S08E01 - The OC Season 1 - Part 1

Part 1/3

Welcome to Groundless: Newport, bitch.

Join your hosts, Chris and Randy, for a look at Season 1 of everyone's favorite teenage felon soap opera, The O.C.  In this episode we'll review what was happening in the world when this show started airing, discuss the phenomenon of The O.C. at the time, give our general thoughts on the show overall and why we chose to podcast about it, and dive into some of Ryan and Marissa's character and their respective plotlines.

Back in 2-3 weeks with another episode.  In the meantime, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review.  Check out our socials @groundlesspod and @groundlesspodcast, and e-mail us [e-mail].

Thanks for listening!

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/groundless-a-justified-podcast--5328867/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everyone, it's me Chris here with a brief note
before the show. What you're about to hear is part
one of three parts covering the entirety of Season one
of the OC. Parts two and three are in the
midst of editing, and each will be posted two to
three weeks after the release of the prior episode. Spoilers
throughout for the first season and really the entire series
of the OC, so if that's the thing that bothers you,

(00:20):
pick us back up after you finish the show. Also,
just a quick warning that these episodes contain discussion of
homophobic slurs, drug abuse, and suicide. Thanks for listening, and
don't forget to subscribe, rate and review on y'all.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Here right, come right back where I's got it from.
We're flowers, My flowers bloom in the spring each morning,
not dawning, burdsing and everything.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
This is groundless Newport and oc Rewatch podcast. This is
a podcast where we watch every episode of the OC
and then come on here and talk about it. I'm Chris,
thatman is Randy, and we are back. That's right, we are,
and we're here this week to discuss season one of
the O S d OC A show about a violent

(01:10):
and dangerous fixation on a high school girl.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
All right, that would be actually that we apply to
both Ryan and it's Seth.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
That's exactly right. That's violent. I suppose when you talk
about Seth, there's elements of violence in there.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Oh man, I have my criticisms of Seth.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Oh boy, do I ever?

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Man?

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Holy cow, We'll get to those when we start talking
about the characters, because holy moly, I remember watching this
the first time. I'm loving Seth and now watching it
again and being like, oh, maybe not.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah, I don't know. I think it's good, like the
first time you see it, But then I don't know,
maybe about five or six episodes into it into this
this first season, I'm like, yeah, things wearing thin.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Well, that's interesting that we came to the same conclusion
about that. I'm interested to see where else we landed
on some of this stuff. Let's uh, so let's talk
about the OC a little bit. So, So why are
we doing Why are we doing the OC? It's one
of your favorite shows, right.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
It's up there. Yeah, it's uh And I think you
know it came to time where you know, like you're
like when it came out, I think we were was
that two thousand something, you know, two thousand and three. Yeah,
so like definitely weren't in high school at that time.
But but it's something that I like, I'm very familiar with,

(02:46):
like southern California and living in San Diego. When going
to school in San Diego, a lot of people from
the from Orange County would go down there, you know,
like to San Diego all the all the kids who
couldn't get into.

Speaker 4 (02:59):
Oh I don't know, or USC or whatever, which, to
be fair us is exactly you know when you say
like Ivy League or top tier, it's not exactly Stanford
by your way in Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
That's what's her name's kid?

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Right?

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Uh uh aunt Becky's kid, that's right, Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
I mean, is that the biggest fraud now? Like you think, oh,
it's it's all you know, like, oh, you know on merit,
you're getting into these skills. No, it's a straight, cold,
hard cash, straight cash. Yeah, yeah, which explains a lot
actually about the elites and society, that's right, yep, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
So I like the C two. I remember watching I
distinctly remember watching it when it came out and I
was in law school and there was you know, there
was only so many shows you could watch while you
were studying for law school and working for time, which
is what I was doing, and so it was one
of the shows that I chose to watch and and
I really enjoyed the first couple of seasons. That's that's

(04:08):
season three. That's uh.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
I think I like I'm because I always do this,
like I just wait until after the show has been
out for a while, and then I'll start watching it.
I think you were the one who started talking about
it to me, and that's why I started watching it,
and then I got a hook.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
That sounds right because I'm pretty sure I watched it
from day one.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
Yeah, would you watch like because at that time it
was like once a week, right, it would come on
and then yeah, like it'd be when was that would
be Thursday nights or something like.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
That or I think think, well it moved to Thursday,
so that there's I read. I don't know when you
listen to an audiobook, can you still say you read
the book? I don't. I don't know what the etiquette.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
Is on that. Yeah, I don't know either, if.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
You so, so anyway, I listened to the audio book
that Alan Seppenwall wrote on the OC the Oral History
with the producers huh yeah, And he talks about how
the show got moved to Thursday night in the second
season because they wanted to take on the quote unquote
must CTV. They thought NBC was vulnerable and they're like, oh,

(05:18):
we're moving it to Thursday night. And I think it
was on on Mondays originally.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
Oh, I gotcha, okay, all right, so.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
And then it got moved again in season three, which
was basically the end.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
Of the show. Did go. It did go four seasons,
five seasons.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
They went sea four seasons, ninety two episodes, so I
didn't quite get to the syndication level, but or the
syndication celebration now now it doesn't even matter anymore, right,
Like it's like a lot of good shows are just
like thirty episodes and that's it. They're done. They're done.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
But yeah, they don't even like, yeah, well there's no way,
like no real incentive, right, I mean, for like at
least on the broadcast side, because you know, like what
gets broadcast now if he gets dumped onto streaming sides?

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yeah, yeah, and and and anymore, like the syndicated shows
are actually like production shows. They're not like scripted TV
dramas or comedies. They're like you know, judge shows, or
or reality competitions, or or news magazine sort of shows,
or entertainment magazine sort of shows.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
Anyway, So yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
But yeah, so so I enjoy the OC. Like I said,
season three a little rough, I actually really enjoy season four.
I hadn't watched it up until a few years ago.
During the pandemic, I watched the OC again and I
hadn't watched season four, and I really like sort of
the pivot that the show takes. It becomes an entirely

(06:52):
different television show in season four, and it was a
lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah, and there's only so much you could do in
high school, Like it's it's good to see them transition
to over that course, like into like what ye young adults?

Speaker 1 (07:06):
I guess right, Like yeah, yes, because in season one,
you have these you have these you know, twenty two,
twenty three, twenty four to twenty five year old kids
for the most part, except for for Marissa uh playing
these high school kids who are fifteen or sixteen years old,
and then at the end of season one they finished
there what we think at the time as their junior year,

(07:30):
but then they come back in season two and it
turns out that that was actually their sophomore year that
they finished, and they're in their junior year now, and
then they've got a senior year in season three, and
you know, like, I think like by the time they
graduate from high school, Ryan's like twenty eight or something crazy.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
What did you think of Ryan as a as a well,
I guess I would he be the centerpiece? Not really,
I mean it was more of an ensemble thing. Anyway,
It very much.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
Became an ensemble thing.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
I think the original intent was to sort of have
him as the main the main fixation, the main character,
and that the Ryan Marissa love story kind of what
everything else in the show revolved around. And that worked
for a while. But they also they talk in the
book about burning through plot and they're like, yeah, season one,
season one, you know, you'd take a plot arc like

(08:24):
Seth and Anna, for example, where Seth the plot ark,
where Seth dates Anna last like three episodes in a
normal TV show that runs twenty two episodes a season,
that lasts maybe the entire season that plot are so
they're just lighting storylines on fire getting the mock streen
as quickly as they possibly can.

