Give It Up For Short-Term Memory!
Updated 2006-12-19 16:00:00
The USPS comes through once again with a letter Marissa sent to Ryan just before she croaked her last croak, which gives Ryan pause about Taylor and which Kirsten eventually finds. Ryan and Taylor clash about bringing her to Chrismukkah dinner, and then fall off a ladder and into the most patently TV coma ever. The only person who can even pretend to care that the two of them are vegetal is Julie Cooper, and that's only because she doesn't really want to go to Riverside for the holidays. Everybody else on the show knows it's one of those comas that will be over in 45 minutes, so they chill out, mostly. Veronica Townsend, for example, chills out all the way to Cabo. The bulk of the episode takes place inside Taylor and Ryan's shared coma. Comas are explained to us as something like video games you play with your brain chemistry: if Ryan can get over Marissa and remember the Cohens love him, and if Taylor can get her head around the fact that her mom's a worthless bitch, then they'll wake up. This is explained about a million times, and is far less interesting than Taylor's theory that they are in an alternate universe which they have to "fix." (Tell me you wouldn't at least make out with the boy version of yourself in an alternate universe. Come on.)
In alt-world, the following things are true: Ryan never came to Newport, and Taylor is a totally hot dude for some weird reason. Summer is mentally compromised, trashy, and marrying Che, who is Luke now, and it looks good on him. Marissa died in the TJ, causing her parents to get divorced and her sister to become (even more) awesome. Seth sucks worse than we've ever seen him sucking, there is no such thing as Chrismukkah, Kirsten and Jimmy are together and she leads the Newport Group with an iron fist, Sandy is the Mayor of Newport Beach and for some reason is hooked up with media-hungry "philanthropist" Julie Cooper. As in any universe, Julie is still the best thing about life. Taylor yells at Veronica in the coma to protect her male self and immediately wakes up, over it to the point that she can just kind of ignore her mom's bitchiness altogether. Ryan mourns Marissa out on the beach after trying desperately to repair all the relationships that aren't his problem, and finally wakes up. Julie, having read the goodbye letter from Marissa, and having reached some kind of closure, gives Ryan the best Chrismukkah gift of all: an end to their murderous blood vendetta. Awww. Merry Chrismukkah!