The OC S02 E03 – Questionable Relationships and Sad Pandas on Parade

Previously: Summer told Seth to leave her alone and Caleb got arrested.
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The New Kids on the Block

GFM: I feel that I cannot appropriately recap an episode of the OC without first saying that Adam Brody will forever be Dave Rygalski to me.

Sweeney: It’s important to start by letting us all know where you’re at. We all have our, “In My Heart This Actor Can Only Have One Role” problems around here.

GFM: Dave is just so much more likeable than S2 Seth. Okay. On with the recap.

We open with Ryan, hanging out in his pool house, reading a newspaper, you know, as teens do, with a splashy  “Newport’s Man of the Year Behind Bars” headline.

Seth walks in, obsessing about his new haircut (which really looks no different from the last episode, but who am I to judge – his hair game is strong) and flippantly passes off Ryan’s ‘Can you believe this about your grandfather’-type questions. Because hair concerns > grandfather in jail.

Sweeney: I can’t tell if this is #teenagerpriorities or #richkidproblems. A hybrid, perhaps?

Lorraine: That hybrid is why this TV show was iconic during the early 2000’s, I’m sure.

GFM: Ryan won’t let the grandfather in jail thing go, and Seth finally acknowledges he’s aware of it, but only because he’s upset that he was cut out of Caleb’s front page photo, because, OMG, BAD HAIR IS SABOTAGING HIS LIFE.

Ryan snarks about how waaaay off base Summer was when she accused Seth of making everything about him.

It takes a full second for it to dawn on Seth that maybe there is some truth to Summer’s accusations. He is all he thinks about and “not in a good way.” My buddy Ryan and I are on the same page, because he asks the question that’s going through my mind… There’s a good way to think only about yourself?

Seth decides he’s going to change his ways, but Ryan suspects a hidden agenda. Seth swears it’s for the greater good of man, but Ryan is still doubtful. YOU’RE NOT THE ONLY ONE, RYAN. The end goal here is to get Summer back – you’re not fooling us, Cohen.

Seth wordspews that if becoming a better person happens to win Summer back, it still isn’t about him, it’s about giving Summer what she wants and needs and ew, just please stop.

Sweeney: Last season I was a little confused and distressed by the guest recapper hate of Seth Cohen. So far, I am not a fan of S2 Seth Cohen. I find myself saying “just please stop” 95% of the time that he is on screen doing things. (L: +1)

GFM: Seth refers to himself in the third person and asks about his hair and I’m wondering why I haven’t counted how many times the word ‘hair’ has been used in the first two and a half minutes.

CALIFORNIA HERE WE COME!

Can I just say the first time I ever heard this song was back in… I want to say 2002, when my brother took me to an Incubus concert to cheer me up because my boyfriend and all my friends were being giant douchecanoes. Phantom Planet opened for them and I thought it was so cool. Yet I was conflicted because I was only there because my younger brother felt sorry for me. Oh, the tramarama of those teenage years. I do not miss them in the slightest. (S: I don’t want to say “you could not pay me to go back to high school” because obviously there’s pretty much always a price, but I’ll just say that it would be a very, very high price.) (G: Very, very, very high price.)

After the opening credits, Sandy is driving Caleb home from the clink, doing the ‘you can thank me later’ bit.  Caleb scoffs, he’s not going to thank Sandy for letting him spend an inhuman night in jail! Eyebrows Sandy says that is something coming from the dude married to Julie Cooper. BURN.

Sandy says he has to get the senior partners’ approval to represent a client like Caleb, because despite Caleb’s richness and power, he’s kinda guilty and the partners apparently don’t go for that in a client. (L: I find that incredibly hard to believe, but okay.)

When Caleb realizes they’re not headed to the office, he starts to get huffy, but Sandy points out that Kirsten basically runs the company, anyway, so he might as well just step down as CEO for the good of the Newport Group.

