IMO, The OC had a spectacularly strong first season and then slowly started to decline after that. While certain characters and relationships were still given good development after Season 1, overall the show seemed to suffer from a lack of focus and overly long seasons which dragged out unnecessary drama and introduced too many different storylines, resulting in Ending Fatigue and Darkness Induced Audience Apathy.

With the exception of the Oliver Storyline, the first season of The OC is a fantastically written season, which establishes all the characters and their varying trials and issues, provides solid characterisation and builds the central relationships of the show beautifully. The OC Pilot is one of my favourite Pilots ever and wonderfully sets up the dynamics of the show. Almost every storyline is well-developed and well-written, drawing the audience in and letting us get to know the characters on a really deep and personal level, while managing to maintain a perfect balance of melodrama, subtle comedy and real-life issues. Using Ryan as the Audience Surrogate who gets introduced to the wealthy and dramatic world of Orange County and slowly sees the ugliness beneath the shiny exterior worked perfectly and allowed the audiences to get to know the characters and community of the show along with Ryan.

Unfortunately, every season after Season 1 suffers from a lack of direction and increasingly lacklustre storylines. Season 2 starts out strong, with Ryan and Seth both shown to be lost at the beginning of the season and having to find one another and make their way home but after the first few episodes the season starts to decline. Lindsey was a terrible character and a poor substitute for Marissa and she and Ryan had zero chemistry, which made their romance all the more tedious. It was just painful to watch Marissa suffer all season watching Ryan fall for someone else. Zack was another boring character who served no purpose other than to keep Seth and Summer apart, which was also really grating. And even the adults had storylines which were very hard to watch, such as Sandy and Kirsten’s deteriorating marriage and Julie’s disastrous affair with Jimmy and the effect it had on her sham marriage to Caleb. While there are some very enjoyable episodes tucked into the mess, the season doesn’t really find its feet again until the last handful of episodes, with the introduction of Trey and his messed up relationship with Ryan, Kirsten’s alcoholism and the amazing finale. But overall, Season 2 can be hard to sit through.

That being said, the badness of Season 2 is nothing compared to the trainwreck that is Season 3. Removing Marissa from the core group was a terrible idea and the new characters introduced are, once again, very lacklustre, especially Johnny, who was one of the most useless characters to ever grace the show. Putting him in between Ryan and Marissa in order to once again cause drama between the two (honestly, why couldn’t this show let those two be happy?) was beyond irritating, especially because the actor had no chemistry with Mischa, and Marissa only really seemed to latch on to Johnny because she felt sorry for him. Seth turns into a raging idiot halfway through the season and decides that lying to and breaking up with Summer is somehow the best thing to do, which made zero sense. The storyline of Sandy taking over the Newport Group was boring, and I can barely even remember was Kirsten and Julie were doing all season. And while the season finale was amazing and heartbreaking, killing off Marissa Cooper was the biggest mistake the show ever made. Which leads us to …

Season 4. Look, I actually don’t mind Season 4 because it restores the lighter tone from Season 1 and there are some very entertaining and fun episodes sprinkled throughout the season. I like the personal growth that Julie Cooper goes through and her and Kirsten’s friendship is a highlight. But there are two big issues with Season 4 which I cannot reconcile with and that is that the show does not give the characters adequate time to grieve and deal with the aftermath of Marissa’s death and the rushed development of the Ryan/Taylor ship. All the fallout from Marissa’s death is literally wrapped up within the first four episodes and then the rest of the season she is barely mentioned and Taylor’s ruthless and stalker-y pursuit of Ryan is highly uncomfortable and kind of undermines how much Marissa meant to Ryan and how hard it really should have been for him to move on. The season finale is also kind of overly saccharine, although I do love the parallel of Ryan seeing a homeless kid and offering him help with Sandy reaching out to him in the Pilot.

This all being, The OC has some really strong characterisation and many of the characters undergo incredible growth. Ryan Atwood goes from a violent, distrustful and isolated teen, to a warm, open young adult, who learns how to curb his more violent tendencies and makes something of himself. Summer Roberts starts the series as a vapid and self-centered Alpha Bitch and somehow morphs into an incredibly compassionate, socially aware activist, who learns that she is so much more than just Orange County and the frivolous lives of those who inhabit it. Seth Cohen develops from a self-centered and judgmental introvert into someone who can selflessly let the woman he loves go to find herself and become who she needs to be, and discovers an inner strength and peace. The adults all grow and change in their own way, in particular Julie Cooper who starts the series as a judgmental and cruel Trophy Wife and ends the series a single mother finishing college and learning to stand on her own two feet.

the o.c. meme: ten scenes [4/10]

By ‘everyone’ do you mean the fandom or in-Universe? If you mean the fandom, well, there’s no surprise there, The O.C. fandom used to hate on Marissa Cooper for practically everything. Reminded me a lot of how the Smallville fandom used to constantly (and irrationally) hate on Lana Lang.

While it was definitely frustrating to watch Marissa trust Oliver so blindly, it’s easy to forget that while we saw Oliver’s dark side, Marissa didn’t. All she saw was a lost and lonely teen whose parents didn’t really care about him and who desperately needed someone in his corner. In other words, she saw herself in Oliver, and given that almost no one helped her, she wanted to be there for him so he wouldn’t feel alone the way she did. Marissa was someone with so much love and compassion in her that she almost didn’t know how to turn away someone in need.

Also, despite his mental illnesses, Oliver was a very smart and manipulative person. He knew exactly how to prey on Marissa’s empathy and sympathy and only allowed Ryan to see his dark side, cleverly sowing discord between Ryan and Marissa until he broke all forms of trust between them and had Marissa all to himself. He essentially took advantage of Marissa’s trusting and caring nature and inserted himself into her life, subtly removing everyone else from it. In a way it almost mirrored an abusive relationship and the way abusers isolate their victims from everyone else in their lives in order to have control and possession of them.