"Dirty Deeds and They're Done Dirt Cheap"

My second Hair Band Friday in the new office is a bit low-key this week, maybe from the quaaludes, maybe from the heroin, maybe from the all-night orgy. Despite the relative relaxed feel, things are still totally rockin' in my office. The last three songs blasting out of the speakers were: "Fallen Angel" by Poison, "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" by AC/DC, and "Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)" by Cinderella. My Lexis-Nexis researching prowess has gotten the attention of several of the ladies around here. As Jenni told me, "I get wet just thinking about it." Then I drank champagne off her chest. No big deal.

Enough with HBF, we have more important things to discuss, such as The OC season finale. Where do I start? In case you missed it, here's a run down of what happened:

1. The gang graduated from high school. Loddi-frickin'-dah.
2. Apparently smoking a joint and accidentally leaving it in a location that causes a building to burn to the ground is not enough to charge someone with a crime. Ergo, Seth is free and clear of said charge, at least for the time being.
3. With the Newport Group burned to the ground, Sandy gets nostalgic for the good ol' days when he was a public defender. He even stops by his old office where some jackass without puffy eyebrows is doing a quarter of the job that Sandy Cohen could do.
4. Ryan's mom shows up for graduation and gives Ryan a car (actually, it Toyota Land Cruiser from the '70s). Apparently waitressing in New Mexico is better for her finances than being an alcoholic streetwalker in Chino.
5. We find out that Jimmy Cooper is making quite a name for himself as a yacht captain for rich people's yachts. He invites Marissa to be a dishwasher/concubine on the yacht for a year. The only catch is that she has to leave the day after graduation. No way. Way.
6. Seth gets into RISD, but not until the spring semester because the time to apply for fall admission had passed. Apparently art schools are more organized and rigid than artists themselves. Oh what a paradox.
7. Caitlin returns to The OC, and she explains that it's for good. Now that Marissa is leaving, someone is going to have to pronounce clothes as "clo-thez" and LA as "el ah," and Caitlin is the perfect word-mispronouncing biatch to do it.
8. Volchok just can't seem to get over Marissa. It makes sense, since he's a Belarussian vampire who came to this country with only one dream: to marry an emaciated, seafaring Newpsie who can't pronounce "LA" or "clothes" correctly.
9. And now for the climax. Ryan takes Marissa to the airport in his new mid-'70s pre-SUV SUV, or at least that was the plan. Volchok, who had been drinking from a flask that I assume held a combination of whiskey and the blood of innocents, decides to follow them in his hollowed out, rusty, piece-of-shit van, which can only be described as the worst Mystery Machine imitation of all-time. He should really write to MTV to see if the guys at West Coast Customs can hook him up. But that's for another episode. Anyway, Volchok starts to get pissed off because Ryan won't pull over, which Volchok wants because he will apparently then profess his love to Marissa. And if they won't pull over, what better way to say "I love you" than by running the object of your affection off the road. Leave it to a Belarussian vampire to come up with that kind of logic. So Volchok runs Ryan and Marissa off the road, and they go tumbling down the side of a hill, landing upside down on a road below. Ryan, while mildly stunned from the incident, pops out of the truck unscathed because, well, he's Ryan Atwood and he can only be stopped by a superrobot, at least 32 feet in height, but not more than 36, built and piloted by Jesus, Buddha, Ronald McDonald, Alberto Tomba, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. I'm not kidding. It's written in the prophecies. Marissa, on the other hand, can break a bone if she coughs too hard, so she was immobalized by the crash. Ryan sees that there is a fire spreading on the truck, so he grabs Marissa and carries her up the road a bit. Realizing that she is going to die, Marissa -- in one last act of defiance -- forbids Ryan from going to get help because she wants him to be with her as she blissfully glides off to reunite with Johnny (I knew she was up to something). Doing the right thing, Ryan resists the temptation to pull the ultimate dead horse. Then again, Marissa was looking very ghoulish at the time. Some might say she looked a bit undead, you know, like a vampire. Volchok! It was at this point that Ryan realizes that he should have finished Volchok off the first two times. Fool Ryan Atwood once, shame on you. Fool Ryan Atwood twice, prepare to die.

So, what are we left to ponder for the whole summer? Here are the burning (too soon?) questions that remain to be answered during next season:

1. Holy mother of God, how soon is Ryan going to kill Volchok? And I don't just mean kill, I mean a one-punch, break-every-bone-in-his-body-but-keep-him-alive-long-enough-so-that-he-is-in-horrendous-pain, Ryan Atwood special. That is gonna be awesome.
2. Will any of the following people show up at Marissa's funeral: Oliver, Luke, Luke's gay dad, Volchok, Johnny, Dean Hess, or Caleb? I'm giddy just thinking about the fireworks that would ensue.
3. Do you think Marissa is going to heaven? If so, do you think they'll force-feed her up there? Or maybe that would be her version of hell.
4. So now that Marissa is dead and Seth isn't going to RISD until January, how much you wanna bet that Summer stays home to deal with her lingering lesbianic thoughts about Marissa and Ryan stays home because Berkeley won't let him in after he's implicated in stealing that car with Volchok?
5. Will anyone bring up the ironic fact that Ryan, who was once going to live a life working on the high seas, was taking Marissa, who was once going to go to college, to the airport so that Marissa could fly off to start living on the high seas, leaving Ryan behind to go to one of the best public universities in the US? Where's O. Henry when you need him? Deader than Marissa Cooper, that's where.
6. Will someone please slap Caitlin in the mouth?
7. Will Sandy go back to being a public defender?
8. Now that Marissa is dead, will Julie revert back to her days as a stag film star? Please?
9. With Marissa finally out of the picture, will Teresa once and for all admit that her kid is Ryan's? Stop trying to kid us (pun intended), Josh Schwartz and McG.

Unfortunately, we'll have to wait until September to find out.