Speaker 3 (08:46):
Yeah, and Anna, I think is probably one of the
one is the one of my favorite characters actually on
the show who she was a minor character, but man,
I kind of wish that she did. Like they really
did have a competition between Ana and Rachel and Summer. Yeah,

(09:07):
I don't know if you were who would you have
gone for if you were in a seth position, because
I think I would lean more toward Dana.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
At the time, at the time that he made that
he had to make the choice that he had to make,
I would argue that he made the right choice picking
Anna because Summer was kind of a bitch. Dna seemed
to actually like him. Summer didn't really seem to like
him very much and didn't really want anybody else to

(09:34):
know about it.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
But oh, yeah, definitely that's true.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
So I don't know, Yeah, I was you know, this
season is twenty seven episodes, and and I thought that
was really weird. I'm like, that seems like so many
because you know, you think about a show usually as
a full season show like this would have twenty two
episodes roughly, and they'd shoot nine months out of the year.

(09:59):
And you know, sometimes you'd have twenty three episode season
where you'd have like a two part season finale or
twenty four where you had a two part season premiere
and a two part season finale, something like that. But
having twenty seven episodes in two thousand and three was
a crazy number. And basically what happened was the first
they shot these first five episodes, and they shot him early,

(10:23):
and they aired him in the summer. They utterm in August,
and they went the show went crazy. And so Fox
is like, oh, okay, well we'll take We'll take a
full season also, and since you just you know, you
just did the five episodes for the little sneak preview
of the show, we'll just take a full season on
the back of that, and surely you'll have no problem

(10:44):
turning out twenty two more episodes this season. And yeah,
I mean they were ten months on production, five six
days a week shooting the first season. It's a crazy.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
Mag how draining that would be if you were like
the same Marissa, because she was she was like a
teenager I think when they started.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
Right, yeah, she was, she was. I think when they
shot the pilot she was still sixteen. I think when
the pilot aired, she was seventeen.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
Yeah, yeah, when you're that young.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
And well, not only that, but she had multiple jobs.
She was modeling, and she was brand she was already
like a Chanel brand ambassador, and I mean she she was.
She was doing a lot of work on top of
the show, flying all over the country, all over the world,
and so it was it was particularly growing on her.

(11:33):
A lot of a lot of these other people, you know,
like Rachel Bilson had barely done anything in Hollywood before this,
and and and you know, I mean had had a
pretty successful show after this, but didn't do a whole
lot other than that pretty successful show after this.

Speaker 3 (11:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
So yeah, so let's let's, uh, let's take a quick
trip back before we uh, before we get in sort
of the cast of characters and who they are and
what they represent and what they've done before, let's take
a quick trick back to two thousand and three, two
thousand and four and see what was happening in the world.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
Are you telling me you built the time machine? Kind
of areo?

Speaker 1 (12:15):
We did, And in our grand tradition here at Groundless,
we always like to take a look and see what
was happening in popular culture at the time, so we
can put the show in the appropriate context. First of all,
let's talk about number one movies. So this is actually
really interesting to be number one movie in two thousand
and three Finding Nemo three hundred and forty million, number

(12:36):
one movie in two thousand and four Shrek two four
hundred and forty one million. So this was before the
billion dollar blockbuster movie. This is before the Marvel comic
or the Marvel cinematic universe had really done much of anything.
I think the first I think Iron Man came out
in two thousand and five or something like that. And

(12:58):
so you see, you it reflected both in lower gross
receipts and in that it's g rated family movies that
are the number one movies. And that used to be
the case. I mean, if you go back and look,
you see these the highest grossing movies of the year
tended to be animated films.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
Yeah, and that's.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
That's definitely started to shift away from that in latter years.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
For sure. I never saw Finding Nemo.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
Oh, you never saw Finding Nemo the original. No, No,
it's pretty okay. It's got Albert Brooks in it, it's
got what's her name, the mean lady who had a
talk show, Ellen DeGeneres.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
Well, I guess it Ellen DeGeneres is. Yeah. I think
she has that reputation of being mean.

Speaker 5 (13:53):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
Like like Lizo kind of mean.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
I guess Liz.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
I don't know, I did. I remember when those those
those allegations about Lizzo came out, not that long ago,
and then I never read anything on like what's happened
with them? But it's probably you know, it's a lawsuit.
They take a long time to proceed, so that's probably
what's going on. Probably nothing.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
Yeah, what is it that saying the like, especially for
you getting like swamped and legal? What is it? The punishment?
The process is the punishment process?

Speaker 1 (14:32):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I wish that a long and
strenuous legal proceeding.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
Nice and expensive too, yeah yeah yeah, so no they
do not. Yeah so I saw. I remember I liked
Shrek too. I remember that I and friending Nemo was fine.
But but yeah, number one song for two thousand and
three in the club fifty cent and the number one

(15:03):
song for two thousand and four is that? Yeah, byre.

Speaker 3 (15:11):
Sure? God, it is amazing because he was a kid
back then, right, so he would have been like was
he a teenager or something like that.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
I don't think that two thousand and four maybe maybe,
you know, maybe maybe for the earlier albums, like the
album that came out in two thousand and one or whatever,
he would have been a teenager. But I think by
two thousand and four he's like twenty two, twenty three,
something like that, roughly mine.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, well he's on I guess he's on tour.
He had a residency here in Las Vegas or I
want to say a year or something like that. And
it was a very popular one too. I mean, people
like just loved it, And then he gets the Super Bowl.
What do you think of that? I wasn't that impressed
with the Super Bowl show for more. I don't know.

(15:57):
I mean the game was actually better than the Super
Bowl four.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
Oh yeah, No, it was a really good football game. Definitely.
It was like, okay, let's get back to the game.
That was that was fun to watch. Yeah, I enjoyed it.
I enjoyed it. I would say I recognized like most
of the songs. There were only a couple I didn't
really know. So yeah, yeah, that's always good. Yeah. And

(16:21):
you know what I did. I put together just a
little bit of a sampling of some headlines from from
two thousand and four, just because two thousand and four
was kind of an interesting year news wise, and so
I took it too little. Run here. I took some
audio clips and cut together from some of the things
that happened during two thousand and four, So I'll play
that here. It's about two minutes. The marines have been

(16:44):
told to comb the mosque for weapons, and as they do,
the firing starts, and you know something, you know something.

Speaker 6 (16:54):
Not only are we going to New Hampshire, Tom Harkin,
we're going to South Carolina and Oklahoma, in Arizona, in
North Dakota and New Mexico. We're going to California and Texas.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
And New York. And we're going to South Dakota and.

Speaker 6 (17:08):
Oregon and Washington and Michigan. And then we're going to Washington,
d C. To take back the White House.

Speaker 3 (17:18):
MTV clas the NFL had no knowledge of this whatsoever,
and unfortunately the whole thing went wrong in the end.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
Okay, should we get some coffee? Sure?

Speaker 7 (17:41):
Where good evening tonight we remember Ronald Wilson Reagan, the
fortieth President of the United States, died today in Los Angeles.
He was ninety three years old.

Speaker 8 (17:55):
Let me talk about some of the other big moments
of this convention, because one of the surprises for a
lot of people who aren't paid don't paid close attention
to Illinois politics, like say David Proter does, was Barack Obama,
who's the Democratic Senate nominee there, and he gave a
big speech in which in which he kind of roared
and electrified the clapp electrified that it's been a long.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
Week of Google, the company that makes the world's most
popular Internet search engine, went on sale to great fanfare.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
Today the voters turned out and record numbers and delivered
an historic victory.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
To fall Red Sox.

Speaker 6 (18:31):
Fans of under here the Boston Red Sox are world champions.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
As well. All good things that have to come going in,
don't they Well through that to pen but he's going
home with a.

