The OC Liveblog Episode 15 - The Night Moves

This may ruin the whole liveblog gimmick I've got going on here - but this episode really made me totally nostalgic and sad and disappointed that the OC is ending. It's really been good this season - funny, and Ryan has a real personality, and Julie Cooper isn't just a heartless bitch, and I only want to slap Kirsten some of the time, and Summer got environmental - it's really been good. And this episode was like a last episode. I suspect next's week will be more like a clipshow - fall prey to the Seinfeld ending where it is too aware of its imminent demise to keep the pace up. Maybe next week will be good, who knows, but I do know that this week felt like an end. Each second I was more aware that the OC was ending, and that these characters are going to be frozen in time, no longer developing or changing (if they ever did). And it did make me sad, that only in this last moment are they really coming into their own, rather than three years ago. And also it made me sad that this show I have literally watched EVERY EPISODE OF is going off the air. I know I am being melodramatic but seriously... why does it have to end!?!!?

Also, on a side note, I want to say that I felt rather riveted to the episode, mostly because it turns out earthquakes that knock out powerlines and hot water and trap people in their homes and businesses are really scary. Who knew that the OC could instill the fear of "the Big One" that no Discovery Channel special could? I felt some genuine panic and worry throughout the episode, which may have changed the tone of my blog this time around. God, just wait until next week. I'm going to be a headcase. Anyway, without further ado:

Yikes, Ryan and Taylor are trapped under the glass cabinet. Ryan pushes it up to let Taylor out, but now he is still stuck, kind of. At least mostly. Taylor apologizes for freaking out in a crisis. Ryan says it’s ok, he’s still ok. Taylor continues to panic. She thinks that glitter fallen from the cabinet is blood. She starts talking about how they are going to deal with crises when they are in college together. Ryan says not to talk about the whole future and college thing but instead to deal with the present. Good call. Taylor has rudimentary supplies stockpiled somewhere. Ryan is starting to feel weird and he actually does have blood on himself somewhere. His hearing is starting to be a little loopy. He says he isn’t getting good reception and is going in the hall. Way to cover up for, you know, bleeding.

Cut to another scene, I believe this is Kirsten and Sandy. So was Kirsten not pinned under anything? This is crazy there is a power outage and they are listening to an emergency radio. Sandy is kind of taking charge with some crazy loopy idiot housewife character. He says to look for anything useful like batteries and flashlights and blankets. Kirsten is freaking out because she can’t reach the boys. Then she gets a call and its Ryan. Sandy gets a call and it’s Seth. They are ok but the car is crushed. This is really scary. Summer found a flashlight. Seth says his dad wanted them to get off the street and Seth’s first thought was zombies. Ha. Then he gets a text from Ryan’s that says to get to the Coopers' house fast to give him help and not to tell summer. WHY are you asking other teenagers to help you with your BLEEDING?! I guess old habits die hard. No one ever asks for help from a grownup in this show.

Cut to the ice cream store where Julie and Caitlin appear to be fine, then to Ryan and Taylor with candles, then to Seth and summer on a bike. Where did they get the bike? They see a bunch of ambulances and police cars. Summer wants Seth to stop because they aren’t listening to his dad. They are supposed to go home to the Cohen house. Seth points out that they don’t know if pancakes is ok, which convinces Summer to pedal ahead. Riding on the handlebars is totally a good idea, especially if aftershocks come.

In the ice cream store, Caitlin is eating while Julie tries to escape. She calls Frank Atwood who does not pick up and says she hopes he’s ok. Caitlin wants to know why she’s still calling him. They are stuck with a crazy ice cream store guy in a snazzy apron. The ice cream guy seems to have a thing for Caitlin and knows her favorite ice cream. Julie comes up with a plan for him to climb out through the roof.

Taylor busts out the crazy safety kit and this whole multifunctional crazy radio/compass thing. Plus North Korean currency. Because you never know. Taylor wants to know why Ryan is still wearing a jacket. Taylor wants to go check and see if her mom is ok. Ryan tells her they can’t do that because they are waiting for Seth. Way to cover for your whole bleeding thing.

Sandy is taking charge at the mall leading people through the crisis. How crazy is this. Kirsten says this is like Berkeley in 1989. She says Sandy is being sexy. Sandy is still worried about Kirsten and she says it breaks her heart to see Newport like this. Then Sandy gets a call from Frank Atwood who appears to be in some traffic jam. He doesn’t know where Julie is and is freaking out. Crazy.

