December 21, 2006: Baby New Year
Just to clarify: Seth's
not about to become a daddy, but Frank already is one. Let's start with the main focus of the night, Seth and Summer. Is it wrong for me to sort of wish the pregnancy test had been positive? Purely for the reason of having a good soap-opera story line play out, because Seth's and Summer's relationship has been a little...well, boring this season. Not that they were ready to become parents, especially with Seth's "gimme a high five" reaction when he thought the test was Taylor's and not Summer's. Seth, Seth, Seth I was so disappointed in him. Well, at least he redeemed himself at the end, after he was able to figure out his true feelings for Summer (thanks to Ryan's help) and propose to her
before looking at the test results. The alien ring, Seth's declaration of his love, Summer's surprise and acceptance it was all very sweet, if for just a moment. And then, suddenly, it all felt...wrong. The chemistry between them just seemed to vanish. Now it's like they're getting married simply because they really don't have anything else to do before they head back to college in the fall. The negative pregnancy test "saves us from having to have a shotgun wedding, now we can just have a normal wedding," Seth declared. That's all well and good, but I don't watch
The O.C. too see "normal" things. Normal's for everyday life;
The O.C. is for fun, heightened drama. Summer's earlier panic-stricken question of "How did I go from being an Ivy League Al Gore-in-the-making to a knocked-up college dropout?" sounded like a more interesting road to pursue dramatically. However, Seth and Summer's lack of enthusiasm after they became engaged suggested that all will not be smooth sailing ahead, so maybe there's some fun to be had there.
Let's move on to the most in-sync couple of the night no, not Ryan and Taylor, though they were adorable as always and they seem to be progressing in their relationship. They had their first fight! And, they made up and got past it ("So you don't think I'm a whore?")...awww. But the surprise pairing of this episode was Kaitlin and her new surrogate father, Bullitt (I've been thinking it was "Bullet," but I checked the FOX Web site). I was actually feeling bad for little Kaitlin: her dad's too busy partying out of phone range to call her; her mom leaves her at a party to go deal with business; her prince dates turned out to be less than charming; and apparently the girl has no friends. But she has Bullitt, who calls her "Peanut," invites her to his party and gives her money to get a new dress. In return, she offers him tips for dating her mom. Then, he actually spends time with her at the party. The scene with him teaching her the two-step was too cute.
Nevertheless, Bullitt's son seems to lack his father's charm. He and his male prostitution ring are leading Julie down a dangerous road of
Risky Business, and the last thing Julie needs in her life is a bad influence. I understand Julie's desperate to make money, but this illegal venture cannot end well. (Though it does allow her to get in some classic Julie Cooper lines: "I may be a madam, but I'm not a whore.") After all, it's already leading her to meet a shady ex-con who's using an alias: Frank Perry, a.k.a., Frank Atwood, a.k.a., Ryan's father. We've met Ryan's mother and brother in past seasons, and since they've always mentioned that his dad was not dead but in prison, I've been waiting for the day when we were going to finally get to meet him. Now, that day has arrived. This is gonna be good. But since we didn't find out that Frank was Daddy Atwood until the closing lines of this episode, I'm going to wait before commenting anymore on this developing story line. Until next year...(remember, no new episode next week; the next new episode is on January 4).
