The Prestige TV Podcast - 'The O.C.' 20th Anniversary: Season 1, Episodes 2 and 3

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

Bill, Jo, and Juliet continue the 'O.C.’ Hall of Fame tribute by immediately diving into their favorite scenes and overly dated nitpicks for the show’s second episode, "The Model Home." They quickly pivot to its iconic follow-up, "The Gamble," which ignites a discussion about the casino night phenomenon in pop culture and a debate on whether the series' overall plot was essentially a Seth- or Ryan-centric saga (10:28). After the break, they discuss how modern streaming shows would maximize the amount of dramatic content already presented at such an early point in the series and the complications of developing signature characters within a highly popular show with so many episodes (23:56). They end the pod by pondering why there aren’t more fish-out-of-water stories like ‘The O.C.’ being produced today and waxing nostalgic for network TV programming (33:11). Hosts: Bill Simmons, Joanna Robinson, and Juliet Litman Associate Producer: Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton for this day. It's a prestige TV podcast. My name is Bill Simmons here with Joanne Robison and Julia at Lipman. We are doing Hall of Fame episodes for the OC, which premiered 20 years ago on August 6th, 2003, a time that feels both not that long ago and a kajillion years ago.

So we covered all the pile at all the setups. The second episode is called The Model Home. Great title. and we have four plots, which is plot number one. Ryan has to leave. Get his ass out of there. He's got to find a place. But Seth, this is the first friend he's ever made.

He doesn't want him to leave. We got to figure this out. So we get that. We have Marissa and Ryan falling for each other as this model home situation happens. We have Luke sizing up Ryan appropriately as a real competitor for Marissa. And then we have Kirsten has to help Jimmy Cooper. So they're taking these four things. and we're off.

I think you forgot that Caitlin Cooper's pony has alopecia. I think that was really crucial. I forgot about the pony stuff. The second episodes are usually awkward with these shows

because it's like, hey, they picked up the pilot. We're back. It's six months later. But they get right back into it. And this is a really good episode. What was your favorite thing of this episode, Joanna?

I think it was Marissa being into punk. Marissa rattling up all the bands that she's into. I thought it was amazing and hilarious. Like Marissa's like, I have layers. I like the cramps. What about it? I'm angry.

What about it? Juliet? My was Marissa's strapless dress that she wears when they're like sitting in the pool with the empty pool and Seth is skateboarding. I've always loved that dress and really wanted it. Was it Seth or was it a stuntman pretending to be Seth? Good question. Probably a stuntman.

I was studying it closely. and he never was like turned toward the camera for any of the movies. Maybe it was a reshoot or something that he wasn't available. I don't know, but can I ask you guys a question? Yeah. This introduced the concept of a model home to me

and then like a month later or two months later, arrested development. Also had a model home, also on Fox at the exact same time. Yeah. Is this like, was I like dumb? Like is that a concept that people knew about?

Because I just didn't know what a model home was before this. I still don't know what it is. Yeah. I mean, I only know from the OC and our, of development and it's like a poorly made house that's like this is what your home could be in my development and that's all I've got. Right. It seems like it would be a lot less safe and probably

have animals and God only knows. Prone to arson. Yeah. Yeah. All kinds of stuff. I want to zip through this episode because the third episode is what we really want to tackle on this, which is one of the great, great episodes. Bill, what's the best part of this episode for you? Oh, hallelujah. It was just an amazing drop. It's just that was when, and I really liked watching this episode, but this is a move things along episode, right? We have to, we have to establish some sort of bond between Marissa and Ryan. The villains have to come after them. We got to get a better feel for the, for the parents. But for the most part, you felt like it was just pushing you toward where the show wanted you go in the third episode. But then the, the hallelujah and just that whole thing where he

basically, he's saying, you know what, Marissa? Like, I'm leaving. You should go. And her running out and Luke in the car watching. It's just really good television. That's about as good as you're going to do with a show like this. In that sequence, we also get the one million pillar candles that Ryan has lit around the more candles than anyone. Yeah, eyes wide shut didn't have this many candles. Yeah, good point.

We also have Juliet, the fight scene. You know what I like about rich kids? Punch nothing. Which I think was Ben McKenzie's best moment. whatever, the little bait shop bra, wherever the hell they were. What about when he puts his hood on? Like, that would be a good display. No one would notice him.

Yeah, you can sneak out that way. Good call. So good. Also, they listen to the woman working in the restaurant. She's like, front, why don't they just run past her and just break out? Just go. They're nice boys. He might be from Gina, but he's a nice boy, Juliet.