Speaker 4 (18:44):
Lot of money two and a half million dollars.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Yeah, so a lot of stuff happened in two thousand
and four. I was looking through there. Yeah, yeah, Ken Jennings,
you had the Red SOX break in the draft, you
had Howard Dean, which you know, you look back on
that and you're like, that is what ruined the presidential
candidate's career at one point.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
It's not like he was banging some hooker or something
like that. It was.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
It's crazy talking about the worm that ate his brain.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
He actually got stronger because.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
So yeah, it's uh, it's wild. And then of course
the Flujah there and the first the first clip, and.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
I think I missed maybe I did recognize like three
or four of those.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
Ye, there was the Friends. The Friends finale was in
two thousand and four. That might have been one of them,
where they where she said, you guys want to get
coffee and Chandler says where.

Speaker 3 (19:53):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (19:54):
And uh Ken Jennings winning Jeopardy that was the last one.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
That would I remember that guy just dominating everybody. He
would just like you just wipe the floor.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
Yeah, and now he's the host. Now he hosts the show.

Speaker 3 (20:11):
So oh does he Okay, he's been so long since
I actually paid attention to the show, but maybe he
actually when Trebek like passed away, did he die, Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
He had I think it was pancreatic cancer. So yeah,
that's right, that pretty much no matter what.

Speaker 3 (20:32):
So yeah, god and.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
Uh yeah yeah. So that was two thousand and four,
so that was that was what was happening in uh,
in the world and in the country at the time
of the OC airing. And and you know, it's it's
interesting because you think about the OC from a perspective
of would this show have been as successful as it

(20:56):
was at any other time, and I I'm not sure
it would have been. I think I think if it
comes any later, you've got the enormous pressures of the
Internet and social media. And we'll talk a little bit
about inside of the out years of of THEOC, how
how the burgeoning Internet and social media sort of affected

(21:19):
the production of the show and the way that the
storylines went and how the network viewed the show and
everything else. We'll talk a little bit about that as
we as we recorded more of these episodes. But I
think before I'm not sure that the world was ready
for what for some of the topics that we were
going to see in a show like this, right this
is these were pretty edgy. Some of this stuff is

(21:42):
pretty edgy stuff.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, Well, I always I always compare it. Not that
I watched every episode of Beverly Hill Signo two one now,
but I remember they would do they would tackle some
stuff that was like, I don't know, just like really
pretty edgy too, right, And it was like okay, nine
and then the OC came after, you know what I mean,
like it had very simply you know, it took place
in calif southern California. I don't know it was. That's

(22:10):
actually that might be one of the reasons why I
really didn't watch it originally, THEOC, because I thought.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
It was, oh, it's just a n clone and I
got interested.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yeah, yeah, so, but I mean conceptually different.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
Conceptually it's it's close, right, it's a show about these
kids in high school, and it's a it's a melodrama
or a soap opera or whatever you want to call it. Yeah,
and yeah, I mean it is. But but it's just
approached from such a different sort of perspective. I think.

Speaker 3 (22:40):
Yeah, I think so too. I mean, there is very
what is it very they recognize it's very self aware
of the like just like you know, like with Seth
and his little lines every every once in a while,
and I don't know, it's definitely. I think culturally it's
it just hit me, like it got me in the fields,
like right away, but I started watching.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
It, yeah yeah, and it's it doesn't it doesn't hurt that.
It's a very sort of well written for the most.

Speaker 9 (23:07):
Part, right yeah, yeah, oh yeah, I think Yeah, I
think they however, they planned it out, like I think
with the for example, Summer, you know, like you notice
like they planned.

Speaker 3 (23:19):
Seeds, like even from the very first few episodes of uh,
you know, at least they tried to establish some stuff
like like she's smarter than she like yeah, yeah, So
so I think they really do, think like they plotted
out their their arcs and they planted those seeds very

(23:40):
early on. So I don't know, I like that a lot.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
Yeah, yeah, we'll talk a little bit about that because
I I you know, there's some of that stuff is
very accidental actually in retrospect, and some of it was
definitely planned and plotted from the very beginning. I always
think of you know, nine O two one oh sort
of as a show that was written by old people
for what they thought young people were, like, Yeah, and

(24:09):
the OC feels more like a show written by younger
people about what younger people are like, but in this
very specific set of circumstances. It's very sort of specific
world where they're given where they're insulated from all of
the bad things outside their their social circle and only

(24:31):
affected by the things inside their social circle. So it's
sort of this safer environment.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
Yeah, I think that's right. Well, Josh Schwartz, who was
the well, I think he was the producer or like the.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
Head creator producer.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
Yeah, he was twenty something like twenty five or twenty
six when he pitched this looc So what were you
doing with twenty five? Not this writing pilots.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
Getting paid? He talks a lot about that in the book.
In the Oral History, it's you know, it's like seventy
percent is like interview with him, and he talks about
how young he was and how he didn't really know
what he was doing, and that that if he had
it to do over again, he'd do some things differently

(25:23):
and that might actually make the show better and later
seasons and might actually make it so that it runs longer.
And but he doesn't seem to have a ton of
regrets either, aside from sort of a couple of interpersonal
interactions that we'll talk about but he doesn't seem to
have a ton of regrets.

Speaker 3 (25:40):
So cool.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
Well, let's let's talk about the cast a little bit
because we've we've kind of danced around the corners of it.
But but yeah, let's talk about the cast. So we've
got the core four, right, You've got you've got Ryan Attwood,
You've got Marissa Cooper, you've got Seth Cohen, and you've
got Summer Roberts and those are there are four high
school kids. You got Ryan. Ryan's the felon from Chino.

(26:04):
He's the guy who's being fostered by the Cohen's. He's
played by Ben mackenzie. And uh, you know him from
the O C for sure, but you also probably know
him from Southland or Gotham. He was in he was
in both of those. Both of those were really successful
TV shows and he was in basically the entire run
of those shows.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
He's also married to Marina Bakern, who is uh the
the comfort woman on Firefly and uh and Brodie's wife
on Homeland. And I didn't know that they were married
to each other, but yeah, he's married to her.

Speaker 3 (26:43):
And she was also on in was it not Daredevil?
What's that Ryan Ryan Reynolds his deadist character.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, she's in She's in the new
one that's coming out like next week or whatever.

Speaker 3 (26:58):
Yeah, yep, yep.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
And he uh so. Ben mackenzie wrote a book last
year about crypto and it's called Easy Money, and it's
about crypto scams and how easy it is to be
sort of taken advantage of and that it's you know,
potentially dangerous, you know sort of thing and taking it's

(27:21):
basically taking advantage of dumb people. So it's, uh, it's
it's it's interesting. He's sort of a crypto currency expert
now and they interview him on news programs and uh
and stuff like that on like.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
So he's like a talking head.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
On he is. Yeah, yeah, it's it's weird. I saw
a clip not too long ago. This was before we
started doing anything about about the recording this podcast. I
saw a clip not too long ago of him on
on a news program being interviewed talking about crypto, and
I'm like, well, that seems like a weird thing to
be asking Ryan from the OC.

Speaker 3 (28:02):
He starts punching crypto.

Speaker 1 (28:03):
You know, like it just yes, that's right. He only
knows how to speak in violence. Yes, yes, and uh
and this role almost went to Chris Pine. So interesting
as part of the audition process, you know, Ben Mackenzie,
he didn't have a lot of credits. They really liked him,

(28:24):
but Chris Pine came in and they really liked chris Pine.
The problem was Chris Pine had bad skin. He had
really bad acne, and they were like, oh, we don't,
we don't think it works and we need a leading
man who doesn't have really bad acne. And so he
lost the job because of his because of his skin. Yeah,

(28:45):
and as Josh Schwartz says in the book, he's like,
I think he's done. Okay, he probably doesn't mind. Yeah,
dude's a legitimate movie star now. I think he's just
fine with it.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
Yeah, So I also think so, so let's talk a
little bit about Ryan and Ben Mackenzie for a minute here.
I think that I think that Ben mackenzie might actually
be the best pure actor on.

