About:
The O.C. S4.E14 “The Shake Up”
Drinks Taken: 15
Welcome back to The O.C. Rewatch Project! This is our second-to-last rewatch (sob), and my last ever (SOB!), so last week Britt asked me about my favorite character and favorite season. GAHHH what a tough question! No, not really. My favorite character is Sandy Cohen, and my favorite season is S4. There’s so much bright, funny, weird and quirky levity in this season, and Sandy’s warm, liberal, sexy dad appeal will stay with me forever.
Let’s drink to Sandy Cohen, to Season 4, to The O.C. and to Britt, my wonderful partner on this goofy fun endeavor.
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
Kaitlin is a stone-cold badass
4.13 “The Case of the Franks”
Who’s got a case of the Franks? Why, that would be Ms. Julie Cooper. She’s still all moony over Hercules dad, even as she’s supposedly considering Bullit’s marriage proposal, mainly because he’s so great with Kaitlyn. Taylor nosies her way into Ryan’s business and makes him reunite with Hercules dad, which goes surprisingly well, and then they decide to work together to help Frank win Julie from Bullit. Kaitlyn sees what they’re up to and decides to fight in Bullit’s corner, all “It’s war, bitches.” Team Bullit! Team Kaitlyn! The romance war escalates until Valentine’s Day, when Julie chooses Bullit just for Kaitlyn, and then Kaitlyn sees how unhappy that makes Julie and tells her to go back to Frank. Dammit! Team Bullit, guys. NOT TEAM HERCULES DAD. But, honestly, it’s pretty sweet. I love Bullit, but Frank and Julie seem happy eating their corn dogs together. (That’s what they’re doing. It’s not just a catty burn about how they’re both poor, except it’s also that. Go enjoy your billions, Bullit. Some lady will see the light soon.)
Other couples dealing with the annual O.C. Valentine’s Day fallout:
Ryan and Taylor, because Ryan’s too little about V-Day and Taylor’s too much about it. This works out harmlessly and super cutely, as most things do with Ryan and Taylor, because they are perfect for each other. After Ryan sees how hard Taylor’s worked to find love for his dad, he tells her his faith has been restored in the holiday, and they take a limo drive to the beach together for a last-minute romance extravaganza.
Kirsten and Sandy, who are still dealing with the news that they’re going to have a baby. Kirsten’s pregnancy hormones have made her all nostalgic, and you know what that means…FLASHBACKS! Young Kirsten and young Jimmy seem to be perfect together in high school, but we learn that they broke up because Kirsten got pregnant. She never told Jimmy, and had an abortion, and she tells all of this to Sandy now. And then we get to see young Kirsten and young Sandy meet and OH MAN it’s the best.
Seth and Summer, because they’re at the mall when an otherwise eerily accurate psychic tells Summer that she will leave Seth for a man named George, because it is her destiny. Everything else the psychic said comes true, so Seth and Summer become their usual levels of charmingly neurotic about it. Not helping: when Seth tries to prove to Summer that he’s her destiny, and frames her mermaid poem (the impetus for their first kiss way back in the fifth episode), and then it’s time for ANOTHER FLASHBACK: Summer admits that SHE DIDN’T WRITE THAT POEM! Baby Summer forgot the assignment and bribed baby Taylor Townsend for her homework, and Taylor’s the one who wants to be a mermaid! So Seth and Summer start to fret that they’re not meant for each other, that they’re each other’s “Jimmy Coopers” (the universal symbol for useless obstacle on the way to happiness). After some sage advice from Kirsten, Seth shows up and gives one of his patented perfect speeches about the woman Summer’s grown into, the woman he loves. He’s really turning into his father, in the best way possible.
BUT his perfect speech might not do the trick this time, because Summer’s found out who George really is: The Global Environmental Organization Regarding Greenhouse Emissions, a progressive environmental group that wants to recruit Summer. The hold-up is, she’d have to defer Brown to travel around with GEORGE for a year, and she thinks that means she and Seth will have to break up, at least temporarily. Bummer! But great opportunity, Sum.
How many times did I have to drink?
7
Best pop culture moment
In the flashback, Baby Seth tells Baby Luke that it’s “eleven months and six days until The Matrix comes out.”
