COLLEGE WEEK: Chris Pratt Saved ‘The O.C.’ From Its College Years

It’s the great conundrum of our time: how do you transition your lovable, still profitable, pack of high school characters to college? Or the real world? Or anywhere outside of their lunch table? It’s not easy. In fact, it’s damn near impossible. Which is why there is only one man to call, a man who laughs in the face of impossibility. And The O.C. knew just who to turn to.
Mr. Chris Pratt (maybe you’ve heard of him?) joined The O.C. for the fourth and final season of the teen drama on Fox, as Che, a pal that Rachel Bilson’s Summer Roberts meets while she’s attending college at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Viewers were probably feeling a little bit apprehensive heading into that season of The O.C.. Summer is the one going to college on the east coast while the love of her life Seth Cohen (Adam Brody) hangs back in Southern California? How can we live with these two apart?
Well, we managed. Because while Autumn Reeser’s role as Taylor Townsend was upped for the season, and her romance with Ryan (Ben McKenzie) was an unexpected delight, it was Summer’s new friendship with Che that really moved the season along. While The O.C. always enjoyed the occasional wink, not shying away from making fun of itself and inserting comedic moments, meta and otherwise, they never really had a character that was goofy, per se. Che was a total goofball. A passionate activist, but a goofball, none the less. He brought a type, and a level, of comedy to the show that we had not previously experienced, and it was more than welcome, especially after the death of Marissa (Mischa Barton) at the end of season 3. The cast and crew probably knew the show wouldn’t last much longer, so why not have some fun with it on the way out?

And that they did. Che was not only fun himself, but he showed us a new side to Summer, one we probably did not predict for her. Summer Roberts, campus activist? We certainly had yet to witness her have a conversation about the polar ice caps melting. Che was the type of guy anyone could meet on a college campus, but Pratt was able to bring a whimsy to the character, even at times when he appeared as a potential threat to Seth and Summer’s relationship. At his heart, even when he was annoying Seth or getting Summer kicked out of school, he was still a didgeridoo-playing doofus at heart. And moving the story away from school was the best, most necessary thing he could do. It might be hard to transition characters from high school to college, but it turns out, it’s not too hard to transition them right out of college and back home.

In true The O.C. fashion, Che, of course, like so many of the characters on the show, turns out to have a super rich dad. That doesn’t quite make him any less weird; he’s still very invested in spirit animals and past lives and probably smells like patchouli, at best. But he brings his weirdness to Orange County, and while the show only took about 6 episodes to abandon any collegiate setting whatsoever, they kept Che around for a bit longer. Both very wise decisions!

Bringing Chris Pratt on for the final season was one of the better choices the show made for many reasons. He was another male on the show that wasn’t necessarily a villain — from Oliver in season 1 to Volchok in season 3, we already had enough of those. Even though Che gets Summer kicked out of Brown, it brings her back home to Seth, and with a new companion: Pancakes, the rabbit she saved from the science lab. Che also winds up in jail with Seth, a move that lead him to his soul mate, and also allowed him to up the excitement level of the show. That freed up the pressure for Ryan to be the troublemaker, focusing instead on Ryan and Taylor’s adorable romance.
Even Che’s annoying moments served a purpose, bringing a lightness to both the drama at hand and the show as a whole. Seeing Julie Cooper-Nichol’s (Melinda Clarke) reaction to a human like Che was worth it alone. He’s a trippy dude! It’s no coincidence that a character like Che existed during a season where two characters visit an alternate universe after falling off ladders, now is it? The show was able to finish strong, on a super high note, because Pratt made The O.C. a fun place to be. It’s just what he does.
[Watch The O.C. on Hulu]