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YMMV / The O.C.

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  • Adorkable:
    • Seth is a socially awkward, self-proclaimed geek and comic book lover with a great sense of humor. He's shown to be a Chick Magnet, being able to attract popular girls like Summer, tough girls like Alex, and girls who are as nerdy as him like Anna and Taylor.
    • Taylor is an intellectual goody goody, but her perky personality and neurotic tendencies make her adorably dorky.
    • Anna is a witty, comic-loving girl who has a Birds of a Feather relationship with Seth.
    • Lindsay is very smart and has her cute, dorky moments with Ryan.
  • Angst? What Angst?:
    • Ryan doesn't really seem all that bothered about Theresa losing the baby at the start of the second season. Or when he finds out she lied about it.
    • No-one other than Marissa is really bothered by Johnny's death.
    • Justified at the start of season 4 following Marissa's death - the season starts six months after the death, so the only people still struggling to move on are those who were closest to Marissa, i.e. Ryan, Summer, and Julie. After her death, Ryan becomes cold and distant, Summer focuses excessively in her activism and Julie becomes emotionally closed .
  • Awesome Music: One episode usually consists of about five indie-rock gems, but "Hide and Seek", "Hallelujah", "Dice", "Life's A Song", "Something Pretty", "Running Up That Hill", "A Bad Dream", "If You Leave", "Champagne Supernova" etc. "California" is a given.
  • Badass Decay: Ryan Atwood for most of Season 2.
  • Base-Breaking Character: Taylor Townsend, post-Heel–Face Turn. She's either loved for her personality post-Character Development and promotion to the main cast in Season 4 (and for replacing Marissa as Ryan's Love Interest), or hated for those exact reasons.
  • BLAM: Ryan and Marissa sharing a cigarette in the pilot, since the network would only allow that single scene and neither of them smokes for the rest of the series, it comes off as very odd.
  • Crack Pairing: "The Chrismukk-huh?" explores Sandy being married to Julie who is having an affair with Che
  • Designated Hero: Jimmy Cooper. The show repeatedly has characters talk about how good he is, and he's portrayed as the Reasonable Authority Figure in Marissa's home life, but he's still a white collar criminal who embezzled millions from his clients.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Taylor Townsend went from a minor villain, to a recurring friend of the main characters, to a main character herself, to Ryan's girlfriend. Critics often cite Autumn Reeser's portrayal of Taylor as one of the highlights of seasons three and four.
    • Oddly, Summer Roberts. She was originally just suppose to have a small role in the pilot, and ended up being the main female lead of the entire series.
    • Alex Kelly is definitely one of the most popular characters but Executive Meddling made her go away.
    • Kaitlin, even people that hate Marissa seem to love her.
    • Luke Ward due to his Character Development from Jerk Jock to Lovable Goofball who becomes friends with Ryan and Seth. It helps that he had several Pet the Dog moments prior to him taking a level in kindness. Many fans were disappointed when he was written out of the show and didn't appear again after the season 2 premiere.
  • Fridge Brilliance: If Harbor is such a prestigeous school, why don't they have uniforms? It's not hard to imagine that parents had the uniform abolished so their kids could wear their expensive wardrobes, considering the type of society Newport is generally depicted as.
  • Genre Turning Point: Not so much for television, but for music. The show's Indie Pop soundtrack, combined with its mix of a glamorous image and a satirical, countercultural tone, has been credited with bringing indie music into the mainstream in the 2000s, especially with its multiple soundtrack albums.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • Taylor's "I would like to take a moment of silence to remember Marissa Cooper." in "The Shape Of Things to Come"
    • Johnny falling to his death, when Johnnie Lewis who played his best friend, did die by falling.
    • Summer once told Anna that Seth would eventually dump her because all guys eventually get bored of her. The sad part is, she was right. Seth had a mental breakdown when Ryan left to take care of Theresa and the baby, and instead of leaning on his girlfriend for support, he sailed away to Oregon to go live with Luke. And he didn't tell her.
    • Any scene featuring Kirsten drinking, especially in times of stress, before her alcoholism story line in season 2.
    • Marissa overdosing in early season 1 can be quite difficult to watch if one learns about her actress Mischa Barton getting drugged in early 2017. Her psychiatric evaluation the following episode serves as this after Mischa Barton admitting she was in psychiatric care in an episode of Dr. Phil.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • It Was His Sled: It's almost impossible to get into the show these days without being spoiled on Marissa's death.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Downplayed with Kaitlin: she's kinda bratty and problematic, but she has a genuinely good heart and is pretty kind. She goes through a lot including being excluded from her own family for nearly two years and having her mom forget her birthday. That's not even counting the the deaths of Johnny and Marissa.
  • Les Yay: When Summer discovers Taylor in her bed at Brown, Taylor's first question is "Wanna snuggle?"
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • Overdramatizing murder scenes with slow motion and Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek." Explanation (spoilers!)
    • "You know what I like about rich kids? Nothing" is also popular with many people turning it into "you know what I like about NFT's/crypto currency?" in response to Ben McKenzie's later vocal criticism of both and celebrities who endorse them.
