Before we begin, please note that there will be a sub week. Please behave. You will be learning.
Previously: I still have not bought The Walkmen album. Nice try though, show.
We fade up at O.C.H.S., Seth and Ryan pulling up to campus in their bicycle/skateboard combo, because today school is close enough to access on non-motorized vehicles because the exposition doesn't require that they get a ride to school. They pat each other on the back -- not literally, though, because patting leads to touching and touching leads to an eternal life of hellfire and brimstone -- about how well last week's double date accidentally worked out, with Seth and Alex kissing and Ryan and Lindsay engaging in some hot, unadulterated park benching. Seth sets up the dramatic tension for the episode, asking Ryan what's for "the two lovebirds," though if he mumbles and "lovebirds" comes out "my red-headed stepsister," I wouldn't fault him for cracking the mystery of the twist ending exactly six seconds ahead of the rest of the viewing audience. Ryan responds that he's just going to "take things slow," adding, "No pressure." But Seth has larger plot conceits in mind, though we can all rejoice silently that Ryan won't be asking Lindsay to any concerts at The Bait Shop, because, with any luck, they've held their final Going Out Of Relevance Sale and their sellout band lineup can go about getting famous the way bands have for years: by toiling in pointless obscurity and just shutting the living hell up about it.
Anyway, what Seth has in mind for Ryan and Lindsay is "The SnO.C. Winter Dance," which is indicated by a big-ass banner that rises up above them right now. The plucky plucky string music is briefly drowned out by the sound of thousands of O.C.H.S. high-school students turning to each other and asking permutations of the questions, "How come we've never heard of this dance before?" and "I'm sorry, but does that sign say 'The Snock'?" But Ryan is more hung up on the whole idea of the dance, which he expresses with his trademark bad-boy Chino toughness: by being afraid of it like a tiny little girly. He mutters a noncommittal, "Oh, no," and Seth counsels him to take Lindsay so that they may have the double date that they were supposed to have. Ryan frets that Lindsay will have had the weekend to think about it and will have decided that she only wants to be lab partners, because of all the potential breakup politics of being someone's lab partner. Well, actually, I guess it is a little more difficult than that when there's only one class at your school. Seth puts things in perspective, asking, "Ryan Atwood? Are you scared of a girl?" Ryan responds that he likes Lindsay, and meta-worries about the ramifications of going to a big party on this show, an activity that always ends up with the punching and the crying and the monkeys making mayhem and flouncing around in the punch bowls. Though the last one hasn't happened. Yet. But Seth says that Ryan should just ask Lindsay as a barometer of how she feels, and Ryan squints, "Maybe I'll just go alone." Seth wants his damn double date, and the good news for him is that it's going to work out exactly like that. Because The Snock is a place of magical wonder and dreamy snocky dreams.
"Top Down" Summer "In The O.C." Roberts stands at her locker, telling Marissa "Quoth THE HAT Nevermore" Cooper that she cannot go alone to the dance. Marissa asks why not, deadpanning (actually, the word I think I'm looking for here is "flatlining"), "Why not? It's just a school dance." Summer notes that it's not "just" a school dance at all, once more pronouncing "SnO.C." in a way that attempts to demystify the part of my brain that still looks at that word in print every time I type it and thinks it's seeing part of the script in, like, Wolof, or some secret language that twins teach each other. It just doesn't look right. Summer continues reciting the press release of this "Enchantment Under The Sea" celebration, reminding Marissa that it's "the one night when winter comes to Newport Beach." Can anyone else not believe that they didn't find a way for it actually to snow during a pivotal plot moment late in this episode? I certainly can't. And then they would look up and see what they thought was a shooting star, but was accompanied by the sound of sleigh bells and a deep voice yelling, "Ho Ho Ho" because the season is very, very magical? Summer adds that this is Marissa's "first dance of the year as social chair," a position apparently procured by drinking during the day, cutting all of your classes, not dating the captain of the football team, and having three friends. That girl? At our high school? Scowled at you from behind the safety of her Megadeth t-shirt, was the only person who knew our high school had a literary magazine, and didn't go to many school dances. Apparently, Marissa is popular again.
