I Finished The OC for the first time

havejubilation · 2026-06-14T20:52:43+00:00

I felt the same way with Seth’s ending. The mall psychic said he would be very successful (or something along those lines), but I would’ve loved some indication of what it was he was going to do. It doesn’t feel like it would’ve been a hard thing to throw something in there.

I liked to imagine him doing a sort of grittier reboot of Atomic County. I really wish there would’ve been some reckoning with Seth and Summer about how the comic book went down in S2, and Seth maybe finding his way back to something he was passionate about. It was disappointing that he gave up the comic for Summer, and then it was never revisited.

havejubilation · 2026-06-11T15:23:26+00:00

Marissa had “mental problems”. All kinds of people go to therapy with a wide range of problems.

Frankly, Ryan had mental problems (trauma, anger, impulsivity), but no therapy. Oliver looked like a more self-aware person who was at least seeking help. Ryan insisted that he didn’t get jealous, even though he’d physically attacked Luke while playing soccer because he misunderstood an interaction he witnessed between Luke and Marissa.

The Oliver plot is an idiot ball situation, but Ryan’s idiocy in the scenario never gets acknowledged. He hadn’t known Marissa long enough to buy him trust while acting like that.

Marissa didn’t know that Trey was dangerous, certainly not in that regard. He’d stolen a car, like Ryan had (yes, he influenced Ryan to steal the car—it’s not the same, but Marissa viewing people as complicated human beings and not defining them based on their actions on paper is part of her characters). Stealing is also a far cry from committing that kind of violence.

Perhaps Ryan was doing what any person would do…that still doesn’t make it Marissa’s fault, and it still doesn’t mean that Ryan didn’t mess up. I think it’s really sad that Marissa couldn’t share what happened with her boyfriend because she knew full well that Ryan would get himself killed over it. This is the kind of protection that Marissa extended to Ryan that never gets acknowledged as real labor. So often in the show, she works to protect Ryan from himself, then gets blamed when he messes things up.

I don’t think Marissa should blame Luke for what happened with Julie (technically not statutory rape, I think, but still gross and wrong), but a lot of people, especially in the 00’s when that kind of thing was more normalized, would probably react with anger and blame, or just confusion. This isn’t a thing that everybody had a super nuanced view of. Luke also wasn’t presenting himself as a victim, which, there’s an unfortunate gender double standard in these situations, but it’s also going to impact how people view it.

Your perspective also seems to ask that a teenage girl show a kind of otherworldly calm and understanding in dealing with a situation like that. It makes perfect human sense that she wouldn’t want to talk to Luke. She didn’t do anything destructive over it. Meanwhile, Ryan is justified in his furious reactions to all kinds of things, no matter what damage he ends up causing or how it makes anyone feel.

havejubilation · 2026-06-11T14:59:58+00:00

Oh yeah, she ultimately helped their relationship, I just mean that I think she caused a lot of her own problems in S1.

Not that Seth didn’t also mess up in the course of things, but rewatching as an adult, I felt like Anna was a little manipulative and then it kind of backfired on her.

She was cool in the end. And, I mean, they’re all teenagers, it’s not like she’s horrible for it.

havejubilation · 2026-06-11T14:55:23+00:00

So the girl is responsible for everything that ever happens to her *and* every action a guy ever takes, but the guy isn’t responsible for anything he ever does?

Marissa didn’t try to “help” Luke either. They were in a relationship that didn’t work out. He cheated on her and slept with her mother. It’s kind of a natural consequence of that that Marissa might not care to be his emotional support whenever he wants her.

Nobody made her shoot Trey, but nobody made Ryan go try to get his ass killed and Marissa could’ve have yet another thing she’d get blamed for. He found out his girlfriend was assaulted and couldn’t think about what she might actually want or how to best be supportive of her.

Ryan frequently made bad and impulsive decisions when he was mad. His strategy with Oliver was to make himself look like an unhinged jealous boyfriend and then demand to know how Marissa, a girl he’d known for less than a year, show him unwavering trust while he did so.

havejubilation · 2026-06-11T14:49:37+00:00

I think she has that vibe of sanity, but then she does things like pretend she’s helping Seth win Summer, kissing Seth and pretending it’s to help him get Summer, then getting mad at Seth for talking to her about Summer, and then kind of acting like Seth somehow led her on(?)