Speaker 3 (29:11):
The Show's fair, Yeah, I think that's fair. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
He doesn't get a lot of lines, and I you know,
when you when you read the book, you you understand
that he didn't ask for a lot of lines, and
he he gets to do a lot of sort of
face acting and i acting and and emotive sort of
acting that that a lot of the other characters don't
get to do because you have Seth you know, in
the background constantly chirping about one thing or another, and

(29:40):
then you know, you have a summer as sort of
comic relief, and then you have you know, broody Marissa.
So he's got to carry a lot. And you know,
there's a few moments where I look at Ben mackenzie
and I'm like, Wow, he's really killing it here. There's
a there's an episode in the first like three or
four episodes of the he's in where his mom comes

(30:02):
back and she's there there in the kitchen and talking
to each other, and he's sort of avoiding her eye
contact and trying not to look at her, and he's very,
very frustrated with her. And he's the Ben Mackenzie character
or the Ben Mackenzie actor. He's doing a remarkable amount

(30:24):
of acting in that scene, and and really portraying a
kid who's been abused and neglected really really well. I
think not not wanting to trust his mom and avoiding
the eye contact that really jumped out off the screen
at me.

Speaker 3 (30:43):
He Yeah, I mean who else would be up there?
Maybe Sandy, like the guy who played Gallagher.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
Yeah, he's a consummate professional, right Yeah. Yeah, he's like
he's the punch and punch out sort of actor guy. Right,
He's like he's going to come in, he's going to
do his lines, he's gonna kill it, and he's gonna
go home.

Speaker 3 (31:02):
Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, I think I think you nailed
it there. I mean, just like I don't know, I mean,
if you look at what his carrier, he gets tossed
and he gets arrested, and then he comes back and finds
like basically disappeared. Yeah yeah, I mean you feel for

(31:25):
something like that, you know, situations like that, it's I
don't know, I mean that's something that would you really
wish that on what a fourteen or fifteen year olds
at the time.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
Yeah exactly, Yeah, yeah, yeah, some fifteen year old kid
is just abandoned, the homeless essentially.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
Yeah yeah, and you know.

Speaker 1 (31:43):
That that shit happens all the time. It's it's terrible.

Speaker 3 (31:47):
Yeah yeah. And you know, just speaking of Sandy, I
think that goes back to you know, the like they
explained the show, you know, like he could have been
that kid, except for somebody helped him.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
Out, right, Yeah, exactly. Let me ask you a question,
how do you think how do you think the show
changes if Ryan is black?

Speaker 3 (32:08):
Oh a lot more violence probably begins.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
You got to figure, right, and not only that, I
mean you've got to imagine the back The backlash becomes
more of a story because you know, Ryan's backlash of
being there lasted about all of like two episodes, right,
like Cooper, oh scandalized that this person from Chino is
there until she was reminded that she grew up in Riverside.

Speaker 3 (32:31):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I like how they come back
to it, like, you know, after like later. I think
it's season three where she ends up living in the.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yes, yes, season two where they bring her sister back,
or no, that's season one. They bring us at the end.

Speaker 3 (32:48):
Of the season.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
They bring her sister back for the for the wedding preparations.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
Yeah, But well let's let's get to Marissa.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
So.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
So Marissa Cooper, she she's the rich girl next door.
She I got a whole bunch of little notes here
on Marissa Cooper. But but but one that stands out
to me is that she makes smoking look pretty cool.
So there's actually a whole story about the smoking scene,

(33:18):
and like, like you have these two people who are
portraying underage kids smoking on network television, and the Fox
standards and practices people were like, yeah, no, you can't
do that, and they managed to convince them to let
them do it. And the only way they agreed is
when Sandy is because Sandy comes and like squashes out

(33:39):
the cigarette and says, no more of that in my house. Yeah,
they they said, okay, we'll let you do that because
Sandy stomped out the cigarette and drew their appropriate boundaries.
That's the only way we're gonna let you do it.

Speaker 3 (33:50):
So, you know what, I don't think that they ever
did like they showed them smoking ever in any episode afterwards.
Actually that's a good point.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
Yeah, they allude to it, but they don't ever actually
show it. Yeah, so that's that's that's Marisa Cooper. It's
Misha Barton, and you know her from the O C.
But you might also know her from her topless scenes
in Closing the Ring or Assassination of a high school president.

(34:20):
These are not good movies, as evidenced by everyone going, well,
wait a minute, I've never heard of those movies before.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
Yeah, if you have, it's because you looked up her
topless scenes. So you definitely don't know her from a
bunch of other movies that she's been in that are
all rated below like fives, and some of them even
below threes on IMDb. Oh wow, she's got it. She's
got a pretty pretty it's a pretty bad murderer's row

(34:49):
of terrible movies that she's been in. She's had some
weird struggles for sure.

Speaker 3 (34:54):
Well, I was gonna say, I wonder how somebody like
that where you just basically explode out of the seed,
and just maybe the pressure was too much for her.
I don't know, maybe she got bad advice or who knows,
but yeah, like.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
She just kind of disappeared all of the above, right,
It's like she got too much money and too famous
too fast, and you know that leads to substance issues,
which Misha Barton definitely had. Yeah, there's also the mental
illness that goes kind of hand in hand with that,
and you know the she's hanging out with her you know,

(35:28):
she was hanging out with Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie
at the time, and you know, going out clubbing and
partying and Britney Spears and yeah, that whole gang they were,
they were hanging out together.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
So did I see Paris Hilton testifying like in front
of Congress for something reason or another?

Speaker 1 (35:46):
You did?

Speaker 3 (35:46):
Yes? What was that for?

Speaker 1 (35:49):
I don't know what she was testifying for, but she
actually I've I've been you know, I've been looking reading
up a little bit on her. She's actually like pretty impressive. Yeah,
yeah she is. She's pretty oppressive. She's smart, and she's
got she's got this whole persona that she puts on
for her you know, influencing and marketing and everything else.

(36:09):
But she's built this, she's built this DJ career that
she gets paid very very good money to do, and
she's got all these other businesses. She's she's like a
she's like a captain of industry something else.

Speaker 3 (36:23):
It was very similar to like she does make a
I think it's in season one where she makes the
cameo saying herself.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
At the Rooney Show.

Speaker 3 (36:31):
At a Rooney Show, I like Luca. It's like, oh
that did not I don't know. That whole episode just
cracked me up. Who sings this song? We should just
keep it that way exactly.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
That's that's actually Rooney is ah Ruoney's a reference I
I hey remember two thousand and four and whenever we
do one of those, we're going to hear Howard Dean.
But yeah, if so. About Misha Barton. Also, she's on
right now, I believe still. I'm not sure if it's

(37:17):
still or if it was limited stint or whatever, but
she was on Neighbors, which is a soap opera that's
been running in Australia for like forty years or fifty
years or something like that. And Caleb's actor, the actor
who plays Caleb, was actually on Neighbors in Australia before

(37:39):
he was on the OC, and so that's an interesting
sort of link between them. But she's been on Neighbors
very recently playing a character.

Speaker 3 (37:46):
So it is still set in Australia. Is an Australia.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
It's an Australian soap opera.

Speaker 3 (37:52):
Yeah, okay, And.

