It's six months after the last episode, and the Cohens are living in the Roberts mansion while they wait to find out about their house. Ryan and Taylor broke up for whatever reason, Seth and Summer spend their days sitting in easy chairs watching game shows, and almost everyone else in the house is pregnant -- including Pancakes and Julie. Julie's about to marry BULLIT because Frank got her pregnant and then ditched her and BULLIT took her back. The Cohens find out that their house is a total loss, and Kirsten sighs a lot and hates life. Ryan and Seth run off to Berkeley to try and buy the original Cohen house back from its flamboyantly gay owners, but they don't want to sell. So Kirsten and Sandy show up to help convince them, and Kirsten instantly gives birth there to a daughter named Sophie. Back in Newport, Julie refuses to get married without Kirsten at her side, so BULLIT flies everyone to Berkeley to get married in the original Cohen house's backyard. At this point, thanks to some prodding from Kaitlin, Frank realizes that he's a tool and tries to win Julie back. In the middle of her wedding. Over a speakerphone. Sigh. Surprisingly, Julie does not go back to Frank but instead pulls a Kelly Taylor and chooses herself. After all this, the couple decides to sell their house to the Cohens. Seth convinces Summer to go back to G.E.O.R.G.E., which she apparently passed on after the earthquake; the Cohens pack to move to Berkeley; Seth and Ryan share a nice moment and a hug; and then the episode actually takes a freaking breath and slows down and gets good.
Ryan walks through the house for the last time and flashes back to the pilot episode and the time when his hair -- and this show -- was at its best. And then we go flying forward again as the six seasons of this show they thought they were going to have are squeezed into just six minutes and we find out what happens to everyone: Sandy becomes a law professor, Ryan goes to Berkeley, Summer protests stuff, Seth admires her, Kirstenâ¦doesn't do anything, really, Kaitlin goes to Williams, and Julie Cooper graduates from college (yay!). And then Seth and Summer get married, Sophie looks like Kirsten, and Ryan is some kind of architect who spots a down-and-out kid with puppy dog eyes on the street and asks him if he needs help. Instead of a nice Sandy/Ryan moment, we got a nice moment where Ryan was Sandy. And everything and everyone moves in one big, predictable circle, except for the only character who really grew and changed over the series' run -- Julie. Some of this episode belonged to Ryan, but the rest belonged to her. Team Julie forever!
So ... this is it. I've never recapped a series finale before, unless you count that episode of 7th Heaven that was supposed to be the series finale but then wasn't. There won't be a last minute reprieve for The O.C., though, so this is really, truly, it. Let's hope it goes out as well as it came in.
It's six months after the last episode, and everyone's living in Dr. Neil's house! So already, I'm not thrilled with this. Six months later feels like a season premiere, not a series finale. I don't want to waste time expositing what transpired in the last six months off-camera when we could be sending this show out properly. Sigh. Kirsten is hugely pregnant, which Kelly Rowan shows us by briskly walking around with her hand on her belly. Nice pregnancy waddle, there, Kelly Rowan. I've never been pregnant and even I know that was terrible. Can't she just put in a little bit of effort for the last episode? Sandy's making crepes for breakfast, as Taylor Townsend sent Kaitlin a griddle from France. So she went to France? After all we went through with her trying to go to Berkeley? What the hell? Oh, and Ryan and Taylor broke up despite seeming perfectly happy last week. When asked, Ryan claims he doesn't even think about Taylor anymore. Kirsten thanks Kaitlin for being so accommodating to the Cohens while they've been crashing at the Roberts mansion, as if this is Kaitlin's house or something. It's not, unless in the last six months Dr. Neil totally wussed out and just gave them the house. Kaitlin says their presence has given her a chance to perfect her Sandy Cohen impression. She demonstrates it, and... it still needs a lot of work. Nice try, though.
Julie enters the room, and what the hell?!?! She's pregnant, too?! Not only that, but she's about to get married... to BULLIT? Whaaaaa? But... but... we wasted so much time with Julie choosing Frank over BULLIT. Why are we going back? If there isn't a good, reasonable explanation for all this, I'm going to feel really ripped off. To hammer the point home that they're about to get married -- which they need to do since it's so out of freaking nowhere -- BULLIT walks in, kisses Julie on the cheek, and calls her "the future Mrs. Gordon BULLIT." Kirsten says that after tomorrow's wedding, Julie and BULLIT will be "just another old married couple." "Just like that one living upstairs," Julie responds.
Which one? That would be Seth and Summer, who enjoy a breakfast of toaster strudels before breaking out the recline function on their twin easy chairs to watch Briefcase or No Briefcase. This appears to be a daily ritual. "The premise is so simple," Seth says. "Yet so compelling," Summer finishes. Kind of like this show in its first season. Now, it's needlessly complicated and boring. Oh well. Sandy enters the room immediately after knocking and without waiting for a response, as he apparently wants to walk in on his son having sex. He orders Seth to accompany the rest of the family on a trip to the old house for the house inspector's visit. I guess house inspectors give your home a better review when the entire family is present? Seth says that the easy chair is his home now, but Sandy doesn't care.
