Props to Jessica, props to Pamie, apologies to Wing, and a hearty hissing sound expressing discontent, leveled in the direction of TiVo. TiVo? Why you gotta be a hatah?
Previously on The O.C.: The Adventures Of Atwood And Atrophy continue unabated. Meanwhile, my grandmother thinks she gets this show because she's the only person on the planet who still refers to pants as "chinos."
An extra-wide shot of pearl blue water and white sandy beaches reminds us just how much we're in -- ahem -- Califoooooooooooooonyeeeah! We cut inside to a tight shot of a comic book called "Plastic Man" being dropped into a sleeve made of, conveniently, plastic, an indication that even the most cut-rate of superheroes can hold places of relevance in today's modern world. Plastic Man protects his very own comic from the constant threats of his arch-nemeses, Fingerprint Man and The Snotnose Kids, who hang around comic book conventions trying to lower the street value of dork memorabilia. Back in Califoooooooooooooonyeeeah, we join Seth "Not Quite A Girl, Not Yet My Boyfriend" Cohen, looking pretty in pink in his hipster button-down, wearing a color that would only be a clearer sign that he's open to anything were it accessorized with a rainbow flag bandanna and a consistent though barely perceptible rendition of "In The Navy" playing wherever he went. I mean it, Brody. Read my lips. Anything.
"We can not go," Seth offers to an as-yet-unseen presence in the pool house. "We can't not go," rejoins Ryan "Goy Toy" Atwood, who busies himself unpacking his Chino suitcase of food stamps and scabies. Seth awkwardly navigates his rich-kid car down the craggy mountain cliff that is Exposition Boulevard, reminding Ryan that they've already "missed registration" and that no one will be expecting them. When Ryan dutifully reminds Seth that Kirsten has placed a call to the school, Seth helpfully removes the plastic dust jacket from his copy of The Big Book Of Meta-Characterizations And Other Narrative Shortcuts and reads aloud to Ryan on the subject of Ryan: "You're the bad boy, okay? You're the outsider." Look, we already know he's the bad boy. For the love of god, the costume department has got him in a black t-shirt, so what the hell else kind of proof do we need? Seth puts not too fine a point on it, adding for the sake of people too cheap to just break down and buy some damn porn already, "You're supposed to be leading me into temptation, not homeroom." Or, if the latter-day fanfic writer of twelve different stories about this scene whose titles are all, somehow, "Teacher's Pet" has his way, both.
"It's just the first day of school, man," Ryan reminds Seth, us, crossing guards, lunch ladies, and the team of volunteers who go around from class to class hanging those posters with the adorable little kitten that reads "Hang In There!" on the door of every classroom in America. Seth offers his impression of the first day of school which, according to him, features "Ashton Kutchers knuckle-knocking and going on and on about summer." I think that I know all of those words, but I've never seen them presented in quite that order before. I think the syntax of that entire sentence has been punk'd. As if "Ashton Kutchers" and "knuckle-knocking" will automatically explain themselves to me via some Oxford English Dictionary Of The Not-Too-Distant Fuuuuture, Seth cuts right to the end to clarify that the word "summer" referred to the season and not the person. Which is exactly why I didn't capitalize it. Jeez. Read the recaps, Brody. And return some of my phone calls. And stop washing the "AB and DJB 4Eva" from your sidewalk that I leave you every night, because it really takes a lot of blood to keep spelling that out all the time and I'm starting to get kind of dizzy. And remove the electric netting from around your house because the tough-love thing is grating on me and YOUR LOVE IS VERY HARD. Anyway. Ryan doesn't really care, like, that much, but he's game enough to ask Seth if he's called Summer, and Seth sighs deeply and holds up a comic book and changes the subject: "Before you read this, remind me to tell you the difference between Plastic Man and Elongated Man." Well, for one, Elongated Man is...nah, too porny.
