text: when is the oc's season finale?!? i havent seen past episode 21- (season 3... of course.. lol) whats going on now?! the season finale is may 18th: it's entitled, "the graduates".  summary of episode 21 entitled “the dawn patrol” aired: 4/13/06:  it’s dinner time at the cohen household. ryan and seth whisper conspiratorially about the wisdom of seth lying to summer about brown. seth still stands behind his decision, but not so much that he wants to tell his parents about it. kirsten mentions that tickets for graduation have come in, and ryan suggests giving his to the nana since he won’t be needing them. kirsten thinks ryan should maybe invite his mom. ryan thinks maybe he should avoid the topic and hope it just goes away.  later, kirsten drops in on the pool house, apologizing for making ryan uncomfortable. but ryan is actually aware of the reality of the situation. this could be his last chance to see his mom. so it’s off to albuquerque.   when marissa gets out of the shower the next morning, volchok is waiting in her bedroom. and he’s ready to get her out of that robe and get it on. but that will have to wait, because julie’s in the doorway and she already doesn’t like volchok. it’s cool. volchok doesn’t have to stick around for this. julie tells marissa no more volchok, which is usually just the impetus marissa needs to do something. if anything, julie should’ve told marissa to marry volchok. then she would’ve dumped him before lunch.  at harbor, summer glumly shuffles around the student lounge. seth watches her longingly from a distance, but doesn’t say anything. taylor takes in the scene and then joins summer at her table. but not matter what optimistic viewpoint taylor has to share, summer doesn’t want to hear it. she’d rather rant and rave about what seth did to her. she can’t figure it out either, because she’s gotten even hotter this year and there’s no way a guy like seth could walk away from her unless he was hiding something. and she’s determined to get to the bottom of it.   matt’s enjoying a morning cocktail at the yacht club when sandy arrives for a meeting they’d planned. matt hands sandy a projection of calculated future earnings, with a little pain and suffering cash thrown in. either matt gets his money from griffin or he tells the da about the documents he has on griffin. sandy realizes he’s being blackmailed for the second time in a week.  marissa drops by volchok’s ultra cool loft to hang out. at the same time, ryan arrives at a small diner in albuquerque looking for his mother. but her shift doesn’t start for a couple of hours. he’ll be back. dawn’s young coworker, chloe, is more than pleased to see somebody as cute as ryan show up. hopefully she has a troubled past, or else ryan just won’t be into her.   meanwhile, in calculus class, summer frantically tries to get seth’s attention. she then bursts out laughing and explains to the annoyed teacher that seth’s dead-on impersonation of the teacher’s penguin walk was cracking her up. the teacher gives them both weekend detention. in the hallway, summer explains that she broke up with him, she has the power to revoke said breakup. which she is doing until he can sufficiently explain what his deal is lately. she kisses him and then reports to dr. kim’s office. seth is slightly confused, to say the least.  after nightfall, ryan heads back to the diner. he sees his mom slinging club sandwiches and flirting with a biker and decides he’d rather not go in. but when he turns to leave, chloe asks where he’s going. and if he’s not going inside, would he like to go somewhere with her? indeed he would.   just then, marissa and volchok are about to go downtown when there’s a knock at the door. from outside, julie calls out for marissa. marissa hides as volchok lets julie in. julie explains to volchok that’s he just one in a long line of marissa’s phases, and it’s inevitable that she’ll wise up one day and leave him in the dust. marissa overhears the entire conversation. 