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Kaitlin and Bullet join forces! And other things happenâ¦but Kaitlin and Bullet! How awesome is that?
Seth and Summer, and Ryan and Taylor, head out for the Vegas for New Years. Their trip is interrupted by a pregnancy test -- Summer's -- and a slutty alien raver chick -- on loan, along with half the episode, from Dawsonâs Creek -- who steals the aforementioned OB test before anybody can figure it out. So then it's French farce up one side and down the other as the quartet chase ass up one side of the desert and down the other in order to get themselves together. Seth proposes marriage to Summer and finds out she's not pregnant; Ryan proposes Everything But to Taylor, who already has her Sex Cannon set to Incomprehensible, but manages to fit Everything But into her Sex Schedule because she is awesome. Also, Summer finally realizes that Taylor is possibly the coolest human being ever born, that she is a damn fool for getting thrown out of Brown, and that marrying Seth is tantamount to making a meal of cookie dough, the gum from a pack of Garbage Pail Kids, and your high score on Banjo & Kazooie: delicious, not so nutritious.
Meanwhile, in the frankly more interesting world of grownups: Kaitlin stops waiting for Jimmy to call and dances adorably with Bullet, Kirsten and Sandy are sweet, and Julie is still the madam of a boy whorehouse. While she tries to talk Bullet's hot as hell son out of continuing down the Risky Business path, El Sorbo (!) appears as Bullet's deus ex accountant, a possible CIA agent, and -- finally and WTFishly -- Ryan's DAD! And the only people that know this are Julie (who he's blackmailing for info on the Cohens) and Sandy (who will fight to be Ryan's Dad to the pain if necessary), which means probably they'll end up in the exact same Fight For Ryan's Soul that they were in at the beginning of the season, only on opposite sides, which is just so very awesome. So: engaged, not pregnant, awesome, adorable, and RYAN'S DAD! In that order. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously: Julie was running a prostitution ring, which somehow totally slipped my mind, and Taylor and Ryan hopped a few hundred speed bumps while in their matching coma. Now, Seth's washing the windows of the Rover at a dusty roadside gas station and steadily ignoring Ryan's intense interrogation. Ryan finally takes the squeegee away and demands to know what's going on. What's going on, Seth exposits, is that it's New Year's Eve and they are going to the Vegas. Ryan offers to hit him with the squeegee if he doesn't tell him why the girls are acting so weird. In the gas station bathroom, the girls are counting down the seconds on something that is obviously a pregnancy test, but you can't really tell whose it is because they are both acting bizarre and high-tension. Outside, Seth tells Ryan to ask them himself, and Ryan asks him to exposit why Seth is even there at the roadside gas station. Which is called "Al's," by the way. That's not important... or really very interesting. Carry on. Inside the bathroom, there are eleven seconds left. Seth tells Ryan that he's there because Ryan has not killed him yet. Inside, Taylor wonders if there was enough pee. Ryan corrects Seth that he's there because Ryan saved him from the jam of having no good New Year's plans. Summer asks again how many bars they're looking for; the answer is still two. Seth whines that he promised Ryan he would pay him back, and Ryan says he's collecting. The girls jump around all crazy and we finally see the pregnancy test box in Taylor's hand. One more second...
Everything goes in reverse to SEVEN HOURS EARLIER, where Ryan is bringing Seth a cup of coffee in the comic shop. Seth jokes that it's the last cup of coffee of 2006 and threatens to keep making that joke all day long. Ryan mentions that he's taking Taylor to the Vegas for New Year's, and asks if that's too weird. Downstairs, Taylor's talking to Summer about the surprise -- which of course she already knows about, because she is Taylor -- and wondering if her gift is also a good surprise. Summer is not listening; her makeup is very vampiric in this scene. Upstairs, Seth says that it's a fine step forward: after all, the old adage that "couples that have comas together, stay together." Taylor reveals her gift for Ryan: lingerie. "Is he going to think I'm some kind of kinky sex-starved divorcee?" asks Taylor, and I have to say: that's kind of what she is. Seth foreshadows about how people who go to the Vegas often come back married, and Ryan soundly ignores this. Ryan asks if Seth has plans; Summer tells Taylor that of course Seth has no plans, which means some Korean cinema, manga, and "making new friends on MySpace." Ryan asks Seth if she'll be cool with that lack of planning; Summer wonders if she'll have to kill him.