The ice cream guy is checking out the roof situation which does not seem to be happening. He says that they are on an island all alone. Not metaphorically. The pier has been washed out.

Summer and Seth show up at the Coopers where Summer and Taylor freak out to look for Pancakes and Ryan and Seth are looking shifty cause Seth knows something is up. They tell the girls to stay and lock the doors and not leave. Seth says to Summer that pancakes needs her right now. Taylor thinks the boys are being weird. Summer thinks they are being normal and all she cares about is Pancakes.

Outside, Ryan shows Seth what’s going on with the bleeding out of the side and stuff. He has a total slice of glass in his side like straight out of 24. He is looking a little faded.

Sort of fadey technoey music playing as they cut between people. Seth and Ryan are in a car driving to the hospital. Seth is kind of not so much doing a good job of getting to the hospital, and Ryan is looking sweaty and worn out, and Seth realizes that they hit something. It’s not a body or anything, just a tire.

Julie and Caitlin are having fun singing karaoke with ice cream cones and entertaining the ice cream guy without meaning to. He thinks that the song is too sexual to be part of Caitlin’s childhood history. They taunt Gary the ice cream guy with his lack of social life. They encourage him to talk about this girl he is obsessed with. The Cooper women are hilarious. They counsel the ice cream guy on his sad social situation of being an ice cream guy. They tell him today is his lucky day. Ha! They are going to do a makeover. Julie has nail scissors in her purse.

Ryan is going to walk Seth through fixing the tire. Seth thinks he can’t do it but Ryan has to tell him to do it. Oh man this is terrifying, I really need to learn how to change a tire. Ryan is looking really freaked out. Seth confesses that he is a big worrier and used to make lists to distract himself from the bad things. Ryan asks if he wants to make a list. This is really awkward and sad. Seth says “You could start with everyone you’ve ever punched in the face since you came to Newport.” This is a long list, mostly Luke. Luke got out of Newport just in time. Really.

Taylor and Summer are looking in the attic for the bunny which seems unlikely, except that they have looked everywhere else. As though the bunny couldn’t move ever. They freak out because there is a skeleton in the attic, her dad’s practice skeleton from med school. Taylor is still freaking out about her mom not calling yet because she thinks her mom doesn’t care about her. Summer tells her she’s learned that they need to make their own family. They hear a sound in the vent. This is terrifying. They hear a sound and then Pancakes comes out of the vent. Yikes it’s an afterthought! Scary!!!!!! I hate this.

During the aftershock, the jack breaks under the car, and in the mall Sandy can’t find Kirsten who seems to have fallen down. Why? Did something hit her? She says something is not right. This is where the miscarriage comes in? Sandy looks impassioned. He is good at that.

More quiet fade-in-fade-out on all the characters. Ryan and Seth are so fucked. All the cell and GPS on the car are out. Seth says he has to go on foot to get help. Ryan says he is going with. Seth says he will go by himself and Ryan says what about the zombies. Ridiculousness. They continue with the list of people Ryan hit. This is basically a recap of Ryan’s entire history of everything. This is scary, like they are preparing us for Ryan to die. Cause Seth is saying self referential things about how people were rooting for that Johnny guy to get punched in the face.

At the hospital, they won’t see Kirsten because she isn’t bleeding and doesn’t have anything breaking. Sandy is pleading with the doctor when some guy tells them they can have his spot. So they go.

Julie tells Kaitlin not to worry and Kaitlin says how can I not, we going out to sea. Julie is about to go up through the roof when the kid says he is having an asthma attack. He totally needs them to pay attention to him and lies back on the counter gasping. Then Caitlin tries to give him CPR and he tries to kiss her. Suspicious.

Taylor tells Summer they should be worrying about the guys being missing, and Summer says she is, but she has to think about other things instead so they are looking for Pancakes. Then they hear a loud crash from downstairs and freak out and have to hide. Looters! Or zombies!

Julie and Caitlin are fighting with the ice cream guy. Julie says do you even like Bob Seger? (One thing this show nails is obscure facts about characters that happened in season 1.) He says that the earthquake felt like fate, he didn’t want it to end so he capitalized on the whole Caitlin thing. As they are starting to process this, Frank bursts in and the pier is fine. Turns out the creepy guy totally lied about the pier being washed out because he wanted them to stay.

Kirsten’s baby is not dead or anything yet, but it seems to be ok for now. They have to do more tests.

