The Companion Pod: The OC

Episode five of The OC brings out the after school special vibes as a new outsider, Donnie from Corona, befriends Ryan at his new place of employment. After attending a few parties out in Long Beach, Donnie decides to crash another one of Holly's beach parties and things go awry. Meanwhile, in the adult world, Sandy helps Jimmy with his financial issues and Kirsten spends the weekend with Julie and some other "Newpsies."

Want to buy a shirt from the show? Check out Spreadshirt for Seth's Now Start a Band shirt that we talk about in the fashion segment.

The fourth episode of The OC has yet another big bash. This time it's a Debutant ball that creates all sorts of drama and we're also introduced to a brand new, incredible character - Anna! 

Jimmy Cooper is outed as thief, Ryan is officially a Cohen, and Seth has the upper hand on Summer. Tiff does some debutant research and we find out how long it would take to sail to Tahiti. In other words, it's just another day in Orange County.

8 million people tuned in to watch episode 3 of the OC on August 19, 2003. The episode's centerpiece, a Casino Night bash launches a bunch of plots and allows two characters to shine: Summer Roberts and Julie Cooper. 

Sean and Tiff discuss their favorite scenes, the music, fashion, plot holes, cringe-worthy lines, and decide who won the episode. Tiff even gives Sean a little lesson on body glitter, the by-gone trend that makes quite an appearance on this episode. 

There is a QG articles referenced during this pod about Seth's fashion. Here is the link.

The Cohens can’t quit Ryan Atwood. In episode two, Seth and Marissa keep Ryan hidden away in his an abandoned, unfinished model home owned by Seth’s mom. Ryan and Marissa find they have some things in common even though they come from different sides of the track. Marissa’s boyfriend Luke gets suspicious and confronts Ryan, causing even bigger problems for Ryan and the Cohens.

Join us as we watch the hit 2003 show The OC! 

In this podcast, we will use various segments to discuss the plot, characters, loopholes, ridiculous drama, and more!

The Premier brings us into the Cohen household. Sandy, a public defender, is representing Ryan Atwood, who was caught stealing a car with his brother. Sandy brings Ryan to his home because he has nowhere else to go. Ryan, an outsider from Chino, is welcomed with open arms by Sandy's son Seth. By his wife is less excited about hosting Ryan. A fashion show brings all the major characters together and gives us a sense of just how wealthy every one. But is anyone really happy? Only time will tell.

Sean and Tiff discuss the season finale and After the Final Rose three hour marathon from Monday night. We're relieved it's all over and try to figure out what went wrong along with what is wrong with The Bachelor franchise in general. We liked Emmanuel Acho's work as the substitute teacher and lamented that the show is stuck in the past and unable to really move forward. 

We wrap up the podcast trying to figure out what we want to talk about going forward. This show has been exhausting and we're on the lookout for something more enjoyable to talk about. We each nominate one TV show as a possible subject for podcasts starting in May. 

It's Hometown Week: Remote Edition. We have bike riding, zoom class, off-roading, sky-diving, and Canada 101. We pick our favorite hometown activities while wondering if they are all actually hometown dates. Tiff proclaims how much she would need to be paid to skydive which sends on a tangent about our collective fear of heights. Then we move on to discuss the families, Serena P.'s exit, and Matt James' strange performance. 

It would be impossible to talk about The Bachelor this week and not touch on the real time drama that's going on around the show. Chris Harrison has "stepped away" and Rachael K., one of the finalists, is under the white hot spotlight for some controversial social media posts and bad choices in college partying - attending a forbidden "Old South" party at an Antebellum home.

Then we get to the episode and talk about the appalling treatment of Heather when she finally meets the remaining women before she's ultimately sent home by Matt. The dates this week were not our favorite, and Serena P. agreed with us. The group date didn't have an activity, and there was no explanation as to why we went straight to the evening portion. Stunt car drifting left us confused about Jessinia's driving skill, but it didn't impress Matt enough to keep her around. Tiff and I come up with two dates to replace all the bad dates we've watched over and over during the recent seasons.

This episode started with 11 women and ended with 4. Women went home in all sorts of ways, and after this week, Matt has narrowed his group of love hunters from 38 to 4. 

The ghost of hometowns looms large as Matt James narrows down his options while the producers just keep adding women. Heather and Tyler C. show up, one of them was not invited. The show is doing some serious recycling, going so far as repeating a bowling date from Ari's season that Tiff remembered (trigger warning... we talk about Crystal's poor behavior from Ari's bowling date). Before Matt sends Katie home, she gets to see Tyler C. in his underwear and has one more insane argument with another love hunter. We wrap up this pod by power ranking the women by their likelihood of winning from 10 to 1 which leads to a discussion about possible Bachelorette leads and the diversity among these final 10 women. 

What an episode! A villain finally goes home, and that's in the first 15 minutes! Matt still has some toxic ooze to clean up. We talk about the Dylan AMA on Twitter at the top of the episode before getting into Victoria and Anna's departures, the cliche Pretty Woman date that Rachel has with Matt, the farming group date, and Kit's one-on-one. As we make our way through the pod we wonder what we actually know about Matt, if he's actually here to get engaged, the conflict resolution that seems to be more and more prevalent on the show, and why Matt feels the need to play RA/Dorm parent/Dean of Students to a group of grown women.