The O.C./The Graduates

The Graduates
Season 3, Episode 25
Airdate	May 18, 2006
Written by
Directed by
← 3x24 The Man of the Year	4x01 → The Avengers
The O.C. — Season Three

The Graduates is the twenty-fifth episode of the third season of The O.C., and the seventy-sixth episode overall. Kaitlin returns to Newport for graduation, but intends to stay to go to Harbor in the fall. Marissa decides that she is not going immediately to college, but instead will work for her father for a while. Before she can leave she must settle one final problem with an ex-boyfriend.

Guest Stars:

Plot Overview

Marissa tells Summer, and eventually Ryan and the others, that her dad has offered her a job on a boat sailing in the Mediterranean and that she has decided to take the job. She believes that college is not her thing; at least not yet. Ryan, Marissa, Summer, Seth, and Taylor all graduate from Harbor High despite the many obstacles over the last three years. Returning to watch the graduation is both Kaitlin Cooper as well as Ryan's mother. Seth finds out that he has been accepted to RISD for the second semester and so he can be with Summer who is going to Brown.

Ryan runs into trouble when Volchok asks for money so that he can leave town, and threatens to go to the police about their car stealing incident if Ryan doesn't help him. Marissa decides to help by giving the money up so that Volchok will leave all of their lives for good. When Volchok suspects that Marissa is with Ryan he asks to talk with her but is declined. Instead he follows the two of them and a car chase ensues. Volchok manages to run them off the road and a wreck occurs, leaving the car totalled. Ryan pulls Marissa out of the burning vehicle but her injuries are too severe and she passes away.

Arc Advancement

Characters

• Marissa at first plans to leave Newport to go sailing with her father, but does not make it to the trip when a bad apple ex-boyfriend winds up causing her death.
• Summer and Seth both still plan on going to Rhode Island next year. Summer will go to Brown in the fall and Seth to RISD in the spring semester.
• Kaitlin Cooper decides to come back to Newport to go to Harbor High next year. Now that her sister has graduated Kaitlin figures she will be able to run the school.
• Sandy visits his old PA office and decides to take his old job back.

Reviews

• B-: 1 reviews
• Review Breakdown: A+: 0 A: 0 A-: 0 B+: 0 B: 0 B-: 1 C+: 0 C: 0 C-: 0 D: 0 F: 0
• This is always a difficult show to review because of the format. The show is heavily soap-operaish and so a knowledge of the characters and their backgrounds is important to liking the show. So when looking at an individual episode I tend to just review on the basis of whether I enjoyed the new character information that is uncovered (if any is). As a bonified Marissa hater, this episode isn't so bad for me. However if you like her, then obviously there is going to be a major difference of opinion there. The way she was killed off did seem a little bit forced, nonetheless. The rumored trouble Mischa Barton had caused on the set undoubtedly played a role in decided to kill her off, rather than just leave the show, to eliminate the possibility of bringing her back. However this has been done in the past (think season two finale) so until a funeral is held I have to think that it's not out of reason to think she might be back after all. --MateoP 22:19, 9 June 2006 (EDT)