The O.C. Review, 1/19/05

Memo to the beloved face explosions, guns, prescription painkiller ODs, schizophrenics, and sleazy potential Mexican rapists from The O.C.‘s first season: no need to come back for a second go-around. Stay at home, smugly counting your cash and screwing groupies, and watch as The O.C. devolves into a saccharine gangbang of boring melodrama. No seriously, don’t worry about it“”you’ve already been replaced! In your humble stead we’ve been given water-polo playing douchebag Zach, who couldn’t act his way onto a 2.a.m Cinemax soft-core porn flick; Lindsay, who can’t manage to look hot for more than three consecutive shots; and Alex, who actually would be really hot if the retarded purple streak in her hair made me want to have sex with her instead of punch myself in the face (good thing that totally awesome butterfly tattoo makes up for it. Idiot.) And people wonder why ratings have been declining all season.



Well, it looks like we’ll have to keep waiting for that upswing: another episode gone by, another 60 minutes of relative tedium. I mean, was I blacked out for the first 56 minutes (until the final “4 minutes of Girls Night Out”), or did nothing even happen? To re-cap: the girls decide to strap one on and go get wasted. Lindsay almost drowns, although not really because she’s actually passed out inside the club, even though everyone wishes she really had died if for no other reason than to facilitate a Ryan/Marissa 10-day Jack and coke (the white kind) binge. The boys, on the other hand, do their part to complete the gender role reversal: they sit at home, bitch and moan about their feelings and shit, and then yell at their significant others/exes for being emotionally closed off. Fantastic stuff, if you like your T.V. terrible.



Which brings us to the budding Seth/Marissa/Alex love triangle“”the only remnant of “Vintage Season One O.C” we’ve seen all year. First, though, it should be noted that Seth has officially become the gayest purportedly heterosexual character of all time. Dude, you just found out your girlfriend used to date chicks, and your gut reaction is to throw a hissy fit about it? In high school, meeting a real live lesbian“”a ridiculously hot real live lesbian at that“”was the stuff of pure fantasy (a fantasy subsequently ruined by going to college and actually meeting real live lesbians, at which point it became apparent that lesbians are just fat, smelly vegans who rarely shave their legs.) As for Ryan” I’m speechless. You discover that your best friend’s ex is a chick. Not only do you not tell him this immediately, but you proceed to make zero effort to get him to finagle a ménage out of the situation (which, even if completely unsuccessful, would have still made for quality television.) Someone call the homo police and take these kids in for questioning.



The final four minutes of the show, which, coincidentally, were also the final “4 minutes of Girls Night Out” (give Mr. Schwartz another life-imitating-art brownie point) gave us Marissa and Alex spooning on a couch, sharing a blanket and trading doey-eyed glances. The chemistry wasn’t exactly Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas, but it was certainly palpable. Would they hold hands? Kiss? Perform super-attractive cunnilingus on each other and then paint each other’s nails? Guess we’ll find out next week” time’s up! Ah, the gays: they cost us an election, but at least they’re good as plot crutches on floundering teenage soap operas.



In any case, at least the scenes from next week’s O.C. look decent. Then again, they always do. Memo to the coming attractions: stop fucking with my emotions and give me a solid episode for once, will ya?