The O.C. S02 E04–06

2.4 The New Era

New. New! New!! This new era is apparently Sandy working for Grandpa alone and S making stalker type list of potential new gfs via perusing the yearbook. Maybe he could think of a way to rate their hotness and become a billionaire? New pal Lindsay is going to help with this, dressed as some sort of pink hued mean girl. Of all the girls in school, it’s in fact Lindsay that S has settled on because of course, R has no feelings for her. Right? Right! S demands that R hook it up for him, whatever that matters. R can just demand any girl does anything and they will? OK!

M is going for a Diane Keaton style look, strange beret and long sleeved everything in the blazing California sun. Since M has been single (?) for a day or two, Sum and Zach decide they must hook her up with someone. I’d love to see her hookup with S just to really destroy the whole town, but I imagine we’re headed for some unknown 1–2 week guest spot boytoy.

Sandy and Grandpa’s defense has strong Arrested Development vibes w/Grandpa making wild assurances about how his former secretary has all the info that can promise freedom. Ron Howard voice: “She did not have all the info.”

R hookups S with Lindsay in a Saved By The Bell level of misunderstood setups —

R — Hey so I was just uh wondering, if you have a bf?

L — Nope, totally single!

R — Uh ok, so uh, would you want to maybe go on a date?

L — Sure would, I’m ready to bang you right now!

R — Great, a date with Seth, is what I mean, of course, this is a normal way of asking that!

L — OK great, me too, I totally got that, perfect!

Yes, that conversation is very normal and fine.

JC is working hard running the company, filling the office with plants and describing herself as the boss and taking offense at how Kirsten thinks she’s stupid. I mean, she might not be stupid, but there is an element of uh, you can’t just take over as CEO of a big company never having worked outside of a bar. Like maybe some training could help here? JC dean’t lack confidence though, just jumping into the middle of a meeting with random businessmen. JC has a chunky necklace though, and is ready to take over the meeting and order Kirsten to get out of the meeting and go make copies, then stare blankly when asked questions — which reflects well on everyone and makes the company definitely appear to be in safe hands.

DJ is back! Gardening nearby the Cooper mansion and he’s stoked to be asked to be M/cosplay Diane Keaton’s friend, and go see The Killers. Wow OW’s ‘Baitshop’ venue really books pretty well. Especially given that only S seems to work there. S is stoked to be now officially dating Lindsay, despite never having spoken to her. The awesome solution he comes up to further avoid talking to her is that OW will come on a double date from hell, with R and Lindsay and S. I mean sure, definitely. Do it. Makes all the sense in the world.

Who’s help does JC need to be CEO? Obviously ̶K̶i̶r̶s̶t̶e̶n̶ TD the disgraced investing genius! TD has great advice; just wing it! You’re good at getting old men to give you money! Ha ha! Solid advice!

Lindsay is super stoked about meeting S, but rather than have even one conversation with her, S sends R. Yeah you got that right, S won’t even say hello to Linsday, the girl he believes he is dating. Instead he wants to talk to OW and have R do the talking. I’m not sure at what point S wants to jump in? Like when R is banging Lindsay? Breakfast the morning after? The date goes great, R tells the live music venue owner OW that he hates live music and here’s Sum and Zach and M and yeah it’s pretty wild that The Killers are actually here in this 20 person venue playing Mr.Brightside and damn it still sounds good OK.

Of course because Sandy doesn’t have a job and Grandpa is full of shit spinning lies about the assistant, Sandy is eating Cheetos in a t-shirt, which is standard ‘I have become loser’ shorthand for any TV show. Kristen recognizes this and takes it as him giving up on life. Better get changed out of that t-shirt ASAP, JC has organized a party at the Cohen’s house with no warning! Because of course this is a thing a person would do. Here she is, in full ball gown with caters because this is how you close a deal with investors scared by the insane bipolar leadership of your failing and criminal leadership. TD is like, yeah no worries Kirsten, JC is groping the investor guys and it’s all good, this is how you do business. Sandy doesn’t stay for the party, instead tailing Grandpa who is up to — big surprise — some shady shit.

Sum seems to have given up her bangs and even Zach is kinda over Sum’s obsession with how S is talking to his non-date Lindsay. get wise Zach, get out while you still can. OW and Lindsay both look like they would rather kill themselves with a spoon than endure one more minute of this date but nobody can leave Baitshop purgatory.

