It Still Stings: 20 Years Later, The O.C.’s Infamous Oliver Storyline Remains Deeply Frustrating

Editor’s Note: TV moves on, but we haven’t. In our feature series It Still Stings, we relive emotional TV moments that we just can’t get over. You know the ones, where months, years, or even decades later, it still provokes a reaction? We’re here for you. We rant because we love. Or, once loved. And obviously, when discussing finales in particular, there will be spoilers:

Despite being off the air since 2007, The O.C. is still widely regarded today as one of the most beloved teen dramas in history. Premiering on FOX in 2003, the show centered on outsider teenager Ryan Atwood (Ben McKenzie), who was taken in by benevolent public defender Sandy Cohen (Peter Gallagher) and his wife Kirsten (Kelly Rowan) after getting busted for stealing a car. Over the course of the series, Ryan gradually adjusted to living in wealthy Newport, formed a tight-knit friendship with his adoptive brother Seth (Adam Brody), and struck up a star-crossed romance with popular, but troubled Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton). 

Like many teen dramas, The O.C. hit some bumps in the road later in its run. The third season garnered poor reception from critics and viewers alike, and the final fourth season remains extremely divisive amongst fans to this day. Yet, the show’s first season still largely holds up, with many considering it to be near-perfect. However, there’s one glaring issue with Season 1 that can’t be overlooked: the Oliver storyline.

Few television characters universally evoke such visceral feelings of contempt like Oliver Trask (Taylor Handley). He was first introduced just over 20 years ago in Season 1’s thirteenth episode, “The Best Chrismukkah Ever,” as a fellow patient whom Marissa befriended in therapy. Oliver quickly became obsessed with her, taking extreme measures to manipulate and isolate her in hopes that she would reciprocate his romantic feelings. Although Ryan repeatedly expressed concerns that something was “off” about the situation, virtually all of the characters dismissed his worries as irrational jealousy—that is, until Oliver literally trapped Marissa in a hotel room with a gun and threatened to shoot himself if she called for help. Many viewers despise this storyline because it was aggravating to watch Ryan not be believed even though Oliver might as well have been a twirling-mustache villain. Upon rewatching as an adult, however, I found myself deeply frustrated with this plot for a different reason: the writing was incredibly unfair to Marissa. 

The biggest issue with the Oliver arc is how the narrative was presented to the audience.

Since Ryan is the show’s protagonist, viewers automatically saw the whole ordeal through his eyes. But the problem with this was that it made Marissa appear ridiculously gullible. How could she possibly trust this guy when he’s so obviously bad news? Well, because she didn’t actually see many of these moments. For instance, only Ryan witnessed him trying to buy cocaine at the concert in “The Third Wheel.” When he freaked out on Ryan in “The Links,” she didn’t walk in until the very end of that conversation. Then when Oliver faked a suicide attempt later in the episode and didn’t answer her calls, only the audience saw that he was actually fine and simply ignoring her for kicks. Marissa’s character was put at a huge disadvantage from the very beginning of the arc because viewers knew things that she didn’t.

What Oliver did to Marissa was textbook abusive behavior. He first sought her out in therapy, which she reluctantly began attending after she overdosed amid her parents’ divorce and the revelation that her boyfriend Luke (Chris Carmack) was cheating on her. So, she was already in an extremely vulnerable state. He then isolated her from her friends, stalked her (even transferring schools to be near her!), guilt-tripped her into spending more and more time with him, and eventually threatened to kill himself right in front of her, declaring, “If you leave, I will have nothing else to live for.” And yet, the show never recognized her as a victim. 

