The OC Season 4 disc 3
Jan. 13th, 2019 03:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessI'm actually halfway through the next and final disc of episodes because there's been so little TV drama on that I want to watch at the moment. I mean, I've rewatched parts of The Mentalist and NCIS: LA episodes (and programmes about houses, quizzes and the news, which this is not the space for.)
I found the four episodes on this disc much of a muchness quality-wise. I watched it to be amused and ship Taylor/Ryan.
In ‘My Two Dads’, Sethummer’s game of engagement chicken would have worked better if they’d gone for it even more and made it the main plot. But the episode’s main focus is on Frank wanting to meet Ryan. It all went very soapy as Frank lied about having cancer (of course) and was unmasked by protective!Sandy at an awkward family dinner. Frank also connected with Julie (and if you think think back to previous Atwood-Cooper connections, even in this season, and…yeah). Taylor was adorable over this ‘relationship milestone’, and really the Cohens, Ryan and Taylor just hanging out with and riffing off each other would have been equally entertaining.
Also, Kaitlyn had a subplot with an age-appropriate love interest!
‘The French Connection’ was more amusing as Taylor’s ex-husband’s novel about ‘Peaches’ i.e. a barely fictionalised novel about their relationship got translated into English and Henri-Michel himself came to Newport Beach to woo Taylor via a French literary discussion show (of course). Cue strains on Taylor/Ryan, exacerbated when she lied about Ryan studying philosophy. He seemed to be fine with her basically giving him her stalking logbook as an early Valentine’s gift before and they are capable of shared delusions even when they don’t fall off ladders.
Even I raised my eyebrows at Sandy comparing Taylor/Ryan to him and Kirsten (going on later episodes, it’s the unlikely love of a lifetime after the big teen romance with Marissa??? Show, I don’t mind your commitment to this ship, but that’s going quite far.)
Seth couldn’t but put a (for him) passionate defence of why he loved Summer to her father, but at home she was in danger of becoming Chrissmuk-huh Summer, only with a drinking problem. Kaitlyn’s stumbling romance with Will was entirely justified by Julie teasing her about it. About a month and a half after she should’ve, Kirsten began wondering what was really going on at New Directions.’ (A male prostitution ring, Kirsten.)
So maybe I was shaking my head as much as laughing.
In ‘The Dream Lover’, there was a sense that the show was going ‘why not?’ as Ryan and Henri-Michel fought over Taylor by way of poetry and self-expression. And then Taylor ended up taking the same line about knowing/liking who she was instead of being with someone as Summer just had in rejecting Seth. (This did not last long in either case.) Ché turned up to help Seth get over his hurt/give Chris Pratt something to do – he was mostly pointless until the ‘why are you here?’ scene with Julie.
There were laughs to be had from Julie trying to make it up to Kirsten/lying so that they could spend time together, and having Kirsten realise she had no other friends. Which is tragic.
Kaitlyn maintained the show’s teen drama roots – veering from being a competitive bitch to her version of the bigger person over A Boy. Some of the drama didn’t quite land as it was meant to.
Apart from the big Cohen family reveal, ‘The Groundhog Day’ was mostly filler. Kirsten is about to turn 40 – so many mental recalibrations at being officially closer in age to the parental generation than their kids. Seth was puzzled because Ché was acting weirder (trying to force himself to fancy Seth because of a vision he’d had; was this Ryan/Seth slasher baiting?) and Summer ended up carrying out a half-baked animal rescue for Ché, which is hardly character growth.
Despite Taylor’s decision not to be with Ryan, she was stalking him (which he seems to find adorable to the point that by the end of the episode they were doing sexy stalker role-play, which I’m not minded to say ‘whatever works for you’ about.) She was being advised by a therapist I was convinced was going to be unmasked as a fraud. Ah well, at least I had remembered Taylor dressing up as a groundhog (to enable the stalking) correctly.
Julie was sneaking around with Frank (instead of getting a legit paying job) and Kaitlyn was so excited about the idea of Bullet being her moneyed stepfather that she was e-mailing him pretending to be her mother. Of course.