Ryan sits down because unpacking heartache can really take its toll, as Seth continues ranting that he hasn't had time to call Summer, what with the just getting back to town and the "three months of back issues" that he needs to "bag and board." Is he speaking English? When did I turn a thousand? Stop being Captain Slangula for a second and just talk. This must be so exhausting. Ryan notes that Seth could have called her from Portland, and Seth explains that he did just that, every day, until she picked up the phone once and said that if he didn't stop calling her, she'd have her father kill him. And considering he spent his summer with docile Gay Dad while his own father devolved into a spineless old Yente who spent all his time wandering around the village being all, "So you want to run away, so nu?," I can totally see why Seth would be so easily cowed by the idea of a strong paternal figure entering his life for once. "So Summer has no idea you're back?" Ryan clarifies in a way that's now almost patronizing, like he's acting out the role of "Guy On Phone" in a play written by a fourth-grader where he has to be all, "What's that? What's that you say at the other end of the phone? You say you want to meet at 6 PM? At the restaurant?" Ryan suggests that perhaps Summer has "moved on" by now, which Seth takes with an incredulous shrug and the question, "Because I meant nothing to her?" Ryan pauses a moment and makes his role clear: "I'm gonna brood silently." Okay, show. You get one more, and then I'm going to start recapping the recap and see how you like it. Said Djb, somewhat verbosely. Seth asks rhetorically why he should have to endure being ignored by Summer, and Ryan helpfully posits, "Because you left for three months without telling her?" Ryan suggests that he try apologizing, and Seth cleverly turns the tables, retorting, "Is that what you said to Marissa?" And really, it's a bad idea to say anything at all to Marissa, unless he wants to be deafened by the power of primal-scream therapy and to wake up with a spare lawn chair lodged in his colon. But Ryan says that he does intend to apologize to her, with which he grabs his book bag because it's not every day that you start the eleventh grade. Unless you're on this show, in which case it is exactly every day that you start the eleventh grade. Again. Seth asks Ryan if he really thinks he's just going to walk up to Marissa and say "hey" and hope that she "hey"s him back. "Yeah," says Ryan, crestfallen. "We're not goin' to school." Because he's worried about being awkward and in over his head with a girl? If I had employed that logic in high school, I'd still be living off the interest of the money I would have saved not going to the prom.
Opening credits: it's slightly weird knowing that there's a whole song that most of us heard a million times and that they only use just that little bit of it for the theme song. Did you know that the Cheers theme song was also, like, a hundred verses longer than just those thirty seconds they used on the show? I heard it on the radio once, and around Verse The Thirtieth, some really whacked-out shit starts to happen to the guy, like he gets chlamydia and then he's eaten by a giant bear or something, so he's glad there's somewhere that everybody knows his name. All of which brings me back to the point of this whole exercise: the Punky Brewster theme song is among the finest that has ever been written.
For some reason, Seth and Ryan are still carrying their bags, because what better way to blow off school than by playing hooky armed with the Introduction To High School Social Studies textbook your mother covered for you in cut-up brown paper shopping bags. How do moms always know how to do that? Apparently, Ryan and Seth have pussed out after all, like two little girls in 50% pink shirts, and they're going to brave the elements after all. As they make their way through the house, Seth reminds Ryan that, whatever happens today, "the Ryan/Seth team is back in action. Together there's nothing we can't face." Except for wacky juxtaposition, which is soon to rear its beefcake-y self in the form of a construction worker moving all of the Cohens' earthly goods into the middle of the kitchen. "I'm movin' to Portland," Seth mutters, because the writers on this show think that the mere concept of "Oregon" is inherently hilarious in a way that the rest of us reserve for being amused by really funny things like the way old people smell or the notion of midgets dancing.
Seth and Ryan make their way into the kitchen, where Sandy "Counsel Will Please Approach The Mensch" Cohen bids the boys a chipper good morning. Kirsten "Blonde Ambition" Cohen stands around as well as Seth asks if his parents will fill him in on "this whole remodeling thing again." I will never forgive the two of them for not watching last week's episode or reading the recap, because if they were a little more conscious of their own show's backstory, we literally could have cut all that crap out and started this episode approximately riiiiight...now. Archie The Contractor -- on whatever planet "Archie The Contactor" is cast-list-ese for "glorified extra" -- promises that they'll have all of the crap out of the kitchen by dinner. Before Archie is given so much screen time that he moves to the big city and opens his own greasy spoon in a spin-off called Archie The Contractor's Place, the phone rings and a fight ensues about who will be answering it. Kirsten calls for Sandy to get it, but he's cream cheesing a bagel and argues that he's "mid-shmear." It's almost like it's important for his character to make the point that he's Jewish, for some reason. "If I could find it, maybe I'd answer it." With which Archie The Contactor holds up the phone in front of Sandy's face. Well done, Archie. It's that kind of focus and tenacity that's going to help you make it in the food services industry after all.
Kirsten takes the phone and says "hello" several times before announcing, "They hung up." Because no phone is equipped with the power of called ID because it's 1950. Also, I was fascinated to note that this point never again came up in the episode. How achingly vérité, to just get a hang-up and move on with your lives. Archie sympathizes with what Kirsten has just gone through, sharing, "I hate it when they do that." And when he has the laugh track and the supporting cast behind him, Archie's going to expand upon that comment, explaining, "You know why they do that? Because you know who runs the phone company? The Jews." That irrepressible Archie. Such a lovable curmudgeon he is.
