The O.C. Season 1
I just marathoned the entire first season of The O.C. and I have a few observations. Spoilers for The O.C. Season 1:
1) Marissa was not quite as horrible as I remembered! There's so much melodrama surrounding the character that it's hard to really like her, but there's a sweetness to Marissa's relationship with Ryan and with her father that makes her a bit more palatable to me. She's still not my favourite, but she's decent enough.
2) Luke grows up a bit after his family falls apart, and he's pretty awesome during the Oliver arc. The writers did a good job teaming up Ryan and Luke based on their mutual loyalty to Marissa. He gets a bit screwed up at the end of S1, but I can't blame him for the affair with Julie; I don't compare it with his cheating on Marissa with Holly or other girls. It shouldn't have happened, but that's on Julie--she was the adult.
3) Caleb and Julie really are a Gruesome Twosome. Ugh. There's very little I like about their characters, though I do like Julie by the end of S4. I have very low tolerance for controlling, manipulative, power/money-hungry assholes.
4) I still don't like Jimmy that much. I like that Sandy holds out the hand of friendship to him, but that's mostly because I love Sandy lots.
5) Kirsten is kind of awesome, but I feel like the writers don't let her be proactive enough. Besides getting Ryan out of juvie at the beginning of the season, and helping Theresa at the end, I find that too often she's merely reacting to what everyone else around her is doing instead of instigating the plot.
6) Sandy gives Keith Mars a run for his money as Best TV Dad. I particularly loved his scenes with Ryan during the Oliver arc: Sandy tells Ryan that he believes Ryan's suspicions, but that what he's more concerned about is Ryan's actions. This carries over to the Theresa arc when Ryan decides against going after Eddie and beating him up, and landing in either jail or the hospital, and goes after Theresa instead to convince her to stay. Sandy is just a really funny, goodhearted, wise husband and father. Not perfect, but pretty darn close.
7) Summer is adorable. Anna is pretty adorable too. I loved their friendship/rivalry. I loved that they found common ground in other things besides Seth, and that they couldn't quite see past Seth to being just friends. It's sad Anna felt she had to leave, but I'm glad they didn't drag on the tension between those three--I think the writers handled the love triangle with the right amount of humour and pathos. They were so delightfully rom-com!
8) Seth, oh Seth. What a self-absorbed little motormouth, but I love him anyway. Once in a while he'll do or say something to ameliorate the self-absorption so it's not quite so offensive. (Also, I love Sandy and others for calling Seth on his crap.) And he's just so funny and sarcastic and insecure that I feel for him. I love that he was willing to sell his boat to give money to Ryan for Theresa.
9) I love Ryan best of all. I love his character development, which I'm amused to discover is signposted by his relationship with violence. I love his POV into the freakish world of Newport. He's a really good guy who tries to help people. Whether he was always like that, or his white knight tendencies have been exacerbated by feelings of gratitude and loyalty to those who have shown him kindness, I don't know. I suspect he was always kind of like that. It's sad/interesting to glimpse his damage under all the blank-faced stoicism or violent outbursts.
What's been interesting for me, watching S1 again after all these years, is that I have lost my slash goggles. I keep looking for slashy moments between Ryan and Seth, and besides one or two moments that could be read either way, I really just see two guys who are friends and something like brothers. For Seth, Ryan swooped in to save him from his own life. For Ryan, it's Sandy and Kirsten who swooped in. So in that way, they are not equal. After watching the S1 finale, with Seth running away because Ryan had left him behind, I tried to reconcile what I saw on screen with the meta I've read in this fandom about how it was so slashy and Seth was so heartbroken. Yes, Seth is heartbroken--because he's put it all on Ryan. To him, Ryan coming to Newport had meant not being bullied, not being isolated and ignored, not having to go to school-as-hell (Buffyverse metaphor!) every single day, knowing you'd have to wake up and do it again tomorrow. Ryan had opened up Seth's world, just as Sandy had opened up Ryan's. Now Seth's had not one, but two girlfriends. He's made friends with the girl next door who never spoke to him, he's made friends with the guy who used to urinate in his shoes, he's dating the girl of his dreams. And it's all because of Ryan.