The home inspector checks the place out and tells the four that the damage to the house will cost more to fix than the house is worth. "I'm sorry, but there's no saving your home," he says. Ew... they had to wait six months for that? The Cohens and Ryan each take a moment to look shocked and upset about this. Actually, only Sandy looks shocked and upset. Everyone else looks like they're ready to back up their trailers and get the hell out of there.
As the theme song plays for the last time, a tear rolls down the cheeks of the members of Phantom Planet as they become a small footnote in pop culture history.
When we return to the show, Sandy, Kirsten, and Ryan are checking out a new house. Seth apparently went back to his easy chair. The house has an infinity pool, but, Sandy points out, no pool house. Ryan says he'll just use one of the many bedrooms in the house, but Sandy sighs that "it just doesn't feel like home." Ryan agrees that he'll miss their old house, but he's still looking forward to attending Berkeley. This awkward segue gives Sandy the perfect spot to reminisce about the house he and Kirsten used to live in back in Berkeley, the Land of Purity and Sunshine. "That house had character," he says. "And this house has none of those things," Kirsten whines, non-pregnancy-waddling up behind them with the realtor in tow. It should be pointed out that Kirsten might not be the best person to ask about the details of the house, as those gigantic sunglasses she's wearing have got to be obscuring her vision. "It's average and generic," she says. So was their last house, and they didn't seem to mind that. She still wants to make an offer on it, though, much to both Sandy and the realtor's surprise.
Back at the Roberts house, Summer shows Seth the floorplan to their new apartment in Providence. It will be appointed just like Summer's bedroom, so they'll never have to leave. Not even for class, apparently. Why even go to college? Summer goes to call the Tivo helpline to make sure the Tivo will keep the shows saved during the moving process (it will, by the way), and runs across a piece of paper. It's a flier about the California Sea Otter, brought to you by the Friends Aligned To Save Otters (F.A.T.S.O.). And that's the first and last time you'll see the word "fatso" on this show. It's a terrible flier, by the way, with a tremendous amount of tiny writing on it that no one would ever bother to read. But it still makes Summer remember back to a time when she used to care about stuff. You know, last week. She was all ready to skip college to join G.E.O.R.G.E. and save the world, and now, suddenly, she isn't. That's a little jarring. Summer runs off, and Ryan enters the room. He tells Seth that he has a plan, and much to Seth's chagrin, they'll have to leave Summer's bedroom to carry it out. Will they end up in Mexico? Because up to this point, all of Ryan's plans have involved running off to Mexico.
Taylor Townsend finally appears in the episode, back home from Paris. The customs officer greets her and asks if she's in town for "business or pleasure," which is what you ask someone when they enter a foreign county, not when they're returning from one, and she launches into a long explanation about how she's not sure because seeing Ryan Atwood again will not be a pleasurable experience for her. She then exposits how their relationship ended, saying they tried to fit into each other's futures, with Taylor learning hackey-sack to fit in at Berkeley and Ryan learning French and cheese and even growing a moustache to fit in in France even though last I heard, Taylor was going to Berkeley for school. Also, a moustache? Is Taylor confusing France with Florida? Unless she means that Ryan grew a moustache like Poirot's, in which case I feel really ripped off not to have seen it. "At least this time I didn't stalk him, though," Taylor says. "Because sometimes I do that. Good thing I never fell in love with the President, huh? That would be bad." And with that, Taylor is placed on the Terrorist Watchlist, Alert Level 5. Hardy har har.
Summer picks Taylor up from the airport and says that Ryan doesn't know she's back in town, as per Taylor's instructions. Taylor starts to launch into another speech about how over Ryan she is... until she sees Ryan and Seth in front of her. Ryan and Seth are just as surprised to see the girls as they are to see them. They're at the airport for a flight out of town for the day. The boys and girls part ways, and Ryan denies still being in love with Taylor. Taylor, on the other hand, admits to Summer that she's still in love with Ryan. I would probably care a lot more about this if we had been able to see them break up in the first place.
Spencer takes Kaitlin to meet her future stepbrothers -- all twelve of them. Spencer says they're named after every major oil refinery in Texas. Except for him, although that's not explained. Kaitlin is excited to meet them -- until she actually does. Instead of eleven more Spencers, she gets eleven little BULLITs: Austin, Dallas, Houston, Lubbock, Odessa, El Paso, Amarillo, Texarkana, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, and Hanoi. Hanoi, of course, is Vietnamese. And by "major oil refinery," it seems that Spencer actually meant "locations of major oil refineries," and by "in Texas," he meant "mostly in Texas with one in Vietnam." All of them are wearing cowboy hats and dressed in plaid cowboy shirts. And they're roughly the same age, so I'm guessing BULLIT had a wild and fertile few months about thirty years ago where he went through twelve wives or girlfriends. Oh, and they all say "Bang!" Julie walks in with news from the doctor: she's having a boy. The BULLITs whoop and bang in celebration. I love BULLIT and all, but... we were done with him three episodes ago. Why is he still here?