A clunky old car arrives at Harbor. We’re supposed to notice how the car doesn’t fit in, because it makes clunky noises and we get a bunch of shots of the other, shinier, newer, more expensive cars in the parking lot. A girl gets out of the clunker and asks a couple of girls with bitchy resting face if it’s okay that she parks there. Bitchy girl gives new girl A Look before telling her that she can park there, as long as she’s not embarrassed. Clearly new girl should be embarrassed, because teens should be driving flashy Benzes to high school, not clunkers.

Sweeney: More importantly, since the OTP relationships of the core four have dissolved, she’s here with her outcasty poor girl problems because it’s time to have another hypotenuse who is better than her core four counterpart in basically every way, but will prove to her male love interest that he love the other girl for the rest of time! Yaaaay!

GFM: Another character posing as a plot device. Yaaaaaay. 

New girl sighs and makes sure her door is locked? Which I only comment on, because her window is open, so what does that matter. (S: This same thing recently happened in Neptune and it drove me way more nuts there because it was a nice car at a school with actual income diversity, whereas this is a cheap car at a super pricey private school. Either way: stop leaving your windows all the way down but worrying about your locked doors, teenagers!) As new girl walks away, we get a shot of her bumper, which is covered in stickers, including a PETA one, an anti-war one and a Kerry-Edwards one. Because if her clunker of a car, plain and awkward-fitting clothes weren’t enough to tell us she’s “not from around here,” these bumper stickers clearly will.

Inside Harbor, Seth is trying to prove he’s working on becoming a better man while he and Ryan order coffee. Seth notices a flyer for a new club that just happens to be advertising a show with one of Summer’s favourite bands, so Seth decides he will buy Summer and her new boyfriend Zach tickets to prove how changed he is.

Ryan turns around and dumps his coffee all over the New Girl. As if that physical comedy wasn’t enough, Ryan then elbows her hard in the nose when he goes to reach for napkins to help clean up, setting the stage for New Girl to become Ryan’s new love interest. At least, this is my guess. (S: A wise guess. You’re so good at TV!) (L: They can bond over being poor! It’ll be great.)

Ryan tries to help her collect her stuff that has spilled all over the floor, but she insists that he doesn’t need to keep handling her tampons and asks if this treatment is some kind of new kid hazing they do there, because, oh, hey, have we not pointed out yet that she’s new enough yet?

She backs away slowly from Ryan, insisting that she’s sure coffee stained clothes and a toilet-paper-stuffed-nose will only help her fit in easier among her privileged, rich and bitchy new classmates.

Back at Chez Cohen, Kirsten has her serious face on, telling Caleb it’s time to think about the future. Sandy’s backing her up and gets an A+ for topical references, saying it might be time for Caleb to “get his Martha Stewart on.” (S: Yup – her trial was in January of 2004, a few months before this episode was likely written/filmed.)

The door bell rings and Kirsten offers to get it, as it’s clearly going to be more police, reporters or angry investors, but instead it’s Julie. She cut her spa weekend short when she saw the news of Caleb’s arrest, because apparently all the relaxation made her realize she sucks at being a wife, but it goes both ways because she knows Caleb has been a dirty, dirty liar.

Kirsten and Sandy give them privacy to talk, and Julie offers to do anything she can to help Caleb, because she doesn’t want history to repeat itself, as her marriage with Jimmy broke up when Jimmy got arrested.

She offers to help by doing aaaaanything, but Caleb tells her Kirsten’s handling all of that. But there must be something Julie can do, and Caleb finally agrees – he needs food. If he’s going to work from home, he’ll need food, coffee and water — Cuz we all know how homes don’t have access to water! –  so if she could go ahead and take care of that, while he, Kirsten, and Sandy “get back to business” that would be great.

Julie gets points from me here for not hauling off and punching Caleb when he calls her ‘Juju’ when he dismisses her, because, well, he might as well have patted her on the head there.

Sweeney: I go back and forth on whether the grandpa sex or being patronized is the worst part of this marrying-for-money arrangement.

