Previously: Pirate prom had total dramz.
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The Man of the Year
Chelsea: Hello, Snark Squadders near and far! My name is Chelsea and I am unicorn-and-wizard staves over the moon to be writing for the venerable establishment that is Snark Squad! The ladies have let me come to you today to recap season three, episode twenty-four. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves… My love for The O.C. started when I found out that Adam Brody was the epitome of my adolescent sexual fantasies, and ended when Marissa tried to kind of sort of be a lesbian? Either way, it’s been a while!
Previouslies are long and meandering, but clearly imply that Sandy has been having an illicit affair with a man (probably not), that Kirsten WILL NOT use her alcoholism to save her marriage (probably will), and that maybe everyone needs to take a hit of that joint Seth has and just calm down and stop punching (definitely not).
When we open, Ryan has just finished beating the shit out of Marissa’s current awful boyfriend (who, according to what Wikipedia tells me, is named Volchok) (M: Snark-pedia would tell you he’s James from Twilight) and based on the artsy camera angles, Ryan is obviously upset about it. But because he’s not a truly awful human being, he apparently decides to drop Volchok off outside the emergency room.
When Ryan is asked who beat the shit out of Volchok, Volchok tells the emergency room tech that he got jumped and didn’t see the guy, thus saving Ryan’s ass. This seems like a weirdly nice thing to do for the guy who just beat your face to a pulp, until Volchok is all “meet me at my place tomorrow, we have to settle this.”
Marines: Bro, no. You need to settle your face blood.
Chelsea: CALLLIFFOOORNNIIAAAA, HERE WE COOOOOOME (have we talked about how amazing this theme song is? Because it is, and we need to). (M: There’s always room for more gushing reminders.)
Marissa wakes up to a cheerily ringing phone, only to find sister Kaitlin on the other – WHO IS THAT AND WHERE IS SHAILENE WOODLEY?! Sorry, some quick googling tells me that this re-cast Kaitlin is Willa Holland.
Who dat, indeed.
Kaitlin is calling because she needs Marissa’s help in intercepting a note from Kaitlin’s school that is currently on it’s way to her mother. Kaitlin is begging Marissa to help her, if Marissa has “even one sisterly bone in her body,” to which I replied “I’ll throw a sisterly bone into your body” because I am hopeless and lewd and a thirteen year old boy. Just as I’m beginning to wonder if this is a situation I should already know about, Marissa promises to help only if Kaitlin tells her “what this is all about”, so PHEW. Wiping the brow on that one.
Ryan wakes up to his cellphone ringing (because cell phone calls are basically just rich-people alarm clocks) (M: A cell phone ringing is basically a sound I ignore, so I definitely won’t wake up to it.) and he’s looking surprisingly well rested for having beat someone and delivered them to medical professionals in the wee hours of the dawn. And, because of course it is, it’s Theresa on the phone. Something about a Korean threesome is brought up before the ominous music plays and Theresa asks Ryan about that “something he had to take care of last night”. The two make some kind of vague plans – it seems that Ryan’s entire schedule is full of “stuff” in the morning and “things to do” in the afternoon, so it’s a miracle he gets any socializing done – and then Ryan hangs up the phone as Seth walks in from the pool house and hands him a cup of coffee. Because they’re basically dating, and if you can’t tell how hard I’m shipping Seth and Ryan then the volume on your computer is down way too low.
Mari: He TOTALLY walks in from the pool house. Huh. There was a sleepover last night.
Chelsea: Seth then goes into a spiel about how good it feels to be honest, how glad he is that he was honest with Summer about getting into Brown. Then Ryan asks Seth if he’s going to tell Sandy and Kirsten about not getting into Brown, and in COMPLETE CONTRADICTION to what he just said, says it would just be better to keep lying to them about it. Ryan, good pseudo-brother that he is, asks him what happens if the Cohens find out before Seth tells them, and Seth simply dismisses him out of hand. Funny, I don’t remember Ryan being the level-headed, good-advice guy.
Mari: He actually really is, when it comes to everyone else. When it comes to his own life, the only advice he hears is PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH.
