The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘The O.C.’ 20th Anniversary: Season 1, Episodes 4-5

Episode Date: July 30, 2023

Jo and Juliet are joined by Alan Sepinwall, author of the upcoming book, ‘Welcome to the O.C.: The Oral History.' Before they dive into the episodes, they debate whether ‘The O.C.’ helped create the online recap community, discuss how the Seth Cohen character impacted pop culture, and how the pacing of the first season affected the characters in future seasons. They discuss the story lines in each episode, Tate Donovan’s role as Jimmy Cooper, as well as Paul Wesley’s role as Donnie. Also, Stephanie Savage’s contribution to the show, what differentiates the show’s writing from others released around the same time, why Adam Brody’s career never blew up, and more. Hosts: Joana Robinson and Juliet Litman Guest: Alan Sepinwall Producer: Jessie Lopez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm Joanna Robinson. I'm joined today by Julia Lippman. We're here to talk about episode four, episode five of the O.C in which there are three fistfights, one shooting and one teenage girl barbecuing in her bikini, which has to be an OSHA violation. I'm so excited to talk about these episodes of television. Joining us today, an absolute expert in all things OC, the author of the upcoming Welcome to the OC colon, the oral history out November 28th. November 28th.

Now, Alan, SEPPemwall. Hi, Alan. How are you doing? Oh, I'm so happy to be here, guys. Thank you for having me. Oh, my God. I'm so thrilled to have an OC expert here to talk us through this. I think you mean two, Joanna.

It's very rude. Absolutely. I mean two scholars in OCDM to lead me through all of this. I wanted to start. We're obviously going to talk about. the debut episode four. We're talking about the outsider episode five. But I wanted to start with something that we didn't talk about last time

for the last two episodes, which is the fact that Doug Lyman directed the first couple episodes of the OC. Juliet is a scholar. I know you know this, but I thought we should maybe talk about it for a second. Like between making the board identity and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, he directs the first couple of episodes of the OC. Alan Simball, how did this happen?

Do you know? Oh, I have a lot of. and lots of Doug Lyman stories in this book. I think a lot of people have Doug Lyman stories, right? No, but even Doug, who I talk to, like, cops to most of the Doug Lyman story. So just here's a case and point. They're filming the pilot while he's doing pre-pro on Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

And so, like, he's sort of every day, the screenwriter of the movie is coming down and he's having meetings with them. They're filming a scene where they're out on the water. And, you know, like Seth is taking Ryan out on the boat. And so the boys are on one boat. everyone else is on a crew boat filming them. As they're in the middle of setting up a shot, Doug Lyman realizes he is late for a Mr. and Mrs. Smith meeting.

Says, you guys have got this, right? Jump off the boat, swims to shore. He jumped off? He jumped off the boat, swam to shore. Dave Bartis, who's his longtime partner and is also a producer on the show on the pilot. I asked him, he says, that's not the first time I've seen Doug jump off a boat. He does it all the time.

Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. This is move. It's the Lyman move. That's hilarious. Far from the weirdest Doug Lyman's story in the book.

Do you know what's so funny? That's like basically a scene from Arrusted Development, if I recall correctly, in the Arrested Development pilot where there's also two boats and I think someone jumps off. And obviously it's not,

but the more than we've been talking about this, I've been thinking about all the parallels between Arrested Development and the O.C. Yeah. And they're both on Fox in the same year. So it's kind of funny to think about. But that's hilarious. Wow, what a great story.

Now I really want to read your book. Yeah, well, again, I highly recommend it available for pre-order everywhere. But, I mean, the thing is, McGee was supposed to direct the pilot, and then there were production delays on Charlie's Angels 2 full throttle, you know, the Immortal Cinematic Classic. Correct. And so he couldn't do it. Yeah.

And they went basically to like 180 degrees in the other direction in terms of style and got Doug Lyman instead. But it's also two, like, big budget action guys. Yeah. Is this why there's so many fist fights? the beginning of the O.C. I mean, I think this part of it, I think also just, you know,

they love the karate kid, and it's the karate kid without karate. Bill agrees. One thing that's interesting about that is so much has been made in the last 20 years about TV and by made, I mean, not the making of TV,

but so much has been said about how television is a writer's medium and how the, like, writers have really pushed TV forward, like looking at, you know, David Simon, David Chase, Matthew Wiener,

etc., etc. But I think one thing is really underrated is how many really talented television movie directors started directing TV from like 1997 forward. Like that also really changed it as well. And to the point about it's like McG or Doug Lyman like doing a teen soap pilot is so funny to think about even now it's still be a big deal. But I think that's almost like an underrated factor in how television entered this prestige era. Yeah. I mean, even around the time that the OC was on, I forget which one it was. but Stephen Soderberg was already making TV shows in this period.

I had one called K Street with like John Slattery, but also James Carville in the same cast somehow. And then there was another one called Unscripted about like actors, young actors in Hollywood. And so, yeah, there was a lot of like really outstanding feature guys who started to realize, oh, we can do something here. Yeah, they were like slumming it, but not. Anyway, I cut you off, Joanna, I apologize.

No, no, I think that's totally fascinating. I also wanted to talk about sort of like a macro, this era of television question, which is like, Alan and I were talking this morning about the television without pity recaps of the OC. And, you know, Television Without Pity brands that website, which for people who are listening and don't know, helped, would you say, launch recap culture, the message boards and the recaps at Television Without Pity.

They named the website that it existed before that, but they named it that in 2002 and the OEC debuts at 2003. So this is just like right at the perfect storm. Obviously, they were recapping Dawson's Creek before this. I read every Dawson's Creek recap over on that website, et cetera, et cetera. And it was my dream around this time to be a television without pity recap. I want to be, I think I tried out to be their Buffy recapper and they're like, you're 12. And I was like, okay, fair enough.

