Last week I finally watched the fourth and final season of The O.C. This was a series I watched with my mom when I was in high school, and years later revisited for my thesis. Yet in all that, I never made it to the final season. After season 3 the characters all graduate high school and that’s that. Back when it was on TV on Thursday nights, by the final season I had a night class that forced me to fall out of touch with the series. So as I said, I have now, finally, watched The O.C. season 4.
I have several thoughts about this relatively light-hearted season, but will focus on the thing that stuck with me after the finale. The ending.
I guess overall I really enjoyed this toned down season. It was sweet and easy to watch. There was not a lot of melodrama or stressful tension. But I am personally not a fan of the final montage, which wraps up the season with a happily ever after portrait of life after Orange County.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy that this group of people should end up happy. Seth and Summer should get married. Ryan should succeed and become and architect… But the problem is how easy it all seems.
This season, the characters left following Marissa’s death all, for one reason or another, postpone college. It’s an interesting and novel idea for a post-high school graduation season. But as the year comes to a close and the happily ever after starts to chime, the impression given is that college is the end, college is easy, and college leads directly, harmoniously, easily to the rest of your happy forever life. Beyond that it promises that love conquers all, that the perfect job awaits, that parents will have beautiful children, and even Julie can successfully have some bizarre combo family, so she never has to choose between her two suitors.
The plain truth is that that picture of the future is false (and I was honestly waiting for the dream sequence to end while watching it). While I’m perfectly happy to imagine the happy futures these characters will lead, happy endings are often better left to the imagination.
Assuring me that everything works out perfectly, that after a tumultuous four years of high school all problems and complications simply fade away seems ridiculously fake. And while I respect the desire for a happy ending, promising happy futures beyond a happy goodbye, feels an awful lot like overkill.