I guess you're right. So they have this fight and Ryan loses yet again. He's now, I think, I don't know if you give him a split decision in the bait shop. fight, but then in the model home, he loses the fight to the three guys. And the house is going to burn down. And Luke has this crisis of conscience and decides to not let Ryan burn to death in the house. I'm going to go back and get him. At that point, we've now spent almost two episodes with Luke.

Did anything he did as a human being lead you to believe he wouldn't have let Ryan just burn to death in that house? I think you wouldn't let Ryan Bird to death. I think the least believable thing is when he then like confesses at the end of the episode. Well, then we have that. That's the moment where I was like, would he do that? I don't think so. Because they've established him as the Johnny Lawrence Karate Kid character, basically. And Johnny Lawrence isn't going back to save Daniel Son from the burning house.

Like he's just letting that dude fry. So I don't know. That was probably my one nitpick. There's a couple. There's another thing where the Jimmy, Cooper's watching a basketball game and he says it's game seven of the Lakers Pistons 1986 finals, which was Celtics Rockets. That drives me crazy.

I can't believe they didn't fix that. That's a tough one. And then why have they ADR that? Get Tate Donovan. It's such a weird mistake. And then the most dated stuff in episode two is Marissa made Ryan a mixtape. Mixed CD. It was a mixed CD.

With like a custom like paper like cover art. Yeah. You had it? I used to make like custom CD labels and like covers and whatnot. I was really cool, guys. Very 0-4 specific. Luke calls him 8 Mile at one point as an insult. That was really, that was a great line. I loved it.

That's not dated. It's perfect. No, it was really good because it's right after the hood moment. He like puts the hood up, but that's what he calls him 8 mile. It's great. And then they talk about somebody getting addicted to oxy-contin. They didn't even say oxy. It felt very early in the oxy-contin's trend.

I liked it. Can I share my nitpick with you guys? Yeah. I think it's going to make me a real asshole. So I'm just, I'm leaning on you guys to back me up here. Jimmy Cooper only needing $100,000 seems low. I just don't think that's a- Oh my God. So low.

How is he stressing like this? But like, isn't that just a Band-Aid for like a lot? Isn't that just like a stopgap for whatever the larger issue is? I just think what the clients he has, no one is weren't wondering about $100,000. And that seems like they didn't dream high enough in the writer's room of the OC. And I was just like, come on. No, you're right about that. That goes hand in hand with, well, but I love when Seth goes.

You wouldn't consider me rich, would you? I'm more upper middle class. And they're like giant mansion. Right. On the water. And his mom has $100,000 in cash that like no one will notice if it's gone. It's just like, okay. Yeah.

You're officially rich. Sorry. I watched all three of these episodes from the vantage point of the parent this time. I was alarmed to realize that my daughter is slightly older than Marissa in this episode. And Misha Barton, that like threw me for me. I'm alarmed as well. I was thinking a couple things with the parents.

One is I'd probably want to know if my daughter was just dropped off, passed out outside my house. I feel like my wife and I would have been on that somehow. Okay, so are they intentionally trying to make them seem like the worst parents ever, or is that just a mistake? I think Julie and Jimmy are supposed to be bad parents because they're so, like, self-absorbed. Yeah, she's obsessed with, like, keeping up and he is in a work crisis. And she's, like, in denial. She's in denial of all the bad things.

So I think they're specifically supposed to be absentee. Well, then I think Marissa would be more fucked up already at that point. I mean, she's chugging vodka, like, nobody's business in this first couple episodes. And then Julie Cooper is like not only like so self-absorbed and all this other stuff like that, but she is constantly nagging Marissa, like implying that she's like, like ugly or fat or whatever when we are like, we're like Misha Barton. You cast Misha Barton. What are you doing anyway? Yeah, that's tough.

Any other second episode thoughts? Because I really want to get to the third episode. That's the money episode. Second use of Luke using queer as an insult, which strikes me as very, you know, in 2004. Not great. Not great. I love the Luke character, though, as a villain. And I still can't believe they just tossed them away.

It goes back to the 27 episode point we talked about in the pilot episode. They had so much time with Luke, they almost ran out of things to do with them. Like, well, what if we did this? And then that was it. They ruined the character. He can comfort himself with the fact that he is the most famous line in the O.C. Of all four seasons. They never topped it.

They never adopted it, you know? But if I was Chris Carmack, I'd be like, man, I was right there. It's right there with Ben and Adam, it was the three of us. Then what happened? He's had a pretty good career, though. I think that he in some ways, I was thinking about it. Not, no one from the show went on really to anything huge after, I said for Shailene Woodley. But like Rachel Bilsen had a really steady career.

I watched Heart of Dixie. It was a great pandemic watch. I loved it. And Luke Carmack. I mean, Chris Carmack's been steadily working since, and you can't say that about all of them, so he's fine. Yeah, sure. Okay.