Summer and Marissa do the hallway walk and talk, Zach falling in line at this moment and asking Marissa, "What happened to D.J.?" Marissa responds that she didn't ask him, and Marissa says some words that sound like "My mom is chairing the host committee," which features words that make sense, just not in that order. Zach asks if she doesn't like D.J., and Summer sounds smug when she adds, "She doesn't know about him." As the script starts to make everything about Marissa and even the Marissa-specific stage directions of "spoken in any other way than with the cold, dead-eyed stare of the damned, please" fail to make a dent in her technique, Seth and Ryan save us all by bursting through a nearby door and wishing the others a hearty hello. Marissa notes that they still haven't bought their Snock tickets yet and asks if she can put them down for four. Summer banters with Seth that he should invite his date from Saturday night, but then remembers, "She totally pulled a Houdini on your ass." She immersed herself in a water-filled box ensconced in chains and locks? On his ass? Seth banters back that he ended up making out with somebody, thank you very much, and Summer tells Seth that she had been feeling sorry for the wrong girl. Zach skulks off unnoticed as Summer tells Seth that his date should wear comfortable shoes for when she decides to run away, and Seth points in the direction of the recently-departed Zach and asks, "You mean like him?" Summer is soon to follow, and Seth smiles and celebrates, "That worked out rather nicely." This is going to be the best Snock ever.
Opening credits: I kid you not, this exact sentiment is written on the wall at the coffee shop where I am writing this recap: "Phantom Planet wuz here." And then, scrawled below it in red marker, "And they sucked." Written exactly like that. And not even by me. For once.
Sandy Cohen stands at the kitchen sink, making some coffee and dialing the phone. I sure hope that, whatever this phone call accomplishes, it somehow shoehorns in the latest information about Sandy's attempts to set up a meeting with Renee Wheeler, ideally in as pithy terms as possible. "Caleb," he says, "It's me. I still haven't heard back from you about setting up another meeting with Renee Wheeler." Nicely played, Cohen. Kirsten enters with a look of father-hating determination on her face, telling Sandy that she knows she's not allowed to ask about the case, but kind of wants to know what's going on anyway. Sandy responds that, even if he could talk about it, he wouldn't have anything to say, and Sandy wonders aloud, "What could he possibly have done that he'd rather go to jail than admit to?" Illegitimate child with local washed-out redhead following by sixteen years of palimony payments? I'm just guessing, using my context clues and sounding out any hard-to-pronounce elephant words. Kirsten asks what he's going to do, and he tells her, "The only thing I can do." Throw up his hands, ask, "So what I should cook maybe a brisket, I should?" and then cook a brisket. But Kirsten has other, less Yiddish-contrived ideas in mind: "Ask for a continuance." I have no idea what that means. "Buy some time and find out what he's hiding." Sandy cooks an omelet. You want that he should sit in the dark and starve?
School's One Class. Ryan walks in and spots Lindsay looking radiant, and he stands so close to her it's almost as if they're related. Almost. Students mill around wondering what they're going to do after their one class wraps up, and when Ryan asks how Lindsay is doing, she wastes literally not one second, because this is the equal and opposite reaction AP Physics insisted was coming: "I thought about what you said all weekend. You were so sweet and so honest." Ryan lays the groundwork for the dance, knowing somewhere deep in his mind that it's all he's going to be laying for the foreseeable future, as Lindsay drops the preemptive breakup bomb: "I would love to go out with you, but we're lab partners. Could you imagine how awkward it would be if we break up?" This conversation? Was written by someone who was home-schooled. No high-school student, ever, has ever passed up free booty because they were worried what it would do to their science class dynamic. I mean, I dated a girl for a full year and spanned two proms with her. And I like boys. All I'm saying is that no student, no matter how self-possessed, would be like, "Someday we'll be dissecting a pig fetus together, and I won't be able to concentrate on the task at hand if all I keep cutting out are big, bloody piles of What Might Have Been." I know. You don't dissect pigs in physics class. Maybe this conversation happens when they dissect Jupiter. Whatever. Ryan tries to tell Lindsay that they haven't even gone out yet, and she argues that relationships always end badly, and that this way they can be friends for the rest of their lives. up: an equal and opposite reaction to Ryan's haircut, also known in technical physics terms as "a good haircut."
A bell rings, and a lot of people exit rooms filled with blackboards and books, but for some amazing reason, no one seems to have gotten any smarter. Marissa walks into a hallway and takes a call on her cell phone, discovering D.J. The Yard Guy on the other end. He asks her if it's a bad time, and she asks where he is. He tells her he's in the parking lot, which is actually the perfect place for much older men to go trolling for underage girls. The only difference is that Marissa is an active participant in this relationship, rather than being one of the smart girls who tells the much older man to leave the underage girl alone, cry out, "I don't know you!" and run off to tell a parent, guardian, or trusted member of the clergy. Instead, Marissa takes off to get her own hedges trimmed...
