Editorial: The Disconnect
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With the entire changes, revelations, and strippers pact into this episode you’d think the show would have been stronger. Between the actors and the writers they could of easily given us more. But they didn’t. And it made for a boring hour.
I can’t believe I’m saying this but the absence of Taylor probably had the biggest impact on the show. Without her there to distract, entertain, and tickle my funny bone all the faults of the episode became glaringly obvious. This included the daunting pace, detached performances, and the less than ordinary scripting.
With little else to do for Julie they set her up with the suave, mysterious, hunk-of-the-week. He’s a man throwing one over both her and Kirsten by making them think he actually wants their catering services. He doesn’t, although he still pays the $5,000 anyway. All he really wanted was a date with Julie. She gladly accepts. This is a very interesting thing considering later in the show she suggested to Kirsten they start a high-class call girl business.
Kirsten wisely shuts down Julie’s ideas and opts for a more socially excitable mode of finding love. She suggests they open up a dating service. Of all the ideas they could of came up with this seems a little unfitting for them. But I suppose it could work, provided it offers up some needed excitement and scandal.
It’s week two of Johnny the cripple. And it’s sadly obvious when he stumbles, trips, and actually crashes on the steps leading up to his ghetto house. Of course Marissa jumps out to help him. Isn’t that what friends are for. Apparently not according to her friends. Instead of actually assisting to help Johnny into the house they awkwardly stare from their cushioned car seats. I’m not sure if it’s because Marissa is doing something, again, for Johnny or simply because they are that out-of-touch with helping anyone other then their own. Either way it made for a rather disturbing scene.
Marissa continues to be nothing more than a friend and ‘clingy’ nurse help to Johnny. But somehow combined with every other loving friend thing she’s done he affirms to Summer that he’s falling in love with her. But hey, he’s just a good guy who doesn’t want to break her and Ryan up. So he tells Summer he never wants Marissa to know what he‘s revealed. All things said while he is not yet under the influence of his drugs. A sleepover and a few painkillers later and he spills the beans. Rather than panic or get defensive with the boy she calmly takes in the news and then later panics to Summer. When all else fails she turns to Summer as though she has the instant answer. It’s as though Marissa can’t figure anything out for herself. It’s as if no light bulb went off in her head that said, ‘wait a minute. I’m totally in love with Ryan and there is no question that I am going to tell Ryan the truth and then later talk to Johnny to tell him there is no chance between us.’
The whole Johnny and Marissa storyline I might have been able to enjoy or even buy into a little more if everyone involved with the story wasn’t so one note and removed in their performances. And it certainly didn’t help that the show casted an actress to play Johnny’s mother that couldn’t muster more than a stereotypical performance to an all ready stereotypical character. She couldn’t even portray the genuine warmth of someone like Theresa’s mom. When she tried it just came out fake and saccharine.
Ryan’s keeping a few secrets of his own. He’s just taken on an internship with Sandy’s new business partner. This is a man who should have gotten more depth and personality when he revealed to Ryan about his love wows, but he didn’t. He still seems just as boring and useless as the day he first appeared on The O.C. Reverting back to Ryan, he goes on a ‘field trip’, AKA coffee run, AKA a visit to a strip club. Like any good intern would he follows his boss inside. There is clearly a moment where he says in his mind I’m not going to tail book it out of there and run home to call Marissa or better yet see her in person. He makes it all the way to the point of receiving a lap dance from a charming girl who may have scored 2400 on her SAT’s (it has yet to be confirmed.) named Sibiwitz. Sadly this may have been the best moment in the show simply because Aerosmith’s music was rocking in the background. When I think of hookers, cross-dressers, and strippers I almost always hear one their non-ballads as the perfect accompanying soundtrack playing in the background.
In the tale ends of the episode Ryan and Marissa have a much needed chat-to-chat via the phone. Ryan, in all his complacent glory, continues to act as though all is cool and everyone around him is actually really trustworthy and not keeping secrets from him. Such a naïve boy he is. He was much more intriguing when he actually mistrusted based on his own intuitions, which more often than not were actually right. He does come clean about the strippers and Marissa reveals the truth about her little sleepover at Johnny’s. But she leaves out one important detail that Johnny is in love with her. I guess having only a certain percentage of honesty is enough to keep a relationship going for this long.
Lastly, we had an interesting reveal from the Summer and Seth side of things. After receiving a 2300 on her SAT scores and talking with her college counselor, she dreams the once impossible dream of getting into Brown University. Of course Seth wants the coveted spot too, so a battle between him and ‘Legally Un-Blond’ ensues. It’s a clear case of an inferiority complex mixed in with a lack of confidence for Seth, giving further proof he’s a typical male after all. I’d like to say these underlying fears and emotions were enough to drive some sense and reasoning into this storyline, but it wasn’t. To say this was all trivial and unnecessary would be overstating the obvious. Even the token cute moments (summer rediscovering her Tuba talents and Seth taking up the Pirate mascot role) weren’t enough to make this storyline relevant and interesting. It wasn’t until it’s closing moment that I finally started to care and enjoy. I was overcome with a few warm and fuzzy feelings when they put all the pettiness behind them and admitted to each other that whether either, both or none of each other got in they would still love one another. Finally, a scene that was genuine and filled with believable heart. Unfortunately it was little, too late.
But on the bright side a wonderfully delightful trailer for next week revealed we have come to the annual, and always pleasant, Chrismukkah episode. So here’s to the next episode, may it give me a great Chrismukkah miracle, the ability to put this episode out of my memory. But really, it’s an easily granted miracle, the writers did most of groundwork already.
** out of ***** stars
