The One with the Text Message

The One with the Text Message is the 25th episode of the series and of the first season. It aired on June 22, 2005, in Canada on Teletoon and on March 5, 2009, in the United States on Cartoon Network. Serena dumps Wyatt via text message, Jen and Caitlin fight over a dress, and Jude helps Nikki hide from her parents.

Main Plot
Homecoming is on its way, and most of the gang is excited about this. While Caitlin and Jen excitedly contemplate what dresses they'll buy and wear, Jonesy mocks their choice of dates, as he feels that tennis isn't a real sport and by proxy that tennis players are wimps. While Caitlin and Jen heartily disagree, soon the choice of topic turns to whom everyone else will be taking. Jude is flying solo due to Starr not having forgiven him for the puke incident, while Jonesy plans to take Nikki to the dance, and Wyatt plans to go to the dance with Serena.

While they're talking, a fight breaks out between Jonesy and Jen that culminates with Jonesy hurling a container of fries at Jen's head. Jen ducks and avoids the fries, but Jonesy still manages to hit somebody with them. The person he hits is Charmaine, who was walking though the food court with Serena. Naturally, neither girl is happy about this rowdiness, and when they pass the table they do their best to ignore it–and Serena's boyfriend Wyatt.

While Wyatt is displeased by this turn of events, soon the conversation heads elsewhere, as Nikki walks up to the table and informs her friends of some bad news: because her parents are strict about grades, they think she's studying at the library instead of hanging out at the mall. Since her parents will apparently be going to the mall today, Nikki needs somebody to distract them so that she can have a good time during the school's Professional Development Day. To help her with this, she chooses Jude, whom she believes will be good at distracting her parents.

Soon, the group splits up. Wyatt heads to work, and while there he gives Serena a bracelet as a two-and-a-half-month anniversary present. While Serena thinks the bracelet is beautiful, she is strangely unethused by it. Wyatt doens't notice, however, and when he meets up with Jonesy and Jude again he learns that Jonesy has gotten a job selling soup–and that as a consequence Jonesy has learned that it's theoretically impossible to swallow ten crackers in under a minute without the aid of water. The group engages in this activity, and have mouths stuffed full of crackers when Serena walks up. Naturally, Serena isn't particularly pleased to see her boyfriend engaged in such an activity, but she doesn't say anything against it.

Later, the guys and Nikki are gathered at the table when Wyatt gets a text from Serena. Naturally, his friends assume it's a love note, and start to make fun of Wyatt for his wonderful relationship. However, the merrymaking stops when Wyatt says that he thinks he was just dumped.

His friends are shocked to hear this, but the text message doesn't lie. When Caitlin hears about this, she instantly implements her breakup protocol, but Wyatt refuses to engage in it as it's intended for girls like Caitlin. Jonesy has another idea, though: get Wyatt a hotter girlfriend. Soon, Jonesy is trying to act like Wyatt's wingman, but unfortunately his plan can't come to fruition as Wyatt only mopes when Jonesy tries to set him up.

When Serena passes by Wyatt and Jonesy, Wyatt can't muster up even the energy to say hello. As depression overtakes him he ends up in the Khaki Barn, crouching on the floor so that nobody can see him. Nikki finds him, however, and offers her advice: Wyatt needs closure, and to do this, he'll need to talk to Serena.

Wyatt realizes that Nikki's right, and he heads over to Spin This to talk to Serena. When he talks to Serena, he learns that Serena got back together with Chad while on the senior class trip to Paris, and that part of the reason she did this was because of Wyatt's obsessiveness with her. She admits that she was wrong to dump him over text messaging, but couldn't bring herself to do it to Wyatt's face because of how sweet Wyatt is.

Serena offers Wyatt the bracelet back, but Wyatt declines the offer, as he got the bracelet for her. Wyatt then walks out of the store with Nikki, who is at first shocked by how Wyatt is walking away but then assumes that he is planning revenge. Wyatt denies this, however; he's concluded that she's right about him not being mature enough for her, but that one day he will be, and at that point it'll be her loss.

After this, Wyatt heads back to the Big Squeeze, where he partakes in some ice cream profferred by Caitlin. This cheers him up a bit, and the friends head to the Gigantoplex to take in a movie–except for Jen, who is having digestive troubles, and Caitlin, who is staying behind to help Jen. There, he and Jude take seats in the front row–where they have a perfect view of Chad and Serena when Chad slips and dumps a bag of popcorn right onto Serena's head, cheering Wyatt up appreciably.

Sub-Plot One: The Dress
When the group splits up, Jen and Caitlin set off to find their perfect dresses. While they do this, they stop at the soup store to see Jonesy, who has three special soups: butternut squash, mushroom, and chicken noodle. It's the second of these three that draws Jen's attention, as she's allergic to mushrooms; when she eats them, she ends up getting diarrhea.

This scares off the customers, and Jonesy shoos his friends away from the store. The duo continue to look for dresses, and soon Caitlin spots a wonderful dress in the window of the Khaki Barn. Since it's the last dress in the store and Caitlin saw it first, Jen decides to let Caitlin have it. When Caitlin tries it on, it looks great on her, but the price is too high for her to pay since she already blew half her budget on a pair of cute shoes.

