The premiere shows a new life for Ryan Atwood, a struggling 17 year old high school student from Chino, California. He is sent to jail and meets his attorney, Sanford Cohen, who gets him out. Sandy accepts him in his house and Ryan is introduced to this new life of luxury and wealth. He now lives with Sandy, his wife Kirsten, and their 16-year-old son, the geeky-good looking Seth. During the season, Ryan and Marissa, the beautiful next-door neighbor, develop a relationship despite Marissa having a boyfriend, the jock Luke. Seth had always been in love with Summer, Marissa's best friend, but she didn't even know his name. Later on they fall in love despite Seth's brief relationship with Anna Stern. Jimmy, Marissa's dad, lands in financial trouble, so Julie, his wife, leaves him. Ryan and Marissa's relationship falls apart when new kid on the block Oliver Trask comes to town. His overpossessive and turbulent past drives a wedge in between Ryan and Marissa's relationship leading to their break up. Trask then threatens to kill himself but is talked out of doing so by Ryan. Luke starts dating Julie secretly. Marissa finds out and the couple has to break up. Near the end of the season, Julie and Caleb, Kirsten's father, get married. Ryan discovers that he may be the father of the unborn child of his ex-girlfriend, Theresa, who Ryan has a brief relationship with after his break up with Marissa. He decides to leave the Cohen family and his current girlfriend, Marissa, to support her through her pregnancy. Upon finding out that Ryan is moving back to Chino with Theresa, Seth sails away in his boat, leaving farewell notes for his parents and Summer.
Season two
At the start of the season, it is revealed that Seth ran away to Portland, Oregon, where he has been staying with Luke and Luke's father. Ryan has spent the summer in Chino, living with Theresa Diaz, the supposed pregnant woman dating Ryan, and her mother, and working on a construction site. Sandy and Kirsten try to get their boys to come back home, but Seth will not go back unless Ryan returns. As Ryan realizes over time he would be happier back in Orange County with the Cohens, Theresa tells Ryan that she lost the baby. This prompts Ryan and Seth to return to Newport. Summer is mad at Seth for leaving, so she has a new boyfriend, Zach Stevens. They date during a large part of the season. During their dating period, Seth tries multiple times to win Summer back by proving he has changed. Marissa is also dating someone new, her gardener D.J., since she thought Ryan was not coming back. D.J. realizes she is only using him to piss off her mom, so he breaks up with her. Seth ends up working under Alex at the Bait Shop. They have a brief relationship, but Alex, revealed to be bisexual, starts dating Marissa. Meanwhile Julie and Caleb have sent Marissa's sister Kaitlin off to boarding school. Julie is unhappy, since she only got married for money, and she starts seeing her ex-husband Jimmy again. In the end, Caleb stated that he knew about their affair and was willing to overlook it. However he believes she is having a relationship with an ex-boyfriend with whom she made a sex tape in the 80's and wants to divorce her. Also, Ryan starts a relationship with Lindsay, a new girl at school. Their relationship flounders when Newport finds out that she is the love child of Caleb and half-sister to Kirsten, making her Ryan's aunt by adoption, at Seth's Chrismukkah party. A blood test was then taken and Caleb finds out that Lindsay was, indeed, his daughter, but Lindsay decides to move away despite the news. After Lindsay and her mother move to Chicago, Ryan's brother Trey is released from prison. As he has nowhere else to go, the Cohens invite him to stay with them while he gets his life in order. Ryan does not trust Trey very much and accuses him of stealing a very expensive watch. Trey hadn't stolen the watch, he had gone back to the store later and bought it for Ryan to thank him. Trey was actually trying to be on his best behavior. However, he soon gets into trouble with drugs, and while high, attempts to rape Marissa. Meanwhile, Kirsten begins drinking heavily, a problem that is further aggravated after her father dies of a heart attack. As the season ends, the Cohens stage an intervention and Kirsten leaves for rehab. Ryan then discovers his brother's attempted rape of Marissa, and confronts Trey. The two fight and Trey is about to kill Ryan when Marissa arrives and shoots Trey to save Ryan.
Season three
The season begins with Kirsten still in rehab and Trey in a coma. Trey eventually comes out of his coma and, after Julie Cooper briefly attempts to blackmail him into blaming Ryan for the shooting, he leaves town. Also in the beginning of the season, after they have waited a long time, Ryan and Marissa have sex the night before she is to move to Hawaii. But her father Jimmy has serious troubles with a mafiosi he can't pay back, and he has to flee without his family to Hawaii, while he was about to marry Julie again. Marissa escapes charges over the shooting, but is expelled from Harbor and is forced to attend Newport Union, a nearby public school. There she meets Johnny, a surfer and his sidekick Chilli. Ryan is also thrown out of Harbor after punching the Dean because he manhandled Marissa. Johnny falls in love with Marissa, and she eventually has to choose between him and Ryan. Ryan is re-admitted to Harbor as it is revealed that the Dean was currently having a sexual relationship with Taylor Townsend. Marissa is re-admitted to Harbor after her friends stage a campaign, with the assistance of Marissa's former rival Taylor. Marissa's younger sister Kaitlin returns from boarding school and takes a liking to Johnny but Marissa can't deny that she has feelings for Johnny; she loves Ryan but her crush on Johnny makes her relationship with Ryan shaky. After Marissa chooses Ryan, a drunk Johnny falls to his death from a cliff on the beach. After the death of Johnny; Kaitlin, distraught with his death returns to boarding school away from the terror. Seth and Summer continue their relationship. Problems include Seth smoking marijuana and skipping his college interview but the two work things out and their relationship stabilizes.Ryan and Marissa become more distant from each other and they both agree that despite the fact that they love each other it isn't working so they break up. Ryan then has a short relationship with Johnny's cousin Sadie before she moves back to her home town. While everything is going on with Marissa, Julie finds comfort with Dr. Roberts, Summer's father, and they finally tell Summer and Marissa about their relationship. Unable to come to terms with Johnny's death and the break up with Ryan, Marissa becomes involved with Kevin Volchok another surfer with a "bad boy" reputation. However, she catches him cheating on her during the prom and ends their relationship. In the third season finale, an intoxicated Volchok, still reeling from his break-up with Marissa, rams Marissa and Ryan off the road and over a cliff. Ryan survives the crash and pulls Marissa from the wrecked car. A sad Ryan looks to Marissa, while she asks him to stay instead of go and get help , they both in love look at each other and then Marissa Cooper dies in Ryan Atwood's arms.