Everybody switches places. Ryan comes downstairs -- he and Summer actually acknowledge each other's existence, which is a rarity -- and Taylor hugs Summer, who goes upstairs to see Seth after being grossed out by Ryan and Taylor's sexy "Are you ready for your surprise?"/"Oh yeah, are you ready for your surprise?" creepy talk. Summer opens her present from Seth upstairs; Ryan opens his from Taylor downstairs. They are a t-shirt that says, "Jamaican Me Crazy" and a black negligee. Guess which is which. "It's funny because it's not!" says Seth, adorably. Downstairs, Ryan's like, "Oh my!" Taylor worries that he thinks she's a whore but he tries to set her mind at ease. Drink every time Taylor says "whore." Also laugh. It's funny because it is. Upstairs, Summer goes crazy on Seth about how he has no plans and no structure. He says he figured they could just... "-- What, Jamaica'm up as you go along?" asks Summer. Hee! She throws the box back in his face and tells him she's "done." He stares like a codfish.
The credits are, of course, back to normal. I wish the credits would have a talk with the Veronica Mars credits. At first I thought this whole thing with Summer wigging out and needing the boy to make the plans was stupid and out of character, but really she's under a whole lot of stress right now, specifically grown-up stress having to do with the fact that her possible babydaddy is Jamaican Her Crazy, and also Taylor just remarked that Summer's been acting weird all day. I don't know why it took me that long to figure it out, except for how the show's all over the place this week, chronologically speaking, and also because I get offended when people are mean to Seth, which sends logic right out the window.
Taylor packs her stuff together for the vacation she technically still doesn't know about, including a sweet shot of her sniffing perfume romantically with an adorable smile on her face. She notices a box of tampons on the counter and fully calculates Summer's menstrual cycle in about three seconds, because -- again -- she's Taylor Townsend. This is how she is every second of every day. I like when we get to see the crazy wheels turning in her magic brain.
Julie sits in her office at New Match, telling Sexy Slampiece Spencer that their prostitution ring -- which now includes Fantasy Pizza Boy dates, which is awesome -- needs to be fiscally more intelligent, and asks if he knows anything about money-laundering. Ha! El Sorbo watches Spencer talking to her and I mean, he is obviously taking more than a passing interest in the guy, but whatever. El Sorbo looks exactly the same as he always has, which is to say that he looks like Hercules. I also always thought that he looked Australian but I don't know why I think that. Julie stresses out about how they have to account for all the extra money their flesh-peddling has earned, but then Kirsten comes into her office and she hangs up. Kirsten tells her that Jimmy just called and that he won't be able to call Kaitlin at midnight because his party boat will be out of range. I'm glad Jimmy's back to a place where he can throw parties. He does love them. Julie sighs and worries a little bit about Kaitlin, and then Kirsten starts talking about how maybe she should be doing the bookkeeping. Which... why would she talk about that, if not for the simple reason that the script demands she do so? I guess maybe Julie's schitzed-out face and all the ledgers and stuff littering her desk. How cute is it that they keep paper receipts? Julie tries to put her off, pointing out that she's gaining accounting experience this way, and cutely mentions the concept that Kirsten might one day be hit by a bus. "God forbid," she twinkles. Kirsten offers to do anything she can to help, and Julie drains her coffee with this really adorable posture -- like, one hand out in ladylike Audrey Hepburn fashion while she's sucking the coffee down -- and tells Kirsten to go get more coffee, then, if she's so bent on being helpful.
There's an edit here to the long shot so that we can see Bullet entering the office, which is too bad because we miss what I bet was an awesome reaction shot from Kirsten along the lines of "Go fuck your coffee," but instead she just turns and leaves with an exasperated spine. Bullet gives Julie her invitation to his New Year's party and she notes that she's already received eleven of them in the mail. He is indefatigable, dear Bullet: "Now you have an even dozen!" He makes her read it aloud and we get to see that it's spelled "Bullit" and also get to laugh at it. I don't know what's so funny about it, but there's a James Bond theme, with a girl in a party dress, and it says: "Gordon Bullit invites you and a hot guest to start 2,007 with a BANG!" I think it's the picture and the green raver design sense, combined with the comma in 2,007. Oh! I just got that part. 007! Okay, that's even funnier than I thought. He laughs and says that "bang" joke never fails, and he's been using it since 1989. I was... eleven at that time. Wow. He asks what time he should send the limo and she begs off, saying she's unsure when she'll be finished with her work. The work of a procuress is never done. "Dammit, hotcakes! When I bankrolled this operation, I thought I'd see you more, not less!" I looove Bullet. He complains that since he got back from Riyadh, there have been two dinner dates and "zero hanky-panky," and offers her an accountant to deal with the books, if that will help. He grabs the receipt book and notes that "you girls eat a mess of pizza." She tries to put him off again -- "We work late!" -- and pulls the independent card, saying she'd prefer to do this on her own. I like that her own criminal ways are working out in her favor: she's actually standing on her own, for once, as a side effect of covering her ass for running a whorehouse. That's hilarious. He gets in her face and asks seriously if she's coming, and she looks him right in the eye: "If. I. Can." He takes off with a seriously adorable "Damn, woman!"
