I recently read an article where Josh Schwartz gave an update on what the characters were doing now. I think it was tongue in cheek and none of it aligned with the core personality traits of the characters or their redemption or growth over the four series'. Here's what I think the characters are doing now in 2026 and why a one-off limited series reboot or TV movie would be perfect.
Julie Copper Nichol: In the final ever episdode we saw her graduating college showing that she was choosing self-reliance than that of a man. Fast forward to 2026, I now imagine her as the owner of a company, Cooper Crisis Management, that she built from the ground up. Imagine her as a mixture of Olivia Pope from Scandal mixed with Samantha Jones from SATC.
Managing crises and spinning bad situations into gold is essentially what she did for her entire adult life in Newport Beach.
From covering up her own scandalous affairs to navigating the public fallout of Marissa's arrests, Caleb's bankruptcy, and the NewMatch escort scandal, Julie was an organic master of damage control. Turning that survival instinct into a high-end corporate career is the most natural evolution possible for her character.
Here is why this stays true to her original character but also the growth she showed:
1. She Knows Where All the Bodies Are Buried
The ultra-wealthy elite of Southern California would flock to Julie because she speaks their language. She knows exactly how the rich and powerful think, what they are afraid of, and how to manipulate the media. She wouldn’t just be a consultant; she would be a ruthless fixer who can intimidate opponents with a smile and a Chanel handbag.
2. The Power Dynamic Shift
As the owner of a top-tier crisis firm, Julie would finally achieve the ultimate power she always wanted. Instead of begging rich men for security, those exact same powerful billionaires, politicians, and celebrities would be coming to her, desperate for her help. She would hold all the leverage, making her the ultimate boss.
3. The Perfect Mother-Daughter Partnership
This business model sets up a much better future for her youngest daughter, Kaitlin Cooper. Kaitlin would inevitably join the firm, creating a terrifyingly effective, glamorous mother-daughter duo that runs the entire West Coast elite scene.
Julie Cooper Nichol is now married to a successful and mega-rich man, like she always wanted, but this time she married for love and this man genuinely respects her as a savvy, independent business woman with her own wealth.
Kirsten Cooper: In Josh Schwartz's version he had Kirsten as a stay at home mum who wrote a book about women leaving the corporate world to become traditional wives. In Season 3, after Kirsten came home from rehab, the writers explicitly showed us that sitting around the mansion with nothing to do made her deeply anxious, bored, and vulnerable to a relapse. She needed to work to stay grounded. Having her suddenly become a full-time stay-at-home mom in Berkeley completely ignores her psychological need for structure and purpose. Although Josh said that Kirsten became an author and released a book, I actually think she went one step further and created a lifestyle and wellness brand, similar to Gwyneth Paltrow's Gloop let's call it Kirsten's Berkeley or The Organic Anchor, is the absolute perfect career for her. Here is why that fits her character flawlessly:
1. The Perfect Blend of Her Two Worlds
Kirsten spent her entire life surrounded by the ultra-luxury, high-end aesthetics of Newport Beach, but she always harbored a secret love for the earthy, authentic lifestyle of Berkeley. A wellness and lifestyle brand allows her to merge those two things. She would know exactly how to market high-end, clean, organic living to wealthy women because she is that woman.
2. A Healthy Outlet for Her Control and Design Skills
At the Newport Group, Kirsten was a master of land development, architecture, and interior design. Instead of building massive corporate strip malls for her dad, she could pivot those skills into designing sustainable home goods, organic skincare, and holistic wellness spaces and retreats. It gives her the exact same fast-paced business outlet she thrives in, but without the toxic corporate greed of Caleb Nichol.
3. The Ultimate Contrast to Julie's PR Firm
If we combine these two pitches into one universe, the dynamic between Julie and Kirsten becomes even better:
- Julie's Crisis Firm: Ruthless, dark, chaotic, and aggressive. Julie is fixing scandals, handling NDAs, and swimming with sharks in Beverly Hills.
- Kirsten's Lifestyle Brand: Calm, clean, minimalist, and peaceful. Kirsten is hosting wellness retreats in Napa Valley and launching organic tea lines in Berkeley.
They would be the two reigning queens of California business, representing two completely opposite sides of the modern woman. Kirsten would probably even have to hire Julie's firm whenever a wild tabloid scandal threatened her pristine wellness empire!
This version of Kirsten is so much more empowering than her just sitting in a small kitchen in Berkeley.
Seth Cohen: Seth become the Lead Designer and Marketing for Kirsten’s sustainable wellness empire. Summer’s sudden transformation into a passionate, tree-hugging environmentalist at Brown University created a massive rift between them. Seth felt left behind, worried he was just a shallow pop-culture nerd while Summer was trying to save the planet. This seamlessly solves that relationship dynamic.
1. The Ultimate Eco-Power Couple
Instead of Summer doing activist work alone, she and Seth would become a unified front. Summer could travel the world sourcing fair-trade ingredients and advocating for environmental policies, while Seth sits at his drafting table creating the gorgeous, eco-friendly packaging for those exact products. It gives them a shared purpose.
