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The USPS comes through once again with a letter Marissa sent to Ryan just before she croaked her last croak, which gives Ryan pause about Taylor and which Kirsten eventually finds. Ryan and Taylor clash about bringing her to Chrismukkah dinner, and then fall off a ladder and into the most patently TV coma ever. The only person who can even pretend to care that the two of them are vegetal is Julie Cooper, and that's only because she doesn't really want to go to Riverside for the holidays. Everybody else on the show knows it's one of those comas that will be over in 45 minutes, so they chill out, mostly. Veronica Townsend, for example, chills out all the way to Cabo. The bulk of the episode takes place inside Taylor and Ryan's shared coma. Comas are explained to us as something like video games you play with your brain chemistry: if Ryan can get over Marissa and remember the Cohens love him, and if Taylor can get her head around the fact that her mom's a worthless bitch, then they'll wake up. This is explained about a million times, and is far less interesting than Taylor's theory that they are in an alternate universe which they have to "fix." (Tell me you wouldn't at least make out with the boy version of yourself in an alternate universe. Come on.)
In alt-world, the following things are true: Ryan never came to Newport, and Taylor is a totally hot dude for some weird reason. Summer is mentally compromised, trashy, and marrying Che, who is Luke now, and it looks good on him. Marissa died in the TJ, causing her parents to get divorced and her sister to become (even more) awesome. Seth sucks worse than we've ever seen him sucking, there is no such thing as Chrismukkah, Kirsten and Jimmy are together and she leads the Newport Group with an iron fist, Sandy is the Mayor of Newport Beach and for some reason is hooked up with media-hungry "philanthropist" Julie Cooper. As in any universe, Julie is still the best thing about life. Taylor yells at Veronica in the coma to protect her male self and immediately wakes up, over it to the point that she can just kind of ignore her mom's bitchiness altogether. Ryan mourns Marissa out on the beach after trying desperately to repair all the relationships that aren't his problem, and finally wakes up. Julie, having read the goodbye letter from Marissa, and having reached some kind of closure, gives Ryan the best Chrismukkah gift of all: an end to their murderous blood vendetta. Awww. Merry Chrismukkah! Want more? The full recap starts right below!
I'm really sorry to have to tell you this, but Sara M is in a little bit of a coma, so I'm doing the recaps this week and . It's my fault, really: I told her I would give her twenty bucks for a bareknuckle cage fight with a hobo, and he felled her in the first ten seconds with a mighty uppercut. I really thought she had a good chance, because I've seen her in similar situations before and she can fight like a motherfucker, but you know the homeless: they fight dirty. So while we're in alt-world I will be your recapper. We wish her a Merry Chrismukkah and a swift recovery.
Kirsten comes into the kitchen and catches Ryan in a moment of leisure, so she goes all Dursley about how he dare take five seconds for himself when Seth's Chrismukkah obsession is on the line, and he pleads a coffee break, per union rules. She reminds him of how they all live under Seth's emo thumb and that if he doesn't get his rooftop reindeer he's going to send them all out into the cornfield like on Twilight Zone, then segues hamfistedly into asking if he's inviting "anybody" for dinner, meaning Taylor Townsend. He notes that this is hardly a subtle way of inquiring into their relationship status, and Kirsten jumps to the obvious truth that asking a girl to a family dinner on Christmas is tantamount to pitching troth. Which it is. "It's Chrismukkah! We make our own rules," Kirsten grins, and Ryan gets a little sassy with her, but gives in. The doorbell rings and Kirsten wigs about how it's got to be her "ham guy," and runs off, leaving Ryan alone in the kitchen, where he finds a Bartlebied letter from Marissa Cooper.
I loved Marissa Cooper, honestly. She was my favorite character on the show and I'm not even going to try to justify that. Just loved her. But you know who I love more than Marissa? Julie and Kaitlin, who are packing up for what Kaitlin calls "Christmas in the ghetto." Julie corrects her: they're actually going to Riverside, which is only tangential to the ghetto, and reminds us viewers that that's where their family is from. Ew. "I thought we were in denial about that?" says Kaitlin, and then they share a look as Taylor approaches, caroling through the house. She comes in carrying a big wrapped gift, which Kaitlin half-assumes is for her; she half-apologizes for not getting Taylor anything. It's actually a Foreman grill for Ryan -- because "he likes lean meat, obviously" -- about which weird sexual innuendo she grins her usual weird grin. Julie: "Lovely." She invites Taylor to Riverside, noting that Summer's spending the holiday at the Cohens', and then dimly remembers that Taylor has a family of her own. Nobody ever remembers that!
Taylor informs Julie that Veronica's spending Christmas in Cabo, and lies that she wasn't invited along because her mom knows she hates Mexican food. Julie is saddened by Taylor's non-relationship with her mother, and even Kaitlin processes that Taylor's life kind of sucks sometimes. Taylor says it's no problem, since she's going to be with Ryan. Julie wonders about this, since she wasn't invited, and Taylor says she's going to wrap that up in just a moment. Kaitlin, with another patented "you're so gay" look, invites her to come with them to Riverside, offering up the possibility of watching Aunt Cindy doing Whip-Its under the mistletoe. I love Kaitlin for this reason: that is legitimately fun to her. She's not just being sarcastic: she's also a deeply and hilariously troubled girl. Julie sighs in the background about Aunt Cindy, but Taylor's all smiles and takes off. Julie gives Kaitlin a look, and her daughter makes a "yikes" face, because: yikes. And you know what? Taylor and Marissa are so dissimilar that I just realized why Julie is keeping her in the house at all. It never occurred to me that she's filling a lot more holes in people's lives than just Ryan's. I always love the little scenes between Kaitlin and Taylor, but I never thought about how much having Taylor in the house suits Julie and Kaitlin just fine. That's really sad, and really sweet. And like I said, I loved Marissa Cooper, but I'd throw her over for Taylor Effin' Townsend so fast it would make your head spin. And I wouldn't need a coma or a mysterious letter to do so.
