In one episode alone, so many of this show's problems are addressed in semi-good fashion. Ryan and Kirsten spend some quality time together as she counsels him through his new relationship with Sadie, who all are happy to note is the exact opposite of Ryan's last girlfriend. Unfortunately, Jess the Drug Ho of Season 2 is back in town, and she needs Ryan's help RIGHT NOW, thereby interrupting his plans with others and becoming the exact opposite of the exact opposite of Ryan's last girlfriend. But this time, Sadie lets it be known that she won't stand for Ryan's White Knightness, and then he actually learns about the importance of minding his own business, and he and Sadie get to have sex. Meanwhile, Seth and Summer fear that their relationship is losing its spark and wonder if it's the end for them. Taylor Townsend involves herself and teaches Seth Kama Sutra. Seth and Summer learn to be passionate again, thanks to Seth's new Summer-punch-blocking skills, and they get to have sex. Marissa and Volchok learn nothing, but still get to have sex. A steamy sex montage, no less! Matt the Non-Entity doesn't get to have sex with anyone, although through a contrived series of events, Sandy thinks he had sex with Marissa and has to make a decision about whether or not to take him off of the all-important, none-interesting, hospital project. And the best part of all was that Marissa kept calling people to whine and cry to, but everyone except Volchok had something better to do.
Tonight's scandalous episode gets a special "viewer discretion is advised" warning. It probably goes without saying that I'm hoping this means Marissa will be murdered in a most gory fashion. It also probably goes without saying that this will never happen. Sigh. Oh, I should also mention that I'm writing the first half of this recap for the second time after my first draft was stolen when the computer it was saved on was taken from my apartment during a recent break-in. My second drafts tend to be a lot more bitter than the first, which is a pity since I recall liking this episode back in the days when I innocently believed that my fellow humans could be trusted not to jimmy my door open and look through my underwear drawer while I was at work.
Okay, enough about my problems. We open on Seth and Ryan playing some sort of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater rip-off game. I can't tell what it is since my glasses were also stolen out of my apartment and my backup pair is a less powerful prescription GODAMMIT GIVE ME MY STUFF BACK! WHAT DO YOU NEED MY FUCKING EYEGLASSES FOR?! Sorry, I swear I won't mention that again. Anyway, it's always a rare treat to see Ryan and Seth doing something teenager-y together. Summer's there, too, although she would rather watch her hair grow than them. She does muster up enough interest to nag Seth to prepare for his upcoming and out-of-nowhere Brown interview, and he answers that his new approach is not to think about it, which Summer replies is, of course, better than his old one. Then Sadie enters with a ton of junk food that the guys are all too happy to consume. Sadie takes advantage of their break to challenge Seth to Playstation-off, which everyone scoffs at since girls aren't good at videogames. This is probably a blessing for me, since it means that I didn't have a videogame system and games lying around for the asshole who broke into my apartment to make off with. I did, however, have a necklace given to me by my grandmother that meant a great deal to me and HOW COULD YOU STEAL A STAR OF DAVID NECKLACE YOU HEARTLESS EVIL BASTARD? I HOPE YOU FALL OVER AND LAND ON ONE OF THE STAR'S POINTS AND IT PIERCES YOUR SKIN AND YOU GET GANGRENE AND YOU DIE -- okay, I'll stop now. I really mean it this time. Probably.
Summer and Ryan excuse themselves to the kitchen so that Summer can talk to Ryan about his new girlfriend. She graciously says that she won't be weird about the fact that her boyfriend's best friend/adopted brother isn't dating her best friend/future stepsister anymore, and is now, in fact, dating Marissa's opposite. I'm sorry, but Sadie isn't exactly Marissa's opposite. For one thing, she's too thin. For another, she's too pathetic. She may not say she needs Ryan's help, but she certainly has availed herself of it plenty of times during her short stint on the show. Ryan also questions Summer's statement until he walks back into the living room to find that Sadie has beaten Seth at his own videogame. Sadie says she found a "cheat code" on the "internet," which I must admit does lend a bit more credence to Summer's opposite theory, since we all know that, when it comes to computers, Marissa would much rather use them as a projectiles than as information resources. Seth pronounces Sadie "a keeper," and awkwardness ensues, since Ryan and Sadie haven't defined their relationship yet. Ryan is happy to have an excuse to leave the room when the doorbell rings.
