“Deeper and Deeper” (April 25th) opens up at school with Ricky and Amy discussing whether he should pick up John or she should drop him off. She can come too but “not for a date.” After Amy leaves, Ben comes along and says “just tell her you won’t marry her,” and Ricky says: “I said I’ll see, I’ll think about it.” This is your first clue that everyone knows about Amy’s proposal. But you are not surprised because you already know nothing is secret in “The Secret Life.”

Amy’s explaining to Lauren and Madison why there’s no Big Hurry to marry when Adrian pops over with this little dig: “I heard you asked Ricky to marry him. Nice going, girlfriend. Good luck with that non-traditional approach.” Amy continues explaining that Ricky needs to feel in control and she definitely is going to let him think that. Lauren compliments her on bravely asking for what she wants. Ashley pops by with this little dig: “Either brave or completely foolish.”

We got to meet two new characters in this episode. One was a new study buddy for Ashley. A guy named Toby (played by Jared Kusnitz) who is also home-schooled, has already been through “a number of buddies” and is a liar like Ashley. They hit it off fairly well when you consider that it’s no easy feat hitting it off at all with Ashley! Later when Toby meets Amy, he impresses her greatly with his lack of social skills by calling John her ‘spawn.” He wanted Amy to deem him appropriate company for “the dark one.” Amy thinks he might just be perfect. “Yeah,” Toby says, “who can ever tell who’s supposed to be with whom.”

After the guidance counselor advises a resistant Ricky to go to college, he tells Adrian they are all too young to be having babies and getting married. Very funny since he was the one who started that ball rolling. He also says that he and Amy are not just friends, but Adrian points out that he turned down Amy’s offer of sex, so maybe they are.

Grant informs Grace that they can spend the night together in his house, in his bed, and his parents are going to be out of town. When her mom finds out she lectures Grace with her shirt on backwards (because she just had sex with her husband). Grace wonders if her mom doesn’t want her to have sex with Grant because it might cause her death, the way Grace having sex with Jack caused her father to die in a plane crash. (If Grace doesn’t still believe that, she must think other people do). Grace and Grant not only have sex, they do it twice and both say the “L” word to each other in between.

The “L” word also comes up in a different context when our other new character shows up with Ruben while Nora is about to have dinner with George. It’s Nora’s girlfriend. That was awkward! For George anyway. The girlfriend and Nora immediately began kissing and pawing each other without the slightest hint of embarrassment. “My God! I almost slept with a lesbian,” George blurts out. “No, you didn’t,” Ion Overman corrects. We’re not sure how to spell her character’s name. Ali or Ollie? The credit isn’t even on Ion’s IMDB page yet.

But the biggest surprise of the episode was Adrian and Amy joining forces to help each other get their men to do what they want. Adrian tells Amy to just move in with Ricky, live with him and don’t worry about getting married. Amy shares some secrets about Ben to help Adrian get him to make that move out of his father’s house and into their condo. Ben has been making excuses on why every single condo won’t work out. “Deeper and Deeper” ends with a lot of romantic promise that they tell us will promptly evaporate next week when everyone makes “life-changing decisions” but they then have “second thoughts.”