Ryan's staring at the unopened Marissa letter when Taylor appears, wishing him a Feliz Navidad. He gets standoffish due to the letter, and tells her he's got work to do. He climbs the ladder and Taylor puts on her resolved face. The terrifying one. "You know, I ran into Kirsten in the kitchen, and she was talking to a guy with a huge ham. Are you guys having dinner? Or something?" Ryan's noncommittal, and Taylor's scary resolved face gets even more steely. She rounds about on the ladder, talking about how Ryan's muscles are all very developed, "except for the ones in his mouth." She saves him the trouble of inviting her to dinner by inviting herself. He starts down a painful road about whatever's going on with them, it's only been a few weeks... and she puts together the whole thing about how Chrismukkah dinner means she's his girlfriend. "I don't want to hurt your feelings, but... yeah," he says, clearly uncomfortable between the rock of Taylor Townsend's towering will and the hard place of his dead girlfriend whose name he still hasn't said out loud. She shakes her brain loose and gets super intense: "Why would that hurt my feelings?" She climbs the ladder and bitches about how she got him a lovely Foreman Grill and in return he is giving her only "a hot steaming pile of rejection" -- a pile to which, she hastens to add, she is more than accustomed. She tries to force him to take the present, and they scuffle, and she starts falling backwards on the ladder, and pulls him down with her.
Inside the kitchen, the Ham Guy is talking about how it's going to rain symbolically the whole time Taylor and Ryan are in their comas, and Kirsten goes: "Are you sure this is a Virginia ham?" Which I have to ask: WTF with the ham? It's like a whole character in this episode. They're constantly talking about the qualifications of the ham and the location of the ham and the status of the ham and the home state of the ham and how there's a Ham Guy. There's a total closeup of the ham on the kitchen island, like it's emoting. "I am not even sure if I'm a Virginia ham or not. I am having a cured meat crisis of identity. What if I'm not as tasty as last year's ham? I'm certainly cuter, and last year's ham didn't even have any meat on it, which is like the point of ham, but for some reason last year's ham was mysteriously beloved, even though it gave everybody food poisoning and kept dating annoying gay guys and being a random lesbian."
Ryan wakes up on the back deck with his hand in Taylor's, and just so we know it's weird, there's weird music and a weird crane shot pulling back from their yin-yang coma, and it's all sunny, which is weird because before the ham monologue it was raining symbolically. "Are you hurt?" he asks Taylor, and she's awesome: "Only my heart, Ryan. Only my heart." She gets up and shoves the grill at him: "The receipt's inside. I hope you grill your face." She takes off and Ryan stares at the brightly shining sun and listens to the weird music. He goes to the pool house, but it's totally different: all exercise equipment and shiny black matte appliances. He turns to leave again, and suddenly double-takes backwards like he's going to catch it changing around. Like you can surprise the pool house. Outside, Kirsten's hair looks fierce and she's wearing black, in addition to a sour face about how the staff can't go poking about in the pool house. She demands to see his supervisor and he's confused. "Kirsten, what are you talking about?" She looks closer: "Excuse me, do I know you?"
Credits, with a weird cover of "California" over the usual credits, which are moving at the same rate as ever, so it's twice as weird and frenetic because the song is slower. It would have been cool to use different graphics, but whatever. This episode is really quite good, mostly due to it being Season Four and less so for being a Chrismukkah episode. I like alternate universe stories where it's obviously all being made out of one character's brain, or two in this case, because logic can just go out the window. Although I'm surprised this alternate universe isn't way more screwed up and weird, given my suspicion that Ryan is fully a crazy person at this point.
Kirsten asks the staff boss if Ryan's one of his guys, and he's not, so Ryan asks where Seth is. Kirsten's surprised that Seth has a friend, particularly a hot one, and tells Ryan he's at the comic book store. She tells him to get Seth home by five and to "shoo" because she doesn't want him wandering around her house. It's kind of cool to see scary Kirsten. I remember being sooo creeped out by her for the first part of the first season, and it's always weird to think about how much she's changed and how really she was our nice Kirsten all along, we were just seeing a different side of her back then. I love that. I love how it was true for everybody: Julie, Caleb, but especially Luke. They didn't randomly change into other people, it was just that our perspective changed as we saw more of them. I think about how much I hated Kirsten back then, in the first couple of episodes, and I feel really guilty about it because she's so great. Inside, the boss guy is like, "Didn't Dragon Lady just tell you to get lost?" And Ryan just kind of shrugs and leaves.
At the mall, Julie's giving a news interview outside a big charity display about how she's running a homeless shelter and introduces a rough-looking individual by the name of Daryl, who just last week was homeless. He still looks it, so I don't know what her point is. The interviewer calls her "quite the philanthropist" and she smiles: "Yes. And I help people!" Ryan approaches her and calls her "Julie," and she glitches a second before smiling brilliantly at the interviewer again: "I love it when they call me by my first name!" He asks what she's doing there, and behind her is an awesome poster that says "Even Homeless People Have Christmas," which is... nonsensical and awesome. She gives Ryan a voucher for the mission and says magnanimously to tell them she sent him. He asks if she knows him and she says very awesomely: "I know your pain." She turns to the interviewer about how "even this poor street urchin" has found hope in the so-called cold streets of Newport, and then Daryl the Homeless gets kind of bouncery about getting away from Julie. So he bounces and goes to look for Seth.
Who is being taunted in the comic shop by the Ward twins, who have taken his wallet and are obnoxiously repeating every whiny, disgusting, puling thing he says. Remember in Season One how Seth was kind of a huge whining disgusting baby? He got over it almost immediately, and then in Season Two became violently self-absorbed? This is like both of those times a thousand. I can barely look at him throughout the episode. Ryan comes in and barks at the Ward twins to leave Seth alone, and the one with the hair is like, "Is this your boyfriend? You guys should get a room." Awesomely, the one with the face goes, "Yeah, so you could make love in it." Guess without Ryan in Newport the whole Gay Dad thing didn't end quite so well. "I make love to... ladies," Seth says. Guess it really is an alternate universe. He thanks Ryan but there's none of the wet-eyed adoration you'd expect; he just asks Ryan if he knows him, which drives Ryan nuts because if there's one thing you could expect as a given across the gamut of universes, it's Ryan and Seth's wild bromance. The Wards yell about how Seth's "girlfriend" is in the shop across the way, and he mealy-mouth whines about "Which one?" He takes off, and Ryan hears the Wards talking about how could Sandy Cohen have such a sucky kid. Which Sandy used to constantly ask himself, before Ryan came. Ryan asks where he can find Sandy, who always fixes everything, and the one with the hair says he's at a press conference at the Yacht Club. "Press conference?" asks Ryan; "Press conference?" the one with the face snots hilariously. Outside in the mall, Seth's staring at Summer trying on her wedding dress. She looks totally beautiful. Seth is horrible and pathetic some more and whines a whole lot; Ryan can't understand why their impending nuptials would be making Seth all emo.
