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Season: 4
Episode: 7
Characters: Ryan, Seth, Summer, Sandy, Kirsten, Julie, Jimmy, Che, Taylor, Kaitlin, Eric, Brad, Veronica.
Editors Choice Quote: “We're having a very Britney Christmas” - Kaitlin.
Episode Guide
As usual, we open with coffee in the kitchen. Kirsten ask Ryan if he’s going to finish hanging the Christmas lights, then artfully redirects the conversation to Ryan’s personal life. Will he be bringing a guest to dinner that evening? Anybody? Like…Taylor? Elsewhere, Kaitlin is heartbroken to learn she and Julie will be spending Christmas in the ghetto, Riverside. Which is not actually a ghetto. Julie invites Taylor – their houseguest – to join them in Riverside, but Taylor says she’s having dinner over at the Cohens’. Just as soon as Ryan invites her, which he almost certainly will do.
Taylor drops by the pool house with Ryan’s gift, but he claims he’s busy right now before heading up the ladder with some lights. Taylor asks if they’re having a big dinner or something and when Ryan hems and haws, she offers to invite herself to dinner. When Ryan still hems and haws, Taylor realizes that Ryan thinks a dinner invite will elevate her to girlfriend status. Taylor angrily climbs the ladder to shove Ryan’s gift into his lap, but they struggle and tumble off the ladder, falling to the concrete below.
When they come to, Taylor shoves her gift into Ryan’s hands and then storms off. Ryan walks back to the pool house and notices that it’s now a home gym. And when he walks out, an angry Kirsten accosts him, saying that she specifically said the staff shouldn’t be in the pool house. Ryan asks her what she’s talking about, but it seems Kirsten doesn’t know Ryan. The conk on the head must’ve dropped him into a holiday fantasy world. And he didn’t even need a guardian angel! Ryan asks Kirsten where Seth is and Kirsten, assuming Ryan is just one of Seth’s stupid friends, directs him to the comic book shop.
Down at the mall, Ryan finds Julie giving an interview to the local news. She’s publicizing her efforts with a mission, giving homeless people shelter and a hot meal during the holidays. This world truly is upside down! Inside the comic book store, Ryan finds Seth being bullied by Luke’s twin brothers. Seth thanks Ryan for getting his wallet back from the twins. Then Seth goes outside and wistfully stares at Summer, who’s trying on a wedding dress at a store across the mall.
Meanwhile, Sandy, the mayor of Newport Beach, is having a press conference at the Yacht Club. Ryan tries to explain to him what’s happening and, surprisingly, the story doesn’t fly. Mayor Cohen assumes this troubled young man is stalking his family. Back in the real world, we see that Ryan is lying in a hospital bed, unconscious. In the fantasy world, Taylor finds him in the mall. She explains to him that they’re stuck in a parallel universe. Duh. They’ve been sent there to fix something and only the completion of that task will send them back to the real world. Double duh.
While discussing this in a restaurant, Ryan and Taylor spot Summer, who is a fuzzy tracksuit-wearing, ring-flashing, slang-talking materialistic young Newpsie. And her fiancé, Winchester, is a fratty dunderhead. Taylor immediately figures that her and Ryan’s mission is to save alterna-Summer from a life of shallow excess. Ryan’s job is to ask Seth where it all went wrong while Taylor tails Summer for observation.
Oh hey, real Ryan is fine. So is Taylor. The tests showed no damage. They’re just unconscious. Sandy thinks the family should have Chrismukkuh dinner in the hospital to surround Ryan with familiar sounds and smells. The first thing parallel Taylor observes is that Winchester is cheating on Summer with some other girl, although she’s probably equally vacuous.
Ryan heads back to the house in search of Seth, and that’s when he learns that Kirsten is married to…Jimmy Cooper. And that Kirsten runs The Newport Group with an iron fist in a velvet glove. Beyond that, Kirsten’s ex-husband, Mayor Cohen is now married to Julie…whatever her last name might be in this world. And she’s Winchester’s vacuous side piece. Mayor Cohen heads off to wherever mayors go and Winchester darts out of the bushes in pursuit of Julie’s tail. Taylor, shocked and disgusted by what’s she seeing, retreats into an adjoining bedroom. The maid, finishing off the bed in that room, tells Taylor that Marissa will be back from Berkeley that afternoon.
