Tuesday, February 10, 2015

I Know Who I Was Looking Out For A Year Ago (Number 1, That's Who)

Should I have shame for what I've done? Should a man feel shame for loving his wife? Should a burrito feel shame for being delicious? Or should a boy who grew up on the other side of the tracks feel shame for being the new/bad boy in town, with the whole world and bagels at his disposal - should he feel shame? No. He shouldn't, but sometimes he does. Especially when he's forced to go to cotillion (what the hell even was cotillion?, he had to ask himself; surely no such thing happened in Chino), or when his mom showed up (not even the same woman from the pilot!) and got sloppy drunk at that casino night. Homeboy even picked up hours at The Crab Shack to fit in and almost got pulled back into the wrong crowd, via leather wristband-clad douche, Donnie. But the boy prevails, but not without having blood be shed, from his nemesis no less. But Luke Ward was not Ryan Atwood's nemesis; the environment was the enemy, as it was Seth Cohen and Sandy Cohen's. They were outsiders looking in and living in, like we all were. For you see, The O.C. is inescapable.

Boom! Did that anticipation [get] you blue?! Sorry, but I can't help myself, because a year ago, I embarked on a journey no Wieland had ever accomplished. Sure, we'd all seen the first and almost flawless first season of The O.C. and even remember highlights from season 2 (like that time Marissa was a lesbian with Oliva Wilde, Seth kind of "cheated" on Summer in Florida, Coldplay's "Fix You" playing over the saddest montage ever ((how you like them apples, David Simon?)) and.....well we all know how season 3 ends and everything in-between feels fuzzy. Was there a season 4? Hot damn! Apparently so!

If you couldn't tell from that expertly sculpted paragraph, no Wieland boy had ever finished the saga that was and very much is The O.C. I took it upon myself to go above and beyond the previous slouches who started this show when it was airing on the tube, but hastily gave up on it. It all started on February 9, 2014 and lasted to March 30 of the same year (thank God for advanced twitter search, y'all). You probably wouldn't expect a man as me to be so candid about such an experience, considering The O.C., great as it is, is also the quintessential teen soap of the last fifteen years (that's not Friday Night Lights, Veronica Mars and Freaks And Geeks). And a teen I no longer am, but I was when I watched it! My swan song of teenagedom was The O.C., suckers! Check your envy at that exclamation mark.

So what was the experience like? Surely it was life changing? Of course it was, I'm no Mischa Barton robot with a black hole for a soul/heart. It is not hyperbole when I say that the first season of The O.C. is nearly flawless; the biggest misstep was a little boy (alright, he was in high school), coked out of his head who also had a thing for painkillers, manic depression, Tom Jones and his emotional counterpart, Marissa Cooper. His name was Oliver(*) and that sack of worthless pastel sweaters from Banana Republic or Holister had a 6 episode stint on The O.C. for no reason. This guy has more air time than Ryan Atwood's mom, who's name I don't even know. Oliver Trask was the Nikki and Paulo before there was even an island to get stranded on. And did I mention that he lasted for six episodes?

(*This guy single-handedly ruined a name for me; I am now cautious of any Olivers I meet and subsequently befriend)

Sure the Oliver saga, because that's what it is, gave us some iconic moments in The O.C. pantheon of memories. Tom Jones playing over Palm Springs; that golf cart collision that almost ruined the Palm Springs trip; the infamous trip and karaoke-ing of Rooney ("Rooo-naaay!") and gave Ryan a drive to go to that New Years Eve party! And, maybe that's where it should've ended. You had yer chance, Trask, now beat it! But alas, the parasite stayed (okay, he could stay for one more episode, because the next one was the Rooney episode, but after that he really shoulda just stayed in jail for trying to buy coke outside the venue-side note, how many people were trying to buy cocaine at a Rooney concert in 2003, like that's yer biggest tell it was a set up, Ollie).

This was what was odd about season one, because it soared without looking back until it reached Oliver Trask(**). There were probably mistakes just as glaring as he (friggin' Donnie from episode 5!), but they never looked back, like the sharks they were, and usually resolved that issue within the episode. And it was a serialized show too! It was incredible and amazing and no one has topped its run (in that genre's world at least). And that was just a small chunk out of the 27 episode season. Let that sink in for a second. The entire first season was 27 episodes, starting in early August (the fifth) and lasting all the way until May (coincidentally, also the fifth; never before has Cinco De Mayo had such an appropriate counterpart).

