Why “The O.C.” didn't give Marissa a funeral

"Welcome to The O.C.: The Oral History" takes viewers inside all four seasons of the Fox drama.

The day was May 18, 2006. Millions of viewers were gathered around their televisions to see how The O.C. was going to wrap up its third season. And just as it seemed like Marissa (Mischa Barton) might actually get out of town for a bit, Volchok (Cam Gigandet) drove her and Ryan (Ben McKenzie) off the road. Ryan would make it out alive. But Marissa would not.

Since that moment, fans (and even those involved with the show) have talked about that death a lot. But in a new book from writer Alan Sepinwall, series creator Josh Schwartz and executive producer Stephanie Savage, they dig into a slightly different element of Marissa's death: Why she never got a funeral.

Fans will remember that season 4 picks up with Summer (Rachel Bilson) at Brown and Seth (Adam Brody) preparing for RISD while Ryan is busy cage fighting his emotions away. So why didn't the show open on a funeral? "We felt like it would be such overwhelming grief," Schwartz says in the book, titled Welcome to The O.C.: The Oral History. "A, what story are you telling, other than everybody is just so sad and heartbroken over this? Ryan going to Mexico for Volchok is not something he would have been thinking about necessarily in the immediate aftermath of the funeral," Schwartz continues. "And B, we knew we needed the characters to be able to get to a place where they were able to integrate this tragedy in their lives and move forward. Some time and distance was going to be needed to achieve that-in three episodes. We only had sixteen episodes; we didn't want to stew in the misery, but hopefully still memorialize the character in a way that felt respectful for her and for the audience."

Also on the topic of Marissa death, the book reveals that the writers considered a much wetter version of that final scene. "We had originally talked about a storyline where the car went into the water, and Ryan was trying desperately to open it, like a Chappaquiddick thing where Ryan is free of the car, and he’s trying to save Marissa as the car is filling up with water, and eventually has to let her go," Schwartz says. "And that was so horrific. And, frankly, quite hard to produce."

In the end, they chose fire instead.

Welcome to The O.C.: The Oral History is out now.

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