At the Yacht Club, Sandy is telling some dude that he and his wife "are just going to take it easy" for Christmas. "I thought she never rested!" the guy says, and whatever, Sandy declares himself Mayor of the Greatest City on Earth and then douchebaggishly raises his arms to the skies: "Vote Sandy Cohen!" Everybody cheers or whatever. Ryan approaches Sandy, who blows him off. "If anybody can make sense of this, it's you." Sandy waves the bodyguard away, because gorgeous young men in trouble are still his favorite collectible, and asks what's up. Ryan tells him about how Kirsten threw him out of the house and Seth doesn't recognize him and is also marrying Summer, and Sandy's face goes hard. "I see that you're having some trouble, and I sympathize with that, but stalking me and my family is not the answer." The bodyguard takes him out and Ryan makes sad faces. Behind Sandy is a poster of him with Arnold Schwarzenegger, which I would call proof positive that Sandy is past saving.
Even more awesome poster on the boardwalk: Johnny Harper, Pac West surf star, will be in attendance on Friday to promote his new line of surfboards. I have no ill will toward Johnny Harper, though I admit that his death makes this easier. For some reason that poster was the first time I was like, "Whoa." Because that draws a total line between Ryan's absence and Marissa's ability to ruin everything she ever touched. Or, if we're looking at it as a construct of his guilt, that he even blames himself for stupid Johnny getting killed. I question the intellect of blaming oneself for that, considering that even on a good day, Johnny did things like run into traffic for no reason and vandalize his own property. He really was Marissa's perfect guy, wasn't he? The Wards go by on a skateboard and a bike (aww) and hurl some ephemeral attitude his way as they go past: "What's the matter, you can't find your boyfriend?" Those boys are like the Greek Chorus of Gay.
Kirsten sits at Ryan's bedside in the hospital, while it's raining loudly and symbolically outside. Sandy arrives with Summer, and Kirsten assumes that they were hanging decorations when they fell. Which is, to be fair, more likely than the truth, which is that they were roughhousing over the possession of a fat-draining grill appliance. While you were interrogating a ham. Kirsten informs them about how it's one of those comas where there are no ill effects and no serious injury, and how they just have to wait.
Ryan sits in the mall with a headache, having a meat crisis of his own, and Taylor appears out of nowhere. She's overjoyed to see him and sweetly throws her arms around him. "Thank God I found you!" she says. He holds on tight and closes his eyes, relieved.
Commercial, and then they're at the diner, where Taylor is explaining to him that they are stuck in a parallel universe. She is very grateful for the fact that he's there with her in the parallel universe, and notes that probably he'd be happier if he were stuck in a parallel universe with somebody he'd want to date. "Ah, even in a parallel universe she never stops," he says archly. But seriously: Taylor, this is not how we do. He thinks probably that in the real world, they're either asleep or dead, and she pinches him and points out how, unless the advertisements were really misleading, Newport is nothing like heaven. By process of elimination, she deduces, they must be in a parallel universe. Ryan wonders why she knows this, but not why she is a madwoman to think it's true, which proves they're perfect for each other. She makes reference to a "tenth grade sci-fi phase" and says that in sci-fi, "alt universes are huge." Clearly, she says, the two of them are in a world where they don't exist. She assures him that she knows how to fix it, and he sighs: "Does it involve me dating you?" Which is the exact same amount of "funny" that Ryan usually is, but Taylor's so cute: "Well, well. Look who's funny in alt-world?" She explains that they have been sent to the alt-world to fix something: "Someone or someones we know are in trouble."
Holly comes running in, and she and Summer scream at each other about her engagement ring, and dance around. They are dressed like Julie Cooper and there is a lot of "Woo!" and things of this nature. Taylor notes that Alt-Summer is an idiot, and Summer makes a joke about how her fiancé's Hummer is "[her] job, bitch!" Che comes in, and I mean. I have tremendous respect for Chris Pratt. First of all, he is perfect in every way. He is also a canny and hilarious actor. I have never seen that show Everwood, because I am given to understand that it is about a boy who each week cries with his father, and then somebody gets AIDS, and that sounds like not my kind of thing, but I am fully prepared to believe that it is awesome. People I trust have assured me that it is awesome. And if ever I were going to watch it, I always said Chris Pratt would have a lot to do with that. And when Che showed up I found him to be perfect. But what's more perfect than Che? Alt-Che, name of Chester, who is like if Che were Luke. He is a moron and mostly speaks in barks and woofs and twitches, and is very date-rapey, and very very perfectly hot. So Chester tells Holly she's looking ripped, and then gives Summer noogie-kisses. The three of them are totally repulsive.
Ryan can't believe that Summer is with him, and also: why is Che even in alt-world? Taylor spins some kind of web about how without Ryan there to take his place at Harbor, Che's family moved to Connecticut and he became a hippy. I don't know, whatever. Parallel universe. It would have been funny to have Luke, but since this is actually a made-up coma world from their brains, and not actually a parallel universe, it makes more sense to have people that are part of their current lives. Holly shrieks at Summer that they have to go to Bergdorf's, and Chester says they can go and he'll stick around and "get pumped." He preens and kisses his guns and is very embarrassing; Summer says that pumping him is "[her] job, bitch!" Which makes even less sense. She then loudly congratulates herself and is hilariously trashy and very white-girl faux ghetto about everything. This is precisely why I hate Cameron Diaz. This shit right here. On their way out, Summer loudly calls some guy "bitch!" and Taylor sends Ryan to deal with Sucky Seth while she does recon on Nasty Summer. He asks how they'll get back together and she says that since it's alt-world, they can just find each other. Taylor is very sanguine in the alt-world. I think she is more adaptable to huge faults in time and space because every day is like this for her.
