Previously: Kirsten’s sister Hailey threw a New Year’s Eve rager at the Cohen house and went to sleep before cleaning up the mess. Rude.
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The Third Wheel
Anna: Friends, Snark Ladies, Traumateers, lend me your ears. Or failing that, a one-off spot on your blog. Hello, or something. (L: HI.)
We start episode fifteen with some slightly obnoxious-sounding early-noughties jingly rock-pop, in the kitchen of what is rapidly becoming the Cohen Family Rehabilitation Centre for Strays and Fuck-Ups (seriously, does this family have to fix everyone?) (L: Yes, because Plot. I’m waiting for an adorable dog to show up.) (S: THAT WOULD BE THE BEST.) Hailey is sitting at the table with her earbuds in, trying as hard as she can to look like a moody teenager, and Sandy walks in only to look like someone kicked his puppy when he sees she’s nicked his bagels.
Side note: as someone who had zero experience with this show until I had to watch it for the Snark Squad, I can now finally say that I understand the Sandy Cohen Eyebrow Scale of Non-Negligent Parenting. Sir, both your parenting and your eyebrows are magnificent. Keep up the good work.
The obnoxious music continues being obnoxious as Sandy is joined by the rest of the family and they all make “bitch, seriously?” faces at the back of Hailey’s head before exiting for a little family pow-wow.
Sandy, Seth and Ryan are all pretty much convinced that the Bagel Burglar has to go, but Kirsten – out of a sense of sisterly obligation, I suppose – is less willing to kick her out. She promises to talk to her, but kind of negates it by immediately going back into the kitchen to pander to Hailey’s coffee needs.
Ryan’s room. Seth harps on him about their recent lack of bro-time and points out that Marissa has him pretty whipped. Speaking of girlfriends, Seth still hasn’t told Summer about his relationship with Anna – while he’s afraid of her hulksmashing him into tiny fragments once she finds out, he’s more afraid of hurting her feelings.
Seth, to me, is kind of an early-season Xander Harris done right – lots of snarky lines, frequent third-wheel / outsider status, a little whingey at times – but unlike Xander, he seems to actually give two flying fucks about characters other than himself so he’s a great deal more likeable. Plus Adam Brody kind of has a sweetness about him that Nicholas Brendon, the slightly more bitter of the two, just couldn’t pull off. Also a lot of his throwaway comic relief lines are fun (if a little corny).
Lor: I was going to say something about Nicholas being way older when he played Xander, but that is incorrect. They were actually just about the same age. So. SORRY NICHOLAS BRENDAN.
Sweeney: Putting people who are clearly too old to play high schoolers into high school roles doesn’t help matters. I remember that being a running complaint for me, when Xander was at his most obnoxious. Spot on assessment, Anna. +1 to all of that.
Anna: Cue Marissa, who shows up to reinforce just how whipped Ryan is; he promises more bro-time even as she’s dragging him out of the door and we cut to a cheesy Windows Movie Maker-esque title sequence and oh, THAT’s where that song is from.
School. Marissa and Ryan reach the realisation that they’ve become one of those mushy couples who can never tear themselves away from each other and decide to resolve it by spending the evening apart. Somehow, I’m just not sure that’s going to happen. Meanwhile, Seth and Anna are busy having a slightly adorable play-fight when Summer breezes in and they immediately snap into “EVERYTHING IS NORMAL LOOK AT HOW NORMAL WE ARE” mode.
They continue being So. Very. Normal. until Summer leaves with an attempted burn (“You just reminded me I need to get my biology textbook, because we’re studying monkeys”) that sounds so stilted and rehearsed that I like to think she was practising it all the way to school and just waiting for Seth to do something stupid. (S: Head canon accepted.) Seth and Anna bicker some more about who’s going to tell Summer, and as expected Seth chickens out some more.
Cohen Rehab Centre for Strays and Fuck-Ups. (L: A+) Sandy and Jimmy are going over Jimmy’s paperwork, and I’m given yet another reason to like He Of The Magnificent Eyebrows – his approach to writing CVs.
Sandy: Did you ever mow your lawn as a kid?
Jimmy: Yeah.
Sandy: Great. Jimmy Cooper Landscaping, your first job.
Truly a man after my own heart. Given that I got fired from my first job, I’m familiar with having to pad out my CV with lots of bullshit (thankfully not the case any more, but still). Participated in some bake sales? Catering. Sold second-hand toys at a school fair that one summer? Retail. Babysat your kid sister on the weekends? Childcare.
