"The O.C": Caleb's Will Explodes!

‘’The O.C.’’: Caleb’s Will Explodes!’’

By Arlene R. Weiss © Copyright September 23, 2005

So…the moment we’ve all been waiting for has arrived, the reading of Caleb’s will. And everyone, (us included), is on pins and needles! Well, just hold on there partner, because if you knew what megalomaniac Caleb was leaving, and to who, whom…all who/whom cares!, straight up…then you might change that dial. First a few plot twists my friend.

In last night’s September 22, Episode 3, Sandy tells Ryan to take ‘’a break’’ from seeing Marissa. (Duh, get real!) Julie takes things a step further by giving Marissa an ultimatum, banish Coop to boarding school with her mysteriously ever mentioned, never seen sister, Kaitlin, or stay in Newport but never see Ryan ever again. Uh, Yeah…. Course, Marissa opts to stay at home, but it’s a no brainer that she and Ryan proceed to sneaking around together for daily scorching, canoodle fests.

Meanwhile, good old perennial, likable screw up Jimmy, who last week we learned was in debt up to his eyeballs to some sleazebag, well, the sleaze wants his money…er…yesterday, informing Jimmy that if Jimmy doesn’t pay up pronto, he’s gonna find himself with some major broken legs. Jimmy rushes a ‘’Let’s do it now, why wait’’, marriage proposal to Julie, planning the wedding right after the reading of the will, assuming Caleb left Julie the mother lode of his estate. Jimmy promises the sleaze that he will get his money the following night after the will reading and proposes to Jules that after they get hitched again, that they sail away with Marissa to Hawaii to ‘’start a new life’’, course not letting on to Jules about his shady dealings and fear of winding up in cement overshoes.

Sandy, pays a trip to Kirsten at nutzy Charlotte’s cabin, asking Kirsten to the reading of Caleb’s will, something his already recovering teetotaler wife is hedging on and Charlotte just can’t resist putting a bug in Kirsten’s ear about how the ‘’stress’’ of hearing what’s in that will, might cause Kirsten to nosedive, fall down drunk again.

Marissa takes the news about leaving Newport for Hawaii as something in her life, that is at last going right. Yeah, right. So when she springs the news on Ryan that he will always be her lover man, but that she finally has a shot at having and being a real family, even if it means moving away to pineapple island, which she actually is willing to do, Ryan supports Coop’s decision, but cooks up a plan for a last, unforgettable, romantic night with his woman, like no other.

Ah, you thought we forgot. Nope. Drum roll. The reading of Caleb’s will. Well Kirsten shows, as so does Sandy, Julie, and Jimmy all about to explode with anticipation. So what does Caleb’s lawyer inform them? HA! The joke is on all of them as Caleb was flat broke, in debt to everyone but Jimmy’s sleazebag. Caleb Nichol didn’t have a plug nickel. Jimmy looks as if he’s shit his pants (knowing he will have to renege on his promise to pay off the thug he owes), Julie is pissed (isn’t she ALWAYS anyhow!), and Kirsten, well Caleb left ONE thing. A lone letter, only to her, which throws the recovering lush into a tailspin, as she’s just certain that Caleb’s letter is a final, smug, snarky, ‘’Fuck You’’, so she won’t bother to read it, and she leaves the proceedings, alone, in a huff.

Back at Harbor High School, Seth and Summer have been forced by Dean Asshole (Hess), to put in servitude to power hungry Taylor, who is now Director of Harbor’s Drama Club and it’s stage production of ‘’South Pacific’’, and the couple are assigned chain gang duty as set laborers. Well fuck Hess and Taylor, (metaphor here…not literal cause nobody would ‘’do’’ those snarky tyrants). Summer and Seth ‘’borrow’’ some of the tiki hut stage props and join a starry eyed, horny Ryan in building a candlelight surrounded love nest on the beach, to which Ryan brings Marissa for a sexalicious night of wave pounding passion, fire, desire, climax, Oh…Oh…OH!!!! (Is it hot in here? Lost track there. Where was I?)

To a metaphor inclined, crescendo building music laced montage, we get shots cutting back and forth of Ryan and Marissa’s orgasmatronics, while we see poor Jimmy getting the royal shit kicked out of him as punching bag material by the sleazebag and el sleazo’s thugs for welching on his debt, while Kirsten buys a fifth of vodka and holes herself up with it in a flea bag motel.

Fraught with the delicious moment of truth, hope, (and amor!), finally for Ryan and Marissa who have been through so much, with the two consistently being derailed or kept apart by circumstance, and that the lovebirds have waited 3 seasons for, not only do they deserve this, (WE DO!), as the two at last consummate their love.

Meanwhile our hearts are simultaneously stomped on, wrenched with despair for Jimmy and Kirsten.

As the morning sun shines the next day on a post orgasmic Ryan and Marissa, entwined in each other’s arms, (We just LOVE this stuff. More!), Marissa’s damn cell goes off, prompting her to answer and just guess who it is? Next thing, she and Ryan meet Jimmy on his boat. Jimmy, whose face resembles a blood rare hamburger patty (or one of the zombies in ‘’Night Of The Living Dead’’), oozing, bruising, and half of it knocked clear off, confesses his ‘’pickle’’ to Marissa and that it’s best that he leave for Hawaii, but alone, obviously leaving Julie at the alter. But hey, while Jimmy was losing it, Kirsten was actually getting her shit together. She joyfully arrives home to her steadfast Sandy, announcing that she never touched the vodka (and she’s the ONE person last night who actually told the TRUTH), that she’s never leaving her family again, and she reads Caleb’s letter to her. An apology of all things to the daughter he had final words, only of love for. (Aw, how sweet!)

Oh, and psycho Charlotte, you remember her. Her landlord arrives to inform her that the rent check didn’t clear, asking for cash on the spot and for Charlotte to vacate the cabin. Which Charlotte does in spades, escaping out the back window with the clothes on her back. (Hope that’s the last we’ve seen of the female ‘’Oliver’’).

As for Marissa, well she isn’t going to Hawaii after all, so she and Ryan take a walk, enjoy a luscious, big wet snog, and promise themselves to one another, no matter what’s down the road.

Back at the ranch, Cohen central, we end with the Cohens, where else, but gathering and noshing in the kitchen….Ryan, Seth, Sandy, and Kirsten, ribbing and kibitzing on how crappy things are, but hey, things could be worse. They’re cheering (and we are too!), that they’re one big, dysfunctional, happy, FAMILY again. Booze, fisticuffs, shady dealings with hoodlums and being brainwashed by lying, deceitful psychos, cash shortages. We laugh at such trivial matters. Is that all you’ve got? You can’t break up the mega awesome, oh so cool, Chrismukkah founding, merry making Newport reigning clan. The Cohen’s rule the O.C.!

(Hey Josh Schwartz....FAB writing, you're BACK!)

Cool tunes from last night’s episode ‘’The End Of Innocence’’:

Shout Out Louds ‘’Wish I Was Dead Part 2’’

Transplants ‘’Gangsters And Thugs’’

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club ‘’Salvation’’

All Sad Girls Are Beautiful ‘’Baby Blue’’ (OUR Pick of the week! **** 4 Stars)

Matt Pond PA ‘’In The Aeroplane Over The Sea’’ (2nd Pick of The week *** 3 Stars)

Muse News And Micro Muse September 23, 2005

By Arlene R. Weiss © Copyright September 23, 2005