So my first experience with The O.C. came during a very lonely summer in my life, after I'd graduated high school. See, I graduated a semester early which meant I couldn't really hang out with my high school friends anymore because it was weird but also that I couldn't make any college friends because I was the mid-semester starter and didn't know anyone. So I worked at Blockbuster every night and spent my two free rentals a week on old TV shows. This is the story of how my love affair with The O.C. started. I stayed up until 3 AM every night for weeks and missed many, many 8 AM English classes because of this shit.
Lorraine: I know this is the first recap, but I can already tell this will be my favorite, "The O.C. and me" story.
We start at Quake. The name of the restaurant is stylized on a piece of reinforced concrete that is cracked down the middle. GET IT?
Phoebe finds Piper at the bar. As per usual (or based on 2 episodes...) Piper is freaking out. Seems the chef that hired her promptly quit and left her to run things alone. This is clearly not the restaurant Piper auditioned at in the pilot, so perhaps she had to do a full rebrand too. Phew! She must be exhausted. Not too exhausted to notice that Phoebe is wearing her dress., though. I have sisters too. I can spot my dress on one of them from an admirable distance away.
Phoebe finds Piper at the bar. As per usual (or based on 2 episodes...) Piper is freaking out. Seems the chef that hired her promptly quit and left her to run things alone. This is clearly not the restaurant Piper auditioned at in the pilot, so perhaps she had to do a full rebrand too. Phew! She must be exhausted. Not too exhausted to notice that Phoebe is wearing her dress., though. I have sisters too. I can spot my dress on one of them from an admirable distance away.
We begin with Deputy Mumbler's tongue in Veronica's mouth. He basically asks if he can come inside the Mars apartment and have sexytimes with her, but she's like, nuh-uh. She also mentions that their age difference is 29 months, which is a few years less than I had been estimating. Are there really nineteen-year-old cops? I mean, I guess if you can be a soldier at 18, you can be a cop at 19, but I can't pretend I'm comfortable with the idea of teens in the police force.
Lorraine: Girl, sometimes I see teens serving me fries at McDonalds and I hit them with a, "are you qualified for this?" eyebrow. It's part of being an adult, right?
Lorraine: Girl, sometimes I see teens serving me fries at McDonalds and I hit them with a, "are you qualified for this?" eyebrow. It's part of being an adult, right?
Manning, Colorado. A man sits at a bar, flipping through a book that looks very similar to Papa Winchester's Filofax of Shadows. The bartender addresses him as Mr. Elkins and asks if he'll be having anything else to drink. He says yes, and as she fixes him a drink, another patron makes a comment about how creepy the guy sitting alone is. Which is funny coming from a guy who is also sitting alone at a bar and flirting with a waitress who is way out of his league. She shares that Mr. Elkins is a nice old man who lives up in the canyon by himself and flips through that old book on a regular basis. And also, he's kind of a nut.
Three people dressed in leather come in, and Mr. Elkins immediately freezes in his seat while discreetly checking them out.
Three people dressed in leather come in, and Mr. Elkins immediately freezes in his seat while discreetly checking them out.
After the horror of THE LATEST BAD THING, the girls sit around Montgomery Manse drinking tea and brooding with Aria. Hanna breezes in like a breath of fresh air, with her bubbly personality and bag of sick coping trashy pop culture, which is how Snark Ladies deal too.
Lorraine: Any time I'm sick, I think, "at least there's more time for TV!" #adult
Sweeney: The girls discuss whether or not Meredith Center Stage is sincere in her confusion over this latest development with Byron.
Lorraine: Any time I'm sick, I think, "at least there's more time for TV!" #adult
Sweeney: The girls discuss whether or not Meredith Center Stage is sincere in her confusion over this latest development with Byron.
I've tried to mini-recap several shows and nothing ever panned out. If you are reading this post, SUCCESS. If your name is Sweeney, and you are reading this post in our Trash, at least I tried. Tell no one about my failures.
San Francisco under a full moon and lots of rain. A lady feeds her cat, then chants a spell for protection. All the while we see someone sneaking up behind her. She startles, but then relaxes when she sees who it is. Probably she should've stayed on her guard or maybe worked a little harder on that protection spell because the cloaked figure stabs Witchy Cat Lady.
San Francisco under a full moon and lots of rain. A lady feeds her cat, then chants a spell for protection. All the while we see someone sneaking up behind her. She startles, but then relaxes when she sees who it is. Probably she should've stayed on her guard or maybe worked a little harder on that protection spell because the cloaked figure stabs Witchy Cat Lady.
Veronica is still sitting in front of her computer, reminding us that Abel Koontz has a daughter and Clarence Weidman knows she knows. V believes Jake Kane bought a dying man's confession, since his family needed a fall guy. She uses PrivateEyez.com to search for Amelia Delongpre. She needs to find Amelia before Clarence does. Her search reveals that Amelia lives in LA! LA is where all the mystical relics are always conveniently located, so I don't have a hard time believing a key witness would be there.
Sweeney: A KEY witness in the land of mystical relics? IS AMELIA DELONGPRE A KEY? IS SHE RELATED TO DAWN SUMMERS? I have so many questions.
Sweeney: A KEY witness in the land of mystical relics? IS AMELIA DELONGPRE A KEY? IS SHE RELATED TO DAWN SUMMERS? I have so many questions.
I'm going to start by saying that this episode gives me the wiggins.