Ryan probably changes his mind immediately when who should appear at the door but Season 2's Jess the Drug Ho! Except now she claims to be Jess the Reformed Drug Ho: she's cleaned up and gotten herself a "new life," which is fairly easy to do when you have rich parents who can pay for the removal of your ill-conceived Buddha-smoking-a-joint tattoo. She hands Ryan a small wrapped present: a belated birthday present from Trey. It's nice that he remembered, and the present seems too small to be a bomb. Maybe he really has changed his ways after all. Jess says that she lived with Trey in Vegas for "a while," and then came back to Newport "a few months ago." You know, the first step to changing your life around is not to be so vague about timelines. I'm just saying. Jess asks Ryan if he wants to know how his brother is doing, and then Sadie runs up to get all up in other people's business, like, go find Seth and play RC Pro-Am or whatever game is popular with the kids these days and butt out. Jess takes this as her cue to leave, telling Ryan to stop by her mansion if he wants to talk. Hey, maybe he can get Trey's address out of her so that he can call the police and have the guy arrested for all that attempted murder and rape stuff.
Ryan waits until the morning to unwrap Trey's gift. We don't know for sure that he spent the entire night glaring at it and trying to start a fight with it, but we can probably assume this to be true. The gift ends up being a small toy car. I thought this was a subtle plug for Executive Producer McG's upcoming movie Hot Wheels, which I had always hoped would never actually get made. ["I wanted to believe that it still wouldn't, but it's actually happening. Lord." -- Wing Chun] Seth comes in and asks about the toy, which he criticizes for being a cheap gift, as any good little rich kid would. Ryan snaps that the car is an "inside thing" that he doesn't feel like explaining. Kirsten comes in and immediately notices the toy car. Ryan tells her whom it's from and who delivered it, and Seth tries to clarify things by explaining that Jess "took too much X and floated face-down in our pool," which won't help any since it was actually Marissa's pool Jess almost drowned in, not the Cohens'. Kirsten's so out of it, though, that she just figures that this happened when she was in SURIAK, the land of blissful ignorance, and moves on, asking Ryan how Trey is doing. Ryan says that he didn't care to find out, and Kirsten makes her trademark sad/disappointed face.
Marissa's spending her morning pretending to read a newspaper. She's wearing Uggs, which I'm pretty sure went out of style a year or two ago. Maybe fashion moves slower in the trailer park, though. There's a rustling outside the door, and Marissa opens it to find Volchok being his usual creepy stalker self and standing in her doorway. He was planning on just leaving something on her doorstep, figuring she'd be in school right now so that he could do his good deed in peace. But he didn't count on the fact that no one on this show ever actually goes to school, so he has to give it to her in person. It's a lot better than a toy car, too: it's the watch she gave him in exchange for his leaving Ryan alone, a.k.a. Marissa's Extremely Stupid Plan That Backfired Both Predictably And Annoyingly. Volchok never pawned it and is giving it back to Marissa so that he can get the chance to give her some of his smoldering stares. Marissa doesn't seem very grateful, but her bitchiness probably just makes her more attractive to Volchok. Not to me, though.
Seth has apparently managed to get through his Brown interview without getting high on anything except the joy of being an anime freak, which he was happy to find out his interviewer shared. Summer is happy too; it looks like both she and Seth are shoo-ins to get into Brown, which apparently bases its admissions solely on how well the interviewers and interviewees get along with each other. Seth leaves to call his parents -- who probably forgot that they even have a son, let alone that he's trying to get into college -- and Taylor Townsend swings around the corner to share in Summer's joy. She even volunteers to make flan for a party to celebrate Seth's interview success, which is awesome. I wouldn't have expected any less from Taylor Townsend. I'll bet she makes it from scratch, too; no instant flan crap for Taylor Townsend! Summer says that she was thinking more along the lines of a flan-less private party for just her and Seth, since her dad is on a cruise with some white trash. Taylor Townsend Eric Idles a few nudges and winks in Summer's direction, prompting the girl who is supposedly a secret genius to ask Taylor what's wrong with her eye. Once Taylor Townsend gives Summer the definition of a "knowing wink," Summer reports that there's nothing to wink about, since no sex will be had tonight; she's expecting a night of dork movie watching and Thai food. Which basically means that she told Taylor that she wanted to spend some time alone with Seth instead of having a party with Taylor just to keep Taylor away from Seth, which makes me sad for Taylor. She doesn't get the hint, though, and simply sees this as another opportunity to help out two people who have done nothing for her but asked for so much in return. She assumes that Seth and Summer have "lost the magic," and offers to get it back for them before they go to college and Seth meets a new crop of tempting "nubile young coeds." Summer gets angry with Taylor and insists that she and Seth are fine and in no need of assistance. Your loss, Summer. That flan sounded good.