Chelsea: Back in girl land, Marissa wakes up Summer, who even after all these years is still my favorite. “I wish I could pluck out my eyeballs with a fork and rinse them in a tall glass of ice-water” is widom for the ages. When Marissa mentions the letter she’s supposed to grab for Kaitlin, Summer remembers the lie-napkin she left for Sandy about all Seth’s wrongdoing. And instead of calling Seth, Summer swears things are too good between them and she just needs to go get it herself. It’s also at this point that we get my favorite Summer line of the entire episode: “Oh my God, nausea tsunami”. NAUSEA. TSUNAMI. Someone get this lady a Pulitzer award, already! (M: I can’t, but I CAN make that a new Snark Squad tag…)
FINALLY, we get to see some Sandy Cohen (let’s talk about my love for Peter Gallagher and his eyebrows some other time, preferably over a viewing of Center Stage)! (M: It’s a downright crime that we haven’t #snarkathon-ed that yet. We mention it a lot, though.) He’s just been named Man of the Year, and Sandy seems super excited while Kirsten seems dedicated to just shit all over it. Other things happen, but all I remember about this scene is that Ryan belittles Seth’s manhood and I think it’s flirting and I love it. Also, heavy foreshadowing.
Mari: I feel like they are asking for everything else that happens this episode with all their, “WE DESERVE HAPPINESS” talk. They are bad about being on TV.
Chelsea: When Ryan and Sandy leave to go… do stuff, Summer shows up at the door in what is most definitely a poorly disguised attempt at sneaking into Mr. Cohen’s office and getting the lie-napkin back. But as much of a savant as Summer is with words, girl is horrible at sneaking, so when Seth catches her getting into all of Sandy’s paperwork, her literal only defense is to drag Seth upstairs to make out with him as a distraction. Like I said, girl is bad at sneaking.
Turns out the thing Ryan had to go do was meet Marissa to give her back the money that Volchok stole from the prom (rich people are soooo bad with money given to them at social events – I’m just saying, no one in my high school ever left thousands of dollars unattended, allowing it to be stolen in the first place #checkyourprivledge). Which, then Marissa is all “I can’t believe he stole that” and I’m over here like “really? Because I haven’t seen an episode of this show in over a decade, and have never seen an episode from this season, but I can totally believe it.”
Seth and Summer are, well, making out, discussing Summer’s possibly latent feelings for Sandy – girl, I get you on that one. (M: Who can resist the eyebrows?) But really this whole scene is just about how clear it is that Summer needs to tell Seth about the lie-napkin, and the longer she goes without mentioning the lie-napkin, the worse it’s all going to be. But these two are mildly cute, so my irritation with this scene as a whole floats around, like, a four. But then, oh viewers, we finally get to see Julie, who I will always love for her wanton disregard of how to be a good mother, wife, and person. She’s just too fun to hate, like a deliciously well-groomed Umbridge.
But there she is in all her cleavage-shirt goodness, giving us a brief plot re-cap about how Sandy Cohen is facing charges from the DA (what?!) about his sketchy business partner (huh?!?!) and how weird that is since Sandy is such an upstanding citizen (huzzah!) but it’s veiled under a layer of “but if we know these things, why doesn’t Kirsten know these things?”
Ryan, for some reason, has decided that it would be a SUPER GREAT idea to go back to Volchok’s apartment, as requested, only to find Volchok nursing a cocktail like he’s Don Draper. Ryan attempts this fake-ass apology only to have Volchok ask him to settle the score by going and picking up some mysterious package from some mysterious people to do Volchok a solid. At this point I am literally screaming “DON’T DO IT, RYAN, IT’S PROBABLY DRUGS” at my computer. Because it’s probably drugs.
Wisely, Ryan is trying his best to get out of it when Volchok hits with the one-two punch of “because you think you’re so much better than me” and “your perfect life will get unperfect fast if I charge you with assault”. Ryan feels trapped so he gives in to Volchok’s totally awful idea – EVEN THOUGH it’s the night of Sandy’s big Man of the Year awards dinner, and Ryan is going to have to pull a Freaky Friday to get out of that nonsense (or like that episode of Boy Meets World where Corey wants to go to see wrestling and Topanga’s Sweet Sixteen… #teenTVbetterthanthisTV).
Mari: I’m not entirely sure that this whole, “well, I’ll tell on you,” thing should work as easily as it does, but given Ryan’s record with being arrested for things he didn’t or only half did, I see why he’s choosing to deliver probably drugs.
Chelsea: After the not-commercial break, we’re back at the sunniest high school in the country, which is actually Kaitlin’s boarding school. WHAT’S UP, Pretty Little Liars star Lucy Hale?! I didn’t know you’d be rooming with Marissa’s little sister!
Mari: She looks so little! Her Big Eyes haven’t even grown to full capacity yet.
Chelsea: After saying some lines that I don’t pay attention to because they don’t matter, Marissa and Kaitlin have a tense stand-off in Kaitlin’s doorway about the super mysterious and clearly bad-news-bears letter that Marissa intercepted.
