THE O.C. REPORTLast week, Heidi MacDonald at comics blog The Beat asked for viewer reports on The O.C., which has recently featured a subplot about Seth, Summer and Zack pitching their own comic book to Wildstorm. My report lost out to a review by actual professional comics writer Brian Wood, but in the interests of preserving my brilliance for posterity, I present mine below (warning: much comic-book nerdery ahead):I'm pretty sure last
night's week's episode of
The O.C. was titled "Lipstick Lesbians and a Visit to Wildstorm: How to Appeal Directly to the Part of Gardner's Brain That's Still 15 Years Old." Because, dude, it totally worked. The big lesbian kiss was actually a bit anticlimactic, as anyone who's ever seen a TV show knew it was coming as soon as Marissa got drunk and sobered up at Alex's apartment, but still nice for a couple of reasons. With Sandy on the outs with his wife Kirsten (now that Sandy's first love Rebecca Bloom, played by The Monster That Ate Kim Delaney, has returned from out of the blue and inexplicably stayed around, despite nobody caring about this plot), Alex and Marissa are officially the show's cutest couple. And since Marissa has spent most of her time the past few weeks making furtive, longing glances at Alex, she's had less time to drink and attempt suicide and mope about Ryan and generally be annoying, which is for the best, though I wouldn't be surprised if her bi-curiosity ends up backfiring and driving her right back into Ryan's arms. Which do you think would be more likely to drive Caleb to another heart attack: "Inland Street Thug" Ryan continuing a relationship with his real daughter Lindsay, or starting another relationship with his stepdaughter Marissa? Or Marissa bringing Alex home for dinner?
If anybody wants a diagram of the relationships, I can whip one up. It'll probably look something like Alan Moore's infamous
Big Numbers outline, but it might help all the same.
Oh, that's right, you wanted to know about the comics. So Seth, his ex-girlfriend Summer and her current boyfriend Zack all head down to San Diego to meet with a "Larry Bernstein" at Wildstorm, who's apparently the uncle of an intern at Zack's dad's company or something. Let's hit the comics-related highlights with a checklist:
Giant Wildstorm logos: 1
Jim Lee appearances: 0
Appearances by any other Wildstorm artists: 0
Did the Wildstorm offices look like the new set of
Alias: Yes they did
Were those the real Wildstorm offices: I'm not sure
Life-size standees of Mr. Majestic busting through a wall: 1
Life-size standees of Caitlin Fairchild: 1
Life-size standees of Summer as "Little Miss Vixen," illustrated by Eric Wight: 1
How jealous am I that these high-school kids could afford a life-size standee of one of their characters for their pitch to Wildstorm: So very jealous
When Seth was banished to the adjoining hotel room so Summer and Zack could be alone, did he take the standee with him: No
Did I think he was going to: Yes
Best word to describe
Atomic County, Seth, Summer and Zack's comic: Meta
How meta is it: So very meta
Seriously: Seth stays up all night, unable to sleep because he's afraid that Zack and Summer are having sex, so the next morning he has a spectacular caffeine-fueled meltdown in front of "Larry Bernstein" as he describes the love story at the core of
Atomic County, i.e. the unrequited love of "The Ironist" for "Little Miss Vixen" and how they could fight even more evil if only they'd stop their witty banter and admit their all-consuming love for one another
Was Zack amused: No he was not
Was "Larry Bernstein" impressed: Not very, no
Did Seth have to take the bus home from San Diego while Zack and Summer spent Valentine's Day at the hotel together: Yes he did
Is this the end of the
Atomic County plot: Time will tell
Lessons the aspiring comic-book creator could learn from this episode: A) Make sure you can sustain a good working relationship with your creative partners; B) More specifically, don't go into business with your ex-girlfriend and her current boyfriend (or your ex-boyfriend and your current boyfriend, or your girlfriend and her ex-boyfriend); C) Have a decent hook (like "It's
The O.C. with superpowers!"); D) It always helps if your dad's intern's uncle works at a comics company; E) It also helps if you can draw like Eric Wight. Dude is good.
So, poor Seth, but he brought this all on himself, which is nice for us, if not him. I don't want to be too presumptuous about the writers' personal lives, but I can't help but think that Seth is the character most of them identify with, and he is frequently presented as a geek wish-fulfillment engine: the Spider-Man that they wished they could become when they were teenage Peter Parkers. He's a skinny comics geek, yes, and he gets picked on by the water-polo players (at least back when there were water-polo players on the show), but he's also witty, relatively charming and good-looking, and he was in a serious relationship with Summer, the school's Popular Girl. And let's not forget Anna, his first-season fling, who really was like every geek's dream of the perfect woman: gorgeous, aggressive and into comics as much as Seth was. She was such a wish come true that it was almost a joke. So, of course, it's nice from a dramatic standpoint that Seth screwed up his relationship with Anna, just as he screwed up (and continues to screw up) his relationship with Summer. Like Spider-Man, Seth is at his best when everyone's against him.