Lor: The struggle of anyone trying to get experience but not being hired because they have no experience.
Sweeney: But hooray for having friends like Sandy. Or friends who work in HR. *cough*
Anna: Jimmy bemoans his lack of references, seeing as the only people he can get references from are the clients whose money he stole, when he’s distracted by Hailey’s arrival. They have a little “oh how much you’ve grown” moment which is weird because I swear Jimmy is also making flirt eyes at her and… uh… no. Those two do not go together.
Cut to the kitchen. Sandy nudges Kirsten about talking to Hailey about her mooching off of them, which she still hasn’t done yet (I can see where Seth gets it from) and seeing as she doesn’t have a legit rebuttal she instead fobs him off with bagels because bagels fix everything. Sandy’s super-serious “I’m gonna hide them” made me chuckle— Sandy/Bagels (Sagels? Bandy? Bandy.) is rapidly becoming a rival for the Spike/Onion Blossoms ship. (S: YES. ALL ABOARD.)
Outside, Jimmy and Hailey reminisce about the good old days of babysitting and Golden Girls while also playing a game of Life Failure Top Trumps.
Jimmy: I bet your story doesn’t involve a fist-fight at Cotillion.
Hailey: No, but I bet yours doesn’t contain half a pound of hash and a border guard in Budapest.
Side note: Budapest immediately set my Avengers radar going. I only want to hear Hailey’s Budapest story if it involves Black Widow and Hawkeye. SERIOUSLY WHEDON. WHAT HAPPENED IN BUDAPEST. TELL US.
Lor: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I can’t give you your time back, but I figured I’d give a huge LOL. A+ again, now with added 1430. I’d watch that movie.
Sweeney: You’re an amazing human being. The internet thanks you.
Anna: Sandy and Kirsten are in the kitchen getting smoochy. They agree they need more time for just the two of them when Hailey waltzes in to make “ew the married couple are kissing, gross” faces and irritate me with how childish that is. (S: Word. I’d understand that from Seth, but Hailey’s a guest and needs to take a giant leap back.) She and Jimmy announce that they’re going out tomorrow night, and the Cohens see their chance.
School. Ryan joins Luke at his car, which has a slashed tyre because people are arseholes. He goes to change it, and a group of said arseholes pass by and say arsehole things about his gay dad. So far I haven’t been a huge Luke fan, but I honestly feel sorry for the guy here—and so does Ryan, who invites Luke over to his house.
Cue Luke getting almost violently invested in a video game at the Cohen house, while Seth points out that he’s infringing on bro-time with Ryan. Ryan makes the puppy dog eyes and brings up the slashed tyre, which seems to do the trick. Marissa calls—she’s at Oliver’s, eating fancy Moroccan food, and even though they agreed they’d spend one evening away from each other she wants to invite Ryan over (CALLED IT).
He ums and ahs a bit but agrees, and we cut to Oliver’s house where the sole purpose of the party seems to be to make Ryan turn his “these damn rich kids” face up to eleven with talk of the proper way to eat Moroccan food, French art museums, and snowboarding in the alps. (L: This poor blogger actually watched this episode in France. DREAM BIG, RYAN. ONE DAY YOU MAY MAKE IT.) There comes a point where they surely have to notice that they’re making him super uncomfortable, and it’s frustrating. Talk turns to a band playing in town—they’re sold out, but Oliver steps it up even more by offering to call the manager and get them backstage passes. Ryan bitchfaces appropriately. Damn rich kids.
Sweeney: ROONEY. 2003 was the year Rooney played at Coachella and they are the sole reason that my 14 year old self discovered and started attending the festival. I walked around Empire Polo Field in the heat waving around a Rooney flag on behalf of the street team. This episode is dear to my heart because of its epic embodiment of my life in 2003. Except without all the drugs and tire slashing and not-really-going-to-classes and #richpeopleproblems. Except for all of that.
Anna: Morning in the Cohen kitchen. Seth is still counting the ways he could tell Summer that he and Anna are dating. The options include: phone call, BBM, or carrier pigeon—basically, anything but face-to-face.
Ryan: You’re a coward.
Seth: Am I? Or am I just too sensitive to the feelings of others?
Ryan: Coward, definitely.
As much as I’m a fan of the carrier pigeon idea, I have to agree. Seth agrees to do it soon, but not tonight because of Rooney reasons. This summons Hailey and Seth brags to her about his connections (or rather, connections to people who actually have connections) before Hailey continues to make me dislike her by teasing Ryan about how close Marissa and Oliver are to one another. Ryan’s 100%-done-face is really getting a workout today.