Lor: OOF. Don’t make me pick, though seeing it all spelled out makes me lean toward grandpa sex.

GFM: The questionable relationships on this show. There are just SO many examples. Marriages, friendships, parent-child, girlfriend-boyfriend. All questionable. Urrrghhh.

Back at Harbor, Marissa is swooning all over Summer’s new guy Zach, because he is just perfect, but I am waaaay too distracted by the pearls Marissa is wearing to be focusing on their “Zach is Newport’s Prince William” crap.

They leave the locker, and Summer is wigging because her dad wants to meet the new guy. Marissa thinks Summer is wigging because she’s not over Seth. It is totally because she’s not over Seth.

They go and sit down in this lounge/cafe area, because no one in this school ever actually goes to class, and Summer swears she’s over Seth, because she’s gotten rid of all his things. Which is always the sign of being completely over someone. Marissa is not buying it. And neither am I.

Zach joins them and proves that he is also a newspaper reader, so I guess I owe Ryan an apology.  Summer decides to invite Zach to lunch to meet her dad.

Ryan proves me wrong for the second time this episode, as apparently he does go to class. He chooses the most awkward place to sit, which just happens to be next to New Girl, and because we need more physical comedy, he hits her with his backpack while he is trying to squeeze between the chairs to get to his seat. They share some snarky banter and decide they’d be happy to never have to talk to each other ever again as their teacher arrives. Their teacher starts assigning new lab partners, and, in a twist of fate and hilarity, New Girl (whose name, we finally learn, is Lindsay Gardner) and Ryan are made lab partners.

Seth and Ryan are skateboarding and tiny-bike riding along the boardwalk, waxing poetic about famous music clubs and name drop CBGB’s. They enter the new music club, the Bait Shop, to find it empty except for a Young! Olivia Wilde (whose character’s name is Alex) (S: And I’m really impressed with you for actually calling her Alex instead of Olivia Wilde, because I don’t think I could do it.) with really well-hairsprayed bangs, angry-typing on her laptop and listening to headphones. Her music is turned up so loud that she doesn’t even sense the two guys approaching her– way to be safe!– and nearly bends Seth’s arm off when he taps her on the shoulder. The guys tell Alex that they want tickets to the show on Friday, but surprise! – she tells them the show is sold out.

Two seconds later, Alex is handing out an envelop of tickets to a roadie. There are apparently tickets left for anyone who works there, so Seth begs an unimpressed Alex to hire him.

Lor: Seth Cohen needs to calm down.

GFM: The next morning at Casa Cohen, Sandy’s doing the supportive parent thing, applauding Ryan’s studying at the breakfast table and Seth’s new job.

Kirsten blows into the kitchen, clearly distracted with keeping her crim father’s business on track, but promises to Seth that everything’s going to be okay.  Not that Seth was asking or anything, because he’s still only thinking about himself. Seth seems to clue in that maybe he should be asking about his grandfather and wonders out loud if Caleb will lose the house and Ryan asks if Caleb would loose the company, and Sandy does his best “That’s crazy talk!” to reassure everyone.

 

Cut to Julie, who is also reassuring Marissa that everything is going to be okay. Marissa’s doing her best impression of a spoiled bitch and tells her mother that she’s not worried and actually hopes Caleb ends up in jail. That way Julie would lose everything and Marissa could go back to living with her dad.

At school, Ryan is asking Lindsay if they should exchange numbers so they can work on their lab report, but apparently Lindsay is a stellar student and has already completed it and turned it in and – WHAT IS TIME FOR THESE PEOPLE? Seriously. I wasn’t really much of a science student, but weren’t lab reports something that required experiments, collecting data, and then reporting on it? How has she already finished their entire report? Time just moves differently in Newport, I guess.

Sweeney: Time moves differently on TV, in general, but especially on teenager shows.

GFM: Anyway. Lindsay is telling Ryan not to worry, she put his name on the report, she’s only after an A and doesn’t want his dumb, rich, privileged self to bring her down. Ryan rats her out to the teacher, hoping to land him a new partner, but LOL NOPE, instead the teacher says they’ll be partners forever and ever and gives them an additional assignment. Womp womp.

