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Ryan Atwood
Benjamin McKenzie as Ryan Atwood
First appearance	Premiere (episode 1.01)
Last appearance	The End's Not Near, It's Here (episode 4.16)
Cause/Reason	Series Finale
Information
Gender	Male
Age	24 (flashforward) 19 (last appearance)
Year of birth	March 19, 1988
Occupation	Architect
Episode count	92
Portrayed by	Benjamin McKenzie
Created by	Josh Schwartz

Ryan Atwood is a fictional character on the FOX television series The O.C., played by Benjamin McKenzie.

Contents 1 Season 1 2 Season 2 3 Season 3 4 Season 4 5 Ryan's Future 6 Family tree 7 Trivia

In the beginning of the season, Ryan Atwood is a troubled teenager living in Chino, California. He was caught stealing a car with his brother Trey and later met attorney Sandy Cohen. Ryan was later abandoned by his family and Sandy eventually adopted Ryan, with some objections from Sandy's wife, Kirsten Cohen, at the beginning. However, Kirsten, after meeting Ryan's mom Dawn and realizing she was unable to take care of him, welcomed him to stay, and Ryan integrated gradually into the Cohen family, albeit with some minor difficulties. He also has gradually integrated into Newport Beach society, but does still remain somewhat of an outsider. He has become a brother to Sandy and Kirsten's misfit son Seth, and Sandy and Kirsten consider him as a second son. Ryan and Marissa Cooper, a popular but somewhat troubled teenage girl, developed an attraction for one another that initially had its difficulties because of her relationship with Luke Ward and the differences in their lives and backgrounds. However when she and Luke broke up they became closer and formed a somewhat troubled but strong relationship.

During the middle of the season, Ryan's relationship with Marissa was interrupted by Oliver Trask, a mentally deranged person who Marissa met in Therapy, and who developed an unhealthy obsession with her. Oliver began hanging around with Marissa and Ryan, even inviting them to his Palm Springs vacation home. Ryan became very suspicious of Oliver's behaviour, his background, and his feelings for Marissa. This brought significant trust issues between him and Marissa to the fore, which eventually resulted in them breaking up. When Marissa realised Oliver harboured a unhealthy obsession for her, she sought Ryan's help and Oliver after threatening to commit suicide was committed to a mental hospital. Afterwards she tried to get back together with him but Ryan could not forget the fact of how easily someone had come between them, and refused to resume their relationship, although they did remain friends until they got back together later in the season. At the same time, an old girlfriend from Chino called Theresa moved to Newport to be with him, which resulted in them having a short relationship. Theresa then left Newport after her violent fiance Eddie came to Newport and a fight broke out between Ryan and him. Ryan and Marissa got back together shortly after, but this was further complicated when Theresa arrived back in Newport towards the end of the season after suffering domestic abuse from Eddie. Theresa revealed to Marissa that she was pregnant, and did not know whether the father was Ryan or Eddie's. In the season finale it looked like Theresa was going to have an abortion, but then decided to keep it and decided to go back to Chino to be with her family. Ryan felt compelled to go back with her to help her bring up the child, leaving Marissa and everything behind.

Despite their issues throughout the season, it is always clear that Ryan and Marissa are still attracted to each other (Marissa openly admitting it to Ryan, and he openly admitting it to her). Even Theresa agrees that they belong together (as does her fiance, Eddie).

Ryan was shown at the beginning of Season Two to be living with Theresa and working as a construction worker. A visit from Sandy prompted him to go to Portland to try to convince Seth to go back to Newport, who ran away the previous season after being distraught by Ryan's departure. They both returned to Newport Beach in the first episode of the second season, after Theresa led him to believe that she had a miscarriage, seeing how unhappy he was living his old life again.

Ryan is portrayed as much more mature in the second season. After he broke up with Marissa after realising she hooked up with someone else in his absence, Ryan developed a relationship with Lindsay Gardner, his lab partner in his physics class who is soon discovered as his adoptive mother Kirsten's illegitimate half-sister. Later, after Lindsay moved to Chicago with her mother, Ryan reunited with Marissa, originally as friends but they soon developed into a couple once again. The middle of the second series also saw the return of his brother Trey into Ryan's life, after he got released from prison. Trey's return caused a number of problems for Ryan, not least because of Trey's stealing and drug use. This came to a head when Trey tried to rape Marissa in a drugged up state, while Ryan was in Miami visiting his step-grandmother, The Nana.

