Episode Report Card Sara M: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Summer Stole Everyone's IQ Points
By Sara M | Season 3 | Episode 9 | Aired on 12.07.2005
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Johnny's home from the hospital, and boy is he needy! In lieu of his mother, who apparently has better things to do than take care of her own son, Marissa steps in to tend to Johnny's every want and need -- except for the one he'd like her to take care of the most. He confesses his feelings for Marissa to Summer, who's thrilled because it means that she totally called it. She's got a lot of mental abilities to be proud of lately, having scored very, very well on her SATs. Well enough, in fact, to realistically consider Brown as a college choice. Seth isn't as happy about this as she thought he would be, since he feels like he's lost the one thing he had over Summer -- being smarter. They fight about it, using peg-legs and tubas as weapons, and then actually talk about their feelings and resolve them. They both apply to Brown and they both hope they get in, and they love each other. Aw! Less-functional couple Marissa and Ryan keep ditching each other, Marissa hearing Johnny's painkiller-fueled confession of love and Ryan winding up at a strip joint, courtesy of Matt, who decides to go there instead of working on a big NewNewport Group project. Sandy fires Matt for this, then re-hires him when Ryan and a stripper (who WENT TO COLLEGE, THANK YOU VERY MUCH) stick up for him. Meanwhile, Kirsten and Julie try to figure out the best business to start up and, after getting their first idea wrong thanks to Julie's being just that irresistible, decide to start a high-end dating service. Ryan and Marissa finally get a chance to talk on the phone, but the show ends before they can really say anything, because even this show knows how boring they are. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
It's a beautiful day in Orange County, as the opening shots of the beach and ocean tell us. People are surfing in the clear water. Johnny gets to watch them from the Ryan Rover. You see, Seth, Ryan, and Marissa are driving Johnny home from the hospital, as opposed to his mother, who I'm starting to think doesn't exist. Hey, what hospital wouldn't discharge a minor patient to three other minors, right? Marissa exposits that, with Chili mysteriously "out of town" (you know how those high-school seniors with no money love to go on vacation!) and Johnny's mother at work (I'm guessing at one of those evil nineteenth-century pre-Union factories that made employees work all the time and wouldn't give anyone time off to pick her freaking son up from the hospital COME ON NOW!), they're all Johnny has. That should really make him feel better. Johnny says he would have been fine taking the bus, and Ryan comments that they haven't had much luck with buses, which doesn't make any sense unless I missed the episode where someone got hit by one. They finally see Johnny's home, and he's all ashamed of the place, even though it's perfectly fine. "The infinity pool's in the back," he jokes. Seth tells him not to "worry," since Ryan grew up in the dark pits of Hell, a.k.a. Chino, so they're used to places like this. Johnny exits the car, claiming that he doesn't need anyone's help in getting into the house and doesn't want to make them late for school. I have to say, the way those kids can get so much done in the early morning never ceases to amaze me. I could barely manage to get to my locker before school started, and here they are picking people up from the hospital and having breakfast at the diner and moving and everything! I would like to know what hospital discharges its patients in the wee early morning hours, though, and what health insurance company would have paid for Johnny to stay there that night if he was healthy enough to leave in the morning. Johnny crutches out of the car and falls all over himself trying to get up the walkway stairs. "I can't watch this," Seth says, his finger always on the pulse of the viewing audience. Marissa the Selfless Hero volunteers to stay behind to help Johnny. Ryan pretends he's okay with that.
Kirsten and Julie try to figure out what their new business venture will be. Kirsten thinks that Newport is lacking a bookstore, like anyone there ever reads. Julie's idea is slightly different: a nude maid service. "Who wants to see their maids nude?" Kirsten stupidly asks. I guess she's never been on CraigsList before; that place is full of ads for young, attractive woman to do "lite cleaning" while topless. Emails without full-body photos will be ignored. No fatties, pleez! Sandy walks in and says he'd love a nude maid, as long as she irons his shirts the right way. Between that and the time Kirsten asked for sex and got coffee instead, I'm starting to think Sandy doesn't have much of a sex drive. No wonder he and Kirsten only have one biological kid. Sandy tells the girls that the NewNewport Group is gearing up to meet with some investors about a new low-excitement boring project. Sorry, I mean, "low-income housing project." Also, yawn. Julie snottily declares that she's not in favor of this low-income housing one bit. "You live in a trailer park," Kirsten says. Mean, but she does have a point. Julie says that living uncomfortably makes her highly motivated to get rich again, so it's good that poor people live in crappy places because it'll give them something to aspire to and work for. Because Julie worked so hard, what with the being lucky enough to have a rich friend who wants to go into business with her and attractive enough to marry into money. Sandy, who actually did work hard to improve his fortunes, leaves disgustedly, and the girls go back to business strategizing. Kirsten has a brilliant idea: they can be party planners. ["Oh, Jesus. GET A NEW IDEA, SHOW!" -- Wing Chun] They both know how to do it, and know that they can do it together successfully. Indeed, that fundraiser was a great success...if you ignore the fact that it was a giant scam that Julie managed to derail at the last second. I guess we are ignoring that, though, as Julie says she's in, and she and Kirsten share a toast to assured success.