Date of airing: November 5, 2003 (FOX)
Nielsen ratings information: 7.52 million viewers, 4.9/7 in Households, 3.5/9 with Adults 18-49
People were doing a whole lot of kissing in this episode and the only
ones who didn’t get any of the lip action were Summer and Luke (and
Jimmy, but the screw-up gets divorced, so he isn’t allowed to kiss
anyone right now, except his daughter on her forehead if she requires
that feeling of security), begging the question if they should have
hooked up in this episode or maybe the next, just to make things a
little more spicy – not just for Seth and Summer, who need as many
obstacles in their story as Ryan and Marissa have been getting. This is a
primetime teen soap opera after all, right? Now that Luke is single and
Seth won’t be busy much with Summer, thanks to the existence of Anna
who is twirling Seth around like chewing gum on a finger running out of
sugar and taste, there is enough time for Summer and Luke to do the
deed. After all, Luke is a womanizer who likes getting college students
naked, so he probably wouldn’t even stop himself from doing it with
Summer at one point. It’s quite the obvious story that could happen in
any of the upcoming episodes.
Welcome to Harbor School, bitch! It’s the teens’ first day back, and as expected they don’t fit in. As the new guy, Ryan is pretty much being bullied by Luke and his jock goons out of the gate (while Seth gets bullied because he is Seth), and Marissa feels like she is being eyed by everyone after her near-death experience in Tijuana. What makes things both easier and difficult is the kickoff carnival Marissa is supposed to organize, for which Ryan promises his assistance. For Seth on the other hand, the first day at school couldn’t get any better. Not only has lovely Anna returned, promising everyone to stick around for a while and twist Seth’s mind, but Summer is also putting effort into wooing Seth into becoming her love interest, and all of a sudden Seth is dealing with two girls vying for his heart. Only Seth doesn’t know it, because he thinks Anna is trying to help him to win Summer’s heart. Meanwhile in the adult world, Sandy has started his new job at Fancy Law Firm with his new attractive colleague Rachel and his very first case has him go up against his father-in-law. Caleb is trying to buy up sacred O.C. ground to build condos and a parking lot, and Sandy is supposed to prevent that, him being a treehugger and Caleb-hater and all. Cue troubling times with Kirsten, who is not happy that the deposition makes frontpage headlines in the Newport Beach papers, stirring a confrontation between her and her father.
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| All they want is a lab partner. |
This episode seemed like a second pilot or another season premiere, due to the school year finally beginning, which gives the show an extra edge, in addition to a new setting and surroundings for the characters, as well as potential new recurring characters, if the writers were interested in introducing some. And while I wasn’t much of a friend of the first few school days (mostly because there weren’t any teachers, and Ryan only had some reading to do between classes and school days, which is kind of lame), I do like the idea of the world of Newport Beach being enriched with a few more rich white teenagers in the middle of troubles and tribulations. Who knows, maybe some of them turn into recurring characters and they will mess up the lives of the central heroes and villains even more. Does Oliver go to Harbor School and we just haven’t met him yet?
It turns out I was a bit disinterested in Sandy’s story yet again, but this time around mostly just because I found the potential marriage trouble between him and Kirsten over the high-profile lawsuit or potential State Supreme Court case extremely thick and forced into the story. I get that Caleb won’t like it if his son-in-law goes against him in court over a development project, and I get that Kirsten could see it as a possible forced exit from her job, since Caleb and all his executive friends would see Kirsten as the reason the case goes to court, let alone losing it in court (if she can’t keep her husband away from it, why would you trust her with development projects?). But Kirsten talked about it like it’s the first nail in the coffin for their marriage, and the firing squad, ordered by her father, is waiting for her to show up to work the next morning, making me think that Kirsten is overreacting a little. But hey, this is still a good-enough story to bring conflict into the characters’ lives, and it’s a conflict that has absolutely nothing to do with either Sandy or Kirsten thinking about doing it with another, which they tried to do multiple times throughout this episode (which, and I can’t stress this enough, was freaking romantic and made me envious). Yes, Kirsten is a little jealous of Rachel, and Sandy completely trusts Kirsten, but still has to remind himself he trusts her. The writers decided to go in a different direction with the two, and that is admirable.
Meanwhile, the kissing stuff... It was to be expected that Anna won’t like it very much to play Cupid for the boy she likes and for the girl she doesn’t know why the boy she adores likes the other girl, and it was to be expected that this story would kick into high gear during the first episode Anna established herself as a recurring character. I might wonder how it was even possible for Seth to have girl trouble immediately (and not just with one girl), and how Summer even got to like Seth this much (she is one of the class girls in school, boys should be lining up to have a shot with her, yet she only wants Seth and none of the other boys are lined up?), but there is some great energy in the story now. Seth wants Summer, Anna wants Seth, but Anna helps Seth to get Summer. There is a love triangle nine episodes into the show. And yes, I’m a Seth/Anna shipper, but only because I liked Samaire Armstrong more than I liked Rachel Bilson when the show premiered on German television. Possibly because I realized quickly that Summer would have been way too many handfuls for anyone, especially an insecure and introverted loner like me.
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| Makeout sessions are the only reason Ferris wheels exist. |
And then there was the romance novel that is Ryan and Marissa, who had to jump through hoops to get those lips locked tightly on the Ferris wheel. It turns out one of them just needed to say a few words, and suddenly they are boyfriend and girlfriend. It was a nice little scene, but the way up to that scene was kind of terrible, with Ryan only experiencing half of what was happening between Marissa and Luke (Ryan should have stuck around), and Marissa being unable to tell Ryan the truth when it comes to her entire life. That should remind you about Summer, and how she is a crappy girlfriend for Marissa, giving her bad advice like that.