The very worried, but not that worried, Sandy and Kirsten are assured that the kids will wake up soon, and the doctor suggests they surround them with familiar voices and music and smells. Summer volunteers to go find Veronica, which somehow reminds Kirsten of her freakin' ham. Sandy immediately rushes in to take responsibility for the all-important ham, no matter where it's really from, because he is from Brooklyn and knows you shouldn't judge a ham by where it's from, because even a ham from Chino might still have really great abs and you can put it in your pool house with all the other hot young cured meats you've "rescued" over the years. In fact, he says, they should bring the ham and all the other kosher signs of Chrismukkah to the hospital so that the magic of Chrismukkah will wake them up with smells. The fate of the ham is so important, though, that it will take both Cohen men not currently in comas to properly husband it. Kirsten is sad to be away from the ham, but will stay and look after Taylor and Ryan. This episode has a lot of planning in it. People explaining how you will do this thing while I am concomitantly doing this other thing. Like in every scene.
Taylor skulks with wacky music and watches as Chester gets a "business" (read: "booty") call and air-kisses Summer. As he's walking away, Holly checks out his ass lasciviously, but for this she cannot be blamed. He calls the person on the phone "baby" and asks her if she's wearing the thong he bought her. She's wearing it, but "not for long." He tells her he loves her and hangs up, then winks grossly at Taylor. Summer and Holly drive away after a lot of unnecessary kiss-blowing and weird catlike meows and clawing from Chester. I love how totally disgusting they are!
Ryan comes into what we know as the Cohen house calling hello, and Kirsten is like, "You again?" She sends him upstairs to find Seth and calls for a glass of chardonnay. Who brings it? Jimmy! Her husband! Ryan recognizes him and Kirsten explains that Ryan is a friend of Seth's, which she terms a "Christmas miracle." Seth sucks so bad in alt-world that there's not even Chrismukkah? They talk about the party they're throwing tonight, and how all of Newport will be there if they want to keep working with the Newport Group, and Kirsten laughs kind of maniacally about how she's got the chokehold on the universe. Jimmy is still basically Jimmy, since Marissa was always like tenth on the list anyway, and is very friendly, inviting Ryan to the party that night.
Taylor follows Chester through the bushes at a mansion, where Sandy is leaving for Mayor stuff and saying goodbye to his wife. Who is Julie! They are married! She makes some comment about how they're going to the party even though Kirsten will be there, and how weird it is that Sandy was ever married to "that ice queen." Sandy allows as how they were all different people back then, and drives away. This causes Chester and Taylor to dive deeper into the brush, but Julie beckons with a finger into the trees, and he barks and woofs and jumps forward. Taylor says "Joinks" about this and then creepy-creeps into the house behind them. Inside, there's a picture of Sandy and Julie on their wedding day. Chilling. Chester's upstairs barking like a dog; Taylor spies on them making out and says, "Double joinks." Julie slaps Chester a few times, he rips her dress in half while barking, and then she spanks his ass while he's all "Daddy likes! Daddy likes! Bad kitten!" Taylor, horrified, backs into a bedroom, which the maid is cleaning. The maid -- who of course does not recognize Taylor -- informs her that "Missy Cooper" will be home from Berkeley at three. There's a picture of Marissa and Julie on the desk in the room: Marissa's alive. "Triple joinks."
Taylor finds Ryan at the diner and is very breathless, all, "Oh my God, move over." He hesitates and she tells him sitting together at a table doesn't make them girlfriend and boyfriend any more than snuggling into bed with Seth every night makes them girlfriend and boyfriend. Ryan tells her about Kirsten and Jimmy, which she agrees is big, but says she can beat it: "Sandy's married to Julie and she's having an affair with Che." Ryan is like, "So now we have to get Sandy and Kirsten back together too," but Taylor's not done. "Something else. In this world, Marissa's alive." His face goes wild and very still. She starts talking about how everybody involved is going to Kirsten's Christmas party, but he so doesn't care. "Let me out?" She asks if he's leaving the booth to go to the bathroom, noting that in alt-world that's not something she's needed to do. But she knows he really wants to get to the airport. "She won't even know you," Taylor half-heartedly protests, knowing she's already done, and he's like, "Doesn't matter." Taylor is happy that Marissa's fine in this world, but points out that task number one is still to fix what's broken. However, Ryan mumbles and she completes for him, if Marissa's alive in this world he wouldn't want to go back anyway. She takes a second to deal with this, and soldiers up quick. "Okay, I get it. You gotta go." She stands up to let him out, and he looks at her. He stands up and apologizes and she nods. Alt-world sucks.
Julie whines to Kaitlin about how she doesn't want to drive to Riverside in this rain, and then catches her putting a bottle of white in the cooler with their snacks and holiday food. "No, honey, my family drinks wine coolers." Kaitlin says it's turning out to be a very Britney Christmas, and Julie threatens to drive to Riverside with Kaitlin on her lap. Summer appears and tells them about how Ryan and Taylor are in a coma, but not the real kind; Kaitlin calls it "Coma Lite." Julie remembers how Veronica's going to Cabo, and worries about it, but Kaitlin knows better than that. "Like Veronica's going to care if her daughter's in a bogus coma," she says. I love her voice. Julie plays the mom card about how a mother would want to know, and Summer offers to drive. Julie claims Taylor as her responsibility; Kaitlin's just happy they're not going to Riverside. "Sweet!" she says, and Julie gives her a look. "I mean, I... hate comas."
Kirsten mopes around the hospital. A cute nurse brings her the Marissa letter and tells her it's natural to worry, and then starts hurling anvils left and right with abandon. "A lot depends on the patients healing themselves, mentally and physically. When they finish whatever they need to finish, they'll wake up." And I say this as a lover of this show and especially this season: was that really frigging necessary? Kirsten thanks her and looks at the Marissa letter and begins to slowly wig out.