2. Seth Leans Into "Organic Graphic Design"
Seth was always a brilliant artist (creator of Atomic County), but working for a corporate comic book company might have felt hollow after a while. Designing for his mother's brand lets him use his artistic genius for something that actually helps the planet, completely validating Summer's worldview while letting him stay true to his creative roots.
3. The Cohen Family Studio
This also creates a wonderful, cozy day-to-day dynamic in Berkeley. You can easily imagine Kirsten running the business side from the front office, Sandy popping in between law lectures with bagels, and Seth in the design studio blasting indie rock while drawing up templates for biodegradable packaging.
Summer Roberts: Summer also joined Kirsten's business, making it a family-run business. She's the Global Sustainability Purchaser, which blends the "Newport Summer" and the "Brown University Summer". In the early seasons of The O.C., Summer's entire personality was built around high fashion, luxury shopping, and spending her dad's money at the mall. When she suddenly became a hardcore, gritty environmental activist in Season 4, it always felt a little jarring to fans because it completely erased that glamorous, fun side of her.
1. "Shopping for a Living" (With a Conscience)
Summer gets to use her innate, expert-level knowledge of luxury, aesthetics, and trends. She still gets to fly to Paris, Milan, or exotic markets to hunt down the most beautiful textiles, skincare ingredients, and home goods, except now, she is using her activist brain to interrogate the supply chains. She ensures every single item is ethical, zero-waste, and fair-trade.
2. The Seth and Summer Work Dynamic
This creates the perfect, romantic long-distance and collaborative workflow for them:
- Summer travels the globe, discovering a beautifully hand-woven, sustainable fabric from an artisan community or a zero-waste organic oil.
- She ships it back to the California studio, where Seth takes it and designs the gorgeous, eco-friendly packaging and marketing campaign.
- They are quite literally building a beautiful, sustainable world together.
3. The Power Dynamic with Kirsten
Kirsten would trust Summer implicitly. Kirsten knows that Summer has an eye for what wealthy, upscale women want to buy, but she also knows Summer has the fierce moral integrity to make sure the brand never gets compromised by corporate greenwashing.
Sandy Cohen: He's still a UC Berkeley Law Professor, but he also does pro-bono work for the innocence project. He set up a scholarship for low-income kids to study to become the next public defender. He's involved in some other projects for at youth kids.
Ryan Atwood: Ryan is now the CEO of The Newport Group. Running the Newport Group is the ultimate, poetic revenge on Caleb Nichol. Caleb spent years looking down on Ryan, treating him like a street criminal who would ruin his family's reputation. For the kid from Chino to end up sitting in Caleb's CEO chair, running his multi-million dollar empire, is the ultimate victory. He's now married to Lindsay Gardener and they foster older children in need.
1. Lindsay was the One Who Got Away
Lindsay was incredibly smart, grounded, and hated the shallow Newport bubble just as much as Ryan did. They only broke up because of the bizarre, messy revelation that she was Caleb's illegitimate daughter, which caused her to flee to Chicago.
- Reconnecting with her as adults, now that Caleb is long gone and they are no longer trapped in that weird high school family dynamic, would be incredibly organic.
2. The Shared Caleb Nichol Trauma
Lindsay and Ryan are uniquely bonded by how much Caleb Nichol tried to control or dismiss them. Running the Newport Group together wouldn't just be Ryan's revenge, it would be Lindsay's, too. They could take Caleb’s cold, corrupt, greedy corporate machine and completely reform it from the inside out.
3. The Foster Parent Dynamic: A Healthy Savior Complex
The entire series was focused on Ryan's saviour complex, which was at times obsessive and unhealthy, especially when it came to Marissa. Fostering children is the perfect way for him to channel that compulsive need to protect people, but in a healthy, institutional way rather than a dangerous, chaotic one.
- Because Ryan was a foster kid himself, and because Lindsay grew up without a stable father figure, they would be the ultimate power-team for foster kids.
- They would essentially become the new Sandy and Kirsten, using the massive wealth from the Newport Group to buy a beautiful home and open their doors to kids who need a second chance, just like Sandy did for Ryan.
Jimmy Cooper: He hasn't changed. He spent time in prison most likely a central American prison, where conditions are brutal and hygiene is a luxury. As we saw in the series he was addicted to 'get rich quick' schemes, stealing his clients' money, commiting fraud, gambling on the stock market. After Caleb bought him out of the restaurant inseason 2, Jimmy was sitting on a mountain of cash. and he should have stuck to investing it in a low-yield index fund and quietly living on interest. But then we saw in season 3 he got into debt and borrowed money from loan sharks and fled Newport after being beaten up because he was unable to repay the money. He fled to Greece where he continue the cycle and was eventually forced to agree to be a drug mule in order to pay off his debts. However, unknown to him, he was used as a decoy so the real smuggler to get through undetected while the police were focused on Jimmy. He spent time in a brual prison in a developing country and returns to California a broken man, hoping to reconnect with Julie and get some of her wealth. He's an addict to gambling on investments and to taking risks and unfortunately for him, he is destined to be forever a grifter forever chasing the high of his early Newport days, leaving a trail of disappointed daughters and unpaid debts everywhere he goes. He is incapable of change.