(**Full disclosure: I'm upset that I wasn't able to fit in a joke involving this Trask family somehow, it was a goal, but I never got around to it and I'm sorry I failed you and myself)

There hasn't even been talk about how Seth Cohen gave voices to all us sarcastic, charming and curly haired goys who deep down want to be with the Chosen People. Seth Cohen was for the boys who saw High Fidelity and fear but ultimately see life heading down that road and are pretty content with probably ending up like Rob. Seth Cohen gave us the Seth Cohen Starter Pack and gave us hope that we'll find our Summer Roberts. The character's a hero and has, without a doubt, had the biggest influence on my iPod, in terms of a fictional character influencing one's iPod. Here's to you!

Can you feel how upbeat and happy I am talking about The O.C.? Memories are sprouting up, memories I was afraid would turn sour a year later and yet I've thought it over and I think if I re-started The O.C. again, right now, I'd be happy. It's infectious, that The O.C. even in its slumps, because as much as I like to praise this show, you can't fully love something unless you're willing to see its imperfections as well. And I've got some bad news for you: Oliver was the tip of the iceberg.

People will argue that season two is not very good and I believe that's just people starting to baton down the hatches for season three. Season two, sure, suffers from what might be considered a Sophomore slump, as it took more lessons from the Oliver handbook than it probably should've. Stories weren't resolved in a tidy matter like they were in season one, happening all within an episode, but I'd like to see how you recover from 27 episodes, which by today's standards is longer than two seasons of a cable drama(***). But that's okay, because maybe we can look back at season two and see it for what it is: a silver medal.

(***I'd like to take a moment to say that I'm more than aware of the differences of both content and quality in network and cable dramas/shows. But damn if 27 episodes isn't just an unGodly and impressive amount of television)

Was constructing some weird reality where we couldn't fully trust Sandy Cohen with his marriage a bad idea? Damn right it was and sometimes it was hard looking him in the eye afterwards, but he stayed loyal. Was putting Kirsten in an identical position, though sloppier, also a bad idea? Listen, no one likes a showboat of a series, so take yer medal and leave. Please.

"But what about that Zach guy?" Yeh, misstep, I don't know how many times I have to say that, but everything worked out in the end. Even if we did lose the great Caleb Nichol(****)! But the body count on this show was staggeringly low, dontcha know... unless of course you start to theorize about what happened to Kaitlin Cooper's alopecia horse, China (best recurring joke, ever). Mmm whatcha say. There. That's the takeaway and season two of The O.C. in a nutshell. That song was used in a crucial moment and is forever burned into the brains of those who've watched it and if you don't know what I'm talking about, yer missing out on one of the greatest things to ever grace airwaves in the last 200 years.

(****The great Alan Dale has entered and been in the realm of all-time greatest Two-Character standing for a long time now-if your initial reaction to seeing him on the screen isn't to say "Caleb Nichol!" in an excited tone, then you're probably saying "Charles Whidmore!")

Then there's season three. Season three is what the eighties were for Dirk Diggler and Henry Hill. Season three is where alt-reality Seth 2.0 came and couldn't leave quick enough (if you're curious as to who the 1.0 version was, it was Zach, you numbskull!). Season three is when, admittedly, you started to mask your pride in saying that you watch The O.C. circa 2005-2006. Adam Brody is checked out almost entirely and it's uncomfortably noticeable, but Rachel Bilson picks up the slack he leaves (proving that Rachel Bilson was the ultimate MVP of The O.C., sentiments you'd probably never consider when looking back at where Summer Roberts started ((she spent a lot of time in that first season barely wearing clothes)). Season three is where there was a dean that Homer Simpsons so deeply wanted when going back to college, but Dean Hess, I'm pretty sure, gets Poochie-d, but then again, a lot of that season gets Poochie-d.

It's like they painted themselves into a corner, introducing characters that were just rehashes of fan favorites (also known as the main characters) and didn't know how to make it stop. Until they upped that body count! There's a surfer kid who falls in love with Marissa (for God knows what reason-she's probably the least exciting person you could fall in love with, unless you're asking Oliver) but he's poor and gets all sad and stuff and then dies because he got drunk and falls off a cliff, because....well because he needed to. Once Johnny dies (yup, that's his name) the world of possibilities opens up. Ryan gets tired of Marissa's nonsense and starts boffing Johnny's cousin, because literally every girl Ryan Atwood shacks up with is better and more interesting than the robot Marissa Cooper. Season three is still pretty drab in the wake of the miracle that is the death of Johnny, but there are glimmers of hope.