And that's it for school! Back home, Ryan sits by the pool and stares at his toy car some more. Sadie comes over, saying that she needed a "break from drywalling," by which she probably means that she ran out of drywall to destroy. She notices Ryan's toy car and asks if it came from the "Hooters waitress" who was at the door last night, even though the New Jess didn't look or dress much like a Hooters waitress in my opinion, which is based on going to a Hooters all of one time in my life and feeling very sad and awkward there and vowing never to return. Also, the food there really isn't that great. Ryan repeats what he said to Seth about how the toy car is a long story that he doesn't want to tell, although that won't stop him from showing the car to everyone to elicit their requests to hear it. Sadie says that she'll listen to Ryan's story without judgment or be happy if he doesn't want to tell her anything at all, which is a total lie since, when Ryan keeps silent, she gets her stuff together and leaves in a bit of a huff. I hope the Story of the Toy Car isn't supposed to be suspenseful for the audience, since I could care less about it and its origins and find it more annoying than intriguing. Kind of like everything else on this show.
Speaking of things that I don't care about at all no matter how hard this show tries to make me, we cut to Sandy in his office. The storyline refuses to heat up as Sandy gets a visitor: it's Dr. Griffin from the hospital account, which is kind of redundant, since the NewNewport Group doesn't seem to have any other accounts. Or employees, come to think of it. Man, that business sucks almost as much as NewMatch. Dr. Griffin asks Sandy whether Matt the Non-Entity can be taken off the project, since he's gotten reports that Matt has all kinds of wild parties at his apartment involving "booze," "gambling," and "God knows what else." Dr. Griffin seems to be operating under the illusion that we live in a time and place where this sort of thing is scandalous. I wish he'd take his Elliot Ness routine somewhere else, preferably off-camera. Sandy says that he'll talk to Matt about his behavior, but that's not enough for Dr. Griffin: he wants Matt off the project, or no deal. He gives Sandy a few days to think about it. Sandy looks conflicted, although I'm not sure why. Dr. Griffin isn't asking Sandy to fire Matt; he just wants the guy off the project, which is perfectly understandable, since Matt is creepy and not very good at anything.
Seth asks Ryan whether he's planning on spending his Friday night with Sadie or Jess. He knows Ryan well: Ryan says that he was, in fact, planning on going to Jess's house to ask her about Trey. Seth urges Ryan to forget about the past, and to "live in the now" and call Sadie. Sorry, Seth, but I kind of agree with Ryan on this one: family is more important than a new girlfriend, especially one who isn't very interesting and makes crappy jewelry.
Marissa sits in the lifeguard shack and alternates between sulking and staring at her newly-returned watch. She takes out her cell phone and stares at it before having a weird hallucination and/or flashback of Volchok strolling up in a hot leather jacket and asking her what she called him for. Then she stares at the ramp to the lifeguard shack for a while, and it's impossible to tell from Mischa Barton's expressionless face whether she's wondering why she just had a hallucination or trying to decide if she should call Volchok or just admiring how the ocean looks under the moonlight. She puts the phone away without calling anyone, which is all Marissa seems to do on this show.
Matt gets a knock on the door of his ridiculously fancy apartment. I wonder if, when Sandy was trying to figure out a way to save the jobs of nine of his employees, Sandy ever took into consideration the fact that he was paying Matt enough to afford a place like that? Marissa's at the door, complaining that her best friend is with her boyfriend and that she's lonely. So, of course, she figured that the best thing to do would be to hang out with her ex-boyfriend's legal guardian's co-worker. Not, you know, go home and watch TV or read a good book. Matt says that he's heading to Los Angeles for the weekend, but Marissa can feel free to hang out at his place by herself. She thanks him for the offer. That didn't make any sense at all.
