Ranking Every Supporting Character from the OC (Part One)

Well almost everyone.

I’ve recently finished the entire run of the OC, and to celebrate, (or maybe mourn), I’m going to rank the entire supporting cast.

Why now? Why at all? These are questions I am both unwilling, and unable to answer.

Some ground rules: to maintain my sanity, I had to put a limit on how many characters I could include. So I decided that to qualify for the list, the character had to appear in at least five episodes. Sorry, Dean Hess!

Also, I thought it would be pointless to just have all the main characters near the top, so I decided that any actor who was billed as a series regular would disqualify their character. In other words, any actor included in the opening title sequence. This means that you should not expect to see Luke (who would have been near the top) or Caitlin (who would have been near the bottom). This also disqualifies characters like Jimmy, Caleb, and Taylor.

One more thing: I don't have much time to write these and so I stubbornly refused to do any research. I may have fudged a couple of plot points but I have no regrets. This is a review of the OC of my memory. Also I only have so much time on this earth so I'm not including a photo with every character. Finding photos takes forever.

There’s a lot of ground to cover, so without further ado, here is my list. I wrote so much that I had to split it into two parts. Feel free to disagree in the comments.

Oh and BIG SPOILERS for the entire show!

37. High School Student (Danielle Riffenburgh)

This appears to be a featured extra. She managed to credit herself in 9 episodes on IMDB, and I respect that. However I feel I must rank her last because I am unsure if this even counts as a character.

36. Gordon “The Bullet” Bullit (Gary Grubbs)

Until I encountered High School Student, there was never any doubt who I would rank last on this list. No one announced season four’s shift to annoyingly broad comedy like The Bullet, a cartoonish caricature of a Bush-era Republican. I never once found Bullit funny, but even worse is when we are supposed to take him seriously as a love interest for Julie. Can’t blame the actor, there is absolutely nothing interesting or redeeming about this guy on the page.

35. Ché (Chris Pratt)

Chris Pratt gets a lot of flack online for his boring career shift and awful personal politics, but to be honest, I was sort of happy when he showed up on OC. Pre-Jurassic World, I genuinely liked Pratt, and I still think he’s a talented performer when he wants to be. Sadly, the OC does not want him to be.

No one could be as annoying as The Bullet, but Ché certainly gives him a run for his money. If the Bullet was a caricature of a right-winger, I guess Ché is his left-wing equivalent, an annoying campus activist obsessed with animal rights. The difference is that Ché has an actual point, and in the age of climate crisis I wasn’t having fun with the show mocking his concern about global warming.

Worse than that though, he is just completely unfunny, and sticks around for way too long. There’s a point where he does something morally reprehensible to Summer, and I assumed that was the end of his time on the show, but the writers keep contriving ways to bring him back.

If Ché (cuban revolutionary) has zero fans, I have died. If Ché (character from the OC) has zero haters, I have also died.

34. Ham Guy (Craig Susser)

Now that we’ve passed the section of characters I actively hate, I will move onto the next section: “characters I don’t remember.”

IMDB credits Ham Guy with 8 episodes, but I don’t remember him and the show’s wiki has no entry for his character. I assume he sold ham. This is the only photo on the actor’s IMDB page:

33. Joan (Danielle Bisutti)

Here is the entry on the OC wiki for Joan. Please remember that the wiki is written by people who are huge fans of the show:

Joan is a minor character in the first and second seasons of the Fox drama series The O.C.. She is portrayed by Danielle Bisutti.

I’ll take their word for it.

32. Chip Saunders (Josh Kloss)

Chip Saunders is one of Luke’s friends in season one. I don’t remember anything he does, and from the photos on IMDB, I’m not entirely sure which guy he is. Chip Saunders stans can come for me in the comments.

31. Taryn Baker (Kimberly Oja)

Taryn is one of the “newpsies”, a group of stay at home moms who occasionally wander into the Kirsten and Julie storylines. I had to do some research to remember Taryn, but when I saw her face I did get a vaguely positive feeling. From that, I assume the actress was probably funny. However I didn’t fully realize she was a recurring character so I’m putting her low on the list.

