Date of airing: September 9, 2003 (FOX)
Nielsen ratings information: 9.09 million viewers, 5.9/9 in Households, 4.3/12 with Adults 18-49
It’s probably the ultimate male wish-fulfillment fantasy for every boy in developed countries full of riches and whiteness: having sex with your super hot, supermodel-figured grandmother. Fry was living that dream which quickly turned into a nightmare. Okay, if Gabrielle and Caleb had gotten married, there would be no legal family connection between Ryan and Gabrielle, so they could have at it without getting in legal trouble (at least when you forget everything about statutory rape, which all of this episode was about between the lines), but there was some of that fantasy in this episode, because who doesn’t dream of one’s grandfather coming home with a young brunette or blonde and the first thing your 16-year-old mind will do is jump into the shower real quick and let the hand do the work for you? It’s funny that THE O.C. brought this premise after just six episodes, because it does seem like the most perfect soap opera plotline you could find on the board of rejected plots on GENERAL HOSPITAL or one of the other daily soap operas I’m currently not watching. On the other side of the medallion, this episode happened to be pretty solid when it comes to working on Gabrielle’s backstory. It turns out she was just a woman looking for some normalcy in her life, including a job in which she wouldn’t have to be the entertainer of a rich old dude that looked like he spent too much money in a tanning salon. Seriously, Caleb, tone down your artificial sun days, you look like you’re about to make skin cancer your bitch.
Gabrielle was a complex character in this episode, which is kind of a surprise for a weekly primetime soap opera that was more interested in depicting the trials and tribulations of the central characters than putting color and depth into a one-off guest character. And with Gabrielle being a more meaningful character in this episode, Ryan’s arc was given a lot more significance during this hour, especially when his short-lived relationship with Gabrielle (if you can call it that) is being used as a plot device for his teenage romance with Marissa. Because she was in front of having to make a choice: Ryan or Luke? So why not choose the more bully-ish dick after walking into your crush making out with the hot 24-year-old girlfriend of Newport Beach’s richest man? Meanwhile, the reason for Caleb’s arrival in the show is not an unimportant one: The man celebrates his birthday, and Kirsten and Sandy are all about throwing a party for a man they don’t particularly like. Here is where some of the episode’s biggest events happen: Not just is Marissa clear as to what she wants, but Seth and Summer make another acquaintance during the party, including some lip-smacking, while on the other side of the party is Jimmy, who is trying to ask Caleb for a job and gets privately humiliated by his future ex-wife Julie in the process.
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| Summer offers the finger, but how much is Seth going to take? |
Honestly, I liked Gabrielle’s backstory and how she wanted out of her miserable life of having to be the well-paid girlfriend. Granted, hooking up with Ryan was a genre cliche and it was only a question of how many scenes it will take for Marissa (or maybe Kirsten, to make things even weirder) to stumble into the two right in the middle of a make-out session or a state of undress, but there was some drama to Gabrielle’s life, making her more than just the one-off character who became a stepping stone in Ryan and Marissa’s love story. The writers knew how to make a character with depth out of the guest character with the enlarged chest area, even if most of the time she was just there to look hot and make all the guys turn into zombies. It’s probably a good thing that this episode’s story was co-written by a woman, so you can guess the idea of satirizing the premise was talked about in the writers’ room and stopped by co-writer Debra Fisher, probably.
Caleb happened to be a terrible character in his first episode. He looked and sounded smug and he never cared enough about his daughter to show at least some appreciation, teasing that he is indeed a loving father who wants to know what his daughter is doing. Okay, there was the scene in which he and Kirsten talked about the sister (hello, upcoming guest appearance), but that felt a bit too much like a drop of intel because it’s needed for a later episode – Kirsten has a sister, so she must come to Newport Beach and cause trouble, maybe hook up with Ryan also, instead of putting color and depth into Kirsten and Caleb’s relationship. The thing is, Caleb’s tragic backstory came through Gabrielle, as she told Ryan that the only woman he ever loved died long ago (it would be a twist if this wasn’t a reference to Kirsten’s mother, and considering THE O.C. is a primetime soap opera, it’s a possibility), which means it didn’t really come through Caleb or his conversations with Kirsten. Yes, he was tough on her which shows his character, but the back story came from a sentence uttered by the eponymous girlfriend.
Meanwhile, the teenage drama continues, including Marissa losing her cherry to the good bad boy Luke who didn’t even deserve it. He was trying to remove Holly’s bra in the previous episode and utterly failed to do so, he didn’t deserve to have sex at any time. But oh well, drama, I guess. Also, how dumb of Marissa to have sex with her boyfriend just to punish Ryan whom she has a crush on. The girl doesn’t know what she is doing when she is going down that route of romantic relationships.
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| For any real-life lawyer, this is a case of statutory rape. |
On the other hand, there were Seth and Summer, and I was a little perplexed about where that kiss came from. I can still see Summer saying “eww” every time Seth is mentioned, but here she was, admiring him for remembering her as a middle school student, kissing him as if she was actually falling in love with him in that very instance. I get that Seth and Summer were supposed to happen quickly, so the writers can ship around the cliche of not having to deal with the will-they/won’t-they, but Summer didn’t seem like Summer when she locked lips with the nerd. In fact, what does she even see in the guy? Was she rebooted as a character just so her sudden crush on Seth would make sense within the narrative? Was this episode the moment the writers realized she was more than just a recurring supporting character and she would be upgraded to main status very soon?
