Remember When This Actress Was On 'The O.C.'?

I've lost track of how many times I've rewatched The O.C. since it was unfairly yanked away from the small screen back in 2007, but if I had to estimate, I'd say it's somewhere between six and 100. And every time I put the short-lived, too-good-for-this-universe scripted series in my eyes, I pick up on at least one new detail. Near the end of my current rewatch, for example, I realized something major: Actress/model Bella Thorne was on The O.C.

In the thirteenth episode of the fourth season of The O.C., there is a flashback to elementary school-aged Taylor Townsend reluctantly trading a poem about a mermaid for an invite to Summer Roberts's birthday party. I’d never gave that scene much thought beyond “Man, Summer sure was rude before her face turn," but the other afternoon, I noticed something that made me say "Holy Captain Oats": The bespectacled, horse sweatshirt-clad Taylor in the flashback was played by Bella Thorne.

Yes, before she was ruling the Disney Channel and Neutrogena TV spots, Thorne was on one of the greatest primetime soap operas of all time. And up until a few days ago, I was none the wiser.

Thorne is a member of the elite group of now-famous actors who portrayed a younger iteration of a The O.C. character: Max Greenfield played college-aged Sandy Cohen, and Shailene Woodley was Season 1 Kaitlin Cooper. (Here’s a fun thought experiment: try to picture what the fourth season would’ve been like if the show hadn’t replaced Woodley with Willa Holland. Real weird, right?)

I realize that the Bella Thorne-as-Taylor Townsend thing could be old newsboy hat to you. If that's the case, feel free to roll your eyes and shake your fist and mutter "How dare you call yourself an O.C. superfan" at me. I deserve it.