Kirsten moves on to more matronly topics, reminding Seth and Ryan that they have to check in at some office when they get to school. Kirsten adds that Sandy will be going with them, which stops him mid-shmear to be all, "Oy! It's a shanda, with the scheduling shpilkis I'm getting from you, with the driving and the flagen." Actually, what he really says is, "I thought you were gonna take them." Sandy and Kirsten snipe at each other that they both have meetings, and the phone rings again with an urgent call for Sandy from the office that leads him to conclude that he has to go. So does Kirsten. Archie hilariously jumps in, "You want me to take 'em?" Oh, Archie! Come to think of it, that would also be kind of a good name for the show.
O.C.H.S. Seth and Ryan jump out the back of Archie's flatbread truck, because...hilarious! Seth frets that this is not an auspicious way to start the school year, and Ryan reassures him that he's sure no one saw them. No one, of course, except for Marissa "If She Were A Town On Long Island, She Would Totally Be Skineola" Cooper and Summer "If She Were A Town On Long Island, She Would Be The One Where All The Spoiled Princesses Live...Also Known As 'All Of Them'" Roberts. They stand steps away from the front of the school, watching their long-lost fake boyfriends saunter back into view. Each of Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice (damn, but that reference would carry so much more weight if I'd actually, like, ever seen that movie) whisper, "Oh, my god," and Marissa runs up to Ryan and hugs him greedily, perhaps because she really is so delirious with hunger she thinks that he's Poppin' Fresh. When he shows up to his first class missing a chunk of his arm in the shape of a cinnamon bun, we shall know for sure. Summer, however, registers a look of horror and takes off, with Seth quickly giving chase. Left alone, Marissa asks Ryan what he's doing here, and he volunteers, "I'm back." She doesn't understand -- these problems are too heavy to just pick up and throw in the pool -- and she wants to know what happened with Theresa. He volunteers only that it's a "long story," but since she's got all the time in the world between her maximum security iPod grounding and not going to Cardio Bar, Marissa responds, "I want to hear it if you want to tell me." Ryan suggests, "After school?" which she happily proclaims "a date." Awwww. Love means never having to say I'm hungry. Or so I've heard the old expression goes.
Seth, meanwhile, begs to be swatted across the snout with a rolled-up newspaper as he follows Summer up the steps of the school like the sad little puppy dog he is. He catches up to her and asks if she's going to talk to him at all, and she responds by suggesting that she write him a letter that he read over and over "trying to figure out what the hell I was thinking all summer." This, er, happened to a friend of hers. Then it seems she calls him an ass. He tells her to wait a second, and she proudly tells him that she's done waiting, right before she lowers the boom that launched a thousand spoilers and at least one Entertainment Weekly sidebar: "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go meet my boyfriend." Heh. Awesome. And written, if I had to guess, by someone with a healthy appreciation of a classic piece of American cinema that ends with the line, "I'm gonna go home and sleep with my wife."
Hailey stands on Tate Donovan's boat wearing a bikini that looks like it's made from the vinyl floral coverings of vintage Boca Raton lanai furniture, talking on a cell phone. She expresses excitement that something is "happening," but notes as well that it's "too soon" and worries that she hasn't told Jimmy yet because she doesn't want to hurt him. Oh, don't worry. Tate Donovan can handle anything. You can knock him down and he'll keep coming back for more. He's like the resident Hollywood Wac-A-Mole. Hurt Tate Donovan, Hailey. Everyone else has. And here he comes, Jimmy sauntering onto the boat and handing her a glass of orange juice spiked with foreshadowed regret. She tells him that "Suzie says hi," and she responds that Suzie calls too early. Fuckin' Suzie. Hailey takes the drink and asks if he's trying to get her drunk, and he shoots back perhaps the least romantic line this side of Leaving Las Vegas when he purrs (I'm sorry, folks, but that's what he does. He purs), "I am trying to keep you drunk." They kiss smackily and talk about how "awesome" everything is, and Jimmy decides to share an idea he's been kicking around: "We should keep the boat for another month" and go down to Cabo. Hailey pulls away and practically recoils in horror -- what if there are no razors of the Mach 3 variety in Cabo? -- and tells him that they can't. He looks on the bright side that it's not like they have jobs to go back to, but if you're drinking at 9 AM and reveling in your continued lack of employment opportunities, I'd say you'll be sailing The U.S.S. Highball over to the Twelve Step Islands in no time. Tate Donovan's the wastrel captain of his craft, and Hailey his elusive white whale. As the first line of that book goes: call him rehab.
