15 Times Marissa Cooper Was Way Too Much

You know a character isn't that amazing when the majority of people are happy when she gets killed off a show. You know, that just might be a sign. Marissa Cooper might have been the prettiest girl in The O.C. and all of our hopes and dreams when it comes to hair, height, and cheekbones, but she was one of the most annoying characters to ever grace our TV screens. There's certainly no doubt that she was the most irritating character on the popular teen drama, and she was up against some totally blood-boiling contenders. To sum Marissa up, she was the classic popular girl with spoiled rich roots who couldn't help herself. Yes, some pretty effed-up stuff did happen to her throughout the course of the show, but the way she dealt with her life's problems and her general attitude towards others made her pretty unlikeable. Here are 15 times Marissa was just way too much for us to handle.

15 When She Dated Luke

When we first met Marissa, she was in a long-term relationship with Luke Ward, the stereotypical water polo player who was a total bully and didn't realize that his girlfriend was a human, not an object. Though he did clean up his act, later on, Luke was a downright terrible person in the first season, and even though that wasn't Marissa's fault, she stayed with him all the same. She was either too silly to notice that the way he treated her was gross and inappropriate, or she noticed but was fine with it. Somebody needed to shake her! She finally got rid of him when she caught him cheating on her with one of her BFFs, Holly Fischer, but at this point, she'd been his girlfriend since the freaking fifth grade. How long do you have to stay with a douchebag before you realize you're better off without them, Marissa? Sheesh.

14 When She Couldn't See Through Oliver's BS

Marissa and Ryan's first relationship meltdown was, of course, brought about by Marissa, and her failure to see the mentally unstable Oliver Trask for what he was. So Marissa befriended Oliver in her shrink's office, and then he slowly built an obsession with her, which was obvious to everyone except her! Okay, Oliver was a pathological liar and pretty much fooled people for fun… but Marissa had a good friend in Ryan who tried to make her see that he was dangerous AF, and she still chose not to believe him. If she had put half as much effort into her relationship with Ryan as she did into defending Oliver and trying to protect her friendship with him, the show could have turned out so differently. At this point, fans were probably hoping that Marissa would realize that she couldn't read people and learn to do it before she got herself into more trouble…

13 When She Lead Johnny On

After Marissa got expelled from Harbor, she attended Newport Union where she met Johnny, the ultra-cute cutie who was too cute for words. His girlfriend was cheating on him with his worst enemy, but generally, he was like this huge breath of fresh air for Marissa and the usual toxic environment she created for herself. Anyway, Johnny fell in love with Marissa as she tried to have his back through his break up. That wasn't really her fault, but it sure would have been helpful if she could have noticed his growing feelings and stopped leading him on before it was too late! She ended up waiting until he was hopelessly in love, then handballed him off to her sister Kaitlin after realizing that she was SURE Ryan was her soulmate (this week) and it all ended up with Johnny getting depressed, drunk and plummeting to his death from a beachside cliff.

12 When She Used DJ

In one of her plots to get revenge on her mother, the evil-yet-awesome Julie Cooper, and get over Ryan (again), Marissa started things up with DJ, the steamy yard dude. Our issue is that even though he was ridiculously attractive, the guy wasn't just a piece of meat that she could use in her schemes. He was actually a real person with feelings, you know? If anybody began a relationship with Marissa purely to make somebody else jealous and get over an ex (whom they're never ever getting over anyway), she'd be pretty annoyed. Even if she didn't realize it at first (because Marissa never really knew how she felt or why she did the stupid stuff she did), she was totally using him! She cast him aside and told him that what they had didn't mean anything, but then scurried back when Ryan decided that it definitely did mean something!

11 When She Trusted Trey

Ugh! If we had a dollar for every time Marissa trusted somebody she shouldn't have… Well, you know the rest. To anyone with half a brain, Trey Atwood wasn't great news. There's no need to be rude and exclude him, but should you be having alone time with him on a beach? No, Marissa, you shouldn't. That doesn't excuse him trying to attack her, which was 100% his fault, but did she have to always trust the people that she shouldn't trust? Especially after Ryan warned her about him, she tossed Ryan's feelings aside and went ahead and trusted him anyway. Remember that Ryan tended to be able to judge people rather well, and was right in the whole Oliver situation, and clearly knew his own brother better than anyone else, and had never given Marissa a reason not to listen to him. But she didn't anyway. Don't worry about that grinding sound-it's just our teeth.

10 When She Spiraled Out Of Control

As we said, Marissa did go through a lot. Her dad was a train wreck, her mom was evil and her first boyfriend was cheating on her. But if we can all just get a grip for two seconds, Marissa had always had everything she'd ever wanted, could have doubled as a Victoria's Secret model, and had plenty of opportunities to help herself through all this crap. Other than when she had to move into the mobile home with Julie, she had all the money in the world at her fingertips to get her whatever help she needed, but instead, she constantly chose to feel sorry for herself. Anytime anything happened, she responded with violent drinking benders and shoplifting. Let's not forget that she had three solid friends in Ryan, Summer, and Seth (the last of which she ignored for years), but she treated them like dirt when they tried to help.

9 When She Repeated Her Mistakes

Everybody makes mistakes, sure, but our patience ran super thin when Marissa made the same mistakes over and over, and never learned from them. Seriously, if she hadn't died in the third season, she would have led people on for the rest of her life, self-destructing when things got difficult, and just ruining everybody's lives in general. As we've said, Marissa's classic flaw was that she just couldn't read people when everyone else could, but instead of saying, “Oops, I totally misjudged Oliver. I better listen the next time someone warns me about somebody being dangerous!” she proceeded to ignore all advice and chase the bad boys. She didn't learn that although life gets tough, nearly drinking yourself to death and lashing out at the people who love you doesn't make it that much better. The girl just needed to write “I will not screw up” 1000 times on a blackboard.