Sandy's on the phone at Chez Cohen while making sandwiches; he hangs up as Seth comes in. "Working on New Year's?" asks Seth, and Sandy tells him that "one of your homeless guys" from Thanksgiving -- Daryl, of course -- attacked a parking meter and when he was hauled in, he couldn't remember his own name, but remembered Sandy's. He chuckles to himself about that, but Seth couldn't be less interested: "I was talking about the sandwiches." Oh, how I hate emo self-absorbed Seth. "Let's not talk about how I ruin holidays and bring the homeless around the place. Instead, I will whine." Sandy says proudly that he's Ryan's "sandwich guy" for the road-trip cooler. They discuss how Cohen men are natural sandwich-makers, and Sandy opines that this could very well be their superpower. Dejectedly, Seth moans that this will not qualify them for the Justice League. Sandy notices Seth's incredibly sad sad-face and asks what's up. Seth admits that there's something up, and Sandy is awesome: "What did you do?" What he did was not make any romantic plans. Sandy knows all about that, and admits that this is not a Cohen superpower. He advises Seth to drop the lame "plans are for fogies" act and get it together with a quickness, because an angry Summer is objectively terrifying. He also tells him to have safe sex, and when Ryan comes in, he tells Ryan to have safe sex in the Vegas, then takes off. He's strange. Seth gets super fucking weird and says he's just come up with the purrrrfect solution, then stares at Ryan like either his head is turning into a giant turkey leg or Seth's finally ready to come out of the closet. It's intense, but Ryan's dealt with this behavior for years: "What." Seth explains that he is coming with Ryan to the Vegas. Ryan is, of course, surprised by this, but Emo Seth will have his satisfaction. He tells Ryan to make more sandwiches and goes upstairs to pack.
Like all awesomely shady doings on this show, Julie meets her co-pimp in a parking garage. He's running late and has lost his little black book, which Julie takes as a sign. She mentions how Spencer's dad attacked her with an accountant, and worries that he or Kirsten is soon going to learn that they've turned the business into a whorehouse, and declares that they have to shut it down. Spencer agrees, but he just wants to finish up this last thing, tonight. She's not sure about this, but he points out that she needs the money. "What if Neil sells the house?" Ouch. He says they both stand to make $40K on tonight's assignations, and that he's more than willing to close up shop after tonight. "We'll burn everything tomorrow?" she asks, and he promises to light the match himself.
El Sorbo sits in a hotel room, creepily looking at pictures of Julie, when Bullet comes to visit him. At the door he goes like this: "Frank Frank Frank! Damn damn damn!" They explain to us that they go way back and that Frank is in town looking for a job. Bullet says he will help out any way he can, but that knowing Frank he's probably already got something picked out. Frank mentions New Match, and Bullet's surprised: "A man of your talents?" He notes that his "girlfriend" is running it, and Frank gives him a look. Bullet gets a little defensive, cutely -- "That barmaid in Daytona was a con artist! This one is legit!" -- and says that Julie's issue is not thievery but pride. I think you'll find it's actually being a madam, in fact. He expresses the charitable perspective that her pride is leading her to take care of New Match all on her own, which means he gets no chance to see her. He is a sweet man. His cell rings and he answers it in a hilarious way where he flips it open and says, "Bullet!" into the mouthpiece like a microphone before putting the phone to his ear. He takes off for the dress shop and tells Frank he's going to love Newport. Alone, El Sorbo acts creepy some more, and then of course takes out Spencer's black book and stares at it.