But first we have to shuffle scenes to watch Julie and Kirsten have a conversation that, frankly, isn’t really any of Julie’s business. As the master concern-troll, Julie let’s Kirsten know that Sandy is being investigated by the D.A., and that Julie’s lover-whatever is going to be talking to the D.A. tonight, and Kirsten needs to get on this like now if she want’s to avoid a socialite PR nightmare. Which I feel like maybe shouldn’t be the take-away from your friend’s marital problems? If I were a nicer person, this is where I’d give Julie some credit that maybe she is just trying to keep her friend from going through something awful in the public eye, but I’m not a nicer person.
Ryan and Theresa, in what is clearly some weird social etiquette that keeps them from eating at tables, sit in the doorway to the pool house and make super classist comments about the kind of person who does or doesn’t have a nanny. But it’s cool because she’s poor? And he used to be poor?
I’m kind of not sure on the protocol on this one, but the jokes feel a little assumptive and gross.
Mari: It’s easy to make poor people jokes when you are sitting outside of a pool house, I guess? IDK.
Chelsea: Oh, but then dear watchers, Theresa touches Ryan’s hand for weird nostalgia-reasons and notices his busted ass knuckles and quickly puts two-and-two together. Theresa then breaks it down for Ryan, getting super pissed that he left her alone with a bunch of bitchy white people she didn’t know (I’m adding the bitchy and white part, although the subtext is there) in order to go punch some guy’s face. And Ryan… doesn’t really do anything because Theresa is 100% spot-fucking-on.
Then Ryan’s cellphone rings, of which Theresa is highly suspicious, and when Ryan tries to get her back on the “we’re from the same wrong side of the streets so I can tell you these things” bandwagon, Theresa reminds him that her life is WAY different now, and she wants no part of whatever this clearly illegal situation is.
Theresa reminds Ryan that there are guys in the world that don’t fight, and that while she will always love him, Ryan is much more like her brother (which I’m assuming means lacking common sense with a short trigger and propensity for punching things) than any guy she’s willing to be with right now. The last time I saw Theresa in an episode I completely hated her, but this? That I’m seeing now? I like this girl. (M: SAME.) Team Theresa: 1; Team Ryan: 0.
Back to Sandy (yay!) and Kristen (meh.) as the two sit down for a dimly-lit office conversation about how bad these D.A. charges are going to be for Sandy. It would help a lot if I knew what charges they were talking about, but again – too. lazy. to. Google.
Mari: If you want complete honesty, I’ve more recently watched this entire season, and *I* don’t really get what these charges are about. Shady hospital. Something.
Chelsea: When Kristen tells Sandy that his drama has already landed on the family, Sandy Cohen’s Eyebrows of Extreme Expression enter their most extreme mode – upset confusion. Julie then decides to drown her sorrows in a half-full bottle of under-sink vodka (kind of like bathtub gin, but easier to carry with you) despite her previously alluded to alcoholism, while Sandy takes some kind of contract out of his wall-safe. Normally none of these things would seems suspicious, but the use of the creepy-strings-based score clearly lets us know that BAD THINGS are happening here.
We re-join Marissa with Kaitlin and Kaitlin’s roommate as they creep on some jock-boy lacrosse player, which I only mention because Kaitlin’s roommate gives Summer a run for her money on wit this episode by coining the term “lacrosstitutes”. We’ll leave the implicit slut-shaming of this comment for another day.
Kaitlin and Kaitlin’s roommate then school Marissa on the in-things of the next generation (a recreational use of adderall and lipstick parties? I’ll admit I had to look the second one up because I too, apparently, have become old and uncool) (M: I just looked it up too and had the appropriate KIDS THESE DAYS look on my face and all…) and explain that it’s Jock Boy’s word against Kaitlin’s that Kaitlin stole the crest from the headmistress’s office – I think this is what’s happening? This is where Kaitlin’s roommate uses the word ‘obvi’ for the third time in a single conversation, and also happens to be the first time I punched myself in the face this episode. It’s also the moment that Marissa agrees to basically attempt to assault a minor so that she can get into his room and see if he’s hiding the crest thing? To exonerate her sister? GUYS, this shit is so confusing and so unnecessary and is all basically a ploy to get Marissa to hit on this high school jock. Which Marissa seems inappropriately excited about.
Back at Volchok’s dirty apartment, it’s probably super-unconscious racism that the first black person I’ve ever seen on The O.C. is also the guy doing shady crime things for large wads of money. This is also the moment we learn that the neighborhood into which Ryan must now sneak is, apparently, his neighborhood. So there’s no way this could go wrong.
