"At Every Occasion I'll Be Ready For A Funeral"

The above lyric borrowed from Band of Horses' breath taking "The Funeral", epitomizes the experience of being a viewers of Fox's The OC. The show has now killed three characters in a span of just 27 episdoes culminating with the car crash which took the life of Marissa Cooper in season three's finale last Thursday. I have no means of doing the research but am willing to bet that outside of crime dramas, no program has allowed its characters to die at such great frequency. At this point, it is only reasonable for fans of the show to brace themselves for the death of another charater somewhere around episode nine of the fourth season. My money is on Seth meeting his fate in a tragic sailing accident, but a twelve episode arc where Kirsten succumbs to breast cancer is probably a stronger possibility.


The problem with allowing so many characters to meet their untimely demise is that it becomes incredibly difficult for viewers to continue to care what happens to the characters. Such extreme tragedy both shatters suspension of disbelief and discourages fans from feeling compassion towards characters whose lives will only be marked by misfortune. The recent obsession with death is syptomatic of the show's attempt to create more powerful television by employing heightened melodrama. The program's plotlines have rapidly shifted from drama surrounding fist fights, relationships, and sex to drama surrounding death, infidelity, and alcoholism.

Perhaps most frustrating of all is the show's inclination to repeat previous plotlines with a far lower degree of success. Watching Ryan's Mom battle alcoholism while Luke's Dad and Julie Cooper cheated on their spouses was entertaining because the plotlines involved secondary characters. Watching Kirsten implode due to alcoholism and Sandy ponder infidelity was excruciatingly painful because the themes had already been explored and the characters are at the core of The OC. Not only did Thursday's episode feature the last moments of one of the program's most prominent characters, it repeated previous instances in the show where 1. a character died (Caleb and Johnny) 2. the music of Imogen Heap was featured prominently in the wake of a characters death ("Hide and Seek" plays during Caleb's funeral procession) 3. a character was involved in a roll over (Kirsten's drunk driving in season two) 4. Ryan was forced to carry Marrissa while she is near death (the Tiajuana OD first season) 5. a season cliffhanger ended in violence and potential death (Marrissa's shooting of Trey in the season two finale).


After viewing the commercials stating a main character may die during the finale, I was utterly convinced everyone would survive the episode based on the number of recent deaths on the show and the suggestion it would be a major character who would bite the dust. My mantra when discussing the show with my friends was "Look. Imagine if one of us or one of our parents were to die right now. Imagine the trama that would inflict on your life." Thankfully, I have never had to experience such tragedy. However, I am relatively certain that such events would leave a person utterly devastated for months or years and would never completely fade. The OC's unbelievably difficult challenge at this point is to adequatlely convey the misery experienced by Julie after losing her daughter, Ryan after losing the love of his life, and Summer after losing her best friend while simultaneously steering the show as far away as possible from melodrama. While agonizing over this decision for several days, I have come to the conclusion that I will be tuning in during the beginning of the fourth season to see if Josh Schwartz and company can in fact pull it off. I found myself incredibly relieved to read that Schwartz "intends to jettison the [show's recent] moodiness for more wit and winsomeness." While I am not holding my breath, my fingers are most definitely crossed.