It’s Episode 2 and we’re only now getting the opening credits. I love opening credits! They’re so helpful at establishing the right mood and encapsulating the premise of the show, right? Well, Hidden Palms’ opening is … I think it’s some kind of homage to that old Chanel No. 5 “Share the Fantasy” commercial, except much less coherent. As far as I can make out, this is a show about people living in a nuclear testing facility that makes them spill martinis, prick their fingers, and turn into mutant paper doll monsters.

In other words, WTF?

Honestly, this show completely baffles me. I’ve never seen a show try so actively to prevent its viewers from actually enjoying it. And there is much to enjoy here. For one thing, it’s got a terrific cast, especially Gail O’Grady, a criminally underutilized Sharon Lawrence, and Michael Cassidy who is somehow even more adorable here than on The O.C., even though he’s now playing a smug jerkwad. He’s like a Muppet Baby version of a villain; instead of feeling creeped out by him, you just want to cuddle.

Plus, the show is dripping in Palm Tree Porn. I’m someone who watches Lost primarily to see Hawaii’s beaches, and Hidden Palms is similarly filled with lush money shots of Palm Springs, a location which accounts for the show’s obsession with swimming pools. Which is fine by me, since it creates opportunities for cute boys to take their shirts off.

That’s the good stuff, and it indicates that somewhere in this mess, there’s a fun, guilty pleasure waiting (like one of its main characters) to come out. But you wouldn’t know it from this killjoy of an episode, which spends so much time lecturing about teenaged drinking you might think you’d wandered into an Afterschool Special.

I spent most of this episode craving a cocktail and feeling really bad about it at the same time, and who needs that? I mean, as well intentioned as it is, I don’t want to spend my summer TV time hearing Leslie Jordan’s Jesse Jo talk about sobriety and AA sponsorship. This is a drag queen, for crying out loud, not a health ed teacher! I want to see him, as mentioned in the pilot, done up like Tammy Wynette and calling Bingo numbers at the Rawhide.

This week, we also meet Johnny’s friend from rehab, Nikki, who falls off the wagon in a way that’s pretty depressing to watch. She’s played by Tessa Thompson, who Veronica Mars fans spent an entire season loathing with the intensity of a thousand suns. She was also on Sesame Street, so I spent much of this episode distracted by thoughts about how a young actress goes from working with Cookie Monster to tossing her cookies on primetime.

The cookie-tossing follows Nikki's drunken antics at a big country club fundraiser, where she wins every silent auction by signing her name as Dinah Shore – which leads me to question just who the intended audience for this show is meant to be. Because there’s no way teens today have a clue who Dinah Shore was, unless they have a magic TiVO that can travel back in time 30 years to record old variety shows and golf tournaments.

Anyway, this country club fundraiser is the kind of event that The O.C., in its prime, would do to perfection, transforming some cotillion or regatta into a cross between Melrose Place and Frasier. It doesn’t say much for Hidden Palms that at this big country club shindig, the grown-ups seem to be having much more of a swinging time than the teens do at their “Party Shack,” where the primary attraction seems to be drinking out of big plastic cups.

With all the attention paid to Nikki’s less-than-successful rehab, the mystery only moves forward by inches this week. Johnny learns that poor dead Eddie, the teen whose room he’s sleeping in, had committed suicide. Mad at New Dad for buying a house where he knew a suicide had occurred, Johnny spends much of the episode moping around on pool rafts. At one point, his mother asks him if he’s planning on going to the club, and then says, “I know this is hard for you,” and I’m thinking, “Yeah, which part is tougher, putting on the sunscreen or picking out just the right lounge chair?”

In the episode’s final moment, Johnny gets a video message from someone claiming to be Eddie, a revelation about as shocking as the news that it’s really hot in Palm Springs, something characters feel compelled to remind us of after every commercial break.

As for Cliff, let’s check our new, completely scientific Homoeroticism Meter. This week, a tepid 2. No one, including Cliff, is any closer to being outed than last week. But there is one scene between Cliff and Johnny, where Cliff comments: “That was like tension there. A brief little moment. Did you feel it?”

Oh, go ahead you two. Share the fantasy already.