Episode 1: The Conned Artist, Part 1

This episode takes place immediately following A New Start: Season 7: Episode 6: College Stories.

While Autumn creates an online video, discussing the cheerleader from her school that’s being mean to her, she gets a call from Zoe. Zoe tells her that a famous photographer, Nikolai Tyrell, would be giving a talk at Twin Branches’ summer event. In addition, he plans to hold tryouts for his internship. As he’s a very famous photographer, Autumn’s very excited.

At Twin Branches, Autumn runs into Wes. They talk for a few minutes, even discussing how Lindsay trashed Autumn’s art show and broke her mom’s camera, pushing Autumn to change schools. Autumn also discusses how she wishes she was normal. Wes tells her that he’s an outsider too, but that just makes them more interesting.

Wes assures Autumn that she’ll win the internship. He mentions that Nick is at a My Moody Mandolin concert, and he would have been the only competition. They enter the room and find Andrew, Erik, and Lindsay also competing. Nikolai Tyrell gives each of them a camera and tells them to return by three o’clock with a photo series. After the students disperse, Wes tells Autumn that he has something he needs to do.

Autumn wanders the school, looking for inspiration. She decides to take photos of the empty school. In the boys’ locker room, she runs into Ms. Lee, who wants to know what she’s doing in there. Autumn manages to convince Ms. Lee that she’s a photojournalist comparing the men’s and women’s locker rooms, and she’s thrilled.

Meanwhile, Wes gets a stink bomb from behind a false back in his locker. He finds Lindsay outside and flatters her, pretending to flirt with her to get close. When he’s close enough, he plants the small stink bomb behind the shutter release, which will cause it to go off when Lindsay takes a photo. Lindsay decides against his advances, after it’s planted, and leaves.

Wes finds Andrew taking photos of tombstones in a graveyard because he knows it’s the most pretentious place to photograph (and that’s where he believed he’d find Andrew). He decides to stroke Andrew’s ego but talking about what a big fan of his writing he is. He explains that he’s not sure of Andrew’s photography. Andrew decides that he must return to writing, smashing his camera and leaving.

Finally, Wes calls Erik. He learns that in an effort to mimic the cool kids, Erik has taken a photo series of “selfies.” Wes doesn’t need to do anything with Erik.

Back at school, Wes meets with Autumn, and they go together to see Nikolai Tyrell. Nikolai doesn’t like Erik’s series at all. Because no one else is there, he’s about to award the internship to Autumn when Lindsay arrives with a stunning series of photos about nature. Wes looks at the camera to see the stink bomb still intact, knowing that she cheated. Nikolai can’t make up his mind and says he’ll need to think about who won.

Bonus scene: The bonus scene looks at what happened leading to this episode. Wes reminds Zoe that she owes him two favors – one of telling her where Paige went and one for helping her to break into Monarch Prep. He cashes in the first by having her cancel Ryan’s Pick-Up-Artist seminar at the summer events.

Next, he reminds Nate that he owes him for supplying information on Owen. He asks Nate to start Spencer next season in the first game of the season. Nate agrees. He tells Spencer what he did, and asks in return that he get his Uncle Griff, who sells designer purses that fell off a truck, to supply a Jean Pompadour 2013 bag with black leather and gold clasps. Wes takes this bag to Paige as a gift, asking in return for Nikolai Tyrell’s contact information because Paige’s dad once did business with him. He then gets backstage passes to My Moody Mandolin and gives them to Nick for free, getting him out of the picture.

Finally, he returns to Zoe, cashing in the second favor by having Zoe set up a Nikolai Tyrell to talk at the school and by having her invite Autumn. Zoe does this, but asks why he’s going through all this effort just for Autumn. He doesn’t answer.

Episode 2: The Conned Artist, Part 2

While Autumn sulks in the empty cafeteria, Wes approaches her. He tells her that Lindsay must have been cheating and provides three photographs he swiped from her series. They look at the photos, and Autumn identifies redwoods, realizing that there’s only one park near them that has redwoods. They had there to check it out. On the way there, Autumn tries to get Wes to open up, but he’s defensive. She does, however, reveal that she’s never been kissed.

In the woods, they discover a photographer. Autumn and Wes pretend to be a young couple on a date, remarking that the photographer probably hasn’t seen anyone all day. They get him to mention that a young lady called him, offering to pay him for all the photos he took that day. He also reveals that there are duplicates on his site. Unfortunately, he also reveals that the girl was there just a few minutes earlier to pay him for the photos he e-mailed her. They take off back to the car in the hopes of catching Lindsay, but they get there too late. His tires are deflated, and Lindsay drives away.

Autumn and Wes begin to walk back to Twin Branches, leaving his car behind. Wes brings up the cheerleader that’s been tormenting her, but Autumn realizes she never mentioned it to him. She accuses him of stalking her online, which he admits to doing (but doesn’t consider it stalking). She also pieces together that the entire intern tryout was orchestrated by Wes. Autumn is furious, telling him that he’s a creeper and to leave her alone. He suggests that at the very least, she allow him to get back to the school. He walks through some vegetation, and Autumn reluctantly follows. They approach a run-down trailer, and Autumn discovers that this is Wes’s home. Wes lives here alone, having bribed officials so that he can continue living alone after having bad experiences in foster homes. Wes gets the keys to an old, barely-working truck that he inherited from his uncle and drives her to Twin Branches.

After getting out of the car, Autumn asks Wes if he’ll be there when she gets back. He says that he won’t, planning on never seeing her again. She goes inside, but before she can provide any evidence of Lindsay cheating, Nikolai Tyrell awards the internship to Autumn! Lindsay is disgusted, but Autumn is ecstatic. She asks to be excused a minute so she could tell someone, and Nikolai agrees. She runs outside while Wes begins to drive away. She yells out that she needs him, and Wes slowly comes to a stop. He asks with what she needs help, and she replies that she simply needs him in his life. They kiss.

Bonus scene: Wes approaches Lindsay and her car. He tells her that she’s “crafy and cunning” and “one heck of an enemy.” She threatens to ruin his life. He pulls a bat out from behind his back, telling her that he can handle her schemes and deflation of tires, but that payback is needed for what she did to Autumn. He smashes the windshield, breaks off the mirror, breaks the driver’s window, and smashes the front repeatedly. After tossing the bat away, he throws the stink bomb at her feet. She yells that her dad will tell Principal McCormick, who will expel him. He doesn’t seem to mind, mentioning he’ll have to transfer to another school and saying “how absolutely tragic.” (He obviously hopes to transfer to Autumn’s school, which will be features in the game High School Story.)