Taylor comes into Summer's room with a strange look on her face; Summer's cuddling Pancakes on the bed. "You look terrible!" Taylor nods. "Can you keep a secret? I mean like a really big secret." Of course, Summer can. "I think you might be pregnant." That's so funny. I don't know, you guys. I think I'm in love with Taylor Townsend. Like even more. Summer's baffled by this behavior but recovers quickly, noting that A) twould technically be her secret, B) she's late, not pregnant, and C) how does Taylor know this? Taylor explains: Summer had her period when Taylor visited her in Providence, so she should have had it again last week, but the tampons are unused. Summer stares at her and thinks about how this is what it's like in Taylor's world, and how now they all kind of live there. And thanks God for Season Four, I'd imagine. "Summer, have you had unsafe sex?" she says in an incredibly scandalized fashion, and Summer notes that there was one time during one of Seth's visits. Taylor hits the roof and Summer gets defensive, saying she didn't want the pharmaceutical companies playing slum lord with her eggs. This is what thinking like Che will get you, dude. "What about condoms?" Summer goes back to petting Pancakes and grumbles, "Latex smells funny." Taylor points out that diapers also smell funny, and hectors her until finally Summer is just like, "DUDE." Taylor couches it as worry, saying that Summer's been preoccupied all day, and Summer sticks out her bottom lip and says that she is in no way pregnant. Taylor produces a pregnancy test and tells her to prove it. Summer looks like she's being tortured. Suddenly, Seth appears and Summer throws her arms around him, freak-out totally forgotten. He's pleasantly surprised, and notifies the girls that Ryan is downstairs in the car and that the four of them are going to the Vegas for New Year's. He has the grace to admit, basically, that this is a quick fix for him being a screw-up. Taylor's like, "Great, but first we have to go to the bathroom." Summer soundly ignores her and pushes Seth into the closet to help her pack. Taylor is... subtle: "I'm just going to pack the toothpaste I bought because we might want it in Vegas... " Summer glares at her; Seth is holding a teddy bear and a desk lamp. Very helpful.
Commercial, then a cover of "Smile Like You Mean It," by your recapper's favorite band in the history of music, while the kids drive through desert toward the Vegas. Inside the car is like a David Lynch movie, because the song is going the whole time and has this kind of frantic majesty about it, and Taylor is acting like her usual freakshow and Summer's being very quiet and Seth's being weird and Ryan's being Ryan, and outside the car is the fakest green-screen effect I've seen since the films of Alfred Hitchcock. It feels like maybe it could make you go crazy. Certainly the effect is working on them. Taylor requests that Ryan pull over so she and Summer can "pee," then gives him a tiny little backrub and he makes a hilarious monster face for some reason, and Taylor keeps bugging Summer, calling Summer's breath "a little stank" and then giving Ryan a completely lunatic smile in the rearview and then Seth whispers about the sandwiches and how he wants to pay Ryan back and whatever, and then Taylor asks Seth if he'd want to know -- if she were his girlfriend -- whether she had any imminent "health issues" and Summer says that in this case the health issue is "diarrhea of the mouth" and yanks Taylor back into the back seat and asks Ryan to turn up the music, so Taylor says there's something in Summer's hair and she starts messing with it like she's a monkey and whispering about how she needs to tell Seth, but Summer is doubtful that he can handle it, and then he realizes, up front, that he's forgotten his toothbrush and will have to use his finger -- which: gross -- and Summer looks the prettiest she looks in the whole episode as she looks at Taylor who is still playing with her hair and says: "See? He's a child." Seth grabs the bag with the "toothpaste" in it, causing the girls to gasp and his face to go white, and Taylor grabs the bag back, yelling, "Mine! Mine! My toothpaste!" Finally Ryan realizes that Taylor's being weird even for Taylor and asks what's going on. She gives him another lunatic smile and says that it's "extra-whitening," whereas Seth needs tartar control -- "Badly." -- which doesn't shock me considering the finger thing; Seth is terrified in the front seat, but when he looks back at Taylor, she does the "zip your lip" movement. In the backseat, Summer mouths the words, "Thank you," and clasps Taylor's hand.
Speaking of awesome new friendships, Bullet and Kaitlin come into the Roberts house together, but Julie's still at her pimp meeting. Bullet suffers buyer's remorse about not buying Julie the gown with rhinestones on it, and Kaitlin gives him her marvelous and patented Slow Blink. "You asked for my help, so trust me." He complains about how Julie's refusing his help, and Kaitlin considers him. "You really like her, don't you?" He sits down at the bar and sighs. "Oh yeah, Peanut. She's under my skin. The whole time I was in Riyadh, I didn't once try to peek under anybody's burqa." Kaitlin giggles affectionately to herself at this, because Bullet is exactly her kind of trainwreck. Bullet asks her what she's doing tonight, and she sighs insouciantly about how Jimmy's flaking on her again, calling it "no big," and he goes: "Dang, girl!" and asks her to his party. "... Because I'm forty?" No, that was your sister. He says he's got princes coming. Plural. She smiles wide: "William and Harry?" Nope, Samir and Abas. He says they're her age, and good catches, provided "you don't mind raisins in your chicken." He asks if she knows how to do the two-step, "a dance we do in Texas," and offers to teach her tonight at the party. She leans on the table, comfortable with him, and tells him to hold his breath. He laughs sweetly and thanks her for her help, and as he's leaving she tells him to ignore Julie. "She refused your help, so ignore her. It's what I always do." He grins and hands her a thick wad of cash. "In case you come to the party. You might wanna buy a dress, or a lollipop or something." Ha! She grins even after he's gone, and thinks about how awesome he is. I really like how you can see little snatches of light coming out around the cracks in the act and you realize how canny he really is. On the way out the door he yells into his cell phone, "Yo, Frank! It's Bullet!"