  • More Popular Replacement: While not universally hated, Marissa is a divisive character for being too much of a wangsty and spoiled rich girl. Her replacement Taylor is generally well-received, as she's more quirky and Endearingly Dorky.
  • Narm: Marissa's meltdown in the season two premiere where she screams at her mom and throws their furniture into the pool.
  • No Yay: Despite how close they are, there is very little Marissa/Summer fanfiction.
  • Older Than They Think: The theme, Phantom Planet's "California", is loosely based on a 1921 Broadway number "California, Here I Come".
  • One Episode Wonder:
    • Alex's ex-girlfriend Jodie is quite popular in fanfiction despite only being in one episode (with a cameo in the previous episode)
    • Kaitlin's roommate Hadley steals every scene she is. Being played by Lucy Hale also helps.
  • One True Pairing: Seth and Summer for many fans. Sandy and Kirsten as well.
  • One True Threesome: Actually it's a ot4 between Ryan, Marissa, Seth and Summer. Being quite popular mainly because they're the main teens and couples (Ryan/Marissa and Seth/Summer) and each same-sex pairings are Heterosexual Life-Partners.
  • Parody Displacement: The Saturday Night Live parody of Trey's shooting is FAR more well known than the actual scene.
  • Retroactive Recognition:
  • Ron the Death Eater: Ryan gets this treatment in many a Malex fic.
  • The Scrappy:
    • Oliver Trask, who bypassed being a Love to Hate villain & became outright hated. Whilst it was in part because, after roughly half a season of build up to the Ryan/Marissa relationship it was promptly torn apart by Oliver, his hatedom extends beyond the Marissa/Ryan shippers. This is largely because the entire Oliver arc reduced the general intelligence of the entire cast (Marissa, especially) so they wouldn't believe Ryan's skepticsm and draw the arc out for 6 episodes, and Taylor Handley's portrayal of the character wasn't subtle enough for the Manipulative Bastard he was supposed to be. And he had stupid hair, too. It's telling that over a decade after his last appearance on the show, Oliver was still appearing in "Worst Character" polls.
    • Johnny Harper. He was introduced at the start of the third season and began falling for Marissa, with the writers clearly hoping fans would take to him & create a Ryan/Marissa vs. Johnny/Marissa shipping war. However the fandom didn't take to him, and began to turn against the character as it seemed that was he receiving more screentime each week. In the years after the show's cancellation, Johnny's arc has become the scapegoat for the third season's drop in quality & is ultimately blamed by some members of the fandom as what ultimately killed the show.
    • Jimmy was supposed to be the cool parent for Marissa, but he generally came off as bland and unlikable. The writers took note and started featuring him less and less, before writing him out midway through the second season after he spent the majority of the season just floating around on his boat. It doesn't help that season 3 brought him back for a brief and unnecessary arc where he owes money to several loan sharks whom he borrowed from (which shows that he didn't learn his lesson in the previous seasons) and then straight up abandons his family again.
    • Most of Ryan's love interests get this treatment, except for Taylor. Marissa is probably the most-liked of them. Theresa is probably the most-hated.
    • Charlotte Morgan. In addition to posing as a False Friend to Kirsten when she's in rehab and having zero redeeming qualities, many fans disliked her storyline because of how pointless and unnecessary it was. Word of God later claimed that the only reason Charlotte was included on the show was because of Executive Meddling, which explains why her character felt so out-of-place.
    • Trey Atwood (Ryan's brother). Many fans found his character to be frustrating due to his numerous idiotic moments, and for constantly causing problems for Ryan to the point Ryan had to bail him out of his own messes. While this may have been intentional on the show's part, it still didn't endear him to many fans. His lowest moment is arguably when he tries to rape Marissa when he's high on drugs, which not only destroyed any remaining sympathy for his character, but was also considered to be the moment when Trey crossed the Moral Event Horizon.
  • Seasonal Rot:
    • Downplayed with Season 2. While it doesn't measure up to the same quality as season 1, it has been Vindicated by History in recent years by fans who felt like the season had plenty of entertaining moments. That being said, certain storylines like Lindsay's relationship with Ryan, Jimmy doing nothing by chilling out on a boat for the first half of the season, and Rebecca's arc aren't as well regarded.
    • Season 3 is where the rot really started to settle in. The darker and depressing tone made the season drag, and it wasn't helped that the show seemed more interested in having characters constantly indulge in personal drama, which resulted in Too Bleak, Stopped Caring for some viewers. The introduction of new characters like Charlotte Morgan, Johnny Harper, Kevin Volchok, Dean Hess, Matt Ramsay, and Henry Griffin weren't well received, nor was the fact that storylines started to center around them. It doesn't help that many of these storylines either were subjected to Four Lines, All Waiting, didn't go anywhere, or were just there to create unnecessary angst. The Love Triangle between Johnny/Marissa/Ryan is especially considered to be a low point by many people for the entire show. There's also how many characters started making more and more stupid decisions, which caused some fans to lose patience with them. Finally, the season finale where Marissa dies was enough for some people to tune out of the show altogether.
