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Sandy Cohen
First appearance	Premiere (episode 1.01)
Last appearance	The End's Not Near, It's Here (episode 4.16)
Cause/reason	Series Finale
Created by	Josh Schwartz
Portrayed by	Peter Gallagher, Max Greenfield (flashbacks)
Episode count	92
Information
Gender	Male
Age	49 (flashforward) 44 (last appearance)
Occupation	Law Professor Former CEO of The Newport Group
Family	Sophie Cohen (mother) Kirsten Cohen (wife) Seth Cohen (son) Ryan Atwood (adopted son) Sophie Rose Cohen (daughter) Caleb Nichol (father-in-law, deceased), Rose Nichol(mother-in-law, deceased) Summer Roberts (daughter-in-law)
Spouse(s)	Kirsten Cohen (wife) Rebecca Bloom (ex-fiancée)

Sanford "Sandy" Cohen is a fictional character on the FOX series The O.C.. He is portrayed by Peter Gallagher.

Sandy, a lawyer, raconteur, and son of Sophie Cohen, is married to Kirsten Cohen. Their eldest child, Seth, is something of a social misfit. Sandy was originally a public defender, which brought him into contact with troubled teen, Ryan Atwood, whom he eventually adopted and took on as his own after his mother abandoned him. He has since then gone into private practice in a law firm, before going to start his own law firm and finally taking over his late father-in-law's company, the Newport Group. He and his wife have two children.

Throughout the series, Sandy serves as a moral center, often guiding and supporting Seth and Ryan through their problems.

Contents 1 Season One 2 Season Two 3 Season Three 4 Season Four 5 Family Tree

Sandy has a mostly stable marriage with Kirsten, with the occasional problem surfacing. In season one, unresolved issues of trust and jealousy came to the surface with regards to Kirsten's former childhood sweetheart, Jimmy Cooper, who was also their next-door neighbor.

He left the Public Defender's Office to go into private practice at Patridge, Savage and Khan, along with his former colleague from the District Attorney's office, Rachel Hoffman. She causes tension between Sandy and Kirsten, when Kirsten finds Sandy enjoying a drink with Rachel one night while he was supposed to be at a "meeting". Later on, Sandy and Rachel get involved in a case against Caleb's company, the Newport Group. Both of them were ultimately accused by Caleb of having an affair because they had been spending a lot of time together and had been working very late. Not long afterwards, when Rachel and Sandy were working late in her apartment, she makes a play for him, but he rejects her advances. He and Kirsten then attempt to set her up with Jimmy, to no avail.

In the second season, Rebecca Bloom, an old flame of Sandy's, came back into their lives, causing difficulties between them. This contributed towards Kirsten's growing alcohol problem, and the distance between her and Sandy caused her to almost have an affair with a magazine editor, Carter Buckley, although he left before anything happened. This came to a head when Kirsten's father, Caleb Nichol, died which caused Kirsten's drinking problem to run out of control, forcing the entire Cohen family to stage an intervention and put her in rehab.

He has had many new problems with the underhanded nature of business in the real estate world in his new job as CEO of the Newport Group. This once again has caused a strain on his home life. Although the season three finale saw him making the decision to return to being a PD after revisiting his old office.

In the fourth season, Sandy helps Ryan sort things out with Kevin Volchok who was responsible for the death of Marissa Cooper. However he was furious with Julie when he finds out that it was her that gave Ryan the information to track down Volchok. He excludes her from the Thanksgiving dinner at the Cohen's but she eventually apologizes for her actions and is welcomed by Sandy. Sandy was also the one who talks Ryan into helping Taylor, who was in the middle of a divorce from her French husband, Henri-Michel.

In The Chrismukk-huh?, a special episode about what Newport would have been if Ryan never came into their lives, Sandy ends up being married to Julie Cooper-Nichol after his divorce from Kirsten, and is running for the position of Mayor. In an attempt to get out of the alternate universe, Ryan and Taylor try to set Sandy and Kirsten back together, something Ryan found he had to do on his own once Taylor slipped out of her coma. He ends up being sent to jail by Julie, but it was Sandy who bailed him out, just like in the real world. It was also Sandy who explains to Ryan about what went wrong and how everyone ended up that way in the alternate universe, saying that after Marissa's death in Tijuana, everyone got stuck.

In The The Earth Girls Are Easy, Sandy bumps into a man at the New Years Eve party at The Yacht Club and realises that he has seen him before. He investigates further and the man is revealed to be Ryan's father, Frank Atwood. In The My Two Dads, Sandy meets Frank, who wants to see Ryan. Sandy tells Ryan but he refuses to see him. It is after that Frank tells Sandy that he has cancer. Kirsten invites him to dinner at the Cohen residence but Sandy is suspicious of Frank's story. It is later revealed that Frank lied about having cancer, in an attempt to see Ryan. They get into a fight with Sandy punching Frank in the face.

In the twelfth episode of the fourth season, The Groundhog Day, Sandy helps in the preparation for Kirsten's 40th birthday. He finds a mailtruck, exactly the same model as the one that both of them lived in Berkeley, while his real present to her was two first-class tickets around the world. When he asks, "Not bad, huh?" to a stunned Kirsten, she announces that she can top that. They go and talk in private, and Kirsten announces to Sandy that she's pregnant, that they're having a baby.

The Case of the Franks reveals how Sandy and Kirsten met in Berkeley. In the same episode, as Kirsten is haunted by something she's done many years ago, she admits to Sandy that she has a secret, something that she has never told him before. Sandy learns that just before they met, Kirsten had an abortion, and the baby had been Jimmy Cooper's.

After an earthquake hits Newport Beach in The Shake Up, Sandy finds Kirsten on the ground, and tries to help her up, but had difficulties because of the falling objects around them. Instead, he tries to protect her by covering her.

In The Night Moves, Sandy takes charge of the situation post the earthquake. However he leaves for the hospital when Kirsten falls from the stairs from an aftershock. At the hospital, Sandy and Kirsten discover that they are going to have a daughter.

Six months later, he and Kirsten move to Berkeley; back to the house where they had Seth. It is in this house that Seth and Ryan's sister, Sophie Rose, starts her life. 5 years later, Sandy becomes a law lecturer (possibly a professor) at UC Berkeley.

• Sophie Cohen (mother)
  • Unnamed Cohen (younger brother, never seen in show)
  • Unnamed Cohen (younger sister, never seen in show)
  • Unnamed (Full name unknown. Nephew, never seen in show.)
• Caleb Nichol (father-in-law) (deceased)
• Rose Nichol (mother-in-law) (deceased)
  • Hailey Nichol (sister-in-law)
  • Kirsten Cohen (wife)
    • Seth Cohen (son)
    • Ryan Atwood (adopted son)
    • Sophie Rose Cohen (daughter)
    • Summer Roberts (daughter-in-law)

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