Outside, Sandy and Kirsten are unloading the car and gushing about finally getting an evening together. Adorably, the first thing Sandy gets excited about is being able to eat bagels and I ship it just a little more. (L: He probably never knew he loved bagels this much, until some girl started stealing them!) He also agrees to check out Rooney before the concert to make sure they’re not “death metal Satan worshipping speed freaks” but on the condition that Kirsten speaks to Haley.
Cut to Marissa and Ryan being generically cute and couply. I feel bad, given how much I shipped it in the earlier episodes, but I find them kind of bland now that they’re actually together, possible conflict with Oliver notwithstanding—speaking of which, Marissa does briefly tease Ryan about being jealous. Back to Sandy, who’s listening to Rooney and is cut short just before he can launch into full-on Dad Dancing. Seth points out tonight is his first date with Anna, and Sandy joins everyone else in nudging him about telling Summer the truth and getting the damn thing over with, except he quotes Steven Segal so as far as I’m concerned, he wins.
Sandy: The anticipation of death is far worse than death itself.
Seth: Great, so then we both agree that Summer’s gonna kill me.
Cut to the gig, where everyone is queued up to go in but there’s no sign of Oliver. They head inside to look for him, only to be rebuffed by a rude door lady who says his name’s not on the list. Clearly his damn-rich-kid connections were too good to be true. Meanwhile, Luke is helpfully acting like a five-year-old with no mental filter and pointing out all the “freaks”, and I’ve stopped feeling sorry for him. Seth and Anna slip into their cutesy play-fighting thing again which of course magically summons Summer out of the ether. (L: Cool power, girl!)
The gang head outside and lo and behold, there’s Oliver—who as it turns out does in fact know the band after all, he just forgot to tell them to come in through the back door. (L: Like, by a dumpster. I’m still calling BS.) “Which one’s Rooney?” Luke adorables, and as they follow the band inside Oliver reveals that Natalie is a no-show, lamenting his temporary date. Marissa half-jokes that she and Ryan can be his date, and I swear I see Ryan die a little inside.
Cohen Rehab Centre for Strays and Fuck-Ups. Sandy and Kirsten are all ready for their big night in, complete with privacy and bagels, when – just their luck – it turns out Hailey and Jimmy ended up staying in for the night. Their idea is to stay in, play board games, and watch Golden Girls so they can reminisce about the “babysitting days” and… well. It’s a bit creepy really because they’re both giving each other flirt eyes now for sure. “Let’s sit around and remember when one of us was a minor” isn’t the best premise for a date, guys. Unsurprisingly, Sandy and Kirsten are as done as I am.
Backstage at the gig, I’m not sure whether to laugh or cringe as Luke is playing a “song” (though very loose interpretation of the word) that he wrote himself on one of the band’s guitars as Seth and Anna continue the conversation we’ve seen a hundred times already this episode. Seth needs to tell Summer but doesn’t want to. Anna threatens to do it for him. Seth makes a vague promise to do it. I yawn and skip ahead to when Summer appears and Anna leaves them to talk awkwardly amongst themselves.
Outside, Oliver’s barking down the phone to a guy I assume is his dealer, who was apparently supposed to be there an hour ago. He wants his goods, and he wants them now.
Cohen House again. Kirsten seems to have joined in with the reminiscing, if reluctantly, and it’s all fun and games (specifically Connect Four) until Hailey goes into Stone Cold Bitch Mode once more and starts harping on her sister for having become “dad’s slave, helping to turn paradise into a parking lot” and being super rude about her model homes. Bitch, what do you do with your life? I cling to Kirsten and hiss protectively and it looks like Sandy wants to do the same as he steps up to take her down a notch.
Sandy: You’re living in our home. You’re insulting my wife, you’re driving my whole family crazy. (…) All this talk about plans, about growing up, it’s schtick. It’s a routine. And it’s tired.
Someone give that man a bagel. (L: OR TWO.)
Hailey has a childish little strop at that, even knocking over the connect four board as she storms out of the room. Jesus, my nine-year-old sister shows more maturity than this. Bathroom at the gig. Summer and Anna natter for a bit about the Golden Girls, and for a moment it seems like Anna wants to tell her the news—but can’t quite do it.
Lor: …maybe with a bagel? They just seem to be the theme here.
