Newport Beach Without Marissa

Put on Phantom Planet, because Season 4 of The O.C. is finally here. Marissa Cooper died at the end of Season 3—not glamorously, not in a way that felt particularly earned, but in a way that still somehow landed. I’ll admit it. Something in my eye. The show built her into its gravitational center for three years and then pulled the floor out, and that turned out to work better than keeping her around might have.

FOX released a long trailer that more or less gives away all the adjustments: what’s happened to Ryan, to Summer, to the parents, to Newport itself now that the axis the whole thing spun around is gone. Almost nothing is what anyone expected. Which is either a promising sign or the show scrambling. Marissa’s death changed everyone—that’s the premise, and it’s the right one. Grief as a season arc, everyone recalibrating. Whether they can carry it without her is the actual question. I love this show more than I should and I’ll watch every episode regardless. California.