When Seth goes to tell Kirsten he’s leaving, he finds her sleeping in her bed with a coffee-cup on the nightstand and becomes highly suspect. BIG SURPRISE his suspicious are totally justified because he picks up that coffee mug to sniff and daaaaaaayum. He pulls the good-son move and begs off his date with Summer, claiming it’s because he doesn’t want her to catch whatever bug his mom has. Only, you can’t catch alcoholism.
Mari: I feel like catching mild alcoholism is half of what college is about.
Chelsea: Okay, that’s a fair point!
After Summer leaves, Seth tucks Kirsten in and cleans out her coffee-mug-turned-vodka-glass before returning to his room. I feel for Seth here because it would really, really be awful to watch a parent engaged in that situation. But also, Seth, maybe don’t keep that giant bag of weed clearly visible in your desk drawer?
After another commercial break (which we don’t have to endure anymore! Thanks, streaming media!) we’re back to Marissa in her tiny skirt trying to help her ridiculous sister with some private school shenanigans. Marissa tries a number of creative cons, including the foreign exchange student gambit and the “I’m a stripper your friends bought for your birthday” ploy. Anyway, because this plot arc is wholly unnecessary, and because he is a teenage boy, Marissa literally just asks him if he wants to see her naked. Obviously he does, and I feel this should have just been her tactic from the beginning.
Back over in Concerned Son land, Seth is trying to grab a moment to talk with Kristen, but she keeps trying to brush him off to go to a meeting, which OF COURSE makes him all
because he knows she’s been drinking. But Kirsten completes the brush-off and is out the door while Seth continues being all “guuuuurl, for real”. Meanwhile, over in Sandy’s neck of the woods, he’s sitting down with suit-folk to talk about Sandy’s shady business partner and blah blah blah boring legal stuff I don’t care about because I don’t know anything about this story line. Other than they’ll have to close the hospital? And this makes Sandy sad, because sick kids?
Ah, and no back to Ryan. Who as apparently gone with Volchok to sit outside the person’s house they’re about to rob in the middle of the fucking afternoon.
Which is, of course, a bad idea. Also, he took the Cohen’s car to do the illegal thing. I’m telling you, these guys are so bad at crime.
Mari: I was so confused. I really believed they were going to go pick up drugs so when they parked here, I just… I couldn’t. It’s so, so bad.
Chelsea: SOOOO BAD! Like, it’s not that I want Ryan to be good at crime, but this is just embarrassing!
But not as bad as Marissa is at being a fake-stripper, which we learn when we re-join her and that random lacrosse guy at her sister’s private school (I’m running out of transitions mojo, guys, and this episode is all over the place!). She’s dragged him into some weird janitor’s closet and demanded if he doesn’t strip to his boxers she’ll have to refund his imaginary friends their imaginary money for her imaginary stipper services. Which he buys, because this guys is literally just a thinking boner. She then ties him to a chair all sexy-like, and CAN YOU NOT SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING?! They steal his pants and run away and it’s like that scene from Now and Then only not nearly as amazing.
Summer, in her continued efforts to get the lie-napkin back, crashes Sandy in his study and awkwardly just kind of waits around for Seth, looking awkwardly at the envelope SO OFTEN that Sandy notices, picks it up, and the jig is up. Despire her pleas not to, and because Sandy is THE BEST EVER, opens it right in front of her. Oh man, the way his face falls when he reads the lie-napkin is almost enough to make the show worth watching, all on it’s own! AND THEN SUMMER TELLS SANDY SETH DIDN’T GET INTO BROWN, and (as we all knew it would be) Sandy’s heart is broken.
In a surprising turn of events, Kirsten is actually at her AA meeting, being convincingly torn about the fact that her and Sandy are having problems, and while it isn’t the reason for her drinking, it definitely doesn’t help.
In the next scene, Seth and Sandy try to help each other but fail miserably. Sandy tells Seth he knows about the Brown rejection, and that Seth’s been smoking pot in their house, and Seth tells Sandy that if he weren’t so obsessed with his hospital project he would see that Kristen is drinking again and maybe it’s not the best time for Seth to be leaving for college. The whole thing is a bundle of hurt feelings, lies told and untold, and actually makes me legitimately sad for the Cohen family. Seth walks out and everything just feels yucky.
Mari: Well. All of Seth’s bad behavior came out at a time when Sandy had the least amount of self-righteous ground to stand on. Yay? No?