Were you a watch with Wanda Head? Because I used to rush home for school for the live chat with Kristen Dostantos when she was under the alias or pseudonym Wanda. But exactly. this is, I mean, like, a little bit in the lost era I was. But like, this is, this is such a changing time in the way we watch television, the way we talk about television. And I think that sort of online buzz, word of mouth. And this is a, this is a perfect show for television without pity to recap because it's like both enjoyable to watch and also fun to make fun of at the same time. Um, so, Alan, I was just wondering, like, how much do you credit the success of the O.C in the early days to this, like, versioning online recap? I mean, I think it became this symbiotic relationship. We talk about television without pity a lot in the book. I interviewed a bunch of the recappers who were covering the show. Josh Schwartz talks about how basically it felt like he developed a drug addiction that was like bad from the start. Like he never even got a high off of it. It was immediately like spiraling basically the first

time he started looking at the recap. So there was a lot there. I mean, I think definitely around this period is when you really started to see the engaged TV audience with things. like Twop with things like, you know, recap blogs like the one I used to have. And yeah, it was, this was the period when everyone was going crazy about that. Were you recapping the O.C. from the beginning? When did you hop on? Not from the beginning. The first time I started recapping was in fall of 05. So I think I mostly covered a part of season three and all of season four. Amazing. The other thing at TV, without pity, really helped popularize in part of spoiler culture was

it would post sides. They had so many, you know, short arcs for recurring characters. And so those scripts would make them onto TV without pity and other message boards, and I would read them. But that was the real beginning of spoiler culture for me, because I, like, was being, it felt like currency to know what was going to happen on the O.C. before anyone else. I would do the same thing with Buffy on sort of message boards. I'd be like, I know exactly what's going to happen on Buffy this week. See, and I'm the exact opposite. I never want to know this stuff. I don't anymore, but as a teenager, it felt like power. I'm recently reformed. It's true. I wanted to, like, Julia and I talked a lot, about the Seth Cohen character as this, what felt like to me a newish archetype here at the

beginning of the 2000s. I was wondering, like, how you think about Adam Brody and the Seth Cohen character and did this feel new to you? Does it feel like a logical continuation of like your Pacey Whitters or your David Silvers or whatever you prefer? Going back and rewatching the whole show to do this book, Brody was definitely like, he jumps off the screen. He is really, there's a lot of excellent performance. is on this show, but there's a reason that, like, he seemed like he was going to be the big star who came out of it and then, you know, various circumstances got in the way. But there's definitely some David Silver. There's definitely some Pacey and other things. But, like, he starts from this starting point of having no friends, no life. If you, in the pilot, he's, like, really closed off. He's not remotely the chatterbox he becomes within an episode or two. But, like, this idea of the nerd who is also the dreamboat, you know, adorkable before there was Zoe Day Chanel. That was big, and that's, I think, more than anybody else. Like, Seth and the soundtrack are the two biggest contributions the show made to the pop culture that came after because you see Seth Cohen types all the time now in movies and television,

which you did not really see beforehand. And because obviously he was obsessed with music, the two of them are tied together. Julia, anything else you want to say about Seth Cohen before we dig into these episodes? Well, we'll get to it. We talk about The Outsider, but Seth's performance of The Outsider is, like so uncomfortable and so cringe. He plays awkward really well, but it just escalates so quickly.

It's unbelievable. But the other, you know, this comes up and we're not going to recap it so I feel like I can mention it now. But Seth, to me, feels like a real child of the Goonies. And the Goonies is part of his starter pack that he gives to both Anna and Summer

in the subsequent episode. But I always felt like, like the sort of, he is to music as Dawson was to film. Seth is much more lovable than Dawson, that's for sure. But it felt very similar to me of sort of like a student of some kind of game. Alan, anything else you want to say about Seth? Yeah, the thing that really struck me, not so much in these episodes we're talking about, but going through the whole run of the show is Seth is kind of like Ferris Bueller

in that like if an actor even half a degree less charming than Adam Brody played him, he would be insufferable, especially. Like, as we go on later and once he starts dating summer, he is such a narcissist and so just, like, unable to see the concerns of any human being who is not Seth Cohen. And it's like, it's really amazing to me how much they get away with it because Brody is just that good. He is in the very, even in these episodes,

he like, he only cares about what he's doing. He's shocked that Ryan would, like, maybe make another friend, maybe because he's never made friends. But the hardest thing to believe is if that guy wouldn't have friends because he is so charming. He also, he says the line like, you read comic books, but you're a girl. And I'm like, oh. Yeah.

Seth Cohen. To combine the television without pity Seth Cohen points, I just want to say that in one of the recaps that I was reading earlier today, the recapers name is Joanna. No relation. Not, not me. But she had this whole section, like a running section about like the shirts that Seth Cohen wear with like a hyperlinked to the urban outfitters. She's like, so if you want to like dress like a. Seth Cohen, this is where you can get that shirt. The gardeners do it with hose shirt.

Like, my husband's already ordered it. Like, it was like a whole, you know, Seth Cohen core was like a thing for this, at least the first season. Let's talk about the debut. Oh, man. It's the Debs. It's a Deb time. You know, there is, of course, don't worry about it. There is at least two or three more parties at Holly's Beach House in the course of these two episodes.

but the big like Newport event is the depths. To quote Jimmy, it's the most elegant event of the year. I want to start with the television without pity like caplet that they have. It says for the four straight episodes, the Fist Fly, this week with Ryan, Jimmy, and Sandy on the receiving end of punches. Also Ryan wears his leather wrist cuff again. So that's where we are. Alan, before you hopped on here, you were saying to me, like, I guess the big, biggest aspect of this episode is the introduction of the character of Anna. Do you want to talk about Anna and her significance of how you feel about it?

Anna's incredible. You know, in talking with Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage and everyone else, they did not have major plans for Anna when they introduced the character. It was sort of like, here at the early stage, Summer's really not giving him the time of day. let's pair him, you know, with a girl who seems both into him, but also just more compatible in general, but they didn't really have a plan beyond that. And then they went up casting Samir Armstrong, and she popped off the screen immediately.

