Previously on Everwood: Ephram runs into Madison in NYC; Treat tells Madison to tell Ephram everything, which she says she's gonna do; Ephram and Treat bond mightily.
We open with black-and-white shots of New York. Tops of buildings, the Statue of Liberty, stock tickers, traffic, all backed by some rockin' electric guitar song. Ephram walks happily down a city sidewalk, while Treat stands on his hotel balcony and stares forlornly into the distance. Madison waits for Ephram in a "tea room." She's just getting up to leave when he walks in. They hug, and Ephram apologizes for being late, saying it's just, like, New York is so CRAZY! Didn't he live there for most of his life? Madison asks him if he's nervous. He misunderstands: "Uh...no...I mean, I'm not nervous, are you nervous?" Madison says she meant the audition, but it's good to know she no longer has an effect on him. Shut up, Madison. Ephram says he was nervous when he first arrived, but twelve straight hours of practicing pretty much cured that. He tells Madison that he's been wondering where she's been; he looked for her in Everwood, and even went to see her "band" "play." He asks what made her decide to leave. Madison tries to avoid the issue, and merely says it's a long story. Ephram says he's got time. "Tell me everything." Heh. Not so fast, Bucky. Credits.
We come back to the Abbott House, where Patch is taking Rose's temperature. Patch asks Rose what ails her more: Bright's lack of academic ambition, or his inability to keep a job. Rose puts a finger to her mouth, as Bright is just then walking in. He announces that he's just getting some cream cheese for Amy's bagels, since he's going to eat them all. Unfortunately, their refrigerator is bereft of cream cheese. He asks his parents if they need anything from the store. Patch answers through clenched teeth, "We're fine." Bright's all, "Okay, then. Bye!" Patch checks Rose's temp. It's 99.2, nothing to be too worried about. Now, I'm no expert, but there's an awfully heavy foreshadowing feeling here, and if something bad happens to Rose, I might have to blow you up, Berlanti. Patch tells an exasperated Rose that she mustn't -- and he actually uses the word "mustn't," which is perfect -- let Bright affect her so much. Rose says she supposes not. Patch says they really aren't doing Bright any favors by letting him hang around and fritter away his time. Rose tells Patch she knows he's right, but wishes there were a less drastic solution. Patch: "He'll get his own apartment in Everwood. 'Tis a far, far cry from Skid Row." 'TIS! They're really Patchin' it up this week, yes? Patch laments that Bright seems to have even less direction now than he did nearly a year ago at graduation. Rose can't believe it's been almost a year. Patch tells Rose that it's time. Amy shuffles in just then, sighing and rolling her eyes like her world has ended. Rose asks her what's wrong. Amy buries her head in her arms and tells her parents, "I got into Harvard." Rose and Patch can do nothing but look bewildered at their brilliant, weirdo daughter.
Back in NYC at the "tea room," Ephram is filling Madison in on life in Everwood. He tells her about Delia and her phases and various boyfriends, and says it was actually pretty funny to watch Treat try to deal with it all. Madison: "So you guys are getting along now?" Ephram says he doesn't know if things got better in his life, or Treat's life, or they both just got tired of yelling, but things are great. "Work, school...everything. It's good." Oh, Ephram. I sure hate what's about to happen to you. Madison says she's really happy for him. Ephram says he can't believe his life has finally come to this moment at Juilliard, and it's scary. Madison says she thinks it's good to be scared; it means you actually have something worth losing. Ephram: "Thank you. Now I'm not freaked out at all." Heh. Madison smiles a little sadly. Ephram says he has something to tell her, which is that she's a large part of why he's where he is, and why things are happening for him. Are you ready for this? He reminds her that, for her, "music was life." Yes, obviously. That garage band with the shitty name was such a burning passion that Madison was at ECC majoring in CHILD DEVELOPMENT. Of music. Anyway, Ephram tells Madison that she was a huge influence on him as far as pursuing his musical dream. Gah. Madison says that might be the nicest thing anyone's said to her in forever, which shouldn't have made me choke up because she seems so pitiful, but it did, so shut it. Ephram is all, "Yeah, you kicked my ass, which is good, because Amy only had to kick it half as much." Oh, inappropriate. I hate that. Madison tries to smile. "Amy, huh? You guys are together?" Ephram tells Madison that she "trained [him] well," which I also hate, and that he made all his major mistakes with her. Madison says he didn't make that many mistakes. Ephram: "Are you kidding? I have, like, a thirty-hour TiVo of Shame Highlight Reel I can pull up at any time, in my head." He goes on to say that one of the main reasons he wanted to get together with her was to say thank you. "Yes, I know. I'm made of cheese." Hee. Madison says she's just speechless. Ephram tells her that she can start talking about what's going on with her, since he just rambled about himself for hours. "What you got?" More than you can handle, kiddo.
