V: On Rights

In light of the recent Supreme Court decision, we bring you the climactic scene of Episode 5 as imagined by advocates of individual gun rights

"What was that, Abercrombie?" Donnie yells, pulling his gat. Donnie broods and glares, because that's what one does when one is from the wrong side of the Orange County-Riverside border. He stares down Luke, raising his .357 at the All-American water-polo captain ten paces across the room, waiting for an answer.

Luke reaches around to the back of his designer board shorts, feeling for his piece, when his cocksure stare melts like a lonely Balboa Bar abandoned on the pier at noon.

"Jesus, Luke, do you never do anything right?" a soused Marissa Cooper contributes to the conversation, pulling a 9mm Beretta from the gun compartment of her matching Gucci handbag. "Drop the gun Donnie." Her words turn stern, but her hand can't quite hold the authority, or the straight line.

Seeing his star-crossed love interest once again as a distressed object that could only be saved by his actions, Ryan quickly switches from Brood to Break and pulls his own gun from the signature holster that he wears across his signature wife beater. In Newport, everyone packs heat, but in Chino, everyone lets everyone else know it. Because they gots to represent.

Ryan steadies himself behind the bar; Donny is the only obstacle between he and Luke. Luke is all that stands between Donny and the glass door. The bottle of Skyy was the only line between Marissa and a good night, but she broke through that line.

The Natty Ice is thick on Donny's breath, or as thick as Natty Ice can be. He didn't come here looking for a gunfight. A fight, sure. And yeah, he pulled the first piece of iron, but when it's 1am and you're eight beers and fifty Newporters deep into a party, sometimes these things like a good idea. It doesn't? Well, you're not the one with a gun. God bless the USA.

"What's going on?" Holly walks down the stairs, stumbling up next to Ryan with a comically over-sized shotgun that she must have taken from under her parents' bed from a box labeled "Use in the Event of the Apocalypse or a Democratic Administration." Donnie turns his head to look behind him, keeping his gun ahead on Luke, to see Holly aim the shotgun and almost tip over.

Ryan lowers his weapon and steadies Holly, taking the shotgun from her hands in the process. "You have acquired: The Shotgun" Seth Cohen remarks in his videogame announcer voice. Later, Summer would ask him why he doesn't pack heat. "Summer, my witty banter is all the heat I need." He would die in a gang shoot out on the pier two days later.

As Ryan, is holstering his Colt 45, the glass door slides open. It's Donny's friends. Blustering but without weapons drawn, they burst into the room, "What the hell is going on here Donny? Is this chump bothering-"

But that's as far as he gets, because Marissa's drunkenly itchy trigger finger freaked out and put a slug into Corona Hoodlum #1's shoulder. Immediately, Donny turns to his right and exacts vengeance, cutting a full three seasons out of the life of the show. Luke, in a fit of rage, runs to tackle Donny, because that's what Cro Magnon Man did, but Ryan had already aimed the shotgun at where Donny's chest would have been. Where Luke's head was.

All the while Corona Hoodlum #2 was pulling his sholem, an M-16 that he keeps strapped to his back. Because, you know, there's an inalienable individual right to carry guns. For the protection of a free state. This is our well regulated state militia.