So, as wacky as ever. As I knew about the Julie/Frank and Kirsten’s pregnancy (to which Sandy’s reaction was lovely, BTW), some of the episode’s force dissipated.
I found the four episodes on this disc much of a muchness quality-wise. I watched it to be amused and ship Taylor/Ryan.
In ‘My Two Dads’, Sethummer’s game of engagement chicken would have worked better if they’d gone for it even more and made it the main plot. But the episode’s main focus is on Frank wanting to meet Ryan. It all went very soapy as Frank lied about having cancer (of course) and was unmasked by protective!Sandy at an awkward family dinner. Frank also connected with Julie (and if you think think back to previous Atwood-Cooper connections, even in this season, and…yeah). Taylor was adorable over this ‘relationship milestone’, and really the Cohens, Ryan and Taylor just hanging out with and riffing off each other would have been equally entertaining.
Also, Kaitlyn had a subplot with an age-appropriate love interest!
‘The French Connection’ was more amusing as Taylor’s ex-husband’s novel about ‘Peaches’ i.e. a barely fictionalised novel about their relationship got translated into English and Henri-Michel himself came to Newport Beach to woo Taylor via a French literary discussion show (of course). Cue strains on Taylor/Ryan, exacerbated when she lied about Ryan studying philosophy. He seemed to be fine with her basically giving him her stalking logbook as an early Valentine’s gift before and they are capable of shared delusions even when they don’t fall off ladders.
Even I raised my eyebrows at Sandy comparing Taylor/Ryan to him and Kirsten (going on later episodes, it’s the unlikely love of a lifetime after the big teen romance with Marissa??? Show, I don’t mind your commitment to this ship, but that’s going quite far.)
Seth couldn’t but put a (for him) passionate defence of why he loved Summer to her father, but at home she was in danger of becoming Chrissmuk-huh Summer, only with a drinking problem. Kaitlyn’s stumbling romance with Will was entirely justified by Julie teasing her about it. About a month and a half after she should’ve, Kirsten began wondering what was really going on at New Directions.’ (A male prostitution ring, Kirsten.)
So maybe I was shaking my head as much as laughing.
In ‘The Dream Lover’, there was a sense that the show was going ‘why not?’ as Ryan and Henri-Michel fought over Taylor by way of poetry and self-expression. And then Taylor ended up taking the same line about knowing/liking who she was instead of being with someone as Summer just had in rejecting Seth. (This did not last long in either case.) Ché turned up to help Seth get over his hurt/give Chris Pratt something to do – he was mostly pointless until the ‘why are you here?’ scene with Julie.
There were laughs to be had from Julie trying to make it up to Kirsten/lying so that they could spend time together, and having Kirsten realise she had no other friends. Which is tragic.
Kaitlyn maintained the show’s teen drama roots – veering from being a competitive bitch to her version of the bigger person over A Boy. Some of the drama didn’t quite land as it was meant to.
Apart from the big Cohen family reveal, ‘The Groundhog Day’ was mostly filler. Kirsten is about to turn 40 – so many mental recalibrations at being officially closer in age to the parental generation than their kids. Seth was puzzled because Ché was acting weirder (trying to force himself to fancy Seth because of a vision he’d had; was this Ryan/Seth slasher baiting?) and Summer ended up carrying out a half-baked animal rescue for Ché, which is hardly character growth.
Despite Taylor’s decision not to be with Ryan, she was stalking him (which he seems to find adorable to the point that by the end of the episode they were doing sexy stalker role-play, which I’m not minded to say ‘whatever works for you’ about.) She was being advised by a therapist I was convinced was going to be unmasked as a fraud. Ah well, at least I had remembered Taylor dressing up as a groundhog (to enable the stalking) correctly.
Julie was sneaking around with Frank (instead of getting a legit paying job) and Kaitlyn was so excited about the idea of Bullet being her moneyed stepfather that she was e-mailing him pretending to be her mother. Of course.
So, as wacky as ever. As I knew about the Julie/Frank and Kirsten’s pregnancy (to which Sandy’s reaction was lovely, BTW), some of the episode’s force dissipated.