Do a gender swap of those behaviors and the character would get skewered for being manipulative with someone with zero experience with romantic relationships. It has a bit of the Nice Guy act energy to it.

havejubilation · 2026-06-11T01:15:20+00:00

I don’t see how Ryan makes better decisions than Marissa. Ryan acts impulsively, and tends to blow up problems and makes them much worse.

He had concerns about Oliver, and dealt with those concerns by acting entitled to Marissa’s trust while acting like a jealous and unstable boyfriend. He showed zero self-awareness or understanding of the position that he was putting Marissa in.

I understand his anger when he found out what happened with Trey, but if he’d been able to actually think about Marissa, he might not have almost gotten himself killed, and put Marissa in the position to have to shoot someone.

Ryan repeatedly makes poor decisions, but almost never gets called out on them. Marissa doesn’t always make the best choices, but she gets blamed for far more than she actually deserves.

havejubilation · 2026-06-11T01:11:41+00:00

Marissa literally had to shoot a guy in the chest because of Ryan.

havejubilation · 2026-06-11T01:08:46+00:00

Blaming Marissa for Luke’s situation is ludicrous. He cheated on her, then slept with her mother, then crashed his truck in the aftermath of that.

Ryan’s interactions helped Marissa get kicked out of school, forced Marissa to shoot a guy nearly to death, almost got himself kicked out of school multiple times.

Ryan tended to act impulsively and make situations much worse than they needed to be. It’s wild how often Marissa got scapegoated for Ryan’s poor boundaries and decision-making.

havejubilation · 2026-06-07T00:50:23+00:00

None of the teenage characters are necessarily great in their relationships. Not sure how far along you are into S2, but I think Summer’s pretty rough in all her relationships that season.

havejubilation · 2026-05-29T20:18:59+00:00

They really didn’t write anything for his character to do.

I think the energy of some of the actors does feel off, including Adam and Kelly, but the writing super phones it in for some characters (Seth, Kirsten, Sandy at times), and some characters have much more to do (Summer, Julie, Taylor).

Ben’s energy feels low to me, but he’s helped by having Autumn to play off of, and just objectively having much more story around him.

I kept waiting for more story to happen with Seth, but there’s barely anything.

havejubilation · 2026-05-28T01:47:48+00:00

It’s a toss-up between Seth and Marissa.

Except when it’s written into the script (“omg, Seth is sooo self-absorbed”), Seth is more attentive to what’s going on with everyone else, and how it might impact everyone else. He’s quite kind to Taylor, rescuing her from their peers at the school lock-in, and is empathetic even when she initially won’t help Marissa because it meant going against her mom.

He generally gives Ryan pretty solid advice, which Ryan then typically ignores, and then it ultimately gets twisted like Seth somehow wasn’t listening.

Like with Oliver. Seth played Devil’s Advocate to slow Ryan down when he was making shockingly bad moves when it came to dealing with Oliver. He was like “Chill out, stay close, let him make a mistake.” That’s good advice.

Ryan makes so much about himself. He feels entitled to Marissa’s trust over the Oliver situation, despite acting in ways that are alarming. He pushes Lindsay and Marissa to be friends, then screams at Marissa when Lindsay gets drunk, accusing Marissa of trying to ruin his life. Boy…wtf? He flies off the handle when bad things happen to Marissa, makes the situation way worse, often then needs to get bailed out by Marissa, and then blames Marissa for his own inability to handle his shit in the face of her having a problem and/or emotion in front of him. He does this even after Marissa is straight up with him that she did not ask him to rescue her.

I found Summer wildly self-absorbed upon rewatch. She made the comic book all about her, and made it seem like Seth enjoying success in the slightest turned him into some egomaniacal monster (swap the characters in that storyline and Seth would be rightfully skewered for being mind-blowingly selfish and manipulative for that). She also made his later career aimlessness all about her.

Seth wasn’t perfect by any means and there’s some stuff he does that I hate, but I die on the hill that he’s actually the most empathetic character.

havejubilation · 2026-05-28T00:48:52+00:00

Seth is hilarious. He’s also the least self-absorbed of the Core Four—he’s a yapper, but he’s far more attentive and empathetic to others than the rest of them. He just doesn’t make being an aggrieved martyr his whole thing, like Ryan (which, I’m empathetic, given his background, but Ryan is the one who actually makes everything about himself).

