They Belong Together?

While it is still bugging me trying to figure out why kids in Newport, who all happen to be really smart and possess the ability to make it into Top 20 schools, would limit themselves to applying to only one college, I have decided to not let that bother me. The show has seen worse episodes, and I would rather deal with a few odd details than do something to force the writers to get creative. Next thing you know, we’ll end up with another Johnny, and Julie Cooper will end up marrying herself. But whatevs. Since The OC is all about big moments, the next big milestone on the agenda is graduation (what, no mention of senior prom?) and other than Summer making jokes about Seth’s bony ass in a cap and gown, who knows what will happen?Since Seth is still lying to everybody about not getting into Brown, the new big crisis is graduation. Sandy is a little upset that Seth is only getting two tickets, which means that The Nana is going to have to fend for herself. Personally, I don’t know what the big deal is. Unless your grandparents or aunt/uncle raised you, limiting the amount of tickets to your two parents is not that big of a deal. Uncle Jim and Aunt Rose will probably live if they have to watch the closed circuit feed from somewhere inside the school. And let’s be honest, your parents are going to annoy the entire family for months with pictures and video, so why would anybody get all hot and bothered? If you are going to complain, save your karma in case you get a bad table at the wedding.

Seth got two tickets, which means that Ryan got two tickets, and the question on everybody’s mind was whether Ryan was going to ask his mom. The last time she tried to mix and mingle with the Newpsies, things didn’t turn out too well, but Kirsten is really pushing for Ryan to make the effort. Dawn has started AA and she is getting her life back together. Ryan is worried that if he doesn’t invite her to graduation, he may never see her again. Kirsten warns him that it might be tough seeing her and even offers to fly to New Mexico with him, but he says that it is something he has to do himself.

At the Roberts house, Marissa is getting dressed when Volchok walks in. He’s back from Mexico, but why spend $10 in TJ when you can get it for free in The OC? It seemed like Marissa was pretty much over Volchok last episode, but she still doesn’t see herself fitting in at Berkeley, perhaps because she is not Asian or, you know, smart. She does find it hard to say no to Volchok, and it looks like he is about to throw Marissa down on the bed when Julie Cooper walks in.

Hey Julie, welcome to the gun show

First off. Julie, do you knock? I mean, even if the maid said some dirty white kid with a bad tattoo came in, there’s no need to assume the worst. Perhaps it was just Bam Margera paying a visit. Take it from me parents, even if you don’t wait for an answer before barging in, KNOCK FIRST. Second, are ripped denim sleeves really back in style, or did I get drunk and wake up in a Twisted Sister video again?

Julie shoos Volchok away with a promise to show him what ten years of cardiobar could do to his face, and then tries to reach out to her daughter. She understands his appeal. Volchok’s cool, he’s got great abs, he goes three or four days without showering or shaving, etc. He also personifies everything that is bad about Marissa, but she doesn’t buy that excuse. Volchok’s not a bad guy, and she was wrong about Ryan. Marissa even wonders if Julie is complaining about him because she wants to sleep with him. Ahh yes, Julie and Luke, now THAT was one hot relationship.

Ryan is getting ready to head off to New Mexico, and Kirsten wants to make sure nothing goes wrong. She not only booked a car service, but she made him a big sandwich for the plane, because, you know, they are going to spend a couple of thousand on the car service, better save money and have him fly coach. The only thing Ryan knows about his mom is that she is working at a diner, so he figured he would visit her there and watch the fireworks fly.

The breakup of Seth and Summer felt a little sudden to me, but I guess I should have been expecting it. This show can’t go on without somebody breaking up. Ryan and Marissa have been finished, and he just broke up with Sadie. Neil and Julie just got together, and Kirsten and Sandy aren’t anywhere close, so that only leaves Seth and Summer to head to splitsville, and neither of them are taking it very well. Even though he is out of town, Seth has Ryan, and with Marissa being flaky again with Volchok, the only thing Summer has left is Taylor Townsend.

Taylor sees Summer is feeling horrible, but wants to let her know that the misery is shared because Seth is feeling just as bad as she is. You can tell that Summer really wanted to get stuff off her chest because she absolutely goes off on Taylor, venting about Seth. She’s confused because she is “literally going to be on a deserted island”, to which Taylor corrects her by saying that Rhode Island is bordered on three sides by water, so it’s not technically an island. Well, it’s not technically an island because it’s bordered on three sides by land, but whatever. The more important thing is that she realizes this whole thing was way too sudden, so she decides she is going to get to the bottom of this, and nobody is going to stop her.

The first stop on the way back to relationship bliss is calculus. I guess as soon as Summer scored so big on her SATs, they threw her into a bunch of classes we thought only a few months ago she was too stupid to follow along. Also, I don’t want to complain too much, but they were learning how to factor polynomials. You would think that this late in the year in a calculus class, they would have at least reached differential equations, or at least derivatives.