...and we cut to the two of them in Marissa's bedroom, where...ew. Daddy, why is he hurting her? She tells him, "I really like our lunch breaks," which...ew with cheese on a Sloppy Joe. They kiss smackily, D.J. interrupting her with the total non sequitur, "What's The SnO.C.?" That would totally be the , most organic thing to say in real life, I bet. A forty-three-minute lunch, a girl half your age and double your height, and a bedroom...let's talk about a banner I saw hanging above the school. Scintillating pillow talk, always. It would be like if he said, "So, baby, I hear that the Harbor High School marching band is having a pep rally this Friday at the gym. Tell me about that." Except that D.J. doesn't have time (and it's too bad, because you should hear their totally kick-ass version of "Celebration"), because just as Marissa rationalizes that she can't invite him because she'll be so busy running the place, they get bee-zay with it for exactly nine seconds and exactly nine seconds too long. And then Julie walks in and asks somewhat hilariously, "The yard guy?" Julie asks what her daughter is doing home from school, and Marissa responds that she's on her lunch break. D.J. collects his tiny shoes and says that he has to get back to work, but Julie has other ideas, correcting him, "No, you don't. You're fired." Which is fine, because I remember him quitting and disappearing for the Henderson's several weeks ago, and I don't remember him supplicating himself to get his job back so now he's both quit and been fired and this is the kind of life's lesson knowing Marissa teaches you, D.J., so throw some fire under those tiny, tiny feet of yours and run away as fast as your exceedingly short strides will take you. "And you, young lady, are grounded," Julie adds for good measure, and her recalcitrant daughter snarks, "Like that's gonna keep me from seeing him." Julie looks down the requisite three and a half feet required to fix D.J. with a look directly in the eye and warns him, "You stay away from my daughter, you hear me?" What I'm saying is that he's very small.
Kirsten and Sandy meet in the lobby of Bluth Industries. Sandy catches Kirsten up that his continuance motion was denied (I write words that, to me, are psychotic word salad), and Caleb's trial has been fast-tracked because, man, they can't drag out this old-man- skulking-around- under-the- cover-of-darkness thing for another hour. Sandy fills Kirsten in that the trial is now less than two weeks away, and he makes for the closest land line, thinking aloud, "I'm calling Caleb." Now, Sandy, isn't a personal call on the company dime exactly the kind of infraction that got you into this position to begin with? Once again, I'm not lying when I say I really do know preciously little about the law. Sandy gets voicemail -- Caleb didn't even personalize his greeting -- and hangs up. Kirsten once again incredulously wonders how she didn't know that her father and colleague was bribing a woman from the city council, but Sandy says they don't even know that much, so little did Renee Wheeler say at her depozzzzzzzzzzzition. Kirsten reminds Sandy that he can't even talk to Renee without her lawyer present, and he notes in a wily fashion, "I could." Kirsten reminds him that that would be unethical, and Sandy wonders what would happen if he just happened to run into her. Kisten throws a ficus-killing foreshadow over the whole building, foreshadowing, "I don't want you getting yourself in trouble for this," and Sandy responds, "Honey, it's a little late for that." By the way, while I'm thinking about it: in the past three weeks, Tate Donovan has logged exactly fourteen seconds more of screen time than I have.
The Starbucks in the lobby of O.C.H.S. is doing its usual brisk business, and the unlikely pairing of Zach and Ryan finds Zach asking Ryan the unlikely question, "Do you know where I can buy my SnO.C. tickets?" Ryan has no idea, and Zach asks if Ryan is going. When Ryan answers in the negative, Zach leans in with his brow a little too arched, his leaning a little too leaned, his voice a little too come-hither as he asks, "No one to go with?" Aw, it would never work out between you two. Ryan would just end up going back to Seth, just like everything else Zach ever deigns to touch. Ryan turns the tables, asking Zach if he's going with Summer. Zach says that that's "a given," and then worries about Seth. Ryan says that Seth's not asking Summer, and Zach responds that even if Seth and Summer don't go together, somehow "the night's gonna end up about them." But Ryan tells Zach that there's nothing to worry about, because Seth is with somebody else now. Zach asks hopefully whether this means Seth is over Summer, and Ryan tells him, "Oh, yeah, definitely." And then, less certain: "I think so. He wants to be." Meanwhile, the stirrer Zach's hand brushed across on his way into the room, by the way, gives up on Zach and goes back to Seth.