The Sia cover of "Paranoid Android" plays Ryan into the airport in slo-mo. You can see her pink Berkeley hoodie in the offloading passengers; Ryan approaches and says her name, which echoes: "Marissa?" The girl turns: it's Kaitlin. "You knew my sister?" She explains that she's at Berkeley and throws some spackle on it about how she's a prodigy or something. Which I don't doubt. I am fairly certain she'll have a puppet government in at least three South American countries by the time she graduates, but again: in alt-world no explanation is better than an explanation that makes no sense, because I'm prepared to let it go right up until you start yelling at me about how it makes total sense when we both know damn well it doesn't. Man, I hate that. Never complain, never explain. Kaitlin's like, "Who are you?" She is very sad to tell Ryan that Marissa died three years ago: she OD'd in an alleyway in Tijuana. That was the second time I was like WHOA, because the words are funny but the concept is vastly painful at the same time. Kaitlin is clearly unhappy to be talking about it; she knows it'll cast a shadow over her holiday. "Who are you again?" No one, he says. "Okay, well. Merry Christmas," she says, not unkindly but still thrown off by all of it, and takes off. Taylor appears out of nowhere and simply says she's sorry.
Back at the diner, Taylor's comforting Ryan that at least he gave Marissa three more years: she got to fall in love, and graduate... (And shoplift, and get nearly raped, and get disappointed by Jimmy a billion times, and get locked up in a tall tower with a bottle of vodka and no Ryan, and hook up with Seth's sloppy seconds, and have sex in a tiki hut, and go into the mother of all slut spirals.) And also: die anyway, he points out. Taylor says this proves that he wasn't meant to save her by the rules of alt-world, so just drop it and let it go. "You saved the Cohens!" She points out how in Ryan-less alt-world, Seth is the Unabomber, Sandy's married to "Slutty McSlutterman," [And Taylor? We've officially stopped doing the Thingy McThingerson thing. Like a million years ago. Just FYI.] and Kirsten hasn't had an orgasm in like a year... He puts a stop to that with a quickness, because it is always so funny how creeped out Ryan and Seth get about their mom's sex life. Taylor tells him, however, that there's no way she's going to let him off the hook for fixing alt-world. "Has anybody ever said no to you?" Only once, she says: "I pushed him off the roof." Ha! She says she's kidding, although careful review of the footage shows her actively grasping at him as she went down. Which describes his relationship with Marissa, again, to a T. "Let's save the Cohens and go home." It's something I was confused about all season, this thing where Marissa's death somehow invalidated Ryan's place with the Cohens. I mean, he's always running off, 90% of all storylines on this show have always revolved around Ryan suddenly feeling like he shouldn't live with the Cohens anymore. But this season they seem really linked, no Marissa equals not being good enough to be a Cohen, and this episode makes it obvious that this is the case -- or rather, that Ryan's propensity for doing this is misguided -- but I'm not done thinking about it. Maybe it has nothing to do with the politics of his status as a Cohen, and it's just him retreating to a hole like a wild beast whenever he gets hurt and forgetting that they love him and are there for him. Maybe that's all it is. Also, why does spellcheck know "Unabomber"?
Real-world Cohen kitchen: Seth is telling Sandy how Taylor and Ryan are in an alternate universe. The dialogue in this scene is great, but I am confused about the point of having this scene. If anything, it sets up a weird Seth/Taylor parallel that is wrong, because the last thing you want is to imply that Ryan is dating the girl version of Seth, even if that's exactly what's going on. I don't know. Seth reminds his dad about how Dorothy had to go see the Wizard, and just like she did, Ryan and Taylor have to accomplish something before they can wake up. Anvils fall from the sky and into the pool and endanger the ham. Seth posits that they could be in something like our world, only messed up, or possibly in a world ruled by giant vegetables, and they have to topple the vegetable despot before they can come home. That was adorable! Sandy shakes his head at Seth and says he had him right up until the vegetables. The vegetables were the best part! "It makes perfect sense," Seth grins wonderfully. The phone rings; it's Kirsten and she's got a theory about why Ryan hasn't woken up. She thinks it's something to do with the Mysterious Letter.
Which is a lot like telling us what's going on instead of showing us, again, some more, which makes it really frustrating, but more importantly it's very frustrating that, for this week, everybody knows the rules of fake comas even though they don't exist, and everybody knows the rules of parallel universes even though they don't exist, and they keep explaining these things to each other as though they were self-evident, even though they are not true and they are not facts. If this were happening in the alt-world only I would have no beef, but I'm talking about random nurses wandering up and offering shamanic dream quest advice in the course of her daily job. I accept the coma and I accept the parallel universe and I love the whole "overcome your shit and you win" concept, obviously, but it's just so... Gilmore Girls does this sometimes and it always makes me uncomfortable. Like Rory will say some made-up concept and Lorelei will be like, "What?" and then for the rest of the day everybody knows about the concept and it's like so crazy. Except really what it is, is stupid, because the thing doesn't exist, it's just something the writer of the episode felt amorously toward. Or how post-Friends and -Sex & The City every sitcom powerloads itself with catchphrase after catchphrase, like, desperately trying to make one stick. Not a huge one, and I like the episode, but could you get out of your own way for like five seconds, show? Again, not a major offense, but on the other hand, grossly underestimating your audience is how you get a Season Three, which directly results in my not getting to watch a whole hell of a lot more of this show The O.C., which I love very much, after today.
Taylor and Ryan head into Kirsten's Christmas party, planning to divide and conquer. Sucky Seth comes whining into the room bitching at his mom about how he's not going to the stupid party, because Summer will be there, and he cannot deal with Summer because she is affianced to "that burly dingdong," which is, okay, pretty cute. Ryan nods at Taylor and they split up; she heads into the main room where her mother is yelling at a violently hot boy named Taylor. "Your ass looks like the back of a truck!" she says. No comment, no reference to moving violations, nothing. I am pure class right now. Boy Taylor sucky-seths about how maybe he should do Pilates and she tells him to go stand against the wall. "And my mom is still a bitch," Taylor sighs to herself. I've said it before and I'll say it again: parallel universes exist so that you can make out with parallel versions of yourself. I agree with Omar that cloning is basically science's great way to have sex with yourself; I could quite confidently settle down with alt-Jacob or clone-Jacob with no ill effects. I mean, if and only if I could get him to shut up about Tennyson and Jung and stop being pretentious all the time, because that would really get tiresome after a while. But this doesn't even seem to occur to Taylor. (Well, girl-Taylor at least; boy-Taylor seems ready to jump her bones in a sec, but really just in kind of a Seth and Ryan way where you know it will never actually happen.) Neither does it occur to Taylor to wonder WTF about her being a boy in this universe, which is similarly confusing to me like the Cohen = Marissa thing above. There's a connection I'm not making, because no way would you just randomly do that stuff and be all symbolic about it without there being a reason, and it angers me that I do not know what those reasons are.