She worked really well with Brody, and they thought, okay, we need to bring her back. And then this started this schism, both within the creative team of the show and within the fandom of the show, like, are you team Anna or are you team Summer? And I got to ask for both of you, which team were you on back then? and are you on a different team now? I want to let Juliet

take this one because I know her feelings are strong. I didn't know that there was a team, Anna. I didn't know that anyone would self-identify that way. I didn't know that something a person could be. Wow. I'm going to need Greta Gerwig to explicate that for me in a literal and meta movie, because that's such a foreign idea.

I'm Team Summer. I was then and I am now. There are many, like, teen triangles that I've revisited as an adult and my opinion has radically changed, but this is not one of them. This is definitely not one of them. I often find myself moving on the teen triangles, like from a null to a Ben or et cetera, et cetera. I can move on this one. Obviously, a child loves Ben and an adult loves now. Right.

I was team Anna because I was like, look how much, I was like, look how much they have in common. Oh my God. I'm shocked by this. I am now a team summer. It's okay. Like, you can embrace me now that I am now. But I was just like, they like the same things. And also in these like very first few episodes, they had yet to give Summer any kind of depth. I don't think we'd get any depth from her until like at least episode six, you know? And so she's just like mean girling around and saying, ew. And we like Seth Cohen so much. So like wouldn't we want a girl who likes him back? And at least initially, you know what I mean? Yeah, there's not a lot of reason to like know why summer. Why Seth like Summer? But I find on my rewatch, I'm much more distracted by how old they all look, like particularly Seth and Ryan.

I'm just like, well, I can't believe these guys are teens. But a true geeky teen would be so fixated on his idea of a dream girl that he would buy into it even if that's not who she is at all. So I think that like it worked for me. I didn't dislike Anna, but I was so invested in Seth and Summer. And I think we're going to get there. but their chemistry and the drive to Tijuana is like one of my favorite scenes in the history of TV. And so there's no way that anything could have like really made me root for anyone but summer based on the, you know, 70s, the new 80 and all that.

Or 80s and new 70, excuse me. Alan, what do you want to say? Well, I mean, a bunch of things. One, obviously, Anna is the much better on-paper match. But often, as we've seen in pop culture, the on-paper match is not necessarily the right one. The Pretty and Pink Test audience has hated that she went with. even though Ducky makes much more sense to her. This one I kind of go back and forth on because, like,

the stuff with him in Summer at this stage of the show is rough. Like, she's not, she's mean to him. She barely has a personality at all other than, you know, being cruel. Like, she's not even really nice to Marissa at this stage. And so it's also like kind of a bad look for Seth that he is so hung up on this girl who he's basically never talked to. And when he does, she treats him awfully. And Anna is here.

And she likes all the same. same thing he likes. She's even going to sail the Tahiti. On the other hand, they do kind of go really far with that. It's not just that she's into comics and into indie bands. It's also that she likes sailing. So they're really stacking the deck there. But I like Samira Armstrong a lot. It turns I didn't realize the three of them all knew each other. They were all sort of part of the same larger friend group. Brody and Samira went to the same acting class for a while. So you can already sort of see elements of chemistry there from the start. But definitely, once you get to at Tijuana drive.

Rachel Bilsen is such a force of nature, and the two of them together are so good that back in the day, I think I was Team Anna, and when I rewatched it this time, as soon as we got to Tijuana, I'm like, no, no, summer is endgame. I don't know why I would have ever thought otherwise. Confidence, Cohen.

Yeah, when you know where it goes, like, it's summer for sure. I saw it, guys. I always saw it, just to be clear. Yeah, well, if you're Juliet, then you're enlightened, you know? Yeah, I don't know. I just, I have a hard time. embracing new characters whenever I start with a TV show from the beginning.

I'm just like, well, you weren't there at the beginning. But this is episode four. This isn't like, you know, season two or something. I know, but I just, I have to say, I do love the debut. Like, as much as Bill loves Casino Night, I love the debut, in part because I love Misha Barton's dress that she wears so much. I think it is so beautiful. It's like a great wedding dress and somewhat sick that a 17-year-old was wearing it on TV.

But I just think it's like a, it really, captures something. I think debutante culture is so foreign to me that every time a television show tries to like do it and I think Gilmore Girls did it as well in season two. I'm like, I find it fascinating. I don't know. Maybe I'm just an easy mark.

No, no. And it's the spine of the first season of the summer I turn pretty for sure. Like the Debs, the Teen Debs The Teen Debs thing and like how it's like pseudo bridal. But also when- It's like sick but intoxicating. Yeah. But when they talk about missing it. I'm like, this isn't prom. Like, it's okay if you miss the devs. Anyway, I will say on the Anna front, I wasn't viking with her. We have to call comic books graphic novels so that people

take them serious. This is my, I'm sorry, this is my ringer-verse Joanna contribution to this. I was not vibing with her, like, we have to call them graphic novels thing. And I straight-up did not get her Princess Monanoque joke, despite, like, loving, she calls Marissa Princess Monanoque, and I don't understand why. I even Googled, like, why does she do it? And the internet is also confused. The only thing I will say in defense of the graphic novels line is it's kind of like perfectly pretentious for a teenager where it's like they're acting out

being an adult. So it's good writing but not appealing for the character to make you like the character. She borders on manic pixie dream girl at times and that she's sort of she's there to make Seth feel better about himself and actualize his journey and even the last thing she says to him when she

leaves later in the season is you know confidence Cohen. But I do think that ultimately Samira and the writers give her enough life that she becomes more than that. And going back, it's just, it's amazing to me that they really, they only date for six episodes.

And then they break up. And in the age when you would do a 22, or in this case, 27 episode season, the idea that you would run through that story in six is insane. Like, I mean, how do you pace it that quickly? We talked about this a lot, the last couple episodes, is like how quickly they burned through everything in season one. And that's sort of why the conclusion I think we reached was like why season one is considered a classic.

