The O.C. fans rejoiced on Monday when they were gifted with a Cooper family reunion! Melinda Clarke, who played the role of Julie Cooper on the FOX teen drama, took to Instagram to share a photo of her posing with her TV husband, Tate Donovan, who played Jimmy Cooper, and TV daughter, Mischa Barton, who played Marissa Cooper, during a hangout in Charleston, SC. “SO THIS HAPPENED! Cooper family reunion! Warmed my heart to see these two, @mischabarton and @t8dono, at @tripleellc in Charleston. ❤️❤️❤️❤️@dinehighcotton #theoc,” she captioned the epic photo.
Around the same time Melinda shared her post, Mischa also took to her Instagram story to share another photo that featured Melinda, Tate, and others posing at what appeared to be a restaurant. “Ran into Gossip Girl in Charleston last night what are the chances. just kidding we were there for a reason,” she wrote along with a laughing emoji. “It was truly great to catch up with mom & dad.”
Once both the photos were posted, fans took to the comments section of Melinda’s post to share their excitement over the reunion. “OMG! This made me so happy!” one fan exclaimed while another shared, “THIS SAVED MY ENTIRE YEAR!” A third called the photo “seriously iconic” and a fourth wrote, “Love the three of you so much. We missed the Cooper family.”
Before Melinda and Mischa shared their latest reunion photos, their former O.C. co-star Adam Brody made headlines for commenting on a possible future reboot of the show, which originally aired from 2003 until 2007. “I kind of don’t think it can be done because socially we’re in a different place and we’re in a more conscious place,” he said on Melinda and other O.C. co-star Rachel Bilson‘s podcast, Welcome to the OC, Bitches in Oct. 2021. “While The O.C. claims to be — in a similar sense as a Gossip Girl — while it would sort of say it’s a critique, it’s not. It’s a celebration — it’s a celebration of affluence in my opinion.”
“For me, in a post-Donald Trump America to go, ‘Let’s go back to Orange County,’ I feel like you have to have a real reckoning politically and socially, and is that what people want to see with this show? I don’t know,” he added. “And is there a way to do both? There is, I suppose, but in my eyes, I probably want to torch it more than the fans would want.”