A plane lands in Berkeley. Seth and Ryan walk up to the old house and knock on the door. Two men answer: one is a stranger to us, but the other used to have a job catering Fashion Fundraisers. But now he lives in the Cohens' old house with his husband. It's nice to know that someone on this show has actually done something with his life in the last four years. Seth and Ryan smile awkwardly and say hello, then realize that they don't know what to say . Ryan settles for: "So, we'd like to buy your house." The guys look at each other, bust out laughing and slam the door in their face. Well, that's rude.
After the commercial, Seth rings incessantly on the doorbell because a great way to get people to do what you want is to really piss them off. Finally, the guys answer the door, and Seth begs them to hear him out. Caterer says that while Seth and Ryan make an "adorable couple," the house is not for sale. They are an adorable couple, though. Seth quickly explains why the house is so important to him: he used to live there with his parents until they moved to Newport when Seth was two. Then they adopted a "young ex-convict named Ryan." At this point, the guys are ready to shut the door again, so Ryan quickly points out that he's not actually a convict. Seth shouldn't be allowed to talk anymore, but he continues that now that the Newport house is condemned and his mother is about to have another baby, he and Ryan think that a move back to their original house in Berkeley is a great idea. It will give them a "fresh start," Seth says. Except that it won't really be that fresh or even a start, since they're just returning to the place they lived before. More like a "stale continuation." Caterer says that while he understands Seth's position, this home is theirs now, and they don't want to sell it. They close the door in Seth and Ryan's faces again. Ryan thinks it's time to bring in the big guns, a.k.a. Sandy the Great Debater, but Seth points out that Sandy won't leave hugely pregnant Kirsten and the airlines won't let her fly in her ninth month of pregnancy. There's probably a reason for that. Like, a safety reason. That maybe they should adhere to. But, no. Ryan has an idea of how they can get Kirsten to Berkeley.
Back in Newport, we get one last stock shot of the houses by the beach. None of them look at all affected by the tremendous earthquake. Sucks for the Cohens to live in the one house that suffered significant damage, eh? Even the Roberts mansion, which looked close to collapse before, made it through okay. Sandy and Kirsten are poised to sign the offer for the house they both hate. Kirsten sighs that they "can't impose on Julie much longer." Um... Julie? Don't you mean Summer? Or Dr. Neil? Julie's the imposer, not the imposee. Just as Sandy's putting the pen to the paper, BULLIT's voice orders him to drop it. He saunters over and says that the jet is gassed up and ready to kidnap them. "Is he drunk?" Kirsten asks. No, Kirsten, that's you. Back when you had a storyline. It was a loooong time ago, so I understand why you'd be confused. BULLIT explains that Seth and Ryan called him and asked if he could fly them to Berkeley to buy the old house back. And BULLIT's helping them out of the goodness of his own heart because he's the nicest guy on this show, and yet he always loses. Being nice gets you dumped over and over again and taken advantage of. Being a wifebeater gets you happiness and joy. Kirsten points out that her pregnancy means she can't fly, to which BULLIT says his son, Amarillo, "one of those doctors for women's private parts," will be accompanying them. I cannot imagine the horror of having a BULLIT for a gynecologist. The realtor speaks up and says the house won't wait for them to go to Berkeley and back. So BULLIT buys the house. Great -- another house for Julie to live in that she doesn't own.
And back at the Roberts (not the Cooper) mansion, Taylor is trying to figure out if a long-distance relationship between her and Ryan could work. Summer isn't paying attention, instead reading a tabloid. She's upset to hear that The Valley's "real-life Jake broke up with real-life April." That is some ballsy meta, there, obviously referring to the breakup of the real-life Seth and the real-life Summer. I guess it's good that they've got a sense of humor about it, though. And I do think we needed some kind of closure with The Valley. more so than with BULLIT or Frank, really. Taylor is surprised that The Valley is still on, to which Summer says it just got picked up for five more seasons, her voice full of jealousy and bitterness. "You know, these teen dramas, they just run forever," she concludes. Unless the creator of the show gets too big for his britches and abandons the show to focus on other stuff that doesn't pan out, leaving his breadwinner in the less-than-capable hands of Regis's daughter, in which case it burns out really fucking quickly. Oops!
