Back at the pier, a no-longer-montaged Cissy stumbles upon Vietnam Joe. Hey, Joe -- did you know that Shaun is missing? Then you're just about the last recurring character to find out. Joe hasn't seen Shaun today, but he did spy him yesterday when he was "out here with that frat boy." Cissy looks distraught -- frat boy? You mean this is some sort of hazing stunt involving the TKEs? No, no -- Joe means "that tall drink of water with the poodle haircut," or John, for those of you unmoved by Vietnam Joe's descriptive prowess. Joe offers to check into Shaun's disappearance and bring his VFW buddies in on the search, too. "I'd be the last one to say he's not strange," Joe offers by way of comfort. "But I'd-a said 'til now he's harmless." It's always the tall drinks of water with the poodle haircuts that you've got to keep an eye on.

Butchie has reunited with Kai at the surf shop, and we join them mid-reassuring-embrace, as Butchie tries to develop his John's-operating-on-automatic-pilot hypothesis. And laugh if you want, but it's not exactly the worst theory ever advanced on this show, not after Cunningham's "I'm going to turn this horrible bar into a high-class theatre!" and Palaka's "I know -- matching tattoos!" brainstorms were put into practice. "John would hurt himself before he'd hurt Shaunie," asserts Butchie, recalling that John "can't even take a dump...how's he going to be a master criminal?" Kai agrees, recalling the time John asked her if she "dumped out." Yeah -- good times, good times. Seriously -- they apparently were good times. "That he said, trying to make me feel better," Kai says. "Sweet and stupid. Like you." Ah, but if John wants Kai and Butchie to feel better, Kai wonders, why did he take Shaun? Well, that's one of those eternal questions, isn't it -- why do bad things happen to good people? Why do the good die young? What's with all this 'dumping out' talk? These are the questions philosophers have struggled with for ages. Butchie posits that John did all this "because his pilot's got him on override." "If John's on override," Kai counters, "how do we know he wouldn't hurt Shaun?" Hey, Kai -- stop asking difficult questions. Anyhow, Butchie says that won't happen "because John's automatic pilot wouldn't be an asshole." Seems logical to me.

Just then, Tina walks into the shop to find Butchie and Kai in each other's arms. Wow -- the father of the formerly estranged child you just got in touch with a few days ago, hugging another woman. How...not terribly awkward for any of you at all. Seriously, I don't think "My Kid's Father Who I'm Not Romantically Involved With Seems To Be Interested in Someone Else" sounds like much of a kick-ass theme for Maury Povich's next show. Still, Tina looks mildly put out. Butchie says they're talking about Shaun and how they know he's going to be all right. "How?" Tina demands. Whatever explanation Butchie offers, it's going to be off-camera, because we cut to outside the shop, where Linc is standing with Zack Morris. And this is uncomfortable for me as your recapper, since I figured we would never seem him again after Linc thoroughly outwitted him, so I never bothered to learn his name. It's Jake, by the way. I think I'm going to stick with Zack Morris, unless you people demand otherwise.