The Hills Season Premiere Recap

The Hills finally returned last night, for the first time since the 2008 season four finale, in which series villain Spencer Pratt decided that he loved fiancee Heidi Montag too much to go through with a non-legally binding, fake courthouse wedding on top of their non-legally binding, fake wedding in Mexico a few weeks previously. The season ended with Spencer determined to someday have the script-writers add an episode in which he gives Heidi the non-legally binding, fake wedding of her dreams.

In the first of the night's back-to-back episodes, Audrina Partridge and Lo Bosworth are planning a birthday party for Hills' main protagonist, Lauren "L.C." Conrad. Insensitive to the country's current economic nightmare, but ever-mindful of recent SNL musical skits, they have decided to throw L.C. a surprise party "on a boat." Unfortunately, L.C.'s estranged "frien-emy," Heidi, has caught wind of the event, and convinces herself, with Spencer's sister, Stephanie's, help, that she would be a welcome gate-crasher to the event. Spencer figures out what is going on, and resolves to have a "guys night" of his own to get back at his lover for attempting to fraternize with his arch-enemy, L.C. When Heidi asks where he's going and what he's going to do, he replies with "Oomp chsss, oomp chsss!" So, some sort discoteque, apparently.

Lauren is led – blindfolded, to cover the shot-gun applied makeup she is wearing, presumably on the advice of Lo – onto the yacht, where she is surprised by a large group of her friends, including longtime bros Frankie Delgado and Brody Jenner. Stephanie and Heidi arrive a little later, and hop onto the boat right before it leaves harbor for the bay, making escape impossible. Lauren is civil when they arrive, but quickly begins interrogating Audrina, Lo and Stephanie as to why anyone thought inviting her was a good idea. Everyone coddles Heidi into thinking things are cool, until Lo bluntly informs her that showing up was probably not the wisest move. But, as Lauren points out, they're "on a boat," so they're trapped together for the time being. Lauren continues to proclaim her holiest commandment - thou shalt not date Spencer Pratt and seek Lauren Conrad's friendship – to anyone who will listen.

Meanwhile, Spencer has eschewed the European dance club, and instead is doing shots at a bar with a friend. The appearance of this male friend is never explained, despite the fact that everyone spends most of this and the next episode talking smack about how Spencer has no male friends, but, as Lauren always says, "It is what is." Even when "it" is a giant hole in the plot of an over-obviously scripted reality-TV show.

But male friend or no male friend, Spencer's actions at the bar are important, because he starts hitting on the flirty bartender bringing them the Patron. Swelled with confidence now that his winter coat of platinum goat hair has been shaved from his face, he goes to great lengths to explain that he is married, but only in Mexico, so that makes him pretty much single, right? Unfortunately for him, Cameron - who was dating Stephanie last season until he realized that even the modest fame that comes from dating one of the most minor characters on a soon-to-be-wrapped reality show is not worth the price of dating a Pratt – is at the same bar, and has decided that the modest fame that comes from ratting out a starring character on a soon-to-be-wrapped reality show is worth the cost of pissing off a Pratt. So he calls Stephanie to tell her about Spencer's philandering ways, which leads Stephanie to inform Heidi, which leads to a boatload of tears.

An angry Heidi calls Spencer to demand an explanation, but Spencer is more concerned with tracking down the rat who informed on him than dealing with Heidi's lip. Showing that despite being a pampered brat living off of his family's money in the Hollywood Hills, he is the definition of a Boss and is not to be messed with, Spencer lands five punches on a defenseless Cameron, then struts out of the bar, ordering his one-man posse to follow with a curt "Let's roll."

Word gets back to the boat, and surprisingly, Lauren decides that she has to console Heidi in her hour of need, willing to ignore the entire premise of her argument against making amends with Heidi: that she will be drawn into more Heidi-Spencer drama. Heidi gets to cry in Lauren's arms, and starts to hope that maybe the rift between them can be bridged.

The next day (and episode) everyone is talking about what went down the night of the party. Spencer "The Don" Pratt gives Stephanie a stern lecture about "loyalty," and "the family," but Stephanie "Vito" Pratt cannot be convinced, and points out that maybe Spencer is just not that good of a guy. She also makes the first of many comments to be heard in this episode about Spencer's total lack of social connections outside of herself and Heidi.