New era! Everyone ends up outside, complaining, unhappy and yelling. New era! Doesn’t take long before Zach and Sum makeup/out DJ is comforting M, OW is making out with S and R is offering Lindsay a ride home — after they clear up that L really wanted R to ask her out. Out of all of them, S is really outkicking his coverage here.

Happy ending for everyone? New Era? No clue! But hey it’s actually fun to see new pairings for the first time in what feels like infinity. Let’s pray they can give them the air to actually grow. There’s approx. 275 episodes/season so they don’t actually need to rush anything.

2.5 The SnO.C

Apparently R spent the whole night at the bus station talking to Lindsay? Weird!

This week we’re already onto the Winter Dance, as the clever title might have suggested. M can not go to the Winter Dance alone; she’s social chair and DJ, the fully grown man she’s dating (?) can’t make it. What to do? Zach is still somehow holding it together with Sum despite the fact that Sum can’t control herself around S. She’s more heavily fixated on S than Yogi Bear on pic-inic baskets.

Alas one romance is over already — Lindsay can’t date R because they’re lab partners. And nothing, nothing, in the world is more important than that. They had a good run.

JC finds M basically boning DJ in her bed when she should be at school and tells him stay away from M, which seems fair since you know, he’s a man and her daughter is in high school. R tries to reassure the nicest guy in school, Zach, that S has moved on. S’s problematic obsessional behavior is now directed towards OW. Quite why any of these non high school people would want to go to a high school dance is confusing but here we are, this whole world is confusing. To show that she doesn’t care about not going, OW goes around kissing everyone, basically telling S that he is meaningless to her. He should take that well and infer what she’s really communicating, no problem.

M comes up with the genius idea that since DJ can’t make it to the dance and Lindsay doesn’t want to go with R, obviously, the two of them should go together. I mean, of course, what could go wrong. In even better planning, S asks Sum how he can bang OW. Sum says, just ignore her. Of course Zach sees them talking and takes (for once) the reasonable position that something is going on. Dude, you should bail. Like right now. For your own mental health. Instead Zach says he’s not going to the dance, and Sum should ask S. For nicest man in the world Zach, this is the equivalent of telling Sum to go fuck herself.

In other, ‘I saw them talking so jumped to conclusions like a 1950’s stage-play’ news, Lindsay sees R talking to M and therefore asks R to the dance with her, but he can’t because he said he’d go with M. Or, hear me out, they agreed to go ‘as friends’ and the situation has changed, so R could now tell his ‘friend’ M that a girl he’s super interested in (who is sane) wants to go with him, so peace out. But R can’t! He has a legally binding contract with M! He must go with her! As friends!

S decides that because OW won’t make out with him whenever he demands or go with him to his high school dance, he must quit his job. Why he’s still working at this job after getting the initial concert tickets, I don’t know. Maybe he should concentrate on living in his 1% rich person house and planning for college? But whatever, he showed her! Now he has more time to sit at home with Sandy & Kirsten and watch kung-fu movies. Because what would be normal behavior before he had a job, now indicates he is total loser, like that time Sandy had a t-shirt on at home not a suit.

To nobody’s surprise, the core four end up going as the double date from hell and then, why they hell not, slow dancing together. Nice! Totally makes sense! It lasts about five minutes before DJ shows up to romance M, and R makes the actually smart/good decision to bail on the dance and drop around Lindsay’s house and tell her he wanted to go with her. Clearing up confusion and being direct? Who are you? What show is this? Lindsay is still against it because R is cool and M is beautiful and Lindsay wears ugly slippers so can’t ever compete. She should fear not, M is beautiful but have you ever talked to her for longer than three seconds? She is most insane person in the entire county of orange.

JC is happy that M is dancing with R, and well that’s tune changed huh? Now R is the good option? Speaking of other tunes, JC almost kisses TD, which might be a good choice, given that Grandpa is going to end up in jail or broke or both. Seems like Grandpa was having an affair which led to a child which led to payoffs and that’s the big secret here. Grandpa is ready to go to prison to protect this secret and the identity of his love child. Uh, OK.

OW, running the Baitshop, home of The Killers live show but which usually has about four customers, greets Zach and makes fun of him not pursuing Sum. Zach orders a chocolate soda because this bar is, I guess, for children and serves chocolate milk? OW sends him back to the dance with the idea to kick the ass of the guy stealing his girl — before realizing oh shit, she sent him to kill S! Eh, seems fine.