Let's get to the third episode. Okay. Which is one of the most important episodes of the 2000s. Casino Night. I'm going to start here. I don't think Casino Night has ever not worked in any form of pop culture. TVs, movies, a reality show. I'm trying to think, and I'm probably a way bigger gambler than either of you,

there's just no way you can go wrong with casino night. There's booze. People are dressed up. People are competing. Somebody might go off the rails. There's large money being passed around. You could have situations like in this where Seth blows on the dice with summer and all a sudden it's going off.

It's a home run every time. There should just be a show called Casino Night that just every episode is a casino night. I'd probably watch it. That's kind of like party down. But for Casino Night, we're like every episode, they're catering. casino night or something. It's like five blackjack dealers working casino nights at different whatever. I think an underrated joy of casino night, at least this one, is the constant sound design of the slot machines like going in the background. You're constantly hearing

money literally drop like the whole up like that whole sequence. Pretty good. And they're also playing like the same instrumental song for like basically 20 minutes of the episode. And it kind of feels like you're in a casino or like you can't find your way out. And it's just like everything's the same. Got to gamble. Just got to go for it. One good thing about when you have a show like this where they're setting up something, those episodes always work really well. Because we get to be in the house and the setup part. There's tension with whatever the characters early on, but we see it. And then all of a sudden come back from commercial, it's all set up. It looks great. It always works. I love it. I know why you like this episode, Bill, though.

This is like the episode of Moms. And I feel like you love Crazy Mom content. Well, I have a Crazy Mom. Yeah. I love, I mean, obviously it preaches to me. Here's my question for you, Bill, then, like, a mom expert. Yeah. If you're like, here's Ryan's mom. Yeah. One week sober. Are you like, let's go to casino night?

What could possibly go wrong? She's one week sober, I'm sure she'll be fine. I have a million thoughts about this. Let's go in order from the start of the show. The show starts with the opening scene where Sandy goes to see Ryan and his Jeevice Center. Some good news. Kirsten's company has dropped all arson charges. Okay, that's a good start.

Right. Good news. Who are we blaming for the model home going down then? I guess nobody. And then Ryan correctly says, my mom ditched me. I burned your wife's house down. How is this going to be okay?

And he's in the meanest prison possible. Like we've seen prison movies. We've seen Oz. Nobody's had a prison of more mean prisoners than this thing. And it's like, oh, man, this is really going to be in trouble for Ryan. They say it's juvie, but everyone's older than Ben McKenzie. Oh, everyone's in their thoughts. There's no kids.

There's no kids. Also, like, this is, you know, love and bless, an incredibly white show. And then, like, he goes into juvie and, like, every other person is not white. We've got Francis Capra from Veronica Mars is here to, like, be especially horrible. And I'm just like, okay, okay. Is this the last whitest show of all time? It's a great question. That's a really good question.

Because there's just no way, if they did this show now, there is a zero percent chance that the Cooper's are a white family living next door. If you're going to make the Peter Gallagher family and whatever, you'd probably keep them white. I might guess what the networks would do that. But I think one of the two families is black. Well, their otherness is their Jewishness in this community. But I think gossip girls pretty white after this. I mean, Succession's pretty white.

There's still some very white shows out there. But I don't think you would have like every single character named character is white and then Ryan goes to Juvie and everyone's not white and beating up on our poor, you know, brilliant but troubled lead character. Also with succession, everyone's kind of a villain, even if you root

for them. So this show is not that way. So it's pretty white. I'll see, I think Friday Night Lights was on track to be the same until they course correct it with East Dillon. Because seasons one and two are really white too. It's just smash Williams and that's about it. And smash his mom and that's it. Yeah.

I forgot about the Jewish aspect of it. Juliet, I don't know if you noticed, though. The show kind of leaned into some Jewish themes as the episodes progress. I think the show invented Christmika. I'm sure that they were families. Oh, I think it did. Yeah.

I mean, that's like a really huge contribution to society, not just like pop culture. I agree. So Seth takes Marissa or wants to take Maris to go visit Ryan. She won't go. So Seth and the mom go to see him. And guess what? We get to see Ryan lose another fight. He's one for four.

One out of five at this point. getting his ass kicked. The mom is horrified. I don't know what kind of juvie this is where you just have all of these scary people and then anybody else can just go visit and we end up in a situation where there's a near riot

and these two pedestrians are just kind of hanging out. It's written by people who heard about juvie as a concept. Never saw any prison of any kind or like any, or even detention in high school. The network was like, Josh, do you want to go to a juvie just to make sure?

