The O.C. Season 4 Is Good, Actually

It’s one of the most well-known rise-and-fall stories in contemporary television. (Or maybe, 21 years down the road, not so contemporary anymore, sigh.) The O.C. season 1? One of the most impressive TV debuts of all-time, a zeitgeist-commanding tour de force of sudsy Newport Beach waves that gave us Seth Cohen, yogalates, Chrismukkah, Rooney…the list goes on, and most importantly, it still holds up. Another equally agreed-upon fact? The show fell off a cliff creatively not long after—so much so that by season 3, creator Josh Schwartz and his writers' room were resorting to tried-and-true network-TV cliches like actually having a major character fall off a cliff to his death. But that demerit has never diminished the show’s lasting legacy; a series that comes out of the gate with 27 tightly crafted hours of pitch-perfect White Plight melodrama and escapism, with a distinct tone, immediately compelling characters, and paradigm-shifting execution (starting with the aughts-indie soundtrack that helped elevate many a stirring sequence to timeless status) earns itself a lot of bail and goodwill. 27 hours was a deluxe episode order then; it would constitute about three seasons worth of story today. It burned bright, but it inevitably burned out quickly.

Of course, there were many more behind-the-scenes factors that led to The O.C.’s swift decline, from on-set tensions to multiple identity crises spurred by network-suit interference. It’s all laid out in engrossing detail in the show’s official oral history, orchestrated by Alan Sepinwall and published in 2023 to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the pilot episode. I finally cracked the book open earlier this year and launched a concurrent rewatch which I finally wrapped last week. And that exercise reconfirmed an opinion I’ve had since the show’s original run. Does The OC fall off? Slowly, but surely, yes—much of the third season is just as atrocious as I remember. But having said that, season 4 doesn’t get nearly enough credit for mounting one of the all-time great TV comebacks.

I’m a day one O.C. fan; I still remember the August series premiere right around my thirteenth birthday, mostly because of how jarring it was to see such a genuinely intriguing show debut at that time of the year. In 2003, summer was still a dumping ground; most networks wouldn’t be rolling out the real heat for another four to six weeks. But The O.C., with its coming-of-age tale following Chino Hills sensitive thug turned Orange County adoptee Ryan Atwood, took the early opening void by storm. The show came out of the gate firing on every story cylinder: Ryan’s courtship of It-Girl Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton), who copes with the dissolution of her perfect life in all the worst ways; his brotherhood with Seth Cohen (Adam Brody, giving a still-reverberating performance that redefined the cool hipster nerd); and both boys’ relationship with Hall of Fame TV Dad Sandy Cohen (Peter Gallagher), the impossibly warm and wise public defender who takes a chance on Ryan in the first place. Bromance, brooding star-crossed romance, beachside fistfights, a killer soundtrack—hell, even the subplots for the kids’ parents were genuinely compelling, a teen-drama rarity (and probably a big reason why the show still holds up beyond nostalgia; these days I’m more invested in whether Sandy and his wife Kirsten will make it more than Ryan and Marissa). By the time other new series were premiering, The O.C. was already wrapping up a seven-episode kickoff arc that concluded with Ryan solemnly carrying Marissa out of a dark Tijuana alley where she had collapsed from an accidental overdose in the aftermath of her family’s sudden implosion. I, along with the rest of the country, was locked in.

Fast forward three seasons and Ryan is carrying an incapacitated Marissa again, in the final moments of the finale, this time from a car wreck caused by a spiteful ex. Only this time, she doesn’t make it—the most popular actor on the show dies right there on the road. It was sad, and—even though Mischa Barton had somewhat spitefully spoiled the surprise by that point—shocking, and easily the darkest, most consequential thing the series had done to that point.

So it’s bemusing that the fourth and final season is a breath of fresh air, and somehow, the silliest and most comedic iteration of the series. It’s not as capital-c Cool as season 1, but it may be the series’ second-best, free of the self-conscious sophomore jinx all-over-the-placeness that plagues the otherwise solid season 2. The O.C. has two main gears: brooding melodrama and endearing family dramedy; season 3 is gloomy in all the most boring ways and painfully unfunny, so naturally season 4 course-corrects the opposite way. And as it turns out, if The OC could no longer serve both masters, the latter was its strongest muscle. And the only thing that had to happen to achieve that clarity was killing off Marissa.

In season 3, The O.C. loses its way, becoming a textbook TV cautionary tale. Ryan is no longer an outsider with old Chino ties like his first love or ex-con brother threatening to literally and figuratively pull him back, which felt appropriate but left the series without a new engine to drive plot from. Enter a new, instantly inert love triangle between Marissa, Ryan, and a simp surfer who weirdly becomes the show’s center of gravity… even after he falls off that aforementioned cliff. Seth and Marissa’s best friend Summer (Rachel Bilson), initially a great entry into the TV screwball will-they-or-won’t-they pantheon, had become so stale and passionless that it’s surprising to learn Brody and Bilson were actually still a real-life couple at that point of production. Sandy was no longer doling out sage fatherly bon mots but instead mired in a random corporate espionage plot with yet another screentime-hoarding guest star the audience had no reason to care about.

As for Marissa? By that juncture, she had been an alcoholic, been with Ryan, lost Ryan, dated a gardener (a relationship whose class dimension the show had no real interest in interrogating), dated special guest star Olivia Wilde, attracted the advances of two different psychopaths (including Ryan’s brother), shot Ryan’s brother, got kicked out of school, joined—gasp—public school (another plot whose class dimension the show had no real interest in interrogating), attracted the surfer simp and a psycho surfer, pushed Ryan away again, lost her status as a child of wealth a few times, lost her deadbeat dad a few times, became a burnout cokehead for a few episodes, and finally resolved to leave town instead of pursuing college, only for that psycho surfer to inadvertently kill her on her way out.