8 When She Was The Worst BFF

Summer Roberts, Marissa's BFF, might have had her share of flaws, but the friendship between the two was so one-sided it's not funny. All their deep and meaningful conversations were centered on Ryan, and Marissa's myriad of other problems, whereas Summer went through her own issues and rarely got the chance to vent in between Marissa's smorgasbord of BS. After every single one of Marissa's attention-seeking benders and phases, Summer was there for her with loving advice. And Marissa usually got mad at her for stepping in and taking a stand. Excuse her for trying to save you from yourself, Marissa. The only time that Summer was a bad friend to Marissa was in the early days when she and Holly left Marissa passed out on her doorstep, but we feel like that's because the writers hadn't fully grasped how they wanted the character to be. So that's not her fault!

7 When She Treated Ryan Badly

Marissa was gorgeous, but let's just start this off by saying that she could have done a lot worse than Ryan Atwood. He was a rude boy that's good to her with street credibility (thanks, Destiny's Child), he was the only guy who ever treated her right, and he looked like a baby Russell Crowe. You'd think she would have stepped back and said, “Wow, I'm so lucky to have this guy who always risks it all to save me, and is the only source of stability I have.” She didn't, though. She ruined his life and ran off crying every time he tried to set her straight. Plus, Ryan had been through a lot too, and he came to Newport under the wing of Sandy Cohen to start a new life. She ripped that all apart with her inability to keep it together. Thank goodness for Taylor. There, we said it.

6 When She Still Relied On Ryan

Even though we don't think that Marissa appreciated Ryan nearly as much as she should have, she was still absolutely incapable of surviving without him coming along to save the day. After everything she put him through (seriously, after they hung out he must have just collapsed on his bed in exhaustion) he still showed up to rescue her. It's nice to have somebody to rescue you, but particularly when you're going to be a huge strain on their life and completely undeserving of them, you should learn how to save yourself every now and then. Marissa shooting Trey was just about the only proactive thing she ever did-the rest of the time she just lost control and left a path of destruction wherever she goes. She was also lucky to have Summer there to save her butt and make informed decisions on her behalf. The girl needed to really sort herself out!

5 When She Brought Volchok To The Prom

How many times did we have to go through this?! For those of you who don't remember, Kevin Volchok was the guy who slept with Johnny's girlfriend while she was still with him. So most of us could tell from then that he didn't have super strong morals. Despite this, Marissa was attracted to him and looked past his drug and alcohol behaviors (because she still hadn't learned how those things turn out!) all because she saw him watching The Sound of Music. Yes, in Marissa's mind, watching Julie Andrews for an hour canceled out being a liar, cheater, and all round scary AF guy. It wasn't even enough that Marissa started things up with Volchok when she clearly shouldn't have, but she had to drag everyone else down with her by bringing him to their prom. Ugh, somebody should have just tied her up so she couldn't wreak any more havoc.

4 When She Used Alex

You know how we feel about Marissa being super entitled and using people, and she definitely used Alex. Fair enough if Marissa genuinely wanted to experiment, but Julie pointed out herself that she was merely using Alex to get back at her. For the duration of the time that Marissa was unsure about how she felt about Ryan and which path she should be taking, it's clear to the rest of humanity that she wasn't ever going to love anybody else (or we should say, need anyone else) the way she did him. So again, this was just Marissa dragging somebody else into her issues without a single care for them. It's actually heartbreaking when you love someone more than they love you, but doing this to someone never crossed Marissa's mind. If she didn't know that she wasn't serious about these people, she seriously needed to get in tune with her feelings!

3 When She Was Selfish

Marissa was just convinced from the get-go that nobody else in the world had it as difficult as she did, and so she was justified in completely losing the plot every time life got tough. Yes, having your dad involved in a Ponzi scheme and your mom sleeping with your ex is terrible. But you know what is also terrible? Seth having no friends for his first sixteen or so years of life. Kaitlin being shoved off to boarding school. Marissa was just privileged in so many ways that we can't see how she had no choice but to steal and go nuts. She also never took anyone else's problems seriously. Remember when Ryan got mad because she was drinking, but she couldn't understand why? Um, because while you were in Newport being the most popular girl in school and lounging by your pool, he was living with an alcoholic mother. Gosh.

2 When She Went To Tijuana

This technically falls under the same category as all of Marissa's out-of-control benders, but this one deserves a lane of its own considering she nearly died, and it was the first time we saw how unhinged she secretly was. So Marissa found out that Luke was cheating on her with Holly, and then wandered off by herself in Tijuana, took a bunch of drugs and passed out. This might be a controversial opinion, but we so don't think this was justified. It's heartbreaking that he cheated (and also that her parents were splitting up at the time), but Marissa's life was worth more than both of those things! And not to mention, she was on a road trip with Ryan Atwood and Seth Cohen… yeah, there was a lot to look forward to, girl. She also had no regard for any of the people that truly cared about her (Ryan, Summer, and her family).

1 When She Died

Okay, this one wasn't her fault. But still. The whole thing had cosmic repercussions for other characters on the show (who we actually like), and Marissa kind of walked straight into the whole thing by getting involved with Volchok in the first place. No, she didn't ask him to ram her car, cause the crash and give her injuries that would kill her, but she did get involved with him when everyone told her not to after she'd made the same mistake ten billion times. We were secretly not that devastated when Marissa was killed off the show (nowhere near as devastated as we would have been if it had been Summer!) but it was terrible because of the mark it left on Summer, Ryan, and Julie, as well as everyone else. See? Even in death, Marissa was annoying AF to us and a tornado of devastation to the people around her.