TV Watch: The OC

Last week’s episode of “The OC” opened with a (gasp) metaphor. Has the show achieved literary merit?

Mmm, sort of.

Marissa Cooper recounted—via nightmare—her shooting of Trey, Ryan’s brother, in last spring’s season finale. The vision represents ardent attempts by the show’s writers to remember a time when the show was at its sleazy best. And with last week’s episode, they succeeded! Sort of.

Ryan and Marissa had some more relationship troubles, as she got closer to Johnny, but, instead of the episode ending with the duo playing make-up, we got the surprise of Johnny’s girlfriend cheating on him and a nice glimpse of Marissa’s puzzled demeanor. Despite this valiant try, the Ryan-Marissa coupling remains the show’s weakest point.

Speaking of interesting stuff, Jeri Ryan’s character, Charlotte, is pretty freakin’ sweet. Julie basically called her out, finding a bunch of fake credit cards and IDs in Charlotte’s purse. And then, because of her desire to ascend from her newfound poverty, Julie agreed to help her scam Newport!

This is the stuff “The OC” should be about—schemes and stalkers. I mean, after seeing Marissa shoot Ryan’s brother and Kirsten nearly die in a car crash at the end of last season, who really gives a crap about “Senior Year”?

Now, onto Taylor Townsend, whom, via an encounter with her condescending and careless mother, the writers attempted to humanize. After we saw a little more of the true side of Taylor, she fell in love with Seth in a matter of seconds. I just really hope the Taylor storyline doesn’t get in the way of Seth and Summer, who are basically the only consistently interesting couple on the show.

Now, a confession: After the vomit-inducing “The next song that comes on the radio will be our song” line in the last episode before the show took that strange month-long hiatus, I was about ready to give up. I thought that it had officially run out of juice, attempting to grasp hold of a teenage reality with which it had never been really acquainted.

Ultimately, however, those crazies over at “The OC” are making strides to return to the tasteful balance between the real and the absurd.

But if they play “Forever Young” again, I’m gone. For serious.