TV Review: The O.C. Episode 3.18

Thursday, March 23, 2006

From FOX: When an old nemesis returns to Newport, Ryan gets caught up in helping her, causing a rift between him and Sadie. Seth and Summer are faced with a new problem that Taylor tries to solve. Meanwhile, Marissa finds herself all alone in Newport with no one to turn to and Sandy grapples with business pressure.

My Rating: 2 out of 4

Tonight's episode of The O.C. titled The Undertow had a number of story lines going through it. The first and the focus of this episode is the return of Jess to The O.C. She made things certainly interesting last season when she ended up floating in a pool after a bad acid trip. She shows up on the Cohen's doorstep looking for Ryan with a belated birthday gift from his brother Trey. Apparently Jess went with Trey to Vegas as she had originally planned last season. The two lived together for a brief time before she left and returned home. However, the two kept in contact.

Jess tries to convince Ryan she is trying to change. However, she seems to fall into the same problem of finding the guy that is all wrong for her. When she breaks up with him, the guy doesn't handle it all that well. She calls Ryan in for reinforcements, but there are already problems between him and Sadie's blossoming relationship. His running off to help Jess only makes things worse, especially when he ends up spending the night at her house. The next morning Sadie arrives at the Cohen's with breakfast, and no one wants to tell her that he didn't spend the night at home. However, she figures it out on her own. This leads her to believe that Ryan might not be the one for her.

The two meet for a date at the diner, but once again Jess needs his help. She has someone call him and ask him to come to her aid right away. Sadie tells him to go, but we can definitely tell if he does there is little chance for the couple. When he shows up at the party, Jess immediately latches onto him. She wants him, but he doesn't want her. Kirsten had even warned him throughout the episode about this situation, and when he sees Jess latching onto him like she is, something finally clicks. He does stand up to the guy when he arrives, but when the guy tells him that it is none of his business, Ryan backs off and leaves.

He returns to Sadie, and he tells her a secret about his life. The gift that Trey had sent him was a matchbox camaro. The gift has special significance to him, but he won't tell anyone just what that is. In order to win Sadie back, he tells her about it. Apparently when the brothers were younger they used to play with these same cars when their mother was fighting. Trey promised him one day he'd save up to buy them a camaro, so they could get away. Ryan also talks to Trey when he calls Jess. Sadie and Ryan then end up hot and heavy. Things look to be going down the right path for these two. At least for now.

Things weren't heading down any path for Summer and Seth for the majority of this episode. The two are having bedroom problems, which is really no surprise because we haven't seen them doing much for most of the season. Taylor is the one that brings this problem out into the open, and she takes it upon herself to help the couple. This is actually quite amusing. She has "sessions" with them together, and when that doesn't work, she goes to Seth with a copy of the Kama Sutra. He then goes to Summer, but it isn't the book that works. The two start fighting, and this sets them off. With they continue this way though? Only time well tell.

As for Marissa, with her mother off with Summer's dad on the cruise, she has the trailer to herself. This doesn't set all that well for her at all. She goes to Matt, and she ends up spending the night at his apartment platonically. This raises eyebrows when Sandy shows up at Matt's to talk to him, but it was really innocent. Marissa returns to her trailer, and as usual Volchok is waiting for her. These two are playing some kind of dance, as they have been the last week or two. Well, the dance ends, and these two also end up hot and heavy. In fact, the last two minutes of tonight's episode was a sex fest. I wonder what the FCC will say about that because they have been certainly cracking down on "indecent programming."

Lastly, Sandy is having some problems with the hospital project he just landed. The man in charge of it on the board end comes to him telling him that the board wants Matt off the project because of some concerns. An ultimatum is made of either Matt or the hospital. When Sandy finds Marissa at Matt's, this certainly doesn't help his cause. Sandy later learns that the man wanted Matt off the project because of his daughter. Sandy tries to talk to him, but it doesn't appear it goes successfully. We're not sure because the episode ends. Is Matt on his way out of The O.C.?

This episode was okay, but not one of the better ones. The last five minutes were probably the most memorable in my mind. I also enjoyed Taylor's performance this episode, and I wish we could see more of her character. We have another all new episode of The O.C. next week.