And every season after, you're kind of like mixed results, right? Would you say? Yes. Yeah, because they told every possible story. Right. You could tell over like four seasons in one season. And then it becomes, well, how are we going to move on from there? And on top of that, they got rid of characters like Anna, like Luke, who were either there right at the very beginning or close to the beginning.

And thus the audience was conditioned to like because they were. weren't newbies, and they started replacing them with, you know, your Zax and your DJ, the yard guys of the world. And the audience just never accepted them. Did you know the yard guy? It was ridiculous. The fact that we have a shooting, uh, in this pair of episodes already, right? Like, we're already shooting characters.

I forgot about that. I forgot that there was a gun in a shooting. It's kind of shocking that it happened so quickly and such like a literal interpretation of the wrong side of the track and like class difference. But I just think that actually. You're Paul Wesley, who at the time, I believe he was not yet, Paul Wesley. He had a Polish last name previously. Yeah.

He was on many, many shows that I watched, and he was always playing the guy to get you in trouble. He played that on Everwood. He was on a vampire show, right? Oh, the vampire. A titular vampire on the vampire diaries. And he's like a bad guy, right? No, I mean, of the two, he's the nicer vampire brother. But I think on Smallville, he was like, yeah, he was by.

hopping around on the WB getting people in trouble. I was telling Alan that I'm currently, he's currently playing Captain Kirk on Star Trek Stranger World. So like Paul Wesley has had, and also I think has a bourbon with his vampire diaries, co-starred brother and lost alum. So Paul Wesley is like, when you're like, who's doing well out of their appearance on the OC,

Paul Wesley is actually kind of up there. He's had a great TV career. Yeah. Like, no doubt. He was on so many things that I watched. So, you know, I shout out to him. Good job. We're not done with the devs.

We'll go back to it. But let's talk about Paul Wesley and his character here. Donnie? Yeah, Donnie. The television without pity recap was called Donnie Dorko. Alan, you called him a bizarreo, Ryan, when you were talking to me earlier today. Can you dive into that? So the show would do this a few times.

They did it later with Trey, obviously. obviously in late in season two, they did it with poor Johnny Harper of Newport Union in season three, the worst character on the show. But it was like they would do, now that Ryan is starting to get assimilated into the world of Newport Beach, we have to introduce cautionary tales who are like, what Ryan could be if he didn't have the good fortune to be taken in by the Coens,

or if he didn't have Ryan's innate goodness or things like that. So you've got like these two guys, they're both from the wrong side of the tracks. They both start working at the Crab Shack. And by the way, trivia, I only just learned yesterday, so it's not in the book, The Crab Shack and Holly's Beach House, the same set. They would have to like dismantle one to put up the other, which is why they stopped going to Holly's house after a while,

because it was just such a pain in the ass to have to keep switching out the same area. Interesting. Huh. I can see it. They both have the deck looking out to the water. I get it. Okay. Wow.

Yeah. So you've got, you've got this guy, they're working at the crab shack together, and in theory they should have a lot in common and they kind of do. But where Ryan is sort of always deferential and doesn't want to be taking money from the Coens and doesn't want to be putting a burden on them and doesn't want to be causing trouble. Donnie is resentful. He wants to take whatever he can get, you know, from these rich knobs. And eventually, like, he takes out a gun and he shoots Luke in the arm. So this is the dark mirror version of Ryan Atwood. And it's the, the, the, road not taken for him. Such a wild escalation when he like pulls up his shirt and there's a gun there. I was like, oh, is that? Okay. I don't know. That was a great promo. I remember the ad for that when you see Paul Wesley lifting up the shirt with the gun.

I was like, this week on the OC. Marissa and Ryan are going to pile around in a pool and there's going to be a gun in someone's belt. Television Without Pity Capit for The Outsider is Ryan becomes a busboy from the wrong side of tracks who's befriended by a fellow busboy from the wrong side of the tracks, Donnie, who likes the crazy honeies and whose version of fun consists of breaking blenders and waving guns around at a party. Also, Marston and Ryan frolic in the swimming pool and Luke gets shot. Poor Luke.

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he's wounded and I can save him. She does it with like this absolute slathering of like irony and self-mockery and all this sort of stuff like that that I'm like not sure was intended in the script. And Bilsen just sort of like bring something extra to summer. My understanding is that they didn't intend Summer to be a big, huge part of the show. Is that correct, Alan? What did Bilsen do? Not exactly.

The idea was they had certain characters they knew were going to be regulars, which is Ryan, Seth, Marissa, and they were going to be the trio initially. But they did want Summer to be a part of the show. They did want Luke to be a part of the show. The problem is sort of a budgetary thing where, like, they had this many slots for regular cast members. And so this actually worked out well for Bilsen because Bilsen in the pilot, she has two lines. She's not even a guest star, like a co-starring role.

So she didn't have to test for the network. She didn't have to test for the studio. They were able to hire whoever they liked and they really liked her. But she's a guest star at this stage of the season and they weren't sure whether they were going to keep going with her. And they've said, like, the Tijuana episode was basically her audition for, if you knock this out of the park, you're around for good. If you don't, Marissa's going to get a new best friend.

And obviously, we know how that went. They didn't say that to her. It was just sort of that was their inner monologue. Holly's like, damn, it could have been my time to shine. She is really good. And it's also the first time. I think she's like actually clothed. She's wearing like a halter top and she's not just in a bikini.

And, you know, she's like, you don't want to be near her because she's like so mean. But you also are just like, what's going on with that with that girl? There's something really just striking about Rachel Billson. And she's just, she's great. I mean, Joanne and I are both Harder Dixie fans. So we're very familiar with her work. No, she's wonderful. Like it's more and more.

And she's also the, as you'll find out when you read the book, as things got sort of darker behind the scenes, basically every interview I did at some point or other when people were talking about the bad times, the interview subject without prompting would say, oh, except for Rachel. Rachel was always great. She was the best.