Most meta moment
Seth tells Summer that they’ve been together for 950 days, “and, yes, I’ve counted and yes, I counted the Zach era, because, really, who were we kidding?” But really.
Aww, Bullit
He bounces back from Julie’s rejection pretty well, offering to still play ping-pong with Kaitlyn and then saying, as they walk away from his jet in the twilight: “You ever see that movie Casablanca? It goes like this: Peanut, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” (Team Bullit.)
Young Summer
Young Seth and Young Luke
Young Taylor
Young Kirsten and Jimmy and Kirsten’s perm
Young Sandy OH HI IT’S MAX GREENFIELD OMG MAX GREENFIELD PLAYED YOUNG SANDY COHEN IT’S PERFECT!!!!
Not shown
I think it’s a pretty interesting choice to leave out Young Marissa here, in a flashback of her peers. It would be an easy way to honor the character without bringing back the actress, but I respect The O.C. for going another way with it.
4.14 “The Shake Up”
It’s Taylor Townsend’s birthday, and Summer and Ryan are throwing her her very first birthday party ever. Gah, poor Taylor. And all she wants for her big day is for Ryan to tell her he loves her and invite her to go to Berkeley with him. That’s all she wants! That’s not asking too much, is it? Taylor makes it very clear to everyone, and most of all to Ryan, that this is her heart’s desire, and Summer aids in her mission in various ways, including suggesting that Taylor get Ryan drunk. The scheme of course ends with Ryan carrying a trashed Taylor to bed, but he does tell her that he loves her – and then she tells him she was accepted to Berkeley and he wigs. He decides against giving her the ultra-romantic gift he’d planned, a beautifully bound copy of every French poem she’s translated, and gets her a dictionary instead. Taylor’s crushed, but of course these two kids work it out, as they always do. Ryan realizes he’s being an idiot, gives Taylor the book of poetry and reiterates that he loves her and wants to go to college with her. Taylor’s overjoyed, and so am I. Best couple ever, these two.
Meanwhile, Summer wants Seth to get engaged in something, because his levels of sardonic detachment are stratosphere-high lately. She tells him to make a movie, and he starts a documentary about his friends, but accidentally films Summer and Kirsten talking about how lost Seth seems lately. He’s not mad, and acknowledges to Summer that he will find his “thing,” the thing that he cares about as much as she cares about the environment. Heck, maybe he’ll be a film critic! (What happened to Atomic County? It got him into RISD!)
Kaitlyn’s rebelling against Frank, even though she encouraged Julie to date him in the last episode. She stuffs his bag with clown porn and makes lots of prison jokes, but when Julie talks to her about it, Kaitlyn just reveals that after all of their loss – Marissa, Jimmy, Neal, The Bullit – she’s not ready for an insta-family. She wants to be a family of two for a little while. Julie promises to slow down some with Frank and just focus on Kaitlyn, and Ryan tells Kaitlyn that he’ll always be her brother “in a non-creepy way.” So sweet!
Kirsten runs into The Newpsyweds at pre-natal yoga, and it finally occurs to her what a superficial sinkhole of vapidity Newport really is. She doesn’t want to raise her baby in this shallow environment, so Sandy suggests they move. But Kirsten feels guilty at the idea of Ryan and Seth not being able to come home to the house they grew up in for holidays…and a bleak, sort-of solution to that conundrum presents itself when Newport is hit by an ENORMOUS, super scary earthquake in the final moments of the episode. Not sure how much house there will be left after that!
How many times did I have to drink?
8.
God, these Newpsyweds truly are the worst
Holly: “I mean, who says I can’t have a baby and a six pack?”
This is circus porn
Best pop culture reference
Of Taylor’s drunken antics the night before, she says, “I ended up on the coffee table singing ‘Part of Your World’ and telling him he was my Prince Eric.” ILU, Taylor Townsend.
Summer Roberts’ definition of a film critic
“You mean spending your whole life watching movies and telling people how terrible they are?” That does sound like something Seth would enjoy, actually.
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That’s it for this week, my final week in Newport! Britt, I have the same question for you: favorite character, favorite season AND what’s your favorite episode? Thank you so much for joining me for The O.C. Rewatch Project, and thank YOU GUYS for joining, too. Meet Britt here next Wednesday morning as she wraps it up with “The Night Moves” and “The End’s Not Near, It’s Here.”