Zach punches S in the face then immediately apologizes, he must be from The Midwest (which people from there I’m sure call The M.W.) not The O.C. Somehow this works out for everyone, Sum is happy Zach fought for her and OW is happy that S got punched, as are we all at this point.

JC and TD makeout and they’re maybe the best suited couple on this show after Sandy and Kirsten, or maybe that’s just the ages. Maybe it can work now TD is rich again (?) and either way, M should take the whole thing really well and be cool with her parents being their own people and living their own lives.

We get one last little interaction. Lindsay showing up at the pool house, despite last week waiting for the bus overnight because she didn’t have a car? But maybe there’s a city bus that runs right to the pool house, it’s a pretty popular destination. They makeout and we have, somehow, four couples now?

We get one last twist that we might have guessed from them being the only two red haired people in The O.C.— Lindsay is the daughter of the woman Grandpa had the secret affair with! They’re both at the Cohen’s for different reasons, but this info should be enough to obliterate Lindsay’s & R’s nascent relationship again.

2.6 The Chrismukkah That Almost Wasn’t

How is it already Christmas? This season feels like it’s on double speed, which would have been a useful option for the first season. Grandpa is not stoked about how next Christmas he’ll probably be behind bars. The only way to not go to jail is to talk about Lindsay and come clean. Seems like a fair trade, Lindsay will be OK. JC might not love it, but, eh.

S is being his usual hilarious (to himself) / dickish (to everyone else) self by organizing Chrismukkah in such a way that he does no work. Kristen saying ‘Oy Humbug’ is pretty great though, I’ll give them that.

JC and TD are quite literally back in the saddle, in bed together on TD’s boat. The only concern TD has is that adultery would rob JC of a payout from Grandpa, either pre or post jail. She doesn’t care enough to stop though, TD is just that charming. I mean, yeah, I can see it.

Lindsay of course, starts confiding in R about how terrible her absent dad was (actually, if only she knew him, he’s even worse) and how she doesn’t have a tree, hates Christmas, and of course R invites her over to spend the holidays with them. Too bad for her mom I guess who will now be totally alone! DJ and Zach are away (sure) so Sum & M are all sad and pouty and no doubt planning to ruin Chrismukkah for everyone to balm their own selfish souls. To aid in happiness destruction, S invites them over to also spend Chrismukkah with the Cohen’s. Why not, who needs their actual family?

Sandy takes on the baton of family destruction next, blurting out to R & S that Lindsay is the illegitimate love child of Grandpa. Nice work councilor, kept that secret for all of 24 hours. As such, Sandy doesn’t want Lindsay around the house. Although R intends to tell her she’s no longer welcome, she’s stayed up all night making Christmas-yarmulkes and so R bottles it and Lindsay is coming! And so is Sum! And So is M! And Grandpa! And JC! And TD??! Huzzah-ikah!

Lindsay’s mother dropping her off is sad in a few ways. The way that when you’re a teenager you don’t think about your parent (s) having interior lives. They take you places, buy you stuff, make your dinner. They don’t have feelings. So Lindsay doesn’t think about how her mom might feel, dropping her off here, then returning home to be totally alone. Oof.

But not to worry, being left alone spurs Lindsay’s mom to tell Kirsten, hey, guess what, I banged your dad 16 years ago and we have a secret kid together and she’s I guess, your secret half-sister and also, she’s standing right there! Because of course they do this in front of everyone in the house. This is going to be interesting to see how the world’s two biggest narcissists, M and S somehow make this about themselves.

Lindsay’s interpretation — of course — is that she and R can never be together because she can’t be anywhere near his family. I mean, on one hand, OK I maybe could see that. On the other, it’s not actually R’s family in any way shape or form. He just lives in the pool house and up to about a month ago he lived back in Chino working construction and was 38. Either way, they’re through and Chrismukkah dinner is reduced to be the core four at the local diner. Fear not, they have a plan to save Chrismukkah.

R makes the pitch to Kirsten that the Cohen’s are good at letting in new members and this is all going to be OK. It is pretty wild that R is dating Kirsten’s, uh, sister now. The plan for Sum and M to solve the other side of things, almost runs afoul of TD being busy banging JC on his boat when they drop around. I guess the concept of not ruining families didn’t spread to the decisions these two are making. S’s part is to get Lindsay back in the fold, which is achieved by decorating her house like National Lampoon and having everyone show up and welcome her into the family. Aw!

They did it! Lindsay seems happy about it? Or she just learned that hey, this new family might be mostly insane, but yeah, they also have unlimited resources, so this won’t be so bad.