He said, no, no, no. I talk to my uncle. I get it. This is what it's like. So then we have, and then we have Julie, Julie Cooper's with somebody talking shit about the Coins

and Sandy over here. Just great Peter Gallagher in this. Here's my question. Do you think in making there will be blood they remembered when Peter Gallagher took Julie Cooper's a muffin

in a pre, I drink your milkshake kind of way? Like an iconic cultural moment. good. Well, we needed Ryan's mom. They need to find Ryan's mom. And Sandy finds her and brings her in. She's a week sober. She broke up with AJ, the abusive stepfather. Things are looking pretty good. There's a little shopping, a little walk on the beach with Ryan. Yeah. Well, makeover. Hey, what if we brought Ryan's mom in the casino night? What could go wrong? She's been sober for a week.

I love what she says that when she's like, I haven't had a drop to. drink since last a week, Ryan. Which leads to one of the best five-minute runs that this show ever had, where she's gambling with Ryan, drinking tonic water and a lime, no alcohol. And then he's going to go over to talk to Marissa. And she says, I'll be fine. You don't have to babysit with me. You don't have to babysit me. Okay, cool. Then we go into a montage. Summer and Adam Brody clicking in craps. Julie tells Sandy about the 100K that, uh, that, that, that his wife gave to Jimmy.

Ryan does the She Chose You Man to Luke so that Luke will be nice to Marissa again and then we see Ryan's mom order a drink and it's fucking on. And this is all in three minutes. Like I, you know, I feel like this would have been a two-part streaming episode

Casino Night would have just kept going. Ryan telling Luke she chose you would definitely be like episode 21 of 22 on any other show. Yeah. Oh yeah. And like that gets really drawn out. And, like, it's not something...

You don't throw that around on any other teen show, you know? You don't just drop that. It's a pretty big deal when someone says that line. So that unto itself was wild. That's a good point.

You forgot Kirsten looking on, judgmentally, while Ryan's mom orders a drink. Over her own drink. She had some good faces. That was why I was pro Kirsten. Unlike Julieta, doesn't like her. No.

Her hair improves drastically. I will say we skipped over one scene that I've always loved, which is the introduction of the noopsie. The idea of the noopsies is really fun. And when I mentioned like crazy moms, it included all of those noopsie gals. And that seems like the kind of thing

that they don't actually say, but I wish they did. Like, I wish that Newport moms were noopsies. It's a great phrase. Noopsy convention. I love that. Well, all of this leads to Ryan's mom ruins casino night. They have to bring her out.

She passes out. We get the sad scene going to commercial of him just kind of watching her sleep, knowing she's a fuck up. Then the next morning, she sneaks out. Ryan's mom catches her. And it's probably the best two-minute stretch in the show. I'm going to put it up against anything they've done.

I'm a mess. I'm not a mother. You hold your family together. I tear my family apart. She's like, you can't go. This would be the first good thing I ever did for him, the way he gets a real mom. This way he gets a real mom.

And of course, Ryan has to come out right at the end of this. And he immediately knows what's going on and does the Ben McKenzie's sad face wave thing. In the iconic tank top, right? We haven't mentioned his tank top work yet. Oh, he's tank top and the shit out of the show at this point. Absolutely. Tink top and belt.

And then we get a little moment. And then she kind of, the mom kind of looks at him. The Kirsten looks at Ryan. It's like, all right, I guess I'm stuck with the rescue dog. They go back in the kitchen. So Ryan's going to stay a while. It's like, oh, we made it. They're adopting Ryan.

We did it. It's great stuff. What are your thoughts, Juliet? I like that both the moms are blonde. I feel like the easy thing to do would have been to make one a brunette and one a blonde and really hone in on like their physical differences. But the reason that two-minute scene actually, though I don't, I wouldn't say it's the best two-minute stretch of the show. But it is very good because it's all in the dialogue.

And so it actually asks the actresses to kind of like do more. And I think they do a good job. Where you going, Tijuana for the best two minutes? I would say the car ride to Tijuana when when, Summer says 80 is the new 70 and Seth says that his hair doesn't do well in the desert heat is probably the apex of this show. It's really fucking good.