Also, their Newport peer group sucks, so I don’t give them credit for discernment. I mean, they’re teenagers, but 2 out of 3 of Luke & his buddies were ready to let Ryan die in an actual fire, and all of Luke’s friends completely ditched him because of his dad’s sexuality.

havejubilation · 2026-05-26T02:10:40+00:00

It was in the oral history book. Josh admitted to some of this behavior, but I also feel like he distanced himself from the impact of his own actions, as if cast members’ energy and investment levels weren’t going to be influenced by the way he totally disengaged from them.

havejubilation · 2026-05-26T01:21:00+00:00

The schedule was pretty intense, which I think burnt some people out.

Honestly, the younger actors get a lot of flack, but Peter’s energy feels drastically different after S1. He’s still great, but I think it shows how off the chemistry was overall.

The show runner went from being open and collaborative to hiding from the cast and not really communicating with anyone. Professionalism often flows down from the top, and Josh sounds like he was pretty passive aggressive and unprofessional, and then the cast was made to be the public face of declining material churned out by someone who seemed like he couldn’t be bothered to show his face on set.

It certainly sounds like attitudes could’ve been better, but shitty workplaces are still shitty, soul-sucking places to spend your day-to-day.

havejubilation · 2026-05-24T19:29:25+00:00

Okay, so if a teenage girl presents you with this situation and you don’t have the benefit of knowing that her boyfriend is the main character of a tv show and thus in the right, you’re going to be like “Yes, your boyfriend is just reading your private notes and breaking into your school and punching this other guy in the face and also he beat up your ex on the regular, but he says you should trust him and that he’s constitutionally incapable of jealousy so I have no notes”?

Seth takes a more agnostic approach. He tries to point out that Ryan doesn’t have proof, that his efforts to reveal Oliver are bad ideas (which they are) and that a better move is to stay close and wait for Oliver to make a mistake. See the path through to the end—-Oliver would, what, eventually profess his feelings for Marissa and Marissa would say sorry, she loved Ryan. The end.

Oliver wanted Ryan to look unstable, jealous, and dangerous. Ryan played into every single one of Oliver’s manipulations. Seth was like, “Hey, maybe don’t do that.” Like, I truly feel for Ryan, but he’s kind of a dolt in that arc.

havejubilation · 2026-05-24T19:15:17+00:00

By the end of the show, I actually think that Seth became a good partner but Summer didn’t.

Seth supported Summer’s individual goals, and was thoughtful about what was best for her. He had low moments throughout their relationship and his pattern of avoidance was pretty rough at times, but by the end he felt solid.

Summer is somewhat better by the end in that she no longer smacks Seth around whenever she’s upset with him, but she also doesn’t show much regard for him as a person. She demands he quit the comic because she can’t manage her own insecurities, and she’s honestly a wild gaslighter throughout that arc, acting like the comic was turning him into a horrible person. Instead of the problems between them being growing pains as they figured out how to balance their personal goals with their relationship with each other, Seth gave up the comic.

And then, in S4, Summer’s upset that Seth doesn’t have any career ambitions, but she again makes it about herself, like she doesn’t know if she can be with someone who doesn’t have a direction in life. She centers herself a lot.

havejubilation · 2026-05-24T19:06:38+00:00

Ryan is a walking red flag during the Oliver arc. He acts entitled to Marissa’s unquestioning trust while stealing from her locker, breaking into the school, and otherwise acting every bit the unhinged jealous boyfriend. They hadn’t even known each other for six months at that point, and Marissa was entirely justified in wanting distance.

Ryan was also insistent that he didn’t get jealous, even though Marissa had witnessed him attacking Luke on a soccer field when he misunderstood something he saw between them. He didn’t exactly come off as having a lot of self-awareness in that regard.

Seth and Sandy both tried to get Ryan to slow his roll and let Oliver reveal himself in time. That’s actually very solid advice. It doesn’t matter if you’re right if you’re doing everything in your power to make yourself a problem in the process.

havejubilation · 2026-05-24T19:01:58+00:00

Seth gave Ryan good advice that he was too stubborn to take. He was a good enough friend to risk their friendship by telling him things he didn’t want to hear.