At Al's roadside gas station, the boys get out to do car things, and Summer and Taylor stare at each other. Summer finally gives in to Taylor's Toothpaste Tyranny and asks if Taylor will come with her and be there when she takes it. They head inside and Seth asks -- somebody, everybody, the air itself -- to get him something to drink. Ryan stops Taylor and asks if everything's all right. You know how awesome Taylor's hair usually looks? It's like five times that awesome right now. She acts totally weird and gawky some more, and he apologizes for everything in the world, including Seth coming along on their vacation trip, and she informs him that they will not, in fact, be having sex in the Vegas. All negligees to the contrary. She runs off, leaving Ryan dumbfounded as usual, just as a green alien girl drives up in a red convertible. Seth asks him if he's absolutely, positively sure he didn't have sex with Taylor at any point. He mentions a half-drunk, kinda guilty way you might have sex with a person, that makes him seem like a great guy. I always feel kinda guilty when I rape people and then forget about it. What? He tries to change the subject to the green alien girl and then to the windows of the Rover, which are dusty. Ryan is not fooled! He begins the interrogation once more!
Inside the gas station bathroom, Taylor Townsend says the phrase "stream of urine" about sixty times and then commands Summer to produce a stream of urine. The alien girl comes in and stands at the sinks, and gets attitude-y with Taylor. "Who was that?" asks Summer, and Taylor shakes her head: "A slutty alien. Did you pee?" Summer sighs, moans, whines, and arghs, and Taylor offers to go outside the stall, but Summer doesn't want her to leave. Aww. You know Marissa wouldn't do this for you unless it was the kind of toilet you could do a rail off the back of. Or if a meth-addicted poor person were in there. Because then she could bone him.
Julie comes into New Match to find El Sorbo, or "Frank Frank Frank" as we now know him, sitting at her desk. Creepily. "You must be Julie," he intones, and she's like, "The fuck?" Bullet comes out of the bathroom and explains that he is now ignoring Julie and that he got her an accountant as a surprise. A creepy sketchy one who looks like Hercules. Also, he calls bullshit on her "pilgrim outfit" (good call -- I mean, it's cute, but it's a severe black formal shirt with lace down the front; looks like something Anya might wear on one of her off days) and orders her to get into "a ball gown which I happen to have bought you." As he ushers her out the door, he invites Frank to come by, if he's finished by midnight, and Julie just stares and stares at him as they're leaving. Like, freaked out to the point she barely noticed Bullet grabbing her ass. And Frank Frank Frank just stares right back. He's the Carver!
It's finally, finally NOW. The girls trade the wristwatch and pregnancy test back and forth and hop from one foot to the other and shiver and yak and finally Taylor forces Summer to sit down (seat protector!) and breathe into the paper bag from the pregnancy test. While Taylor speaks the following wisdom, the slutty alien steals her purse, into which Taylor dropped the test while Summer was hyperventilating. Taylor explains that it's totally Summer's decision what to do at this point, but she would advise telling Seth. Whatever Summer chooses to do, that won't change the truth: "Do you wanna start the new year as an adult, with your eyes open? Or with your head in the sand?" I love Taylor. Outside, Seth and Ryan commiserate about Taylor's nonexistent pregnancy and Seth says something I can't understand about Ryan destroying things in a mighty rage. The girls come running out of the gas station, screaming, "Follow that alien! She just stole my purse!" Best. Season. Ever.
Later on, the sun has set and they're still zooming along. Seth wonders why they can't just get a new purse and cancel Taylor's cards, and Taylor invents "an allergy I have but never told you guys about," heh, and Summer says she absolutely has to take the pill before midnight, and Taylor's very cute and a whole lot less manic. She punches Ryan's arm and notes that he's being awfully quiet; he says that's apparently going around. Gift horse, dude. Marissa couldn't go five seconds without getting you involved in her madness. They land at a rave in which everybody is dressed as an alien. Summer goes, "Everyone is an alien!" Taylor checks the slutty alien's car, but the purse isn't there; Ryan grabs her and ignores her protests that she promised to stay with Summer. "You promised me some alone time," he says, and it sounds creepier than it came off.
