Pilot

Mad props to my late-night editor Jeff, who kept me going when I was sick of it all.

A summer to remember. Five fifteen-year olds discover more about themselves than they ever thought possible. I'm already nauseous. They call it "The Coca-Cola Summer Premiere: Young Americans." We'll call it Diet Dawson.

We open with overhead city shots accompanied by the song from that car commercial where all the kids are driving to a party in dad's expensive convertible and decide to turn around and keep making out while looking at the stars. They want us to have that feeling going into the show. It's not working.

Ah, the voice-over. The staple of every new teen drama. "New Rawley. For me, it's home. It's an okay place to grow up, but as far as options, it's kinda limited." We see a smaller Diet Dawson walk down a street. The shot changes to an exterior view of a school. "Rawley Academy. The Billionaire Boys' Club across town. Where summer session begins this week, on about a hundred acres of rolling hills. And get this: It's high school, without parents." We see brochure-friendly shots of the rolling hills, rowing on the lake, sunsets. "For those who attend, the future can be, well [laughs], anything. And now, maybe for me, too." Diet Dawson looks up from his journal as he leans against the tree. We go to a tight close-up as we fade to black. The car commercial song continues.

I already hate this show.

A boy in a red t-shirt with a white undershirt rides his bike. He's smiley. His hair blows. He's at least twenty-five years old. He pulls into a gas station, and it's supposed to be all old-timey, but it looks like he's riding his bike through the sets of Back to the Future and Gremlins. Red Shirt walks into the gas station, slowly walks over to the COCA-COLA freezer, pulls out a dripping cold COCA-COLA bottle, uses the bottle opener, and walks outside. Close-up on Red Shirt as he says, "Hi." We see a hand washing the front of a car. She assumes he needs directions to Rawley Academy. The blonde in the half-shirt likes to smirk. During her special close-up, she tells him that he can find Rawley by following his nose. "It smells just like money." Heh. Townie humor. Oh, the fun! He says that he actually just wanted to pay for the COCA-COLA. She gives a breathless smile. So does he. She says they're on the house. Smirk. Eyebrow raise. Blonde Smirk leans over to dump her rag in a bucket, and I assume the bucket will be filled with Diet Coke. But I'm just a tad off. Instead, Red Shirt (who is pretty much just wearing a Coke can) leans over and puts one of the COCA-COLA bottles on top of the car. Car commercial song starts up again. There's, like, an old gas pump there, for some reason. She grabs the bottle of COCA-COLA and smirks. She holds it and looks at it for a while. She looks off. Red Shirt is peddling away. He raises his bottle of refreshing COCA-COLA at her. He then smiles, and puts the cool, crisp COCA-COLA to his lips, and takes a big gulp as he pedals off. Fade to black.

If this show is going to be always Coca-Cola, I'm going to be sick. For real.

Close-up on Diet Dawson. He smiles and looks around. We pass by fields of boys playing Frisbee with dogs running around. I didn't know you could have a dog at prep school. As their pickup pulls into the school's yard, Diet Dawson's Mean Scruffy Dad says, "What do you want, an escort?" Diet Dawson gets ready to leave. His mom is all teary-eyed, but still gives the stink-eye to the Bad Dad, so we know that Bad Dad's all mean and cruel. She tells DD that she's very proud of him. Bad Dad declares that they are "out of here," and leans in and says, "You'd better hope this works out for ya." Somehow, he's the only person with a Southern accent. I guess you know dads are mean if they sound like they're from Raliegh, not Rawley. But you say the names the same way, so it was confusing me until I checked my Entertainment Weekly. Oh, and for those of you who were wondering? EW gave it a C+. DD's mom then gives him a look like, "I'm going to be beaten later. Try not to think about that while you're getting your first kiss." They drive off.

