Episode 14: Kirsten's hell-raising, much-younger sister Haley shows up unannounced–and previously unmentioned–and the whole wide O.C. is turned upside down. For New Year's Eve, Haley convinces Kirsten and Sandy to get out of their marital rut by attending a swinging party–only it turns out to be a swingersparty. Haley then locks Seth and Ryan into the pool house so she can throw a rager in the Cohen manse. You can tell it's a rager because partiers walk in screaming and playing loud music and knocking over furniture. This keeps Ryan from his midnight kiss with Marissa, who's gone strapless to a party in the Four Seasons penthouse thrown by Oliver, the kid who's been making inane small talk with her in their therapist's waiting room. Speaking of small talk, back at the Cohens, a touch chick looking for money-owing Haley demands, “Where's that bitch? I can't believe she's showing her face in Newport!”–bringing to mind Luke's now-legendary line delivered in Episode 1, “Welcome to the O.C., bitch. This is how we do things in Orange County.” So, what, Newport's like Compton now? The nightcap is priceless: Ryan gets out of the pool house with only 31 minutes left to reach Marissa by midnight (otherwise that lip gloss gets planted on Oliver). But first, Ryan is slowed by a late-night Sig Alert–on the 73! Has there EVER been traffic on the 73!?! No one even slows for the dead deer parts on the toll-road section. Once Ryan reaches the Four Seasons lobby, the elevator is–naturally–stuck, forcing him to race up stairs. About half way, he hunches over, winded. What's this kid? 17? And an athlete? Wheezing like Bob Hope? Finally, he bolts toward the penthouse suite in–swear to fucking God–slow motion, like the Six Million Dollar Man, to lock those lips. It was the funniest thing I've seen on the tube since the last Chris Rock special.
LINE OF THE WEEK: “I should really learn to knock . . . In case there's a threesome going on in my bedroom.” Sandy, after walking in on a threesome in his bedroom.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.