Housing contractors first, guidance counselors now. You really have to respect how this show celebrates the daily contributions of the little people who make the world just a little more commonplace for the rest of us. Later this season, Ryan befriends a supermarket checkout guy for the tight, two-fisted thriller of Episode 211: "Paper Or Plastic." The guidance counselor tells Ryan she's taken the liberty of putting his schedule together, and compliments him on his sparkling GPA from the year. Yeah, grades do tend to inflate themselves when you're caught in an endless Groundhog's Day loop of the eleventh grade. If you thought my rendition of Mr. MacAfee in the Massapequa High School version of Bye Bye Birdie was good then, imagine if I had the past ten years to continue honing it. Miss Counselor asks Ryan if he sees anything missing from his schedule, and he tells her, basically, that as long as "Intro To Hauling Rocks With A Big Crane" isn't on it, he's pretty satisfied. When he mentions how happy he is not to be working a construction job, she thinks for a moment and suggests that perhaps he start thinking about college. He thanks her kindly but tells her he can't afford college, and that he's not allowed to let the Cohens pay for it (just like he wasn't going to live with them, wasn't going to let them pay for stuff, wasn't going to live with them again). Miss Counselor presses on and tells him what great test scores he has, and that he's smart enough to do anything he wants, because this is suddenly becoming the idealistic classic Good Ryan Atwood, and a bearded Robin Williams is lurking right outside of that door ready with a hug and a reason to make us all cry for five minutes and rekindle our belief in the good of the human spirit. For the love of god, Ryan. Don't open that door. Miss Counselor asks Ryan what he's interested in, and he tells her, "Seriously, I don't know." She tells him to come back tomorrow with a list of what he likes and doesn't like about each class. Likes: math. Dislikes: overbearing guidance counselor wildly overestimating her position in the educational food chain. week, a driver's ed instructor teaches Ryan an important lesson about religion and prayer in contemporary society.
Lunch on the lanai. Seth sits down with Ryan, who asks if Miss Fisher gave Seth an assignment. He reports that he did not, adding, "I didn't get a warm cinematic embrace from anyone when I got to school, either." It's true. She really was one slo-mo shot riding a horse down a beach away from being officially schmaltzy, rather than playing the slightly more milquetoast role of "narrative foil to Seth and Summer." Seth recaps that Summer has a new boyfriend for those of us who were dozing off or making popcorn or in the bathroom (me, I was killing three birds with one stone), and Ryan sympathizes to the point of calling Seth "buddy." But not to worry, Seth tells us, because he had a life before Summer and plans to start that life through the power of...clip art! From seeming nowhere he unearths a hot pink (Brody, you're doing it again) flyer for something called the comic book club that features a drawing of...well, actually, that looks kind of like a pencil sketch of an early-era Leif Garrett, but we'll go ahead and guess it's supposed to be Seth -- with the accompanying text, "I Want You...to join the Harbor School Comic Book League." Ryan asks who the drawing is of, and Seth finally clears it up: "That's me with powers." Ryan suggests that this kind of behavior might have something to do with Seth's former incarnation as an outcast, but Seth uses a culturally relevant line to try and convince Ryan comics have come into their own: "Spider-Man II, do you know how much money that made at the box office?" He continues on with his contention that people who like comic books are hip and edgy, leaving Ryan with a stack of flyers and a directive to pass them out. "Miss Fisher says get involved," he argues, which he must have just gathered by telepathy in the time during which he didn’t allow Ryan to get a word in edgewise.
Marissa sits shotgun in Summer's convertible, thanking her for driving her to pick up her car. It must have taken some really skilled detailing to return it to its aesthetic glory after it got fished out from the bottom of the pool. Summer asks if she wants to have lunch after this, and Marissa is like, "Ha! Good one! Oh, you're serious?" before she offers her more leveled response of "I should probably get back to school." Summer translates this to mean, "Back to Ryan, you mean?" She asks if they'll be attending "the kick-off carnival," and then hops right to asking Marissa if she and Ryan are going to get back together. Marissa asks if that would be such a bad thing, and Summer goes into her stump speech about how Ryan and Seth can't just think they can roll in and out of Marissa's and Summer's lives. Just at that moment, though, they pull up to Marissa's car, which is blocked in by the yard guy's truck. Marissa rides her huffy bike instead, leaning over and repeatedly hitting Summer's horn and screaming at this so-called "D.J." to move his damn truck out of the way. Summer smacks Marissa's hand away and insists, "Will you not honk at D.J.? He's hot." Awww. I'll take that as a shout-out. In fact, if I ever decide I'm cooler than I am and join my high school's electronica club, I believe that I shall insist everyone begin referring to me as "D.J. Shout-out." Marissa gets out of the car and walks past the yard boy who stares after her forlornly, because he wants to prune her hedges, which I mean in a penis vagina way, of course.
