Back to the couch. The ball is dropping, and as Rayanne snarfs popcorn, AVO says she'll scrap the less-introspective plan, but she does resolve "to stop doing Jordan Catalano's homework." The ten-second countdown starts, and we pan across all the principal characters once more before the ball lands and Danielle wails, "Happy New Year!" She runs out of the living room (yay), and Rayanne and Rickie kiss Angela, and she kisses them back, and they all stare wistfully at the tons of confetti falling over Times Square.

A rather abrupt fade to the Chase kitchen, where Graham is complimenting Rickie on the pancakes. "Oh, thanks, I just did what it said on the package," Rickie says, tidying up the counter. Danielle whines about her green sweater; Rickie says it's in the living room, next to a stack of magazines. Graham, surprised: "There's a stack of magazines?" Rickie: "There is now." I need a Rickie, that's obvious. Graham then tells Patty that he'll come straight home after class, a la his resolution; Patty, a la her resolution, tells him to take all the time he needs: "It's whatever makes you happy." "It is?" Angela comes in just then and mutters at Rickie, "You're doing dishes again?" and Patty comes over and kisses them both and wishes them a happy first day back at school. "Ha ha," Angela gripes, but Rickie wishes Patty a happy first day back at work, and then wishes Graham luck on "hollandaise," which apparently he has to teach that night. The kids leave; Patty comes back in to retrieve a glove, and Graham expresses the wish that Rickie had come into their lives years before, "when the girls were still young and impressionable." Patty agrees that Rickie rules -- and who wouldn't? -- and talks about how he cleans the closet and does dishes right after using them: "He's like my mother, only -- mature." "We should adopt," Graham says, looking over his shoulder to make sure the kids aren't in earshot anymore. "If only it were that easy," Patty sighs, putting on her gloves. Then she wonders in a low voice what's going on, saying that he's "such a great kid" and why haven't they heard from his aunt and uncle?

At the front door, Rickie calls to Angela that he "forgot [his] Odyssey." He heads back into the house to grab the book, and we see him overhearing Patty as she says that, whenever she tries to bring up the family situation, Rickie "just changes the subject," and then she asks if they don't care and whether they "even know where he is," and Graham mutters something, and Rickie looks afraid and sighs heavily as Patty goes on that they have to try to contact Rickie's family, "or he has to -- I mean, he can't just stay here forever."