Taylor Townsend

Characterization

Background

Taylor is the daughter of Veronica Townsend, a successful sports agent and chair of the parents' committee at The Harbor School. Her unnamed father left them when she was young. The only mention of her father is in episode 3.02 when Summer mentions raffling off a gas guzzling SUV from Taylor's father's dealership, and in an episode in season 4 in which she is trying to convince Ryan to see his father by telling him that her father "lives in San Diego with his new family, and is in Newport once a quarter to check on his car dealership", and tell him that she hasn't spent more than 20 minutes with him since second grade.

Taylor is highly intelligent, quick-witted and over-achieving. She is thought to be multi-lingual, speaking French, Spanish and Korean in several episodes, and narrating a majority of her valedictorian speech in Latin.

Personality

Taylor does not get much attention from her mother and Reeser described her character's "desperate ambition" as a result of troubles in her home life.

Described as the "preppy, double-crossing nemesis of Summer Roberts" who is said to be able "to handle a chainsaw", Taylor Townsend was introduced into the show in the third season as a neurotic and annoying "goody goody" who stalks Seth and attempts to sabotage his relationship with Summer.

Despite being an overachiever, Taylor is also desperately needy and starved of affection and is prone to becoming besotted and obsessed with any man who offers her help or affection. This is largely the result of the lack of a father figure for much of her life and her being emotionally neglected by her perfectionist mother. In season 4, she is often seen in Summer's room or at the Cohens' house to escape her mother's constant put-downs. She was initially portrayed as a manipulative and conniving antagonist of the main characters, particularly Summer.

Character arc

Season 3

Taylor first appears in the third season, as Marissa Cooper is expelled from Harbor High School and thus barred from keeping her position as student social chair. Taylor's gain is part of the fallout from Marissa having shot Trey Atwood in order to defend his brother and her boyfriend, Ryan.

Taylor's power-grabbing encourages an otherwise reluctant Summer to seek the social chair position. Summer's biggest test as social chair comes in organizing the annual school carnival, as she successfully coordinates the mix of rides, food, and events. However, when Summer plans a Fall dance for the school, she is overshadowed by Taylor, who takes credit for it, and the new Dean of Discipline at Harbor.

Initially, only Summer seems aware of Taylor's scheming, while Marissa seems only mildly interested in the goings-on in Taylor's life, and Summer's boyfriend Seth Cohen seems to not believe Summer's story at all. At this particular dance, Summer follows Taylor and catches her kissing Dean Hess in his office. Though she tries to convince Seth of what she's seen, no one will believe her.

In "The Perfect Storm", Summer manipulates Taylor to finally get proof of an affair between her and the Dean to present to Seth by telling the girl that Dean Hess and another faculty member at the school were making out under the bleachers.

Seth and Summer eventually convince Taylor to go to an area motel (the same motel where Luke Ward and Julie Cooper had an affair, as well as where Ryan met up with his onetime girlfriend Theresa Diaz one night) to meet with the "Dean," only to surprise her when they answer the door and begin throwing out accusations. Threatening to tell everyone of the affair, Summer forces Taylor to tell Seth's dad Sandy the truth. Later, Sandy confronts Dean Hess and tricks him into believing that he has pictures of the two of them kissing on his Sidekick. In return for keeping quiet, Sandy tells Hess to let Ryan (whom he kicked out) back into Harbor, and then resign.

Despite being something of a socialite, Taylor is highly looked down upon by her classmates. During "The Swells", classmates threw things at her after she organized a mandatory senior lock-in and attempted speaking to her classmates. Seth came to her rescue, unwittingly gaining Taylor's affection in the process. Taylor, wanting to keep him for herself, refuses to allow a late Summer to come to the lock-in by pretending that she could not hear her. It is also in this episode that we learn why Taylor may be so conniving and manipulative. Her own mother, a highly driven sports agent, is shown as emotionally cold toward her daughter.

