Casa Cohen. Kirsten is ordering dinner and sucking down a glass of wine. Kirsten Cohen Drinkwatch 2005: One. As each member of her family enters the kitchen, she adds another dish to the order (dumplings! Soup! More dumplings!) until it's truly gargantuan. And now I want Thai food. Thanks. Because they've ordered so much food, Sandy suggests that the boys invite their "female cohorts" for dinner. Ryan explains that Lindsay is with her mom, for "family therapy and then a Truffaut retrospective." Because Lindsay, although screwed up, is an intellectual. I feel like Lindsay and her mother's family therapy isn't truly complete without her absentee father, her reluctant half-sister, her nephew Seth, her adopted nephew-boyfriend Ryan, her other half-sister, that half-sister's ex-boyfriend who is also her stepmother's ex-husband and the father of her stepsister, and said stepsister and stepmother, and Summer, just because I don’t want her to feel left out. "What about Alex?" Sandy wonders. She's not related to Lindsay, Sandy, as far as we know. Oh, you mean for dinner.
Cut to the Bait Shop. Enter Seth, because, instead of calling Alex to ask her to dinner like a normal person, he actually went outside, got in the car, and drove all the way to the Bait Shop to ask her in person, just so that Alex can act all squirrelly and weird and eventually reveal that her ex is in town unexpectedly. And by, "in town" she means "in her office." And, um, technically? Not really an ex? Since it turns out that they haven't actually broken up yet. "I really do want to come have dinner with your family, so maybe we could do it after the ex leaves?" Alex offers. Probably not if you don't pull the trigger and break up with him or her first, kiddo. Seth wonders when the ex is leaving, and Alex hems and haws that she doesn't exactly know: "I didn't know this was going to happen and now it has and now I have to deal with it, and if you could let me figure it out, that would be great." Well, sugar, Seth didn’t know you were still in a relationship, and now he does, and now you both have to deal with that, and if you could have been honest with both him and your "ex," that would probably also be great. Seth interprets this all as meaning, "Stay away while the ex is in town." Alex confirms this, snapping, "Unless you're cool with the three of us hanging out." Dude, why is she so shirty? He just came over to ask her to dinner. And now it turns out that she's been in a relationship this whole time and never got around to mentioning it? That's kind of a red flag. "I'm gonna have to get back to you on that," Seth says, and walks out of Bait Shop, looking all perturbed. As soon as he's gone, a girl comes up to Alex and wraps her arms around her. "I like the new club. Ready to get out of here?" she asks. "In a minute," Alex says. The Ex -- for this woman is she, and, yes, she is a she -- kisses Alex on the cheek. Alex looks conflicted as we head into the credits. That would have been a much better reveal if Josh Schwartz hadn't already spilled the Marissa Is Curious, Pink plotline to the press.