At the real-world airport, Veronica's all up in a young tadpole's grill. Julie and Kaitlin -- who's so great this episode how she's just along for the ride -- rush up to her and Julie lets Veronica know that Taylor's in the hospital. "Anorexia?" Veronica asks excitedly. Bitch. Kaitlin, horrified, tells her that her daughter fell off a ladder; Veronica is disappointed. Julie's never let reality get in the way of her objectives, though, so she continues to work under the assumption that Veronica loves her daughter. "Summer's got the car outside!" she says excitedly, fairly hopping in an ecstasy of motherhood. Veronica blows it off, offering to call from Cabo, and Julie appeals to her humanity before cutting to the chase: "And if you get on that plane I'll tell security you have a bomb." I love Julie Cooper. Kaitlin's impressed: "Wow, very Jack Bauer of you!" Julie smiles gorgeously and for once I don't think there's even a little bit of like, "At least I'm a better mother than you, bitch." I think she's just proud of herself. She should be. Julie Cooper rules all universes simultaneously.
Ryan runs up to Seth's room and grabs a jacket. Seth is face down on his bed, moaning and bitching about how much he hates his life. "Parallel universe" rules say this is what would happen if Ryan weren't there, but "Ryan's construct" rules say this proves Ryan himself knows exactly how much of an impact he's made on the life of our little guy. Still, he rolls his eyes: "No wonder Summer doesn't like you." Which: ouch, but also: duh. Seth notes that it's a little weird how invested Ryan seems to be in his love life, considering they just met this morning. Alt-Seth is way more willing to talk about the elephant in the room than real-Seth. Ryan pulls a chair up to his bedside: "You want the truth? I'm from an alternate universe where your dad adopted me, and you and Summer are in love." Seth's like, "Clearly." Ryan is not surprised that Seth is not surprised, but brushes off the dorkstorm to give him the Summer Roberts 101. "Have you ever heard of a show called The Valley?" Seth shakes his head mondo-adorably.
Taylor approaches Kirsten about how great the party is, and how lucky she is that Mayor Cohen let her off work so she could come. Kirsten almost asks how Sandy is, then reroutes it mid-sentence to asking what it's like working in Cohen's office. Taylor says that it's honestly amazing that anything gets done, considering how the Mayor mopes and cries all day about how he's still in love with his ex-wife. Taylor Townsend for the win! She geeks about how she shouldn't be airing his dirty laundry, given the ex-wife's bound to be around somewhere nearby, and heads off to mingle with a "Ta!"
She joins Ryan and compliments his cute jacket with hands all over him. Only in a parallel universe would Seth's clothes fit Ryan this well. Taylor claims to have done some "serious Jedi Mind Tricks on Kirsten," which: has she mentioned Jedi Mind Tricks in every episode this season? That's so hot. Chester and Summer come running in all disgusting, giving shout-outs from the door and making strange noises and being great. Taylor explains the plan again all over the place about how they have to get Sandy and Kirsten and Seth and Summer together by removing the problem elements. Ryan to take Julie and Taylor to get Chester. I could not be trusted to carry out a plan if Chester was involved. I know myself to a certain extent. Not so Taylor, who goes to the well again and beats a horse: "Wouldn't this be fun if you were doing it with somebody you actually wanted to date?" Taylor! This is not how we do! He's like, "Just go do it." She apologizes and heads out.
Julie looks totally gorgeous, I love how they didn't gross her up for this episode; Chester is staring at a random girl and scarfing food like a freakin' ungulate. Taylor approaches and tells him "the red-haired lady" is in the bathroom and needs his help. "A thong removification!" he says, adorably, and Taylor's like, "... Charming." She tries to get him moving, but he cunningly fellates a grape or an olive or something and invites her along. "Really tempting," she says, but takes the pass. Wait, let's watch that again to make sure we didn't miss anything. Nope. One more time. Yeah, we covered this part. Okay, but just in case... and we're done. He takes off and she has a full-body willies experience. Between not tapping that sweet alternate-self ass and being able to resist the charms of Chris Pratt, I guess she really does love Ryan after all. SUCKA!
Ryan approaches Julie and she does the whole "Do I know you" thing some more, and he -- and I mean you can see it curdling on his tongue as he says it -- lets her know about guy in the master bath who wants to commence removification of the thong. The only thing that would be more awesome is if Julie also invited Ryan to the experience, but what she actually says is actually way funnier: "That's charity talk. Ah, an acronym for The Homeless Of Newport... Go... Or something... " Sandy waves at her and she takes off awkwardly.
Meanwhile, Sandy is telling a bunch of Rich Old White Guys it'll be okay if they don't get caught, and everybody laughs the laugh of Rich Old White Guys on the Make. Taylor approaches with a question, and in a nod to the continuity of Sandy's perennial wrestling with the forces of evil, Sandy says he hopes her question is about the new hospital. But no, it's about relationships. She says they're in a similar situation, because she recently broke up with a guy that won't move on. He is confused and she gives a big old awesome horsy grin about "Mr. Mayor, come on!" She tells him the same lie about how she works at the Newport Group and nothing gets done because Kirsten is moping around and crying about how she loves him, etc., and he gives her the "young lady" speech he gave Ryan earlier, saying this is not at all an appropriate conversation. Which is true. He walks away and inspiration strikes Taylor Townsend like lightning: "Mail truck! Yeah! From the old days at Berkeley! Mail truck! Mail truck! Crazy, huh? Bye." I might be paraphrasing but it's something much like that. She takes off and he smiles despite himself, then makes a variety of thinky faces. The Eyebrows lend their usual assist.
