About:
The O.C. S3.E09 “The Disconnect”
Drinks Taken: 14
Welcome back to The O.C. Rewatch Project! Last week, Meredith asked me how I feel about HAM Ryan (which is now, and will forever be his new tough guy name), and no, she is not alone. I also have some strong crush-y feelings for angry Ryan. More punching! More brooding! More rage!
Let’s drink to punching things!
The O.C. Drinking Game
Drink once every time:
The ladies have a convo while primping in front of a mirror
Seth makes a nerdy reference
Ryan wears a white tank top
Anyone plays a video game
Summer says “ew”
Anyone eats a bagel
Anyone references The Valley
Drink twice every time:
Someone says “Newpsie”
Fisticuffs occur (three times for pool fights!)
Someone grabs a cup of coffee
Ryan and Seth read comic books
Someone reminds us that Kaitlin Cooper exists
3.8 “The Game Plan”
College is the word of the week, as just about everyone is struggling with selecting a place to begin their future – some place that isn’t Newport.
Seth is the only one who really seems to have it figured out – Seth has always wanted to get as far away from California as possible, which is why he’s chosen Brown. Unfortunately for Summer, Taylor the Terror is also thinking of going to Brown, and is gleefully rubbing Summer’s nose in it. (Okay, “rubbing her nose in Brown” is a terrible mental image and for that I am sorry.)
Meanwhile, Marissa isn’t sure she wants to go to college at all, and she’s kind of being a huge whiny baby about the whole thing. It’s understandable that she was scarred by the assault, but the thing that’s really bothering her is that she shot Trey (MMM WHAT YA SAYYY), and she can’t deal with having to explain it on her admissions essay. So Ryan and Johnny plot to convince Marissa to talk to the guidance counselor, which – of course – makes her totally freak out on them for trying to be good friends. After she throws a huge fit and has a miniature mental breakdown, she comes around and tells Ryan “I realized after you were probably just trying to help.” JEEZY CREEZY MARISSA, YOU THINK SO? Ugh.
Anyway, Johnny and Chili tell Marissa to come to their surf contest and see how she feels about their surf bro culture, and maybe she can join them for Johnny’s extreme sports world tour or whatever, and Ryan gets his panties in a bunch because he thinks Johnny is encouraging Marissa to ditch college altogether – all of this leads to Johnny running after Ryan and getting slammed by a car, so now his knee is busted and he might never surf again. He seems to be pretty optimistic about it right now, but this is The O.C. so you know this is going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.
Summer resigns herself to the fact that she can’t get into a school as great as Brown and might as well stay on the West Coast, but Taylor – of all people – convinces her that there are other options, like Providence College, which will accept Summer and which is only 20 minutes from Brown. Summer is right to be skeptical of her kindness, but Taylor the Terror realizes she needs friendship more than she needs to meddle and try to steal boyfriends. I love this new friendship.
Julie gets evicted from her fancy condo and has to move into a trailer park – and horror of all horrors, she has to drive her own U-Haul.
Kirsten does some great detective work and follows Julie to her new home: a trailer park. That’s where we meet the landlord, Gus, who is my new favorite character. He had dreams once. Kirsten offers to start a new business with Julie – it would get Kirsten out of the kitchen and it would help Julie get back on her feet, but when Julie tells Kirsten what really went down with Charlotte, it all falls apart for about five minutes until Kirsten realizes that Julie is actually a good person now – hence why she is living in a trailer park.
Sandy invites his old Berkeley pal over for dinner, and one by one everyone politely leaves the dinner table – Seth talks to Summer and they decided to go to Rhode Island together; Kirsten goes to see Julie about this new business thing; Seth pulls Sandy aside for a heart to heart about Seth’s future (this is super sweet); and Marissa shows up to talk to Ryan about going to college together. Eventually, Sandy’s friend is left at the table alone, which is pretty rude, you guys. BUT! He overhears Marissa talking about her traumatic experience and encourages her and Ryan to apply to Berkeley together. It all works out for everyone!
And Seth and Summer are going to look real cute at college in Rhode Island together:
How many times did I have to drink?
8
Kirsten speaks truth to power
Kirsten: “I need to get out of the kitchen.”
She may just be bored, but she’s unwittingly dismantling the patriarchy.
Cute Seth Cohen is the cutest
Look at this photo of mini-Seth! AWWWW.
Julie Cooper, still keepin’ it real
Taylor is a nerd
Taylor watches Kieslowski films. I would totally hang out with Taylor.
