Marissa in a coma?

I was surfing the internet, and happened to come across several sites on the O.C. It appears that there is an online petition circling to have the O.C. producers "put Marissa in a coma" instead of following through with the obvious death scene. I love the O.C., and Marissa is as big a part of my life as real people, but that plotline is stupid for the following reasons.

1. It's gay.
2. It crosses the line from simply implausible to just plain stupid.
3. It casts the O.C. in the same situation as a soap opera, rather than the serious and realistic drama that it is.

Notice the Dieseleque explosion in the background.

This reminds me of another show that I picked up and watched to exhaustion after it was off the air...Magnum P.I. In the middle of the 6th season of Magnum, Thomas Magnum was killed off, which was supposed to be the end of the show. The show was supposed to end after that season. But alas, the viewers were so outraged that they forced a successful petition to continue the show for another season. So what was the solution the producers of Magnum, P.I. came up with to his obviously dead body, the funeral episode, and the eventful second half of the sixth season? Magnum was in a coma and EVERYBODY dreamed the events of the second half. Needless to say, I couldn't take the seventh season seriously, I was so thrown.

Assuming that Mischa Barton doesn't have a fantastic movie career outside of the O.C., there is the danger that she'll return in a couple of years. Stupid. Absolutely fucking ridiculous. Characters that aren't dead can return, but coma girls are crossing the line. If that's the case, we might as well have Johnny rise as a Vampire and learn three seasons later that Caleb Nichol faked his death to escape financial troubles. I love the O.C. and will not allow this travesty to happen.