Anna: Once that awfulness is over, he does at least remind her how lucky she is to have a spot at the Cohen Family Rehab Centre for Strays and Fuck-Ups before he leaves.
Rooney gig. Oliver’s monopolising Marissa so Ryan steps in and leads her off towards the back. Their back-of-the-gig snogging quickly turns into an awkward Oliver-centric conversation that only fuels Ryan’s jealousy more, and he ends up leaving in a bit of a strop. Cut to the band again, along with some hilariously awkward singing along by Luke, who seems to have decided to go for the Guinness World Record for the shortest time to become a band’s number one fan.
Ryan steps outside just in time to see Oliver in a scuffle, being pinned against the fence. He rushes to his aid, pulling the other guy off him, but – surprise – he’s a cop, who’d been posing as Oliver’s dealer. As he’s dragged off, Oliver begs Ryan not to tell anyone. Oh Oliver, you done fucked up.
At the bar, it appears that Seth and I share the same superpower—being completely invisible to bartenders.
Lor: It’s always so awkward too, the little dance you do to get their attention. Stand on tip toe, point out a finger, look real thirsty– and nothing.
Sweeney: I even practice my “real thirsty” face in the mirror sometimes. I think I’ve almost got it down.
Anna: Ryan appears, looking distraught, and instantly gets them drinks as Seth gears up to FINALLY tell Summer. Ryan is all “that’s cool bro but can I have your keys and your phone because of reasons” and – apparently because there is no room for anything but impending Summer-related doom in Seth’s head, he obliges.
Cohen House. Sandy and Kirsten are busy discussing Hailey’s tantrum, deciding that it would be better to have her in the house where they can keep an eye on her, when the phone rings. It’s Ryan, of course, and he’s at the police station.
Anna corners Seth as he finally appears with drinks, and he asks if she’s told Summer yet. Summer does her “were my ears burning” appearing magic, wondering what they were going to tell her—and we cut to backstage where of course, she’s totally cool (in fact maybe a little too cool?) with the whole couple thing.
We go over to the police station, where Sandy joins Ryan with the news that he worked his lawyer magic and persuaded them to let Oliver go. Maybe he just went in and waggled those magnificent eyebrows at them, that’d do the trick for me.
Oliver is brought out, and as Sandy leaves to do one last bit of eyebrow-waggling, he asks Ryan why he’d do something like that for him when he doesn’t even like him. Ryan replies that he doesn’t really know him—which could kind of be taken two ways. Oliver doesn’t like himself very much at the moment either.
He also admits he’s not sure what went wrong; Natalie didn’t show, his parents are out of town, and seeing Ryan with Marissa and all their friends rubbed salt in the wound a bit, reminded him how alone he is. Ryan gives him a little pep-talk, reminding him of the people that like him, but hints that maybe he still doesn’t because it was Sandy that got Oliver out, not him. Right on cue, Marissa calls, and Oliver wonders if Ryan will tell her. No, Ryan says—Oliver has to do that himself.
Cohen House. Sandy is fixing himself a late-night bagel, but the Bagel Burglar is back and tries to nick it. Sandy stands his ground, complaining about her bagel-burglary among other habits, and we do get a semi-decent apology out of Hailey for being a terrible terrible guest. He suggests she get a home and a job, settle down, but she vetoes that, saying that all she knows is what she doesn’t want. That’s not entirely true, Sandy points out, giving her half of his bagel—because of course. Who needs to make difficult life decisions when you have bagels? They are the supreme foodstuff and must be honoured above all else.
Lor: I suddenly feel better about my life. The future is unsure; bagels are forever.
Anna: Marissa pops by to thank Ryan for what he did for Oliver, specifically with smooches, but they’re interrupted by the rest of the gang. Luke is extra loud and awkwardly hilarious again, and they all end up inside playing video games. Summer conveniently sits in between Anna and Seth, and a little too fine with the whole arrangement, but apart from that all is right with the world again.
Outside, we see Oliver lurking outside like a creepy lurky lurker much in the style of a certain caveman-browed, leather-coated vampire I happen to know of. (L: SPIKE. Oh, sorry, we were going for subtle?) We fade to black, and I end the video and go to the shops because all of this bagel talk has made me crave them.
Next time: All the just-friends high school relationships create drama in S01 E16 – The Links.
Writer, YouTuber, musician, pretentious idiot, swarm of angry bees in a human suit. Queer in every sense of the word, and not quiet about it. Several years into a plot to take over the BBC so I can become the new Doctor Who showrunner and fix all the problems.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