Anyway, Summer starts laughing in the middle of class, prompting the teacher to ask what is wrong. Summer says that Seth was doing these crazy impressions of him, and so she and Seth are given detention for the weekend. See, she broke up with Seth, so she can undo the breakup. They are going to stay together unless he can come up with a real reason for a breakup.

Ryan has made it to Albuquerque where he decides to do a pop-in at the diner where his mother works. His mom isn’t there, but he does see another younger waitress. Although he tries to make it sound like he is just a friend visiting, apparently Dawn talks a lot about Ryan and this waitress, Chloe, realizes that she is talking to Dawn’s son.

Since his mother’s shift wasn’t going to start for a while, Ryan came back a few hours later. As he is walking up, he looks inside. There is his mother, as unpolished as ever, dishing slop to a bunch of hungry lowlifes, and although Dawn said that she was turning over a new leaf, there she was, wrapped up in the arms of one of those hungry lowlifes. Ryan had hoped his mom had changed, but he saw that she was going down the same road he has seen so many times before.

I thought that Ryan would run in there, say “get your hands off my mother”, and then proceed to get the shit kicked out of him, but he was too depressed to fight and started to head the other way. Ryan went back to his hotel room where he found Trey, who was also looking for Dawn. Together, they got rid of that biker dude and Ryan invited Dawn and Trey to graduation!

Ha ha ha ha. I almost got you there, didn’t I? Actually, Ryan bumped into Chloe just as he was leaving the diner. Even though they had only spoken for five minutes, Ryan accepts her invitation to go somewhere and talk. You have to remember that Ryan likes poor girls and most of them usually give good advice, so why the hell not?

After being lectured by her mother, Marissa did what any teenager would do and immediately did what her mother told her she shouldn’t be doing, in this case, shacking up with Volchok. Volchok is playing a little hard to get, but eventually he relents. I don’t think that Marissa likes him that much, but after Ryan would barely touch her during their relationship, maybe she simply likes a guy who enjoys her body.

There’s a knock on the door, and although Volchok thinks it’s just his supply drop, it turns out to be Julie Cooper. Marissa went to hide in a back room, but you have the sense that Julie knew where she was. She told Volchok that he was just the latest in a series of experiments that Marissa goes through when she is acting out, and that it is going to take more than a guy with good abs and a good coke connection to make her happy. What’s more, Marissa is soon going to realize that she is too good for him, and come back to her mother because her mother will always be there to listen, unless she is at cardiobar. Marissa hears everything, and while she doesn’t pick up her clothes and leave with her mom, you had the feeling that she is getting closer to leaving Volchok for good.

Remember when Ryan was about to lecture his mom for not getting her life under control? I think this could should start worry about himself. When he is out with Chloe, he grabs a bottle of beer. His mom is an alcoholic, his father was an alcoholic, most of his stepfathers were alcoholics, and even his adoptive mother is an alcoholic. Maybe Ryan should never touch alcohol? Or at least stay away from it while passing judgment to others about their drinking problems?

As we expected, Chloe is giving Ryan some good advice, saying that he has traveled too far to avoid her, and that Dawn is really trying to turn her life around. This guy Ron might look like a mean bastard, but he has a good heart and is treating his mother well. And, oh, how about we go to your hotel room and have some sex? Yes, I guess that Ryan was really missing Sadie, so he decided to find a different poor girl and have some fun with her. Once again, why would Ryan feel ashamed of his mother for finding somebody who cares about her? Is Ryan’s assumed one night stand supposed to make us believe that he knows what he is talking about when it comes to romance?

Dawn’s new boyfriend is…Dog the Bounty Hunter?

Back in Newport, Sandy was having some issues with Matt Ramsey. Matt decided to turn it up a notch, and after getting his face beaten in; his new plan is to blackmail Dr. Griffin. He’ll then retire to a some island in the Caribbean and we’ll never hear from him again. Sandy thinks that Matt is getting into a very dangerous game, but by now he knows that Griffin is dirty. A hospital plus $700 million worth of contracts was enough to get Sandy to forget about Matt’s first beating, but if the same thing were to happen again, he would be very upset. Sandy tells Griffin that he is making Matt his problem, and he doesn’t want Dr. Griffin involved anymore.

For a kid that is supposed to be so smart, Ryan is kind of dumb. Despite his talk with Chloe, he decided that he wouldn’t invite his mom to graduation, but that is not the dumb part. The dumb part is that he didn’t even get to make the decision himself. He left the graduation tickets out where Chloe could see him, and when she saw Dawn before her shift, she let her know all about it.

