Alright, folks.  While this isn't a proper recap I'm hoping to give you something to keep you going.  First, read the episode synopsis, then come back here and I'll fill in some holes. 

"Legend In the Making" opens with an underwater scene where we see Shane who appears to be sinking in the water, almost like she's willing herself to drown.

The opening credits are back, complete with BETTY theme song and last year's design.  On first glance it would appear that the credits haven't changed.  Then you notice that Alice is wearing different clothes, Dana is no longer on the back of the motorcycle, and Carmen is missing as well.  No new characters are in the opening credits, but you pick up other changes in there after you watch it a few times.

Yes, that is Karina Lombard's name you see in the list of guest stars.

Alice is packing her bags at the hotel in Whistler and Kit is moaning about not being able to find Bette anywhere. Alice mentions that Lara is gone - she took a cooking job in San Francisco. She also mentions that when Dana was in the hospital she told Alice to make new friends - that's the last we hear of Dana in this episode. Jenny, Max, and Helena all show up to call Bette as a sort of "intervention" to let her know that they're there for her, but that she should return with Angelica. After the Bette intervention that Tina ruins by coming in and screaming profanities at Bette's voicemail, we see Bette in a diner talking on her cell with her lawyer and then Bette takes a call from Phyllis about her new campus job and hangs up the phone while screaming for someone to bring her a "sippy cup."

We see Shane come out of the water.  She's on a beach and walks up to a house.  She takes her dripping cell phone out of her pocket and chucks it into the ocean. Cheri Jaffe (or back to her maiden name, perhaps?) is lying on a lounge in the sun. Shane approaches her dripping wet and proceeds to snort cocaine off a mirror.  Damn.  Here I was drooling over the still photos of Shane and Cheri looking hot and romantic together... thinking it might be some fantasy dream that Shane is having, but it turns out to be real and they aren't even having sex they're just doing drugs! I feel ripped off. And Shane looks pissed. Cheri's not so nice when she's on drugs. She just wants Shane to fuck her, but Shane's not in the mood.

Alice and Helena are at the airport having just flown in from Vancouver.

Just so we're all on the same page here only about a day has passed since the end of season three. Okay, so it's the same weekend as the wedding.  The girls are just returning from the non-wedding, Bette's taken the baby, Tina's giving her the weekend before calling the police, Shane's "missing" but we know she's somehow wound up on a beach with Rosanna Arquette, and Carmen's nowhere to be found. Okaaay.

So, apparently Helena's private jet has been confiscated by her mother along with everything else, 'cause here she is with Alice, having no clue how to retrieve her own bags from the airport. Sheesh. Alice teaches her how to get her own bags without using a porter and how to get home from the airport without a limousine. How will poor Helena ever survive? She apparently knows nothing about life without extreme resources.

Jenny and Max are back at the house and they're cleaning up Carmen's stuff. They haven't seen her, but are assuming she'll come back for her stuff some day.  Hmm, I can see it now... every "lost" character is going to be written off with a single line of dialogue.  I bet we won't even see Carmen again. This is just too easy. Pack up her stuff, explain her disappearance and poof, so long. Oh wait, I got distracted with Jenny's ramblings. Jenny and Max are discussing their relationship. Blah, blah. Apparently Jenny's a lesbian and Max is "not a girl" so that means that Jenny can no longer have a lesbian relationship with Max, so their relationship is over. Hmm, they both seem fine with that, they're still cleaning. Wow, that was easy. I think that was one line of dialogue too.

Kit uses her Super Friends powers and somehow locates Bette at a sleazy motel on the side of the road somewhere in Northern California. That was convenient. She tries talking Bette into going home with Angelica.

Helena's (lawyer, I'm guessing?) sells her house because she has no money and must downsize. Helena doesn't know what to do. Good thing she still has that cushy job as the head of a movie studio, she'll just have to pay herself as much as she's paying Tina.

Back to Kit, who's now with Angus. She's puking because of morning sickness. Apparently they've discussed it somewhere off camera because they've decided to get an abortion and they make an appointment for it.

