The music of Blind Melon is on my television! The strains of "No Rain" (geddit? GEDDIT?) ring out on the soundtrack to open this week's episode, and I'm briefly thrown that I'm hearing this attack of mid-'90s music nostalgia without this being in the context of a Behind The Music or a Whatever Happened To That Dancing Bee Girl special on VH1. But proudly it plays ("All I can say is that my life is pretty plain/ I like watching the puddles gather rain"), as we pan along the Orange County waterfront, which we find is under the cover of pouring, dousing rain. A straight-out-of-Central-Casting voice that was the answer to a request for "a morning radio type" voices over, "Well, I cannot believe I am saying this, but it's raining in The O.C." His trusty female sidekick chimes in, agreeing, "I know! It's crazy! I gotta tell you, the traffic is a nightmare. The 405 is jammed; the 5, the 710, they're all gridlocked." The male voice -- let's name him Wild Bill In The Morning, just in case we should happen by these FM jokesters again -- adds, "Stay safe, stay dry, and let's all pray for sunshine." And for those of you who do not live in Southern California, let me be the one to tell you that this is a pretty accurate depiction of how people react to the rain: with a level of horror so acute the sky could just as well be raining blood. And good luck finding anything else on local news. And enjoy hearing the line, "Am I the only person who knows how to drive in this?" everywhere you go. Pretty much the only inaccuracy here of seeing rain in California in 2005 is that it probably wouldn't be accompanied by the dulcet tones of Blind Melon. Somewhere, deep in a ramshackle ranch house in the Valley, Soul Asylum is like "why not US?" and starts planning their imminent reunion tour.
Cohen manse. Ryan makes his way to the windows of the pool house and pulls up the shade to discover that...it's raining! Oddly, he didn't hear it pelting against the roof or falling into the swimming pool in all the time he's been up, because California TV rain is polite enough not to interrupt the sleeping. Over in the main house, Seth experiences the same phenomenon of only hearing the rain for the first time when he sees it. Standing at two respective glass doors now, Seth and Ryan spot each other from across the pool, and each beckons the other one to cross the rainy expanse for a visit. Seth gestures. Ryan gestures. Seth gestures. Ryan gestures. Seth disappears from sight for a moment and returns holding a big basket of bagels, which he hopes will be enough of an incentive for Ryan to come over. Bagels, that is, because I hear the Cohens are Jewish and enjoy bagels. Any truth to this? Ryan gestures with a grimace and a circular motion around his stomach indicating that he's really not that hungry, and suddenly I understand why this website didn't exist in the silent-movie era. It would have sucked to have recapped, like, "Damsel in distress is tied to train tracks by the villain as train approaches and extremely dramatic saloon piano plays." Actually, it did exist, but it was called mightybigmime.com back in the day.