Seth turns on the last movie of the Blade trilogy, much to Summer's chagrin. Her subtle attempts to suggest that they could be spending their night alone doing other things go completely ignored, leaving her with no choice but to be more overt with her overtures. She does this by loudly sniffing Seth's face and telling him he smells "sooo good." It's about as unsexy as it sounds. Seth is confused; he just ate a salami sandwich and didn't think it smelled all that great. Summer becomes angry at his rejection, and Seth apologizes, realizing too late that she was trying to get romantic with him. He protests that she usually just throws him down and does her thing, so he wasn't prepared for a new approach. But now that he recognizes what she's trying to do, he can go with it. He closes his eyes and tells Summer that she, too, smells good. And he was pretty damn hot when he did that, too, but Summer pronounces the mood killed and orders him to turn the movie back on. There will be no sex tonight. And still, no one gets flan. Sad.
Ryan tries to have his cake and eat it to by juggling both girls around. As he drives to Jess's house, he leaves a message on Sadie's cell phone asking her to take a break from home "renovating" to spend some time with him later tonight. Once he finally arrives at Jess's be-pillared home, she's thrilled to see him, especially since she was on her way to take a dip in her pool and is therefore looking her sexiest in her bikini and useless tiny robe. Jess tells Ryan that Trey seems to miss his brother, although he'd never actually come out and say it. And Jess overshares that she likes men like that, citing her current boyfriend as a similarly angry and damaged young man. Ryan senses where this is going and turns to leave, but Jess dangles the carrot of more information about Trey in front of him: Trey is dealing...blackjack. Jess enjoys watches Ryan get all upset when he assumes that Trey is dealing drugs and then relieved when she finished the sentence with "blackjack," because that's what manipulative people like to do. She finishes by saying that Trey is "trying" to stay out of trouble. Ryan seems relieved about this. Jess tells him to stick around as the Electric Guitar of the Dangerous Woman Theme starts to play.
And suddenly, it's the day and Ryan is taking out his frustrations about his brother on his punching bag. He notices Kirsten standing in the doorway, watching her sweaty, muscled, newly-adult foster son working out and probably thinking about how things seemed to work out well enough for Woody Allen and Soon-Yi. She asks Ryan what's making him so angry, and he tells her that he's worried about Jess, and about Trey's effect on her. He wants to "prevent another casualty of Trey," even though Jess hasn't asked him for help and seems to be doing quite well without it. Kirsten warns Ryan not to ignore Sadie just because she isn't pathetic and in need of his help all the time, which indicates to me that Kirsten hasn't heard about how Ryan got beaten up two weeks ago when Sadie took a tire iron to Daddy Harper's truck. Although now that we've seen Sadie's definition of "home improvement," she may very well have been trying to make Daddy Harper's truck look better in a misguided attempt to win him over to get the money from him the easy way.
A pajama-clad Marissa answers a knock at Matt's door, having fully made herself at home. I mean, honestly, Marissa: it ain't your house, whoever's knocking on the door obviously isn't there to see you, so don't answer the freaking door. I know I have a personal reason for not liking people who hang out in other people's private homes when the occupant isn't there, but still. Of course, it's Sandy, at the door, and he is duly horrified to see Marissa there, obviously having spent the night. Marissa the Airhead Moron doesn't realize that Sandy assumes that she spent the night in Matt's apartment because she had sex with him, and therefore doesn't disabuse him of that notion. It's like a plotline out of Three's Company, except even stupider and less realistic and much less entertaining. R.I.P., Don Knotts.
Summer's hanging out at the diner waiting for her order of pancakes when who should appear behind her but Taylor Townsend! She playfully puts her hands over Summer's eyes and sing-songs a "Guess who?" Summer is startled and upset to see Taylor, who assumes that Summer is there to pick up breakfast for both herself and Seth after a night of hunger-causing sex. Don't these people ever just eat a bowl of cereal and call it a morning? I swear, they eat more pancakes than a room full of lumberjacks. Anyway, it soon becomes obvious that Summer and Seth didn't have sex last night, and Taylor Townsend is alarmed. She begs Summer to let her help, but Summer is in no mood for that. She's not in the mood for anything, really.
Sadie asks Ryan why he never stopped by last night. He doesn't really explain; he just apologizes for being "distracted" over the last couple of days and promises to be there for Sadie from now on. She demands dinner as repayment. He agrees.
Marissa pretends to eat what appears to be a few pieces of cereal out of the box (I guess they only eat that stuff at night on this show) and then calls Summer on her cell phone. But Summer isn't answering her phone, because she has a life and better things to do. And Sandy doesn't have any other employees for Marissa to visit. What will Marissa do now?