Alice and Helena are chilling at the Planet talking about how cool it is that Jenny's almost famous on account of her upcoming book signing.

Back to Shane on the beach. She looks dead. I think she knows she's an asshole and wishing she was dead. More drugs.

Alice is cruising the net on her laptop at the Planet. Apparently in the off-season (err, one day) Alice has created Our Chart and is explaining to Jenny and Helena how cool it is that you can go to this website and find out who's slept with who, who is a "hub", and who has their own "solar system." They glance at Shane's solar system with over 900 "connections" and then Alice freaks 'cause she has found someone with more hits than Shane. Jenny doesn't believe anyone could have more hits from Shane and doubts Alice's computer skills. Alice says that it's true and someone named Papi (Alice pronounces it Pappy, like someone's grandfather) has over 1100 connections. As they watch her numbers change from 1150 to 1151. After listening to the girls pimp Our Chart for the last 5 minutes I suddenly want to stop watching the episode and go online to check it out. (p.s. you can wait until after the show, Our Chart won't be live 'til then.)

We see Max at work at his boring job. Are they only allowed to wear khakis there? Max kinda looks like a geek. But his boss likes him. Even enough to set him up with Brooke, the boss's daughter.

Tina and Bette are both back in Southern California and have someone made a meeting to get together with their good friend Joyce Wischnia in her law office. It takes about 2 seconds until they're screaming at each other, even with Angelica there. Bette says that Tina is untrustworthy because she promised Bette would always be Angelica's mother. Tina thinks Bette is calling the kettle straight since Bette is obviously untrustworthy for running away with the kid and she's just punishing Tina for being with a man. Joyce doesn't like all this fighting and tells Tina how unlucky she is because Bette has the best lawyer (Joyce) and "it's a shame that Johnny Cochran's dead" because they could have had a great court battle on their hands. Bette and Tina found something that finally shocked them into silence and suddenly have a baby-sharing schedule all worked out.

Max has a good head on his shoulders so he joins an FTM support group to find out why he was so crazy last season (yesterday) during his transition, even though he's fine just this short time later (today). It turns out that buying illegal hormones off the streets on the advice of a bisexual bartender isn't that smart and that Max has been taking way too much T. All the other trans men tell him he's lucky he hasn't killed anyone and still has some friends left. They hook him up with a doctor so he can get the right dosage and start being normal again (i.e. less crazy than Jenny).

Alice is back on the radio looking happy and totally over Dana. She's reporting on the insanely fast way that Our Chart is growing and that she must find out just who is this infamous Papi.

Back to the sunshine and the beach. Shane is passed out on Cheri's deck chair. She wakes up to loud music, lots of party-goers, and cocaine being passed around like hors d'oeuvres.

Back to Jenny and the sex-crazed French chick, Claude, that she met in Whistler. Apparently Jenny has brought her home from Canada and they try unsuccessfully to recreate Alice and Dana's hot & hilarious sex scene by having sex on the floor of Jenny's kitchen in front of the refrigerator, surrounded by food.

Angus and Kit are at the abortion clinic. Kit gets called into the room for her pregnancy test before they can do the procedure. Kit's waiting in her fashionable bum-exposing gown when a crazy woman jumps out at Kit with pictures of her unborn baby and how the baby will look after Kit murders it. Surely this is a dream. It's some guilt-induced hallucination Kit is having as she has second-thoughts about the abortion. Kit latches onto this hallucination and bolts out of her room screaming and back into the arms of Angus in the waiting room. Angus is looking at her like she's loony 'cause she keeps wailing about how she has to get out of this crazy place. Now the doctor's are looking at her like she's loony too. Looks like Kit's keeping the baby after all. 
Wait a minute.... isn't that the crazy lady from Kit's hallucination? Is this supposed to be real? What the hell? Okaaay. Apparently this clinic uses the scare tactic to make sure their patients really want an abortion. That was weird. I could have sworn it was a hallucination. Hmm.