We open with a shot of a creepyass painting of a family c.1910: husband, wife, three kids, cut throat razor. You know, the usual. The camera zooms out as a slightly tipsy couple in formal wear discuss their terrible decision to purchase said painting at a charity auction courtesy of said charity auction's open bar. They make out a little and the guy tells his wife he'll lock up and meet her in the bedroom. She giggles her way upstairs as the zoomy cameraman shows us the painting again. We see the Painted!Father's head turn towards Drinking Leads To Bad Decisions Guy, who locks the doors and sets the alarm.
We open with a shot of a creepyass painting of a family c.1910: husband, wife, three kids, cut throat razor. You know, the usual. The camera zooms out as a slightly tipsy couple in formal wear discuss their terrible decision to purchase said painting at a charity auction courtesy of said charity auction's open bar. They make out a little and the guy tells his wife he'll lock up and meet her in the bedroom. She giggles her way upstairs as the zoomy cameraman shows us the painting again. We see the Painted!Father's head turn towards Drinking Leads To Bad Decisions Guy, who locks the doors and sets the alarm.
Alison returns to her garage telling Donnie that she cleaned the car. Donnie's having a much more appropriate, "What have I done?" reaction over the corpse. Alison's all business and while that's probably more productive for them not getting caught it's also an entirely terrifying quality to witness. Donnie's, "I'm going to throw up," as they wrap the body up and toss it in their extra freezer is how I assume a person who is not insane should handle hiding a corpse they murdered.
Lorraine: TRUE. We've seen how jittery and nervous Alison can be, but I'd venture to say it's generally a before/after the fact reaction. In the moment, she's going to do what needs to be done.
Sweeney: It's a fine line. I get that she's doing "what needs to be done" to protect their family now, but her callousness about it still makes me uneasy.
Lorraine: TRUE. We've seen how jittery and nervous Alison can be, but I'd venture to say it's generally a before/after the fact reaction. In the moment, she's going to do what needs to be done.
Sweeney: It's a fine line. I get that she's doing "what needs to be done" to protect their family now, but her callousness about it still makes me uneasy.
Final magical/lying credits of the season take us through King's Landing, Moat Cailin, WinterfellFOREVERonfire, The Wall, across The Narrow Sea to a scary game of Mouse Trap Braavos, and finally Meereen.
We resume where we last left Jon Snow, heading north of the wall, swordless, to kill Mance. There's a lot of weird shaky cam which made me think direwolf cam but no, it's just Wildling cam. Jon surrenders immediately, explaining to Mance that he's been sent to negotiate with him.
Lorraine: I thought Jon's plan involved some amount of being sneaky. It makes sense that he left his sword, now, since his entire plan was just walking right up to the people who were trying to kill him.
We resume where we last left Jon Snow, heading north of the wall, swordless, to kill Mance. There's a lot of weird shaky cam which made me think direwolf cam but no, it's just Wildling cam. Jon surrenders immediately, explaining to Mance that he's been sent to negotiate with him.
Lorraine: I thought Jon's plan involved some amount of being sneaky. It makes sense that he left his sword, now, since his entire plan was just walking right up to the people who were trying to kill him.
Lorraine: This was a lot of fun to put together. I feel much better about this list than I do my worst of list. Not much to add here except...
Things got a little bit away from me.
Last night, after watching Sweeney's great video, I became a lean, mean, ranking machine. I ranked story arcs and characters and episodes, and also what's here in the video below. I tried to squeeze in my bottom 10 episodes as well, but there was just no way that was going to happen time-wise, which is why the video ends kind of abruptly.
Also cut for time, an explanation about how there was more of a debate during my Buffy rankings about what was the best, quality wise, and what was the best to me.
Last night, after watching Sweeney's great video, I became a lean, mean, ranking machine. I ranked story arcs and characters and episodes, and also what's here in the video below. I tried to squeeze in my bottom 10 episodes as well, but there was just no way that was going to happen time-wise, which is why the video ends kind of abruptly.
Also cut for time, an explanation about how there was more of a debate during my Buffy rankings about what was the best, quality wise, and what was the best to me.
I continue my reign of terror and cheating. Cut for time: other examples to accompany item #5 (spoilers!) and some gushing about why I wish I had more numbers so that #2 didn't have to be collapsed and could actually be multiple things. Ultimately, the point of that rambling, though, was that as great as #2's parts are, the whole is ultimately greater than the sum of its parts.
(See, now I gave you a bit of a guessing game! What are these things! It's even harder since I gave myself zero rules in framing the kinds of things I could choose because if you're going to cheat, cheat big.)
(See, now I gave you a bit of a guessing game! What are these things! It's even harder since I gave myself zero rules in framing the kinds of things I could choose because if you're going to cheat, cheat big.)
The levels on which I have cheated here are numerous. Even as I was editing I was struck by all the things that I omitted. This video is, in fact, "Five random things I came up with that I really hated about Angel and arbitrarily placed in order." Except my #1 which I stand by. Probably. Until someone in the comments makes a compelling case for something else.
A van riddled with bullet holes on the passenger's side tears through traffic as we hear police sirens in the background. The van pulls into a garage and the driver hops out. A handkerchief is covering most of the driver's face. Getaway Driver runs over to the passenger's side where his buddy has the misfortune of being Wounded Partner in Crime. He insists he's okay, but the bleeding bullet wound tells us otherwise.
Getaway Driver and Wounded Partner in Crime argue about their job gone wrong. Wounded Partner in Crime was supposed to have the place cased, but they were ambushed anyway. Getaway Driver doesn't think it was police or feds; the ambushers were wearing very expensive shoes.
Getaway Driver and Wounded Partner in Crime argue about their job gone wrong. Wounded Partner in Crime was supposed to have the place cased, but they were ambushed anyway. Getaway Driver doesn't think it was police or feds; the ambushers were wearing very expensive shoes.