You want to weigh in on this show in or no? I think I need to keep rewatching in order to come to my conclusion. I'll come in later. But I will say in this episode, you're a co-in-now, welcome to a life of insecurity and paralyzing self-doubt is a top tier line. Seth is a really, really good character. In some ways, like

the outrageousness of the first few episodes. Like, it's easy to overlook it when we're rewatching, but it kind of all works because of Seth, because he, as Joanna was saying, he is like a narrator. He is like this meta presence, and he's so relatable. Like, Seth is the folk around which the show rests, which they ultimately realized. And that's why Seth and Summer became like the most important relationship in the show. But he's just great. I was going to ask you this in the pilot episode, and I forgot. Do you think this was cess show or Ryan's show if you had to say this was somebody's show because I think what you just said is the answer I think it started out as Ryan's show but it pretty quickly became apparent

this was really cess show and they leaned into that and figured it out what do you think Joanna? Well doesn't that happen all the time like it was supposed to be Dawson's Creek and then Pacey like swallowed that show and it was supposed like Brandon Walsh and then like Dylan McKay is like actually it's my show you know what I mean like that no it's a Brandon show but okay but like you know became a Valerie show. Once Val came in, that was it. There's something for all of us. Tiffany Everthes since here.

But yeah, no, I think that, yeah, I think Seth Cohen and Anne, I think Adam Broan, some Rachel Wilson, like run away, run away with the show, yeah. I mean, it's not fair. I think that happens a lot when a couple starts dating and their chemistry is undeniable. Like, you just kind of, you can't avoid it. And they, I mean, one of the craziest things to happen in my lifetime, and I mean this genuinely and completely sincerely is that Adam Brody married Leighton Meester, who is the like double of Rachel Buston.

I knew you when this happened, I think. And this and the summer of gossip girl. It is one of the weirdest things. And I honestly like don't know how all three parties are functional. Like I don't know how anyone can get past that. And I haven't. I just think about it all the time. Sorry, carry on.

When did that happen exactly? Maybe I didn't know you. Was that before Grandland? I think it might have been during, but I'm going to look it up right now. But like when you just think about it, it's like... That is the all-time cross-the-beams couple

we've probably ever had. Yeah. I mean, it's like, it makes so much sense that that's why it's weird. And I don't know. I just find it really hard to get past. Rachel Bilsen dated Bill Hater. Yeah.

Who looks like Adam Brody. Yeah. I think. Yeah, but she went to Hayden Christensen and after Adam Hardy, it's like a pretty big gulf. And then it's sort of like going back to like something you're comfortable with. But they got together in 2011. So right when Grantland started and they got married in 2014.

I thought I knew when the marriage happened. Yeah, because it's crazy. So this would be like if Kendall Roy started dating Queen Searcy, that would be pretty weird. Yes, exactly. But also Josh Schwartz is like close with both of them. Right, at both shows. Yeah, it's like even, it's an even smaller cinematic universe that he's like picking from. It's just the craziest thing that's happened in my lifetime. And that like includes

everything that's happened in my lifetime. It's extremely wild, but also like somehow extremely satisfying. It's very after. Yeah. Yeah. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity. Or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. Zephound contains terseptide and should not be used with other terseptide containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepound

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worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99 or visit zepbounce.lily.com. So if they did this show now, these first three episodes, which account for 130 minutes of actual content. How many episodes would these three episodes have been in the streaming era, the Netflix era? Because I think at least six. I think Jimmy Cooper has his own episode where we're not even with the kids. Oh, God. I think season one, the conclusion of season one is the Cohen's deciding to keep Ryan. Oh, yeah. And I think casino night happens in season two after they've already made that decision and the mom comes back and they're like, are going to stick with it. Like, you have a much more prolonged phase of like, where's,

Ryan's parents, is this going to happen? And the way that gets threatened would not be until much later. And so... If the first season, the last episode is the mom leaving and you're a Cohen now, and I don't know whether that's eight episodes, seven, nine, ten. But that's, I think, how it ends. It's like a trial, a trial, here, here on a trial basis. And if you don't fuck up, like, you can stay or whatever, which is sort of how you ended here.

I think, like, this conversation we're having about, like, how many episodes. episodes it would have been versus not is like part of why we're here to do an unprecedented prestige move, I think, in Hall of Faming like seven episodes of a TV series, right? It's a run. Yeah, it's a Hall of Fame run. It's like this season of television is so iconic and perfect. And it's why the next three seasons are so messy. And like I love that about this show.

We were talking about this a little bit when we were talking about Justified. Like there's something very lovable about a show. that like gets it right and then fucks it up, but you're still watching anyway and you're still like running on that nostalgia of the really good first season. And you're watching it till the bitter end. And then you're sad that it's gone,

even though it stopped being good a while ago because you like, to Juliet's point, you're emotionally invested in these characters. You see them week in week out. You know what I mean? Yeah. And also with season one, the Oliver arc, I think, is acknowledged by all is like just a travesty and sort of like mess up

the juju of the show. but you could, I think we won't do this or I don't know, maybe, maybe we could, Joanna as a thought experiment later. I think you could skip the Oliver episodes completely and you wouldn't miss anything from the show. Like if my memory serves like so little gets moved forward in that time that you can sort of like, and it's a very distinct episodes like nine to like 12 or like nine to 13 or something, you could just skip them and you still have a full season of TV left. You still got 23 to go in season one. By the way, Friday Night Lights is like this, too. You can basically skip season two and go from one to three and you're okay. It's doable.