At this point, Taylor is disgusted with Summer. She says that when she left Newport, Summer cared about the environment and personal hygiene (Taylor's been concerned with Summer's personal hygiene since this season began. It's starting to get weird), and now all she cares about are crappy TV shows. "What happened?" Taylor asks. Summer sighs that the earthquake happened: it closed down the comic book store and destroyed the Cohen house. Seth moved into her bedroom and she decided not to join G.E.O.R.G.E. for some reason and then neither of them had anything to do with their days except watch TV. There's a rustling sound under Summer's bed. She goes to investigate, and finds several small bunnies! Pancakes had babies, and Summer didn't even know she was pregnant. Or that she was even female, which is pathetic. Either they have a penis or they don't, Summer. Come on. "Oh my god -- I'm a bad crack mother!" Summer realizes. Cute kids, though.
While waiting for Sandy and Kirsten to arrive, Seth and Ryan take a walk on the Berkeley campus. Seth tells Ryan to look at all the new faces he'll be punching in just a few short weeks and adds that Ryan might even find a new girlfriend. Hopefully, he won't punch her. Except that Seth's pretty sure that Ryan's still hung up on Taylor Townsend. Ryan escapes this conversation to get coffee from a random kiosk in the middle of the college campus. Some guy walks up and hands Seth a G.E.O.R.G.E. flier. Seth mentions Summer and how she was going to join the organization, and the guy knows all about her. Wow, either G.E.O.R.G.E. is a really small organization, or they were just super-thrilled at the prospect of adding a hot girl to their ranks. Or both. The guy gives Seth a flier to give to Summer, saying he'd "hate to see someone like Summer just waste their passion." This would mean more to me if the guy actually knew anything about Summer or her passion or if we knew why Summer changed her mind joining G.E.O.R.G.E.
Ryan gets a call from Taylor. She's busy cleaning the hell out of Summer's bedroom while Summer takes a shower with lye. Ouch. Taylor asks Ryan if they can get together and talk, but Ryan says he's in Berkeley trying to get the Cohens their old house back. Taylor realizes that if the Cohens move back to their old house, then Ryan will be living in Berkeley and not Newport. They won't even see each other during school breaks. They could see each other during school if Taylor was going to Berkeley like she had decided to the last time we saw her, but now she's suddenly studying in France, so, whatever. Ryan says they can talk after the wedding, but a deflated Taylor doesn't seem interested.
Kaitlin and Julie are hanging out in the chapel, preparing it for tomorrow's festivities. Julie asks Kaitlin what she thought of her soon-to-be-stepbrothers. Kaitlin says she loves BULLIT, but "one's kind of enough" for her. And everyone. And maybe even too much for this series-ending episode. Julie agrees, much to Kaitlin's surprise since Julie's about to give birth to a mini-BULLIT. "Maybe he won't be all that BULLIT-esque," Julie hints. Kaitlin laughs and says it's more likely that the baby will come out wearing a cowboy hat and saying "bang!" "... or a wife-beater ... " Julie says. Kaitlin is confused at first, then realizes what Julie's saying: the baby isn't BULLIT's. It's Ryan's. Well, that's certainly a surprise. Oh wait, no, I'm sorry, I jumped to the wrong conclusion. I think when Julie said the baby would come out wearing a wife-beater, she was supposed to say it would come out being a wife-beater. Because, you see, the baby is Frank's. And, in an amazing show of honesty that we didn't really get to see since this all happened off-camera, Julie told BULLIT that she's carrying Frank's baby. By the way, this probably means that Julie still hasn't had sex with BULLIT. Poor guy. She didn't tell Kaitlin, though, because she apparently thought that the night before her wedding was the best time for that. Kaitlin asks Julie what happened between her and Frank, which we need to know since we didn't get to see it. Last time we saw Frank and Julie, they were happy together. Now they aren't. I didn't get to see this happen, so I don't really care. Even if I did see it happen, I probably wouldn't care. But Julie duly explains that when she got pregnant, Frank couldn't deal with it. So Julie left him and went crawling back to the BULLIT, told him everything, and he still wanted to marry her like a sucker. And Julie claims that she now loves BULLIT even though she obviously doesn't.
Sandy and Kirsten finally arrive in Berkeley. Sandy says "this is crazy," but Ryan says every city needs a public defender and Seth says that his sister deserves to grow up somewhere that isn't Newport. And I guess there's a market for dating services in Berkeley too, although no one mentions that since NewMatch is a joke and so is Kirsten's existence at this point.