Chelsea: When we go and see what the Wonder Crime Twins are up to, we find them still in the middle of their brilliant plan where Ryan provides Volchok ‘cover’ by lending an air of legitimacy to why they’re prowling around some rich dude’s house, and then waits outside for him in the driveway while Volchok breaks in. Turns out Volchok wants to steal a Mercedes, and when Volchok can’t pop open the door, he just smashes a window because that’s smart. Clearly Volchok sucks at stealing cars, and the car alarms has brought around neighborhood security. Ryan then does the ONLY SMART THING he’s done all episode and doesn’t get into the car with Volchok. Even when Volchok slings forth the ultimate rhetorical motivation: “quit being a bitch, man”.
Hard to resist, but Ryan flees to the woods.
Mari: Since you used a Supernatural gif, I feel like we can borrow a misogyny shot from that show’s Snark Squad Drinking Game! Bottoms up, everyone!
Chelsea: Oh yay! It was starting to feel odd, doing an OC wrap-up without consuming any alcohol!
Marissa says goodbye to her sister; the two have forced bonding; this scene is pointless.
Sandy Cohen is about to approach Kirsten about her drinking. The two of them have a very honest conversation about Kirsten’s relapse and their lack of communication. The whole things feels very real and reminds me why I love the Cohen family so much. They both say sorry and hold hands, and I am left completely snarkless, if only momentarily.
Kirsten then goes to talk to Seth. Kirsten sits down for a real parenting moment (few and far between in Prime Time Teen Drama land) and tells Seth that neither she nor Sandy have given up on their family, and asks Seth to go to Sandy’s Man of the Year dinner. As this is happening, Ryan makes his way out of the woods to call Marissa. Side note: I don’t remember there being such an expansive wooded area in the neighborhoods of Orange County. Lots of swimming pools and golf courses, but not a lot of woodland, so I can’t help but wonder if Ryan was just running in really tiny circles for a couple hours. I doubt it, but I hope so. Anywho, Marissa tells Ryan he can meet her at her house and off he scampers.
We pop back and forth in these next two scenes between Seth and Julie. Seth, in his continued efforts to be an asshole, smokes a joint in his father’s office while he’s there picking up a poster of the hospital that his dad needs. Julie, talking to her boyfriend-whatever, seems to have been replaced with a pod-person, as she’s talking about how the Cohens are family, and even if Sandy is about to be arrested, she stands by the people she loves and doesn’t judge him. This is also the only scene to make me shoot coffee out of my nose – coincidence?
Julie insists on taking a cab to Sandy’s Man of the Year party, since her boyfriend-whatever won’t be going. When Seth’s phone rings, he just casually sets the joint down on his father’s desk to answer it (um, fire hazard!). It’s Kirsten, wanting an ETA, so Seth leaves with the poster he came to claim. Only he doesn’t pick the joint back up (party foul!) and it falls into a VERY poorly placed trashcan that happens to be full of paper, which of course starts smoldering. Again, how am I the only person so aware of fire hazards? And then the whole office catches fire.
Mari: Don’t do drugs, kids, or else you’ll burn entire buildings down.
Chelsea: Back at Sandy’s party, the DA shows up and Sandy tries to make jokes. We flash over to Ryan and Marissa for a hot minute so that Ryan can set up an alibi for tonight’s WORST CAR THEFT EVER, and even though she’s hella dubious, Marissa gives in. Julie’s boyfriend-whatever shows up at Sandy’s party, and Sandy starts his Man of the Year speech. Only HUGE TWIST HE TURNS IT DOWN! Sandy turns down the award, announces that the hospital is kaput, and that he’s planning on fully cooperating with the D.A.’s investigation.
It’s also at this point that Seth realizes what a completely awful son he’s been and gets all choked up. However, he gets his when arrested for potential arson, which is exactly what happens next. Now, maybe I’ve just been watching too much Making a Murderer lately, but I am suspect that the police, in the hour since the fire started, were able to suss out Seth Cohen as a suspect. BUT nevertheless, Seth is hauled off in handcuffs, the melancholy acoustic music rolls, and we are left wondering – BUT WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE COHENS?!
And we’re done, Snark Squadders! Thanks again so much to the Snark Squad ladies for letting me guest post, and let’s not forget tonight’s take-away, you guys: don’t steal cars during the day. And take your joints home with you. Much snarky love!
Next time on The OC: Season finale time, complete with death in S04 E25 – The Graduates.
A collector of coffee cups, a lover of books with broken binding, and the one true Ben/Leslie shipper. Feel free to check out all my bookish and pop culture nerdgasms over at www.youtube.com/TheReadingOutlaw!
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