Patch is sitting in Dimples's office, bitching at his mother. When Dimples walks in, Patch demands immediate rent payment. Dimples is telling Patch that won't be a problem at all when Chris Penn bursts in with a bleeding teen in his arms. "It's my boy! We went hunting and the gun went off!" Dimples, Patch, and Edna rush into action. The boy has a gaping stomach wound, and needs "bagging." Chris Penn breaks my heart with his frantic expression. Patch says they need to get him to the ER. Chris Penn says he was going to take him there, but it was so far away. He whispers, "My son. Please." I cry a little.
Tea House. Ephram asks Madison how she ended up in New York, and if she finally transferred to NYU. Madison says she's actually not in school now; it would take too much time away from her waitressing job. Heh. Madison says she's living with her brother, who has a great apartment in the Village (natch), and the people she's met are okay -- they're mostly all directionless twenty-somethings who've dropped out of various community colleges, and they've kind of got a support group going. Clueless Ephram is all, "Well, you've probably got way more time for your music now, huh?" Madison admits that she hasn't actually done much of that since she left the band. Labor and delivery really do get in the way of writing the perfect rock song. Madison gets a little teary-eyed, and Ephram asks her if she's okay. Madison says life after high school just isn't what you expect. You think you've got it all figured out, just pick a major and pack your bags, but it's not as easy as that. She says it seems crazy that people choose lives for themselves at age seventeen, but then what if something terrible happens? "Where's the Plan B?" She looks out the window of the tea room, and says there are all these people out there that are living their Plan B, just second-guessing. Ephram asks her if she wants to tell him about it. Madison, after all this stupid build-up, says, "I don't know if I should." My God, lady. Get to the point. Ephram says he gets that things aren't going that great for her right now. Madison is like, "Yeah, but you don't." Ephram tells her to explain it to her. Madison hesitates, and Ephram asks her why she thinks he's still a kid. Madison says that's not it. Ephram says it's fine; it used to bother him, but it doesn't anymore. To prove how much it doesn't bother him, he gets up and prepares to storm out. Madison tells him to wait. Ephram says they don't need to keep doing this, and starts putting on his coat. Madison: "Yes, we do. I didn't just leave, Ephram. I got pregnant." Ephram stops short, and...commercials.