Except for the "nothing to worry about" part. Alex wears her daytime hair and works very, very hard, and Seth enters The Haaaaaaaaate Shop with a cocky swagger and sighs, "Hello, Alex. How are we today?" But Alex, you see, is All Business, and she sets him to work right away, asking if he'll carry some large boxes to the storeroom. He flirts in a really creepy way, asking if she'd like to show him where the storeroom is, and she puts him in his place: "All right, Cohen, we need to work." He thinks he gets it, shooting back, "If by work you mean *cough* make out *cough*." That was the only way I could signify that. With asterisks. Was that okay? Not to Alex it wasn't, as she continues the far heavier lifting of moving Seth into his place in responds to his invitation to the Snock, speeching, "Obviously, you got the wrong idea Saturday night. Because you and me? Not happening." He reminds her that they did kiss on Saturday, and she remembers it fondly, telling him, "It was fun." He's horrified at the description, apparently preferring to be remembered in his intimate actions as "egregiously bad" or "filled with abject terror." He asks if it meant anything to her, and she tells him, "Dude, it was just a kiss." He asks her why they didn't just shake hands, then, and she responds to this by making her way over to an older gentleman wheeling cases of beer across the room and kissing him on the lips. Beer? She's not old enough to be serving alcohol, he's too old to be making out with a seventeen-year-old, I've alerted the police, and everyone currently on screen is going away for a very, very long time. Seth notes, "You just kissed the beer guy," and Alex moves on to her Figure 1-2 of her "it's just a kiss" exhibition, walking up to a girl she calls "Mandy" and kissing her, too. Yay, gratuitous lesbianism! Thank you for giving the Parents Television Council something to do besides sending hateful letters to the Mars candy company for its overuse of the word "nuts" in its Snickers commercial. Also, while we're at it, "nougat" sounds kind of dirty as well.
School, I guess, the day. Ryan is driving (see, this I don't get, because...nah, never mind for a thousand reasons) a big, SUV, and from the passenger seat, Seth patters, "Do you think it's offensive to say that, like, all women are crazy?" It is if it starts with the sentiment "can't live with him" and ends with them being from Venus because this is suddenly '80s stand up comedy and shut up. Seth recaps the last scene for Ryan, stopping to tell him that the girl-girl kiss wasn't even fun because (girls kissing anyone but boys is an abomination into the Lord and also because) "[he] couldn't even enjoy it, so consumed was [he] with how crazy women are." Ryan commiserates, reminding us that he and Lindsay shared some hot bus-stop love, but then she dumped him before they even had a chance to go out. Seth once again calls out, "Crazy!"
Outside the car, Seth poses a scenario by which women are so crazy that the time they run into their respective non-girlfriends, "Alex is dragging me to the storeroom and Lindsay is asking you to the dance." But before we have the chance to ruminate on women or their craziness, Marissa appears out of seeming nowhere, carrying: a cardboard box, some foam, yoga-mat-looking things, and, in her car, a penguin. Um, Marissa, that In My Grandmother's Attic game is just a memory game; you don't actually have to go out and get all of the things. Marissa asks Ryan if he'll carry the penguin, and we cut to him toting a giant stuffed penguin across campus. Just as Marissa warns him how expensive the thing is, it tips forward and all hell breaks loose, slapstick-style! The penguin threatens to hurl itself onto the ground because even fake, stuffed penguins prefer lemming-esque suicide rather than chilling with Marissa, and Marissa and Ryan laaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh and laaaaaaaaaaaaaugh and laaaaaaaaaaaaaugh. Dude. Prop comedy? Why not just give the front row of onlookers a protective tarp and take a sledgehammer to an unsuspecting watermelon? Speaking of passersby, Lindsay walks on by the just, surveying the scene is a very I-have- let-it-all- go-to-waste kind of way. Seth -- her stepbrother, I think -- walks up behind her just then, counseling her, "It's not too late. You can still ask him to the SnO.C." Y'all, please stop saying that. Lindsay worries, "He's gonna think I'm crazy," and Seth has the answer at the ready: "He knows you're a girl. He expects it." Oh, women and their hysterics. What an amusing aphorism in the eighteenth century.
Now inside some ambiguous office inside the school, Marissa tells Ryan that she has his tickets for the dance. He asks her if her has to go and mourns being "kind of dateless" at the moment, and she sympathizes in a way that you seriously, simply have no idea where this is going to go, "Yeah. Me too." Hey, you got your chocolate in my bad acting! Hey, you got your plot-contrived penguin in my peanut butter! Let's go to the dance together.
Now, what is this outfit, exactly? Summer walks down the hallway in boots and a shaggy white dress that suggests either Courtney Love on her way to court or two dead lovers getting married at a ghosty wedding. She runs into Seth standing by his locker, and he compliments her on her ghosty boots ("Are those Manolos?" Heh), causing her to ask suspiciously, "What do you need, Cohen?" He's all, "You know, like, when you're with a lady? What's that like?" I'm paraphrasing. What he really needs help is with a feminine perspective on femininity, and she tells him she's willing to listen, pulling him over to some kind of private love-seat-y area my Long Island public school was just totally filled with. He reminds her of the girl from Saturday night, and wants to know why she would kiss Seth and then turn down his invitation to the dance and then kiss two other people right in front of him. "Damn, she's good," Summer observes, and Seth asks, "At what? Besides kissing." Summer explains what goes on inside the mind of the lady: "She's playing you hot and cold and so far, Cohen, you've just been hot." Could try to argue with that, but I'm not made of stone, people. She counsels that he needs to "cool down," and just as I get really, super, very nervous that she's about to launch into a full-scale rendition of "Boy" from West Side Story -- which, a fine song and all, but I get kind of hive-y at the sight of boys snapping in unison -- oh, just kidding, I love it -- Zach pulls up in his Inopportune Timing Mobile and stands across the hallway, watching Seth and Summer talk. He skulks away, looking sad because if we're in the century where "all women are crazy," we're also in the century where men are frequently "cuckolded."