At the Bait Shop, Alex is struggling to lift what looks like the lightest crate of wine glasses ever, while Seth is oblivious, as per usual. Alex finally gets his attention and he helps her with the crate. Not without complaining about how he hurt himself, of course. Alex tells him that he is waaaaaay out of his element, but Seth explains he’s doing this for a girl… and her friend that’s a boy. Alex tells Seth that while it’s sweet, he’s also pathetic. YES, THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT HE IS.

Seth is saved when her flip-phone rings and she answers it, turning away from Seth and giving us a great view of that insane butterfly tattoo that I assume is there to show us how badass she is. She has a quick conversation with her mom.

When she gets off the phone, Seth asks Alex how old she is and she says she’s 17. I LOL forever, cuz none of the ‘teens’ on this show look like teens, because the actors are all mid-twenties at the youngest, but age and time and reality has no place in the OC. (S: Mischa Barton was actually a teenager, but the fact that she was real-life drinking and using drugs like her character made time a little less kind to her.)(L: Drugs will make you look like a 20-something actor on a teenage soap opera! #PSA)

We get a quick Alex backstory: she’s been kicked out of a bunch of schools, so her parents kicked her out, told her to get a job and she’s got her own place and now works at the Bait Shop and is the happiest about it. Alex gives Seth his tickets and we’re somehow talking about Seth and Summer again, and Alex warns Seth that Summer will see right through his game.

At the office, Sandy comes in and tells Kirsten that he’s been fired/quit because the partners aren’t happy he’s taken Caleb’s case. Ruh roh.

At the Roberts’ home, Summer’s laying on her bed, watching the Valley and Seth rudely interrupts to deliver the tickets to the concert. Summer angryspews about how she’s not going to a concert with him, but he quickly explains the tickets are for her and Zach. Seth tells her that he just wants to do something nice for someone else for a change. And everyone believes him. No hidden agenda here…

After the not-a-break, we’re on a boat! with Marissa. She’s thanking her dad for letting her stay over, and monologues about how hard it is to be her. Julie arrives to pick her up, and she and Jimmy talk about how things are going with Caleb. Jimmy tells Julie maybe she should stop marrying for the wrong reasons, and Julie points out that while Jimmy married her because she was pregnant, she married Jimmy because she loved him. Ick. Honestly, is Julie just the worst? Because I think she is. But then Marissa stomps back into the scene and I’m reminded of who the ACTUAL WORST is.

Sweeney: Aw, see, this scene wherein Julie reminds us of the bummertown reality of her marriage to Jimmy is the first time in FOREVER that I remembered that recapping made me sympathetic to her. Her terrible parenting and sleeping with teenagers have pretty well ruined her for me, but in a great many of her scenes with Jimmy, she comes out the sympathetic one for me. This whole little bit here – from the “you married because of the pregnancy I married for love” to her rolling with the punches on Marissa’s “back to the gulag” – is the most endearing she’s been in at least a dozen episodes. Not that the bar was set all that high…

GFM: My heartless cow-ness is showing here, I’m afraid.

Cut to Harbor. Lindsay is asking Ryan what he’s doing, and he says he’s working on their assignment, which Lindsay has finished. She has decided she’s got him all figured out, telling him that while he’s super rich and life is easy for him, she’s at Harbor on an academic scholarship so she can’t risk failing. Again they do the “you don’t know me” bit and I’m already bored with it. Ryan tells Lindsay that she’s all wrong about him and she finally gives in a bit and she divides up the work for their assignment. They make plans to get together on the weekend and finalize their homework.

Summer and Zach are in her bedroom as she’s getting ready for the concert. Zach asks where the tickets came from and she tells him that she got them from Seth. In a very un-teenage-boy way, Zach tells Summer he needs her to figure out where she stands with Seth, so he insists she go to the concert alone to talk to Seth and try to figure it out. Summer accuses him of being a robot for acting like an adult about the whole Seth thing, but agrees to go. Yeah. She is SO over Seth.