The O.C. framed Marissa’s naivety about Oliver not as an error in judgment, but as something malicious and a huge betrayal towards Ryan. However frustrating it was to watch her blindly trust Oliver, ultimately, the only thing she was truly guilty of here was attempting to see the best in someone despite the red flags. She was never unfaithful, she always made an effort to include Ryan in their hangouts, and she genuinely believed Oliver really did have a girlfriend. It also made sense that she would be naturally sympathetic to issues like self-harm and addiction, given her own struggles. From her perspective, it was actually pretty understandable to be offended when Ryan scoffed, “Maybe he belongs there [an institution]. What kind of person does this?” in response to Oliver supposedly trying to kill himself, considering it closely mirrored her own overdose attempt. Additionally, Ryan never actually came to Marissa and outright said, “Hey, Oliver threatened me, he did these horrible things, and this is why I’m worried about you,” but instead just kept repeating the same “Oliver’s dangerous; I don’t trust him,” spiel that nobody (except Luke) believed. 

In the aftermath of Marissa being held up in the hotel, the narrative almost entirely focused on how Ryan felt. Of course, it’s understandable he was hurt that his girlfriend didn’t listen to him; a huge hallmark of his character is that he struggles to trust people as a result of his abusive childhood. But while Marissa had to repeatedly beg for forgiveness in the aftermath of the incredibly traumatic experience, Ryan was immediately let off the hook for everything he did. Despite doing it to protect her, breaking into Marissa’s locker and stealing her private letter in “The Rivals” wasn’t okay. Seth even pointed this out, telling Ryan, “Oliver might be crazy, you might be right, but right now you’re giving him a run for his money.” Marissa also expressed to her best friend Summer (Rachel Bilson) that Oliver felt like “the only guy in my life who isn’t jealous and scary and breathing down my neck all the time,” which is what Ryan ultimately turned into in his efforts to make Marissa see who Oliver truly was. 

Even though Ryan’s suspicions turned out to be correct in the end, it feels deeply unfair that all of his own wrongdoings—breaking into the school, getting violent, and violating Marissa’s privacy—were ultimately just hand-waved away and seen as justified because he had noble intentions. Meanwhile, Marissa was effectively punished for the rest of the season by Ryan as he shut her out. When he later began dating his old girlfriend Theresa (Navi Rawat), the show framed it as karma, with Marissa remarking to Luke that she “deserved” to feel the pain of seeing him with someone else. At the end of the season, when Theresa discovered she was pregnant and Ryan decided to leave Newport to be with her, Seth even blamed Marissa for it, cruelly remarking, “I just don’t think Ryan would even be back with Theresa if it weren’t for you and Oliver in the first place. All you ever did was drag that kid into your messed up life.”

The Oliver storyline ultimately represents a larger problem with how Marissa’s character was written throughout The O.C. For whatever reason, the show seemed determined to just constantly make her suffer again and again. In the first season alone, she went through her parents divorcing, her father bankrupting the family, Luke cheating and then her own mother sleeping with him, overdosing, and the Oliver ordeal. Things only got worse for her later when Ryan’s brother Trey (Logan Marshall-Green) attempted to rape her, she was expelled from school and ostracized over the now-infamous “Whatcha Say” scene, and she witnessed her friend fall to his death in front of her. Then, just when it seemed like she was finally on the right path, her vengeful ex-boyfriend Volchock (Cam Gigandet) ran her and Ryan off the road in the Season 3 finale “The Graduates,” tragically killing her mere hours after her high school graduation. 

Now, I’m not saying Marissa wasn’t flawed; she definitely was. She was self-destructive, had some seriously questionable taste in dudes, and did dumb teenage things like shoplift watches, experiment with drugs, and get wasted at Newport community events. But while nearly every other character—Ryan, Seth, Summer, and even her mom—was allowed to make mistakes and grow from them, Marissa was never awarded that same chance. The show insisted on keeping her in the stagnant “damsel in distress” role, always needing Ryan, our hero, to save her. The Oliver storyline should have been something she learned and healed from. Instead, it ended up being just another reason for her portrayal to still sting all these years later. 

Kelly Martinez is a freelance entertainment writer based in LA. She has also worked at BuzzFeed and People Magazine and her writing can be found on many other sites. For more of her thoughts on TV and movies (especially “Riverdale”), follow her on Twitter @kmartts.

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