I have been watching The OC from the get-go, but I have a feeling it’s been losing its appeal since last season. The only hightlight of last season was the killing of Mischa Barton’s character, Marissa, in a car accident. That was the best decision the writers/producers have made thus far. I could not stand a minute longer enduring Mischa’s horrible acting and her not-so-dramatic drama, dealing with drugs, lesbianism, dropping out of school, all with typical teenage girl behavior. Good god, enough is enough. All of that combined with her emotionless acting - it was just time to go.

I was surprised at this Season 4 premiere, when they fast forwarded to 5 months later after Marissa’s death. Of course, every character on the show deals with it differently, and I’m glad that after 3 episodes, the “dealing of Marissa’s death” has come to an end with the arrest of the guy who caused the accident, Volchok (pronounced Vol-CHECK?) Sandy Cohen did Ryan a favor by getting Volchok into custody, turning him over to authorities and trying to negotiate a less extreme terms for him serving time. But Ryan wanted to to kill the guy, of course, so Sandy ended up driving Ryan over to the hotel Volchok was staying, thinking Ryan is adult enough to trust him with his own decision whether to kill the guy who indirectly killed the girl he loved.

All this time trying to hunt the guy down, wanting to kill him each time, Ryan now faces his ultimate enemy in this little hotel room. But he couldn’t do it - surprise, surprise. He was able to punch Volchok in the face but couldn’t “finish the job” with a cracked bottle. They instead had a calm conversation, with Volchok’s nose bleeding, and Ryan asking him why he did it. To which Volchok replied, “I don’t know.” Wow, touching dialogue.

Basically Volchok was just saying it wasn’t Marissa he intended to kill. He was only after Ryan, wanted Ryan to pull over during the car chase. He hated Ryan because he “got the girl” and he didn’t, and he couldn’t deal with that. But things got out of control during the car-slamming chase, when Ryan’s car flipped with Marissa in it.

We all expected Ryan not to do waste his life over this loser by killing him. I think the writers and producers went soft and let us have a nice Thanksgiving episode when everything just ended nicely.

As for characters on the show, I really wish Marissa’s sister, “Kaitlin”, would just leave the show, too. She knows her mom’s boyfriend is cheating on her but she’s using that to blackmail the guy. She’s just horrible. She does the show no good. She’ll just be the next Marissa - the OC’s bad girl, hanging out with wrong crowds. Eventually she’ll find herself a Volchok and history will repeat itself.

I actually like the newly added cast member, “Taylor.” She’s ditzy but in a funny kinda way. She’s no Marissa, since there’s no drama for her yet, except the fact she flew to Paris, spontaneously married some rich guy, and divorced him all within weeks. But I give her props for giving the show some comic relief.

One of the few reasons why I would still watch The OC is to watch Summer and Seth. Summer’s not too pleasant to watch for now, but she’ll turn around, after trying to cope with her best friend’s death, and saving animals and trees. All this time she never cared, but now that her best friend died, she’s all gung-ho, sleeping under a tree and protesting against animal killing? The hell?

The bottom line - glad Marissa’s dead, glad the Volchok thing is over, glad they had a nice Thanksgiving dinner Kirsten put together (nice woman), and I’m truly HOPING this Marissa thing will be really over by next episode, or I’ll turn if off for good.