30/29. Brad & Eric Ward (Wayne Dalglish & Corey Price)

Brad and Eric are Luke’s brothers. I think they are briefly glimpsed as children in season one, but they’re given more focus as tweens in season four. In that season, they serve mostly as comic relief sidekicks and sounding boards for Caitlin. I don’t really like Caitlin’s storylines in general, and Brad and Eric are mostly fodder for jokes about how it is gay to shave your chest (?).

That being said, I will give them this: I know who they are.

28. Holly Fischer (Ashley Hartman)

Holly is a friend of Summer’s early on in the series. She reappears later as a next-generation newpsie who puts Kirsten off raising another child in Newport. She mostly functions as a symbol of vapid excess, and what the characters should not become. She’s not really granted much focus or humanity outside of that, and I honestly struggled to remember who she was.

27. Oliver Trask (Taylor Handley)

Our next, (two character) section is called “fatal flaws”. These are characters who almost derailed the entire show, of which Oliver is probably the most famous example. Oliver appears mid-season one, when the show was still finding its feet and identity. In this way, he was valuable. Some characters demonstrate what a show should be, and Oliver made it clear what it should not. Namely: a full-on soap opera.

Oliver is a machiavellian super-villain who plans to turn Marisa against Ryan by pretending to be mentally ill. In an odd touch, Oliver’s name is one letter off from an X-Men villain, and even this seemed to suggest that he was in the wrong story. The OC’s strength was that, in all of its silliness, it was always a little smarter than it needed to be. Oliver and his grinning, sociopathic antics were some of the rare moments where the series felt truly stupid.

26. Johnny Harper (Ryan Donowho)

While watching the OC, I didn’t look too much into fan response or behind the scenes stories. I could however, just from the show itself - discern that people hated Oliver as much as I did. All the way up until the final season, characters make self-deprecating jokes about Oliver. Less clear to me however, is how people felt about Johnny. A character who is just as frustrating, and around for almost twice as long.

Johnny is a surfer who Marissa meets in public school after being expelled from Harbour. While the show is usually pretty sensitive about class, the portrayal of Johnny’s poverty is downright grating. In fact, Johnny is the whiniest, most inactive character on the entire series. When he’s injured in a car accident, and the other characters attempt to help him get back on his feet, all Johnny can do is complain about being treated as a victim. Combine this with his boring and fickle interest in Marissa, and he really starts to drag down the first half of season three.

Also, not to kick a guy 20 years later, but Donowho is extremely wooden. I think a better actor could have made Johnny more sympathetic.

25. Dennis 'Chili' Childress (Johnny Lewis)

Chili is Johnny’s best friend and comic-relief sidekick. Introduced as a bizzaro-version of Seth, Chili is not funny in writing or performance. Furthermore, he is such a two-dimensional goofball that it’s hard to take him seriously, even as he mourns Johnny’s death.

In summary: I’m anti-Chili but he’s not really around enough to make me mad.

24. Rachel Hoffman (Bonnie Somerville)

Sandy’s co-worker, and a light temptation in season one.

Rachel doesn’t have much of a personality, and she looks too much like Sandy’s actual wife Kirsten for me to really understand why he’s drawn to her. This is the same woman, dude.

The Cohens try to set her up with Jimmy at one point, but again, there’s not much to her and she quickly exits, never to be mentioned again.

23. Darryl (Scott Krinsky)

Darryl is an unhoused person who appears in season four a few times. He is typically used as either comic relief or as a symbol of the main character’s relationship to the concept of charity. I find both uses of him crass. That being said, the actor is kind of funny.

22. D.J. (Nicholas Gonzalez)

D.J. is one of Julie's gardeners. He is having a steamy affair with Marissa at the start of season two. This storyline lands on the right side of soapy for me, but unfortunately Gonzalez is not a very good actor. The show realizes this pretty quickly and abruptly bounces him out of Newport.

Intentionally or not, D.J. is one of many non-white guest stars who is unable to inhabit the world of the main characters. Is this subversive commentary, or just typical 2000’s TV racism? That’s in the eye of the beholder, my friend.

21. Veronica Townsend (Paula Trickey)

Veronica is Taylor’s nightmare mother, introduced to make Taylor more sympathetic. She definitely fulfills that function, but Veronica herself never registers as a human being.