Eventually Ryan found out about the attempted rape which lead to a confrontation between him and Trey. The confrontation turned deadly with Trey having Ryan pinned to the floor and strangling him. Marissa walked in and pleaded with Trey to let Ryan go. Trey, in a fit of rage refused and Marissa shot him in the back to save Ryan's life. It was left unclear whether Trey survived or not until the third season. Throughout this season Marissa and Ryan (although dating others) are constantly being pulled closer together (partly because of Seth's idea of a reunion of the 'Fab Four'). Marissa admits to Summer that she Ryan was the only one she ever loved and misses him everyday (with Ryan overhearing the whole conversation), and when he talks about how he and Marissa first met it is clear that he still is deeply in love with her.

After being in a coma for two months, Trey wakes up and initially implicated Ryan in the shooting when he was offered money by Julie Cooper-Nichol. He later cleared Ryan's name when confronted by Marissa and subsequently left Newport. Ryan and Marissa both faced a campaign to expel them both from parents at the prestigious Harbour High school as a result of the shooting. The new Dean of Discipline Hess expelled Marissa, and later Ryan after he assaulted the dean. Marissa then wound up going to Newport Union public high school, with Ryan eventually being re-admitted to Harbour after Dean Hess was blackmailed over having an affair with a student, Taylor Townsend.

While Marissa was at Newport Union, she made friends with another boy named Johnny Harper, who later complicated Ryan's relationship with Marissa. Johnny fell in love with her, and Ryan was suspicious about whether Marissa reciprocated Johnny's feelings. Marissa confirmed her commitment to her relationship with Ryan, and told Johnny although he was her friend and she cared for him, she would never love him. This rejection prompted Johnny to go on a drinking binge, which resulted in Johnny falling off a cliff to his death.

Ryan and Marissa became distant from each other afterwards, with both of them admitting their relationship was not working, and eventually breaking up. Ryan then started dating Sadie Campbell, Johnny's cousin who moved down to Newport temporarily to help her aunt. However, their relationship was short-lived because Ryan was accepted into UC Berkeley, and they admitted they had little conceivable future together with Ryan due to leave for college in the fall. Sadie left Newport, and Ryan recently became reacquainted with his mother, who appeared to have made progress in sorting out her life. He also became reacquainted with his childhood friend and former girlfriend, Theresa, when he found out that she lied about having a miscarriage. She told him that she had a paternity test which confirmed her former abusive fiancé Eddie was the father, not Ryan. Theresa attended Harbor's prom with Ryan as friends.

However, Ryan was provoked into returning to his former ways by Kevin Volchok, a local surfer and Marissa's boyfriend after they split up. Volchok cheated on Marissa, stole the post-prom party money from Taylor, and then provoked Ryan into a fight when he came to collect it. Theresa left when she found out, and Volchok used his injuries to blackmail Ryan into participating in a robbery. In the season finale, Volchok needed to get out of town and tried to blackmail Ryan into giving him money for this purpose, with the threat that he would tell the police about Ryan's involvement in the robbery. Marissa gave Ryan the pearls her mother bought her as a graduation present to pawn for Volchok's escape money.

After getting the money, Volchok continued to try to blackmail Ryan but wanted to talk to Marissa. In the midst of his threats, Marissa pulled up in Ryan's car which clearly upset Volchok. While Ryan drove Marissa to the airport, an angry and drunk Volchok tried crashing into Ryan's car to get him to pull over, so they could finish their rivalry on the side of the road. He sideswiped Ryan's car and knocked it over a barrier; the car rolled down an embankment and came to a stop on a road below. Ryan sustained no serious injuries in the accident, but Marissa suffered a head injury and died in Ryan's arms on the road.