You love to hear it. Speaking of Dark Times, let's talk about what's going on with Jimmy Cooper in these. Thank you. All right. So the SEC Enforcement Division, which I don't know if that's real, but let's say it is, shows up at Sandy's office. And I feel we get the start of this storyline of like, who are the real criminals here, right? Like Jimmy Cooper, who steals, we find out later $4 million or, you know, Ryan who wears tank tops indiscriminately. And his cuff. Don't forget the cuff.

And the cuff. Juliet, like, what do you make of Jimmy's storyline over these two episodes and the adult storyline in general? I think it does Sandy much more of a service than it does for Jimmy and Tate Donovan. I mean, Tate Donovan, I feel like, is the biggest loser of all of the fights. Like, of all the fights we've seen through five episodes, the way he gets beat up in the debut is probably the least becoming. And, you know, his troubles allow Sandy to deliver, like, probably the most powerful line of these two episodes when he is like, there's a lot more for providing for your family than just money. And, you know, it really, like Jimmy's failures really help establish the high ground for Sandy,

especially in comparison to how Julie handles Kirsten and Jimmy's relationship. So I feel like Jimmy, he's just the biggest loser of these episodes, unfortunately. He didn't get shot. but he may as well because he just really comes down on the bottom. And he just acts like such like a child. Like he has like a tantrum with Sandy, basically. I will say I really like the scene when they're picking up dinner and he's trying to evade Holly's dad.

Yeah. I feel like that's a high point for Tate Donovan. He plays discomfort really well and switching to cash. And that scene is, I feel for him. Alan, when we were talking about this in the last couple episodes, I was arguing that like maybe equivalent with Peter Galley, but like that Tate Donovan was one of the more known actors going into the O.C. Yes.

Is that your assessment? What do you think, how do you feel about what happened to the Jimmy Cooper character overall? Well, I mean, he's definitely one of the more recognizable people, although more for the fact that like he was Jennifer Anderson's boyfriend for a while and I believe Sandra Bullock's boyfriend as well. Right. Then for, you know, having been in space camp, which, you know, I will ride or die for. And low potion number nine. Yes. Yes, exactly.

But definitely he was one of the more prominent people. And initially, I think the plan was for there to be a more genuine love triangle between, you know, Kirsten, Sandy, and Jimmy. And almost immediately everyone's like, no, we love Kirsten and Sandy. This is one of the great marriages. We're not going to do anything to mess with that. At least not until season two, but you don't need to talk about that here. And so the problem is like these episodes, well, they're very good for Tate. They're almost the beginning of the end for him.

and it's episodes four and five of the entire series because it's like, you know, Jimmy messes everything up, Jimmy gets into the fight at the debutante ball, which at least is a nice change of pace so you can see that the adults can get beat up to. But, like, you know, Julie basically is already ready to show him the door,

and once he's out of that house, and he doesn't have the job, and he kind of has a relationship with Marissa, but not really. It's like, why is he still on the show? And the show eventually realized that, too, which is why Tate. was not a regular going forward.

Do you think if Melinda Clark hadn't been so good as Julie Cooper that there might have been room for Jimmy to stay around? But she was just so juicy and terrible and wonderful that it's like, okay, well, in terms of the adult Cooper's, this is the one we want to spend time with, right? I mean, they definitely made the right call about that. And I mean, that's both because Melinda's incredible. And she's the other person, by the way, I should say that every interview subject at one point or another reflexes. said, like, yeah, Mindy always showed up. Mindy was great, and Mindy never caused any problems. And that's why those two have a pod together, right?

They were like, the two people want to talk to, probably have good energy and all that, so it makes sense. Exactly right. So I think that definitely is part of it, but it's also the fact that, like, Julie is just a better character in terms of causing trouble, in terms of generating stories. Once Jimmy loses his job and is established as a nice, if kind of bland and, selfish guy. What do you do with that?

Where are you generating story out of him? So it's both the fact that Melinda popped so just completely and obviously right away. And the fact that if once you get rid of the Love Triangle story and he like loses his job, he has no purpose. Tough look for Jimmy Cooper. He becomes defiant like a little too quickly. I feel like he should be a little bit more contrite. Like him and Julie never had.

There's no, like, love there at all, which I think is just like, you know, maybe they are headed towards divorce. We're always supposed to know that they are. But I was surprised that there didn't seem to be any connection between them. I mean, they definitely play it as cold at this point. You have to assume at some point they did at least like each other. It wasn't just this shotgun wedding that they got stuck in. But by this point, it's just all curdled and it's bad. and, you know, why would he want to be with her, never mind why she doesn't want to be with him?

I don't know. Especially since the best day of his life is when he was 16 and he met Kirsten. I think that's the thing is, like, she knows that he never got over Kirsten. And that's why there can't be a relationship between them, right? But, like, at some point, he told, maybe tried to convince himself and she tried to convince herself that, like, they could make it worth. But, like, how sad, Jimmy Cooper, you never got over your teenage girlfriend? Come on. I was just thinking that too, Joanna.

I was like, God, that's like so lame. Yeah, it's very sad. You guys have watched these episodes a little more recently than I have. I know that, like, Shailene Woodley is in the debut, but I don't remember if Minnie Caitlin 1.0 does anything. No. Answer the phone. That's what she does.

That's a sum total. There you go. That's it. Can I ask you a question? Who do you think is, like, the ultimate outsider? Is it supposed to be Ryan, Donnie, Seth? Jimmy or Sandy. By this point, Ryan is already starting to not be an outsider because, like, he's been

taken in by one of the most powerful families in town. He has this friend. He's, you know, starting to ingratiate himself with Marissa, who's the social chair and, you know, the Queen Bee of the teenage said at this point. So I think it's got to be Donning. You know, like, he's coming in from the outside and he's causing trouble. He is the guy that Julie fears that Ryan is. She's the guy that Julie is going around saying,

my daughter can never be with this bad boy from Chino. When in fact, Ryan is really not bad at all. He just keeps getting into trouble, you know, through forces beyond his control. Yeah. Yeah. Because I was thinking of that scene, the beginning of five, the outsider, when Sandy won't go into the kitchen because he doesn't want to deal with the other noopsies. And then Ryan and Seth come up behind him and they're like whispering.

