put the dancing shoes on and celebrate your privilege and richness on the other side of the U.S./Mexican border. At least that is the idea, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s being followed to the tee. Marissa is going through some heavy emotional turmoil, so the opportunity to kill herself in Tijuana would not be missed, even after she had somewhat of an intimate moment with Ryan. In the meantime, Seth and Summer bicker like an old married couple, proving once more that opposites attract, giving them a view of their own future, in case they are getting married. As you will see, fighting over Death Cab for Cutie is just the beginning of a years-long love story. At home in Newport, Jimmy collected all his might to tell Marissa about the separation (breaking her heart in the process) and “accidentally” lands on Kirsten’s lips for a second or two. And Sandy is being proposed by Rachel, an attractive friend of old times, to take a job with her firm. Because in this series universe, you can only get a job when your new colleague is hot as hell.
The trip to Tijuana was a bit boring in hindsight. I would have hoped it became more like a road trip, although there is the question of what you can do with 43 minutes and a road trip when you also have to take care of characters not involved in the TJ plot, as well as lead the characters in and out of that story. The motel scenes were a tad bit more interesting, but only because they advanced the Seth/Summer and Ryan/Marissa friendships. Technically speaking, they can go off and become best friends forever in the next episode or the episode after that, because they not only shared a cheap and dirty motel room and slept in the same bed and later shared breakfast at a diner, but they also shared a deeply emotional and dark experience. It’s one way to bring Summer and Seth together, even if they shouldn’t even be thinking of dating, considering how much they hated each other during the trip. But there was Seth, who said during breakfast that they had undeniable chemistry.. What were you smoking, Seth? Did you whole-heartedly believe you were Spike in seasons five and six of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, forcing the woman to think she is in love with you when that might not even be true? Is Seth dreaming out his wish-fulfillment while he is awake?
After seven episodes, I’m still asking myself what good Luke is for. He is still the foil to Ryan’s luck with Marissa and now that he played his cards for good and the road for Ryan and Marissa is paved for happiness (as soon as she comes out of the funk she dropped herself into in Tijuana – if she comes out of that funk), he seems incredibly useless, waiting for a character arc just for himself. One can only hope that the writers knew what to do with the character in the long run, because there isn’t much to tell when it comes to a chest-shaving water polo quarterback who likes to make out with high school and college girls and loves to bully nerds and the gays. Who knows, maybe Luke was created to constantly remind the audience that it’s Ryan who always hits first. That fist in Luke’s face was the third time in four instances that Ryan shot first. That incident in the burning model home, you can give that to Luke, because he got there with the intent to murder Ryan.
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| This is the forbidden kiss of primetime soap operas. |
And the rest of the episode? It was not exactly my thing, thanks to the fact that there wasn’t a lot of drama in it. Sandy thinks about taking a better job (which he decided to get), and Jimmy thinks he can smooch with his lawyer’s wife (which he decided to do), because his marriage has been drawn and quartered. That move was pretty stupid, both from Jimmy and the writers, but THE O.C. is still a primetime soap opera, so I guess I can’t even bitch and moan about the fact that the former lovers were going at it for a split second, and Kirsten didn’t say anything about it to Sandy, let alone made it look like she was reciprocating that kiss for an even smaller split of a split second. It was somewhat predictable storytelling and it should have been a reminder that I don’t like soap operas very much, but damn, I watched 102 episodes of GENERAL HOSPITAL in 2019, so I obviously like soap operas.
