Date of airing: October 29, 2003 (FOX)
Nielsen ratings information: 9.27 million viewers, 6.1/9 in Households, 4.2/10 with Adults 18-49
Marissa didn’t want to kill herself with a bottle full of painkillers and a couple of shots full of tequila in the middle of the crazy parts of Tijuana. Okay girl, as you say. That doesn’t mean I believe her. But as long as her emotional trauma of having to deal with bad boys on the left side and ridiculously clueless parents on the right side is creating drama in this show, I will accept her non-suicidal suicide attempt as a thing that happened in her life, because who knows, maybe this near-death experience will not only be the beginning of a wonderful and blossoming friendship between her and Ryan. If not a real relationship between the two, and the best origin story of a romance novel ever, since it’s basically a metaphor of Marissa crawling out of the dark hole she has been trapped in for an eternity, with the help of a good-looking and charming boy she falls in love with. She almost died. He saved her. Now they love each other for the rest of the time. Or until Oliver comes around in a few episodes to mess things up because this is still THE O.C., a primetime teenage soap opera. Oh, Oliver, always ruining the fun by spoiling things, and you haven’t even appeared yet.
The waiting game was being played in Newport Beach, as the central characters were waiting for news about Marissa’s state of living. And even though Ryan found Marissa and saved her, it doesn’t necessarily mean he is suddenly in good graces with Julie, leading to a continued conflict between the two former poor people now in the hands of the white and rich. It took a while, but Ryan has a new opponent now, and funnily enough, it’s also someone from Marissa’s life. Marissa herself starts feeling better pretty soon, but when she hears she is about to be shipped off to a hospital far away from her friends and family, her only remaining friends scheme a plan to break her out of the hospital and prove to Julie that Marissa can do better and that she wants to live with her father. In the meantime, Ryan is taking a few aptitude tests at Harbor School, because the new school year begins pretty soon and the teens need to be ready to get transplanted into storylines set at school. Because of the whole Marissa thing though, Ryan has a decision to make: Finish writing that test and get accepted to Harbor, or help Marissa and risk never getting accepted to Harbor?
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| Summer thinks being a candy striper is cool. |
This was actually a very solid episode, although I wasn’t quite happy with how the adult storylines turned out. While I can see that Jimmy and Julie’s troubles are deeply connected to Marissa’s arc and gave her the necessary fuel for the conflict in the climax, Sandy’s little potential fling with Rachel and how it almost ensues marriage trouble with Kirsten almost felt out of place, especially with all the Marissa drama that was going on on the sidelines. The writers felt like they needed to keep the adult characters in the room and therefore engaged in a narrative, but maybe it wouldn’t have been so wrong to have both major stories at least share a common theme.
Okay, Kirsten and Sandy’s stories had the same theme, because both secretly and silently feared that an extramarital fling would start tearing them apart and dismantle the perfect Newport Beach bubble they live in, but Sandy’s work “drama” over drinks and a jealous Kirsten didn’t fit well with Marissa fearing for her existence in Newport and having to fight to stay, without dunking herself in too much insanity and without swinging actual fists and legs in a literal fight. Although I do appreciate that the writers were doing a hell of a lot to make sure that the adult characters were still game, always with a few potential stories in their hands, so that they can be used, in case the teenage soap opera drama is too much at times.
Ryan being Marissa’s superhero was kind of exciting though. He pretty much risked his standing with the Cohens and the Harbor School, just to help out a friend in need (which is probably the thing that got him into the school the second time around – that and the perfect test scores he is hiding in his files). That’s the Ryan Atwood he never would have guessed he would be when he got into the car with his brother in the very first scene. Although it was a bit weird how Ryan jumped into the story in the first place, because it was Marissa who subcontracted her fight with her mother out to Ryan, making him do all all of her biddings for her. There was Julia about to ship her off Southbound, she is eavesdropping on one of her parents’ fights, and she is just sitting (laying) there, doing nothing but produce a tear? Yes, she called Ryan for help, but Ryan sprung to action like the superhero she wanted him to be, and in the end, Marissa owes Ryan quite a lot, which is probably why the writers found it so easy to write for the two characters. If their love story goes through these lengths before their relationship even fires up, how long an eternity will they be together?
Also, it helps that the entire thing fits like a glove for the budding romance between the two love birds, now that Luke is off the field and it was Ryan who successfully helped her and stood against the fire-breathing demon that is Julie Cooper. The fact that Seth and Summer knew Ryan was the only one able to stand against her tells you a lot about how Ryan is perceived as a character after the short time he has been in Newport Beach.
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| Living arrangement deals are being made in this screenshot. |
I also loved that Seth and Summer were involved, and that they figured out they liked each other even after the disastrous trip they took in the previous episode. Summer is being made more likable as a character (the writers have realized by now that the character is worth keeping, and Adam Brody and Rachel Bilson probably started dating each other behind the cameras already, so why waste this chemistry?), and it turns out that Seth isn’t just having a crush on this girl, because she looks super attractive. As it happens, there is something about Summer that Seth caught up on, although it’s a bit weird to see rich kids volunteer at places, when I know stuff like that only looks good on college applications and isn’t cool just because the kids volunteer at these places. But whatever, there was a bit of an emotional subplot here, as Seth and Summer were silently discussing whether to officially like each other during school, or if their sudden and unexpected summer friendship is illegal among the cheerleaders and queen crowds because rich girls still can’t believe that one of them and the nerd boy can have a pleasant conversation and hang out.
