"I Have To Do This"

And with those words, the life of a reckless driving Eastern Bloc surfer has all but ended. Maybe not last night. Maybe not next Thursday. Probably not on Veterans Day. But the days left on this Earth are numbered for Clyde (or whatever his first name is) Volchok. Why, you ask? Because Ryan Atwood is back, and his fists of fury are still stained with the blood of an overmatched amateur cage fighter.

What the shit is GMYH talking about? Sadly, aside from Volchok's first name, these are all true life facts from the virgin episode of Season Four of The OC. What started off as one of the darkest -- and worst -- OC episodes in recent memory ended with the promise of a new day -- a new day of death.

It all starts 5 months after Ryan carried Marissa's lifeless body from the carnage of a Volchok-caused car wreck. Ryan is now living a Boondock Saints existence in the utility closet of a dive bar whose lighting is sparse, but dramatic. In addition to his job working at the bar, Ryan is participating in what I assume is unsanctioned cage fighting in the dank, dark warehouse next door to the bar. He chooses to fight guys that he knows will kick his ass -- or more appropriately, guys that he lets kick his ass. Ryan Atwood's ass cannot be kicked, not even by Ryan Atwood. Furthermore, he doesn't even take the money he is offered by the guy running the fight. That's right, he fights for the love of fighting, walking around with an always freshly battered face to remind him of the pain of a love lost forever. Also, he hasn't told anyone about it, probably because that's the first rule.

Kaitlin Cooper is still a manipulative little trick with bedroom eyes and a heart of tar, but now she has thigh-high black patent leather boots and two lackeys, Brad and Eric Ward. Who? Oh yeah, they're the brothers of Luke (once-disagreeable water polo player who used to date Marissa Cooper and got in a lot of fights with Ryan but then for some reason became friends with Ryan and helped him defeat Oliver but then he found out his dad was gay and then he moved to Portland after he got drunk and wrecked a car because he was banging Julie Cooper but then she decided to marry Caleb Nichol -- yeah, that Luke). For some reason they ride their bikes to school alongside of her while she walks. Oh, and she still talks like she's asking for the taste slapped to be out of her mouth. "Are yau kedding may?"

Seth is working in comic book store, which I think is a bit of a stretch. One of his co-workers is named Leon. I found this to be the most important revelation of the episode.

Summer is off at Brown, and she has become a save-the-world hippie, although she still dresses like a Newpsie. She did have a sweet t-shirt that said "More Trees Less Bush," or something like that. In addition to referring to herself as post-ironic, she has befriended a guy at Brown -- the kind of overexaggerated hippie who shits in a bucket and doesn't wipe so that he can save water and trees -- who looks like he smells bad and is clearly too dumb to get into Brown in real life, but does have a dijereedoo, which is apparently not only for Aborigines anymore. In fact, it is implied by Josh Schwartz and McG that there are people in the world whose idea of having fun is sitting in an Ivy League dorm room and jamming with a bongo, clavas, and a dijereedoo, all while not getting drunk or high. The hippie dude actually said, "Your turn to jam on the dij'." I wish I made that up. Sadly, it was followed soon thereafter with "Wherever you go, there you are," said with no hint of irony. I think I should write for The OC.

Saucy tart Taylor Townsend is pretending to live in Paris, but is actually still in Newport. Her reasons and motives for doing so are unclear at this point, but I'm guessing it involves candle wax, tube socks, and the new Fiona Apple CD.

Dr. Roberts, in addition to supplying The Beatles with LSD, is two-timing Julie with his ex-wife. Yep, the Step Monster. Kaitlin sees them together, and blackmails Dr. Roberts into paying for the previously mentioned slutty boots.

There was not all that much that actually happened in the episode. Summer comes home for the weekend to help Seth figure out a plan to get Ryan out of Fight Club. As you would expect, they trick him into coming to the comic book store, where Sandy, Kirsten, and Leon are waiting to show Ryan a comic book that Seth made about Ryan's coming to Newport. As you probably guessed, this convinces Ryan to leave Fight Club and start to grieve for Marissa. The thing is, grief and blinding rage are one in the same for Ryan Atwood.

Luckily Julie hired a private dick, probably DeFino, to find Volchok's whereabouts (probably a cavern somewhere with a lot of wifebeaters, bottles of beer, roofies, and fear). Rather than hand over the file to the cops, so that they can arrest the man who murdered her daughter, she gives the file to Ryan, knowing that he will draw and quarter Volchok, sending one limb to each of the four corners of the continental United States, actually throwing his torso into space, and crushing his skull into dust with his bare hands as a warning to anyone else who might be thinking about killing Marissa. At first Ryan doesn't take the file. But after the whole comic book thing, Ryan gets in one last fight at Fight Club, turning himself from Gerry Cooney into a wily Pikey, beating the guy who had previously beaten him up. When they finally peeled the dude off the mat, all that was left was a pool of blood and a pile of unconnected teeth. No bones. No flesh. No hair. Just blood and teeth. As the episode ends, Ryan and Julie are standing over Marissa's grave. He takes the Volchok file, and utters those five words that spell the end for Volchok: "I have to do this."

As you probably noticed, there was no Midwestern Eavesdropping this week. I have a ton of submissions, but I had depositions the entire day yesterday, so next week's MWE is going to be bigger than King Kong's ding dong. Also, Hair Band Friday is canceled this week because I got to go to a mediation all day in Kane County (go Cougs). But rest assured, while there, I did nothing but try to figure out the answers to the following questions:

1. It's a given that Ryan will kill Volchok, but will Fox have the balls to show Ryan disconnecting Volchok's spine from his flesh and then using it as a whip to lash Volchok to death?
2. Will Summer and the hippie dude hook up? If so, will I stop watching The OC?
3. With Summer in Rhode Island, will Taylor make a move on Seth? If so, how many different Kama Sutra positions will be involved?
4. Do I actually give a shit if Dr. Roberts is cheating on Julie?
5. Will Josh Schwartz and McG wise up and bring Marissa Cooper back from the dead? Or at least bring her back as the emaciated but loveable rug-munching ghost searching Newport for a light meal and helping Seth solve petty crimes along the way?