Like any mother, Dawn is very proud of her son, and she has a lot to be proud of. He’ll be the first in his family to graduate high school, let alone go to college, and Ryan would be more than happy to have her there, but she just doesn’t fit in. She decides to buy a new dress for the occasion and asks Ryan if she can bring a friend. The dress itself has more of a New Mexico hooker than Newport mom look to it, and Ron, well, he may clean up well, but is the valet going to have enough room for his semi? And his mom wants to take everybody out to dinner, but how will it look like when everybody else is going to Arches for the filet minion while his family is doing the salad bar at Shakey’s? Will Ryan choose his mom’s love or his ego? His plane doesn’t leave for another day, so we’ll just wait a little while before we find out.

Back in Newport, Seth is still of the belief that he must lie to Summer in order to give her a better life. It’s quite obvious that Summer thinks that her life will be better with him in it, but he goes over and breaks up with her. Since he was the one who initiated it, only he could take it back. Summer was kind of shocked at this turn of events and didn’t know what to do. Enter, Taylor Townsend, who also let herself into the Roberts house, although I am sure she had an easier time getting in than Volchok. Taylor feels bad for Summer, but says that she is going to have to do some scheming in order to get Seth back. While he may have broken up with her, at not time did he say “I don’t love you anymore” and if he still loves Summer, then they can find a way to be together.

So, what was Summer’s big scheme? Taylor called Seth and told him that detention was going to be in the student lounge. When he got there, Summer had decked out the place in all sorts of heart balloons and big Hershey kisses and whatnot. At first I thought she went a little overboard, but if you go to the sale aisle in Target, all of that stuff is marked down like 80%. I’m sure they were happy when Summer came to load up her convertible with all she can carry; they do have to make room in that aisle for the Easter candy. Mmmmmmmm Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs. I can never get enough of those.

The trail of balloons and chocolate leads Seth to the middle of the lounge, to the coffee cart where he professed his love or summer in front of the entire school. When he showed her what lengths he would go to in order to show his love, Summer decided that she must do the same thing. Their relationship is full of quirks and lots of sentimental moments, but when you get down to it, that coffee cart is where it all started. Summer wants Seth to stand there, look up at her showing her commitment to him, and say that he doesn’t love her. And that’s exactly what Seth does.

Call me a sucker, but I thought Seth would never be able to say no to Summer at that cart and they would kiss and then remember they had to be in detention. Instead, Seth said he didn’t love her, even though you could tell he knew he was hurting her and it was killing him inside. Detention? Most awkward EVER.

While Seth and Summer are in detention, Marissa is living it up at Volchok’s. There is a big party in his loft with lots of girls, lots of drinking, and lots of drugs. If every night was this fun at Volchok’s, why would any of these people ever set foot in the bait shop? Anyway, Marissa is enjoying herself, but if she felt uncomfortable imagining herself going to Berkeley, her boyfriend’s buddies are really going to make her think.

She saw this girl Heather, who seemed to have a history with Volchok and wasn’t very nice to Marissa, really drunk and dancing around, while a bunch of Volchok’s friends were encouraging her. That’s not big deal, as we all have made mistakes and woken up next to somebody only to find ourselves trying to sneak out before the sun comes up and your new friend wakes up to feed the cat, but Heather was getting much more than a few drinks. Marissa watched as one of Volchok’s friends went to get a beer for Heather, and then poured what looked to be Rohypnol or GHB into the bottle. Heather chugged it, and then two of Volchok’s friends took her outside.

Marissa sees all of this happening and runs outside. She finds one of the guys by Volchok’s van and said that she needs to get her jacket inside. The kid tries to stop her, but she muscles by him. I know, I know, imagine that Mischa Barton has muscles and could actually shove around something heavier than a PVC lawn chair. She opens the door of the van and there is the other guy on top of Heather. She is passed out, and her pants are at her knees. Marissa rushes inside to help her and I think she realizes no hot set of abs is worth being around these kinds of people.

Judging by the way he cuts his sleeves, I think this guy really wants to have sex with Volchok

Like I said, Ryan had some second thoughts about inviting his mother. If only he had kept it in his pants, he might not have to go through with what he was about to do, which is give one of the most cowardly disinvitations I have ever heard. He tries to play it all cool like his graduation is not going to be a big deal, and maybe they could come up later and stuff, but Dawn knows what he is up to. She was never the best mother but she was never ashamed of her family, although if she was ashamed, maybe it would have inspired her to quit drinking and avoid shacking up with dirty men, but you get the point.

It was painful for Dawn, and for Ryan for that matter, but he believed that he did the right thing. Dawn had left, but Chloe was still there. I think she blamed herself for not keeping her mouth shut, and so she tried to dell Ryan that his mom has changed. Ron is not just some trucker; they met in rehab, and he treats her well, and even bought an old car and fixed it up for her. Chloe decides to take Ryan to show him his mom’s locker. The entire thing is like a shrine to Ryan. Sometimes your family may embarrass you, but even if they aren’t cool and hip and live in Los Angeles, the still love you.