The whole show was a mess, but Marissa had somehow become the eye of the storm. The arc actually plays a lot sadder on rewatch; the character’s decline is less of a crash out than I remember and more of a slo-mo unraveling. In one of the rare bright spots, an episode about the gang contemplating their college futures finds Marissa struggling to visualize one for herself, even with an acceptance to Berkeley. That the writers just never really knew what to do with this character is a point that comes up often in the oral history, but it also materializes in the show itself, in a meta-monologue where Marissa confesses to a virtual stranger that she doesn’t know what her place is in the world anymore. It’s probably the best acting Barton does across the whole series, and also crystallizes how removing her can solve a lot of problems.

Reflecting on the decision 20 years later, almost all of the cast and crew is apologetic and regretful, especially since Barton was the youngest cast member thrust into a grueling spotlight; Brody points out that teen soaps regularly just sent a problem character “away” without resorting to the Grim Reaper. But that would have been a half measure. Actually following through with Marissa’s death galvanizes the entire cast, restores the show’s momentum, re-centers Ryan, and gives the plot some much-needed stakes. But after the season opens with a three-episode arc that’s all about avenging her, a funny thing happens. The show becomes funnier and wackier than ever, recasting itself as a charming rom-com. Ryan finds himself falling for Taylor Townsend, a neurotic Reese-Witherspoon-in-Election type who gets bumped up from recurring high school classmate to series regular, played by character actor Autumn Reeser in a ten-toes-down committed zany performance.

O.C. fans either hate or love Taylor Townsend; the character is too dialed up to be ambivalent towards. Reeser is fantastic and endlessly endearing and yet for as much spark and alternative energy she provides, it almost always redlines ever-so-slightly into being a hair too silly. At the time impressionable teen girls stanning Barton and Marissa-Ryan shippers alike called sacrilege; but on rewatch, season 3 is a punishing exercise in fully, definitively undoing the idea of Ryan and Marissa as a functional, endgame couple. Taylor’s manic energy paired with Ryan’s monosyllabic brooding shtick ends up being an inspired choice that produces real chemistry, and much less tragedy.

The show works best when Ryan is beleaguered and world-weary, but it’s almost like the heaviness of Marissa’s death gave Schwartz and his writers permission to pivot away from the brooding melodrama that was offering diminishing returns. The airiness of season 4 feels earned because of it, while giving a silent pathos to all of the new proceedings. Every choice Ryan makes in his new relationship is informed by losing the original love of his life, even after a special It’s a Wonderful Life-themed Chrismukkah episode bleakly posits that in a reality where Ryan never comes to Newport, Marissa would’ve died three years earlier in that TIjuana alley. Getting Ryan out of a grief spiral gives Sandy cause to be Father of the Year again; losing a daughter believably cements Marissa’s mother Julie’s turn from Newport Lady Macbeth to wacky cougar, while also adding some heft to her relationship with Marissa’s teenaged younger sister Kaitlin—her last living daughter. Even bringing in a character as slapstick as the Texas oil tycoon Bullit—who deploys “bang!” as his catchphrase—to woo Julie works, because he gives the beleaguered Cooper women some familial normalcy for once.

Speaking of inspired guest stars: To watch The OC season 4 is to return to a time when we all still collectively found Chris Pratt charming, but also to remember why. He plays Che, a granola-crunching hippie clown who throws wrenches in Seth and Summer’s relationship in every way but the hackneyed been-there-done-that love-triangle play. And while the fact that nearly every season 4 episode contrives to give Brody and Bilson the least screentime together possible, in a move that screams “writing around our actors’ crumbling real-life relationship,” somehow their subplots managed to at least approach the early-series highs when sparks were truly flying. (One such example: they spend several episodes trying to reverse-psychology the other into calling off an engagement they only entered into because of a pregnancy scare, because neither of them wants to be the bad guy, which feels like a logical evolution of Seth-Summer hijinks.)

The season isn’t without flaws. Becoming a lighter version of itself opens the show up to misfires, like introducing the last remaining and worst-sounding Atwood family member (Ryan’s dad, played by Kevin Sorbo) and defanging him almost immediately. There’s a return-to-form for Sandy Cohen but less so for the Sandy-Kirsten marriage, which in the season 1-2 highs was often just as engrossing if not more than the melodrama surrounding the kids. (Kelly Rowan has plenty of pointed, curt remarks about the latter-series arcs in the book, as she should.) There’s a three-episode arc featuring “Kiss Kiss”-era Chris Brown as Kaitlin’s love interest that is exactly as awful as it sounds. And Taylor truly becomes the show’s Patron Saint of Wacky—a Ryan-Taylor rough patch comes courtesy of the arrival of Taylor’s French ex-husband, who has fictionalized their torrid love affair in a Fifty Shades of Grey-esque smut novel. So, yeah.

But since Schwartz knew he was writing the show’s final hours (there’s a quote in the book about how a mere 16-episode order was essentially considered a paltry, “Here, damn” network death knell, which is darkly funny to read in 2024 because again, that’s two seasons now) it all builds to something poignant enough. A penultimate-episode earthquake that puts the core cast in both mortal peril and a mood to reflect, and a series finale that puts them on the path to Happily Ever After before flash-forwarding a bit into their futures, brings things appropriately full circle.

In their last scene together, Seth tells Ryan “At least I leave you funnier than when I found you,” when the latter lightens the mood of their farewell with a well-timed, but atypical wisecrack. He could just as easily be describing the series’ tonal arc. The O.C. never recaptured the highs, nor the heat, of its debut—but those were peaks that few shows ever reach. In season 4, it stopped trying to find the new wave and came back down to sea level, and surfed off into the sunset as something a little warmer, a bit weirder, and a lot more watchable.