"You're saying you ride horses in the Valley?" Summer asks, confused. I love how Ryan somehow made Summer not a retard. I mean, I get it -- Seth's presence in her life has enawesomed her the same way Ryan's has Seth, so it's a domino of suck -- but it's still funny to connect the dots like that. "No. I like plastic horses, and The Valley." That's what's in Ryan's arsenal? I guess he doesn't really have to know much about wooing. An ounce of coke and the merest dusting of a lower-class zipcode did it for Marissa, and I barely even remember Sadie but I think she was interested in contracting and, like, home improvement, and Theresa knew him from his theatre days, and Seth is just asking for it. We've never really seen Ryan go after a girl. Taylor I think would agree that he's not great at it. But really: that's what you've got? How about the Mermaid poem? Climbing up on vendor carts? Cruelly using Anna Stern to get to her? How about neg-hitting with the dead best friend? Use what you've got! There's a whole universe on the line! (And don't think for a second that Seth didn't tell Ryan about the Mermaid poem ad nauseum; it's still one of the best things he's ever done.) "I like that show too! And plastic horses! What's yours named?" I love regular Summer so, so much, but I gotta say there's a surprising amount of love for alt-Summer going on here. "Princess Sparkle?" Her face falls because that's too weird, even for dumb old alt-Summer, and he corrects himself: "No, Captain Oats! I just said Princess Sparkle because... I think that's a really cool name... ?" Um, I love Sucky Seth. These two deserve each other. She almost punches his arm: "NO WAY!"
Taylor Townsend reads lips. Of course. She and Ryan convene and watch Sandy and Kirsten and she informs him that "in the past two minutes, the words âmail truck' have come up nine times." But as you proved in the last scene, you only have to say it three times in a row for it to lose all meaning whatsoever. "We might actually pull this off... " she says, and then notices Veronica Townsend bitching boy-Taylor right out. "Lots of teenage boys get lipo! It's no big deal! And stop picking at your man girdle." I've never understood the Veronica obsession with weight. I think it depends on who's writing her, because my favorite Veronica moments have had to do with things that are true, like how Taylor is a freakshow with no friends, and less about the nonexistent weight issue. Boy-Taylor whines and Veronica shuts him right down; girl-Taylor makes to deal with the issue: "You know what, I think it's time I talk to her as an adult."
My best guess is that Taylor is very powerful and forceful in her daily life, and the only time that she's powerless is with her mom, because that's how overcompensation works, so her vision quest deal is about saving that part from her mom, and she would see it as an ineffectual, beaten-down masculine part of herself. That's the best I got. Also, though, the beauty in having her living at the Roberts house is that it makes a parallel to Ryan; if you think of Julie as getting her own Ryan Atwood by grabbing Taylor, thereby keeping up with Kirsten and Sandy, that puts Taylor and Ryan on equal footing across the board, and also explains why Taylor also doesn't exist in alt-world. Which makes her the anti-Marissa in the same way, because Marissa didn't have a place because she was screwed up, while Taylor and Ryan are screwed up because they don't have a place. Which is also their strength, which is what this episode is really about. "Okay, you can do this," Taylor murmurs to herself as she approaches. Veronica turns to her: "Do what, eat? That's apparent." And Taylor gets a 158.3 quarterback score with a single sack: "Shut up! Why do you have to be so mean? Neither he nor I are remotely fat. We are smart, and attractive, and interesting, and people like us. And we are not going to let you make us feel bad about ourselves any more." Boy-Taylor is quite pleased with all this; Veronica is unflappable: "I imagine the mirror does that for you." Taylor loses control: "You... bitch!" Feels good, no? She immediately runs off, completely on fire with it.
Ryan finds her hyperventilating at a table. "I can't believe I just said that. I can't believe I finally did it." He tells her he's proud of her; she remarks on the sudden sound of rain and looks like she might pass out-slash-wake up from her coma. He offers to get her a glass of alt-water.
Jimmy comes running in screaming about how could Chester and Julie be macking in his house, in his bathroom even. "I have to brush my teeth in there." Chester offers another nonsensical yo-dawg: "So do I! But I don't use a toothbrush! Oh!" Everybody ignores him; Jimmy notes how Julie is still a total whore. Everybody converges and Jimmy tries to tell "Mr. Mayor" what's going on. Julie begs him to stop, and Summer goes "Ooooh!" like she's in the audience on Maury. Jimmy tells everybody that Julie's thong was in Chester's mouth; said mouth hangs open stupidly. "Shut up!" yells Summer, and Chester tells her it was just stuck and he was helping her out. "That's what you said before with Holly. How come all these women around you keep getting their thongs stuck? I'm starting to get suspicious... " says Summer, brilliantly. Bilson rocks. Seth steps in front of Chester and he tells him to move it or lose it. "Then I will lose it, whatever it is." Chester makes to kill Seth, but then with a whispered oh snap locates his removifiable thong on a blonde and takes off with a woof. Summer grins cutely at Seth and says he was just, like, so brave.
Julie tries to throw down, and Kirsten totally scoffs about how Sandy cries about her all day anyway, and they farcify about but-I-thought-you this and no-I-heard-you that, blah blah, and Ryan shows up in the middle of all this with a glass of water, bitching how in alt-world they don't stock clean glasses. Sandy locates Ryan and Taylor as the problem and tells them to start talking. "People, I can explain everything," she says in a Tayloriffic way, but then she hears the thunder and realizes she's about to wake up. "Must be because I stood up to Mom," she explains for our benefit, and heads weirdly and kind of magically into the kitchen, tossing off exhortations to Ryan to get everybody together because it's his only way back. He follows her and calls her name, but the kitchen is empty. There's an echo for the second time when he says her name.
Taylor wakes up and Kirsten calls her honey; she begs Kirsten to be with Sandy Cohen and Kirsten goes to get the doctor. Taylor looks over at Ryan, still asleep, and says with much feeling and great sweetness: "Come back to me, Ryan." I do not call bullshit. That's just nice.