Renee Wheeler walks out of a building that appear to contain law offices of some kind, and as she makes her way to her car, she's stopped by a totally-coincidentally-appearing Sandy, who leaps out of his car and is all, "Whassup? Fancy meeting YOU! Nice weather we're having, except I guess the weather is always pretty good, so maybe there's no reason to bring that up, and also it's going to snow somewhere, because at my kid's school, there's this dance, and I thought it was called 'The Snock,' but anyway, I like your dress and do you have the time and what's the deal with tofu?" None of that happened, but the whole interaction is really just that awkward. Renee tells Sandy that she can't talk to him without her lawyer, and Sandy reminds her that she wasn't exactly chatty when her lawyer was around. She reminds him that she's not on trial, and she threatens him with her lawyer and the Bar Association. He tells her that he knows she's hiding something and doesn't know why they would risk so much over what he imagines just to be an affair. She gets in her car and that went badly.
Eight periods a day, every day, morning to night, weight, mass, and volume: Physics class. Lindsay arrives second today, and marches right up to Ryan, telling him, "I've been thinking and, well, yes. I would love to go to the dance with you." Yeah, thanks, but Ryan already has a date. She guesses that it's Marissa and he confirms this suspicion, and she sighs with self-protective relief and tells him that she was "right the first time" and that it wouldn't be a good idea after all and that she doesn't even like dances sad sad sad sad sad inside her heart is breaking sad she's kind of his sister wah.
Summer finds Zach at his locker and tells him that she missed him at lunch, but she was way too busy montaging with her old boyfriend to give polite Zach the time of day. He tells her that he was in the library, and she wonders how he can work in such a quiet environment. She tries to chat him up, but he rids himself of her with the excuse that he has "World Lit," where you read books from the region of the world known as "world." She starts to ask him a question about the dance, and he jumps on it: "About that. It turns out I'm not gonna be able to go. I got family stuff. Sorry." She tells him that unless he's "grieving over the death of a family pet," he'll be attending, but he bitingly suggests, "Why don't just ask Cohen? I'm sure he'd love to take you." And he's off, leaving her staring after him with no one to wacky banter with. Check your tiny locker, Summer. Maybe D.J. is hiding somewhere in the back.
The Haaaaaaaate Shop. Alex welcomes an arriving Seth, who is ready to put into action his teachings from The Chick School Of Passive-Aggressive Posturing. Women are wily and underhanded. Just like the Jews. She gives him his Cinderella chores for the day, telling him there's a day of cleaning that lies ahead. Dude. You went to the concert already. Now quit the damn job. Which, oh, is exactly what he does. "You know what? There is something that I think we should discuss." Alex's daytime hair goes limper. Thank god. He says that he really enjoys his job and stuff, "but right now, for me, with school and homework and this dance coming up, I don't know that I have time for a job." Yeah, all that dance planning. It's going to take much of the mental energy he usually reserves for not going to classes to prepare for the dance, which I believe requires the following, teeming chore list: put on pants, go to dance. I'm exhausted just typing it. Alex can't believe it either, asking, "Because I wouldn't make out with you in the storeroom." That's why Powell quit the cabinet, and he was all, "It doesn't matter what Leviticus says, Mr. President, we share something strange and powerful." Sometimes it's fun to make the president a little gay. Dear Patriot Act: Just kidding! Love, Djb. He tells her that he respects her decision not to go to the dance with him, but that he has a lot of obligations right now. He doesn't. Even he knows he doesn't. She squints her eyes but accepts his resignation, taking out a wad of cash and telling him that this is what she owes him for the week. He tells her it's been great working with her and takes off, leaving her looking confused. Seth walks off into the sunset and somewhere in a parallel universe this would be the end of the episode. But...snock.
"Caleb, it's your lawyer, leaving you yet another message," Sandy barks into his phone inside the Cohen manse. "Call me back, will ya? I've had a breakthrough." Kirsten makes her way across the back yard, asking him, "I was wondering what you wanted to do tonight." Sandy says that he wants to get some pictures of the boys before the big dance. Why would he want to do that? Is this the prom? Why do parents care? What's going on?