Season 4

In Season 4, Taylor secretly arrives back in Newport after attending the Sorbonne University and needs to seek legal advice as she is married to a Frenchman. Henri Michel de Maumaront, her husband, refuses to sign divorce papers, though. She begins hiding out at various locations to avoid running into her mother. Taylor then goes to Brown to visit Summer, and soon returns to Newport and stays with the Cohens. Kirsten Cohen tries to help Taylor through her situation by helping Taylor tell her mother. Taylor eventually does tell Veronica, and in a fury, she kicks Taylor out of her house. Thus, Taylor starts living with the Cohens. In The Metamorphosis, Taylor gets a letter from Henri Michel, again saying that he will not sign a divorce paper, and is asking Taylor to go to France to settle everything. His lawyer eventually shows up and says that the only way the two can get divorced is if one of the party is unfaithful to their marriage. Taylor then tells Henri-Michel's lawyer that she is having an affair with Ryan Atwood. Ryan does not find out about this until he translates the divorce papers he was asked to sign, as Taylor's lover. Ryan soon backs out on Taylor when he finds this out, but Sandy Cohen talks him into helping her.

When Ryan arrives at the meeting place where Taylor and Henri-Michel's lawyer are, he gives Taylor a kiss to "prove" they are together. Henri-Michel's lawyer sees this and agrees to return to France with the news of Taylor's infidelity. Soon, Taylor realizes that she has an infatuation with Ryan and brings to his house a peach torte she prepared herself.

Ryan soon has zzz problems. and when Taylor hears about it, she thinks it's her duty to cure him. So, she pretends to be his sleep therapist in an attempt to seduce him. She uncovers Ryan's unresolved feelings towards his late ex-girlfriend Marissa, and towards Marissa's other ex-boyfriend Kevin Volchok who killed her in a car accident. Once she realizes that she and Ryan weren't meant to be, she just decides to give him some tea, that actually helps him go to sleep. But when Ryan tells her he doesn't know how he feels about her, she tells him to kiss her to see if he feels anything. Once they kiss, she takes advantage a little bit, then stops herself mistaking his silence for indifference. After the kiss, Ryan fantasizes about Taylor washing windows, dancing on the kitchen counter and riding on roller skates, during each of these fantasies Ryan hears Taylor talking dirty to him. Ryan realizes that he likes Taylor and he asks her on the date. However, during the date, Ryan realizes that he isn't ready to begin a new emotional relationship. Taylor tries to make him jealous by paying a homosexual guy named Roger to pretend that he likes her, but he uncovers her move and tells her he's not sure about a relationship, something she says is a long way off, and that any current relations should be purely physical. Taylor and Ryan kiss in a closet and start making out while playing a game of seven minutes in heaven.

Trivia

It was revealed in The Case of the Franks during a flashback set in 1998 when Taylor was 10 years old and attended class with Summer, Seth, Luke, Holly and Marissa (Not seen), Taylor wrote the poem "I Wish I was a Mermaid" and Summer stole it from her and for a very long time Seth had mistaken the poem for Summer's. Also in the flashback, Holly Fischer made fun of her by calling her Taylor Dorksend.

Reception

Rob Lineberger of DVD Verdict described Taylor and the other new characters as "detestable additions to the Season Three cast" but then went on to say that she was "a more likeable version of Paris Geller from Gilmore Girls". Amazon.com described the "Tracy Flick-like Taylor" as "a welcome addition" to season three. Daniel Fienberg of Zap2it described Taylor as going "from recirculated Queen Bee cliche to unexpected quirky charm in a matter of episode[s]."

During the fourth season, Kristin Veitch of E! Online described Taylor Townsend as "the biggest reason we're all still watching the show". Michael Yarish of Yahoo! TV described Reeser's character as a "smart, French-speaking valedictorian [who] became a fan favorite with her sheer exuberance". Alan Sepinwall, a television critic for The Star-Ledger, described Taylor's pairing with Ryan as "inevitable" because she was the "only available, age-appropriate female regular".