At the Bang, all the cougars are slutting around with their man-whores. It is awesome. Julie looks AMAZING, in a black dress with a slit up to here. I think you can see Riyadh from certain angles. She looks totally gorgeous. She joins co-pimp Spencer at the punch bowl and they discuss how obvious their prostitution ring is, now that all their clients are at this party, which Kirsten will be attending, and which was thrown by New Match's prime investor. Dumb planning. Spencer says that Kirsten is going to smell something fishy, and Julie says it's more like they're slapping her in the face with the fish. "Isn't she an alcoholic?" asks Spencer, and Julie replies, awesomely: "Recovering, unfortunately." She asks for info on Frank Frank Frank, but Spencer says he's a blank slate until a month ago, when he took the Series 7. She wonders what his deal is, and Spencer starts off about how he's probably CIA or Special Ops, and she arches one perfect eyebrow: "No, Deep Throat, I mean is he someone we can deal with?" Spencer doubts it: the Bullet's big on loyalty. They watch him introducing Kaitlin to the princes: Samir ("I call him Sam") and Abas ("I call him Boss").
At the rave, Taylor's talking a mile a minute until Ryan finally tells her that Seth spilled the beans about the toothpaste. She starts to explain but he gets all Ryan Atwoody about how he's upset that she didn't tell him, but not about anything else. Like how she was sleeping with somebody before they were dating. She gets pissed: "Who says?" The math says, he explains, but that's still not a problem, but she's not hearing it. She goes off about how she knew he thought she was a slut and that now he's accusing her of having random unsafe sex with somebody between the time of her divorce and their make-out session at Kaitlin's. I like that she calls it "Kaitlin's," of all the people whose names you could say there. Ryan says he could never get weird about that, because they weren't exclusive, and she storms off all, "Why would you wanna be, when you think I am a big fat divorcing whore?" I'm not convinced by all of this, but the payoff scene is impressive.
Bang: the man-whores are getting hot and heavy with their dates. Even Julie looks a little queasy. Finally Kirsten asks her what's going on, and why the people are on the wrong dates, and why the clients are all on dates with "college students," and why so-and-so isn't with the match they made, and Julie blows her off: "Yeah, she... called and said she met someone. That's love!" Frank shows up, wigging Julie out a little, and she introduces him to Kirsten. He says his last name is "Perry" and not "Frank Frank." Julie tells Kirsten about how he's their new accountant and that Bullet bought him for her, and Kirsten stares at them both. That's all Kirsten does in this episode: stare at stuff, and get lied to by everybody. She's like the Lana Lang of Newport this week. Julie takes a good stiff drink when Kirsten asks him if "everything adds up," but she's surprised by his answer: "Looks good, and business seems to be booming!" Kirsten stares at them. He takes off to get a drink, and Julie's got a tiny little canary feather sticking out of one side of her mouth. "Kiki, did you ever feel... invincible?" She leans into Kirsten like a cat at feeding time; Kirsten stares at her. "No reason... " Julie kisses Kirsten and goes swanning off into the party. Kirsten stares some more.
Rave: Seth awesomely asks Summer why they're looking for a purse when the larger issue seems to be that Taylor thinks she has a baby inside of her. Summer explains that the purse has the pregnancy test in it: the test that we have already taken but not looked at yet. The test that we need to see before midnight so we can head into 2007 knowing how things stand. Seth gets bored with these obvious cries for help and instead demands that Summer give him a high five. He admits that it's selfish, but at least it's Taylor's test, right? Oh, Seth. Bad Seth. "You're asking me for a high five?" He wiggles his spirit fingers at her: "Can you imagine if it were your test we were looking for?" She just looks at him. "God! Seth?" Summer storms off, and he immediately puts it together and makes the Oh Snap face. He heads after her but gets stopped by an Atomic County fan wearing a Kid Chino costume, who demands a picture with him. In the mass of people, Seth sees the alien girl, and then loses her again.
Frank approaches Julie at the bar and makes sure she knows he's onto her, then finishes up his menacing act like so: "Why don't you wet your lips? Your mouth looks dry." Um, what? Kaitlin watches, worried about her mom, and the princes wonder if they're boring her. "Maybe we should make kissing to each other," one of them says, and she invites them to go do that, distracted by her mom getting Frank all over her. Julie asks what she needs to do to keep him quiet, and he puts a room key down on the bar. Suite 522, at the Four Seasons, in half an hour. Grrrross. Julie looks sick, but gets ready to leave.
Kirsten is standing alone near the door when Sandy shows up, having sent Daryl to a shelter. She apologizes for acting stressed out, but Julie's acting weird and the clients are all with new New Matches, and he tells her they can work it out on the dance floor. Frank knocks Sandy's shoulder as he's leaving, and Sandy immediately recognizes him, though he can't immediately place him. Kirsten explains that he's the accountant that Bullet bought for Julie, and Sandy keeps staring after him, long after he's gone. Finally he shakes it off, and they head onto the dance floor.