The four ring the doorbell. The guys answer the door and are most disappointed to see Seth and Ryan back plus two more. They introduce themselves finally. Caterer is Todd, and the other guy is Patrick. Sandy gets started with the arm-twisting, but Kirsten interrupts to ask if the bathrooms are still in the same place. That's a good question, Kirsten. Often when people redecorate, they move the bathrooms around to different areas of the house. Just for fun! Anyway, she helps herself to their bathroom while Sandy asks if the "Seth Cohen Growth Chart" is still in the wall. Seth looks all excited about this, even though he's way too young to remember it. And yet, he says that he remembers the day he hit three feet, which makes him a very tall two-year-old. Really, is it too much to ask to have continuity in the same fucking episode? How do we remember to bring back the Caterer from four years ago but not what age Seth was when they moved out of the Berkeley house that was mentioned like ten minutes ago? Whatever. Todd and Patrick say they have things to do tonight, which you wouldn't know based on how quickly and eagerly they both answer the door every time it rings. Sandy says they'll be gone in a second, at which point Kirsten starts yelling for her husband. I think we all saw this coming.
Sandy runs into a bedroom, where Kirsten is sitting on the bed. Todd and Patrick follow and helpfully point out that this is not the bathroom. "I'm sorry, I didn't make it," Kirsten says. Yeah, at this point I would have called the police and gotten these people out of my house and life. Restraining orders would have been filed. How dare you demand to use my bathroom and then abuse my hospitality by taking a dump on my bedroom floor! Oh, but actually, Kirsten's water just broke. Which is a little better, I guess. Sandy yells for Seth to call an ambulance, but Kirsten says there's no time for that, WHICH IS RIDICULOUS. Fortunately, Patrick is a midwife. "Good, because this baby's coming now," Kirsten says. They could have at least made an effort to trap Kirsten in an elevator or something. For her to give birth so quickly that they don't have time for an ambulance is insane. Even that crazy lady who's given birth to like seventeen kids probably doesn't spit them out this quickly. I'll bet she's super-jealous of Kirsten and her apparently contraction-less labor.
The morning, there's a baby! Aww, she's cute. Her name is Sophie Rose. Seth says she'll be much cuter in two years "when she doesn't look like a squished meatball." If she's anything like her brother, in two years she'll be three feet tall and a giant among her peers with amazing mental abilities to boot. "Aw, you just called your sister a squished meatball," Ryan coos. By the way, neither of them is going to hold the baby. Hell, Kirsten barely holds the baby this episode. Sandy says that Seth looked like a squished meatball when he was born, too. I think all babies look like Winston Churchill. I was born via C-section, so I did not look like a squished meatball. I had a nice, perfect, pretty round head, unlike all the other gross cone-headed naturally birthed babies in the nursery. I probably looked fantastic. Seth gets all jealous and says that he was the cutest baby ever. At this point, Patrick the midwife enters and announces it's feeding time. Ryan and Seth run out of there. BULLIT walks in with a "no thank you, Kirsten. I'm lactose intolerant." Ewww, BULLIT. Kirsten just rolls her eyes while Sandy does not punch him in the face. I guess they have to be nice to him since they need the ride home. BULLIT's finally on his way back to Newport to get married. Kirsten tells him to give Julie their apologies for not being there. I want to know why his doctor son didn't handle the delivery instead of the midwife. Although I guess if I was Kirsten, I'd prefer Patrick to Amarillo. Sophie bursts into tears at the anti-climaticness of her birth.
Kaitlin shows up at what I'm guessing is Frank's job. She tells him that the mother of his baby is about to get married to another man and asks him how he could abandon them like that. He abandoned his last family, though, so it's not like this is really a surprise. Frank admits that he panicked when he found out that Julie was pregnant, but by the time he got over it and went to see her to make up, she was having dinner with BULLIT. Wait, didn't we already do this storyline? Like, three episodes ago? Why are we doing it again? I'm so bored. And disappointed. Which means that my facial expression probably looks just like Kirsten's always does right now. Kaitlin says that she wants her mother to be happy and her brother to have his dad around -- unless that dad is a coward. "I thought Atwoods were good at fighting," Kaitlin says. Not really, though. I mean, they fight a lot, but they lose a lot, too. Anyway, if Frank gets back with Julie, I'm sure Kaitlin will have plenty of opportunity to experience Frank's fighting abilities.
Seth finds Sandy sitting on the front steps thinking about what a familiar situation it is to be in that house with a new baby. "It's almost twenty years later, and I feel like no time has passed at all," Sandy says. I know the feeling. Six months passed between last episode and this episode, and it only felt like a week. Seth says that Sandy doesn't look like much time has passed, either, with his full head of hair and full face of eyebrows. He says if he looks half as good as Sandy in twenty years, he'll be a happy man. Aww, that's sweet. Sandy says he'd settle for Seth being happy right now, pointing out that Seth's been in a rut the last few months. Seth says that's true, but now that he's seen Ryan's school and his new sister, he knows that change is coming whether he wants it to or not. Judging by the lack of effort Adam Brody's been putting into his work on this show for the last two years, I'd say he really wants it to happen. Sandy says that some things will change, but Seth and Summer will still be together in Rhode Island. Seth's not so sure about that, either. He doesn't think being together is bringing out the best in either of them. "But I'm afraid to let her go, so ... " he trails off. "Things have a way of coming back around," Sandy says. Yeah, maybe they do. That doesn't mean that they should. People are supposed to grow and change. That's what makes them interesting to watch. When they have the same exact problem over and over again like, say, choosing between Frank and BULLIT, it gets boring and tiresome and then your show gets cancelled after only four seasons.
