The Avengers
Season: 4
Episode: 1
Characters: Ryan, Seth, Summer, Sandy, Kirsten, Julie, Neil, Taylor, Kaitlin, Che, Leon, Veronica.
Editors Choice Quote: "I like what you've done... with your whole face" - Summer.
Episode Guide
Five months after the death of Marissa, Ryan is washing his hands in the storeroom of a seedy bar. He gets a call on his cell phone and says he’ll be right there. Acting on some information, Sandy enters the bar and knocks at the storeroom door, asking Ryan to come home. Ryan slips out the back window, hops in his car and takes off.
At her home, Julie examines the large stash of pills in her medicine cabinet before making a selection. Downstairs, she asks Kaitlin why she isn’t a school. Kaitlin replies that it’s 8pm. On a Saturday. Ignoring the answer, Julie grabs her keys and heads out.
Ryan knocks on a motel room door and Julie invites him inside. Going back 36 hours earlier, Seth leaves a long-winded message for Summer, getting her all caught up on Newport. Ryan has deferred college for a year and took a job at a bar, Sandy is back at the public defender’s office, Kirsten is lunching with the Newpsies, Seth is bonding with Dr. Roberts, Kaitlin is hanging out with Brad and Eric – Luke’s twin brothers – and Taylor has sent home some pictures from Paris.
Seth’s incredibly detailed recapping of events runs out of tape as Summer listens. Then Che, liberal extraordinaire, knocks on Summer’s door and says it’s time to get to the protest against caged chickens. Back in Newport, Kirsten drops by Centurion Comics – Seth’s new place of employ – with a care package for Ryan. It seems that only Seth has access to him at this point. Seth tries to explain to his mother that Ryan is a changed man, but Kirsten presses Seth to invite Ryan to dinner. Seth seems skeptical that this will actually come off.
Dr. Roberts spies Julie trimming the hedges with vigor and runs out to talk to her. He’s worried that she’s either doing everything at once or nothing at all in an attempt to avoid confronting Marissa’s death. Dr. Roberts begs her to talk to him, but she just moves on to the next pointless task.
As promised, Seth takes the care package to Ryan’s bar hideout. Seth invites Ryan to the Cohens’ for dinner tonight, and when Ryan balks, Seth points out that if he makes an appearance, that’ll probably get Sandy and Kirsten to leave him alone for a bit. The prospect of peace is enough to convince Ryan to attend.
While unsuccessfully trying to get Brown undergrads to care about caged chickens, Summer gets a phone call from Taylor. Taylor raves about how much fun she’s having in Paris, which is odd considering that she’s calling from the diner on the pier.
The Cohens nervously put the finishing touches on dinner as they wait for Ryan to arrive. However, at the moment, Ryan is walking towards a steel cage set up in the back of the bar. It seems that the bar puts on underground fights for entertainment and Ryan is on the card. When he arrives, Ryan asks to fight the biggest available opponent. Start at the top!
As the Cohen sop up the sauce on the plates, Sandy leaves another message for Ryan. Sandy is going to leave and talk to Ryan, but Seth volunteers to do it instead. Elsewhere, Kaitlin is hanging out at the mall with the twins when she spots Dr. Roberts with his arm around a mysterious woman. The twins recognize her as the ex-Mrs. Dr. Roberts.
Down at the bar, Seth hears some whispering about a Ryan Atwood special, aka, a fight. He slips into the back room, where he spots Ryan getting pummeled inside the squared circle.
That night, Dr. Roberts finds Julie on the floor, trapped under a built-in bookshelf. She was trying to rearrange the furniture and things didn’t go well. Seth catches up with Ryan after the fight. He doesn’t look so good. Seth begs him to come back home, but Ryan says that wherever he goes, trouble follows. The Cohens are better off without him.
The next morning, Kirsten and Sandy press Seth for information on Ryan. Seth tries to avoid giving up any specific details before slipping out to work. But not before advising his parents to give Ryan a little more. After Seth leaves, Sandy vows to follow up himself after work.
When Seth arrives at the comic book shop, he finds Summer waiting for him. She got his message about Ryan and rushed home. Elsewhere, Kaitlin confronts Dr. Roberts about what she saw the other night. Kaitlin makes it fairly clear that she’ll keep this secret from Julie…if Dr. Roberts buys her these expensive leather boots she saw the other day.
Kirsten knocks on Julie’s bedroom door. Julie doesn’t want to see her, but Kirsten persists. And after getting a phone call from Ryan, Julie opens the door in an attempt to get Kirsten to leave. Julie hugs her, says she’s doing fine and then closes the door again.