Pan down to Red Shirt cuddling his mountain bike. He is. I don't know. Just sitting there waiting for him as the truck pulls away. He introduces himself as Scout Calhoun. DD has a name too: Will Krudski. Poor guy. Scout informs Will, "Hey, we're roommates!" You'd think that Will would remember that his roommate has the name Scout, but he's totally surprised. Scout walks Will into the school. Small talk ensues.

Steel drum plays the music from True Romance as we pan up to what looks like the lead singer of the Verve looking through a camera with a zoom lens. He's snapping photographs of the Rawley Academy for Girls. We get to see the pictures he takes. He then spots someone on a motorcycle riding into Rawley. Verve is very complimentary of the bike, but then zooms in on the rider taking off a helmet. The rider is clearly a girl, but we aren't supposed to know that yet. For now, she's "Just One of the Guys." We'll call her Terri. Verve snaps a photograph of Terri, for some reason.

Will and Scout walk through the dorm halls. No Nawanda yet. Their dorm room is enormous. Scout says that it's not the Waldorf, but it'll do. Will asks what a Waldorf is. Scout tells Will to take the bed by the window, and that he's going to flip him for it after Christmas break. Huh? I thought this was just a summer school. Scout asks Will where he's from. He says he's from the other side of town. Got a scholarship to Rawley. Scout is impressed, but Will says he's just that year's "charity case." Oh, wah. Scout shrugs off that he's from Greenwich, "a couple hours from here." Verve walks in and announces that Will and Scout lucked out: "This room is totally Feng Shui." Will again pulls the "Huh? I'm a local. Rhymes with 'yokel'" bit. Verve explains Feng Shui. I won't do it for you. He says his name is something like "Hamilton. Fleming." I'm not sure which is the first name, and which is the last, or if that's even correct. So, for now, he's just Verve. Verve shakes Scout's hand and acts chummy. He gives Will the brush-off. Verve says that his room is to the dean and the dean's wife ("a.k.a. Mom and Dad!"), but that he's not a narc.

The boring dialogue is interrupted by howls and shouts from outside the dorm. The three boys run to the window and see the students running in their underwear towards the lake. "This wasn't in the brochure," Will yuks. Verve explains that it's a yearly "rite of passage" at Rawley. He points out the boys in their underwear, and then the girls running from their school in their skivvies. Bum-chicka-bum-bum music starts up. Verve, Scout and Will decide not to break tradition (they actually said, "Gotta LOVE tradition," but I thought I'd spare you. Then I decided I wouldn't. I'm a cruel mistress), and start to run off. Will, of course, has a moment of doubt and self-reflection, but Scout convinces him to go.

I can't believe this. The credits roll. Incredibly long montage of kids running half-naked towards the lake. The girls are not wearing bras, just little white strappy-things. They're jiggling, baby (go 'head, baby). It's like a Howard Stern segment. Everyone is so incredibly happy, so tan, so thin, so wearing combinations of swimsuits and underwear. There is not a real minor among them. Rawley has a strict weight limit. Some jump over the camera in their heated exuberance. Slow-motion shot of Will and Scout naked from the waist up, staring and laughing at each other as they run. They look completely naked and completely in love. They all get in the water and splish around for a second, like maybe they'll have a water fight. Scout stands, water dripping from his perfectly formed full-adult-male pecs and says, "Oh, man. I think I'm gonna like this place." Secretly, I might, too. Just because these people keep getting naked. Suddenly, all of the boys grab Will and Scout and pull them away. They run out of the water and totally in the other direction. Okay. No parental supervision. Boys. Tons of almost-naked girls. And they carry off the two half-naked boys? I don't get it. I really don't. Will and Scout are all smiles as they are carried away. They leave me in confusion for the first commercial break.

The WB takes this moment to inform us that the series premiere of Young Americans is brought to us by Coca-Cola. Thanks.

Coke commercial. I plan on doing a word search after this recap to see how many times I end up typing the word "Coke."

Oh, good. "And now, the Coca-Cola Summer Series Premiere of Young Americans continues." Just in case we forgot for a second.