Julie's wedding is about to start. Summer and Taylor are wearing ugly bridesmaid dresses. Taylor is still pouting about Ryan rejecting her and asks Summer which BULLIT she should have a casual romance with. Summer doesn't care, so she leaves to find Julie while Taylor notes that "Hanoi has a certain charm." Taylor loves her Asians.
Summer gets Julie ready for the wedding. Julie thanks her for filling in for Kirsten, and says it's nice to see Summer out of her bedroom and showered. Summer agrees, saying that maybe she and Seth got a little too comfortable after being together for so long. Cool, except that we've already done this storyline so I don't care. Neither does Julie, as she says she doesn't know much about being in a long-term relationship. Except for that marriage to Jimmy that lasted like sixteen years. Summer asks Julie if she and Seth are making a mistake moving to Rhode Island together. Julie takes a seat to her and says that she got married so young that she never got the chance to find out who she really was. She didn't go to college or "learn any real skills." Aw, it's cute how Julie knows so little about college that she thinks it teaches you skills. And now, Julie says, it's twenty years later and she's knocked up on her wedding day. Again. "Julie," Summer says. "Summer," Julie says. Their eyes meet. I thought they were going to make out right here, which would have been a very bold way to end the series, but no. Julie just says that Summer is a great girl, and both she and the world deserve to know that. "Don't settle for comfortable," she pleads.
With that, Summer gives Julie a present: a locket with Marissa's picture inside it. Awww. I'm glad they acknowledged Marissa in the last episode. Julie sobs, and Summer takes a moment to collect herself before saying Marissa would have wanted to be here if she wasn't all dead and stuff. Would she really? Marissa hated her mother and would have nothing to do with her sometimes. I don't know if she would have gone for her wedding to a man she didn't love who wasn't the father or her baby. Although, at this point in the season, Marissa would probably be at the lowest point of her current downward spiral and passed out in a crack den somewhere. But let's remember the dead fondly. Julie sobs out a "thank you," and then the two hug tearfully. And then they both comment that their make-up has been ruined. BULLIT walks in and says there's no time to fix it as they're getting married right now! Julie hopefully asks if Kirsten's back yet, and BULLIT informs her that Kirsten "dropped child," and therefore can't make it. Julie is thrilled for Kirsten and the baby, but then bitterly disappointed that Kirsten won't be at her wedding. So much so that she refuses to get married without her. If she felt that strongly, why did she plan the wedding for the very end of Kirsten's pregnancy? We'll never know since the whole planning-of-the-wedding happened during those six months we didn't get to see.
Cut to the Berkeley house. Todd and Patrick answer the door together and find an entire wedding party on their stoop. The best part of that shot are Taylor, Summer, and Kaitlin's faces, so embarrassed and ashamed to be intruding on poor Todd and Patrick like this. "Oh my god," Todd and Patrick say in unison. BULLIT asks if either of them know anything about wedding planning. Of course they do! They're gay, after all, so that means they only have jobs like midwife, wedding planner, or hairstylist!
Sandy and Kirsten are in the backyard with the baby. Hey, guys? It's called a hotel room. Or a hospital room. I know you lived in this house twenty years ago, but it's not your house anymore and this is just rude. In fact, I'm pretty sure you're squatting at this point. I guess that's one way to live in a house the real owners don't want to sell. Julie runs out and asks to see the baby. Sandy asks if she's a "runaway bride." Todd, holding a flower wreath, says it's more like a "runaway wedding." Ryan is alarmed as he realizes that this means that Taylor is here, too. It's too late for him to run away, though, as Summer and Taylor come outside. Ryan asks Taylor if they can talk alone.
They enter a bedroom in someone else's house and Ryan apologizes to Taylor for being insensitive during their phone conversation. If the Cohens do end up moving to Berkeley and Ryan and Taylor don't see each other again, he wants them to part as friends. She says that's fine, and they shake hands. And then start making out. Taylor rips Ryan's shirt right off, but he doesn't seem to mind too much. They collapse on the bed, and then Todd walks in. "What is it with you people?!" he asks, and walks back out again. Hopefully, he's on his way to calling the police. Or at the very least, to compose a strongly-worded letter to Miss Manners.
Summer tells Seth about Pancakes having babies, and they're both pretty disappointed in themselves for not realizing Pancakes was even pregnant. They agree they've been in a rut lately, and Summer wonders if they can spend the four years like this. Seth pulls out the G.E.O.R.G.E. flier and hands it to her. "You've got to go, Summer," he says.