Speaker 1 (37:57):
This interesting so interesting cast fact about the Marissa Cooper
role almost Olivia Wilde, but she ended up on Skin
and Skin is another show that premiered her right around
the same time as The OC that was a Romeo
and Juliet sort of show about the daughter of a

(38:18):
porn producer played by Olivia Wilde and the son of
a district attorney who were getting romantically involved with each other.
And the thing that everyone remembers, or the thing if anyone,
if anyone remembers the show's Skin, what they likely remember.

Speaker 3 (38:39):
Is this the district Attorney.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
Because that promo ran on Fox during the Baseball playoffs.
That promo ran on Fox during American Idol, that promo
ran on Fox constantly. His father is the district Attorney,
just over and over and over and over again. They
ran that promo, And yeah, that that stands out distinctly

(39:05):
in my mind as something that was happening at that
time in two thousand and four. But there's so much
overlap there that we're not going to talk. We're not
going to go in depth on the overlap between Skin
and the OC on this podcast, But if you read
the book, you'll read about all the different sort of
touch points there are between Skin and the OC. And

(39:26):
you know, actors who were going to be on the
OC and ended up on Skin or vice versa, and
producers and directors, and I mean, it's it's crazy the
the amount of sort of overlap and touch that these
shows had, and Skin basically got canceled after the first
season eight episodes, I think, and and the OC went

(39:47):
on to have a very very good run on Fox.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
So, Okay, I don't remember that show at all. Skin.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
I remember the promos. I never watched it, but I
do remember that. I remember, I distinctly remember those promo.

Speaker 3 (40:02):
You remember that line.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
The district attorney. Yeah, maybe we talk about the Oliver.
Let's talk about the Oliver storyline right now. We can
do this stuff out of order. It doesn't matter, right
since we since we kind of referenced that, we'll talk
about the Oliver storyline. And so just to kind of
summarize that, Oliver comes in about mid season after the
Tijuana overdose. Marissa is in therapy because Ryan told her that, hey,

(40:30):
you're you're boozing and your substance abuse is going to
be a problem for me since my mom's an alcoholic.
So can you can you kind of clean yourself up
a little bit? Or else we can't. We can't continue
to do this, And which, by the way, incredibly mature
thing for a sixteen year old boy to say, yeah,

(40:52):
that's true and to be aware of you know, hey,
look my mom has damaged me so badly from being
an alcoholic that I can't I can't make these same mistakes.
People have to usually be forty before they figure that
stuff out. Yeah, but but yeah, So, so Marissa goes
to therapy, and at therapy she meets another gentleman who's

(41:15):
in recovery. And his name is Oliver Trask, and he
he is the kind of quintessential soap opera villain of
all soap opera villains. And Ryan immediately sees him for
what he is, and it's because we're not so different,
you would, and and it's like, you know, he's using

(41:41):
sort of the same tactics to seduce Marissa that Ryan
was using to seduce Marissa earlier in the season, you know,
talking about her boyfriend being absent and letting her cry
on his shoulder and all that stuff. And it's like, oh,
I see, I see what's going on here. I gotta
put an end to this. I don't think it's that
he has some sort of criminal sixth sense. He just

(42:03):
sees himself in an Oliver and and manages to sort
of track that down. And then Luke also sees the
same thing. He refers to Oliver as what he call it.
He calls him the Great Gatsby. And you know, there's
there's kind of a there's kind of a two layer
thing there, and it depends on how smart you think
Luke is, Like, is is he smart enough to realize

(42:25):
that that, hey, in the in The Great Gatsby, that
guy was a poser at a phony and uh and
just like Oliver is. Or is it just that he's
the sort of young, you know, partier, kind of rich guy.
And I like that they don't they don't really answer
that question, but it's I liked that. I like that

(42:47):
it could go either way and that it's like, hey,
maybe Luke is smarter than we think he is. He
does go to prep school, right, I mean he probably is. Yeah, yeah,
but uh but what one of the things that I
wrote down as sort of one of my theses was
that I think the show is more artistically, Like, is
a higher artistic quality that it gets credit for. And

(43:12):
I think there's some of the stuff that we see
with all of our especially is kind of an indication
of that. There's the great scene where he's staging the
suicide attempt and he's dancing around to the Tom Jones
song and like spilling pills everywhere and having a great
time as he's prepping this horrible scene of his suicide attempt,

(43:34):
and I'm like, this is really good stuff. This is
like high quality, well thought out production, well done writing,
very well executed on camera, very very good. I thought.

Speaker 3 (43:49):
I think it's because this season is so long that
they could have like just if they wanted to shorten
the season, just get rid of his care But I
think that it as much as I like to trash
his character on there, I think it does add something
that you're talking about as far as like, oh, it's

(44:11):
like a you would call it a detour. But it's
just funny that like this happens over one the first season.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
Yeah the show, Oh I know, I know, Well, it's
not it's like episode twelve or something that he first
shows up. It's not even it's like a three. It's
like five episodes in the middle of the first season,
like any other show. The Oliver arc again, like you say,
last the entire season, and it's not a season one

(44:40):
item by any stretch of the imagination, because you don't
want to piss people off. And is also well, I
already said last the whole season. That's what I meant.
So so yeah, so last the whole season, and or
it should and in this case, they burned through it
in five episodes, just like and And they talk a

(45:03):
little bit about that in the book, and they talk
about how poorly sort of Oliver was received, and they
they boil it down to it primarily being because, uh,
because Oliver, because the audience knew that Oliver was a scumbag,

(45:23):
and Ryan knew that Oliver was a scumbag, but nobody
else knew that Oliver was a scumbag. And they said
that was a mistake, was letting letting the audience in
on the fact that Oliver was a scumbag instead of
making it seem like Ryan was out on a limb
thinking that Oliver was a scumbag, Because then it just
frustrated the fans because the rest of the characters on

(45:45):
the show couldn't see what Ryan was seeing versus if
they weren't, if you hadn't seen that he was a scumbag,
you might have had a different impression of him.

Speaker 3 (45:55):
Or they left it like, you know, you're questionable.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
Right exactly, And they did that for like the first
episode or the second episode. But then they did a
big they did the big reveal with him watching outside
the window or whatever, and Stockings just incredibly sinister.

Speaker 3 (46:16):
We can we can we I was gonna say, can
we talk a little bit about how, you know, Marissa
kind of drives this this like I don't know, you know,
like a woman, was like a girl. I guess I
was acting like that to you. How much tallerans would
you have as far as uh, you know, oh he's

(46:37):
just a friend, or oh hey, let's be friends, you know.

Speaker 1 (46:41):
Right right, oh yeah, let's be let's let's just be friends.
We're better off as friends. I think, I mean, I
think I made a joke here at some point in
my in my notes where I said that every time
every time my ex and I got together as friends,
we ended up making out. So I don't think that
works really. Yeah, here I go. I had an ex girlfriend.
I tried to be friends with him, just hang out
and do whatever, and we always ended up making out.

Speaker 3 (47:04):
She didn't say put a baby in me or anything
like that.

Speaker 1 (47:06):
Nothing like that, not not maybe not not exactly those words.

Speaker 3 (47:15):
But it's but like Seth does it. They all do it.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
Yeah, yeah, I mean we could call this, you could.
Alternative titles for the show could be let's let's let's
just be friends, or I don't want to talk about it.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (47:37):
Even the adults do it, Yes, they do so yeah, yeah.
So so that's and and Oliver is sort of I mean,
he's he's very I I find him very entertaining, and
I think that I feel like the the the the

(47:58):
storyline ends at sort of exactly the right point. I
was starting to get tired of him. They got rid
of him, and that was that. But there's a couple
of things that happened when when Oliver's on the show.
So the first thing that happens is, you know, Seth
makes the classic sitcom suggestion to Ryan of hey, why

(48:20):
don't you break into the file room? And Ryan's like, oh,
that's a really good idea, let's do that. And of
course it's unlocked, so he just gets in there anyway,
and he gets caught. Well he does it, and so
he gets suspended from school. He's in detention. And and
this is the thing that I really noticed is the
only two faces of color you see at Harbor the

(48:41):
entire season are in detention. With Ryan even in over
privileged prep school, the black kids go to jail.