Out in the pool house, Ryan takes out the last of his clothes from the Robert Palmer Lookalike Kit he got some very Christmas a long time ago, and as he ties his skinny tie, he tells Seth to get damn ready himself. But Seth lies on the couch watching a kung fu movie and telling Ryan he's not going. He reminds Seth that Ryan and Marissa are only going as friends and that he should just tag along with them. Seth bemoans, "That's how lame I've become. I can't even be third wheel to an actual relationship." Grammarians...start your bitching! Sandy and Kirsten enter, Sandy calling Ryan "sharp," though I think the words he's looking for are "You used to look good to me, but now I find you -- drums drums drums drums drums! -- simply irresistible!" That song in your head? You're welcome. Sandy worries that his son is going to be late for the party, but Seth turns his direction back to the movie and asks them if they wouldn't mind taking their discussion elsewhere. Sandy and Kirsten exchange "we are wacky parents" glances, and Sandy sits on the couch and says that he too wouldn't mind kicking back with a movie. Kirsten sits on Seth's other side, and they immediately begin asking questions. What movie is this? Why is that ninja smoking a cigarette? Is a ninja like a superhero? Seth caves immediately, standing up and telling them to enjoy the movie. Ryan compliments them on their "nice work," and Sandy responds with that old saw, "Never underestimate a parent's ability to mortify his child." Waka waka waka scene.
Summer and Marissa apply makeup and talk about boys. Summer asks if D.J. is going to be there, which she would clearly already know, and Marissa reminds her that with both of her parents hosting the party (she has a father?), it wouldn't be the best idea for D.J. to show up. Summer says that she's happy to go alone, and doesn't care if Zach bothers to show up at all. "At least I won't have to deal with Cohen," Summer ironicizes (which, as far as calorie burning, kicks even the ass of Cardio Bar), just as a knock on the door reveals Ryan with Seth in tow. Drums drums drums drums drums...simply irresistible! Summer and Marissa need small black dresses and very bright red lipstick to make this picture complete.
Suddenly, school is REALLY far away. Where is this party, anyway? Ryan drives his SUV with Marissa sitting in the front seat, Seth and Summer occupying the b-story in the back. They each say that it feels like "old times," and Seth notes that the four of them and their inability to get a real date feels like old times, indeed. He wonders if they're going to win the award for biggest losers in Newport Beach, and Summer banters, "You must win that award a lot." Seth goes on a futile hunt for Zach somewhere in the car, and Summer yells in frustration, "At least he didn't kiss two people right in front of me." Marissa asks who would have done that, and Summer reminds us all that it was Seth's fake girlfriend, before she totally dumped him. Marissa gasps at the news that Alex kissed two guys in front of him, and Ryan clarifies, "I think it was a guy and a girl." Cooper? Don't get any ideas. Marissa adds once more that it really, really does feel like old times, and Ryan smiles because that's what he does now.
The party is very white, and is filled with trees and penguins. Sorry, y'all who didn't actually watch this episode and are reading the recap for actual information...that's exactly as well as I'm going to be able to do. Students who are in their thirties walk around, and the four of our heroes walk in together because if Marissa planned this entire party by herself, I'm sure there's no reason for her to, y'know, get there early and stuff. Summer compliments the surroundings, Seth compares it to a comic-book thing because he is Seth Cohen, and Summer takes off. Marissa asks Ryan if he'd like to dance, and they stand awkwardly apart like me at the seventh-grade dance trying to dance to "Eternal Flame" with a girl from very, very, very far away. She asks him if he'd like to come a bit closer, and Julie looks on approvingly. She walks up to Jimmy -- Tate Donovan, ladies and gentlemen! Give him a hand before he drops out of sight again until week! -- and points in the direction of the happy-looking Ryan and Marissa. Julie's just glad he's not foreign. Julie notes that Ryan looks like "Prince Charming" right now, and gladly thanks Jimmy for coming to the party, offering him a kiss on the cheeks. Who let him off the boat? Actually, what I meant is...Tate Donovan, ladies and gentlemen! Well done, bit player.
