Crystal Clear

It's a pity the show didn't get cancelled once they aired her death. I really, really hate how they only allow a few characters (Ryan, Julie and Summer) to grieve for about 2/3 episodes tops and then it's MOVE ON TO TAYLOR YOU MUST ACCEPT TAYLOR

stlavin95

I did enjoy the fact that the ratings dropped a lot after her death though.

Crystal Clear

I'm not surprised. I remember watching the first episode of season 4 and thinking, this show NEEDS Marissa. It may have been a miserable show with or without her, but it still needs her more than it needs the other characters.

It should have began and ended with her. She was Ryan's great love. Yet we somehow end up with Ryan/Taylor???

Taylor was the one who ruined Marissa and Ryan's chances at College in season 3. I don't understand why Ryan even gave her a chance.

stlavin95

Me neither, the show was pretty bad without her.

Crystal Clear

I watched a re-run of 3x07 on tv yesterday and holy hell it's worse than I remember... The period of the show where Marissa is at another school and talking to Johnny all the time, it is horrendous

stlavin95

Season 3 in general is horrendous

Crystal Clear

They literally separate Marissa from the whole group for a huge chunk of the season by having her bond with bland idiots at this other College. Therefore by the time she dies, most viewers won't even care because she doesn't even spend time with the main group anymore. It's worse than the alcohol problems hey put her through in seasons 1 and 2.

stlavin95

Yeah, it's pretty clear that was Josh's plan in hindsight too.

Crystal Clear

It's difficult to rewatch the show knowing that. I hate it when showrunners eff up the key thing that makes sense of the whole show. Reminds me of what Joss Whedon did to Cordy on Angel

stlavin95

It really is

Crystal Clear

The only plus side I can gain from it is the aftermath in 4x01 where Ryan is clearly shown to be suffering without her. If they had just skipped to months later and he'd moved on, that would've been NASTY.

stlavin95

Very true, still think it was dumb to skip months ahead regardless though.

Crystal Clear

They clearly didn't want to deal with the initial grieving period.

(Which is so offensive to Marissa's memory it's outrageous, but what more can you expect from these uncaring writers? )

I got the sense that Summer was being forced to move on from their friendship and become closer with Taylor, which is also a huge insult.

stlavin95

Definitely, just plain bad storytelling as well.

Crystal Clear

Very strange to me why the writers ever thought audiences would support Autumn Reeser being bumped up to Ryan's love interest, after we saw that Taylor's meddling in season 3 was the main cause of Ryan and Marissa being physically divided and resulting in her being ostracized for the majority of her time left on the show.