We get a shot from the outside of Ephram and Madison sitting in the tea
room. Suddenly, we're inside, and Madison is telling Ephram that "they" are really nice people. Ephram, clearly in shock, is like, "I'm sorry, who? Who's nice?" Madison starts telling Ephram about the super-great couple she chose to adopt their child, but Ephram can't take it just yet. Ephram's like, "So. You had a baby. You had our baby." Madison nods, and says she thought about not having it, had actually planned on not having it, but then just couldn't. Ephram wants to know where he was during all this. Madison says she found out just before he left for the summer program in New York. Ephram can't believe he wasn't even a factor. Madison tells him that he was, of course he was. Ephram begs to differ: "I got you pregnant, and you didn't tell me. What, was I too young or too stupid? Why wouldn't you come to me?" Madison doesn't know. Y'all, she is pitiful, and it is killing me. Ephram says he would have done something -- "I would have done anything." He says he doesn't know who she is, she's not who she was, and she's certainly not even a fraction of the person he fell in love with. Shut UP, Ephram. How about a little sympathy for the girl who carried your baby for nine months, BY HERSELF, and then had to make the hardest decision of her life, BY HERSELF, because she was ordered to by YOUR DADDY? How about it? No? Then shut it. Madison says she knows, she knows. Ephram does not, in fact, shut it, and tells Madison that she doesn't know, because she just took away a year of his life that he spent with somebody he can't even look at now. Madison says she's so sorry. Ephram: "And then you just came to New York without telling anybody?" Madison says no, she actually had "him" in Denver, and has only been in New York for two months. Ephram asks, "What did you just say?" Madison, weeping now, says it was a boy. "I'm so sorry, Ephram. I hope you can find it in you to forgive me." Madison gets up and leaves, and I wish she had kicked him in the balls on her way out.Back in Everwood, Amy Abbott stares at her ticking clock. She frets to Rose that it's three o'clock in New York. "They're probably together now. He says she looks good, she says he looks good..." Rose tells Amy that this isn't healthy. Amy wonders if she brought the baby. Rose says they don't even know if she had the baby. Amy is all, "But what if she did? They're probably walking it in the park, right? I mean, that's what you do." Heh. Aw. Amy says Ephram is such an awesome guy that if Madison did have the baby, he would take responsibility, and that's huge. "Probably a sign that they should be together." She asks her mom if she ever thinks about destiny, like how much of your life you actually control, and how much is just handed to you whether you like it or not. Rose: "Heavens, I don't know." Heavens! She tells Amy that people get degrees to discuss that sort of thing. Amy points to an envelope, and says, "What if it weren't from Harvard? What if it were an acceptance letter from Princeton?" She actually says "was," but we're just going to pretend that somebody with a Harvard acceptance letter knows better. Rose reminds Amy that she didn't apply to Princeton. Oh, we'll see about that. Amy says she knows, but what if she had? Everything in her whole life was pointing her in that direction, and maybe Patch's big campaign wasn't such a joke -- maybe it was the universe trying to tell her something. Rose: "So your father's wishes are now part of the great universal plan. He'd love that." Amy says there was a huge turning point in her life this year, when Ephram came back from New York. "We broke up. Maybe we should have stayed that way." Rose tells Amy that she can play the "what-if" game all day long, and unravel your whole life thinking that way. Amy, in typical teenage fashion, learns nothing from her mom's wise words, and looks again at the clock. "It's 3:05. Wonder what they're doing now?"
Hospital. Patch brings Chris Penn a coffee. Chris Penn thanks Patch for waiting with him, and Patch says it's the least he could do. Chris Penn tells Patch that this didn't have to happen; not just the accident, but the whole day. His son was grounded. "All his friends were going skiing, and I told him no, for once. Marcy'd been after him for months to clean the gutters, so we started to do it together." He tells Patch his boy was up there on the ladder, singing some song, making a game out of the whole thing like he always did, when the sky broke. "It was incredible; the clouds just parted right over his head. Perfect day for hunting, right?" Patch remembers that it's the last week for pheasants. Chris Penn: "That's exactly what he said. If I'd have just made him do what he was supposed to do, none of this would have happened." Patch says he can't blame himself. Chris Penn says yes, he can. The doctor walks over and tells the men that Kyle lost a lot of blood and oxygen, and even if he wakes up, there will be certain damage to the brain. He also says that Kyle is stable, and they considered a partial liver transplant, but feel it wouldn't make any difference at this point. Chris Penn asks if it might make a difference. Patch says he thinks focusing on the liver at this point would be like putting a Band-Aid on the problem. Chris Penn: "A Band-Aid's better than nothin'!" Aw. Seriously. The ER doctor says they don't even have a donor. Chris Penn says he's got part of a liver. The doctor tells him what an extremely dangerous operation it is, and furthermore, they don't even know if he's a viable match. Chris Penn's like, "Well, let's find out. Where do I go?" Killing. Me.
