methodwriter85

It's kind of funny to see Will experiencing high school The OC like drama when he's already done with it.

Well, what can I say? As the late and great Olivia Newton John once said, I'm hopelessly devoted.

As others had said, a lot of times Will just acts so goshdarned mature for his age but then you go and let him be a kid and it's fun.

We're all irritating as fuck until we hit about 25 years old.

Hero Fiennes Tiffin as poor, doomed Kevin/Sergio?

And Rich Crampton is JJ's biological half brother. LOL I would assume they all know, but the only time it's been discussed has been Brad with Wade and Matt. I don't recall Will or JJ ever acknowledging that.

I don't like Tony either. At least with Zach, he admitted he was an asshole. Tony is one of those people who put on a show of being a good person and then stab you in the back. Honesty, he's perfect for the entertainment industry. Maybe he can be a power couple with Cam Squires?

See, this is where JJ still being a figure skater could have come in. Mark could have ripped off the 1978 film Ice Castles starring 70's dreamboat Robby Benson and have JJ blinded in a tragic figure skating accident. Instead of tripping on a cable, JJ could have been blinded in a bombing at the ice arena instead, making things topical for the terrorism of the 2000's. Zach, now paralyzed from a moment ripped off from Friday Night Lights, tries to recover. JP being JP offers them the place in Hawaii, where they both get physical therapists. They eventually start to flirt with each other and kind of have a thing going, which fires up Will and makes him realize how much he still loves Zach. JJ then falls in love with the physical therapist who can be described as looking like a blonder Bradley Cooper. Okay, in all seriousness though, this is a soap opera and anything's possible, but I do think this is a pretty definitive ending for the Will/Zach saga. At least for now. One thing I've noticed about how Mark has changed up his writing from the way he started writing this saga is that he doesn't seem intent on giving everyone a "happily ever after" like he did in previous stories up to about "If It Fits." I think that's largely due to the fact that Mark doesn't really time jump anymore (we've covered every year since 1998 in pretty full detail), so it's kind of pointless to wrap everything up in a neat bow because then Mark has to mess with that anyway unless the characters either stay in the background or they've been sent off the canvas. This is me saying in a roundabout way that I don't think Mark will settle Will into anything for awhile because he's the lead character and to be the lead character in a soap you generally can't be happily settled into a forever relationship. For example, Brad and Robbie were a generally stable couple and were mostly in the background after their story largely concluded with Man in Motion in 1986 until Mark shook the couple up with Matt Carrswold arrival in 1998's Bloodlines. Although eh, Mark could always throw us a curveball and set the next story in 2015 so we can see Riley Danfield leading the mantle as the rebellious Cap teenager. LOL Edited to add: Now that I think about it, the arrival of Matt Carrswold really did spell the end of Robbie and Brad's stability as a couple. They were just never the same after that because Robbie just went into mid-life crisis mode. It's kind of a parallel to the arrival of Nicholas Cassadine on General Hospital, which put an ultimate wedge between Luke and Laura that they never really recovered from. God, I miss when soaps were good and not dying.

I don't think he would, either. Zach probably reminds him of his brother Jeff but I don't think Zach is a hill Frank would die on. Matt and Robbie Carrswold, yes.

Chapter 54 -When Will and Zach break up in a pretty final, definite way. "With Or Without You" by U2 -When Will ruminates over his breakup with Zach while jogging around Malibu. "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac -When Will checks out the damage from his fight with Zach, and later tells Stefan about the fight. "It Never Rains in Southern California" by Albert Hammond

I was really, really, really not happy with this development as a Zach/Will shipper, but honestly, Mark needed a reason for Will to finally let go of Zach and he got it. It had to definitively end in any event. Will's going off to school in the East Coast and Zach isn't going to be available for a relationship until at least 2016 or so, assuming he has a normal NFL career.

Chapter 53 -When Will and Travis drive along the Pacific Coast Highway and talk about how to get back at Mr. Buck. "Horse With No Name" by America -When Will and Stefan talk about (what else?) boy trouble. "Two Lovers" by Mary Wells -When Will approaches Zach, who's sleeping. "Lonely People" by America

I completely forgot we were doing this. So far there haven't been any deaths in The Gap Year.

I miss Blue and Private Tim. They drove a lot of conversation. Private Tim has been around recently, but Blue hasn't been around since the end of the Obama administration.

I don't hate Zach, but I also have really shitty taste in men, so...🤷‍♂️

I grew up on the East Coast less than 90 minutes from a beach, so I feel like I met a fair amount of beach bunnies in my life. The preppie ones looooovvvvvveeee Jack Johnson, especially the ones that are around Adam Phillip's age. I'm more of a boardwalk person and walking on the sand than actually being in the water type. Somehow I managed to go 6 years without being at the beach but finally went again for Labor Day Weekend. It was kind of a trip. The weirdest part about my time at Pittsburgh Metro region was realizing that I didn't see seagulls in the parking lot. In-land life was kinda weird to me, not gonna lie.