Ryan comes back from kitchen, and Sandy asks him to explain himself. Ryan starts in slowly, and Summer immediately asks who the hell the random is and why she's not drunk yet. "The truth is, things the way they are now are completely wrong. None of you know me, but the truth is that each of you have saved my life just by being who you are. And right now none of you are who you are. Summer, what are you doing?" She looks down at her crazy outfit, but he's talking about Chester: "Completely wrong for you. You should be with Seth." Seth agrees somewhat forcefully. "And Kirsten? Running the Newport Group? That place makes you miserable. And you may like your chardonnay, but I got news for you: it doesn't like you back. Sandy, you don't wanna be Mayor! You're all about saving the little guy, not holing up in some mansion giving orders. What you two are best at is being married to each other." Sandy looks at him with his usual kindness and comes close to leering at Kirsten, but just then Julie comes in with security. As he's being hauled out, he shouts at them to promise to be together. The most annoying thing about Ryan has always been his beliefs -- and tactics -- having to do with how other people should live their lives. I like how this whole episode is about, like, "Stop administrating the relationships that have nothing to do with you, and get right with the ones that do." He gets so ripped up about everybody else that he forgets his actual personhood.
Veronica enters the hospital and they tell her Taylor's awake and that she'll be fine, which pisses Veronica off, and then Taylor appears with a "Hi, Mom." Veronica rolls her eyes even harder: "And you're walking, even? Jeez!" Julie is appalled: "Veronica, your daughter is okay. You should be happy." It makes me sad when Julie says that "at least your kids are alive" stuff. Poor Julie. But Taylor's cool, all "Julie, I got it." She tells her mom to get back to the airport and try to make a flight to Cabo. Veronica bitches about how she'll probably have to fly coach, and Taylor just smiles and hugs her. "Merry Christmas, Mom." Julie and Kirsten look at each other, appalled, and Taylor smiles at them. Kirsten asks seriously if she's okay, and Taylor thinks, and nods. "Yeah. I don't know why, but I feel just fine. Huh." Julie smiles at Kirsten over her head, and Taylor heads back into the room. Kirsten draws close to Julie, concerned, and says in a soft voice, "Julie, you should see this. I haven't read it." She hands her the Marissa letter and they both make OMG faces. Julie stands alone in the hallway, and opens the letter.
In jail, there's a drunk Santa asking Ryan where his hat is. "You threw up in it." A cop comes to get Ryan: somebody's paid his bail. Who? Sandy Cohen, of course. On the way to grabbing his ham and installing it in the pool house I'm sure. "I'm Sandy Cohen! I collect young boys!" He tells him that, though Ryan is a random from out of the wild blue yonder, a lot of what he said made sense. "Why do you care so much?" Aww. The best thing, or one of them, about this episode is how Ryan just assumed Sandy could make everything okay. They've been hitting that button a lot this season but it melts my heart every time. I love that the one person Ryan always trusts is the person who gave him a chance. That's so neat. Ryan figures that he was wrong in any case about alt-rules, and as a point of interest, WTF happened? "How did your family fall apart?" Sandy says that -- and this is where we go from "possible alternate universe" to "full-on obvious Ryan construct"-- when Marissa Cooper died ("I knew her," Ryan says quietly) three years ago, everybody got stuck. Even Ryan Atwood is hip to the symbolism: "Didn't know how to say goodbye." He nods. Right. Got it. Sandy begs him to come to dinner, but Ryan's got somewhere to go. Somewhere that's about his relationships and his life and not everybody else's. Ryan shoots for the 158.3,thanking Sandy on his way out.
I was just worrying about the state of the ham! Thank God Seth and Sandy show up with Chrismukkah in tow. Weirdly, my first thought was "It's just not Chrismukkah without Lindsay," even though she was barely around. I think it's because that one was my favorite. They run into Jules, who's standing in the hallway with her daughter's letter. "From Marissa. Sent it the day she was leaving." Seth pronounces this a Chrismukkah miracle. I'm inclined to agree. I always said "Donut Run" was the classiest sendoff for a character I adored from the minority. This is definitely a contender. Marissa said to Ryan, in the letter, that she had to leave Newport because it was the only way they could get on with their lives. That she loved him but she had to say goodbye. Kaitlin comes out of the room -- I'm really glad, in a way, that she wasn't there for that moment -- and grabs the food, dragging Seth into the hospital room, talking about how Coma Taylor is, at the least, a nice break. He agrees. Everybody agrees.
Outside, Sandy asks Julie how she's doing. She smiles and nods her head. "I'm okay. Thanks." The alt-world coma that she went into the second her daughter died. The things she'd do. The things she would allow herself to do. The dangerous and stupid places she'd put her dearest friends' children, in her grief. She's been in a coma since Marissa died, and now she can say goodbye, and wake up. And hopefully fuck Bullet, throwing all three daughters into a tailspin regarding his hot son. When I think about this episode, it won't be the alt-world and it won't be Ryan finally giving in to the inexorable power of Taylor and it won't be Taylor the tranny. It will be this one look on Julie's face. She can rest. It will be the perfect smile on Julie's face as she looks down at Ryan, sleeping, and puts the Marissa letter on the table by his beautiful sleeping head.
The letter glows with important magic, and shifts to alt-world. A gorgeous and complexifying cover of "Into Dust" plays as Ryan goes to Marissa's beach place, sits down, reads the letter, thinks, says goodbye. After a long while, he stands up and heads out into the beach, fading away as he goes. His word "Goodbye" and the echo it leaves, for the third and last time. The letter, left behind, disappears.
Ryan wakes up with his hand in Taylor's; she is wearing a silly fluffy robe with pink flowers and green leaves. He tells her a Marissa "hey" and she responds in a very Taylor "Hi," with a beautiful smile indeed. "I just had the weirdest dream... you were in it, I think." She dimly remembers that he was in her dream too; neither of them can remember what they dreamt. That's probably best. "I'm really glad you're here," he says, and she melts. The smile on her face; this girl, I tell you. I fell in love with her at the lockout. She's like Willow to me now: cannot allow her to be sad, cannot help but rejoice when she smiles. At the window, Summer notes that the rain's stopped; Sandy welcomes Ryan back to the land of the living. Kirsten tells him everything's going to be okay. He knows that. And Julie smiles down at Ryan with only love. It is beautiful and touching. Taylor sits on his bed, and he puts his arm around her. Everybody talks and everybody laughs, and everybody is forgiven. Everybody moves forward. Merry Chrismukkah.