Treat is doing some more staring out the window when Ephram comes back. He tells his dad he's sorry he's so late; he was with Madison. Treat asks if he was with her all this time. Ephram says no, then tells Treat the story he already knows. Ephram says he can't even imagine what Treat must be thinking right now. Treat says he's not thinking anything, and asks Ephram how he is. "A little sick. She had it a few months ago, it was a boy, and now he's gone." Treat bows his head. Ephram says it's all finished and taken care of, and he had absolutely nothing to do with it. He says he doesn't even know what he's supposed to do now. Treat asks what he wants to do. Ephram says he wants to report her; there's got to be something illegal about this, right? "You can't just make a decision like this and not tell the guy, can you?" Treat says he doesn't know. Ephram says he never thought he could actually have so much hate in his body, but now it's all he'll ever feel. Treat tells Ephram not to hate her. Ephram wants to know how Madison could do this to someone she said she loved. Treat says Madison did love him. Ephram says if she loved him, she wouldn't have been able to do this. "She just gave him away," he says tearfully. Treat: "You don't understand how frightened she was. She didn't know what to do, or where to go." Oops. Guess that cat's out of the bag. Ephram asks his dad how the hell he knows. Treat finally confesses that Madison came to him first, and asked for his help. "She was going to tell you, but I asked her not to. I told her I would pay for everything. She wouldn't take it...she wouldn't take any money from me. I asked her to leave, and she left. She did love you, Ephram, you have to know that." Ephram interrupts Treat, saying he doesn't want to hear any of this. Treat talks over him, saying if anyone's to blame, it's him, and he just wanted to protect Ephram. Ephram can't take it anymore, and shoves Treat (pretty hard!) out of the way. He leaves the room, and Treat tries to recover from the assault. Commercials.
Late night at Abbott House. Patch finds Bright in the kitchen, and they commiserate about their inability to sleep. Bright says he heard about Kyle, and asks if it was brutal. Patch says yes, pretty much. Bright asks Patch if he had to put his hands right in Kyle's stomach. Patch says that's generally the idea. Bright: "Damn. That's cool." Hee. Patch tells Bright it's not a horror film, and Kyle could die. Bright says that's not what he meant, but doesn't explain further. He says he stil
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l doesn't get it: what are the odds of Kyle shooting himself in the stomach, unless he was holding his gun in a weird way. Patch looks at Bright with interest. "What are you saying?" Bright says if your gun goes off, maybe you shoot yourself in the foot, but not in the stomach. "Hmmm," thinks Patch. Bright tells his dad he can have the kitchen back, and mentions that he signed up to rent an apartment today. He figures he can be moved out within the month. Patch says that sounds fine.New York. Treat is walking around the city, talking on the phone. He's talking to Hey! Nonny Nonny, and says he hasn't heard from Ephram, but he has a lot of friends in the city, so he's probably staying with one of them. "His audition is at four. I'll meet him there, and call you and Jacob after." Uh oh.
Everwood. Rose has brought Amy to the bank, and is rifling through a safe deposit box. Amy asks what's in there. Rose pulls out an envelope and hands it to Amy. Amy looks inside. "A ticket to Rome?" Rose explains that it wasn't just a ticket, it was a one-way ticket, and asks Amy if she ever told her what she wanted her major to be. Amy doesn't know. Rose says she wanted to major in art history, and used to pore over old books trying to imagine what the classics actually looked like. She tells Amy that, the day after her high school graduation, she found herself at a crossroads of sorts: she could stay home and wait for Patch to propose, or she could go to Italy, and return only after having mastered the language, or worked at a famous art gallery, or both. Aw, Rose! Amy: "I'd be all about the gelato." Rose says her, too; needless to say, Italy won, so she packed her bags. The morning she was supposed to leave, she opened the door, and there was Patch on the front porch. "On bended knee, no less." Rose says she was young and romantic, and changing plans at the drop of a hat seemed exciting in its own way, so she stayed. Amy's all, "So Dad knew you were leaving and didn't want to lose you? Good for him." Rose says Patch never even knew she was going. Amy says they must have been destined to be together, then. Rose says that is exactly wrong. "I made a decision on that day. I could have made the other one, but I didn't, so here I am." She tells Amy that she's been listening to her talk about her life as though it's something that's happening to her, but that's not the case. "It's the choices we make that fill in the details of our plan, not the other way around. You understand?" Amy asks her mom if she's saying that she shouldn't break up with Ephram retroactively just to appease the fates. Rose: "I'll smack you silly if you do." Yay! Amy asks Rose if she ever wonders what would have happened if she'd chosen Rome instead. Rose: "I kept the ticket, didn't I?"