Dr. Roberts takes Summer out to dinner and Summer sees Taylor picking up a to-go order. Which is odd, because Summer and Dr. Roberts aren’t dining in Paris tonight. Taylor covers and then sneaks off. Sitting in the store room, Ryan gets a call from Julie. According to her, it’s important. So they again meet at the motel.
Julie drops a file on the bed. It seems that after Marissa’s death, Julie hired a private dick to find out where Volchok ran off to. And he found out. All the information on it is in the file. But instead of giving it to the cops, she’s giving it Ryan, along with subtle instructions to enact revenge. Ryan says he doesn’t want it and walks out.
Back at the bar, Ryan pulls out his box of Marissa memorabilia. After flipping through a few photos, he dumps the box in a Dumpster. The next morning, Seth, Summer and two comic book store workers come to. It seems they were up all night drafting a plan to get Ryan to come back home. Summer volunteers to go get Ryan, but Seth asks if she wants a shower first. She doesn’t, which confuses Seth. Summer is no longer a meticulous groomer, and he isn’t sure what to make of that.
Summer finds Ryan at the bar. It takes a little work, but she finally badgers him into coming along. Summer pulls Ryan into the comic book shop, where he finds Sandy and Kirsten waiting for him along with the others. They stayed up all night putting together a comic book slideshow together for him. It’s called Atomic County, the story of how an angry young man saved a family. Ryan stares of the sketches of moments from the past few years.
Sandy drives Ryan back to the bar and thanks him for the time. Ryan inquires about the state of the pool house, and Sandy emphatically lets Ryan know that it’s in the exact same condition he left. Perhaps a little emptier.
That night, Summer slips out of Newport in an attempt to avoid another awkward exchange with Seth. She leaves a pained message on the way to the airport and that’s it for now. At the same time, Julie meets Ryan at Marissa’s gravesite. He asks her for the file on Volchok.
Also See:
Editorial Newport Live!: Episode 3 - Features exclusive Season 4 spoilers and content.
SpoilerFix
+ 08/18 - The O.C. [cast] Chris Pratt — aka Everwood's lovable blockhead Bright — for a multi-episode arc this season. He'll play Che, an environmentalist that Summer befriends while away at college. Unfortunately, we have to wait a few months before we see Pratt in action. [Pratt makes a few revelations about the character: "]He's a lot different than any character I've ever played. He's a college-aged kid, who comes on the scene to stir things up between Seth and Summer. He's a left-wing liberal, environmentalist, vegan-type of save-the-chickens character that's a little over-the-top, but he's completely earnest. He's kind of a hippy. It's a very funny role. We come into the season having already established some sort of friendship. They go to school together and Summer has, as you'll see, changed from her original personality. She's less O.C. and more into the environment. You're going to see 'Greenpeace Summer.' Summer has no interest in the Che character, from what I've read so far. There's probably going to be that imminent threat looming, but she's pretty clear about not liking him in that way. I think she's just clinging to something different from where she came from, because she left the O.C. under such tragic circumstances, losing her friend and all that stuff. She's trying to find an identity outside of who she really is, and I think she just happened to cling on to this left-of-center character. I think I'm doing six episodes." Source: The Ausiello Report
+ 08/18 - I hear at the end of the first episode, Julie Cooper convinces Ryan to look at some information on that guy Volcheck so he can go find him. He finally agrees and the episode allegedly ends with Ryan kicking some guys ass in the Cage Match. Source: Kristin on E!Online
+ 07/22 - Seth works at a comic book store in Newport. Kirsten drops by the store to ask Seth if he has something to send Ryan in a "care package" she is preparing. Later, Seth tries to talk Ryan in coming to dinner at the Cohens' but the latter isn't easily persuaded, saying he works nights, etc. At her dorm, Summer and a friend named Che try to rally students for a protest. Summer gets a phone call from Taylor who seems to be in Paris. Leon from Season 2 is in the episode. Source: SpoilerFix.com
+ 07/14 - 16-year-old twins Brad and Eric Ward (Luke's brothers) will make their first appearances as recurring characters in the season premiere. In the season premiere, the twins and Kaitlin go to Newport Plaza to study and smoke a joint. Kaitlin is surprised to see Dr. Roberts and the Step-Monster (aka Summer's step mom) together at the mall. Later, Kaitlin and the twins go to a party on the beach where she leaves them stranded in a car on the beach. Source: SpoilerFix.com [Note: It is unknown if this means Luke will be on the show and if so, if he will be guest starring in a few episodes or be a recurring or regular. Also, it seems we will not clearly see who the step-monster is.]
Rating
10 / 10