Taylor Townsend is one of those glimmers, who was partly responsible for Dean Hess getting Poochie-d and shouldn't that have been the sign? For unto us a savior appeared. Sure, she was a manic, sex-crazed weirdo, but she was our manic, sex-crazed weirdo who developed into so much more. You'd be hard pressed not to find someone who doesn't love Taylor Townsend, especially because she does what so many tried to do: she killed Marissa Cooper. Actually, a car accident killed Marissa, and fortunately Taylor wasn't at the wheel (no, that honor belongs to Marissa's scorned ex-lover, Volchok, because of course). But she moves into her position for season four and fills the hole that's been empty since the very beginning. Should one watch season three? Yes, because when you do, you get a pool of jokes, readily available that can be used whenever possible; you watch season three of The O.C. for the same reason you watch season two of Friday Night Lights (though, there's no murder pipe in The O.C., sorry).

So that leaves season four. Season four. It's good. I'd say in the same realm as season two and many steps ahead of season three. There's some stuff you have to power through at the beginning of season four, because it does the responsible thing and ties up loose threads from its previous endeavor. What rewards do you reap with this newly acquired season? Know who Peter Quill, AKA Star-Lord? Or how about Andy Dwyer, AKA Burt Macklin? Yurp, a fresh faced Chris Pratt enters as the hippie prophet, Ché, Summer needed when going off to Brown. You also get Kevin Sorbo as the long lost father of Ryan Atwood, because only Hercules could be the father of the sensitive Atwood and the Atwood you were just sure stole that watch!
Who're these losers?
But best of all, you get a season that's totally okay with itself and realizes what show it is. It needed to stretch it's legs a little and run around after staying indoors, hiding from the sunlight and listening to Death Cab For Cutie for a year and wondering why God would allow Ben Gibbard to get skinny. So what if Kaitlin Cooper befriends, essentially, the humanized form of the Rich Texan from The Simpsons and it turns into a Rushmore type thing? She dates Chris Brown for a couple of episodes (sad as I am to say it, he's not playing himself)! I'm also not condoning the addition of Chris Brown's character. However, he was, I'm pretty confident, the first black character in the history of the show, so that's actually pretty impressive. Julie Cooper becomes a pimp in this season and it's not terrible!

Man, I haven't even gone on a tirade about the greatness of Julie Cooper. You'd've probably never expected character development to be associated with the name Julie Cooper, but she actually transforms into a human being, rather than just staying a really hot mom-babe on cartoonish levels. I mean she still is a mom-babe, but not so loathsome in the end. I'm not doing her enough justice and probably never will, but hat's off to you Julie Cooper, don't know how someone as bland as Marissa Cooper could be your daughter, but I suppose anything's possible.

In fact, hat's off to the final season of The O.C. You coulda laid down and curled up into a ball and become the monster that you resembled for a while there (One Tree Hill), but you stood up and said "no" and I appreciate that a great deal. As should everyone.

________________________

The O.C. clearly has a place in my heart, one I didn't know would be there after one year; once you O.C. you never go back. Really, if you ask anyone who's watched it and they don't have up to 5,000 happy memories associated with it, then they're not a real person who's watched it. They're a cynical robot, sent from the CW offices trying to tell you that something over there is better, when really they're just cheap imitations.

Back when I was watching The O.C. all those months ago, I was averaging really unhealthy episode numbers a day. I capped that first season off within a week. I watched five episodes the first day and one day I definitely watched seven. So it could be that it all happened so fast that all the potentially bad stuff just got filtered through while I was on some kind of autopilot. But we all know that's not true. There'd also be occasions where I'd be talking to my brother on the phone, because he doubted certain aspects that happened in the first season; much to his chagrin, "The Nanna" is in season one. But what's really impressive is that he's still able to remember what song was playing over a montage in season two that was in the penultimate episode. Now a-days, that'd be pretty common, because we're living in a post-The Wire world where George Pelecanos is the gate keeper of penultimate episodes. 

The O.C. was ahead of that and maybe it's because it used such an iconic song, or maybe it's because the show itself is the icon that your brain won't allow you to forget, because it loves you. And really it's just tryin' to fix you.

No, I don't want to go out like that. I'd rather go out the way I'm supposed to, because the end's not near. It's here.




(Except it's not, because if you want more to read on The O.C. because why wouldn't you, Grantland has what some might call a surprising number of articles about the show, because its tenth birthday was two years ago, this coming August)


Aslo, the essential albums that were listened to while constructing this opus were these, obviously:
Transatlanticism
Wincing The Night Away
Aligator
The End Is Near

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