The O.C. Report (very brief)

I was preoccupied while it was on, but it appears that Marissa Cooper is no more. R.I.P.

Preposterously melodramatic death aside (still doesn't beat Johnny's fall from that cliff, though), I am genuinely sad. I'm in the minority of viewers who's always liked Marissa, throughout everything, and I've been a Ryan-Marissa 'shipper from start to finish. Yes, Mischa Barton's acting was uneven, but she had moments where she was actually quite good. And there's a soulful quality to her beauty, a sort of luminous gravity, that really comes out on screen, even if it doesn't square with her offscreen lifestyle.

Others may disagree, but I think the show will suffer from her absence. Her character defined "The O.C.", for better or for worse. She was its Daisy Buchanan - the green light at the end of the dock. And now she's gone.