Patch finds Chris Penn in a hospital room, waiting for surgery. He says he thought he'd check up on them. Chris Penn says Kyle hasn't woken up yet, but they did the test on his liver. "They said I should drink less and run more." Shouldn't we all. Patch asks Chris Penn if he's really going through with the operation. Chris Penn says he doesn't see how he couldn't. Patch gets to the real point of this visit, and says it would probably be an easy decision to give up his liver for his son, especially if he felt responsible. Chris Penn's all, "Why, whatever do you mean by that?" Patch: "Yesterday, when you brought Kyle into the office, you said a gun went off. You didn't say whose gun it was." Chris Penn gets the saddest look on his face of all sad looks ever, and sighs heavily. He says he and Kyle were going down a ravine; it was "wet as all hell," and he lost his balance when he slipped on a branch. "Must have taken a few seconds, because I can remember Kyle laughing. When I hit the dirt, I felt the gun go off. It was my gun. I shot my own son." Sniff. Patch tells Chris Penn that this surgery is incredibly dangerous, and more than likely will help nothing to save Kyle. Chris Penn says if it does, so be it. Patch says he has to think about his wife and other kids, and doesn't want him going through this out of misplaced guilt. Chris Penn hits Patch where it hurts. "You think I'm doing this surgery because I feel guilty? He's my son. That's why. I'm not as complicated as all that, Harold. He's my boy, my only one, and I'd give him my heart if he needed it." I'd give MY heart to YOU, Chris Penn! ["I'd give him my nose. When did it get all cranked over to one side like that? Did Sean punch him at Thanksgiving dinner or something?" -- Sars]
Juilliard Audition. A man on the stage calls out Ephram's name several times, but there's no answer. Treat, standing in the back of the auditorium waiting, is mortified. Ephram walks up behind him. "It hurts, doesn't it? This huge thing just slipping away?" Oh, Ephram. Treat asks Ephram where he's been, and says there's still time. Ephram ain't doing it. He says this is the only part of his life he has any control over now. "You took everything else." Treat says that is not true, and reminds him that all his focus is here. Ephram says all his focus is gone, vanished. Treat tells him that all he has to do is get through the audition, then he can freak out. Ephram says he doesn't want to get through it; this means nothing to him anymore, and he blames Treat for taking everything away from him. He calls the music studio a bribe. He's being retarded. Treat says Ephram's making a mistake he is going to regret. Ephram asks Treat if he regrets it. Treat says he does, oh yes. Ephram looks at Treat, and sees that he actually doesn't regret anything. He can't believe that Treat still thinks he did the right thing. Treat says he never thought it would end up like this. Ephram asks how he thought it would end up. Treat says he doesn't know, but at the time, he thought it was the only way to protect him. Ephram tells his dad that he thought wrong, and now he doesn't get to make any more decisions about his life, ever again. Ooh, that'll show him! Treat begs Ephram not to do this just to hurt him. Ephram says that's not the only reason he's doing it. "But it's the best reason." He walks out, and we go to commercials, during which we'll all get a nice cocktail and try to forget about how stupid Ephram is.
Back in Everwood, Patch pays a visit to Clinic o' Dimples. He says he just wanted to let Dimples know what an excellent job he did the other day with Kyle. Dimples tells Patch that he rocked it out of the park himself. Patch says he'll take that rent check now. Heh. Dimples says he never thought he'd see anything that intense in Everwood. Patch says they seldom do. Dimples says he just wishes they could have done more, and asks if they should send something over to the family. Patch is like, "Uh, what are you talking about?" Dimples tells Patch that Kyle went into cardiac arrest and flatlined the night before; he thought Patch knew. Patch says he didn't, and asks after Chris Penn. Dimples says he never even made it into pre-op, thank God. Patch sits down heavily. Dimples says he forgets what it must be like for Patch, knowing all his patients that well. Patch says it's not always so personal, but this time...it was. Dimples assures Patch that he did everything possible. Patch says it's kind of hard to explain that to a father who's just lost his son. Dimples says maybe it was just his time. Patch gets up to leave, and tells Dimples, "No. No, I don't believe it was."