BULLIT and Julie exchange marriage vows.
Suddenly, the Frankmobile screeches to a halt and Frank runs out. He dramatically approaches the church in slow motion, swings open the doors, and screams "Julie!" But... no one's there. Ha ha!
You'd think that would be the end of it, but... no. Frank has no shame. He calls Kaitlin on her cell phone, which she keeps on her and turned on during her mother's wedding. She answers it and tells everyone it's Frank. Frank demands to be put on speaker phone. "I love you, Julie, and I want to be there for you and our son!" he says. This gets a reaction from the audience, if not much of one from Ryan. I guess he's all tired from just having sex. "This is so romantic!" Taylor says. No, it isn't. It's really fucking rude. Poor BULLIT. He doesn't deserve this, even if he names all his sons after Texas cities except for Spencer and the Asian one. BULLIT grabs the phone and tosses it away before Julie can answer, but it's too late. She asks BULLIT for a moment alone. You know what? Fuck you, Julie. You made your choice. Well, I think you did. I didn't get to see you being pregnant and telling Frank and him freaking out, but I've been told that you made your choice and it was BULLIT. You can't keep stringing him along while you wait for Frank to stop being an asshole. Now you're an asshole, too. And BULLIT, you're a sucker.
Kaitlin finds her mother and tells her that whoever she decides to marry to make sure it's who she wants to marry. Hasn't she said this before?
Outside, Todd and Patrick watch the Cohens and make a decision. Yes, they've finally decided to put an end to the torture of being forced to house weddings and births and sex, and now that the Cohens have put their bodily fluids all over the house, they'll sell it to them. Hopefully for well above market value. Sandy is thrilled. Kirsten might be as well, but she doesn't get any lines. "The Cohens are moving to Berkeley! Sophie, you're home!" Sandy says. Ugh. I have to say, I personally don't like it when series end with people moving away like this. I'd rather think of them living in the same house, on that same set, being the same people I enjoyed watching forever. It kind of sucks to tell me that they're started a new chapter in their lives and then not let me see it.
Julie finally emerges from the house. "Hey, sweetie," BULLIT greets her way too nicely and patiently. "You made up your mind?" Before Julie can answer, we go to a commercial. Might as well take advantage of the one semi-suspenseful moment in this episode.
After the commercial, we find Sandy packing up with little Sophie sleeping in the carrier. Awww!
Julie and Kaitlin talk about how empty the house will be without the Cohens. "My Sandy imitation was killer," Kaitlin claims. Kaitlin, you did a lot of great things this season. But that Sandy imitation was not one of them. "It's just the two of us now," Julie says. "It's pretty awesome that you decided to stay single," Kaitlin exposits. Yeah, it is. In fact, it was awesome when Julie made the decision to stay single way back in the beginning of this season like three times. Now it's... boring. Kaitlin asks what Julie's "life plan" is now. Julie says she doesn't know, but she's looking forward to figuring it out and doing it on her own. Kaitlin and Julie both agree that they'll be fine alone, together. With that, Julie sees one of Summer's undergraduate catalogues on the table and starts leafing through it.
Sandy and Kirsten look through some old photos. One of them is, of course, the Chrismukkah picture. Then Kirsten packs them all away in the tiny red box she stores all the family photos in.
Seth, Taylor, and Ryan say good-bye to Summer as she prepares to board the G.E.O.R.G.E. bus. Ryan and Summer exchange last names for the last time, and we see that Summer gave Ryan one of Pancakes' babies. Ryan promises he'll raise Flapjacks right. Apparently, Flapjacks is a boy, although I don't really have much faith in Summer's ability to sex her pets. Flapjacks is super-cute. Taylor and Summer hug and promise to read each other's blogs to stay updated, although Summer says "ew!" to the thought of reading more of Taylor's innermost sex thoughts. With that, Ryan and Taylor leave Summer and Seth alone. They hold hands, and Summer promises Seth that he has nothing to worry about. "This isn't good-bye. You're my destiny, Cohen," she says. "Go save the world, Summer Roberts," Seth says, and Adam Brody couldn't deliver that line without being all sarcastic and insincere, could he? Ugh. They kiss, and Summer says she'll see Seth after the New Hampshire primary. She boards the bus and they stare at each other through the windows and wave. And then she's gone.
Oh, and Kirsten and Sandy pack the bagel slicer.
Later that day, Taylor and Ryan say their good-byes. They're both going off to very different schools and don't know what's going to happen between them , but Ryan says that what's already happened is important. "You saved me," he tells her. Taylor says Ryan saved her a little as well. They kiss, and we realize they're actually sitting in the dining car of a train. Ryan asks Taylor why she's taking a train instead of a plane, and she says she's taking it to New York and then a boat from New York to Paris. So she'll be getting back to school sometime year. "It's the strangest thing, but no airline would have me," Taylor says. So... we won't let the terrorists fly, but it's totally cool for them to take trains and boats? Okay. Taylor warns Ryan to get off the train before it starts to leave, but it's too late. Taylor says the stop is an hour away. Ryan says they can "do a lot" in an hour, and Taylor says she did book a sleeper car. We do not cut to a shot of the train going through a tunnel.