Yeah, like when you don't like an arc, you can just sort of like tap out and then come back. Landry never killed anyone. Don't worry about it. It's fine. I've ignored that. So it's fine. Friday Night Lights was a good example of a show regaining the steering wheel and getting its mojo back. Entourage is an example of a show that lost the steering wheel pretty quickly.

And I think people kept watching it. hoping the first two seasons kind of vibe would come back in some way. And it just kind of became a self-parative of itself. But it's tough. Once you lose the steering wheel, it's really tough to get the car back on the highway. I think it's tough too if so much of what makes season one so good is Josh Schwartz, like, bringing his own outsidery feelings of Hollywood, like, to the show.

And then he becomes like the hottest shit in town. And so you can no longer, like, bring that outside energy into the show. now you're just like part of the OC. So, yeah. Plus, he's talked about it. He used to read, he was like very tapped into the fan reaction and the critical reaction. And to your point earlier, you know, he wasn't that many episodes ahead. So he was responding to like what people didn't, didn't like in season one.

And I think that's hard. As you know, I hate that the most. I don't think Jesse Armstrong was like checking Reddit as he was writing episodes for down the road. He might have been for another show. But one of the thing that's seeded really well by the end of episode three. is Luke and Holly. Like, you can, like, I didn't notice it the first time I watched, I don't think. But when Luke and cheats on Marissa with Holly, it's just not surprising.

Like, you can see it. It's there from the very beginning. And they did seed some of that stuff very well. I feel like Luke was in some ways the most plotted out character for better and for worse. Yeah. That's what made it so weird that they basically just dumped them. But that's the thing is when you have a 27 episode season, you can start evolving certain ways. And also, like, you can write a character wrong.

I felt like 902 and O is a good example where they had a, the Claire character was a good character starting out, and then by the end of it was just like one of the worst characters to show ever had. They kind of didn't know what to do with her after a while. I was thinking with episode three and the OC, one of the great things about Ryan is we didn't, basically our relationship to him was he was, you know, the rescue dog, is he going to stay? He had this tough life, but there weren't a lot of like, hey, let's hang out with Ryan

and just kind of be, listen to have him, have conversations about stuff. And the show really struggled with him as it went along, because it's like, who is this guy? Now he's, like,

whipping off one-liners. And it's like, you're just this dude who came out of nowhere who's like the strong silent type. Nobody wants to hear your takes on things. My biggest problem with Ryan is he's supposed to be really smart.

Yeah. But there's nothing about Ben McKenzie that suggests genius. Or the character. There's no sign that he's that intelligent with anything he does. The greatest testament to that is being bad at fighting. He's a bad fighter, so he must be smart.

Right. Here's what's so clever about the OC though, because, like, if they had pinned this whole thing on, like, we're hoping Ryan finds a better home, which we are, like, you know, but, like, you can't pin all your hopes on this pivot on one character. So they pin it on, like, three where it's, like, Sandy wants, like, Sandy sees himself and Ryan and wants to rescue Ryan the way that, like, you know, he feels like he got to come up in the world. But most importantly, Seth Cohen needs a friend. He's like, you left me here with all these pod people. There's one person that I like. I need help so I don't drown in the bullshit that is this community that we live in. And so it's so important to Seth, it's so important to us that Ryan stays.

I wish it were for Ryan's sake that I want Ryan to stay, but it's for Seth's sake that I want Ryan to stay. you know. And like I do like Brian. Like I agree that he's not selling the smart thing outside that like, you know, couple lines in the first conversation with Sandy. About social security ending in 2025. Yeah. I was like TikTok, I guess. But but like the way that he's so protective of Seth, you know, that's endearing. He's a good guy. There's no doubt about it. I don't know how good of a guy is. He's fine. I forgot another really important nitpick while we're talking about this. Bill, you're our. a real Southern California expert here. Yeah, I sure am. Do you feel that the depiction of boating is accurate in this television show? I do not. Boating and stuff. I mean, peaking with the season finale. I think there's some boating liberties that were definitely taken. There's also like the way the kids kind of drove around the drinking, parting, DUI stuff made a lot more sense than the 90s. I felt like by 2004, there was a lot more awareness about this stuff.

than is apparent in the show. And especially if you go to the communities like this, they were pretty vigilant 20 years ago about cops around, people patrolling. And there's a kind of lawlessness to the first three episodes that I think makes it really fun to watch, but at the same time, not realistic. It reads summer to me.