And it's such a great, they always had really good cold opens between the three of them. That's also like the Yogalati's moment. a few episodes later, I think. Oh, Yogalates. That's one of my favorite scenes on the show. Yeah. Yeah, they use those moments, like, really well at home with the Coens in particular. And, you know, I think that, like, Sandy just, I think his, like, moral authority becomes

apparent in that episode. And to the extent, not already because he's, like, you know, advocated for Ryan. But it made me think about, like, the sort of physical blocking of who's an outsider and who is not and whatnot. What I like about that is that we get two parties, right? We get Seth as the outsider at one party and then Donnie is the outsider at another party. And it's just sort of like, depends where you are if you're on the outside or if you're on the inside.

I know, incredibly profound insight from me. And ultimately, they all become outsiders because Marissa and Summer are supposed to be two of the most popular girls in this community. And by the time you get to the fall episodes, it's like they have no other friends. It's just the core four, you know, and some of that is circumstance and some of that as Josh Schwartz being new at writing television and not really having a good sense yet of how to juggle a recurring cast of characters. And so it's like we don't know how to write for Holly or how to write for Luke's buddies anymore. So we'll just focus on these guys. I have another question for you, Alan.

How much experience is Stephanie Savage have before this show? This was the first TV show she ever wrote for. She'd been a development exec. She worked for Flower Films, which was Drew Barrymore's company. And so she met McGee while they were making Charlie's Angels. She and McGee hit it off. They then formed Wonderland Productions. She developed more things.

She was involved in the development of Fast Lane, which was the Fox Cop Show the year before with Peter Fassanelli and Bill Bellamy and Tiffany Thiessen, which is just like, shameless mighty vice ripoff. Love it. I ask that because I think it's interesting. That's the story of like loss as well, right? Like Damon Lindelof didn't know how to pace a season. one or whatever until they brought in Carlton Q's or whatnot.

And I just think it's interesting how TV writers learn. And that's also kind of the crux of some of the WGA stuff right now, like how they learned and like who are like, how do you bring in someone to like help you execute your vision essentially? Because that was part of why Stephanie came in, right? I mean, that was part of it. She developed the show with Josh. She is the credited creator.

But like all of the, all of the big ideas were things that the two of them talked about together over a period of months. There's a lot in the book, obviously, about the development process and things that got changed, including the title, the Coens used to be the Needlemans.

At one point, it was going to be an interracial love story about, like, the Gardner's daughter falling for, like, one of the people, you know, who lived in the community, and all sorts of things changed over time. So Josh didn't really know what he was doing. Stephanie had even less experience.

They brought in a veteran writer-producer named Bob DeLorentis, who had worked on Providence in a lot of other shows. Bob's daughter is a good friend of mine. Oh, there you go. His younger daughter, yeah. And now he writes for Fargo.

And so, like, he was the one actually sort of technically doing the showrunner's job in terms of handling most of those duties. Oh, interesting. Even though Josh had final say in the storytelling. So it was people learning and people, like, showing them how to do it. A lot of cooks in the kitchen then. The dealer answers are wonderful. I just want to note that. No relation to Giata.

Orino. Orino. I want to, I want to, I have two more like sort of big. picture questions they want to ask. Like something that Julia and I talked about a while ago when we did a podcast on sex education, another show that we love, I think we were just talking about like the teen patter, the teen dialect sort of of these various shows. And like you've got your Cabam Williams, like the Dawson's patter. You've got the Whedon patter that comes out of like Buffy, et cetera, et cetera. When Seth Cohen says, chalkful

a quiet a line from the debut. That reads so weed in to me, but I'm just wondering, like, do you feel like the OC has its own pattern that you can easily identify, or do you feel like Schwartz, etc., are drawing from other teen shows at the time? No, I think Josh has a very clear voice.

I think it comes out most clearly in Seth, because Seth is basically Josh, you know, like the cooler version of Josh ultimately, but, like, you know, the guy Josh wanted to be. Um, and, but I, one of the things I like about the show, which I think is different from an Amisher and Palladino show or Dawson's or Buffy is that it, it has a voice, but not everybody has the same voice. Yeah. Like, summer is funny in a different way from how Seth is funny. When Ryan gets to be funny, it's in a different way, Sandy.

Like, they all have very distinct comic voices. And I think there's like an overall tone to the show that is clear, especially at this stage before they started losing control of, of the ship a little. But it doesn't feel like samey, like you could give this punchline to anybody in the room. It's like everyone is, and very quickly at that, kind of locked in. And they know, all right, Rachel can do this. You know, Ben can say this. Brody, we're going to give him this. And a lot of the time, Brody would just improvise things.

That was actually on my list to ask you, like, how much is Adam Brody improvising? Because, like, when he's sitting in front of the lobster tank and outsider, and he's, like, slits his throat at the lobster and points it, like, I was like, that has to be. an Adam Brody Improv moment, right? Or at least, you know. He was doing it from the start, like, you know, Cocaine Awesome in the pilot is just something he thought to say. Or when, you know, when Luke's buddies are like caring about to beat him up

and he's like being held aloft and he goes, oh, hi, Ryan. That was again just something Brody did on the spot. And what they've said is Brody was really smart about how he would do the improvs. He always knew he would do it in a moment where they could cut around it if people didn't like it. But he did it a lot. He was sort of sort of like chapsed. challenge other people to keep up with him if they could. And at a certain point, a lot of the other actors on the show, like, oh, he's doing that.