Marissa sits alone in her dark bedroom sexily applying makeup, which is routinely how I passed fifth period as well. From the shadows emerges D.J. the gardener (no, I'm not kidding), his shirt casually unbuttoned, his body language the unchained lust of a stereotypical resident of one of those towns "south of the border" where Spanish is yelled from shop windows and piñatas rain down passion. Marissa asks what he's doing here, and he volunteers, "I work here." She walks past him with a haughty "I have to go," and he calls her bluff with his follow-up, "So go." But he knows he's got her, because fiery Latinos don't need logical plot progressions when clichés about how libidinous they are will do fine, thank you. They kiss madly, D.J. asking if he'll see her today after school. Oh, so they already have a relationship. Maybe that should have kept him from staring at her like a dead-eyed freak in Summer's presence last week, but, well, Spaniards! Am I right? Also? Not really that attractive, an I wrong? He kind of looks like Joaquin Phoenix but with a chromosome missing. A, er, another chromosome missing.
Some ambiguous time later, Summer finds Marissa sitting alone drinking coffee at school, and plops herself down to her. She asks what she's drinking and grabs the cup away, finding in it some kind of alcoholic beverage. Finally, Starbucks gets it right. Summer whispers in horror, "Did you spike your latte?" Marissa argues, "It's been a weird day." Summer gets up to throw the offending beverage out, and when she comes back asks if something happened with Ryan. Marissa wonders what she's supposed to tell him, and when Summer asks about what, Marissa cops to her secret, summer-long tryst with D.J. Man. Marissa and the gardener, Ryan and the guidance counselor, and the Cohens and their contractor. Summer had better get out of Marissa's business and start her own hunt for Newport's hottest fashion accessory for fall: the underpaid day laborer. See you outside of your county's finer civil-service testing centers. Summer can't believe that Marissa didn't tell her, but it's only because it was a plot twist that was invented by the power of what seems like bad improv, so don't worry, because Marissa didn't even know until a few seconds ago either. She wonders what to do now that Ryan's back, and Summer returns to her old saw: "He left. And suddenly, there was a hot, hot yard guy. In the yard. Who was hot. You didn't do anything wrong." If she didn't do anything wrong, Marissa wonders, why does she have to tell Ryan anything? Summer counsels that if it's actually over with D.J. Yardstick, maybe she doesn't even have to. Grabbing her arm, Summer suggests, "Let's get you some coffee with actual coffee in it."
At a bar where old people go to wear suits and talk about financial strife and drown their sorrows and maybe yell "Norm!," Sandy sits down to a despondent-looking Caleb and orders two black coffees. Hope you're looking forward to enjoying both cups yourself, Sandy, because it looks like Caleb enjoyed his third or fourth Marissa Sour on the rocks before you got there. Sandy asks Caleb when scotch became "part of your nutritious brunch." I think it's since the FDA allowed "part of this nutritious breakfast" to apply to the entire food group known as "Chocula." It doesn't mean anything, Sandy. Let the man have his drink. Caleb fills us in that the D.A. has finally decided to indict him on the charge of "bribing certain city officials to obtain building permits." Sandy says that if Caleb hasn't done anything wrong, then the D.A. won't be able to build a casezzzzzzzzzzzzz, but Caleb worries after the propriety of bank statements that show significant funds moving between his holdings and the city councilman's officezzzzzzzzzzzz. Caleb asks Sandy if he can help him, and Sandy asks how, to which Caleb snarks, "I was hoping you could tell me that." Well, Sandy, you tried getting him some coffee with actual coffee in it, and that didn't fly. I would suggest an oversexualized foreign lawnboy, but even those don't seem to be making people that happy at the moment.
Comic Book League hilarity, anyone? Seth sits alone at a table and is soon joined by Ryan. Seth asks Ryan if he'll take the minutes, and then calls the meeting to order. Ryan quietly reminds Seth that it's just the two of them, and maybe they could just do this at home, but they are momentarily joined by...well, hello, Seth Cohen 2.0. He's maybe a little duller around the eyes, but he's clearly Summer's boyfriend, so we should start comparing them instantly. On the negative side, I'm sure he's not Jewish, so the food at family holidays might not be as good. On the plus side, he's not Jewish, so less dovoning. So much to think about. Seth 2.0 tells them that he's there for the league meeting, which Seth and Ryan welcome with consecutive "You are?"s. He asks why he wouldn't be, and Seth asks, "Because you're on the water polo team?" He wants to know what Seth means by that, so Seth changes the subject to, conveniently, comics, quizzing his future doppelganger on the relevant subject matter: "What day of the week do new comic books come out on?" Seth 2.0 knows that it's Wednesday. He also knows that Wonder Woman doesn't have a secret identity, and they agree that that is "a mistake, by the way." With which our superhero, Seth Cohen, meets his own arch-nemesis: the wily, duplicitous, and almost as aw-shucksy supervillain, Non-Jewish Seth Man. It's a metaphor. And it's already more clever than all of Unbreakable.