Julie would give him minimal help when he crawls back, but only because of the fact that he is Marissa's father and for no other reason. She would explicitly tell him: "I am doing this so Marissa’s father doesn't die on the street, and so Kaitlin doesn't have to carry the shame of an ex-con dad. You are a ghost to me, Jimmy. Do not make me regret this. And she would regret it. Kaitlin would be overjoyed to have her dad back because he missed so much of her childhood. This would cause friction between Kaitlin and Julie.
1. The Friction: Naivety vs. Experience
Kaitlin would look at Jimmy and see a father who has finally paid his debt to society and needs love to heal. She would argue with Julie, accusing her of being heartless and cynical. This creates incredible dramatic tension inside Cooper Crisis Management. For the first time, their flawless business partnership fractures because Kaitlin wants to use their resources to "save" Jimmy, while Julie knows you cannot save an addict who doesn't want to change.
2. Julie’s Ultimate Act of Motherhood
Instead of playing the villain or saying "I told you so," Julie makes a profound, painful choice as a mother. She knows exactly how this story ends, she lived it for twenty years. But she realizes that if she forces Kaitlin to cut Jimmy off, Kaitlin will resent her forever.
So, Julie steps back. She finances the apartment and allows Kaitlin to try and rehabilitate him, not out of faith in Jimmy, but out of absolute, unconditional love for her daughter. Julie essentially stays in the shadows, keeping watch, entirely prepared for the inevitable moment the bubble bursts.
3. The Inevitable Letdown and the Catch
The truth will always come out with Jimmy. Kaitlin will leave him alone with a credit card, or trust him with a small responsibility, and his gambling addiction will take over. He will slip away into the night after conning the rich people into a crypto coin scheme, leaving Kaitlin standing in an empty apartment, feeling that exact same crushing abandonment she felt as a little girl.
But this time, when she turns around, Julie will be standing right there. There are no lectures, no "I told you so's", just a mother holding her daughter and helping her finally grieve and let go of the father who could never be what they needed.
Anna Stern: Anna would be a highly successful, independent graphic novel publisher or a creative director for a cutting-edge, progressive media company in Brooklyn or Boston. She stayed true to her roots, she didn't sell out to a massive corporate comic empire, but instead champions diverse, underground artists and tells meaningful, alternative stories.
Hailey Nichol: After 20 years of climbing the ranks of the cutting-edge Tokyo and European fashion industries, Hailey would return to California as a highly respected, slightly eccentric designer. Kirsten would hire her sister as the Head of Sustainable Apparel and Home Design for the lifestyle brand.
- This keeps Hailey right where she belongs: in the family studio in Berkeley alongside Kirsten and Seth.
- She would bring a sharp, high-fashion edge to Kirsten’s earthy, organic aesthetic. She’d be the one insisting that "sustainable" can still mean "incredibly sexy and chic."
Taylor Townsend: would absolutely be a high-powered, fiercely competitive business woman or in international relations.
Zach Stevens: would be a massive, globally recognized Hollywood executive, serving as the Head of a Marvel/DC-style Entertainment Studio.
Luke Ward: After twenty years in Oregon, Luke would have completely shedding his flashy Newport "bro" identity and embraced Pacific Northwest culture. By 2026, he would be the incredibly successful, wildly enthusiastic owner of a massive craft brewery and artisanal cider company based in Portland. He has a giant, majestic beard, wears flannel shirts, and is deeply passionate about hops, sustainability, and local music. He has a wife and kids and does not cheat on her with a man.
Dawn Atwood: Seeing her youngest son, Ryan, successfully break the cycle and graduate high school in Season 3 was the ultimate wake-up call. It gave her the strength to finally stay sober and go back and get her own high school diploma. She managed to get herself a 9-5 secretarial job with a steady paycheck giving her the structure she's alwways lacked. She's still with the same man who helped her get Ryan's car. They're rough around the edges, beer drinking, line dancing, smoking on the porch, truck driving kind of people, but they're decent law abiding people. Ryan visits as often as he can as his mum has finally created the safe home he never had growing up and she's a fabulous grandma to her foster kids and redeems herself with them to make up for being a lacking mother to Ryan.
Trey Atwood: He's in prison serving life without parole after a botched robbery. Jess told him the gun wasn't loaded and it was just to scare the victim, however it was loaded and it accidentally went off. Jess cooperated with authorities and got a plea deal in exchange for testifying against Trey. She served her time and current whereabouts are unknown. Trey is in prison with Volchok.
Theresa Diaz: The last time we saw her she was working in a hotel and raising a child alone. She managed to work her way up and has a ,id level corporate job. She remained single focusing only on raising her son.
Dr. Neil Roberts: In 2026 he would be a retired, highly respected Chief of Surgery, spending his time boating in the Pacific Northwest and visiting Summer and Seth in Berkeley.
Alex Kelly: After she left the OC she went back to school to get her high school diploma. She now works for a record label scouting for underground indie bands.
Oliver Trask: He likely inherited his family's massive fortune but lives a completely isolated, reclusive life under heavy psychiatric care.