The day, the movers are taking stuff out of the condemned Cohen house. They kept furniture in it even though it collapsed on itself? Okay. Finally, everything is out of the house and it's time to say good-bye.
On the driveway, Sandy and Kirsten see Seth off to college and say they'll see him on Parents' Day. They're not going to drop him off or anything? That sucks. Everyone comes in for a group hug, which is cheesy, but necessary. Sandy and Kirsten get in the car. Ryan will be following in his jeep, which has been fixed since the earthquake, but says he'd like to hang back and spend some more time with the house. Sandy tells him to take all the time he needs, and he and Kirsten leave.
This leaves Ryan and Seth on the driveway. Ryan offers to give Seth a ride to wherever he's going (airport, I guess), but Seth says he might as well begin his life of loneliness and isolation now. Well, that's a happy moment for Seth to leave on. Ryan says he'll be fine, and Seth says he did some checking up on Ryan's new roommate, and it's not looking good. The guy's favorite book and movie are The Da Vinci Code. Hmm... no, that doesn't bode well. "He's no me," Seth says. "You say that like it's a bad thing," Ryan shoots back. "At least I leave you funnier than when I found you," Seth says. "I'm a lot better off than when you found me," Ryan says "Me, too," Seth says, and Adam Brody did manage to put some effort into his lines there. Which is good, because those lines deserved it. With that, the boys decide to shake hands instead of hug, then end up hugging anyway. Seth then gets into a heretofore unseen cab and takes off.
Ryan heads into the poolhouse one last time. As he walks through it, we see scenes and hear voices from four years ago. We even hear music from four years ago; they used the score from the first season. Why did they drop that music, anyway? It was really good. And I'll admit it, I may have teared up a little. Especially when Ryan enters the house and we cut to the first time he (and we) saw Seth. Then the dining room and the unpacking later and then... back outside. Damn. Why couldn't we have had, like, an entire episode of that instead of all that stuff about Julie's wedding we didn't care about? Sigh. Ryan gets in his jeep and pulls out. So do Sandy and Ryan. And there's Marissa in the sunlight for the last time. Fade to white.
It's Ryan's first day of school, and he's That Guy, wearing a Berkeley sweatshirt while looking around the Berkeley campus. "Welcome to Berkeley Class of 2012," the banner shouts.
Summer protests something or other.
Seth cuts out her picture from the paper and sticks it on his wall right to the comic book version of Sandy.
Sandy tells a class full of college kids all about habeas corpus.
Kaitlin answers a question in class at Williams College. We know she's going to Williams because half the class are wearing sweatshirts that say Williams on them. Way to be Those People, class.
And someone graduates college to tumultuous applause. Is it Ryan? Kaitlin? Seth? No... it's Julie! Yay!! I cried again. She's so happy. And Kaitlin stands up and cheers in her Team Julie T-shirt. Also in the audience and wearing T-shirts are BULLIT, Frank, and Frank Jr. Poor BULLIT. His future's not looking so bright, tagging along with Julie even though she likes Frank better. I think. Also, Frank didn't cut his hair in the last five or so years.
And Kirsten... uh... well, she doesn't get a scene about her future. Oh well.
And then there's a wedding. Seth and Ryan wear yarmulkes and Summer walks herself down the aisle (sorry, Dr. Neil!). And... whoa... do we need to go this far into the future? I think it's been pretty clearly established that Seth and Summer will wind up together without us having to see it. Although Seth looks great in a tux. Summer sticks her tongue out at him as she approaches, and Seth does fake outrage and then rolls his eyes. Awww. I guess if Josh Schwartz was determined to have this wedding happen regardless of when his show was cancelled, this is a nice enough one to see. Sandy and Kirsten hold hands and Sophie is six years old and has blond hair. Ryan and Taylor smile at each other, and Seth breaks the glass.
And then Ryan's walking away from a construction site and telling someone that they're on schedule to meet their target date, which I'm guessing is 2030. How far in the future are we now? Geez. As Ryan gets off the phone and approaches his car, he spots a kid sitting on a wall to a bike and some phone booths even though I'm sure we'll have done away with public telephones by this point in the future. The kid reminds Ryan of himself sixty years ago, and he stares at him for a second before calling out: "hey kid! Need any help?" It's the prefect ending, although it was kind of ridiculous that we had to advance twenty years or whatever into the future to get there. Thank you, Josh Schwartz, for giving us Chrismukkah and all the great music and Julie and everything else.