The OC

The O.C. aired in August 2003, under massive hype by the network that it was so scandalously full of sex and fistfights you would have an aneurysm within the first half an hour. But really, it was a heartwarming tale about family and social acceptance. Everyone won!

Especially Ryan Atwood, the underdog hero, since he went from mattress-in-the-front-yard poverty to to jail to infinity-pool decadence within one weekend. So next time your lawbreaking older brother decides you should learn how to steal a car, go for it! That worked for him, right? We’re sure you’ll land a public defender who takes you home to live in his McMansion with his geeky son-your-age and rich blonde wife. You’ll have to stick it out in the poolhouse, but hey, times are hard. Ryan’s a humble dude, though, so he doesn’t mind the indignity of a poolhouse, and immediately clicks with the super-photogenic Mischa Barton –– er, we mean Marissa Cooper –– next door, who has a habit of looking troubled, an apparent drinking problem and a water polo-playing boyfriend shaped like a bear. The boyfriend, Luke, is a jock and thus, of course, an idiot jerk; he terrorizes Seth, aforementioned public defender’s socially awkward son, and hates Ryan because Marissa finds him better-looking/nicer. They get into a fight once per episode, usually at either a raging beach party or a classy high-society party, until everyone goes to Tijuana, where Marissa finds Luke macking all over her bitchy friend Holly and then, in response, runs away to a bar to swallow a shit-ton of pills with some tequila. This, of course, does not end well. Seth, Ryan, and Marissa’s best friend Summer –– also known as the girl that Seth has obsessed over for six years, also known as the girl who won’t admit she digs Seth back –– find her slumped in an alley, unconscious. In slow motion Ryan picks her up very heroically and carries her body out of the alley.

That was only the first seven episodes. People fucking loved it.

He didn't, apparently. Look at how unhappy he is. What's his deal?

In later episodes the themes of Summer hating (but loving) Seth, Seth loving (but acting like a dumbass to) Summer, Marissa acting troubled, and Ryan rescuing Marissa repeat in a loop. In between such plots we have the official adoption of Ryan by Seth’s parents, a potential step-GILF, a crazy Tom Jones fan who meets Marissa at therapy and then consequently stalks her (to her clueless approval), the bitchslap of poetic justice when the homophobic Luke catches his dad kissing another man, Marissa’s mom hooking up with Luke –– yes, her daughter’s ex-boyfriend –– and a wedding between Marissa’s mom and Seth’s grandpa that effectively makes every relationship on the show incestuous. But who cares about that? No one. Why? Because Ryan’s ex-girlfriend Thereas showed up sometime in January or February, slept with him once the week he broke up with Marissa, and now she’s preggers. It’s either Ryan’s or her abusive fiance’s. Ryan’s a classy guy, so he steps it up and says he’ll drop out of high school –– and move back to his impoverished hometown, oh em GEE –– to raise the baby. Marissa cries quite elegantly. Seth cries on the inside, even though Summer (by this point his girlfriend) wants to talk it out with him. But boys do not talk about their feelings when their best friend is leaving! They hop on their own personal catamarans and try sailing to Tahiti, leaving their girlfriends and parents a couple notes on the nightstand! And then they sail into the sunset thinking, Shit, I just broke off the only real relationships I’ll ever have.

Seasons 2 and 3 are pretty terrible, so we won’t go into them much. Seth and Ryan return (obviously), Marissa decides she’s bored being the straightest girl ever and goes all bicurious on the viewers, Ryan’s car-stealing brother gets out of jail and tries to rape Marissa, Marissa shoots him. Also, there’s a comic book subplot in which Seth writes a graphic novel based on their lives called Atomic County, where all the water polo players are actually demons from hell, and Summer’s new boyfriend convinces him to sell it to a distributor. It gets sold to George Lucas, we think. We’re not sure; we were too stoked to see George Lucas on The O.C. to pay attention to dialogue. Then Seth trades the graphic novel rights to Summer’s boyfriend for the right to take Summer to prom, since they are totally in love, and because it’s a teen soap or whatever.

In Season 3, Marissa goes to public high school –– the horror! –– and makes friends with a poor surfer who cries all the time, largely because he (like all her male friends) is hardcore in lust with her. He dies near the end of season and television viewers rejoice. Then Marissa dies too, in Ryan’s arms, from a fiery car crash; the song playing when she dies is the same one from when they found her unconscious in Tijuana, and it’s all very poetic and sad. Television viewers rejoice.

Season 4 is fucking hilarious. Kevin Sorbo joins as Ryan’s dad, who hooks up with (dead) Marissa’s mom. Ryan gets a new girlfriend by helping her get divorced from her whirlwind-mistake French husband; she is full of neuroses and pretends to be Ryan’s “sleep therapist” to seduce him. She later dresses as a giant groundhog to spy on him.

To be fair, when she isn't a groundhog she looks like this.

On New Year's, Seth and Summer get engaged, then try to get the other one to break off said engagement. There is an earthquake, but no one dies. Then cue musical montage tying up loose ends and it’s done, forever.

We don’t know about you, but we cried like babies.

More people figured out who Chuck Klosterman and Ben Gibbard were, for one thing. That’s either a blessing or a curse, we’re not sure which. A lot of people started saying “Welcome to the O.C., bitch!” as well. (They then disappeared in a puff of smoke and rematerialized as a spray-tanned army sporting awful gelled haircuts.)

One of the most interesting cultural ripples from the show, however, was the subdivision of adolescent female America into two subgroups, “Seth girls” and “Ryan girls.” The anthropological opportunities were astounding. Sociology professors and Seventeen columnists alike swooped in on the teenage girls of America, demanding to know: were they Ryan girls or Seth girls? The consensus showed that, to the FOX network’s shock, more girls dug Seth, the awkward Jewfro’d best friend. Executives shook their heads. “Blasphemy!” they exclaimed. “A witty nerd getting more girls than a blond, muscled dude in a wifebeater? But girls are supposed to like the silent type!” Well, guess what, execs. You were wrong.

The repercussions of such a discovery were immediate: Seth girls bought ironic eyeglasses and began listening to Bright Eyes and Death Cab, while Ryan girls bought earrings and went to the gym. Seth girls then picked up comic books and applied to Brandeis University, while the Ryan girls applied to state schools and drunkenly hooked up with the entire Cracked team in the back of a hijacked van painted banana-yellow.

The show was also responsible for the rise in popularity of Chrismukkah, the best holiday ever. (For more kickass holidays we should all celebrate, see 15 Holidays They Need to Invent.)