For example, I understand why she later needs to reconcile with Taylor, but her change of heart happens way too fast. I prefer her in full villain mode - like the moment when she is disappointed to find out that Taylor is okay after she is pressured into visiting her in hospital. Jesus Christ lol.

19. Lance Baldwin (Johnny Messner)

I don’t know if there is much to Lance - an ex-boyfriend of Julie’s who returns to blackmail her with her pornographic past - but I think he’s a worthwhile addition to the show’s tonal cocktail.

Lance has a sleazy energy that paints a picture of Julie’s life pre-OC, and the porn storyline brings interesting characterization out of both Julie and Caleb. Can’t say I was ever really pumped to see Lance, but to paraphrase Community, I see his value now.

20. Spencer Bullit (Brandon Quinn)

The Bullit’s son and Julie’s tennis instructor, Spencer is also central to Julie’s brief tenure as the madame of an escort service. In other words, Spencer is a big part of some of the show’s worst storylines, but I kind of like him anyway. I guess the actor is charming?

18. Charlotte Morgan (Jeri Ryan)

Charlotte is a scam artist who latches onto Kirsten while she's at rich white lady rehab. This storyline never quite sings in the way it should, and there are shades of Oliver in Charlotte's supervillainy, but I feel this thread could have been a lot of fun if executed a little better.

As it stands, Charlotte doesn’t accomplish much in her 7 episodes, after which she abruptly leaves town. In hindsight, her scenes feel a bit like a waste of time, but I was never mad watching them.

17. Hailey Nichol (Amanda Righetti)

Hailey is Kirsten’s wild, party-girl sister, and an on-again, off-again love interest for Jimmy. This is another character who I feel could be a lot of fun on paper, but Righetti does not work in this role.

I don’t know if this performance is bad exactly, but it’s very bland for someone who is supposed to be an out of control livewire. Hailey is boring, and I never really cared about what she’s up to, but she does occasionally pull interesting things out of our main cast.

Jimmy’s sliminess, Kirsten’s superiority complex, and Caleb’s obsession with image all come out in their relationship to Hailey, and I can see why the writers would have her pass through the show every once in a while.

Oh I almost forgot my favourite Hailey moment! At one point, she is being pursued by an evil drug dealer named “Cameo.” Cameo appears briefly in one scene, and is never seen again. I'm not sure if that is an intentional joke, but it did make me laugh.

16. Heather (Erin Foster)

Heather is a friend (or girlfriend?) of Volchok’s in season three. I don’t have much to say about Heather except that the actress is good. She is present at Marissa’s murder and adds a lot of desperation and humanity to that scene imo. Also, not to overstate this point, but I think there’s some value to the fact that Heather looks like a normal person. Amongst a sea of blonde supermodels, she’s one of the few characters who looks like someone I might actually know.

15. Jess Sathers (Nikki Griffin)

Speaking of blonde supermodels, Jess is a femme fatale who pulls Trey (and attempts to pull Ryan) over to the dark side. Jess is granted little humanity, acting more as a symbol of delinquency and crime. However, at times she is so evil that she can be entertaining.

I also like her post-Trey episode in season three, where she keeps intentionally putting herself in danger to activate Ryan’s savior complex. This makes Ryan reflect and decide he deserves the stability and happiness brought to him by someone like Sadie. Pretty interesting imo!

14. Dr. Kim (Rosalind Chao)

Dr. Kim is the principal of Harbour High School and is mostly a delivery device for plot points and exposition. Sadly she is one of the most prominent non-white characters on the show. I kind of like her, idk.

13. Matt Ramsey (Jeff Hephner)

Matt is a new hire at the Newport Group after Sandy takes over in season three. I don’t know if Sandy’s tenure at Newport is anyone’s favourite storyline, but I think it’s sporadically interesting. Matt is a bit of a problem because the show can’t really decide if he’s a corrupting corporate influence or a naive kid whom Sandy is corrupting.

However I think Hephner equips himself well in both molds, and towards the end of his run a couple of Matt’s storylines really pay off. Sandy saving his life in the parking lot is one of my favourite Sandy hero moments.

That's all I got for part one. Check in again soon for the second half of the list :)