Banter about Superman and a line about The Hulk that's really designed to make you think leads Seth and his new manlover (and Ryan) to the front door of the school, where they agree to meet every Wednesday and circle jerk to the latest issues (and I'll prove I know a little something about comics myself: best. Circle jerk. Ever) and stuff. They part, Seth telling Ryan, "I love that guy." But they're soon to notice that, in Ryan's words, "You're not the only one." Seth looks on in horror, saying it's impossible that Summer's dating Seth 2.0. Ryan suggests that, until a minute ago, Seth wanted to date him, but Seth correctly notes that all Summer's doing is dating the WASP version of Seth. Summer and SethWASP walk away together, Seth wondering somewhere deep within him which one he's pining for more.
The non-yard-boy version of D.J. called "Ryan" walks with Marissa on the grounds of her manse. She asks if he's spoken to Theresa since he's been back, and he tells her that they didn't exactly do that much talking when he was there, either. She rejoices in this dysfunction, asking, "So you weren't really a couple?" He tells her not so much, then quickly asks if she's been dating below her caste as well. Well, he really just asks, "You dating anybody?" Rather than yelling a deep-throated "ay-yi-yi-yi-yi!" and clicking her finger cymbals in that way that implies being sexually liberated by hot Latin loving, Marissa tells him that, no, she's not dating anyone. He then asks her to the carnival kick-off and kisses her in plain sight of her cuckolded help.
Kirsten and Hailey brunch on the boat, and it's no problem that they're drinking in the daytime because they're both very, very pretty. "You got a job?" Kirsten exposits, and Hailey tells her that it's not a just a job: "It's a whole new career. In fashion. And sales." Pyramid scheme. "In Japan." Mail-order pyramid scheme. Kirsten utters a confused "oy," asking how Jimmy is doing with this information. Hailey cops to not having told him yet, fretting that Jimmy is making so much money in the stock market -- what did he do, buy stock in every other network's Thursday-night lineup? -- that all he wants to do is drink and sail and go to Cabo and repeatedly say "Cabo" in that way rich people have of saying it. Jerks. Kirsten can't really sympathize with Hailey's claim that she's "too young for early retirement," shooting back, "And you're too old to keep running away." Hailey promises she's not running away at all, saying that she has a real chance of making something of this opportunity no one bothered to ask her about because I don't know where all of the dueling information of "pretty blonde lady" and "Japan" and "sales" and "fashion" all intersect, but I have a feeling it's not in the best part of town.
Beating out the gardener, the contractor, the guidance counselor, and the interstate toll booth collector to whom Summer has started driving a hot thermos of chicken noodle soup to every morning, Sandy has gotten himself a real live drunk vagrant. Who also happens to be family! He accompanies a stinking-drunk Caleb up to his house, where Julie comes to greet them with a don't-fall-and- get-blood- on-my-terra- cotta-steps look of wifely concern. Caleb stumbles off to bed, leaving to Sandy the job of explaining to Julie why drinking in excess while the sun is up can be a family affair not just confined to Julie's daughter. Sandy will get right to it: "Caleb is gonna be indicted." Julie wants to know how long the D.A. has been investigating him, and when she finds out it was before the wedding, she mutters a perfectly villainous "Son of a bitch!" She asks if Caleb's going to jail, and Sandy reminds us all what Caleb's accused of and the fact that the D.A. has proof. He good guys, "I wish there was something I could do." But Julie hits back, "No, you don't. You despise him, you despise me, and you would love nothing more than to see us get exactly what we deserve, right?" The Sandy doth protest too much, so Julie makes her point a bit clearer: "If Caleb is going down, you better believe Kirsten's going with him. So you better come up with something, or it won't be just my kids who lose everything." Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go home and sleep with my wife.