Sandy talks to Kirsten about his Matt dilemma. Kirsten doesn't have much advice for him, simply reminding him that Matt isn't all that older than Ryan or Seth, and therefore may need some Sandy Cohen-style guidance. First of all, Matt may only be eight or nine years older than Ryan and Seth are supposed to be, but those are huge years, branching the beginning of adulthood and college and post-college adult life. You learn a lot, for example that taking prospective clients out drinkin' doesn't make the best impression on them, and that spending the night at a strip club with your boss's minor foster son makes an even worse one. And let's not forget the stupidity of dating the daughter of an important client to get something out of the client and then letting the relationship end badly without actually accomplishing your goal. Seth and Ryan walk in on Kirsten and Sandy hugging, and Seth disgustedly asks them to get a room. That had better not be the scene that made the show advise viewer discretion. I want blood! Marissa's blood! Sandy counters that children who are around affectionate parents become sexually well-adjusted adults. Ryan freezes in horror and wonders if his hope for a well-adjusted sex life is doomed forever while Seth makes a bizarre crack about wanting to see his parents have sex in front of him. I'd just like to mention right here that this episode was written by the daughter of Regis Philbin. Let the disgusting mental images flow!
Ryan gets a call from Jess on his cell phone, and everyone makes "oh, no" faces. Ryan tells the caller to "slow down," and then to "stay put," because he'll "be right there." He runs out of the house and into the Range Rover, in which someone very stupid has left the driver's-side window down. Maybe they're trying to get the car stolen to collect on the insurance money. I prefer to think that the car pulled a Christine and put its own window down. Whatever the reason, it makes it easier for Kirsten to poke her head in when she follows Ryan out the door to warn him not to "let this happen to [him] again," a.k.a. becoming some troubled girl's Saint and Savior. Ryan doesn't listen.
Marissa and Summer finally get a chance to spend some time together at the Bait Shop. Summer tells Marissa that she fears that her and Seth's lack of interest in each other will break them up when they get to college and Seth meets new girls. Why hasn't the possibility that Summer could meet a new guy been mentioned? Marissa assures Summer that things will get better without actually giving her any advice as to how to make this happen. She also says that she and Ryan were exactly the opposite when they were on the verge of breaking up, apparently having hot and passionate sex that we didn't get to see on-camera. Marissa trails off when she catches Volchok's eye across the room, because hot guys are much more interesting to Marissa than a conversation with her best friend could ever be. Volchok makes sure to give Marissa another one of his smoldering stares, which are starting to get really old at this point. Doesn't he have any other way of looking at people?
Ryan shows up at Jess's house. Her latest emergency is that she just broke up with her boyfriend and he's been driving past her mansion over and over again. She doesn't have any parents around, it seems, nor does she or Ryan have the ability to do this thing called "calling the police" and letting them deal with it. Then again, it took the police TWO DAYS to show up when my apartment was robbed, which has pretty much shattered my faith in the police force as a whole. They're always around to give me a parking ticket the second after my meter runs out, but when I actually need them, they're nowhere to be found. Funny how that works. But back to the show: Jess's ex comes to the door. Ryan answers it and tells the guy he'll kick his ass if he takes another step toward the house. Meanwhile, this guy is big and beefy and Ryan's all of five and a half feet tall. Good thing for him that a Chino five and a half feet translates into eight feet tall in Newport. The Ex leaves. Jess claims that she'll be fine and that she's trying to change, so she won't come on to Ryan tonight, and he's free to leave. Ryan walks out, but only gets as far as the foyer before noticing a photo of Trey (which is obviously a still from the show) sticking out of Jess's pocketbook. He takes the picture out and stares at it for a while, and then puts it back and returns to Jess in a misguided display of either loyalty to his brother or trying to fix something that he thinks Trey broke.
The morning, Jess actually volunteers to make Ryan some breakfast instead of diner pancakes, which I'm now convinced are filled with crack or a similarly addictive substance. He only needs black coffee, though, which he sips while Jess exposits that Ryan stayed the night, but that nothing happened between them. I hope they found something else to do, like playing a game of cards or something, or else they must have had one boring and awkward time together. Jess's phone rings. It's Trey (who will spend this episode entirely off-camera), and Jess informs him that she's with his brother, much to Ryan's obvious dismay. Trey asks to talk to Ryan, and Jess offers him the phone, but Ryan doesn't take it. So Jess tells Trey she'll call him back, and hangs up. She tells Ryan that Trey wants her to move back to Vegas and be with him again, and Ryan says he thought she was trying to change her life. She says she is, but that it's really hard to do when you're all alone in the giant-ass mansion your parents paid for, wherever they are. Ryan does, indeed, ask after their whereabouts, and Jess's answer is that her dad's in Tokyo and her mother is sleeping with her tennis instructor. Like, all day and night, apparently. That guy's got some stamina. And then Jess throws herself at Ryan, who suggests that she give some of her USC friends a call instead, since she goes there when she isn't slumming around in Vegas or lounging by her pool in Newport.