Look at the difference between Ryan saying goodbye to Seth in 1x01 versus 1x27: Seth tosses aside the map of Tahiti; his body language is closed off compared to the sleepy/hung-over hug in the pilot; his tone is sullen, resentful; he puts his earbuds back in, shutting Ryan out.
If Seth were a bit more self-confident, if he trusted in his own ability to keep up the transformation that Ryan started in him, pushing him out of his shell and getting him involved in other people's troubles, Seth might not have run away from home. Especially with Summer there, willing to support him and Marissa. But he's not quite there yet, and losing Ryan is too big a blow to handle. Like Marissa, he feels trapped in Newport and just wants to run away from his life.
Which is an interesting contrast to Ryan because, however misguided his choices, Ryan leaves Newport and goes back to Chino with Theresa because he wants to live up to his life. He tries so hard to be a man, to be responsible, even though Sandy and Kirsten would be happy to let him be a kid for a while longer.
ETA: Spoilers for 2x01. I'm really curious what other people think about Sandy's approach of giving Seth his blessing to stay in Portland. What I find interesting is that Seth had a point, what he says to Ryan, that Seth and Newport were never a good fit, that whether it'd have been a boarding school or running away or, if he managed to stick it out another couple of years, a liberal college far far away, Seth was always looking to get the hell out. If Sandy had left home at 16, he would have a very different perspective than Kirsten, who only left home for college and the early years of her marriage--she wouldn't understand that need to get away, to leave the past behind and forge a new life, the way Sandy and Ryan and now Seth understand. On one hand, what Seth does is incredibly childish and self-indulgent. OTOH, if he hadn't been born to so much money, if he'd been raised the way Sandy or Ryan had been raised, his leaving home at 16 wouldn't have been a big deal at all. It would have been... adulthood, and it probably would have done him some good.
Poor Ryan, when Luke tells him the cab is here and he looks at Seth like he wants a hug! And Seth won't give him one! Seth chasing after Ryan is pretty slashy, including him opening the door to find Ryan right outside, but then the vibe goes right back to friend/brother. IMHO, anyway!
I'm gonna get a lot of mileage out of this TWW icon, aren't I.
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1) Marissa was not quite as horrible as I remembered! There's so much melodrama surrounding the character that it's hard to really like her, but there's a sweetness to Marissa's relationship with Ryan and with her father that makes her a bit more palatable to me. She's still not my favourite, but she's decent enough.
2) Luke grows up a bit after his family falls apart, and he's pretty awesome during the Oliver arc. The writers did a good job teaming up Ryan and Luke based on their mutual loyalty to Marissa. He gets a bit screwed up at the end of S1, but I can't blame him for the affair with Julie; I don't compare it with his cheating on Marissa with Holly or other girls. It shouldn't have happened, but that's on Julie--she was the adult.
3) Caleb and Julie really are a Gruesome Twosome. Ugh. There's very little I like about their characters, though I do like Julie by the end of S4. I have very low tolerance for controlling, manipulative, power/money-hungry assholes.
4) I still don't like Jimmy that much. I like that Sandy holds out the hand of friendship to him, but that's mostly because I love Sandy lots.
5) Kirsten is kind of awesome, but I feel like the writers don't let her be proactive enough. Besides getting Ryan out of juvie at the beginning of the season, and helping Theresa at the end, I find that too often she's merely reacting to what everyone else around her is doing instead of instigating the plot.
6) Sandy gives Keith Mars a run for his money as Best TV Dad. I particularly loved his scenes with Ryan during the Oliver arc: Sandy tells Ryan that he believes Ryan's suspicions, but that what he's more concerned about is Ryan's actions. This carries over to the Theresa arc when Ryan decides against going after Eddie and beating him up, and landing in either jail or the hospital, and goes after Theresa instead to convince her to stay. Sandy is just a really funny, goodhearted, wise husband and father. Not perfect, but pretty darn close.
7) Summer is adorable. Anna is pretty adorable too. I loved their friendship/rivalry. I loved that they found common ground in other things besides Seth, and that they couldn't quite see past Seth to being just friends. It's sad Anna felt she had to leave, but I'm glad they didn't drag on the tension between those three--I think the writers handled the love triangle with the right amount of humour and pathos. They were so delightfully rom-com!