Taylor and Ryan meet up at the diner and run down the character bible of the parallel Newport. Tropwen, if you will. Taylor suggest they go to Kirsten’s big party tonight and attempt to reunite everybody with their correct soulmates. Oh, incidentally, Marissa is still alive. This little detail is the one that finally gets to Ryan. He wonders if he wants to leave the parallel universe if Marissa is still alive here. He heads to the airport to meet her flight from Berkeley.
Summer comes home and breaks the coma news to Julie and Kaitlin. Julie and Kaitlin head off to find Taylor’s mother to break the news. In Tropwen, Ryan finds Marissa at the airport…except it’s Kaitlin. Youngest in her freshman class, don’t you know? Anyway, she’s not Marissa. Marissa died three years ago after overdosing in an alley in Tijuana. If you’re keeping score at home, Ryan saved her once in the real world, was a part of her death in the real world and wasn’t there to save her in the parallel world. Are you getting all of this?
Taylor tries to console Ryan by explaining he gave Marissa three extra years that weren’t in her original destiny. Realizing she’s right, Ryan moves forward with Taylor reunion plan. A mission that Seth is currently explaining to his father as perfectly logical. In the midst of that chat, Kirsten calls from the hospital with a possible explanation as to why Ryan isn’t waking up. A nurse found a card in Ryan’s pocket and the envelope had Marissa’s name and address on it. Ryan found it earlier in a pile of mail.
Ryan and Taylor arrive at the parallel party. And that’s when Taylor discovers that her parallel is a boy. Still named Taylor. And still birthed by a domineering mother. In real life, Julie finds Veronica Townsend at the airport on the way to Cabo St. Lucas. Julie asks her to come to the hospital, then says she’ll tell security Veronica is carrying a bomb if she doesn’t come along.
Ryan finds Seth moping in his bedroom and explains his parallel universe mission. Seth, actually, is not all that surprised. So Ryan launches into his plan about how Seth can win over Summer. Downstairs, Taylor spots Julie and starts planting some seeds about Mayor Cohen. Then she tells Ryan they need to get Kirsten and Sandy and Seth and Summer alone for ten minutes. They get the couples together and Taylor figures she has a new mission: confronting her mother. She calls her mother a bitch, something she’s been waiting to do for a long time. The thrill of the moment makes her woozy.
Meanwhile, Jimmy found Julie and Winchester going at it in the bathroom, a secret tryst that Ryan and Taylor set up. The trio of couples comes together and Jimmy announces what he saw in the loo. Winchester tries to console Summer, but Seth steps in to protect her. Winchester spots a blonde outside and the crisis is averted. Attention turns to Sandy and Kirsten and they turn attention to Taylor, who, as the parallelies are starting to realize, has been manipulating them all night. Ryan comes in and just as Taylor starts to explain the parallel truth, she again feels woozy. She realizes she’s fading back into reality. It’s up to Ryan to reunite the couples.
Taylor wakes up in the hospital. Back in Tropwen, Ryan just lays everything out for them. Summer belongs with Seth, Kirsten hates The Newport Group, Sandy shouldn’t be mayor and Sandy and Kirsten belong together. As security escorts this mysterious, all-knowing stranger from the party, the parallel people do a lot of lip biting and thinking.
Veronica Townsend arrives at the hospital, dismayed that she missed her flight on account of her walking, conscious daughter. Taylor wishes her a Merry Christmas and announces to the group that she feels just fine cutting her mother loose. And then Kirsten hands Julie the unopened card from Marissa.
Parallel Ryan is bailed out of jail by Mayor Cohen, who wants to know why he cares so much about the relationships of stranger. Ryan asks the Mayor how his family fell apart, and Sandy points to Marissa’s death. After that, everybody seemingly got stuck. The Mayor invites parallel Ryan to dinner.
Julie explains to the group that Marissa wrote this card on the day she left for Berkeley. It seemingly got lost in the mail. In the card, she explained to Ryan that she had to leave. It was the only way they could move on with their lives. And then Ryan comes out of his coma.
SpoilerFix
+ We meet Veronica's, Taylor's mother, 18-year-old assistant Mitchell. Veronica is really pushy and bossy with him, telling him how to dress, to get lipo, etc. Julie and Kirsten are at the scene.
Rating
10 / 10
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