    • While Season 4 is considered to be a step-up from season 3, it still had its issues. In contrast to previous seasons, the show took on a Denser and Wackier tone and featured some weird storylines (one episode for instance centers around Seth literally having a Vision Quest to find his spiritual animal), which alienated some viewers. There was also the writers spinning their wheels on the Seth/Summer and Ryan/Taylor relationships, which became a bad case of Romantic Plot Tumor. All of this eventually led to a series finale that received a lukewarm reception from fans and critics.
  • Ships That Pass in the Night: Some fans like to use Jodie and Summer as a Beta Couple to Marissa and Alex. They may have met during the week that Jodie stayed in Newport, even though this usually isn't a factor. This is probably because (at the time *After Anna and before Taylor*) Summer was the only other prominent female teen character.
  • Signature Line: "Welcome to the OC, bitch!"
  • Signature Scene:
    • Luke's "Welcome to The O.C. bitch!" has been used so many times in promos that it's become iconic.
    • The last 4 minutes of the Season 1 finale due to the musical montage of "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley as Ryan goes back to Chino with Teresa, Sandy and Kirsten mourn Ryan's departure, Marissa moves into Caleb's mansion and begins drinking again, and Seth sails away into the sunset.
    • Thanks in part to Memetic Mutation, the final scene of the second season.
    • Marissa's death.
  • Sophomore Slump: Many, but not all, thought Season 2 felt increasingly lackluster and in some cases desperate (especially with Marissa's coming out) in comparison to season 1, and Word of God even stated that the number of plotlines they used for the previous season created a bit of a black hole for season 2. The gloomy Season 3, however, was even more universally derided.
  • Squick:
    • Julie continuously sleeping with Luke counts as statutory rape.
    • Ryan and Caleb's Season 1 twenty-something girlfriend hooking up.
    • Hailey and Jimmy's entire attempted relationship. Hailey even admitted to having a crush on him when she was 8. Jimmy was heading to college at that time. Even worse when you consider he proposed to Hailey. It should be noted, however, that Jimmy was oblivious to Hailey's crush on him until the start of the their relationship.
  • Supercouple: Seth Cohen and Summer Roberts.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Marissa dies, and then... Season 3 promptly ends. Season 4 picks up several months later, skipping out the funeral & everyone's reactions to the news.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
    • Jimmy Cooper. The viewer is supposed to feel sorry for Jimmy, as they watch his life rapidly falls apart in the first half of season one; however, the reason this happens is that Jimmy had mismanaged his family's money on the stock market, and then embezzled from his clients to keep up appearances & try to get back the money he lost in the first place. Subsequently, it's hard to disagree with Julie when she decides to divorce him & outright tells him that maybe he belongs in jail. It gets even worse retroactively, since Jimmy's actions are eerily similar to the actual stock market crash that occured a few years after the show finished.
    • Marissa Cooper, in the wake of the Oliver arc. Having Marissa be blissfully ignorant of his increasingly creepy behaviour towards her was one thing, but having her repeatedly ignore Ryan & Luke's pleas for her to stop being so trusting of Oliver, to the point she was trusting him over her lifelong bestfriend? Whilst the show wants the viewer to feel sympathy for Marissa over Ryan not immediately taking her back, the viewer may find it somewhat cathartic seeing her get rejected.
  • Unpopular Popular Character:
    • Seth is a textbook example. A smart and sarcastic nerd played by a very handsome actor? Obviously a loser in-universe who was an outcast for most of his life, but also the most popular character among the viewers.
    • Taylor is an overachieving Genki Girl who is hated by everyone (including her abusive mother) until she befriends Seth and Summer. However, she has Hidden Depths and many viewers like her more than Marissa.
  • Values Dissonance: The way that the relationships between Dean Hess and Taylor and Julie Cooper and Luke are treated has aged fairly poorly, since one is convenient fodder for blackmail and the other is considered wrong for who it is rather than how old they were. Dean Hess is particularly notable as he's blackmailed by the show's moral compass Sandy who does nothing else with the information he has, not even offer help and support to the student either himself or through Seth or one of the other kids.
  • Vindicated by History: At the time Season 2 aired, it was often compared unfavorably to the first season by fans and critics. In recent years, especially with how seasons 3-4 went down, it has gotten a more favorable reception. Episodes like "The Rainy Day Women" are often considered fan-favorites, characters like Alex and Zach are much better liked compared to Johnny or Volchok from season 3, the Alex/Marissa relationship has gotten positive feedback for its portrayal of bisexuality (with many people saying it was when Marissa was most bearable), and even Caleb's dynamic with both Julie and the Cohen family are considered highlights to the point that many fans felt it was a mistake to have killed Caleb off at the end of season 2. Overall, while Season 1 still remains the superior season in the eyes of many fans, season 2 is praised for being able to stand on its own.
  • Win Back the Crowd: Season 4 for bringing back the comedy, focusing back on the core characters, and being without the acting talents of Mischa Barton. Unfortunately, the damage was already done & the show was cancelled before the end of the season.

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