List of The O.C. characters
Originally, it follows the life of Ryan Atwood, a troubled but tough young man from a broken home who is adopted by the wealthy and philanthropic Sandy and Kirsten Cohen.
Ryan and his surrogate brother Seth, a socially awkward yet quick-witted teenager, deal with life as outsiders in the high-class world of Newport Beach.
Portrayed by Peter Gallagher, an idealistic public defender who takes in Ryan Atwood in the pilot episode, much to the dismay of his wife, Kirsten.
[1] Sandy deals with many conflicts throughout the series, such as trying to gain acceptance from his father-in-law while being financially supported by his wife, and raising two teenagers in a (sometimes) corrupt environment.
[2] Portrayed by Ben McKenzie, a troubled teenager from Chino who is brought into the privileged community of Newport Beach, California after his mother, Dawn Atwood, throws him out of their family home.
He forms fast bonds with the entire Cohen family, especially Sandy's son Seth, as well as an extreme attachment to the girl next door, Marissa Cooper.
Ryan slowly finds himself a place within his new materialistic society, and makes of the most of his situation by not only completing high school, but also continuing on to university.
[5] Portrayed by Mischa Barton, throughout the series Marissa is frequently battling with drugs and alcohol, including nearly killing herself on a trip in Mexico with her friends.
After his divorce from Julie, he pursues Hayley Nichol, Kirsten's younger sister, who eventually leaves him to further her fashion career in Japan.
She is portrayed as highly sexualised and initially appears stupid; later she undergoes something of a transformation and becomes far more intelligent and concerned about environmental issues, a change possibly due to her relationship with the geeky Seth Cohen.
Taryn Baker is one of the "Newpsies;" wealthy, bored women who live in Newport Beach and spend their days lunching, shopping, and gossiping.
Later, she helped spread the rumour that Luke Ward's father had been having an affair with his male business partner ("The Secret"), and that this was why he had turned her down when she propositioned him.
She also appeared in flashback, in the fourth-season episode ("The Case of the Franks"), where it was revealed that she attended high school with Kirsten Cohen and Jimmy Cooper.
In 2005, she was confronted by Julie Cooper and Sandy, claiming that she does not have the power to decide to expel Marissa and Ryan, after the gunshot incident, deferring to the new Dean of Discipline, Jack Hess.
However, she assists in re-admitting Marissa into Harbor by revealing a precedent in 1996, in which a similar incident to Trey's shooting had occurred with a formerly suspended student.
Her father, Max, asks his former student Sandy to find Rebecca, as he is dying and wants to see his only daughter one last time before passing away.
Furious, he sabotages the launch of Julie's new magazine, "Newport Living", by replacing the promotional video with archive footage from "The Porn Identity."
Caleb subsequently asks Julie for a divorce (and fires her from the newport group), and reveals to his wife that he has had people spy on her since before their marriage.
After botching an attempted drug deal which results in shootout at The Bait Shop, Jess decides to leave town with Trey but remains when he is shot by Marissa.
The two planned to throw a fund-raiser, a ploy by Charlotte to steal all the donations, but she gets found out when Julie goes into her handbag at a restaurant and finds numerous credit cards in different names.
[22] Derek Hanson said that Ryan's addition was meant to get the "14–24 demographic excited", but stated that Charlotte Morgan had "a terrible storyline, that just didn't sit quite right.
She was an assistant of Carter Buckley and he arranges a meeting after getting to know Seth Cohen and Zach Stevens, who co-created Atomic County.
Jack Hess who has a master's degree in education and who taught six years at boarding schools, is the new dean of discipline at Harbor High and is responsible for the measures to be taken after the gunshot incident.
He is also responsible for Summer losing the social chair to Taylor Townsend by tricking her to admit that she helped Seth steal the tiki hut.
In "The Cold Turkey" in season 4, she appears briefly and apologizes to Ryan about the night of Marissa's death, but claims to have had no control over Volchok's actions.
Ryan Atwood befriends Sadie, helping her to decorate the house and get money from Johnny's father ("The Road Warrior").
In this universe, he took what would have been Ryan's spot for admission at Harbor High School, and was engaged to Summer Roberts, and having an affair with Julie Cooper and any woman he could get his hands on.
Later, in an attempt to repay Summer for her forgiveness for his misdeeds, Che tries to help Seth feel harmony with himself and takes him to the woods to connect with his spirit animal.
In the series finale, set six months after the earthquake, Julie is engaged to Bullit after Frank panicked and left her when he discovered she was pregnant.
Bullit has 12 sons, whom he jokingly introduced to Kaitlin Cooper as "A Buffet of Bullits", all of which are named after cities in Texas where he has oil refinery—Austin, Dallas, Houston, Lubbock, Odessa, El Paso, Amarillo, Texarkana, San Antonio and Corpus Christi—with the exception of Hanoi (named after Vietnam's capital), where he also has a refinery, and Spencer.