Sweeney: Few adults could be as mature as Zach was here, let alone teenage boys. Also, I can’t believe I completely forgot about Zach as a character because he’s the actual best forever. (Which is how we now his happiness is to be foiled by the core four.) I just want to watch a spin off with Anna, Theresa, and Zach. Maybe Lindsay can come too – I’m undecided.

Lor: ZACH AND ANNA. Does this fanfiction exist already? Because it should.

GFM: I’d ship that. Except I HATE that phrase. Ew, ick, no. Anyway.

Back at the Cohen household, Sandy, Kirsten, Julie and Caleb are popping the champagne to celebrate Sandy’s new found unemployment. As you do.

Julie prods Caleb to make their own toast. A reluctant Caleb tells Sandy and Kirsten that he’s planned a press conference to announce that he’s stepping down as CEO of the Newport Group… and appointing Julie as the new CEO. And Julie’s “take that, bitch” face is gold.

Sweeney: Aaaaaand there goes the goodwill she just built up. But also with a hint of respect because the woman gives good bitch.

GFM: After the nonbreak, Ryan and Seth are at the Bait Shop, and I’m confused because wasn’t this supposed to be a sold out show? So how did Ryan score a ticket to it? But again, I’m forgetting reality has no place here.

Anyhoo. They’re talking about Summer, of course, and just as Seth is starting to wonder if she’ll actually show, she does and she’s all by herself. Seth asks where Zach is and Summer explains Zach couldn’t make it. Seth sorry-not-sorrys about it and offers to show Summer to her seat. (S: Even though this is clearly a General Admission no-assigned-seats venue.)

Outside the Bait Shop, Ryan spots Marissa sitting on a bench. He goes over to her and the two talk about Seth and Summer, in the way characters on TV shows do sometimes,  where we’re all going ‘Oooh, are we still talking about Seth and Summer here?’. Ryan then asks Marissa if she wants to go in and see the band, because apparently the sold out concert thing was just a plot device, not an actuality.

Sweeney: Gotta get Seth working at this club! The great dilemma of teenager shows is that high school is not actually that interesting and writers must constantly contrive reasons for their cast to hang out in places far more interesting than high school, but they can’t legally drink so their options are limited. You’ve gotta make them the victims of aggressive stalking or give them fun employment like teen sleuths, vampire slayers, or, you know, urinal-cleaning-guy at a concert venue managed by Olivia Wilde. Or come intern at Snark HQ.

Lor: Except, Seth’s application at this point would be DENIED.

GFM: Sandy has his angry-serious face on as he’s showing Caleb out. He tells Caleb that Julie knows nothing about running a big company and that if Caleb doesn’t figure out how to make it up to Kirsten, Sandy won’t be lawyering up for him.

Back at the Bait Shop, Seth is playing 20 Questions about the seats he scored for Summer and she snaps that the only trouble with them is that she’s having a hard time hearing the band cuz Seth WON’T SHUT UP.

She apologizes and thanks him for getting her the tickets, and says she thinks they should talk. Alex rushes over to tell Seth he’s on vomit clean-up duty. Summer asks Seth why the ‘tattooed girl’ is talking to him and Seth explains how he got the job there to get tickets for Summer, all in an attempt to get her to stop hating him so they could be friends. Summer thinks it was sweet of him, but then Seth has to screw things up by kissing her.

Summer runs off and Seth follows her outside the Bait Shop. As Alex warned, Summer sees through his game. She’s mad that he doesn’t actually want to be friends, that he lied and was just trying to get her back. He tells her that maybe he just can’t be friends with her, with some pretty pained facial expressions.

She tells him that it’s over for them and leaves Seth sad-pandaing all over the boardwalk.

