Date of airing: December 16, 2004 (FOX)
Nielsen ratings information: 6.27 million viewers, 4.0/6 in Households, 2.7/8 with Adults 18-49
written by: Josh Schwartz
directed by: Tony Wharmby
For a weekly soap opera, this happened to be a wonderful episode. The illegitimate daughter twist came around nicely and was not held back for multiple episodes for the sake of constructed drama. It was instead turned into some great character drama full of emotion, during which I almost teared up myself as well, especially when Seth and Lindsay were on the beach and talking about what it is like to be a Cohen, or when Kirsten and Lindsay were hugging it out at the end, welcoming each other to the crazy Cohen/Nichol family. Those were surprisingly beautiful moments, but I am already scared that they won’t have any outcome on the family situation, because I remember Lindsay not being this deeply involved with the show after this episode, which means her exit is pretty much around the corner, now that she has been involved in the biggest twist of the show and her story and happiness can only go up from here. Until Ryan cheats on her with Marissa, because why the heck not?
Of course, it was totally coincidental and a bit absurd that all the main characters and involved guest characters would find themselves in the Cohen kitchen to witness the revelation and resurrection of a huge skeleton in Caleb’s closet (it is kind of funny, all credited cast members – both main and guest stars – appeared in that scene, that usually does not happen in television). I know why Julie needed to be in that scene – her follow-up slap on Caleb's face happened to be extremely funny in a weird sense – but maybe Jimmy was not really needed to be there, and maybe Marissa and Summer were not needed to witness the spectacle, because maybe this should have just been a family affair after all.
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| A Yamaclaus makes Ryan a confused man. |
But I guess the Chrismukkah miracle was the focal point of the episode and still had to happen, so it had to involve characters not involved in the high-stakes drama. At least that part of the episode worked extremely well, although I was wondering why Summer was actually interested in a Chrismukkah miracle when she was not particularly interested in anything else around this time, let alone Chrismukkah in general during the previous season. I wondered why she was so into the holiday that she felt she needed to save it before everyone’s emotion was about to go down the drain. It is not like Summer had a particularly great Chrismukkah before. She even recapped it herself: She got dumped by Seth after appearing in a Wonder Woman costume. She already suffered through a bad Chrismukkah, which was her first and only Chrismukkah, so why would she be interested in getting involved in another one?
I am also thankful for the simple fact that Ryan (and Seth) was not (were not) forced to speak the truth that they knew the truth for half a day longer than Lindsay. I was imagining Lindsay asking Ryan if he knew about it, and Ryan would have told her the truth, and the two would have never exchanged words ever again, but there they were at the Wheeler house – she was sad and emotional and about to kiss this version of life goodbye, and he did not really know what to do or say to her. She had a proper reaction to the revelation, and he just wanted things to be better, because he figures that Lindsay can be his girlfriend and does not deserve this kind of hurt right now. No reason to destroy that, just because Ryan knew about Lindsay and Caleb before Lindsay did, which is definitely breakup material in their teenage world.
On the other side of the medallion, I did not know what Summer’s positive attitude was all about. She hung out with Seth, she forced him to come Christmas tree shopping with her, and she led him under a mistletoe, so she could give him a kiss on the cheek. Girl, do you even know what you want? Because you look like you do not know what you want. For multiple episodes, Summer was berating Seth for even talking to her when she was hanging with her should-be boyfriend Zach, but in this episode, it felt like all that drama never happened, and with Zach gone for the holidays, Summer falls back into the Cohen life as if she never stopped living in it. It was obvious that Summer’s positive attitude led to the second half of the episode and the Chrismukkah miracle, but that behavior bites itself with the one from the previous episodes. I would go so far as to say that Summer is acting in an inconsistent manner, and that dampens the fun I have with THE O.C. right now.
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| Welcome to the Cohen family, where more drama awaits you. |
And then there are the adult stories. Kirsten in the closet was a good idea, because I figured she needed to live through some emotional trauma as well. Jimmy and Julie doing it on his sailboat is also a good idea, because this might confuse the heck out of Marissa, who might have been waiting for that to happen, but who might not care about it at this moment and who will most likely hate what is happening here when she does indeed find out.
Also, with Caleb being the most hated man in
the Cohen/Nichol/Cooper family, chances are the writers will use those
conflicts to make some great drama out of the rest of the season. I
would definitely approve, because the show did not have a lot of exciting
adult drama so far. I usually disliked the adult storylines, but this episode made them dramatic enough for me to connect to them, so here is to hoping that the writers figured out how to make that narrative intriguing for me again.
