When The O.C. brought us plenty of primetime teen drama, it also brought some pretty excellent hours of television. These ten episodes are the best.
From 2003 to 2007, The O.C. was the epitome of teen television. Wealthy teenagers in a sunny town found their way into the middle of all kinds of drama - romantic or otherwise. While the series is primarily known for its love triangles, some of its best episodes didn’t focus on those triangles at all. The best hours of The O.C. focused on the Cohens, the family at the center of it all.
On IMDb, critics and fans have the ability to rate those episodes. On a scale of 1 (the worst) to 10 (the best), the top ten episodes of the series range from an 8.6 to a 9.2. All of the episodes feature huge moments for the family, not just the couples in the series.
Kicking off the top ten episodes of The O.C. is this season one Thanksgiving episode. While the Cohen family attempt to celebrate and give thanks, things don’t go as planned.
The comedy of the episode comes from the guys doing their best to keep Kirsten from doing any of the cooking. She can wield a mean takeout menu, but she can burn water. The drama from the episode comes from literally everything else. Ryan heads back to Chino to visit his brother in prison - and do him a favor. When Marissa goes along for the ride, Julie is furious. Meanwhile, Seth plays both Summer and Anna because he can’t decide who he wants to be with, leaving them both furious as well. It had a little bit of everyone’s favorite characters and demonstrated just how soapy the show could get.
It’s prom season in The O.C.! This episode settled a few love triangles for the show, but it certainly opened up a few new plot threads for the series as well. George Lucas came to town to discuss adapting Seth and Zach’s graphic novel for the screen. To decide who would take a meeting with him, they flipped a coin. Seth went to the meeting, while Zach took Summer to prom, only for both of them to realize they were in the wrong place. Ryan and Marissa fought over her “relationship” with his brother, Ryan not knowing that Trey went after Marissa.
Eventually, the core couples of the series found their way back to one another, but not without the reveal that Teresa had her baby, Julie planned on poisoning Caleb, and Kirsten really needed to go to rehab.
The holiday episodes of The O.C. are big favorites with fans. This is the first of three Chrismukkah (Seth’s version of a winter holiday combining traditions of Christmas and Hanukkah) episodes to make the list, all with similar ratings.
In this particular episode, the writers went hard on the family drama instead of the romantic drama. The Cohens had to deal with the fallout of an affair Caleb had 16 years earlier. Though Lindsey, Ryan’s new love interest and Caleb’s long lost daughter, didn’t take the news well, the Cohen’s and their friends ultimately came together to bring Lindsey and her mother into their Chrismukkah celebration. Ryan and Marissa, as well as Seth and Summer, even managed to get along as just friends for the hour.
When Ryan and Taylor have trouble figuring out their relationship, they get to spend part of their holidays in an It’s A Wonderful Life scenario. Falling off a ladder while hanging decorations leads to the two of them seeing what Newport would have been like if Ryan had never moved in with the Cohens.
The episode itself is fairly predictable, but it’s a lot of fun for fans to see the ripple effect Ryan’s presence had on the lives of all of the characters. It also gives fans a better look into Taylor.
This episode marks the very first time fans got to watch Seth Cohen try to have a Chrismukkah celebration. Unfortunately, nothing went exactly as he planned.
When Summer and Anna both tried to give Seth meaningful gifts, they also decided fighting over him was useless. The two women wanted him to choose instead of leaving them both in limbo. Meanwhile, Marissa fell deeper into a downward spiral that Ryan repeatedly tried to get her out of. His plan didn’t exactly work out either, leaving both Seth and Ryan not in the most joyful of holiday spirits.
“The Rainy Day Women” actually ties for the third highest-rated episode with the next two. Considering how well done it is, it’s kind of surprising it doesn’t land the number one spot.
In it, the characters have a sudden storm leave them all in unexpected situations, mimicking how they’re all at seemingly dark places in their lives. Seth fails to convince Summer to stay in Newport instead of going to Italy with Zach, Marissa has to tell her mother that she’s dating a girl, and Sandy is tempted to cheat on Kirsten. Of course, all of those things actually go in more satisfying directions than the viewer expects. Julie doesn’t judge Marissa, Sandy refuses to give in, and Summer shows up to give Seth an upside-down kiss in the rain. It’s a pretty perfect episode of the show with just the right amount of tension and happy endings.
Despite a lot of viewers hating a lot of the things that happened in this episode, it was a well crafted season finale. Its events got people to return for season two.
In it, Ryan decides to leave Newport behind to figure out his life (and help Teresa make a decision about her pregnancy) back in Chino. Julie and Caleb get married, causing Marissa to feel like she’s starting her life all over again. Seth feels lost without Ryan, so he literally sails off into the sunset. It left a lot of characters in places the audience didn’t want to see them, but it made everyone all the more interested to see what would happen next.
It’s odd that a character’s funeral would be the centerpiece of one of the best episodes of a series, but The O.C. brought a lot of catharsis with this hour. When the Cohen family came together to mourn the loss of Kirsten’s father Caleb, the family had a whole lot more going on.
Kirsten drank to deal with the loss, leading to her family convincing her to go to rehab. When the teenagers decided to skip out on the mourning to make themselves feel better, they ended up in another dire situation. Seth and Summer told Ryan the truth about his brother attempting to assault Marissa, paving the way for Ryan and Marissa to violently confront him.
As beloved of a teen drama as The O.C. is, it’s no surprise that the pilot episode ranks so highly. It’s here that the audience first saw Newport and met the Cohen family.
The episode gave us a glimpse into what the show would become. While Seth and Ryan quickly bonded, Marissa brought the drama, and Sandy showed us what a father figure could be. It wasn’t a perfect episode of television, but it was a nearly perfect episode of The O.C.
Nostalgia and a sense of completion often make ratings for series finales the highest for television series on IMDb. The O.C. is no exception. There’s just something about seeing where all of your favorite characters end up that makes fans and critics more excited about an episode.
With the final episode of the series, fans saw Seth and Summer go their separate ways to pursue their dreams, but ultimately find their way back to one another. Kirsten and Sandy had their baby - in their old Berkley house, escaping all the things they hated about Newport. Julie and Kaitlin finally found happiness and started going after what they wanted. Ryan came full circle. He followed his own dream of being an architect, but ended the series with a promise to help a kid just like him.
