TVSquad

(S01E02) Okay, I should probably point out that I live in Los Angeles, which is a mere two hours from Palm Springs. I've been out to the sunbaked resort-land of palm trees and golf courses ... and the place is hot. I mean, really, really hot. They push triple digits constantly, and everything outside is blasted by the sunlight. If you're not inside sitting inside near an arctic air conditioner, then you're outside trying to stay as submerged as possible in a (hopefully) cool swimming pool.

This episode made me feel some of that heat. When they visit the pool in this episode at the country club, you can almost feel it pouring out of the screen, and you'll start to sweat despite yourself. Am I crazy? Quite possibly. Delirious? For sure ... but I blame it on the heat.

Now, tonight brought us another new face to the ranks of Hidden Palms, and that is Tessa Thompson (whom you'll recognize from Veronica Mars) as Nikki, an old friend (and fellow AA member) of Johnny's from Los Angeles, who is no stranger to the party scene.

In the beginning of the episode, Johnny wakes up, decorates his new room, and starts taking photos of himself, ostensibly to start updating his MySpace profile, right? Except it's a weird site called FriendFilter. Anyhow, he runs across the photos Greta took of herself when she took off with his camera back in the pilot episode. Ahhh, digital teen love.

After that tough morning, Johnny retires to the pool at the country club, because that seems to be about the only thing there is to do in town, even for the teens (it's almost like the pool scene in Caddyshack when the caddies invade the pool ... except without the nudity and the Baby Ruth candy bar). Nervous Liza (who works at the club as a waitress) takes his order, shortly before he dives into the pool to talk to Greta, who is floating around in a skimpy black bikini. Cliff swims up to rain on Johnny's parade, unleashing a bit of tension between the two of them. I'm betting it won't be long before Johnny punches Cliff.

Anyhow, Cliff drops the news about the "party shack" ... which is literally a shack out back of the country club. See how much more like Caddyshack this is becoming? Anyhow, Cliff spills the beans to Johnny that Eddie, the previous tenant of Johnny's room and previous boyfriend of Greta, killed himself. So basically, you don't want to be a male figure with any connections to Johnny if you want to stick around for long.

Nikki rolls into town next, and meets up with Johnny just as he's attending his first ever Palm Springs AA meeting. Jesse Jo is running the show, and makes Johnny get up and introduce himself. He sure likes to push people, that Jesse Jo. I have a feeling he'll be messing in Johnny's affairs for some time to come. Especially since he's Johnny's sponsor. He tells Johnny to "Make friends! Find girls who don't drink!" Then blammo ... here's Nikki.

She's definitely a girl, but as far as the drinking thing goes ... whoops, as we find out later. They retire, again, to the swimming pool, where Nikki plants one on Johnny just as Greta is walking by. Whoops again. She seems a little wounded by this. Luckily Johnny didn't see, or he'd have yet another thing to be depressed about.

She tells Johnny she's in AA too, but when he takes her to the party at the shack that night, she gets tanked. Like, falling down, interrupting the band, putting in fake bids in the silent auction at the "grown up party" in the names of Bob Hope and Dinah Shore ... that kind of thing. So, Johnny has to bring her home and take care of her. Where he finds out that she hasn't been sober since rehab. Plus, Cliffy has the hots for her. Eeenteresting.

So, even though it's only the second episode, there's a couple of big moments in this episode. Biggest: Greta plants a cheek kiss on Johnny, which quickly turns into a full-on smoocher. Second biggest: Johnny has been getting mysterious instant messages on his computer from someone with the screenname 08Nova (Johnny's is CameraShy90 ... yikes). At the end of the episode, he gets a link that leads to a video. The background in the video is the same as in Johnny's room. A guy in a horror mask appears and pulls it off, "Hi, I'm Eddie. Didn't mean to scare you. Welcome to my world."

My, my, my ... what a tangled web we weave. Is he alive or dead? We'll find out more next episode, where according to the trailer Cliff gets punched by both Johnny and Greta. So my bet has already paid off, that didn't take long! Stay tuned for next week, and keep your air conditioner running.