Daniel Blau Rogge: I feel there’s an extent to which the boards would choose the character—“Marissa is entitled!” “Marissa is annoy- ing!” “Marissa is simply too skinny!”—however that the rhetoric would at occasions spill over to extra of a judgment of Mischa Barton herself. The present killing her off led to a backlash when viewers have been like, “THAT IS NOT WHAT WE MEANT.”
Sara Morrison: Individuals get pleasure out of choosing aside or speaking about or making enjoyable of some issues in your present. I suppose that’s true for the recaps, too. It doesn’t essentially imply that they know extra about the best way to write a TV present than you. I feel plenty of the sentiment was that it’s actually enjoyable to pile on one thing and be part of a bunch effort. I feel even in case you don’t just like the character, it’s that you simply don’t need to see her a lot. It’s not that you really want her to die.
Morrison is horrified to be reminded that her headline for the finale recap was “A Twig, Snapped.”
Sara Morrison: Oh, no. Oh, that’s horrible. I’d not have [written that now]. Oh, that’s actually imply.
Stephanie Savage: However then there have been all these different people who weren’t on the Web in the identical manner, that have been much less articulate, that have been much less snarky, that didn’t have the tone of that Tv With out Pity board. They have been simply beside themselves with grief, they did fan artwork of angels carrying Marissa to Heaven, or a thousand tears on the bottom—spiritual iconography, like Virgin of Guadalupe–degree Marissa worship. And I felt, Oh, I suppose there was an entire different viewers that was connecting to this character otherwise.
Sara Morrison: Inform them I’m sorry!
Mischa Barton: I keep in mind after Marissa died, folks being fairly hysterical and coming as much as me in airports, crying about it. I believed that was stunning, as a result of it’s TV, you realize?
John Stephens: Every so often, folks will be taught I used to be on the present, and often the very first thing out of their mouths is, “Why did you kill Marissa?” As soon as, my spouse and I have been on our honeymoon, on a safari in Botswana, and we’re sitting across the campfire within the Kalahari Desert, and this lady’s there with their teenage daughter they usually discover out I used to be on The O.C. I’m right here underneath this wonderful African sky. And this woman mentioned, “Why did you kill Marissa?!?!” I’m like, Actually?!
Kelly Rowan: My daughter says to me, “Mother, why did they kill Mischa’s character?” I don’t know. I actually don’t. From the present’s perspective, messing with that foursome, it by no means recovered.
Excerpted from the e-book WELCOME TO THE O.C.: The Oral Historical past. Copyright © 2023 by Josh Schwartz, Stephanie Savage and Alan Sepinwall. From Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.