Chapter 49 -When Will and Zach have sex before Will drops the bomb that he watched him with Travis. "Toxic" by Britney Spears Chapter 51 -When Will and Travis go surfing. "Wasting Time" by Jack Johnson

I'm watching a teen flick on Netflix called Do Revenge and Austin Abrams is totally giving off Keith Craddock vibes in that. He usually plays sweet guys but he played a total dickbag in this and did it well. Also, just for fun...the boy can fucking move: LOL My other Keith Craddock fancast idea is Griffin Gluck. He has that pixie level of cute I imagined with Keith, but also someone who totally looks like they'd stab you in the back in a heartbeat if they thought it benefitted them.

I was zoned for a certain high school but was able to transfer into a different one. One day during a track meet in 11th or 12th grade I was at the high school I should have attended, and I just kinda walked around. It was a weird feeling. It felt like the road not taken. This chapter definitely reminds me of that feeling. Like Will's seeing the people he was supposed to go to school with and would have if he had made a few different choices.

I thought it was interesting to see this group of people that Will had grown up with. This was a group of rich kids who had gone to elementary school together, and at the end of high school, they're still the "in crowd." They probably always will be. As a guy who attended over 10 schools in my life, I just can't imagine what that's like to be in a friend group that goes that far back. It kind of felt like Will was getting a peak at what his life might have been like if he had stayed in Malibu instead of moving to San Francisco.

Are you sure? I don't remember Skip getting any kind of redeeming bit in Pleasantville after he tries to force Jennifer to participate in the book burning scene. The only other bit he seems to get after that is turning to color at the end of the movie along with the rest of Pleasantville. I haven't watched that movie in years, though. It's funny that in some ways, JJ is a total trainwreck, but in other ways, he's actually got a pretty solid moral code once you get past the snobbery. I always loved that scene where JJ is pissed that he has to host John Carullo in his condo but he does it graciously anyway because good manners were part of his breeding. I've always said that JJ is basically Blair from the Facts of Life as a guy. LOL Anyway...Sally Draper for Taylor Buck? I lean more towards Marie Hobart, though. If there's any person I could buy having sex with her gay cousin, it'd be Sally Draper.

Yeah, it's more likely we'll see Will try to mediate in Patrick/Johnny Twink Boy situations again, but I can't see him actually in one. Like, really? Unless Will starts ordering out hits like his grandfather did and someone gets evidence, I can't see him getting blackmailed. I don't know if I could see either Will or JJ ever being able to order one- it's kind of funny how you've given them a conscience in a way that you didn't with Stefan, JP, and Brad. Surprisingly I could see Wade doing it. I've always seen Wade as someone who has a very dark side of themselves that they try to stay in control of. Like he's forcing himself to follow a moral code because he doesn't want to be like his parents, but there's some lurking underneath. It's interesting that Travis is described as looking like Skip from Pleasantville. Might that be foreshadowing that Travis is beautiful on the outside but terrible on the inside? I guess we'll stay tuned on that.

Skip from Pleasantville. Goddamn Paul Walker was so good-looking. I saw Pleasantville when I was 12. I was expecting something like that John Ritter comedy Stay Tuned but my mind was kind of blown away by the social commentary of the movie. It still holds up pretty well.

Chapter 47 -When Will breaks down about his very fucked up relationship with Zach. "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" by The Backstreet Boys Bet you didn't expect me to have another BSB song up my sleeve, did ya Mark? LOL -When Will catches sight of a total dreamboat. It's a middle school friend, all grown up. "All I Have to Do Is Dream" by the Everly Brothers

Man, I loved soundtracking this chapter. We're just about a year and a half shy of "my" era, so to speak. Frat parties were fun. (Well, at a certain point and then you just stay at the party too long.) Taylor made out with Will because she knew he was gay and she knew he wouldn't read much into it. It's kind of like how straight guys would kiss other straight guys at parties, because they knew it was just for fun and nothing real was going to come out with it. Generally speaking, they wouldn't do it with a guy that they KNEW was gay, unless they wanted to actually experiment. Dan is totalllllyyy the type of frat boy I would have been obsessed with back in the day. "Fraternity Memoirs" and "Crosscurrents" (not about frat guys but might as well have been) really did a number on my developing gay psyche insofar as the type of guys I'd find attractive as I came across those two stories when I was about 17 years old. LOL (It took me until I hit 30 to get over that type of guy.) Zach...*sigh* Generations of Crampton/Schluter men have fallen for those Hayes boys, and damn it's never worked out. (I'm not counting Matt/Wade as Wade is not a Crampton/Schluter, and Matt is really only a Hayes in blood and not manner.)