After last night’s The O. C., which featured the long-hyped smooch between Alex and Marissa, Sarah told me that she’s having trouble watching the show anymore—it’s too painful to watch people make stupid decisions that hurt other people. Steve, in his tour de force on the episode gets at sort of the same result. This show is so great because we’re all so angry with Sandy for going back to Rebecca, for even thinking of abandoning Kirsten, which is, of course, the result of his kissing Rebecca. All of us in the audience, we can see that Rebecca is no good, but Sandy… alas, Sandy.
We expect this sort of blindness from Seth, which is why it’s touching that Seth is managing a similar level of stupidity now. But if the writers weren’t so good at making characters who are believable, then the show would just end up being a rip-off of Melrose or Dynasty, where venality is the underlying motive. Here people fuck up since they are trying to do good—much like Richardson’s Pamela.
On Marissa and Alex re: jumping the shark. When I first saw the promos and heard the talk of lipstick lesbian action on the show, I was pretty damned depressed. I, too, saw it as shark-jumping, or, at least, including a hook to bring in the masses while secretly still making the best hour of television on the air. But the way the relationship has grown makes it so emminently believable and touching that I have to say I buy it, and I don’t see it as exploitative. After Ryan’s explosion at Marissa, she literally had no one left to turn to. No shoulder to cry on. Everyone was busy or angry. Everyone except Alex. Out of her confusion and need for compassion—don’t forget, it’s Marissa who has the Care Bear in her bed—she’s starting up a relationship that also involves, potentially, a level of self-reidentification. That’s, of course, being saved for the spring episodes.
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