Kirsten catches up with Ryan's lightest of leitmotifs in the kitchen, asking him how his first day of school went and how his assignment is going. But just as she starts espousing on the many benefits of a college education, Figure 1-1: The Non-Collegiate Archetype walks into the room in the form of lovable loser and wacky neighbor, Archie The Contractor. The laugh track roars. Can this guy do anything right?!? Apparently not, as Sandy rants that Ryan figured out by himself that the reason the construction was so over its schedule is that they ordered the wrong something something and instead had been trying to work with an inappropriate doohickey. Ryan grabs the blueprint and asks Archie if he can use the whats-it that he received if he moves the wall out about ten inches. So after thinking about college and having really good scores on his Ambiguous Tests, the job for which Ryan is best suited is...construction worker? That seems a bit despairingly like waking up a thousand years from now and finding out you're still a delivery boy, but they're going to treat it as kind of a "eureka" moment, I think, so who am I to get in their way besides the hot-ass D.J. with the totally killer abs? Archie wants to know if Ryan is an architect, and upon finding out that he's not...wait a sec. An architect! That requires, like a diploma and a year of fellowship at Vandelay Industries. Archie storms out and tells the punk-ass bitch to finish the job for him (I'm paraphrasing), and Kirsten tells Sandy to apologize. And out of seeming nowhere, Sandy rants, "I am sick to death of putting myself on the line for this family and getting nothing." Sandy storms out, and Kirsten exchanges a glance with Ryan and follows Sandy into the room, where, always the hardliner, Sandy immediately recants, "I'll call Archie and apologize." You tell him, you big brute of a...oh. But Kirsten tells Sandy that he's right, and that she'll call a new contractor. And, while we're at it, how about a heart-to-heart? Kirsten first: "I know I wasn't the easiest person to live with this summer. I was just really upset about the boys' being gone and I took it out on you. I'm sorry." Sandy tells her that his impassioned kitchen cabaret wasn't directed at her, and she tells him that he usually reserves that level of vitriol for her father. Upon hearing that, Sandy flinches, and Kirsten immediately asks, "What did he do?" First, he drank Orange County. Then he bored everyone to death.
Seth lies on his bed listening to the in a litany of bands whose songs feature the words "heart," "ache," "pain," and "[whispered, painful, heartache]" because Seth Cohen is a Tickle Me Emo plush toy and WE GET IT. Ryan soon enters and asks if Seth is okay, and with little provocation, Seth worries aloud that it's too late for him and Summer and that she'll never want to be his friend or his anything else. For more on this, I would link to other places where this topic has been mentioned, but if I try to link to this recap during this recap, the entire internet will fall into the Matrix and I don't want to break the internet.
Night. Boat. Jimmy and Hailey. Booze. Caaaaaaaaaah-bo. She sits to him and explains who the mysterious Suzie was from the call earlier. She was Hailey's college roommate at Santa Barbara, of course, and she become a fashion blah-di-blah in Paris, and just sold her first collection to a client in Japan. Don't care where this is going? You might just be me. Hailey drops the bomb that Suzie has asked Hailey to be her sales rep in Japan, because Suzie knows talent when sees it and the quality of your work on the pole almost always correlates to your work on the field. She tells Jimmy that she wants a job and a future, and he tells her she can have that here, promptly asking her to marry him. Don't let the scene break fool you. Her answer is "We may be dull, but at least we're not Caleb."
Summer does yoga and listens to the good vibrations tape she was telling Kirsten all about last week. A knock on the door yields Ryan. She asks if Seth sent him, and Ryan promises, "He has no idea I'm here." He enters her bedroom and gets started right away: "I owe you an apology. It's my fault Seth took off last summer." But Summer's having none of it, telling Ryan that even if Ryan had stayed, Seth "would have found some Cohen-y way to break [them] up. He can't help it. He's Cohen." She throws Ryan a pink pillow and instructs him to sit down, and Ryan tries again: "I know you have a boyfriend." Summer clarifies that she told Seth that only to torture him, and that she and Zach (SethWASP's name is Zach) aren't really together. She doesn't have a boyfriend and she doesn't want a boyfriend. She claims that they've all moved on -- including Marissa, which evokes from him a concerned "what?" -- and clarifies, "I mean, the way we were weren't always so great."
I like this guy a lot better when he's a lot hotter and a lot less stalky and a lot more on Desperate Housewives. Marissa finds D.J. waiting for her at the house, and he's so conflicted in his passion that his shirt is almost entirely buttoned. She tells him that her boyfriend's back and that's pretty much it between them, and he accuses her of being ashamed of hooking up with the yard guy, which, come on. She starts to cry that she's "not like that," even though she is 100% exactly like that. He tells her not to cry and they begin to kiss passionately because if you want to see lambada he shows you lambada. Anyway, Ryan pulls up and sees the whole thing, because in a house with sixty rooms it's always better to conduct all of your most intimate business in plain sight of oncoming traffic.
And now, a couple of things that don't really make sense: first, Ryan isn't that upset about Marissa, as we find him the morning telling Seth that he saw her making out with some guy he'd never seen before and just drive off. Second, Seth thanks Ryan for talking to Summer for him, even though any self-respecting human being would be hella pissed that his best friend went behind his back to his girlfriend to beg by proxy. Third, people in high school don't wake up for a daily block of heart-to-hearts before school. They roll out of bed five minutes before homeroom, stumble through the kitchen, mumble something about how unfair life is, and come home for free dinner and cable at the end of the day at 3:30. But the morning is slightly more curtailed than this. It's the reason someone saw fit to invent a product called "Gogurt."
