IMHO: "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" (2.7) "Summertime"

So, it's been a while since we visited with the folks at Secret Life — let me catch you up really fast before we jump into the story:

Amy kept her baby, and is raising it with her pregnant (by Amy's dad or her boss, we're not sure) mother, Anne. Meanwhile, her dad George (who's been lying for years about a vasectomy) and sister are living in the house next door.

She's still seeing Ben, although his going off to Bologna (which according to the show is famous not for pasta sauce, but certain other oral activities) for the summer may complicate that.

Babydaddy Ricky lives over the butcher shop he works at. The owner of the butcher shop, Ben's dad, is (knowingly) marrying the blond hooker once hired by Grace's brother.

Grace decided to sleep with Jack, against her dad's wishes, so God (in her opinion) crashed the plane her dad was on and thereby killed Bo Duke, thus lowering salary requirements for the show.

Everybody ran off to various summer camps and such, leaving Amy stuck at home, alone with her baby, feeling left out.

We rejoin the show at the start of school in the fall.

The episode opens on Ben’s late night return from Italy, some pictures of him on a Vespa with an Italian girl draped around him. Misunderstanding in 3-2-1…

I'm assuming all that hair belongs to an Italian girl.

Maybe not, since he contacted Henry and Alice, and not Amy. She doesn’t look happy. Adrianne looks to have a new boytoy, and Ricky looks to have a new bedmate. And Molly Ringwald is wearing a floral muumuu! Her fiancé is sleeping over now.

The costume designer on this show deserves an award. You'll see.

Ashley is everyone’s concern on her first day of high school, along with the fact that she has no friends. Ashley seems less than concerned, as does Amy, who’s more self-involved than Y&R's Phillip III. Her soon-to-be-stepdad offers her a new SUV to stop being an obnoxious prat.

Is this something a freshman girl would wear to her first day of school?

Ben’s trying to avoid school, and discussing with his father that having his relationship with Amy seems like a lot of work compared to normal relationships.

Grace went to “Med Camp” for aspiring doctors, and it sounds like it’s made her even less fun than she used to be. She used to make Buzz Killington seem like a drunken frat boy. She’s using a rolling pink bookbag to avoid back strain.

Grace was more fun when is was just her religion she was pushing on everyone.

Ricky and Adrianne are having some pre-school activities, the type that don’t involve clothes. Then they make the mistake that so many couples make after good sex – they talk. And mostly they talk about the fact they don’t want the other having sex with anyone else, which I thought they were.

Something stayed the same at least.

This was obviously written to confuse recappers. Point to you, ABC Family.

Hello, Griffin! Skintight purple sweater on that freshman, and every girl is drooling. So am I – don’t judge me, the actor is 23!

I'll be honest, they seem to be playing him as overly earnest, but I didn't notice until the fourth viewing.

Ashley struts in through double doors to "Oh Yeah," by Yello playing, fog effects, and every head turning. She's tarted up in a lacy skin tight dress and heels. This is important because her whole family was against the shapeless black outfit she left for school in that I thought was just Ashley being Ashley.

This was the scene from my fav movie, Ferris Beuller's Day Off, but executed better.

Another point to you, ABC Family.

Henry and Alice can’t focus in class. Their internal monologues tells us that they’ve discovered the joys of oral sex with each other. The whole rest of the class seems to be thinking about the sex they’re not having.  No one is listening to the science teacher.

Griffin approaches Ashley at her locker, and she cuts him off at the knees about her not being interested in being hit on just because her sister was a teenage mother. The way she cuts him off is a very Bette Davis sort of harsh, and I love it. He tries to beg off that he’s new and knows nothing about Amy.

Griffin is obviously reconsidering his fearless approach of girls in his new school.

They trade witty barbs and bond to the point of him asking her to eat lunch with him. When she says it sounds like a date, he matter-of-factly informs her that it’s not a date, that he’s gay. Ashley is pleased, and announces he may be suitable as her first friend, which will please her family.

Ricky tries to intercede and protect Ashley, which she informs him is not necessary. The introductions she performs are a thing of beauty: Griffin, this is not-the-boyfriend-but-the-father.

The look Griffin is giving Ricky says he's not shy.

Just then Adrianne swoops in and accuses Ricky of trying to sleep with Ashley. They agree that neither can trust the other not to cheat. They also agree the new game is not getting caught.

But we knew that. Point to me, ABC Family.

Ben and Amy have a chat about their relationship, where Amy continues to be a prat.

After school, we get the muumuu talking to Ashley about her day, which she downplays, and mentions she didn’t sit alone at lunch, she sat with a boy. Nothing is said about the slutty dress she’s still wearing.

Why are her parents not noting the change of clothes that allows a phone in her cleavage?

George and Anne dismiss the girls to fight about the car Amy’s getting. Instead they wind up fighting about the fact that the baby she’s having is his because he lied about the vasectomy. (Turns out Anne had guessed all this, as had her fiancé, and it was all factored into the plans.) Now George wants to “fix it” and his daughters eavesdrop from the hallway with expectant grins about their family being magically reunited.

So are mom and dad finally getting back together?

So why did I give this episode a sideways arrow? This episode was a fast forward, an entry point after the summer for all the cast, and they wrote it as such.

It had all the confusion of the first day at a new school with Griffin and Ashley, and for all the regulars after a summer apart, too. But I still don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t watch Lost for a reason. The writers sold out the heart of the show to be clever.

It would have been a down arrow except for one thing: they spent less effort on the Griffin-is-gay thing than they did on Ashley’s clothes. And that was a good thing. Despite the intimation that Griffin may have not always had it easy being out, he seemed as matter-of-fact about it as a person can be, at any age.

I’m also amused that they’ve foreshadowed that oral sex is going to sweep the school this year, because that gives them an obvious in for Griffin to be part of the conversation about sex. I have faith the arrow can point up soon.