Over at the Cohen House, Sandy takes his head out of his ass long enough to congratulate Seth on the Brown interview he "heard" Seth did so well on. Way to be late with the acknowledgement, there, Dad. And didn't Seth say he was going to tell his parents about the interview right after it happened? Could this be leading up to a thrilling new plotline where we find out that Sandy has an evil identical twin who's been trading places with him occasionally, thus explaining Sandy's new lack of business ethics or interest in his son's life? That would be cool, but I doubt it. Season 7, maybe, although I really doubt this show will last that long. "Looks like the stars are aligning for you!" Sandy says, fully in Cheeseball Dad mode. When Sandy mentions Summer, Seth asks him for some fatherly advice: he wants to know if Sandy and Kirsten ever get bored with each other and the whole monogamy thing, and I don't know what kind of answer Seth is hoping to get here. Does he really want to know if his parents are into swinging? Does he really want to know anything about his parents' sex life? Sandy slyly grins and says that Kirsten "was a firecracker." Seth immediately indicates that he doesn't want to hear any more about this, but he dug his own TMI grave here, and Sandy keeps right on going, talking about how he and Kirsten frequently had sex in the back of his mail truck, to the delight of their college buddies.
Kirsten enters, thus putting an end to the Awkward Guy Talk Session. She asks if anyone knows where Ryan is, since she suddenly remembered that they're supposed to be taking care of him and found him missing from the poolhouse, leaving a bed that doesn't appear to have been slept in. How sad that this is, like, the seventeenth time this season that Ryan's slept somewhere else without telling the Cohens and only the first time they caught him. Sadie enters the house without knocking, and everyone greets her with fake enthusiasm. She brought bagels for the family to enjoy for breakfast, because she's the Anti-Marissa and therefore both considers other people's feelings and thinks about food sometimes. But this is an uncomfortable moment for the Cohens, since they'd figured Ryan spent the night with Sadie and don't know what to tell her when she asks where he is, not wanting to spill the beans about Ryan's apparent dalliances with another young lady but not being very good at lying, either. Sandy decides just to shake his head and grin stupidly, leaving Kirsten to try to stammer out an excuse for Ryan. "You've really got to learn how to lie better," Seth scolds them, although it's not like he was doing anything so great, all slumped over at the kitchen island and looking around innocently. As Sandy and Kirsten leave the room, Sandy quietly agrees that Kirsten really is terrible at lying. "You could've jumped in," she points out. I think all the Cohens need to learn how to keep their inner monologues inside their heads instead of blurting out stuff that Sadie probably wasn't supposed to hear. It does make for some fun TV, though. More Cohen family time, please!
Sadie helps herself to a huge mug of coffee and asks Seth whether Ryan spent the night at Jess's after getting a desperate emergency phone call. Either Sadie knows Ryan and Jess really well or she's already figured out how freaking predictable this show is. Seth won't say anything for sure, and Sadie tells him that she isn't jealous of Jess, but also doesn't think she and Ryan are right for each other after all. Because, you know, Sadie is actually jealous of Jess. She also thinks Ryan has some "really intense issues" that she just doesn't want to deal with right now. I have to give her props for that; in the real world, most people aren't exactly thrilled to start a relationship with someone who's carrying around more baggage than a 747. Seth doesn't help matters much by saying that Ryan just got out of a relationship with a crazy emotional minefield and that the only "normal" girl he's ever dated was that girl in Season 2 who disappeared, whatever her name was. Sadie channels the viewing audience by looking totally bored by Seth's explanation of how his grandfather's long-lost illegitimate daughter dated his foster brother, and then asks him not to tell Ryan about their conversation, proving that her knowledge of how plotlines on this show usually unfold isn't quite so extensive after all.
Meanwhile, Taylor Townsend bursts into Summer's bedroom to invite her to a prom planning session. Summer agrees to go. Thrill!