Ryan’s mom comes in, and she tells him that Kirsten had been sending her a lot of those things over the years, which is strange because I thought they had only figured out where Dawn was a couple of weeks ago, but whatever. Ryan realizes that he might be the most important thing in his mom’s life. As she said, he is a part of her, and if he is doing well, she must have done something right.

Now that he has shamed her, Ryan feels it’s OK to give her the tickets. If I were him, I would also include a gift certificate to Nordstrom’s for his mom and Supercuts for Ron, but that can all come later. With everything that happened to Trey and losing Marissa an Sadie, Ryan has been feeling a little alone, so it is nice to see him get back together with his mom. If there was one thing in this scene I would have done different, it probably would have been Ben McKenzie. Could it kill the kid to show a little emotion at this time? You don’t reconcile with your mom everyday, and if you shed a tear, maybe the producers wouldn’t force all of that shitty emo on us to enforce the mood.

As he is leaving, Ryan and Chloe say their goodbyes. After all she has done for him, which is a lot more than Sadie, to tell you the truth, I thought Ryan would ask her to move to Berkeley with him. Sadie was going to move because her business was portable, but what business is more portable than a waitress? Even the communists at Berkeley like to have somebody take their order; no good socialist can have their Mediterranean salad without extra goat cheese – the cheese of the people.

Matt Ramsey set up a time to meet griffin to do the money exchange. For some reason, he thought that an abandoned parking lot would be a great place to meet. You know how the saying goes: “In the dark parking lot, nobody can hear you scream.” or something like that. Griffin is just about to have his boys pound Matt’s face in again when Sandy comes to the rescue.

Sandy decided to stakeout the place where Matt and Griffin were meeting. He checked Matt’s car and found no evidence. Matt had been bluffing this whole time, but figured that if Griffin was guilty, he would pay up. Griffin gets out of there and Sandy hands Matt his severance, which is kind of blood money if it came from the hospital deal when you think about it, and tells him that he should use it and start a new life in Chicago. Another OC mystery solved, another character shipped to the Midwest.

Ever since Sandy has been working at the Newport group, he has been working long hours. It has been tough on Kirsten, who has enjoyed getting to know Seth once more, but can’t stand being apart from her husband. While he was saving Matt’s skin, Sand was also missing a special dinner Kirsten had planned for the two of them. She was so upset that she opened up a bottle of wine in disgust.

Although I wondered why the Cohens would even tempt fate by keeping alcohol in the house, I thought this was the best scene of the entire show, which is great because I think Kelly Rowan (who is going to join the ranks of hot 40 year-olds next year), hasn’t had a lot of good face time ever since Julie left their business to hump a doctor. Kirsten is looking at the wine bottle and I am practically screaming at her to call her sponsor. She did pour the wine out and when she hears Seth come home, she hides the bottle. She is reminded why she went to get help in the first place, and I hope we don’t have any more close calls in the future.

That was close, too close.

Marissa came back to her mother, and Sandy eventually came back home to Kirsten. He said that Matt Ramsey had no evidence, but he put what looked like a stack of papers in a safe, which means that it has to be something. Summer was still in shock that Seth didn’t love her, and turned to Taylor for comfort. And Seth? He waited up until Ryan came home. He told his friend that he might of made the worst mistake in his life, and that he needs to make it up to Summer and get into Brown.

I thought this was a pretty good episode. Seriously, I don’t know what Ryan actually brought the graduation tickets with him, but it’s good that he is going to make room in his life for his mother. It was good to see Marissa come back to her senses, and maybe she won’t feel like Berkeley, but perhaps something closer to home, like Pitzer would be a good fit? I was really distressed to see Kirsten almost hit the bottle, which is strange because it used to be the best part of an episode, and I hope she confronts Sandy about what happens.

Last, we have Seth and Summer. I liked the scenes between them, and you can see they are so confused about what’s happening, but the point remains the same. If Summer goes to Brown, Seth can still get into URI or Providence without a problem. The Entire state of Rhode Island is what, 40 miles wide? The population is about 1/3 of Orange County? These two geniuses should be able to figure something out. Besides, if 90% of the appeal of Brown was Seth Cohen, Summer can always enroll at UCI. If you are going to be depressed about losing your boyfriend, you might as well do it in the sunshine.

We only have a few more episodes left this year, and next week brings the return of two highly anticipated faces when Anna and Theresa come back. For the first time since the show started, I don’t have any idea what the season ending cliffhanger will be, so I’m also mildly excited about that as well.

What did you think of this episode? What did Sandy put in the safe? Is Kirsten going to fall off the wagon again? Will Seth and Summer kiss and makeup? Who is the actual father of Theresa’s baby?

“Hey!” Count: Episode – 9, Season – 437 [thanks for the reminder Annna]