I'm going to do that too. And so they're like, I'm going to get some of mine here. And obviously, he was like the best at it. But it was a mix after a while of the actors and what Josh and the other writers were doing for them. Yeah, there's sort of big picture question I had for you, Alan, was, you know, when you go deep on a show as you've gone here with YOC, it's fun to think about, like, the tendrils that shoot forward on the TV landscape. So, like, what do you think, other than Gossip Girl, obviously, like, what do you think most owes a debt to the O.C.? Like, what doesn't exist if the O.C. doesn't exist? I know, like, some people talk about it in the book, Alan Heinberg, who was, you know, one of the top writers on the first season of the show and is now doing Sandman and, you know, co-wrote the first Wonder Woman movie.

You know, he said it was sort of part of this phase of really voice heavy writers like Josh, like Amy, like Shonda. So I don't know if there's necessarily any one show I could point to. I know Mark Cherry has kind of said, like, the success of the OC helped me get Desperate Housewives on the air the following year. And then Desperate Housewives kind of like chewed up the OC and spit it out over the course of that second season. I don't know that I can point to a show necessarily is I can point to things. Like TV soundtracks, there's before the OC and there's after the OC in terms of how shows used music, what kind of music was used.

and just sort of the relationship between the TV industry and the music industry. That was big. The self-awareness of it was obviously huge, the fact that, like, the characters are already commenting on, like, the nature of being on a show like this.

The comic book stuff, like, you know, the idea that you would have a character like Seth, you know, who eventually is considered very cool, talking as much about, like, Legion of Superheroes as he does, like, before the MCU, before Dark Night, and all of that stuff. That was big. I don't know that I can point to a specific

like non, you know, fake empire show and say, oh, this is like, obviously, you know, aping the OC in some way, but I think that, like, its tendrils are out there in a lot of the TV business. I think there's some CW shows that owe a lot to the OC. Like, I don't know if the 902 and O reboot happens

if the OEC isn't as successful. Because, like, it picked up the original 90210 mantle and then sort of like refracted back on itself, essentially. But I do think the. sort of idea of showing like slightly racier television again. It's nothing in comparison to what

HBO has given us these days, but you know, sort of acknowledging that like kids do drugs. And I guess that again, that the 90210 piece is probably related to Gossip Girl as well, which obviously is on the CW, but I do think it's sort of resuscitated the idea of the idea of teens doing bad things

on network television. Because a lot of the other teen shows of this time were just a lot softer. Like a lot And they didn't have, like, they didn't have, like, a Holly and Luke sex, near-sexing, essentially. I'm sure that would have been a sexy on HBO. The amazing thing is, like, Fox standards and practices did not have an issue with the sex. They did not have an issue with the underage drinking.

They did not have an issue with the fact that some people were taking drugs. The one thing that they put their foot down about is smoking, which is why at the end of the scene in the cul-de-sac in the pilot, like Sandy comes out as like, put that out, you're never smoking in my house again. It's because, like, they had this big negotiation with standards and practices to just allow him to smoke that one time and have the cigarettes kiss each other. But beyond, they're like, no, no smoking. I have a theory about that, which is I know that for a lot of network television, part of the, like, negotiation with standards and practices is that if you are going to have someone get really drunk, they have to, like, be punished in some way after. And, like, so that happens with Misha Barton's character a lot, right?

with Marissa. Yeah. Like, anytime you do something that is true to life, there also then has to be like the polemical punishment. And I think it's much harder

to show that punishment with smoking. But it's like, okay, let's have a flash forward and in 25 years there'll have throat cancer or something like that. So I think,

I think the moralizing of smoking is actually like more complicated and there, and there are like the sort of, um, the way that you teach a lesson to, you know, again,

reference Jay Walter Weatherman is, um, is actually a lot, more complicated. So I think that's a big, a big piece of it. And I think that I find the standards and practices negotiations of network television like really fascinating. It's so, so old fashioned and dumb. But like also often arbitrary seeming. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And now I have this image in my head of Ben McKenzie in old age makeup with like a tracheosomy too. I shouldn't have smoked that one time at the end of the driveway. Okay, speaking of the future, I will just say,

that like this hit me more than the first three episodes we watched and I think it has something to do with like how childlike Marissa seems sort of like paddling around the pool with Brian stuff like that is just like I got very sad knowing where Marissa's storyline goes like it like a rewatching the OCE is a tough proposition because you're just like whenever they talk about her future if Julie talks about her future or anything like that and you just know that she doesn't have one that is like it casts a pallor over an O.C. rewatch right? I remember there's, because again, I rewatched all of it. The episode before she dies is like sort of these hijinks at Caitlin 2.0's private school

where Marissa shows up and helps her get out of a jam. And she even like dresses up like Britney Spears in the Hit Me Baby video to try to like seduce some guy to help Caitlin get out of trouble. And it's like, oh, she's okay. She's having this light moment. Things are going to work out fine. And then the very next episode she's gone. they do an interesting thing in the season four Christmick episode, which is the, it's a

wonderful life thing where you find out what would have happened if Ryan never came to Newport. And in that version, she dies much earlier. You know, the message of the show is Ryan actually improved Marissa's life and gave her several years. She was always going to die. I like that message. That makes it better, actually. I agree. That's interesting.

I just like block it out, honestly. I was actually traumatized by Marissa's death. I remember crying. Also, Marissa's death uses image in heaps so well. It's like, and like, it's like a very breathy version of Hallelujah, right? Yes. And it's like such a full circle moment and like just so upsetting. It also mimics the imagery of Ryan holding her in the Tijuana episode, which we're going to get to next.

Like, it's a really well done episode, though absolutely insane. And it's just like sad. I like honestly block it out. I think of the OC, only its high points. Like, Oliver doesn't really exist to me. And the Volchak in the Octagon also doesn't really exist to me. I love the cage fighting. I'm a big Ryan Atwood Cage Fighter guy.