Lauren, also out to prove that she is a Boss not to be trifled with, interrogates Lo and Audrina, convinced that someone must have invited Heidi. She doesn't seem to believe that Lo and Audrina were totally innocent, although this is only because she did not get to see the scene at the beginning of the party episode in which Lo and Audrina revealed in an audible conversation that they were actually going out of their way to make sure Heidi would not be attending. Instead of being grateful about getting a free blowout on a luxury yacht at a time when families in ice-bound Detroit are celebrating birthdays by turning the heating on for a few hours, Lauren declares that, thanks to Heidi's presence, the event was a total bust.

Meanwhile, Heidi has decided to take matters into her own hands and goes to confront the friendly bartender. Insisting that she is not crazy, she launches into a so-crazy-I-can't-believe-this-show-isn't-called-"The Hills, Interrupted" attack on the bartender for hitting on another woman's man, and is shocked to find out that it was in fact Spencer who was trying to get the bartender to take shots and dance on the bar. The bartender claims that she would never accept that kind of behavior from a man she was dating, and tells Heidi, "Good luck with that!" Unlike the advice of countless close friends and family members, the words of this promiscuous-yet-honest bartender really hit home with Heidi and, in a time-honored tradition, she decides to go home to Colorado to take a break and think about her relationship with Spencer.

Shocked by this abandonment, Spencer goes to a vegan-restaurant and sits at a table, looking less like Michael Corleone now and more like Ray Liotta towards the end of Goodfellas. It turns out he is meeting up with Brody, the old best friend whom he has not been seen with since the schism between "Speidi" and Lauren blew open. Spencer tries to ply Brody with compliments and platitudes, but Brody shows him how a real Don handles things and tells him to "cut the B.S." Spencer admits that he is desperate, having been abandoned by the only person he really has in his life right now. Brody advises Spencer to just go out and have a good time, and start acting like a regular, carefree 25-year old, instead of a scheming, evil, strangely-facial haired old man. Also, to quit with the whole "video games . . . thing."

Later, Brody tells Lauren about the conversation, leading them to agree that it is sad that Spencer and Heidi are so alone that they are trying to reach out to the two people they have "screwed over" the most. Lauren has just come from hanging out with Stephanie, whom she virtually had to threaten into shutting up about Heidi's desire to rekindle her and L.C.'s friendship, presumably by mentioning that as one of MTV's biggest stars, she can dash Stephanie's dreams of a spin-off in a heartbeat.

In Colorado, Heidi's mom is thrilled that her daughter is temporarily free from the clutches of Spencer, whom Mrs. Montag is incapable of distinguishing from Adolf Hitler. Heidi excitedly tells her mom all about her reconciliation with Lauren, blissfully unaware that Lauren seems to resent Heidi's crashing of her party more than all the accumulated slights that have come before. Mrs. Montag tells Heidi that her life is obviously getting better, with Spencer gone and (she thinks) Lauren coming around, and tries to take things one step further by bringing around Heidi's high-school sweetheart, Colby, who owns his own business and is a "good, Christian boy." He is also a star athlete, a claim which Heidi counters by pointing out Spencer's possession of a purple-belt in Ju-Jitsu. ("And he used it!" is Mrs. Montag's only reply). Despite Colby's prodigious attributes and enormous head, however, Heidi doesn't seem willing to give up on Spencer just yet.

Unfortunately for Heidi though, Spencer may have given up on her. He goes back to the same bar to see and do shots with the bartender from earlier. In a shocking twist, we find out that the seemingly friendly bartender actually wasn't creeped-out by Spencer as she told Heidi, but was really just trying to get the "crazy girlfriend" out of the way so she can have the blonde, diabolical dreamboat known as Spencer Pratt all to herself. The two gaze lovingly/creepily into each others eyes and Spencer wonders what ever they will do to pass the evening once the bartender gets off work.

The episode ends there, so we'll have to wait until next week to see if Spencer and the bartender are really going to become an item. Also, it looks like Audrina may betray longtime beau "Justin Bobby" and longtime friend L.C. by hooking up with Lauren's former man, Brody. This next episode will air next Monday at 10 p.m., and will be followed by seven more this spring, according to MTV.