Airport. Treat and Ephram, looking about as beat down as you'd expect, walk outside to look for their ride. Treat asks Ephram if he got any sleep on the plane. Ephram tells Treat to quit it with the small talk, okay? Treat: "Okay. So where do we go from here?" Ephram's all, "WE?" Delia yells from across the street, "Over here!" ["And I yell, 'To a barber!' because Ephram's hair looked, literally, like an ass fell on his head in this entire scene, and how we're supposed to take his junior hard-ass routine seriously under those circumstances, I'm sure I don't know." -- Sars] Edna tells them to hurry up, they're illegally parked. Ephram tells Treat to go ahead; he
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's going to find his own way. Treat tells Ephram that he knows he thinks he can get away with never talking to him again, but he needs to think again. "We have wasted most of a lifetime, and that's my fault, I know. I made a terrible mistake, and I've asked for your forgiveness. But we can start right now, and try to fix this." Ephram says he doesn't wanna, and if it takes another fifteen years, fine. "See you when I'm thirty." He tells Treat to just go. Treat does, but what he should have done was jerk Ephram to that car so fast he got whiplash. At least act right for your sister's sake, fool.Patch comes home from work to find Bright jamming out in the kitchen and removing all the contents of the refrigerator. Patch: "Dare I ask?" Bright says Rose told him to clean out the refrigerator. Patch remembers that she did -- three years ago. Bright's all, "Well, better late than never, right? Plus I may or may not have spilled half a can of Cheez Whiz. It's time to face the nasty." He explains his refrigerator filing system to Patch, and shoots a baggie full of something disgusting into the trash can. "Two points. Boo-yah!" Patch smiles, amused in spite of himself. Bright asks how Kyle is doing. Patch says he didn't make it. Bright says that's awful, then asks his dad if he remembers last night when he said Patch was cool, with the guts and stuff. Patch does. Bright says all he meant was that it's really cool what he does. "You save people's lives. You're a doctor, but I always forget that. I can't help but look at you and just see my dad. But that's all I meant." Aw. Patch says he didn't give Bright much of a chance to explain himself, and then reconsiders his stance on Bright moving out. Bright says it's fine, and it'll be better for him to have his own place when he goes to ECC year, anyway. Patch is pleasantly surprised at this turn of events. Bright says it's time for him to go back to school, and he may not be able to save lives, but there's other stuff. "Like the guys that run the ambulances?" Patch: "EMT workers?" Bright says yeah, and tells his dad it feels good to think about something. He pulls another baggie out of the fridge, and proclaims it "full-on funky." Patch takes it, shoots, and scores. Bright: "Oh, say it with me now. 'Boo-yah!'" Patch: "Boo-yah." Bright: "BOO-yah!" Patch: "BOO-YAH!" Awesome.
Ephram walks up the Abbotts' sidewalk, and Amy comes out to meet him, asking why he wouldn't let her pick him up from the airport. Ephram says he took the bus; he needed to clear his head. Amy gives him a big old hug, and asks if he's okay. Ephram says he doesn't know. Amy stutters around for a while, says she isn't really helping the situation, and asks him to come inside. Ephram tells her to wait. He says he doesn't know what he's doing right now. Amy says in that case, they'll figure it out together. Ephram: "You mean you don't hate me?" Amy's all, "Why would I hate you?" Ephram says things are just really weird, and he sat at the airport just looking at flights and thinking of places he could go, when she called. Amy: "You think I wouldn't call?" Ephram: "I'm just really messed up right now. Will you help me? I don't know what I'm doing, or where I'm going." Amy says of course she'll help him. She reaches out her hand, and they walk inside together.
week: Ephram acts even stupider, if that is even possible.
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