The hazing continues. Apparently Will and Scout are the only freshmen at the school, as they are the only two that are blindfolded, spun around, and then dropped off on a patch of grass outside Main Street. The other fully-dressed boys (I guess someone brought extra Madras for the Socs) then jump into their convertible. I have to rewind three times to understand what one boy then shouts. Here it is, in all its verbal glory: "Soobie Doobie, so's your bootie, baby!" Or something like that. I don't know. Fists are then raised in the air, boys shout and peel off. Will and Scout remove their blindfolds and we hear in a voice-over, "Damn, seniors." The townspeople point and laugh at Will and Scout. Will is overly embarrassed because this is his town, and he knows all of these people that are laughing at them. Whatever. The townspeople are dressed for fall.

Will and Scout walk across the street in their underwear and Skecher boots. Suddenly, they aren't wet anymore. They walk up to Blonde Pump Girl. Scout is all smirks and smiles. Pump Girl gives a slow-motion eyebrow raise. In extreme close-up. Scout opens his mouth and stares in slow motion. She gives an incredulous, "Willie Krudski?" "'Sup, Bella," Will says back, all embarrassed. Oh, God. Her name is Bella. I hate these people. She asks if he's now a Rawley kid. He says that he's just doing his Marky Mark impersonation. She offers to go get his mom from the beauty salon so she can see him. "All right, Pump Girl," he says. (Hey, that's my line!) "How 'bout a ride back to school?" Check out the witty banter. Bella tells Will to ask his friend to just call a cab with his cell phone. Scout says he doesn't have a cell phone. She asks if his "Beemer" is in the shop. She says he looks dumb and rich. He says he's smart and poor. She says, "'Fraid not. That's our act." He actually says, "It's a tough one to follow." Smirk. Smirk. Close-up. Close-up. Everything. Is. Said. In. Close-up. Half-naked Will touches half-naked Scout on the chest and says, "Come on, Romeo. I know a short cut." Close-up smirk. Close-up smirk.

Fade out to Will and Scout walking half-naked through the forest. I guess Bella really didn't want to drive them back to school. Good. More bad voice-overs. "That girl. I gotta get to know her," says Scout. He asks Will if they ever hooked up. "Please," Will says, and tells him that they've known each other forever. He says that he was too busy "lusting after the school nurse." "Hot, huh?" Will says not really, that she weighed close to three hundred pounds. "Scared of that." "Yeah, something about that uniform." Oooookay? Will tells Scout to share something dark from his past. Scout laughs and says that last summer he took his dad's '64 Jag out and sideswiped a tree and caught it on fire. He told his dad that it was stolen and he got it replaced with insurance money. Will says that when he was nine he and his friend were in his garage "reading porno mags and smoking butts" and they caught the garage on fire. Burned it to the ground. They didn't have insurance, and it never got replaced. "My dad broke my nose." Way to bum us out, Will. We know you're poor. Quit ruining the fun. They are still in their underwear, and since they are only shooting from the waist up, these boys look like they're naked, sharing stories in the forest. I keep waiting for J.D. and Veronica to show up with bags of mineral water and postcards of Joan Crawford. Scout says that last summer he had sex with his mother's best friend in St. Tropez. "Cool!" opines Will. Scout says that it's not really that cool, because the woman got pregnant and had his baby. No one knows. Will asks if Scout's serious. Scout nods and walks off. Will stops and realizes that he's going to have to top the getting-your-mom's-best-friend-pregnant-with-your-kid-when-you're-fourteen story and thinks that this will do it: "Scout. I cheated on the entrance exam. I bought it online." Now, first of all, that story doesn't even come close to comparing, but more importantly, Scout immediately busts out with, "Will, I was kidding. I thought you were kidding about the garage." Will tries to counter with the "No, I'm totally kidding, too. Ha. I'm funny, man. Cheating. Online? How? www.rawleyentrancetest.com? Right. Sure." He doesn't say that, but he does.