Months after the death of Marissa, Ryan has changed greatly over the summer. He has moved out, tries to avoid the Cohens, and has resorted to cage fighting. Julie passes information about Volchok's whereabouts to Ryan, who tries to find him in Mexico to take revenge. Seth warns Volchok in advance and Ryan returns to the Cohens, but Ryan's friendship with Seth is damaged. After Sandy acts as Volchok's defense attorney, Ryan encounters Volchok in a hotel and decides to spare his life, forcing him to live with his guilt. Later, Ryan helps Taylor with getting a divorce from her French husband by kissing her, proving she found a new love. Unknown to him at the time, Taylor develops a crush on him for helping her.

Around this time, Ryan suffers from insomnia related to the incident involving Volchok. Taylor intervenes, acting as a sleep therapist to seduce him and flirting around, but fails to cure Ryan’s insomnia. When Ryan tells her he doesn't know how he feels about her, she tells him to kiss her to see if he feels anything. When they kiss, she takes advantage, then stops herself. After that, Ryan starts having fantasies about her. He tries to step it up a notch by asking her to hang out but not a real date. But Ryan finds it to be too awkward. Later, Taylor pays a homosexual guy, Roger, to act like he has a crush on her. However, Ryan finds out when he sees Roger with another guy, and he and Taylor make up in a game of Seven Minutes In Heaven, where they kiss.

At Chrismukkah, Ryan finally reaches a closure on his relationship with Marissa.

Ryan first mentions that Taylor is his girlfriend the week afterwards. During a roadtrip, Ryan and Taylor are speaking about possibly having sex. Ryan mistakenly thinks that Taylor is pregnant, because of a pregnancy test Seth found. After sorting through the misunderstanding, Ryan and Taylor spend New Year's Eve together as a couple. They go into bed together.

A few days later Ryan finds out from Sandy that his father, Frank Atwood, is out of jail and wants to see him. Ryan tells Sandy he does not want to see him, as he hasn't seen him since he was a child and remembers him as an alcoholic and a drug user. When Frank finds out Ryan doesn't want to see him, he lies and says he is dying of lung cancer. When told this, Ryan invites him over for dinner. Sandy calls Frank's physician from jail and discovers that Frank was lying about having cancer and the two begin to fight. Shortly afterwards, Frank leaves Newport.

Ryan and Taylor experience a bump in their relationship when Taylor's French husband, Henri-Michel, comes to Newport. Although first greatly disturbed by the contents of Henri's best-selling book about his marriage to Taylor, he tells Taylor that he'll get over it with time. Ryan feels insecure when stories of Taylor's exotic life in France come back with Henri, and he leaves Taylor on the set of a French talk show, claiming that they're both "too different". After a week of not calling, Ryan decides to mend things with Taylor, but discovers that it might be too late as Taylor is already considering moving in with Henri. In a moment of desperation, Ryan upstages a poem reading by Henri Michel at a local book store with a poem of his own, although Henri's poem was much more eloquent. Taylor says she treasures the poem but needs to work on her own insecurities before fully pursuing their relationship again.

Taylor begins to stalk Ryan and, realizing her dependency on him, seeks out a therapist. Her new therapist's strange and extreme methods put further strain on her relationship with Ryan when Taylor is told to sever all ties with Ryan for a week if she doesn't want to lose Ryan in the future. However, Taylor cannot stand being apart from Ryan and stalks him, only to feel humiliated when he catches her. In a comical scene, Ryan tells Taylor that they can work around it, both of them taking turns stalking the other.

For Valentine's Day, Ryan and Taylor help out his dad to successfully get together with Julie. Ryan and Taylor spend the night together on Valentine's day and Ryan kisses Taylor as they drive up to the beach together.

In "The Shake Up", Taylor and Ryan prepare for her 19th birthday. However, Ryan doesn't know that what she wants is for him to go to Berkeley with her. Ryan tells her that he isn't thinking about Berkeley for now as it is only six months away. Meanwhile, Ryan is under pressure when he tries to decide if he should tell Taylor that he loves her on her birthday, as he is still unsure of his feelings for her. After a failed attempt to get Ryan drunk, a drunken Taylor pretends to sleep and Ryan says he loves her. Unfortunately, she would reveal that she got accepted into Berkeley, and due to her drunken status wouldn't say that she got accepted long before they started dating. Ryan feels uncomfortable about this and Taylor in unsure of what passed in her drunken state. Ryan makes the situation worse when he gives her a pocket dictionary for her birthday as an act of panic about the news. However, seeing her disappointment at the gift, he gives her his original present, a bound book full of love poems that Taylor translated for Ryan. He admits her loves her and Ryan and Taylor share a long kiss. As they reconcile, an earthquake hits Newport and Taylor's tall glass hutch falls on Ryan, who's protecting Taylor from the falling debris.