Caitlin gives the dress some more consideration over the next few hours, though, and returns her shoes so that she can afford the dress. When she returns to the Khaki Barn, however, she finds Jen buying the dress, leaving Caitlin shoeless and dressless. This sparks a feud between Caitlin and Jen, where Caitlin alternates between begs Jen to return the dress so that she can buy it and threatens Jen for stealing her dress. Eventually, when Jude comes by the Big Squeeze with his new mushroom pizza stick-its, Caitlin hesitantly lets Jen eat them despite knowing about Jen's gastrointestinal issues.

Caitlin feels horrible immediately after doing this, but is soon distracted by dress-shopping, and eventually she manages to find a dress that she can live with. After she does this, Jen tells her friend that she's reconsidered, and that they should trade dresses. Caitlin happily agrees to this arrangement–until the Clones come by and reveal that all three of them have bought the dress as well and rehearsed a synchronized dance routine.

Upon seeing this, the Look at Me dress that they had both desired suddenly becomes much less attractive, as neither of them wants to look like one of the Clones. Nikki intervenes, however, and takes both of the dresses so that she can mix-and-match them into all new designs. After she finishes, the dresses are clearly one-of-a-kind, and Caitlin and Jen happily accept their dresses from Nikki.

Friends once again, Caitlin and Jen agree to go with their friends to the Gigantoplex to catch a film. Suddenly, though, the mushrooms hit Jen and she runs off to use the bathroom. Caitlin knows what the proximate cause of Jen's distress is, however, and with a little prodding from Nikki she agrees to stay with Jen and help her through her bout of diarrhea.

Sub-Plot Two: Nikki's Parents
When Nikki's parents show up, Jude does his best to keep them away from Nikki. He starts by ejecting them from the mall under the pretense of a false fire, but when they come back, he takes another tactic. Instead of just sending them away, Jude stays with them and makes sure that they don't run into Nikki, along the way showing them what kind of styles Jude is into and transforming their entire wardrobe. Jude is successful at playing keep-away until he goes to the movies with his friends; there, Mr. and Mrs. Wong just happen to go to the same movie, and catch Nikki sitting with Jonesy.

Quotes
Jen: (impressed) Aw, Wyatt! Caitlin: That's so sweet! Jonesy: 2½-month anniversary? What is that? Jude: You gotta get a girl a present for a half-a-month? Wyatt: No, you don't have to...I just...I don't know, wanted to! Jonesy: I heard that! Jonesy: Stuffing our faces! Wyatt: It was a dare. Jude: (smiling mischievously) Nothing... Nikki: (sarcastically) Good plan! Jen: Nothing! What are you doing here? Caitlin: I decided I really wanted the dress, so I returned my new shoes. Kristen: Too late! She's buying it! (Caitlin gasps, then glares at Jen.) Jen: Okay, calm down. It's not really your dress, Caitlin. Caitlin: (angry) I AM CALM! And yes it is, DRESS STEALER! (The Clones gasp.) Jen: I don't see your name on it. Caitlin: But I saw it first! That's like, totally against girl rules! Jen: The "I saw it first" rule doesn't count if you can't buy it! Right, Nikki? Nikki: Oh no, I'm not getting dragged into this! I'm going for lunch! Jonesy: Let me guess! It says, "I wuv you, my wittle Wyattkins!" Jude: No, "Ba-ba wa-wa, Schmoopie-woopie!" Wyatt: (puzzled) I don't get it. I think she just...dumped me! On a text message! Jude: No way! Nikki: She broke up with you on a text message? What was she thinking? Even I'd never do that! Jude: That's harshing my mellow, dude! Jonesy: (reading the text) "It's not you, it's me?" Yeah, right! Hate to break it to you dude, but it's definitely you!
 * Wyatt: Check it out! It's our 2½-month anniversary today. (He shows off a bracelet to the gang.)
 * Caitlin: And I thought my hat was ugly.
 * Serena: (walking up to the lemon) What are you doing?
 * Caitlin: Jen? What are you doing in my dress?
 * Nikki: (teasing Wyatt) Awww, lovebirds exchanging poems over their phones now?

Trivia
Reason for firing: He mentions he was fired, but his hirer felt bad for him missing the dinner break, so Jonesy got some soup as a consolation prize.
 * Jonesy's job: Soup Village employee.
 * This is the only time that Wyatt can be seen crying.

Errors

 * Jude declares that he and Jen were friends since kindergarten, so he should've known that Jen was allergic to mushrooms.

Episode connections

 * Wyatt is the fourth main character to have a plot revolving a breakup. However, he is the first main character to have a long-term relationship.
 * Caitlin had her breakup in the episode "The Sushi Connection."
 * Jude had his breakup in the episode "The Khaki Girl." On that note, Jonesy reminds Jude of when he barfed on Starr while they were watching a film.
 * Jonesy had his breakup in the episode "It's Always Courtney, Courtney, Courtney!."
 * Caitlin wears a dress to the school dance that looks similar to the "Look at Me" dress in the episode "Snow Job".

Cultural references

 * The military song "Reveille" is heard playing when Nikki rips up the dresses to create new designs.
 * Caitlin's break-up songs consist entirely of songs made by Sarah McLachlan.
 * Serena mentions Daniel Radcliffe when she talks to Chad.