So we know that Julie is having problems with her love life, but it's not like her youngest daughter has anything to worry about. Momma's girl answers the door to find none other than Justin standing there, trying to convince her to come back to Santa Barbara. And she's getting more than a free ride; she'll be helping the earth because he drives a hybrid. Ladies, does that line actually work? Because if it does, I may have to rethink my policy of running all Priuses off the road and invest in one myself. If you don't remember Justin, he was the one who tried to get Kaitlin to return the money she stole from his brother's fraternity party at UCSB. I guess he realized that grand larceny is a small annoyance. As long as she's getting drunk, he still has a chance. Nor surprisingly, Kaitlin doesn't want to talk about relationships since her last relationship ended up on the rocks (pun intended).

It almost looked like there was going to be no happy couples on Valentine's Day, not even our cutie patooties Seth and Summer. Summer walks in on Seth looking at something on his laptop. She thinks it is porn, but it is actually a spreadsheet he uses to organize his DVDs. Summer doesn't mind, but Seth is horrified. Like flossing and masturbating, it's something that she knows he does, but would rather not witness it. Hey, at least he wasn't masturbating to his DVD spreadsheet or pictures of dentists.

The real reason why it isn't important to Summer is that she found Seth's pot. It's not like it is that big of a deal, because Seth was a late bloomer for a lot of things, but he had been given many chances to come clean, and he didn't do it. While I didn't necessarily enjoy the implication that smoking marijuana somehow means that you aren't mature in your development as an adult, Summer was correct when she said that Seth has to do more than just promise her that he won't do it again; she just couldn't trust him.

Over at the Newport group, Matt was having a little bit of a problem. The physician's board was still discussing the bid, so to move it along, Matt decided that he would call Maia again. It has been a couple weeks, so Maia saw right away that Matt was interested in her not because he wanted to be with her, but because he was trying to look good for her father. She refused to see Matt, so Sandy decided that he would recruit Kirsten to get Maia to come to the Valentine's dance. It would help business, and hey, Matt was actually beginning to like her. Kirsten agrees, but she wants Sandy to get into the spirit of the holiday, although she did have her limits - nothing red, see-through, or even remotely edible. What Kirsten, not even the massage oil? Live a little! Kirsten does convince Maia to go. Maia was hip to Matt's plan, but she does still like him, and the dance is a good idea anyway. How did it work? Well, Maia and Matt hit it off, which should be good news for the Newport Group.

As I said, Johnny's funeral was nice, and there was a lovely reception....at the Bait Shop. Umm, OK. Whenever you want to start making sense, Josh Schwartz, you may begin. I am not sure why we care beyond the funeral, and then I find out. It turns out that Volchok, the butthole surfer who broke Johnny and his ex up by making out on Chili's bed, had a thing for Sadie, and decides a great place to rekindle his flame is while she mourns for her cousin. Sadie wants nothing to do with him, and of course, out of nowhere, Ryan shows up to shoo him off. She and Ryan then spend some time discussing loss. Sadie lost her mom, dog, and best friend, and Ryan lost, well, nobody close to him, so he can't relate.

Apparently Ryan doesn't count the miscarriage death of his potential child as all that big of a deal. I mean, he obviously didn't mourn, and actually high tailed it out of Theresa's house really quickly, but you would have though it would have bothered him a *little*. The worst thing about this interaction, however, is that it clearly means that we are going to have to see the Sadie/Volchok thing play out, and Ryan will of course be involved. For what reason? I don't think we'll ever know.

Like I said, when Johnny died, the first thing that popped in my mind, well, at least right after screaming "YES!" at the top of my lungs, was that Marissa and Ryan should be able to go forward. I wasn't the only one either. Seth said that finally Ryan could spend some time with Marissa without worrying about Johnny getting between them. Ryan sees Marissa and tells her that he wants to do something for Valentine's Day. It doesn't have to be big, but they haven't had a chance to be alone together, so it might be nice. Marissa completely FLIPS out on him, for no particular reason other than Ryan wasn't sensitive enough to how close she was to Johnny. She doesn't want to go the dance or do anything with Ryan for that matter.

Posted by J-Unit on February 13, 2006 12:23 AM