8) Seth, oh Seth. What a self-absorbed little motormouth, but I love him anyway. Once in a while he'll do or say something to ameliorate the self-absorption so it's not quite so offensive. (Also, I love Sandy and others for calling Seth on his crap.) And he's just so funny and sarcastic and insecure that I feel for him. I love that he was willing to sell his boat to give money to Ryan for Theresa.
9) I love Ryan best of all. I love his character development, which I'm amused to discover is signposted by his relationship with violence. I love his POV into the freakish world of Newport. He's a really good guy who tries to help people. Whether he was always like that, or his white knight tendencies have been exacerbated by feelings of gratitude and loyalty to those who have shown him kindness, I don't know. I suspect he was always kind of like that. It's sad/interesting to glimpse his damage under all the blank-faced stoicism or violent outbursts.
What's been interesting for me, watching S1 again after all these years, is that I have lost my slash goggles. I keep looking for slashy moments between Ryan and Seth, and besides one or two moments that could be read either way, I really just see two guys who are friends and something like brothers. For Seth, Ryan swooped in to save him from his own life. For Ryan, it's Sandy and Kirsten who swooped in. So in that way, they are not equal. After watching the S1 finale, with Seth running away because Ryan had left him behind, I tried to reconcile what I saw on screen with the meta I've read in this fandom about how it was so slashy and Seth was so heartbroken. Yes, Seth is heartbroken--because he's put it all on Ryan. To him, Ryan coming to Newport had meant not being bullied, not being isolated and ignored, not having to go to school-as-hell (Buffyverse metaphor!) every single day, knowing you'd have to wake up and do it again tomorrow. Ryan had opened up Seth's world, just as Sandy had opened up Ryan's. Now Seth's had not one, but two girlfriends. He's made friends with the girl next door who never spoke to him, he's made friends with the guy who used to urinate in his shoes, he's dating the girl of his dreams. And it's all because of Ryan.
Look at the difference between Ryan saying goodbye to Seth in 1x01 versus 1x27: Seth tosses aside the map of Tahiti; his body language is closed off compared to the sleepy/hung-over hug in the pilot; his tone is sullen, resentful; he puts his earbuds back in, shutting Ryan out.
If Seth were a bit more self-confident, if he trusted in his own ability to keep up the transformation that Ryan started in him, pushing him out of his shell and getting him involved in other people's troubles, Seth might not have run away from home. Especially with Summer there, willing to support him and Marissa. But he's not quite there yet, and losing Ryan is too big a blow to handle. Like Marissa, he feels trapped in Newport and just wants to run away from his life.
Which is an interesting contrast to Ryan because, however misguided his choices, Ryan leaves Newport and goes back to Chino with Theresa because he wants to live up to his life. He tries so hard to be a man, to be responsible, even though Sandy and Kirsten would be happy to let him be a kid for a while longer.
ETA: Spoilers for 2x01. I'm really curious what other people think about Sandy's approach of giving Seth his blessing to stay in Portland. What I find interesting is that Seth had a point, what he says to Ryan, that Seth and Newport were never a good fit, that whether it'd have been a boarding school or running away or, if he managed to stick it out another couple of years, a liberal college far far away, Seth was always looking to get the hell out. If Sandy had left home at 16, he would have a very different perspective than Kirsten, who only left home for college and the early years of her marriage--she wouldn't understand that need to get away, to leave the past behind and forge a new life, the way Sandy and Ryan and now Seth understand. On one hand, what Seth does is incredibly childish and self-indulgent. OTOH, if he hadn't been born to so much money, if he'd been raised the way Sandy or Ryan had been raised, his leaving home at 16 wouldn't have been a big deal at all. It would have been... adulthood, and it probably would have done him some good.
Poor Ryan, when Luke tells him the cab is here and he looks at Seth like he wants a hug! And Seth won't give him one! Seth chasing after Ryan is pretty slashy, including him opening the door to find Ryan right outside, but then the vibe goes right back to friend/brother. IMHO, anyway!
I'm gonna get a lot of mileage out of this TWW icon, aren't I.
I prefer comments on Dreamwidth |
comment(s)