Date of airing: March 3, 2004 (FOX)
Nielsen ratings information: 10.30 million viewers, 6.4/10 in Households, 4.7/12 with Adults 18-49
written by: Josh Schwartz
directed by: Patrick R. Norris
At the end of the episode, when Ryan wondered what Luke is doing and Seth was thinking about the possibility that Luke just discovered fire, I could only think about how Luke was staring at Julie’s ass and repeatedly told her that she is the hottest thing he has ever laid eyes upon, like a teenager would normally tell a much older woman he currently has intercourse with. Seth could not know that by “discovering fire,” he accidentally and unknowingly meant “having sex with a super attractive older woman who is on fire,” which was probably the case right after the cocktail party. The writers did a heck of a job to keep their little affair a secret, even though the room next door was frequented by two main characters close to Julie and Luke – only to have their affair potentially blow in everyone’s faces because Jimmy can add numbers and he already knows what is going to happen when someone specific (*cough* Marissa *cough*) learns about what is happening under the covers between Luke and Julie.
The episode was solid enough. Eddie’s story was predictable from beginning to end. He came over as a sort-of good person in the previous episode (despite his friendly threat to Ryan), but it was clear he would come back to Newport Beach to stir up some trouble and maybe punch his way through to Theresa, which is not the greatest way to get back into the graces of the woman you supposedly love. When there were talks about the cocktail party, it was to be expected that Eddie would make an appearance and that Ryan would end up with a beautiful shiner, because there cannot not be a backyard cocktail party without Ryan getting punched or doing the punching, or going through both, or at least just witnessing it (like during the cotillion when Jimmy and one of the fathers had an altercation with fists). Also, it was a given that Caleb, who does not like the notion of a stray living in his daughter’s house, needed to see that stray doing some violent things at his party, just so Ryan and Caleb will never talk to each other, will never have a relationship, and will never be more than just two people crossing each other multiple times and have absolutely nothing to talk about. They are indifferent towards one another – the rich old fart does not like the rebellious boy, and the rebellious boy is unable to begin to make a connection with that rich old fart, especially after the Gabriella thing from half a season ago. After all, Ryan knows a little something about Caleb’s emotional state that Kirsten might not even be consciously aware of. It is kind of interesting how Ryan’s conflict with Eddie put this sub-story of Ryan and Caleb into the episode, even though I think the writers did not even attempt at focusing on said story.
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| All the guy trouble Ryan has in school... |
It was great to see Theresa and Marissa hang out though – it was the exact opposite of a story compared to Ryan and Oliver. Ryan saw Oliver as a threat to him and Marissa, but Marissa saw that Theresa needed a friend, so she figured that the woman from Chino was not a threat. Then again, Marissa seems to be the making-friends-kinda gal these days. She immediately wanted to be in the palms of the new guy in the Cohen driveway in the pilot episode, because maybe she found him intriguing. She wanted to be Oliver’s friend after the two just met, maybe because she immediately saw the connection between herself and the stranger in the therapist’s waiting room. And now Marissa hoped to strike a good relationship with Theresa. Maybe Marissa is a little too optimistic about relationships with friends, considering she is also secretly an alcoholic, likes to swallow a lot of pills, and is a kleptomaniac. Okay, that kind of sounds like Marissa thinks she needs friends in her life to keep herself away from the thoughts of bad things. That would almost make Ryan the most important person in her life again because it is only because of him that Theresa entered her life at this very fragile moment in Marissa’s life.
Meanwhile, it turns out that the episode had two goodbye girls, making me wonder which one is meant by the episode title, and which ones the writers cared about. Anna had a solid exit, but it was an eventless exit. I liked her hug with Ryan, and I liked the tearful goodbye at the airport with Seth, but it is not like there has been anything to suggest that Anna stays or can be persuaded to stay, so her exit was pretty much an episode-long agenda. On the other hand, there was a back and forth with Theresa, but it was obvious that she would exit as well, since she could not just clean up Ryan’s love life by staying put in Newport Beach and becoming a recurring character. For that, Theresa was not developed enough as a character, and Ryan and Marissa have been taunted as too big a couple in this show. They are the super couple on THE O.C., and not even a recurring role for Theresa would have changed that. She simply had to go.
But hey, at least Ryan had sex again, while Marissa is still waiting for that first intimate moment with her current special one. She is the only one of the gang of friends currently waiting for that experience, which begs the question if that might have contributed to Mischa Barton never feeling fully happy on the set of THE O.C. and if the pressure to have sex was blurring the line between herself and the character she was portraying.
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| Seth says "Goodbye" to a girlfriend for the first time. |
And then there was the adult storyline in the room. I started understanding that Shaunessy did something illegal and his break-in into a hotel room could be compared to Watergate, but the writers still did not manage to get me excited for the story, especially since it seemed to have concluded already. Threatening a potential Kirsten-in-legal-trouble storyline, just to kill it a few scenes later, was the wrong thing to do. Depicting that Sandy went away from his public defender days and decided to be a mean lawyer also did not give me anything, because not for one single second did I believe that this case has changed Sandy’s moral grounds. And in the meantime, the story did what the Balboa Heights story already accomplished for Sandy and Caleb: They do not like each other and they never will, but they will continue to work together for some messed-up legal reason. Because hey, there is conflict in this relationship, and it needs to be told.