Who is someone, someone was talking to me about how you can, the Oliver cut where you can just like skip the Oliver episodes and not really lose. We were saying that on the pod. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can sort of like pick it up and just move on. It has no impact on anything that happens after. Well, okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. This is crazy talk because if you skip the Oliver episodes, you skip Rooney. And any watch of the OC that does not feature Rooney going on this journey with Rooney over the course of an hour, which is one of the great character arcs that has ever appeared in any episode of television.

Like, what are you even doing here? Why are you bothering? That's true. And also, isn't Paris Hilton in that episode? No, she is in the episode with Colin Hanks as the star of the Valley. Right. Where they go to L.A. And Haley is like a stripper. Right, right, right. Amanda Raghetti.

Well, let's, yes. Speaking of Luke, a character that we were like, we actually kind of really like. What's the story behind him exiting the show so quickly? That's, I mean, that is, again, a case of, like, they burned through the ideas too fast. It's like, we reformed him much too early. And then at a certain point, it's like, well, what are we going to do? They had thought about doing, like, maybe Luke. and Anna getting together.

Like Anna doesn't go back to Pittsburgh. She starts dating Luke and they're like, maybe this is a bridge too far. But really, it just came up. And getting rid of both of those characters in hindsight were like big mistakes because they were never able to fill those slots. And it just started becoming only those four as opposed to six.

And you can do a lot more with like combinations of six than you can with four. Yeah. Juliet, anything else you want to say about these episodes or to grill Allen on? I would just see, one thing you slipped in earlier was sort of how Adam Brody's a revelation in the show, but then kind of there was a failure to launch.

What happened there? I mean, I think it's, the show becomes a blessing and a curse. This is going to come up a lot. There's a lot of talk about this in the book where it's like the show makes him a star, but they're making so many episodes every year that he has such a limited window in which to go and do things. And so by the time the show ended, his moment had kind of passed.

That sucks. Poor guy. Yes. That's why actors don't want to go back. to 22 episodes or 27. 27. Oh, my God. I can't believe. Like, in the year of Our Lord 2004, someone was finishing up a 27th episode of television.

But at least now, thanks this conversation, I understand why Adam Brody is in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. And he's actually very charming, Mr. Mrs. Smith, a film that I love. So actually, it's one of his most successful film roles, to be honest. There is a lot of Brody and Doug Lyman mutual love fest in the book.

I mean, Mr. Mrs. Smith changed a lot of things in this world. So it's a pretty important movie. It's a canon event. Speaking of Jennifer, Aniston, yes. All right, anything else we want to say, Alan, anything else you want to say about the O.C? The thing that was really cool about rewatching the show is, obviously, the narrative is, season one great, show goes off a cliff after that, and that is not the case, I found.

A, there's a lot of really, really good stuff in season two. Some of it just doesn't work at all, but there's some real high points, and the stuff Trey is maybe like the best single arc that the show ever did. Season three is almost entirely catastrophe, and everyone in the book is very, very candid about that and about all the reasons why it didn't work. But then, like, season four is fun. You Taylor Townsend, you know, Willa Holland is the new,

is the new Caitlin Cooper. There's a lot of good silly stuff there, Chris Pratt as Che. So good. So especially if you're someone like me who likes the OC when it's funny, that I would argue is maybe the second best season. So it was nice to see that it didn't conform to the narrative that a lot of people have about it. And that a lot of it really held up despite the fashions and everything else. And part of it may just be that I'm older now when I don't listen to new music as much.

So like, you know, when certain bands played the debate shop, that's the stuff I still listen to. Rachel Bilsen's Season 4 monologue about the five stages of grief is absolutely iconic. It's so good and also very funny. It's just a great. It's great stuff. Alan, I love that you said despite the fashion because Juliet, like, was, was, because of the fashion, right? I love. No, no, I just mean that the fat, I'm not knocking the fashion.

I'm saying the fashion dates the show in a way certain. Or the fact that, like, for instance, it becomes a plot point in a number of episodes that between Ryan and Seth, they have one cell phone. So a lot of things happen entirely because Ryan has Seth's phone or Ryan is away from Seth and no one can call him. Like, that's a very mid-2000s kind of thing. But lots of the rest of it feels like it could basically be happening now. This is like how you- I like that. I did like when Kirsten,

when Kirsten got home from the girls trip. And she was like, where's Seth? And Sandy's like, I don't know, he must be out. And then they just move on. They keep talking. They're not like, oh, let's call him or after the range rover came back completely decimated. Yeah, I love how this timestamps, like, what IMAXs were at the time,

which is like where you went to go see like giant nature films. And then also, this is the one, like, I can't really, I don't really have a leg to stand on to critique the depiction of the hyper-rich Newport Beach lifestyle because I don't fully understand it. But I will say I don't think they're coming back in a white stretch limo from that weekend. They're in like a black SUV, right? They're not in a white stretch limo coming back from the spa weekend. The Real Housewives of Orange County. They did take some limos in the early days. Okay.

All right. Vicki would be clacking on her computer and everyone would be really annoyed. For the book, I interviewed like development executives at Bravo and at MTV about like the fact that we have the OC to thank or to blame. Yeah. For like the entire, you know, Laguna Beach Hills, Real Housewives corner of television now. Yeah, absolutely. I'm so excited to read your book. Welcome to the OC, the oral history.

November 28th. but you can pre-order it now and I suggest you do. I love you, Joanna Robinson. I love you on Seppin-Wall. You're the best. Elsewhere on the prestige feed, where you are covering,

like, there's some hijack, some justified city prime evils happening. Soon we'll have winning time, only murders in the building. There's a lot going on. Summer never sleeps. And I want to thank Jesse Lopez for the production work on this episode.

Thank you so much, Alan Zefemol, for joining us. I can't wait to read the book, and Julietette, I'll see you and Tijuana next time. Can't wait. Bye. Enjoy more ways to save at Ralph's, like low prices in every aisle. And when you download the Ralph's app, you can clip and save more with digital coupons every week.

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