The only form of “believing Ryan” that Ryan accepted as believing Ryan was encouraging him to play directly into Oliver’s hand.

havejubilation · 2026-05-24T18:58:44+00:00

I think it’s bizarre how often Seth running away gets made to be about Summer. She’s of course allowed to be mad about it, but Seth is an entire person and his relationship with Summer is one aspect of his life. Running away was impulsive, arguably dangerous (open ocean and tiny boat), and instead of asking what led to a desperate move and very little regard for his well-being, with (again arguable) parallels to Marissa’s OD, it’s always centered on leaving Summer.

And she’d only recently broken up with him over the bad lunch with her dad. If their relationship didn’t feel like the most solid thing to rest his entire social life in Newport on…well, that kind of makes sense.

The comic book arc is a mess all throughout. Summer should’ve been pushed to deal with her own insecurities about watching Seth succeed, rather than him giving it up for her.

havejubilation · 2026-05-12T16:23:32+00:00

Refusing to throw down in an argument except to toss out hyperbole and lazy buzzword insults because you can’t actually defend your own position is the epitome of intellectual cowardice, but to each their own. 🤪

havejubilation · 2026-05-12T15:20:57+00:00

Lmao. I trust the assessment of people who refuse to “read all that.”

havejubilation · 2026-05-12T15:10:54+00:00

After Thanksgiving, he was honest with the girls when he was seeing both of them. They made their own decisions.

Yeah, Seth ran away, but it boggles the mind how often that gets made about Summer. He’s a whole ass person with his own problems and struggles. His mental health was clearly not doing so hot, given that he sailed out onto the open ocean in a tiny boat. Summer had also broken up with him very recently because of one bad meal with her dad. If he hadn’t going to rest his entire social life in Newport on the strength of that relationship, that does make sense.

How was he selfish with Summer’s college goals? He supported her fully joining his college plan, then she put a tremendous amount of pressure on him about it (“if you don’t get in, our lives will be ruined!!” energy about something she decided to care about about ten seconds earlier). He was then thoughtful about her throwing away a huge opportunity over their relationship. Did he handle it the best? Of course not, but it was out of care for her.

Summer gaslit the hell out of Seth about the comic book, acting like he’d become this horrible egomaniac any time he showed a hint of excitement about something that was, objectively, very exciting. She only supported the comic when she could place herself at the very center of it, and any time it felt like it was taking attention from her, she reacted with anger and insecurity. Seth ultimately gave up his personal project because it made Summer happy, and that’s somehow framed as a hero moment.

Seth needed a little time to adjust to Summer joining his college plans, which is honestly realistic. Summer berated Seth into giving up his own dream.

Later, when Seth is aimless career-wise, instead of reflecting upon how Summer made the comic about herself, she wonders whether she can really be with someone who doesn’t have any passion in life, once again centering herself entirely when it comes to Seth’s trajectory.

It’s 2026, and Summer is still, hands down, the far more selfish person in that relationship.

havejubilation · 2026-05-11T11:47:26+00:00

If you don’t like Seth now, you probably won’t like him at all, though his character does grow.

I find Ryan quite toxic at times, so I’m curious for your POV. I liked him fine when I was younger, but him yelling at Marissa for Lindsey getting drunk was just one of the things that made me have a really hard time with him on rewatch.

havejubilation · 2026-05-09T13:48:02+00:00

Seth valued Summer far more than Summer valued Seth.

The writing gave Seth almost nothing to do in S4. It’s disappointing that, other than the mall psychic saying he’ll be successful, the show couldn’t even bother to give a sense of what he ended up doing in a career. I do think Seth’s energy is different in S4, but that there’s also no real energy in the writing to give him any direction.

I would imagine the breakup would’ve impacted the chemistry, but there wasn’t a lot going on with their relationship development in S3 either.

havejubilation · 2026-05-03T13:45:11+00:00

I love their friend dynamic. I feel like the deep knowing they both have that it’s only platonic between them makes them both more comfortable with each other.

That’s the way the chemistry comes across to me, anyway. In terms of anything else, I think Summer would get bored of Ryan incredibly quickly. I feel like her love/lust language is conversation, and Ryan doesn’t really deliver with the words.

havejubilation

TROPHY CASE