In the next episode, Ryan and Taylor survived the earthquake. As Taylor worries if they are both injured, a fragment of glass and blood is seen on Ryan's back. Ryan calls Seth for help, while the girls stay back and attempt to find Pancakes, Summer's rabbit. Along the way, Seth and Ryan hit an object and the car gets a flat tire which Seth attempts to fix. However, the jack snaps when the after shock strikes. With Ryan in pain, Seth attempts to finds new transportation and is spotted by Frank and Julie from their car. The next scene takes place in hospital, where Ryan is recovering from his wound. Seth mentions that he donated blood to Ryan, and that they were now "really" brothers.

Six months later, he and Taylor have broken up. However, feelings still linger when Julie and Bullit's wedding is close to fruition. They stumble after seeing each other for months, but end up kissing and are about to have sex in a bedroom when they get interrupted. Ryan and Taylor spend time together as a couple. They go together on a train and Ryan and Taylor kiss and talk about where their relationship might head. Taylor reveals to Ryan that they will be on the train for hours and they spend the next couple hours as a couple reunited before she heads to Paris.

It is shown that in the years to come, Ryan finally goes to UC Berkeley to make a new life. At Seth and Summer's wedding, Ryan and Taylor reunite and share a look; whether they are still together is left unanswered. He becomes a successful architect at a site where he used to work. His story comes full circle when he comes upon a kid at a pay phone, similar to his situation years ago. Just like Sandy, Ryan offers help to the troubled kid.

Family

• Frank Atwood (father)
• Dawn Atwood (mother)
  • Trey Atwood (brother)
  • Unnamed (half-brother)

• Sandy Cohen (adoptive father)
• Kirsten Cohen (adoptive mother)
  • Seth Cohen (adoptive brother)
  • Sophie Rose Cohen (adoptive sister)
    • Caleb Nichol (adoptive paternal grandfather) (deceased)
    • Sophie Cohen (adoptive maternal grandmother)
    • Hailey Nichol (adoptive maternal aunt)
      • Summer Roberts (adoptive sister-in-law)

Spouses

• Theresa Diaz (ex-girlfriend)
• Marissa Cooper (ex-girlfriend) (deceased)
• Lindsay Gardner (ex-girlfriend)
• Sadie Campbell (ex-girlfriend)
• Taylor Townsend (girlfriend)

• Ryan's favorite band is Journey.

THE OC
EPISODES   |   CATEGORY   |   BROADCASTERS  |   SONGS  |   WEBSITE
Primary Characters	Ryan Atwood | Kirsten Cohen | Sandy Cohen | Seth Cohen Jimmy Cooper | Julie Cooper | Kaitlin Cooper | Marissa Cooper Caleb Nichol | Summer Roberts | Taylor Townsend | Luke Ward
Secondary Characters	Dawn Atwood | Frank Atwood | Trey Atwood | Taryn Baker | Lance Baldwin Rebecca Bloom | Carter Buckley | Gordon Bullit | Sophie Cohen Theresa Diaz | D.J. | Holly Fischer | Lindsay Gardner | Johnny Harper Alex Kelly | Charlotte Morgan | Hailey Nichol | Neil Roberts | Anna Stern Zach Stevens | Veronica Townsend | Oliver Trask | Kevin Volchok
Places	Newport Beach | Orange County | Chino | Berkeley | Providence
Music	Mix 1 | Mix 2 | Mix 3 | Mix 4 | Mix 5 | Mix 6
Related	Atomic County | Chrismukkah
Key Creators	Josh Schwartz | McG | Stephanie Savage | Allan Heinberg
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