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Ryan and Marissa continue to be expelled from school, and spend their new free time planning romantic trysts away from their disapproving parents and/or guardians. And then Julie and Jimmy decide to get move the whole family off to Hawaii as soon as their weekend wedding is over, so it looks like Marissa is off to The H.I. Ryan alternately broods and thinks up ridiculous plans that will allow Marissa to stay. Meanwhile, Dean Evil's evil evilness extends to forcing Seth and Summer to work on the school production of Taylor Townsend's South Pacific. This culminates in Summer's calling Taylor a skank (twice!), and then the couples steal a Tonganese beach hut prop so that Ryan and Marissa can spend their last night together having sex, which they apparently have never done before and do so delicately that the flimsy cardboard stage prop does not collapse on them. While they do it, Jimmy is beaten up by Shady Guy and his goons after Caleb's will yields a letter for Kirsten and no money for anyone, whoops! It looks like Jimmy has broken his last promise, but then the morning he's alive and ready to sail away from Newport forever, leaving his daughters and ex-wife/fiancée behind. Sorry, Julie! Also sorry to those of you who don't like Marissa, since she'll be sticking around for a while. Over in The AA, Kirsten decides that home really is where the heart is, and comes back to the waiting embrace of her family. 7 'n 7's check to rent out the cabin bounces, so she does, too. Looks like she's heading for Orange County. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Parental discretion is advised due to "violent content." This makes me really excited, even though I'm sure the violence won't be directed against the character(s) I want, nor will it be as violent as I want. Oh well.
The gang of four have breakfast at the diner. Summer calls Ryan and Marissa's expulsion from school "epically tragic." I hope Odysseus sails up and slays her for exaggerations of such epic magnitude. Ryan and Marissa choose to look on the bright side of life, and say that the fact that they don't go to Harbor anymore is okay. "Not for me," says Seth, who can only look at the things in respect to how they affect him. Summer agrees that with Ryan no longer around to protect him, Seth will go back to being the "Death Breath Seth" who gets slammed into lockers. Even though he's a senior now and is dating a popular girl. Ryan says that this isn't helping to cheer him and Marissa up, and Seth says that he's the one who needs cheering up, of course, because that's how things work in Sethland. Summer says that, at the very least, Ryan and Marissa no longer have to deal with the new two-dimensional evil characters of Dean Hess and Taylor Townsend. And as long as they stick together, they'll be fine. Which means, of course, that something will happen in this episode to tear them apart...right...now. Marissa and Ryan's cell phones both ring with messages from their respective guardians telling them to come home for a talk. They leave, and Seth and Summer both agree that they don't think Ryan and Marissa will actually be able to stick together. They've watched this show before.
Ryan comes home to find Sandy on the phone. Sandy's busy trying to run the Newport Group in Kirsten's absence, and now he's got Expelled Ryan to deal with on top of it, which he doesn't appreciate. He says he knows that Ryan's been through a lot lately, but that he needs to "look past" all that and think about his future. Namely, a future without Marissa, because if Sandy's going to have to go without all summer because his wife is in rehab, then everyone around him should, too. Ryan scoffs at this, saying that what happened with Trey wasn't Marissa's fault. Sandy says he doesn't want them to "break up" -- just to spend some time apart until Ryan gets "out of this hole [he's] dug for [himself]." Although Ryan didn't dig it, exactly. More like punched it. And since the ground was a ridiculous paper-thin caricature, it was pretty easy to do.
Over at the Cooper-Nichol-Unpaid-Staff residence, Marissa comes home to find that Julie has good news: Amazin' Vanishin' Kaitlin's boarding school will accept Marissa as a student. Say, that is good news! Julie explains that the more "elite" the institution is, the more "accepting" it is of criminals. I think that only works if the institution is jail, but whatever. Marissa, obviously, doesn't like this idea, but Julie says she thinks a fresh start would be really good for Marissa. Especially if said fresh start is away from Ryan. Marissa claims that she wants to stick around Newport to help her parents get their family back together. Julie softens and says she won't make Marissa go to boarding school if she stays away from Ryan. Marissa whines that her expulsion isn't his fault. She's right about that; it's the fault of her ridiculous school that expels people for almost being raped and then calls that a "fair decision." Julie tells Marissa that it's time for her to listen to her parents, since she's obviously not able to take care of herself.