Speaker 3 (48:52):
Let me.

Speaker 1 (48:57):
So, so yeah, I uh, and and then and then
when it's over, and so when when when Oliver turns
out to be evil right because he's got this borderline
personality disorder and he pulls the gun and Ryan and
Sandy rescue of Marissa after he goes full stand on her,
like all is immediately forgiven for Ryan, like nobody is like, oh, yeah,

(49:21):
well you still broke into the file room and stole
stole information. He's like, no, if you're he's just back
in school, no consequence. It's I I wrote here, I'm
surprised they didn't hang up a Ryan was right banner
like would have happened on the Simpsons.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
That's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
So yeah, that's that's all over trask And and he's, uh,
he's interesting, but.

Speaker 3 (49:53):
Yeah it was funny that. Yeah, as you mentioned, like
never to be heard from again.

Speaker 1 (49:58):
Yeah, just just disappears. Like I was sure there was
a whole like scam with his you know, his stupid
four seasons hotel suite and everything else. I'm sure. Again,
I feel like there's all these little loose end plot
threads that they didn't even bother thinking about that. Yeah,
in a show where they weren't just like so obsessed

(50:19):
with writing new storylines every week that that they would
have kind of chased that one down a little bit
more and we would have we would have learned a
lot more about Oliver, and we might have met his
parents at some point and it might have been interesting.
So that gets us through Oliver, and it also gets
us sort of through the Marissa has a substance problem,
although I kind of want to talk about that a

(50:39):
little bit more because that's that's a pretty that's a
pretty big plot for the first half of season one,
which then recurs again in uh in season season two.
Right yeah, yeah, so uh we first we see the
first kind of glimpses of this. I think when when

(51:00):
Marissa in the first episode, right when Marissa turns up
on or is passed out and Summer drops her off
and just puts her on the sidewalk outside her house.

Speaker 3 (51:14):
Well like they even have that. It isn't literally in
the first episode where like they were doing the fashion show.
I think it wasn't. She has to drake to common
nerves or whatever, you know, like before before going on
to walk the cat walk. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
Yeah. And then they went to the party afterwards. Ye
drunk her there, yeah, and uh and and then and
then ran sort of abducts her from her front patio
and abscons with her back to his foolhouse. I have
one of my theses here and we'll we'll talk about

(51:49):
it a little bit more as as we talked through
the plots. But one of my one of my theses
here is Ryan Atwood is a violent psychopath. And and
by by tag for that is that just because he's
violently obsessed with and or protective of women quote quote
unquote protective of women doesn't make him less violent or psychopathic.

(52:10):
And he literally kidnaps her from her front step and
brings it back to his bedroom house next door a
person that he doesn't really know at all, that he
just met for the first time out in front of
their house and is saving her or whatever. It's it's
it's weird stuff. It's weird stuff.

Speaker 3 (52:31):
Well, isn't it possible to have that much chemistry with
somebody like right off the bat that you would I
don't know. It's just bad, just seems just very awkward
to be And I'm like, if you saw her on
the castile drug on the on the step of your house.
What would you have done? Right, It's like, I'm not

(52:52):
doing nothing, I'm watching.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
If I was going to do anything at all, I
would have rugged the doorbell.

Speaker 3 (53:01):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
Somebody left something. You guys have a package or whatever.
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (53:10):
You take a picture to confirm.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
It, right, exactly, Yeah, with my with my phone, Like, yeah,
I certainly wouldn't put myself in a position where I
abducted a drunk of drunk, passed out girl and let
her sleep in.

Speaker 3 (53:24):
My mature Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
Yeah, yeah, I would not have would not have been
a good idea.

Speaker 3 (53:30):
But yeah, normal in the early two thousands apparently. Well,
you know that the pilot is really interesting also because
you know you had mentioned the thing about the smoking
in this pilot day like at that party, that house party,
I mean there was like listen, drug like illegal like
you know, cocade, threesomes happening.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
Yes, goes oh look cocaine, which I think was an
ad lib. I think it was an improv And that
was one of the things about Seth that they talked
about in the book is that a lot, a lot,
a lot of his lines were improved, which yea, you
know is good and bad in some ways. It really
makes it hard for the other actors.

Speaker 3 (54:13):
I would say, just deliver your lines, dude. Right.

Speaker 1 (54:19):
Well, they talked about when his audition he came in
and didn't do the lines, he improved the whole thing,
and they hated him. They hated him, and so he
almost didn't get the part. And then he came back
like two weeks three weeks later when they had tested
a bunch of other people and they hadn't found the
person they wanted yet, and they're like, hey, we really

(54:39):
think he's got it in him. Let's talk to his agent.
They talked to his agent and said, hey, make sure
he comes prepared and does the material and that sort
of thing, and not you know, doesn't just show up
and read whatever he wants. And he came in and
did the audition and he did really well and the
network loved him and that was what made the difference.
But yeah, he almost put himself in a position where
he he wasn't going to get the job. He didn't

(55:00):
take it seriously, you just.

Speaker 3 (55:02):
It was gonna blow off that first meeting. Wow, that's that.
That's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (55:06):
Then, yes, I suppose. But yeah, so Marissa, Marissa goes
to uh well resulting from all of the things that
are going wrong in her life.

Speaker 3 (55:20):
Right.

Speaker 1 (55:20):
So, up until we talked about the TJ episode, which
is the fall finale quote unquote, it's one of the
first times that anybody did that on TV where they
had this sort of cliffhanger at the end of their
fall half of their season that they wanted to make
you sort of tune in for the second half, and

(55:43):
the question was was Marissa alive or dead? Because she
Od's on Oxy that summer bought for her step mom
uh in TJ. Yeah, and it's because of all the
other stuff that's gone on in her life, but also
because her dad and getting divorced, and then her dad
called her to break the news to her while they

(56:03):
were in the car on their way down. You should
have left a note, that's right, what an arrested development
teach us. Yes, yes, that's why you always leave a note.
But yeah, so, so she Od's on Oxy and Ryan

(56:23):
sort of saves her. But the network actually at that
point in the episode or at that point in the season,
they wanted them to leave it open because they weren't
sure if they wanted to fire Misha Barton or not.
At that point, they were still as far as they
were concerned, the jury was still out on whether Misha

(56:43):
Barton was going to be the character that they wanted
to roll with as Marissa, or if they wanted to
kill off Marissa and you do another character. So this
is the sort of the first instance of the network
sort of trying trying to get rid of Misha bart
and slash Marissa Cooper off the show. Yeah, yeah, and

(57:04):
it turned out she was just too popular and they
couldn't do it.

Speaker 3 (57:07):
So what do you what do you think of her
as far as like a character or as far as
like her arc in doing that the first season.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
I think, you know, I think she's a very I
think it's I think it's a very realistic sort of
portrayal of a deeply troubled girl in high school. And
I think that it also is consistent that she would
be that troubled given the environment that she's being raised in,

(57:37):
the massive amount of pressure that's being put on her,
coupled with her mom being as terrible as she is,
her dad being as negligent as he is, and her
boyfriend being Luke.

