Season 2, Episode 7

A regular says goodbye, at least for now, until the offers stop pouring in, as Jimmy (Tate Donovan) sails off to start a new life in Maui and perhaps win back some respectability from his troubled daughter Marissa, the people he scammed in Newport, and the Hollywood acting fraternity. True to soaper form, he goes out with a bang—banging his ex- Julie, getting caught post-coital by Marissa and having his daughter punctuate his departure in front of everyone at his going-away party by yelling, "Of course I'm screwed up. I'm the daughter of a whore and a slut."

Ah, family!

You'd feel sorrier for Marissa if it weren't for the fact that her acting "range" these days seems confined to either blowing up or blubbering on someone's shoulder. She's such a mess that you wish Jimmy would take her with him—tied to the end of his yacht's fishing line. Being the hottest teen in prime time isn't even working anymore.

As for the other "teen" cast members (all mid twentysomethings, natch): Summer and Zach are on the temporary outs after Zach first confessed to Seth that he knocked Vans with a former tutor while on winter break; Ryan, an honorary Cohen, and Lindsay, who just learned she's the half-sister of Kirsten Nichol-Cohen, struggle to figure out whether they're lovers or siblings or (awwww yeah) both; and Seth, in one of his funniest turns in weeks, is drunk off his arse most of the episode as he tries to prove he's a bad boy to quiet riot grrrl Alex, who like every 15-year-old in America and my household loves the lug just as he is: a total geekazoid.

LINE OF THE WEEK: "Your breath smells like Marissa." Summer to the inebriated Seth.