3.9 “The Disconnect”
The boys in this episode are Dumb with a capital D. Even Sandy Cohen does something a little ignorant (for a brief moment – very brief), but we’ll get to that later. First, Kirsten and Julie are trying to come up with new business ideas, and Julie’s mind is constantly in the gutter. Bless her.
It’s hard to figure out what the people of Newport don’t already have, but I like the way Julie is approaching this from a different angle. Sex does sell, you know.
As it turns out, Summer is kind of a smarty pants. I mean, we all already knew this – it’s part of what makes her so endearing. But Seth is genuinely surprised by her 2300 SAT score, which is higher than his own.
This means that Summer could get into Brown if she wanted to; in fact, she has a better shot at it than Seth does. So they both attend the meet and greet with the admissions rep from Brown, who informs them that on average, only one student from Harbor gets in per year. What sets this student apart is a “hook,” a special talent or extracurricular involvement. Summer yanks her old tuba out of the closet and Seth decides to worm his way into the drama club, and the pair of them charmingly bicker in the hallway because being smart was the one thing Seth did better than Summer – seriously, dude? Like, Seth is also great at drawing comic books, and Summer doesn’t do that, so why can’t it just be that? Why does he need to be smarter than Summer? Why can’t he accept – and be DELIGHTED – that his girlfriend is intelligent? JEEZY CREEZY, COHEN.
This behavior is really awful. As with all lame-o behavior, Seth’s comes from a place of insecurity and fear, and they both decide to apply at Brown and move forward together, no matter what happens. Why did anyone ever doubt Summer? She did save Chrismukkah, after all.
And! I think it’s notable that both Ryan and Sandy are the ones who have to keep reminding Seth that she saved Chrismukkah – they’re not surprised at her smarts.
Meanwhile, Marissa is spending a lot of time with Johnny because he’s shacked up at home with his busted knee. In the last episode, Johnny was so optimistic and had such a great attitude about this whole situation, and now he’s a total Debbie Downer – even worse because Marissa is around so much and he has Major Feelings for her. It’s hard to believe Marissa could be this naive, but here we are. She uses her Newport connections (Summer’s dad, a surgeon) to get Johnny an earlier appointment with a specialist, and accidentally crashes next to Johnny on his couch while watching movies and waiting for Ryan to show up. Johnny tells Summer he’s in love with Marissa, but there’s not much Summer can do about that, and then he tells Marissa he’s in love with her, and there’s not much Marissa can do about that. I do support her decision to take a break from him for a while, although that’s probably not going to last at all.
And Ryan hasn’t been around much because he took an internship with Sandy and Matt, the latter of whom is currently nursing a broken heart – his girlfriend dumped him when he took the job and moved from Chicago to California. So Matt takes Ryan out after work the night before a big meeting with prospective investors…to a strip club. Ryan gets a reluctant lap dance (Reluctant Lap Dance: The Ryan Atwood Story) and winds up bailing on Marissa, and Matt screws up at the meeting and almost loses his job if not for the benevolence of the great Sandy Cohen.
It’s also thanks to Matt’s stripper friend, who pops by Sandy’s office to explain why Matt’s been having issues at work – she’s an old friend of his, and as it turns out, she’s a college graduate who’s stripping to make her way through law school, and she’s the one who introduced Matt to the investors. Sandy and Ryan are super surprised that a college graduate could be a stripper – which is ridiculous, since these two were the only ones who didn’t seem surprised that Summer could be smart. There’s a whole lot of underestimating/undervaluing women this week, and it’s kind of awful.
As for Kirsten and Julie, their party planning idea doesn’t exactly pan out – their first client hires them just so he can get Julie to his place for a date, but that gives Kirsten a genius idea: a high class dating service for the Newport elite.
I love it when these two get together.
How many times did I have to drink?
6
Most recognizable song
I had totally forgotten that Client’s “Come On” existed until the strip club scene this week.
Best pop culture reference
The stripper who plops down on Ryan’s lap is dressed like a cop and calls herself Sipowicz. Sadly, she does not show us her butt.
Sandy Cohen is the best
SETH, NO
This is the moment when I question my love of Seth Cohen forever.
That’s all for this week! As always, a question for Meredith: how did you feel about all this weird sexism amongst our typically nice boys? I thought it was good to see the series address these sorts of assumptions about ladies, but it also seems a bit odd.
Okay guys, check back next week as Meredith covers “The Chrismukkah Bar-Mitzvahkkah” and “The Safe Harbor”!
About the Contributor:
Britt Hayes is a writer and sensible sweater enthusiast living in Austin, Texas. She loves movies, watches too much television, and her diet consists mostly of fruit snacks and revenge.