Sandy and Matt finally get to talk about the hospital board dilemma. Matt is upset that they don't like him after all those stripper parties he threw for them. Sandy is upset that the VP of his company lets lonely seventeen-year-old girls sleep over his house, scolding,. "You're screwin' up!" Matt says that this is just a "witch hunt," mistakenly believing that he's done anything interesting enough to warrant such attention. He begs Sandy to tell Dr. Griffin that Matt will not be kicked off the project. I guess a deal that will keep the entire company afloat is less important than making sure your loser VP is happy, though.
Summer shows up for the prom planning meeting, only to find that Taylor Townsend has set her and Seth up for an impromptu relationship counseling session. Good thing Harbor is open on a Sunday just in case any of its students wanted to use the guidance counselor's office! It's not like that school is full of valuable computer equipment and confidential student files or anything, right? Taylor Townsend's credentials as a sex therapist include watching her sex-therapist father conduct sessions in the basement of the family home. "That's creepy," Seth says. I'd say it's about even with having a dad who describes your mother as a "firecracker." Taylor Townsend ignores this and instructs the unhappy couple to touch each other anywhere on their partner's body except for the sex parts. Seth reluctantly obliges and puts his hand on Summer's jaw. She puts hers on his arm. They are told to make eye contact and concentrate until they "feeling stirrings deep in [their] loins." They stare and stare until the music abruptly ends and they both tell Taylor they're not feeling anything. Taylor Townsend volunteers her breakup counseling services. I guess her Dad did those sessions in the attic.
Sadie and Ryan have a super-romantic dinner date at the gross diner. Ryan apologizes for not taking her to a nicer place, but the Yacht Club set was in storage this week, so they didn't really have any other choices. Sadie's thrilled to be at the diner, though, and Ryan urges her to try the pancakes because everyone on this show is freaking obsessed with them. Ryan's cell phone rings, and he stupidly takes the call. It's a friend of Jess's, and she NEEDS Ryan to come over the Jess's mansion RIGHT NOW because Jess got drunk at her house party and now her stalker ex is coming over and he's "on a rampage." Oh, and Jess won't talk to anyone but Ryan and she's locked herself in the poolhouse. Ryan says that he'll be right there, earning him an annoyed glare from Sadie, who tells him to go to Jess if he thinks he must, and find her when he gets over himself. I guess we'll never see Sadie again.
Marissa makes another one of her solo trips to the Bait Shop, where she runs into Volchok, who really needs to buy a shirt with sleeves. Not that I mind seeing his biceps, but you can only own so many muscle shirts. Marissa and Volchok share some terrible dialogue that neither actor delivers particularly well. Same old story: Marissa demands to know why Volchok is stalking her, and Volchok says he isn't stalking her, but that if he were, Marissa would be totally digging it. He offers to keep lonely Marissa company. She blows him off, but not really. Lather, rinse, and repeat for the five episodes. Let's move on.
Ryan arrives at Jess's house and is shown to the poolhouse, which is probably the Cohen poolhouse set with slightly different art direction. Jess lets him in and whines about her ex and her life and how Ryan is the only guy she's ever known who could actually take care of her. Jess, he's a high-school student. Come on, now. Ryan rolls his eyes and alternates between being sickened by Jess and feeling sorry for her. She starts kissing his neck as her ex marches in angrily. Ryan tells him that they can talk outside.
After the commercial, Ryan and the Ex face off beside the pool. The Ex takes a swing at Ryan, who ducks out of the way and throws him to the ground. Ryan straddles The Ex and orders him to leave Jess alone so that she can start her life over. The Ex points out that this is none of Ryan's business, making The Ex the Only Character On This Show To Have Any Sense in His Head. And he's dating a (former) Drug Ho. And amazingly, he gets through to Ryan, who turns around and leaves the party.
Jess chases Ryan down at the driveway and tries to thank him for fighting for her by making some sexual advances toward him. Ryan tells her to stop dating guys like Trey and The Ex. As for Ryan, he needs to stop dating girls like Jess and Marissa. Please don't let that be an empty promise.
Taylor Townsend just won't give up. She comes to Seth's room to impart her relationship counseling wisdom. Since intimacy and romance haven't worked, Taylor thinks Seth and Summer need to try raunchy sex, like the kind Taylor and Dean Evil used to have. She whips out what appears to be a pop-up-book version of the Kama Sutra from a pocketbook that didn't look big enough to fit such a large book, let alone the stereo that plays vaguely Indian music as soon as Kama Sutra is mentioned. Seth is understandably reluctant to take sex advice from Taylor, but agrees to do it for his relationship's sake.