Ding dong! Caleb finally shows up to the Cohen house, Kirsten answering the door as Sandy enters the room. They retire out to the back porch, and Caleb asks why Sandy needed to talk to him so damn badly. Sandy reminds us all that he spoke to Renee Wheeler today and that he knows all about the affair. Sandy wants to know why Caleb didn't tell him, and he responds that the details of his personal life are none of Sandy's business. Sandy says this isn't so and that the DA is building his case around the notion that Caleb is paying her off in order to get building permits. Caleb notes, "The DA is an idiot." Sandy wants to know why, even if he was having an affair with Renee, "sixteen years is an awfully long time to be paying someone palimony. Unless there was a child." Light bulbs go on above the collective heads of O.C. viewers everywhere, and a room full of people I'm watching this with (including two people who have never once seen this show before) simultaneously to each other and announce, "It's Lindsay." Yeah. Too bad about that not being a surprise. Caleb finally spills, telling Sandy that he and Renee were together for just a few months and that he set up a trust when she told him she was pregnant. His redheaded girlfriend. Was pregnant. Sixteen years ago. He says it was just a mistake, and Sandy notes, "When you make a mistake, you really make a mistake." And when you die at the palace, you really die at the palace. Sandy tells Caleb that he has to go to the judge and tell him everything or he's going to face some serious jail time, and Caleb says that he really, seriously can't do that. A quick shot to Zach in his car is supposed to make us think that his kid is Zach. But it's not. It's Lindsay.
Zach is in his car, listening to WSNOC, Radio That Can Hear His Thoughts. A D.J. tells him that a song is for "all you lonelyhearts out there," and, whoever it is, I'm just glad we're not at their concert right now for the eleven hours.
Back at school, Seth and Summer dance...
...and back on the road, Zach makes a big U-turn.
Back at school again, Julie finds a solo Ryan and tells him how good he looks, remembering that even though they have their differences, she thinks it's really good for Marissa that he's back at home where he belongs. A distrustful Marissa makes herself present again, pulling Ryan away in a hurry and telling him, "A year ago, she wanted to have me committed 'cause I was dating you." Ryan tries to gloss over that particularly glaring continuity nightmare, rationalizing, "And now, somehow, you've managed to find someone she hates even more." He expresses surprise that Marissa didn't bring D.J., and she responds that she wouldn't want to do that to her old man toy. Ryan asks straight out if she didn't bring him because she's embarrassed of him, and drawls, "The winter ball is not his type of thing." Alas, there he is! D.J. props up the phone books he sits on when he drives his big boy truck, and he pulls up the front of the school and honks his horn in preparation for honking Marissa's.
Back inside, dancing dancing dancing la la la la la la la la la. Seth and Summer look very happy together, and Seth pipes up at this moment to ask why Zach didn't come. Summer responds that he was "jealous." Seth tells her that they were just talking, but just at this moment Zach enters to find them dancing together. Seth tries to tell Zach that "it isn't like that," but Zach has a monologue to deliver and ain't no logic is going to get in his way: "I get it. You guys are just one of those couples. Even when you're not being a couple, you'll always be a couple. You're Joanie and Chachi. Luke and Leia." Seth tries to pipe up that Luke and Leia were brother and sister, and Zach just barks, "May the force be with you" before storming off and wishing he had a much, much better exit line.
Ding dong! Ryan shows up at a slightly dilapidated house that makes me briefly convinced that he returned to Chino, which could not be the case, seeing as Chino doesn't actually exist on this show anymore. Lindsay soon comes to the door holding a big-ass Physics textbook, and she walks outside and closes the door. He stares at her and then down at her feet, noticing she's wearing big, big slippers with little felt renditions of an old man with glasses on them. She tells him that they are -- wait for it -- "Freudian Slippers." Dude, whoever made those just sold 12,000 pairs. When are people going to start showing up on these shows wearing Glarkware already? CATCH UP, AMERICA. Ryan tells Lindsay that he wanted to go to the dance with her, and that's why he came to her house. She tells him that she can't do anything with him, saying, "This isn't gonna work." Why not? "You're this tough kid from Chino who lives in some rich family's pool house with an ex-girlfriend who is maybe the most beautiful girl in the history of high school." All of that is wrong. He tells her that they'll be seeing a lot of each other and that he's "not giving up. Because [he likes her]." He takes his leave and Lindsay goes back inside, leaning against the door musingly.
Caleb stands in a dark office because evil people need representative lighting or we might accidentally mistake them for very, very good people after all. A knock on the door reveals Renee Wheeler, asking Caleb what on earth this is all about. She tells him that when Sandy came to see her she kept her mouth shut about the ed-headed-ray ep-sister-stay, and he thanks her for that. He says that they just need to get through the couple of weeks, and she asks him if he's really ready to go to jail to protect "the secret." He says it's not "the secret" he's worried about, but instead protecting his family, noting that this developing c-story would devastate Kirsten. "And what about mine? Ours?" she asks. Well, she's playing Playstation 2 at the pool house. I'll meet you guys there at the end of the episode.