Exactly. But it's like, it's like wild summer. Summer. Anything goes. I don't know. I mean, I don't know how consciously Schwartz was like intending to do this, but there's this whole like privilege.

You're in a world of privilege. where you get to do all of this stuff and the cops don't come after you, whereas like the cops are busting, you know, Ryan and Trey, like, that whole, like, these kids get to do whatever the fuck they want in Newport Beach because nobody is holding them accountable for anything and, like, look how damaging that is for them and stuff like that. Follow question on Ryan Atwood. Do you think he is attracted to Marissa because she, like his mother, has a drinking problem?

Oh. Jesus. I love this, Joanna. And I'm going to go with no. I don't think that Ryan has identified Marissa. his drinking problem yet, but maybe as their relationship gets deeper. Her being just laid out flat on her back on the driveway by her friends. No, I think she's just ridiculously pretty at that point. Yeah. I don't think there's a lot more going on.

I think there's a savior complex thing. And she was kind of the pretty of like, I know I'm pretty, but I don't fully know I'm pretty. That's hard to pull off on a TV show. She's the kind of pretty, like, I know I'm pretty, but not pretty enough for my mom. So they're right. I have like hangups with something. Yeah. So for somebody like Ryan. and that's like the perfect the perfect one for him. That's the biggest problem of the show is that they have no chemistry.

I'm not sure who she would add chemistry with though because as we found out as the episodes passed, she wasn't exactly Merrill Streep. I don't think he's that good either. I don't know. Yeah, he wasn't amazing either. I remember I did a podcast with Greenwald. I know if you've heard of him.

On my old podcast in the ESPN days and we were talking about some show and I was saying how much I love these fish out of water go into some rich location shows. I just don't understand why there's not one on all the time. And we were talking about, I think it was the Hamptons. I was like, why isn't the Hamptons?

Why isn't there like, and then like the next year the affair happened? Was it because we talked about this. It was just random. But it was a little bit of that with the Dominic West character. He was like that kind of author, didn't really fit in with that whole world. Then he meets, you know, there's the two sides of the Hamptons and dove into that. but to me this is the easiest recipe that I can't believe people don't exploit more

and we have we only have so many rich places that you could do this right like in California what White Lotus is kind of doing White Lotus is doing the almost like the international version of it but like we still, we've never

I don't think had a Nantucket show or a Martha's Vineyard show that was done like correctly I don't think we've had a Malibu show that worked Hamptons I think has worked with, you know, stuff of that. We've had Yellowstone,

so we've had like the, that version, but that's a little different. It's like rich rancher stuff, but not, we don't have like the Jackson Hole, like when all the people working at a resort where celebrities come every week.

Just my point is, there's a lot of meat left on this bone. And, you know, we have a writer's strike right now and people are ideating ideas. I just give us more stuff of people in locations. I think the summer piece of it is really important. I'd like to bring up

important film, Summer Catch, with Jessica Beal and Freddie Prince Jr. It's just an abomination of a movie. Wow. If that had been a good movie, it would be genre-dified thing. It was Friday Night Lights at Cape Cod Summer League. Yeah, exactly. And because it's not good, just I think your Martha's Vineyard idea is a really good one. And that's, that's where it should go.

Because that has townies, like, people who live there year-round. And they're like, also, I think the fact that it's like, you have to take a ferry to get there and it's an island, that kind of like separation. really, like, brings into, like, you're coming into our territory. And I think that's an ideal location for it. This proves my point. Ready? Joanna, are you excited for the new HBO show, Edgar Town?

It's a max exclusive. They're bringing back the OC and it's set in Edgar Town. And it's just a bunch of kids working in Edgar Town for the summer. My question is, why haven't they done it? Like, Silicon Valley, the show exists. But as a Bay Area representative, I just have to say they haven't done, they haven't landed the plane on that one yet. Up here yet, you know. Right.

Yeah, it's just, I don't think this stuff's hard. Give us a location and somebody who doesn't fit in and we're good to go. Yeah. Yeah. For the Bay, it's Marin County. It's like, it's, yeah. Or maybe you have like people displaced by fires and like, I don't know, stuff like that. Well, Marin City work is in Marin County and it is like where every single like non-stance.

super rich person that's in Marin City or the canal. Like, they exist within the ridiculousness that is in Marin County where I was born and raised. So, yeah, absolutely. What town are you from, Joe? Mel Valley, California. Cool. Well, this show made me nostalgic for shows like this. And maybe they're still making them and they're just like they're all blending into one.

