#oliver trask

[highest-violet]

I JUST REALIZED WHY I INSTINCTIVELY HATE CANCER PATIENT’S HUSBAND AND DISTRUST HIM!!!!

He’s Oliver Trask!!!

[mischas]

How do you feel about the Oliver storyline on The O.C.?

I'm really tired and jetlagged so I'll point you to the breadth of my blog as the answer as I've discussed it quite a bit over the years and specifically in my Oliver tag. But basically Oliver was like 19 bamboozling grown adults and deliberately manipulating a 16 y/o Marissa away from her friends and family and making her think that they shared the exact same mental health and addiction issues and if people(/Ryan) were calling him crazy, they were also calling her crazy. Oliver deliberately manipulated her entire world and when that storyline finished, with a gun held to her head mind you, everyone acted like a bubble had snapped and of course the manipulation should've been easy to see through etc etc. It's really twisted. It's good tv but the fallout is horrendous and sets a dangerous precedent for the rest of the show where Ryan is always right and Marissa is always wrong.

[starryeyesxx]

[bloodbuzz-ohio]

I’ve only seen the Oliver storyline once when that’s when it premiered and I wanted to put my head through the wall. I can’t watch it again.

It is the woooooorst because not only is it very, very unfair to Marissa, who genuinely believes this guy shares her mental health and substance abuse issues in good faith, but it postures Ryan forever as Always Right. It justifies Ryan's behavior in the era simply because He Was Right. And it's never discussed or rectified in the aftermath. For the rest of the show Marissa is basically always playing catch-up to his moral superiority. (A Problem.......... I ship them with the idea that this is very much addressed and dealt with in college along with the Other Stuff)

And what is the Oliver storyline saying about mental illness? What is it saying that they equate Oliver being evil and manipulative to his mental health and substance abuse issues? Is Oliver evil because of these issues? Is he evil at all or is he just really sick? I know this was 2004 but still. What is it saying about Marissa's struggles in turn? Even to this day I don't see even a tiny bit of reckoning with this storyline besides defending the ratings during it and how polarizing/enraging it was. And a massive, massive part of that is Taylor Handley's performance, but from what I've read I think the role lowkey derailed his career for a while. Most people in 2004 who saw his face were going to associate him with the infamous Oliver storyline. It's too bad the book and podcast didn't involve him at all.

[timothyslucy]

how the hell was ryan the only one catching all these red flags with oliver????

[karihighman]

Ben McKenzie as Ben Sherman on SouthLAnd (also played Ryan on The OC) arresting Taylor Handley who played Oliver on The OC will never not be funny to me wow full circle moment

[asexual-juliet]

don’t get me wrong, i love the oc, but how fucking wild is it that people watched six whole episodes of whatever the fuck was going on with oliver and were like hmm. yes. three more seasons of this please?

[peterstarkss]

Same energy