Season four
The season begins with everyone coping with the death of Marissa Cooper. Ryan has moved out of the Cohen household and becomes a cage fighter to deal with his anger. Summer begins attending Brown University, where she throws herself into environmental activism, and avoids calls from Seth, who stays in Newport and finds a job at a comic book shop. Marissa's younger sister Kaitlin returns to Newport from boarding school and starts attending Harbor. Julie, meanwhile, hires a private detective to track down Volchok, who had fled to Mexico. She plans to have Ryan take revenge on Volchok, presumably by killing him. Ultimately, with Seth and Sandy's help, Ryan allows Volchok to turn himself in to the authorities. Ryan subsequently moves back in with the Cohens. In the meantime, Taylor Townsend who is previously thought to have been in Paris attending the Sorbonne, secretly returns to Newport after impulsively marrying a Frenchman. He then refuses to grant her a divorce. Ryan helps her by posing as her lover to get her husband to agree to the divorce, after which she and Ryan begin a romantic relationship. In Chrismukk-huh Ryan receives a letter from Marissa(she wrote it before planning to leave Newport) saying that she still loves him , but she was going so that they could both move on. He finally understands that he will never forget Marissa, however he will have to move on , so he finally says goodbye to Marissa. After releasing rabbits from a laboratory, Summer is suspended from Brown for a semester and returns to California where she and Seth reconcile. Julie Cooper begins a relationship with wealthy Texan businessman Gordon Bullit, however, she soon becomes conflicted when she falls for Ryan's biological father, Frank, who was released from prison. Near the end of the fourth season, Kirsten becomes pregnant with a baby girl, and she and Sandy consider whether Newport is the right place to bring up another child. A powerful earthquake hits Newport, and the Cohens' house is damaged beyond repair. Ryan and Seth go back to Berkeley to convince a gay couple who live in their old house to sell it to them. Kirsten has her baby. At Julie's wedding to Bullit she says "I can't do this without Kiki" so the wedding is brought there so that Kirsten can be with them. After seeing everything that has happened in the house the gay couple decide to sell their house to the Cohens. Ryan and Taylor begin their relationship again when they realize they both love each other still. Julie finally decides to stay single and raise her baby boy alone with Kaitlin and get her life back on track without a man. Fast forward to a few years later when Seth and Summer finally get married, Taylor and Ryan share a look at their wedding (it is up to the viewer to decide whether or not they are together), Julie goes back to college and graduates, where we see Kaitlin, Bullit, Frank, and Ryan's half-brother (again, it is up to the viewer to decide the scenario). Ryan becomes an architect and the show closes with him asking a boy, alone with only a bike, if he needs help just as Sandy helped him in the very first episode. All ends well with Ryan asking the boy, "Hey kid, need help?" The kid looks up and then looks away. (This scene mirrors the opening scene of The O.C., where Sandy offers to help Ryan The O.C.》讲述了生活在纽波特海滨的科恩(Cohen),库珀(cooper)和尼科尔(Nichol)三个家庭的故事,剧中的男主角----问题少年瑞恩.埃伍德(ryan atwood),在另一座城市的贫民区长到18岁,而空想理论家桑迪.科恩,因负责监管瑞恩的生活让他住进了自己位于纽波特海滨的家中。桑迪的妻子凯斯顿----一位美丽又富有的女人,当年的校花,完美的配偶,母亲,女生意人,对瑞恩的到来并不欢迎。她担心瑞恩会对自己年少的儿子塞斯产生不良影响。就这样,充满热情的梦想家瑞恩贸然闯进了这个陌生的世界,却被他的同类排斥在心门之外。虽然桑迪愿意在任何事情上帮助瑞恩,但凯斯顿的冷漠也导致了瑞恩离家出走的一幕……
而让整个情形变得有趣的是住在隔壁的玛丽莎.库珀,一位心灵受伤的美丽女孩,总是安静被动地生活着,瑞恩对她一见钟情,但是玛丽莎已经有了男朋友。这时,玛丽莎那位举止轻率的父亲吉米遇到了财政危机,并威胁要将玛丽莎的生活彻底毁掉……《The O.C.》是一部关于父亲与儿子,丈夫与妻子,正在成长的3个少年的故事,瑞恩的到来成为铸造新联盟的催化剂,旧的火焰重新点燃,而不太可靠的友情也随之诞生……