We had 599 scripted shows last year. So I'm sure there were a couple of them that took a swing and tried to make it. The Outer Banks is trying to do that, right? Somewhere I turn pretty is probably the closest to what we're talking about. I forget where that's located. It's on Amazon. What we're really talking about here, though? What?

I'm sorry? No, I think he meant like, like, isn't in the Hamps or whatever, and I just like love the Easton. It's somewhere tropical. No, I think it's the East Coast. I think it's like,

I think it's also like North Carolina or something like that. It's somewhere with nice weather. Sorry, I thought you meant like what streaming. Yeah, what streamers on. I know. I think what we're really missing here, maybe I'm just projecting it for you guys,

is network TV, because that's really what's missing, is the being forced to do a long. long season, being forced to have a million things happen and fight for eyeballs in a different way and have these characters be on TV every week for most of the year. And like that's just... Yeah, but we know that's never happening because these shows are expensive. That's what we're nostalgic for. And nobody watches network TV. Yeah. That's why this is... And also the monoculture in general, right? Like that everyone's watching one show that just like, like, yeah, people are, some

people are watching The Summer I Turn Pretty. Some people are watching Euphoria. Some people are watching Underbanks. But no one's watching like one show. And you can't say, the name of a character like Seth Cohen or Marissa Cooper or Ryan Atwood. And for it, like, I have seen the summer I've turned pretty Outer Banks. I cannot name a character from those shows. I can't firm euphoria, but like I can't name those other shows. I had my column at that point, and it was a national column, and I would try to weave in pop culture as much as I could.

And I was really careful about what shows I tripled down on with references and working in or even like doing like long mailbag answers to things. Because just to make sure, are people going to get this or enough people watching this? In first season of OC, I had no doubt. I was like, people are going to get this. This is, you're either watching it or even if you're a guy, you're watching it

because your girlfriend or your wife likes it, but people knew what the show was. They knew the characters and they got it. And when you talk about like the monoculture thing, like, like Succession had that. I don't think there's any question. But a lot of times, like if you did, Like, 2023 me writing a column.

If I dropped Outer Banks in, I would have no idea who got that. You know? So I don't know. It's just a different era. Like the staff of the Ringer and maybe that's it. Of your audience. Do you know when I watched Outer Banks is when I got hired at the Ringer? Like, that was my like, oh, I better watch the Outer Banks.

Yeah, exactly. What a show. Bill, do you know that my origin story with you is because you used to write about like 9-0-2-0 and I used to read like your mailbag, even though you know that I don't. Oh, well, Wow. Know anything about sports, but I used to read your mailbag. Yeah.

When can I get you to watch the Godfather if I was able to pull you in on the 902-0? I've seen the Godfather. I've seen the Godfather. What was the one you didn't see? The Sopranos. Oh, Sopranos. Yeah. Joanna, I don't know how many you've been told, but it's a really good show.

So check it out. Is it? I haven't heard of it. It's awesome. Jesus. I haven't seen the wire if we're all being honest here. So, I know, my first day at Grantland, you guys came up with the seating for the wire bracket. But you're stubborn like I am, though, when people, enough people say you got to watch

it makes you go into FU mode because I feel that way about the Big Labowski. I still haven't watched it. I don't appreciate all the people who make me feel bad about it. I'm not in FU mode. I'm waiting to turn into content.

So the minute you tell me that we should do a podcast about it, I will watch the Supreme Court. She just mind-trapped you, Bill. No, listen, Van Lathen has been just working it. He's like Andy with the rock hammer and the jail cell just working,

Joanna, just chipping away a little bit at a time, waiting for the green light for her to start watching the show. All right. we're going to recap episodes four, five, six, and seven culminating in the Tijuana episode. I'm not sure I'm going to be on the next episode or two. It might just be you two.

But also, if you guys text me and you're like, hey, we're doing this tomorrow. I might show up for it. I don't know. But I'm passing the steering wheel over to Joanna for the next couple. This was a pleasure and a privilege. Thank God for the O.C. Thanks to Chris Sutton for producing. And stay tuned for at least one more Hall of Fame episode heading toward August.

the 20th anniversary. By the way, we never talked about there wasn't enough music. I feel like the show had a much bigger impact on the music scene that comes later, but not really in these first three episodes, right? Like you mentioned that Rooney story. It did feel like the show is like breaking bands

or catching bands as they were taking off. We didn't get that in the first three. I haven't watched four, five, six, seven again yet, so I don't know if that dives in. I feel like All-American Rejects. And that came out of. Yeah. And there was another Rufus Wayne, right?

The California. California. Yeah. Yeah. Great stuff. All right. Good to see. It was a pleasure.

It was. Thanks so much for having me. The joy was mine.