Bullet's greeting guests as Kaitlin finally snags her mom at the coat check. Julie says she's got a headache and tells her to get a ride from Bullet. "This doesn't have anything to do with that creepy guy, does it? You're meeting him, aren't you." Julie tells him it's not what she thinks, but regrettably, she cannot tell Bullet about the deal. "Mom," Kaitlin says with more feeling than we've seen from her a lot, "he really likes you." Julie's distracted, telling her daughter that she likes him too, and that she'll just have to trust her on this one. I mean, it's Julie Cooper. She has to know that's a tall order; but by the same token, you know she'd only ask if it really were that important. The fact of Julie saying "trust me" contains in it the knowledge that this is a joke, but paradoxically, you have to trust her. I like that. Then the scene takes a turn for the weird, as suddenly Kaitlin wigs out about unrelated shit and tells Julie that she misses her dad sometimes. Julie nods and promises that they'll call him tomorrow. Julie leaves and Kaitlin gets all Avrilly, alone at the party.
One minute to midnight. Taylor's ho-dancing with a hot mohawked alien and Ryan's like, "Taylor?" Even though it's been like ten minutes, Taylor's now blitzed: "You think I'm a whore? I'm gonna act like a whore!" It's awesome. He tells her that he does not think of her as a whore, nor has he ever, but doesn't think the drinking is a great idea. "Why, because I might be pregnant with my whore baby?" Hee! He takes her drink, causing the alien to get all in his face. A standoff develops, but Summer appears out of nowhere and asks what the hell he's doing. And when you hear his side of it, it's pretty easy to sympathize: "Trying to figure out how my girlfriend is taking pregnancy tests and I'm the last one to find out about it! How is that possible?" Summer explains sadly/angrily that it's not Taylor's test, it's hers. "My test in Taylor's purse." She notes the shittiness of having lost it, and gets the cry voice: "This is great. Seventeen seconds to midnight." Not wanting to be there for the countdown, she swipes Ryan's keys and grabs Taylor: "Happy New Year's, Ryan." Seth comes running up to tell Ryan what he already knows, and they run out into the parking lot, just as Summer and Taylor are driving away.
Later, Seth is freaked about everything and notes that his first instinct -- to assume a fetal position and weep -- is metaphorically inappropriate. They spot the green alien running up the stairs to a private area with Taylor's alien guy, purse in hand, and head after them.
Taylor comforts Summer that there's got to be a 24-hour pharmacy somewhere on the highway, and Summer says it can wait until tomorrow: "The symbolism window closed at midnight." She thanks Taylor for everything and hopes she didn't do any permanent damage to Taylor's relationship with Ryan. Taylor just laughs and tells her not to worry about it, which is Summer's cue to freak out about her own life some more. "How did I get here? From being an Ivy League Al Gore in the making to a knocked-up college dropout? With a boyfriend that forgets to pack his toothbrush when he travels? How did this happen?" Taylor spreads yet more New Year's wisdom, this time about how the New Year means a fresh start: "You, me, Seth and Ryan can be whatever we wanna be, and everything bad stays in last year." No kidding. Every week I thought, "This is the week that Charlotte stops being sketchy and starts being awesome." Every week.
The aliens make out and she tries to spell his alien name and it's dorky, and Ryan and Seth creep into the room to steal the purse, while the girls decide to at least call the guys and apologize. Taylor laughs winsomely when she remembers that her phone was in the purse. She calls them on Summer's phone, and of course this is just in the nick of time as it goes off, freaking out the alien couple, right when Seth's grabbing the purse. They take off for yet more running around, aliens in pursuit, and the Kid Chino guy from earlier appears out of nowhere and they jump in his van and tell him to step on it. "If we had Miss Vixen's magic scooter, we could... " JUST GO! And the aliens still chasing after.
The Bang: Sandy's still preoccupied with Frank Perry. Kirsten's like, well, it's Bullet, so Frank could literally have come from out of nowhere. "Golf, Saudi Arabia, prison... " A little light bulb goes off over Sandy's head at that last one, and he quickly makes excuses to leave. He says he'll meet Kirsten back at home, after checking the shelter to make sure Daryl's okay, but that's not really what he's going to do!
The fans drive along in their van, and Ryan counsels Seth: "As scared as you are, I'm sure Summer's ten times more scared." Maybe he's thinking about his baby, or as I call it, "the other shoe." I wonder if we'll ever get closure on that, considering that Theresa's now on that show about the excitement of math. Seth realizes he should be there for Summer either way, and looks down at the purse. Ryan asks if the results are going to change the way Seth feels about her: of course not. And can Seth imagine not wanting to be with her? No, so that's the answer. Seth looks at the alien driver's crazy rings, and begins to hatch a terrible plot.