Shane's stoned out of her mind and is looking for her car keys at Cheri's house. Cheri is hanging onto some big muscled guy and being mean to Shane again. She reminds Shane that she took a cab to Cheri's house from the airport. Shane takes the keys to Cheri's black BMW then and leaves the house as Cheri is trying to tell her she'd be happy if she only did more coke. We watch another rip-off of a classic Alice/Dana scene as Shane weaves in and out of traffic on a California free-way.  Only this scene is less funny and more tragic and frightening (if you ignore the fact that the stunt driver is only going about 15 miles per hour). Shane finds her way to Carmen's house and tries to get in to see her. Carmen's two strong and mean-looking cousins are waiting outside and push Shane around a bit, tell her she's a little shit and that Carmen doesn't want to see her. Shane leaves Carmen's and drives to a liquor store to continue with her self-destructive ways. She's now drinking beer, smoking and careening down the highway. She pulls a soap opera cliffhanger by driving down a small embankment on the side of the freeway and into a guardrail causing the air bags to go off.  Shane crawls out of the car and staggers away as a good Samaritan calls 911.

Jenny and the French chick proceed to have kinky sex all over the house even though Max is still living there, too. Jenny doesn't seem to care at all if Max sees her having sex with someone else the day after she and Max broke up. He interrupts a bondage scenario in Jenny's bedroom to remind Jenny that she has a book signing to get to. Good thing that sensible Max is there to keep Jenny's schedule. Poor guy looks a little sad that Jenny's not pining away for him.

Jenny shows up at The Planet for her signing. Apparently no one can wait for the big moment, 'cause the place is packed. Maybe they all know something we don't. Jen's in a bit of a mood though, 'cause she read a bad review about her book. It's only one review, though, so she'll get over it.

Meanwhile, Helena and Tina discuss the upcoming meeting with their boss at the studio. Wonder what he wants to discuss.

Kit gets up onstage to introduce Jenny who they've all been waiting for. Jenny is standing on stage next to Kit for the introduction. Halfway through the glowing intro, Kit spots someone in the crowd and gets really excited. No, it couldn't be... we can only see her from the back, she's wearing a hat... *GASP!* Marina Ferrer! It is you! Whispers spread through the Planet like the Indigo Girls just walked in and Jenny's left standing embarrassingly on stage with all attention now on Marina instead of her. Marina looks to be incredibly together and altogether healed from that fiasco with Jenny way back when. She smoothly directs the attention back to Jenny. Amazingly none of her old friends look that shocked to see her, no one fell off their chair or anything. Must be a lesbian thing, they're all used to big drama. Instead they all just look really, really pleased. Well, except Jenny. She looks a bit miffed that everyone was more interested in Marina for a minute.

We see Shane again, walking by the side of the road. I suppose she's going to walk all the way home from wherever she was when she crashed.

Back to the Planet. Marina is talking to Jenny. Yum... remember when they first met? Marina was this delicious seducer and Jenny seemed so enchanted and innocent...
Marina is back in town because she's on tour with some dancers as their benefactor. She still seems to want to seduce Jenny a little, she's gazing into her eyes an awful lot. Claude approaches Jenny about Marina. She wants Jen to invite Marina for a 3-way. Jenny seems a little reluctant about it. Jenny and Marina meet later and Claude walks in and starts kissing Jenny and Marina. Marina catches on pretty quickly. She seems willing for the 3-way. It seems like she wants to sleep with Jenny again. Jenny gets weirded out and starts to leave. Claude doesn't understand her hesitation since Jenny is usually up for anything. Jenny tells them to stay and enjoy themselves, but that she's going to go.

Shane wanders into her home and goes straight to the fridge for a beer. She looks like she's been run over by a truck. She hears something on her front porch. It's Carla, Shane's step mom. She seems to be sick, either physically or emotionally. Shane and Carla have this weird conversation that almost seems like it's Carla talking to Shane as if she's Gabriel at the same time it seems to be Shane talking to Carla as if she were Carmen. Shane offers to take Carla to the doctor, but she declines telling Shane she left her a present on the back porch before leaving. Shane strolls back through the house and opens the back door to find Shay sleeping there. She runs back to the front, frantically looking for Carla up and down the streets.