Speaker 3 (57:53):
I mean he used the labrador puppy or whatever it
is they call him.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
Well, eventually, yeah, eventually he does become that. And you know,
he has one of the great Chris Carmack I think
is the actor's name, has one of the great sort
of redemption arcs on the show where he is he
is the villain of all villains for the first like
seven or eight episodes, and then he immediately sort of

(58:16):
takes this hard right turn and becomes like part of
the group and part of the part of the friend group.
And we'll talk about sort of I think where the
pivot point is on that is when when when when
we find out about his gay dad?

Speaker 3 (58:31):
And yeah, oh yes, we'll.

Speaker 1 (58:34):
Talk a little bit more about that. I have some
I have some thoughts on that, but but yeah, I
I you know, it's it's convincing. I think it's a
good portrayal. I don't think Misha Barton's acting skills were
a problem for the show. I say it that way.
Is that a fair way to say it. I don't

(58:55):
think she's the best, but I don't think she's the worst.
I don't think she's bad either.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
Yeah, yeah, And I think this is another instance where
I think he is perfectly cast as far as you know,
like like you're saying, like they were talking about the
most beautiful girl in high school, you know, like with
yeah that was to be prom queen and all this
other stuff. So yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:20):
And she is. I mean, look be Schavartin at that
point in time, absolutely gorgeous, no no doubt about it.
Just stunning, stunning even if you even if she's not
your quote unquote not at your type, right, if you
don't like girls who are very slender or whatever, she's
still you know, like she's a model basically.

Speaker 3 (59:42):
Yeah. I don't know. I think the first time I
saw her, I thought she kind of looked like e key, So.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
You know, that's what I think about Olivia Wilde. I
think she looks like one of the grays, like you know,
the then shaped heads. But I think she looks she
could if I found out she was a gray, I
wouldn't be surprised.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
Well, because some of somebody with those looks which are
like so stunning, it's like okay, that's like you know,
there's a ten and then there's like the fifteen or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, every once in a while, you know,
we I think we might have talked about this on
the show before, but every once in a while, you know,
you're around somebody who's who's transcendently gorgeous like that, Yeah, yeah,
and you watch them walk through a room and everyone
is looking at them and you're just like, wow, that

(01:00:33):
has got.

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
To be weird. Yeah, yeah, weird.

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
So but yeah, that's that's what Marissa was doing with
dealing with at the time, right, And she's modeling. She's
on the cover of every magazine. Yeah, yeah, life exactly. Yeah,
and so yeah, so it's it's a rough, rough sort
of situation for her, and I think she she persevered
really well through it. She showed up, she did her job,
she was professional, she did an adequate job at her work,

(01:01:03):
and you know, she didn't ruin.

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
Anything unlike some other people.

Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
Yes, he does his share of ruining. Well, we've got
another word that we can we can try and bring
back to if you want. Let's talk about Luke's gay
dad for a minute. So, so, one of my one
of my theses for the show was that Ryan Atwood

(01:01:33):
is Newport's Forest Gump. And I say that because he's
sort of around all of the meaningful events that happen
in Newport as they happen, like he he's there when
Marissa gets dropped off, you know, passed out drunk on
her doorstep and he rescues her. He's he's there making

(01:01:54):
out with Caleb's girlfriend, which causes Marissa to go bang Luke.
We'll talk about that in a minute too, because I
have I have something I want to ask about that
because I think it's absolutely hilarious what happens in that scene.
He sees Julie making out with Caleb atter front door
before anybody knows that Julie's dating Caleb, so he knows
her secret there. He sees her with Luke at the

(01:02:16):
motel when they're banging. He finds Haley working for Mikey
Palmeasi and gets Millhouse's dad to come rescue her when
she's working as a stripper up in la But I mean, basically,
he's Newport's forest clump. He's he's around, he knows all
the secrets and is around all the stuff that happens.
And one of the things that happens is he and Luke,

(01:02:37):
who are not friends, get get put together for a
group project, and they're working on this group project and
they go to the go to Luke's dad's car dealership,
and they see him there making out with his business
partner because it turns out he's been gay for a
long time. And and and my note, my only note

(01:02:59):
on this that I wanted to talk about was, you know,
Luke's dad shows up later in the episode. Well, there's
actually a few things I want to talk about, but
that this, this is the one thing that I really
wanted to hit on. Luke's dad shows up later in
the episode, and uh, and like has a conversation with
his son, and it's good. It's a good sort of
recovery conversation that he has with his son. I thought

(01:03:19):
it would have been absolutely hilarious if after he had
been outed, like the next time we see Luke's dad,
he shows up in like a belly shirt and short
score short shirts, high on ecstasy, maybe on roller skates
or something like.

Speaker 3 (01:03:40):
He's wearing like ass list chat.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
I just I just would have found that very very
amusing if because the show is not subtle in any way, right, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:03:53):
In the Sopranos, where was it veto who's like in
the in the way he described it, like he gets
Bud over by one of the their associates in the club,
and it's like, oh, he's wearing like a motorcycle out
like the village people.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
I remember how how scandalized Polly is when they when
they when they sit Finn down and interview him about it,
and he's like, so wait, he was given he wasn't
receiving catching, that's right, catching, not fitching, that's right. So funny,

(01:04:36):
But I just I thought that would I thought that
would have been great because you know, it's a guy
who's been closeted for the last twenty years or whatever,
and like now that he's out, he's going to be
authentic to himself. He's gonna be true, to be fabulous.
I thought that would have been a really good comedic take,
but obviously not in the show.

Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
Yeah, well, what they could have done is they could
have like, because it's always like the h they could
have built it up with like him being like, oh,
you know, like I hate these you know, all these
gay people and whatever, you know, like just and then
all of a sudden, he's the one who's gay, you know,
like that, you know, they build up the dad character
is that you know, like oh, maybe he's a little
bit homophobiaic or whatever. But then oh, he discovers it's

(01:05:17):
because he's gay.

Speaker 1 (01:05:18):
Yeah, yeah, well if and again, it's one of those
things that you feel like if they had had if
they had let those storylines play out over a little
bit longer period of time, you would have seen that, right,
because we've got to meet Luke's two crew cutted shipthead
little brothers too, and and that would have been kind
of an interesting thing. You know, he's indoctrinating all of
his kids about how, you know, homosexuality is awful and

(01:05:42):
all that stuff, and then it turns out that he's
gay too.

Speaker 3 (01:05:45):
Yeah. Yeah, because that's the way it should be developed, right,
so at least you know, like it's usually they're out
in that way because you hate the gays a little
bit too much.

Speaker 1 (01:05:56):
Right exactly. It's a little suspicious how focused you are,
exactly exactly. It's kind of that's good. There's a lot
of that energy going around in society right now.

Speaker 3 (01:06:13):
What does that say for every finger pointed that you
you have.

Speaker 5 (01:06:16):
To yep, yep, yeah, okay, so that's Luke's dad.

Speaker 1 (01:06:26):
Oh what else I wanted to talk about? There is
Seth and another another like bad look for him reveling
and making gay jokes at the dinner table about Luke's dad. Oh,
I know, it felt very uncomfortable. And then Luke calling
him a fag on television in two thousand and four. Also,

(01:06:48):
it's just crazy. It's like very a very two thousand
and four sort of thing, right, would never ever make
it to TV today?

