The O.C. EPs: We 'Immediately' Regretted Killing Off Mischa Barton's Marissa

The creators of The O.C. knew right away that they'd made a mistake in terminating Mischa Barton's character, Marissa, they say in a new interview.

Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, executive producers of the early 2000s Fox drama, recently spoke with Vanity Fair to promote their new book, Welcome to the O.C.: The Oral History, written with Rolling Stone's Alan Sepinwall. (Note: Rolling Stone is owned by TVLine's parent company, PMC.) In the interview, Savage and Schwartz address Marissa Cooper's death in the Season 3 finale, which came as a shock to the show's audience.

"It's something that we regret, and looking back on it, we wish we could have come up with a different solution," Schwartz says. "We didn't see an alternative path at the time, which is why we went down that road. But obviously in hindsight, there were lots of other ways we could have written the character off the show — and given Mischa the break that she needed and wanted — that still would've allowed for that character to return."

Savage adds that the EPs were feeling "tremendous pressure" from the network to kill off a series regular in order to heighten the series' drama. "If we wanted a Season 4, we'd have to do something like that," she recalls.

Fans will remember that Marissa perished in the Season 3 finale after Kevin Volchok drove Ryan's car — in which Barton's character was a passenger — off the road. Though Ryan wasn't badly hurt, Marissa's injuries in the crash killed her.

In 2021, Barton told E! Online that the show offered her the choice of leaving with the possibility of returning in some fashion or playing out a definitive, on-screen death; with future jobs in mind, she chose the latter. "It just felt like it was the best thing for me and my health and just in terms of not really feeling protected by my cast and crew at that point," she said. She later added: "Honestly, 15 years on, I do think it's sad that there wasn't a better way that it could've been handled. But I also do really love that she had this epic death and that it ended like that because it's memorable and it's not just another flash in the pan."

In the Vanity Fair article, Schwartz says that viewers' reactions to the plot twist let him and Savage know right away that maybe they'd chosen poorly. "It did not feel like that audience had been served or respected in the way that we always wanted and aimed to," he says. "Immediately, we had regret at that point."

Do you still have strong feelings about Marissa's death? We want to hear about it! Let loose in the comments.