Sweeney: Except that pandas are the most adorable, perfect creatures ever, while Seth Cohen’s self-pity at his failed attempts to manipulate someone is decidedly not adorable. (G: True, I’m not being fair to pandas.)

GFM: The next morning in the pool house, Seth, looking like he’s coming off the bender of all benders, is complaining to Ryan about how badly he messed up with Summer. Ryan doesn’t have any time for this, as he has to go and meet his lab partner, but Seth is whiney about how he just needs Ryan to listen to him talk about himself some more.

Seth, dude.  JUST STOP ALREADY.

Lor: It isn’t cute, show. I see what they are trying to do but all that’s happening is some Seth hate.

GFM: Ryan is confused, because he thought Seth was done with that– Seth tells him that was the new Seth, and that Cohen Classic is back.  I’m so proud of Seth, he tried at least one hard thing for a day or two before giving it up. A+.

At the breakfast table, Kirsten is sad pandaing about Caleb making Julie the CEO. She tells Sandy that she can’t go into the office and face Julie as her boss.  Sandy tries to talk her into enjoying a life of unemployment together, but tells her that if she’s this upset, she needs to be talking to Caleb about it.

Seth goes to visit Marissa because (as he tells her) when he has a problem, he likes to talk about it incessantly.  You don’t say, Cohen… Seth tells Marissa that he thinks he really messed up with Summer and that he thinks he hurt her feelings. Marissa’s all “Yeah, you did.” She suggests that maybe he could just try apologizing. It’s so simple, it just might work!

He asks Marissa if she knows where Summer is and she tells Seth that Summer’s having lunch with her dad at the club. She tries to talk him out of going over there and says he should give Summer some space. Seth is so not listening. Marissa then asks Seth where she might find Ryan, because they “had fun last night.” Seth tells Marissa that Ryan’s at school working on an assignment, because he’s “kind of a dork now.”

Caleb has come to see Kirsten, and Sandy jokes that she’s agreed to supervised visitation. Caleb is all “I don’t need supervision” and Sandy says it’s Kirsten that needs to be supervised, because she might kill Caleb. LOL, SANDY. YOU ARE MAJOR JOKES, MAN.

Anyway. Caleb tells Kirsten he’s sorry and that in order to save his marriage, he had to make Julie the boss. But he’s going to make everything okay by making Kirsten – who he keeps referring to as Kiki and OMG STAHP THAT, SHE’S A GROWNASS WOMAN – the new CFO. He’s doing this, because the person that controls the money is the REAL boss of the company. Kirsten asks if Julie knows yet, and Caleb says that she will find out. Dun dun dunnnnnnn.

Sweeney: But appointing her to this position while not telling her that (questionable) truth will surely do GREAT things for your marriage!

GFM: Caleb is the best at husbanding AND parenting.

Lor: And business running! Even the police are interested in how he runs his business!

GFM: Ryan and Lindsay are working away, and she concedes that his work isn’t the worst she’s ever seen. Lindsay tells Ryan she owes him an apology and Ryan says he’s sorry for the slapstick comedy and the tampons.  They joke-flirt, as Marissa watches them from a distance. She sad-pandas away from Ryan and Lindsay in slow-motion, who are too busy flirting to notice.

Seth arrives at the club and asks the hostess for Roberts, party of two. The hostess says she has a table for Roberts for three, and Seth rounds the corner to find Summer and Zach having a cozy lunch with Mr. Roberts. D’awww.  Poor Seth. Cue some more sad-pandaing.

Outside, Seth finds Marissa. She’s sitting on the same bench from the night before. He sits down and monologues about how he would never have believed that he and Marissa would be the loneliest people in Newport. (L: Seriously? Selfish and Dead Fish? I believe it.) Sad panda, sad panda. Roll credits. The end.

Thanks for having me, Snarksquad! Always fun revisiting teenage trauma via old TV shows. And by fun, I mean thank jeebus those years are behind me.

 

Next time on The OC: Seth and Ryan go on awkward double dates because being single makes for bad TV in S02 E04 – The New Era.