"The O.C. Review," 4/7/2005

Greetings, dear reader. Long time no see. Okay, enough with the idle chit-chat, let's get down to business. My mom always told me to save the dessert for last, but Indian people, as a cursory glance of my great subcontinent makes evident, don't know shit about nutrition. So we're starting this week's "Abridged Because I am a Lazy Graduating Senior"�* column in reverse order"”with the preview scenes of next week's OC: wild parties, excessive alcohol consumption, fist-fighting, and a gun-wielding, murderous Julie Cooper. It'll be nice to have you back, Season One"”your absence was sorely missed. First half of Season Two, I wish I could say it was fun while it lasted, but, well, it wasn't. Please see yourself out, and be sure to close the door behind you. But yeah, next week looks awesome"”the potential for more face explosions than your average afternoon in Fallujah, without all the beheadings and armor-less Humvees.

Alas, this column, at least ostensibly, is about this week's episode, which I liked and disliked in equal parts. Things I liked: Marissa and Ryan playing out George Dubbya's wet dream by choosing abstinence over the dirty dirty, thereby remaining in sexual limbo; the Risky Business soundtrack; the incipient stages of tension between Sandy, Carter and Kirsten; Marissa's surprisingly large breasts considering her diminutive (or, as those with a medical background prefer, "anorexic"�) frame; and the numerous slow motion action shots (psyche! Those were retarded). Things I disliked: kind of everything else. While I realize that the OC is *just* a TV show (sorry for the momentary blasphemy, Pope JP2. Oh wait"”you're dead), and can thus occasionally shed the yolk of realism, the whole caper heist plot was ludicrous: the half-brained attempt of Ryan and Seth to get the crystal back (not believable); Ryan's idiot brother even having a fence for the crystal in the first place (not believable, but I'm not an expert on the Chino underground crime world, so I'll give pass here); Ryan's throw and Seth's subsequent catch of said crystal (not believable, though somewhat fitting as a homosexual metaphor); Ryan and Seth driving from Chino to Newport Beach in under 4 minutes (um, not believable); the list goes on and on.

The best conclusion to draw, of course, is that this episode was intended simply as filler. No curveballs, no major plot advancements, and certainly no displays of anything even vaguely reminiscent of rational behavior. I mean Trey, if you're gonna go ahead and jack the damn thing, don't have a guilty conscience about it. And did you, Seth and Ryan, really just walk up to some Sketchy McSketcherton's house in Chino and try to steal it back with the old "I'll distract the target, you tip-toe in, grab the goods, and run"� plan? And am I really talking to these fictional characters as if they are real people? Perhaps. But in all serious (or at least with the marginal level of seriousness permissible in this idiotic column¬), it was like everyone on the show drank some sort of idiot serum, and had the discretional capabilities of someone who just drank some sort of idiot serum.

If next week turns out not to be a fiasco, thereby rendering my "filler"� argument null and void, well, then, preview editors, I salute you. Till then.

* I should probably not be so lazy because I do not yet have a job next year. But, as the old adage goes, this is easier said than done. If you have a job for me, please email neel.shah@dartmouth.edu. Seriously.