The Haaaaaate Shop. Zach enters and finds Alex tending bar illegally, and he makes his way down to her, noting how quiet it is tonight. Can't hear the sound of selling out from a week on either side, which is a damned relief, is what it is. Alex tells Zach that "all of the kiddies" are at their fancy dance, and he asks for a Yoo Hoo either because it's supposed to be adorable and endearing or because, according to the commercials, it's an excellent form of niacin (Yoo Hoo!) and riboflavin (Yoo Hoo!). Zach asks Alex if she was at The Killers show, and she's all, whatever dude, I go to a lot of shows, man, so he clarifies, "You were here with Ryan." She asks Zach if he goes to Harbor and why he isn't at "the SnO.C. winter wankoff." Good name for it! He tells her that it's "complicated," and then goes on to explain that his girlfriend is in love with another guy and probably always will be. Alex notes this "this display of courage and dedication" will probably not endear her to Zach forever and ever and ever, but he's all, "What am I supposed to do?" She tells him to "be a man," and to "put down [his] chocolate soda and fight for her." It's not a "chocolate soda." It's a Yoo Hoo. It doesn't have carbonation and you can blow bubbles into it, just like milk. Zach categorizes himself as "not much of a fighter," but Alex leans in and says, "She can't fall for you if you're not there to catch her." But she could get caught up in a tangled net of metaphor like so many dolphins in a careless haul of tuna. Alex hates dolphins, yo. Zach thinks she's absolutely right, and states his intentions somehow, "Even if it turned into an actual fight, I can take SETH COHEN!" Alex is all, "Pardon?"
Marissa and D.J.! Dancing at the Enchantment Under The Sea dance! But if she and Ryan don't kiss, I'll never be born! I'd better pick up this guitar here and...but now I'm disappearing from the picture! This episode needs 1.21 jiggowatts of contrivance to continue unabated! Julie spots Marissa and stares on in low-grade horror, but just as she starts over to break it up, Tate Donovan -- hi, Tate Donovan! -- pulls her asides with a preachy "No, you don't." He reminds her that when they were that age, they couldn't keep their hands off each other. Julie asks, "Am I the gardener in this situation?" No. But you certainly are his ho. Thank you! Thank you and goodnight! Seriously, try the veal. Anyway, Jimmy tells her that his parents threatened to cut him off if he didn't break up with Julie, and she tells him that she never knew that. She says that she was easier to love back then, when she was beautiful and nicer. "C'mon," Jimmy tells her. "You're still beautiful. And we both know you were never nice." Julie melts at this non-pliment, kissing Jimmy full on the mouth. Tate Donovan, people! Let him hear it!
Outside the school, Seth finds Summer sitting alone on a bench, and they compliment each other on another night well done. Seth wants to leave, but Ryan took off with the car, and Summer wants to leave, but she has to wait for Marissa and D.J. to finish up making out. Seth sits down on the bench to her and then moves aaaaaaall the damn way to the other side, just as Zach pulls up, walks over to Seth with determination, and clocks him right across the jaw as Seth stands up. The first punch of the season. It needs some sort of "Sock! Boom!" thing on the screen for extra punchy significance. Seth goes down, and Zach immediately starts apologizing, and just at this moment Alex jumps out of her car (you're fired, work shirker), and Alex hauls Seth off and promises to give him first aid at the club. Back inside, Summer brings Zach ice for his ailing punch hand, and she promises that Seth isn't her boyfriend. Zach asks what Zach is, and Summer says that Zach was her boyfriend until he decided not to take her to the dance. He asks her to the dance just then, and she offers, "Let me think about it."
Back in an empty room at the back of The Haaaaaate Shop, meanwhile, Alex sits down to Seth and asks him how he's doing. He says he was fine and pretty much ready to "bring the pain" himself before his not-girlfriend showed up to protect him, but Alex starts punching at him and telling him that she's teaching him to protect himself. She smacks Seth really hard across the head and he says she's scratched his cornea. She kisses it to make it all better, and he tells her it also hurts on his lips, because get it?
Back at the pool house, Ryan lies on his bed reading a book, and Lindsay knocks on the door and enters. She blah-di-blahs about how she tried to read after Ryan left her house but couldn't, and he moves in on her and kisses her because awwwwww. He tells her he knows something they can do that doesn't involve a lot of talking...
...and we cut hilariously to them playing some PS2, stopping for smacky kissing every so often.
Back in the house, a doorbell rings and Renee Wheeler is introduced by Sandy and Kirsten. "Renee is a witness in your father's case," Sandy explains, and they retire to the back to talk. She tells him that she shouldn't be talking to him, and she asks what Caleb has told him. Sandy says, "I know everything, without any help from Caleb." He explains that if she came forward with the right documentation, the judge would drop the charges and the case would go away. But first, twist ending! The door to the pool house opens, and Lindsay and Ryan spill out. Lindsay: "Mom! What are you doing here?" No. Way.