Speaker 3 (01:06:59):
Yeah, yeah, not network at least not network TV. Yeah yeah,
but HBO if it was on HBO, yeah, it'd be
All Day.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
Goes on HBO would be But but it would have
been treated differently. Right here, it was just kind of
said and nobody reacted to It just kind of happened
and it was fine. And I'm like, what was was
Was it really like that in two thousand and four?
I think I think it might have been. I think
you're right. Yeah, I think you're right. I think it
was actually kind of like that. So that's terrible. Oh,

(01:07:33):
it's there's a there's a moment in the book where
Rachel Bilson is talking about how they got mobbed at
TRL So I was like, well, yes, exactly, I'm like,
this is about his two thousand and four sentences. I've
ever heard Adam Brody and Rachel Bilson got mobbed by
teenage girls at TRL with Carson Daily and were rescued

(01:07:56):
by the Ulsen twins, pulling them into their car and
driving like, no more two thousand and four sentence has
ever been created?

Speaker 3 (01:08:08):
That's crazy, right, just yeah, with the Olsen Twins at
that time, they would have been like, there's still teenagers.

Speaker 1 (01:08:16):
Right, Probably they might have been right on the cusp
of turning eighteen. Okay, I remember how creepy that all
was too. That was like such a thing, right, like, oh,
when did the Olsen twins turn eighteen? Like you freaking
creeps like a map?

Speaker 3 (01:08:34):
Oh yeah, that's right, it was that. And what's the
name of that one girl, Chloe uh Marets that she
turned eighteen?

Speaker 1 (01:08:43):
That girl?

Speaker 3 (01:08:43):
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
They were born in eighty six, so in two thousand
and four they would have turned eighteen, So there you go.

Speaker 3 (01:08:50):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:52):
Oh was it like that with Chloe Moretts too? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:08:56):
Yeah, I mean yeah, but but she was like really
young when I think that she.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
Was like nine when that first movie came out or something.

Speaker 3 (01:09:07):
That's awful. I thought that performance was fantastic. Girl. Yeah,
she's like cussing up like a sailor.

Speaker 1 (01:09:16):
Well she was. She's absolutely great. She's been great and
and everything I've seen her do since then also's.

Speaker 3 (01:09:22):
I can't even think I can't even think of any
movies after after that that she's been in time.

Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
Not off the top of my head, no, but she's
been in quite a few. Yeah, yeah, But okay, let's
see what else do we have here. We've got Let's
talk about Luke and Marissa for a minute. So they
they have been dating for a long time. They met
at they met at the Museum of Tolerance. I think,

(01:09:51):
is that right?

Speaker 3 (01:09:52):
I think so, like, yeah, did they make out in
the back.

Speaker 1 (01:09:55):
Out in the back of the bus at the music
on the field trip to the Museum of Tolerance? I
think is the story there which is wild? But uh
so they've been together for a while and Lucas kind
of has comeback. He is constantly apparently cheating on Marissa.
She's a virgin. He is not, because he's sleeping with

(01:10:17):
with uh well, he's sleeping with everybody and including girls
from what modern day and U see I and U
see I, you see your vine's the Arizona state of
the UC system. Everybody knows that.

Speaker 3 (01:10:33):
Well modern day back like back in my day, way
back when they were like a basketball they still might be.
Oh they were like a basketball powerhouse basketball. Yeah yeah, yeah,
they still might be for all ido. But man, I remember,
like because in California they would you know, they had
the state campionship and one of the guys, like is

(01:10:55):
just going back to like when I was in school,
one of the guys had one of those high school
championship rings and it was like a super Bowl ring. Man.
Oh yeah, how big a.

Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
Diamonds on it and everything.

Speaker 3 (01:11:06):
Yeah, yeah, well it was just massive. I don't know
if the stones were real, because you know, like it's
high school.

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
But yeah, you can high school kind of a thirty thousand dollars.

Speaker 3 (01:11:18):
I can see maybe five grand maybe, I don't know
at that time, but I mean it was it was yeah.
I just remember that, and I'm like, he wasn't even
a starter. But you know if you if you play
on the team, you get the ring.

Speaker 1 (01:11:32):
That's right, Yeah, yeah, you play on the team, you
get the ring, Like kicker gets a super Bowl ring,
just like everybody else does.

Speaker 3 (01:11:38):
Yep, yep.

Speaker 1 (01:11:40):
Backup assistant coaches.

Speaker 4 (01:11:45):
The the Greek guy, yeah, equipment guy, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:11:51):
So there's this so so Luca Marissa, they're they're like
that they are sort of troubled their relationship because Ryan
comes to town and Marissa's like immediately tempted to buy Ryan.
They have this instant chemistry, right yeah, And Luke is
a little upset with her for being interested in Ryan,

(01:12:15):
and so he plays like this silent game with her
or whatever. But ultimately what ends up happening is Marissa
sees Ryan making out with Caleb's twenty six year old
girlfriend who is trying to seduce Ryan, and Ryan's not
super into it, but it's funny, and she sees him

(01:12:37):
making out with her on his bed and she immediately
set decides Okay, well that's all I needed to see.
Now I'm gonna go bang Luke, and Luke, you know,
hits the freaking lottery. Marissa has agreed to fuck him.
But it's so funny because they're making out. There's this
bron panty scene for Marissa, which, by the way, more
objectification of a teenage girl. But the moment where she's like, Okay,

(01:13:03):
we're going to do it and he's like, oh yeah
really and she's like yeah, and he's like Okay, uh,
do you want me to get a condom? Just like
the absolute balls on that kid to be like, oh yeah,
you know she's agreed to bang me, maybe she'll double
dad and let me go bear raw dogger just absolutely wonderful.

(01:13:29):
I laughed so hard when I saw that scene, And
it's just like the absolute temerity, the balls to ask
that question when you're in that situation, you finally convinced
your longtime girlfriend to bang you, and you're like, oh,
so you want to use a condom?

Speaker 3 (01:13:46):
Or what it would have been good if you did
or what or what? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:13:56):
I know, well it was you know, he just kind
of left it there. He's like, do you want to
get a condom?

Speaker 3 (01:14:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:14:02):
It's just like giving her the puppy dog eyes while
he doesn't you know, Like and kids, just remember condoms
are only like twenty four percent effective, so they're probably
not worth it the first place.

Speaker 3 (01:14:14):
Remember in Friends where Ross is like, they should put
it on the box, and like I think Rachel's like,
they do put it on the box.

Speaker 1 (01:14:21):
There's there's a there's a summer seth moment that reminded
me of Friends when they're in Vegas. Again, I don't
have this as like a theme. I just had it
as like a random note, sort of out of nowhere.
But they're in Vegas and they get tangled up with
the hookers, you know, and and Summer shows up in

(01:14:45):
the middle of the trip, and it's basically like she's
pissed at Seth but they've been broken up, and so
that's like, what the fuck? We were on a break basically,
And it just reminded me very very much of we
were on a break. Yeah, okay, let's see here.

Speaker 3 (01:15:08):
Well do you I can understand It's what I'm not
going to defend Luke what I understand why he would
say that, because if you're you know, like you're your
hormone horrmones are going off like crazy when you're a
teenager like that.

Speaker 1 (01:15:24):
Sure, no, no, it's very realistic. I guess it depends
on your perspective, right, Like, like my perspective would be,
I don't want to push my luck here. That's just
let's let's save that conversation for the third of the
fourth time.

Speaker 3 (01:15:45):
Maybe, Chris, you know you missed the.

Speaker 1 (01:15:54):
Michael Scott quoting ring. I yeah, no, I I I understand.
I just yeah, that made that made me.

Speaker 3 (01:16:05):
Laugh a lot. I I appreciated.

Speaker 1 (01:16:07):
That fun, the fun little detail. I hope they I
hope they high fived in the writer's room after that,
because it's one of those ones that that wouldn't necessarily
you wouldn't necessarily catch, right either. I like the subtlety
of it as well.

Speaker 3 (01:16:24):
So yeah, yeah, fantastic