Kaitlin approaches the lonely Bullet, earning us another "Peanut," as he's very happy to see her. She tells him the princes want to fly her over to Saudi Arabia for their prom, but "No way am I wearing one of those Klan outfits." He laughs and asks after Julie; Kaitlin lies and says she had a migraine. "Dang, I wish she'd-a told me. Hope she's okay," he says sweetly. So sweetly, in fact, that Kaitlin asks him there and then for Texas Two-Step lessons. "Come on, little lady! It's your night." And they dance to some version of "Auld Lang Syne," and they laugh, and it's wonderful, and I got a little choked up, the end.
Ryan knocks on Taylor's door at Chez Roberts. "If you're here for sex, there's like five guys ahead of you." This episode has more endings than that movie about the gay guys up on that mountain. He apologizes to her for jumping to conclusions, but begs her not to be so paranoid: he doesn't care about the divorce. I don't get her weirdness about this either; I mean, the only people who have managed to stay married in the history of Newport Beach are Sandy and Kirsten, those are literally the only two, so it's not like there's this huge stigma. "So you don't think I'm a whore?" Still, already, always: NO. "Good, because I'm not. Unless, of course... you want me to be!" She pulls back the sheets, revealing the black lingerie. "Is that my negligee?" he asks. "I'm gonna want that back." They giggle and -- oh my God, this actually is that movie. This is just like the part where all the hobbits jump around and make out on the bed. Ookily, they clarify that they are going to do "Everything But," a phrase I remember best from my childhood. As a Baby Boomer. Now, can somebody help me work this damn remote?
Seth comes into Summer's room and sees her staring at Pancakes and thinking about the possible baby, so he says casually, "Staring at that bunny and thinking about a baby, aren't you?" She looks up at him lovingly: "Sorry I abandoned you in the desert!" Hee hee. He produces the purse and apologizes about the whole thing, then tells her about the conversation with Ryan where he asked him about imagining life without Summer, and the story goes on and on, and finally Summer's like, "I'm totally pregnant, aren't I." He holds out one of the alien's rings, which has an eyeball on it like in Beastmaster: "I don't know." She looks at it calmly and asks if it's going to shoot invisible ink at her, and he explains that no, it would not -- although the fact that she immediately went there is hilarious, and a cautionary tale -- but it will make her engaged to him. She's gobsmacked. "We're both adults, we don't share DNA... You just have to want to. I do." She asks if they should look at the test and he says he wants an answer first, so she won't have to wonder the rest of her life if he asked just because she was pregnant. "Once you do this you can't take it back," she says, almost getting to the cry voice again, and he pops the question. She agrees, and he puts the alien eyeball ring on her finger, and they kiss. This whole scene is really fucking weirdly lit, by the way. It looks like the Haunted Mansion, or like a stage show of The Phantom Of The McMansion. They check out the test, and of course she's not pregnant, and then they both go, "... Oh." She asks if it's appropriate to celebrate, and they hug again, and are awkward some more, and he's like, at least now they can have a normal wedding and not a shotgun one, and they drift into silence again, and then hug again, and it's flesh-crawlingly uncomfortable, and they hug like a billion times and both look like they're going to projectile vomit. Look out, Pancakes!
Julie comes to the Four Seasons hallway looking fucking amazing, and lets herself into Frank's room. He's sitting on the couch in a tux, and she immediately lets him know what's up: "I'm not trading sex for silence, Frank. I'm a madam, not a whore." You go, girl. He tells her that's not why he brought her there. Meanwhile, Sandy is in his office, flipping through a case file. Julie asks why she's there, and he tells her to sit down, and as she does the music gets intensely awesome. You can see that the file is, of course, Frank's. So why did he bring her there? For information. About what? The Cohen family. Why? Because I'm not who I say I am. In the file there are B&E counts, a drunk & disorderly, a DUI, some domestic disputes. "And who are you?" Sandy slams the file closed: it reads Atwood, Frank. "I'm Ryan's father." Oh, snap!
So you've got Julie, who just elected herself Ryan's new best friend last week during his coma, and feeling protective of him due to the murder mission problem, and you've got Sandy, who would kill to protect Ryan. And it's awesome because they're the only two people who know, and the whole season started with them fighting over Ryan's soul, basically, but now they're in opposite positions, because I'm guessing that if one of them is going to want to lie to Ryan about this, it would be Sandy and not Julie, because lately she's in full disclosure mode, but because of her prostitution ring she might not say anything at all, which means that even though Kirsten has done nothing this season, she's about to become like the most important person on the show, because this whole mess actually revolves around her. Which is awesome.