Seth is talking Ryan through everything but Ryan seems to be fading in and out. Very freaky. Seth is talking and talking and Ryan says he cant go, Seth needs to go alone. Ryan is totally going to fall over right now. He sits down. Seth this is your moment to shine, you have to be a hero here. Do it. Ryan! Pull yourself together! Seth runs off to find help. Where are they even. Does he know?

Taylor opens this box where it turns out she has a gun. She is so scary sometimes. She says it’s Jimmy Cooper’s flare gun. She says it’s cold and shiny and feels so good. They hear a noise downstairs. This is terrifying. Summer says they need to go attack the zombie. They head down with a flashlight and Taylor ahead with the gun. What the hell is going on? Turns out it’s Taylor’s mom who she just accidentally shot.

Fade in fade out, we are all worried. Kirsten with the ultrasound, Ryan on the curb. Taylor’s mom is all pissed that she got shot at and says she is not going to be fine during sandals season because her toe got shot. Pancakes is hurt and limping and Summer is freaking. Summer says she has to get the rabbit help. She says she has a missing boyfriend and a sick rabbit and can’t deal with Taylor’s mom whining. Taylor says she is going with her. Summer has an idea, which is that the mom is going to sit in a wagon and Taylor is going to bike ahead.

Caitlin is raiding the candy at the ice cream place and the guy is trying to make her listen and says that tonight is the best night of his life. Caitlin is not taking this shit. She tells him she’s a fan of ice cream and he was good at the asthma attack and says she’ll stop by when the ice cream place is working again. Why does she random have sympathy for freaks?

Quote from ice cream guy:

Best. Earthquake. Ever.

Sandy is trying to get the test results on Kirsten but the hospital is kind of backed up. He wants to know what is going on first because he doesn't want bad news to get sprung on Kirsten randomly. He says they had been looking forward to an empty nest before they found out but now he cant imagine anything worse than an empty nest. This is all very scary.

Down at the pier there are bums with fires. Seth recognizes one of the bums from the Thanksgiving event. All Daryl has is the shopping cart, but he would rather give up his pants. Seth hands him the keys to the Range Rover in exchange for the shopping cart and goes off running to find Ryan.

Summer at the hospital is trying to get help for the bunny. How come it took them like 1 second to get to the hospital but Seth and Ryan got lost? Lame. Summer sweettalks the guy at the hospital who refused Kirsten to please take the bunny. He agrees.

In the car with frank, Julie and Caitlin, Caitlin apologizes for the clown porn etc. She claims she found the clown porn in Dr Roberts’ study. J/K guys! Then they see Seth running down the street with a shopping cart. Caitlin tells them they have to pull over.

At the hospital, Taylor tells her mom she loves her and her mom actually returns the favor. This is better than when Ryan said it! Too bad he’s dying somewhere on a curb! Also, again, pregnant woman gets nothing, but Taylor’s mom gets treatment for a toe shot with a flare gun. Fine. Triage, you are a mystery to me.

Ryan is now in the hospital with blood dripping into him. And he wakes up. And Seth is there. Yippee, they figured this out. Seth says that Ryan gave them all quite a scare. The doctors say he is going to be fine, and it turns out that Seth donated blood! They are blood brothers, O- in case you care. How cute. He fainted during the process. Ryan says that’s weird, cause all of a sudden he has this strange urge to listen to death cab and read comics. Seth gets excited for this but it doesn’t happen. Nice joke, Ryan. He says, too bad we could have turned this into a body swap plotline, or “we could have squeezed another year out of this.” Awesome.

Kirsten and Sandy show up and she is ok and so is the baby. They find out the baby is a girl! How adorable I love this damn show.

Now here they all are, together, with Pancakes. I seriously need to name my cat Pancakes. Ryan is totally standing up again all fine despite the giant glass in him, and Kaitlin is trying to see how Frank would look with short hair. Look they have all been brought together like never before! For the first and second to last time! I cannot deal. I seriously cannot deal.

And then they cut to Daryl the bum discovering the range rover on the street. “Sweet,” he says. Then he gets in the back to sleep.

Now at the Cohens' house… the house looks pretty good. Then they open it and walk inside to discover that… actually the house is totally fallen apart. Wow. That’s terrifying. Seriously the whole house is broken and there is no roof. So much for having a house to come home to.

Scenes: How tragic is this going to be, I’m going to cry. Lots of hugging. This upcoming episode may be a flash forward to the end of the summer.

Stay tuned for my epic last entry on the OC when it ends forever in ONE WEEK. Gah!