Sandy and Dr. Griffin have dinner at a nice restaurant, disproving my theory about there not being a nice restaurant set around this week. Therefore, Ryan didn't take Sadie someplace nice because he's a crappy date. The way he answered his cell phone and took off to save another girl tipped me off on that one. Sandy tries to persuade Griffin not to make him dump Matt, and wonders if Griffin's dislike of Matt is because of the way Matt and Griffin's daughter Maya's relationship ended. Griffin admits that it is, and that Maya cried for days over Matt. Which means that this is actually Sandy's fault and not Matt's, since Sandy was the blithering idiot who tried to twist Maya's arm about the hospital project in the first place even though everyone told him not to. But Sandy won't admit that tonight. Griffin tells Sandy to make a decision: the hospital or Matt. I still don't see why it's such a problem for Sandy to take Matt off of the project. I also still don't see why I'm supposed to care.
Summer sulks in her bed. Marissa calls and detects a note of sadness in her best friend's voice. She pretends to care about it as Summer tells her that Seth is coming over for what Summer is sure is going to be a breakup conversation. Marissa tries not to sound too thrilled at the prospect of having a partner in broken-hearted misery.
Sandy comes home to find Kirsten waiting for him, since she has nothing better to do. She tells him that Matt called "a couple of times" while Sandy was gone, nervous about what Sandy's decision is going to be. Matt calls AGAIN while Sandy and Kirsten are talking, and if I were Sandy, I would've fired him just for being such an annoying nag. Sandy stares at his ringing cell phone and decides not to answer it. Looks like whatever news he has to give Matt isn't good.
Over at his apartment, Matt hangs up and looks worried, probably because he has a group of high-school girls coming over for a sleepover party and he just ran out of Bagel Bites.
Kirsten randomly takes a walk around her pool in her bathrobe late at night, which conveniently brings her to the poolhouse, where Ryan is brooding about messing things up with Sadie and learning his lesson about troubled girls too late. "It's never too late," Kirsten assures him. Ryan thinks for a minute, and then grabs his toy car and takes off.
Seth enters Summer's bedroom, where she's stroking Princess Sparkle for "emotional support." Seth says that Princess Sparkle shouldn't see what he's about to do, which could last anywhere from twenty minutes to twenty-four hours if he "turns out to be Sting." Cue the quasi-Indian music! Seth asks Summer to undress so that they can try out the Wheelbarrow. "Ew!" Summer says, not realizing that comments like that aren't exactly helping her and Seth's intimacy issues. Seth tries to explain that he is now familiar with the art of tantric sex, and Summer fumes when he tells her that Taylor Townsend was his teacher. She tries to smack him, but he catches her arm before it can hit his face. Nice. The Indian music heats up. Summer tries to slap Seth with her other hand, and he catches that one, too. Then there's this awesome moment when Seth and Summer go from being angry at each other to realizing how hot this moment is and then they make out passionately and collapse on Summer's bed.
Ryan enters Sadie's house --which is still standing despite her best efforts to the contrary -- and shows her his toy car. He then explains its Mysterious Origins that we've been waiting all episode to hear. Ready? Here we go: Ryan and Trey used to play with toy cars while Dawn got drunk. Trey promised Ryan that he'd buy a real Camaro one day that they could use to ride out of town, and out of their crappy lives. When he couldn't get enough money to buy one, he stole it (along with quite a few other cars, lest you think Trey is some kind of misguided, saintly, brother-saving car thief), and then Ryan got to live with the Cohens and Trey's life continued to suck. No girl can resist a guy having a rare vulnerable moment, and Sadie is no exception. She tells him that she's a good listener, but that they don't need to spend all their time together talking. They make out.
Seth and Summer lie back in Summer's bed, breathing heavily. Summer thinks they should fight more often if this will be their reward for making up. That comment is enough to get Seth ready for Round 2.
Over at Sadie's house, the shirts are coming off, although the pants are staying on. Viewer discretion might be advised, but this ain't HBO.
Marissa comes home to the trailer. Volchok's sexily smoking on the front porch, although I'm not sure if she called him over or he's just stalking her. She walks right by him and into the trailer. He puts his cigarette out and follows her in. And then they have a seriously hot makeout montage that's only slightly ruined by the shocking fact that Volchok without a shirt on is about the width of a Marissa's arm. Eat a sandwich, Volchok.