Seth thinks now is the perfect time to strike vis-à-vis getting Summer back, even though she specifically told Ryan she just wanted to be friends with Seth. But Seth thinks he should try a "grand gesture," which Ryan is most futile in protesting. Ryan starts to ask what he should about Marissa, but just then the pointless academic exercise from the first act goes off in the fourth when he remembers he hasn't yet finished filling out his bluebook of the fuuuuture. Seth takes this as a good thing: "Marissa's distracting you from school again. Summer and I are getting back together. The thing is, by the end of the kick-off carnival, the four of us? We're gonna be exactly the way we were." In this study environment, Ryan is assured that elusive 5 on the Irony AP.
Kirsten walks into her kitchen to find her husband and her father not enjoying breakfast or each other. Caleb reports that Julie has taken off for a $3000 spa weekend that should juuuuuuust about cover the cost of tearing off one layer of bronzer and making her turn back into the color of people. Kirsten asks if Caleb is only there so that Sandy can bail him out again, and he promises not to drag Sandy into anything. He's really there to apologize to her and let her know that, whatever happens, he did what he did for his family. He stands up and tells them he'll be interviewing lawyers and shredding documents, but Sandy tells him to come back for dinner. He makes a hilarious crack about his wife's cooking, but Kirsten tells him that they'll order in and she'll see him later for Chinese takeout and fortune cookies reading "Do not pass go. Do not collect $200."
Meanwhile, the clairvoyant Miss Rogers decides that Ryan would make a really good architect because she watched him think about it scenes of this episode.
Kirsten runs into Jimmy while leaving the office. She tells him that Caleb is coming over for dinner and that she left a message for Hailey, but that she hasn't returned it because Hailey found out that her first client died in the grip of a rage and now has THE GRUDGE because that's just what happens when clueless blonde girls leave inexplicably for Japan. He tells Kirsten that it's good Hailey can finally get what she's always wanted (really?), but that he doesn't know exactly what he wants for himself anymore. He tells Kirsten that it was "fun," and she agrees that it must have been a blast "living on a yacht, drinking all day, sailing off to Cabo." He asks why it sounds like a bad thing coming from her, and I think it's because Kirsten is the voice of reason whose words translate in the air to "you're a shiftless boozehound and SHAVE IT OFF." She tells him that he can do whatever he wants with his life except waste it, and that "Hailey's made her move. What's yours?" No, Kirsten! Every time someone gives this speech to Tate Donovan, he thinks you mean he should try a movie career. Tate Donovan? Leave the movies out of this already.
And, carnival. Seth is wearing exactly the same sweatshirt that I'm wearing at this exact moment, except he has a third stripe down the arm, which officially makes him one full stripe cooler than I am. Ryan is soon to spot Marissa over by the ferris wheel, and she beckons him over. She promises, "I was gonna tell you." He tells her that he asked her point blank and she lied. She tells him that they're not seeing each other anymore, but he tells her that they should just be friends. She tells him that they were never friends, and he retorts, "That's the problem, then. See ya." It was easier with the yard boy. The yard boy was too common for such complexities or the heart and mind.
Meanwhile, near where I would be playing skeeball and asking people around me to keep their voices down because people are trying to concentrate on a sport, Zach tells Summer he's going to get her some snacks, and takes off. At this moment, Summer spots Seth trying to climb up on a big plastic hot dog, and he hops up on the hot dog stand and announces, "Summer Roberts? I love you!" Zach returns just in time to ask what this is all about, and Summer tells him not to pay any attention, adding for awkward measure, "Don't listen to him. He's crazy. He reads comic books." Seth scales his way down the hot dog and tries to make her listen, but Zach is forced to step between him and Summer and ask Seth to back off. They walk away and Seth follows, coming to rest with his hand up in front of Zach's oncoming SUV. Summer leaps out of the car and starts screaming that he could have gotten hurt, and asking what she wants from him. He tells her, "I just want you," but she argues that he's had her twice before and he's chosen to leave: "You like the chase and that's all. So you know what? You can have it. I'm going home." The comic book league meeting? Awkward.
Back at home, Seth and Ryan enter to find Kirsten, Sandy, and Caleb eating Chinese food on the floor. A ring at the doorbell invites the entrance of a federal fellow who bears a striking resemblance to Bill O'Reilly, and Sandy proclaims himself Caleb's lawyer as Caleb's being carted off to the clink. Seth looks on because he hasn't been in a scene with that weird old dude who smells like beef soup in a while and he's having some trouble recalling exactly who he is.