Part 1 of Season 3, Episode 5: Shooting Star / American in Paris - Speaking of shooting, time to shoot myself into the sun after this one.

 Poor Brenda.  Poor my stomach.  Poor my long-simmering rage at this sinister story line on a 35-year-old nighttime teen soap opera.  Poor my perimenopause causing me to feel 12-years-old and achy-hearted all over again.  My god.  Time is truly cyclical.  And a mother-fucker.

Triomphe,  Arc of.

Fountaines, of the Concorde.

This building, in which I want to live forever.

Fade to Brenda and Donna walking along a totally-non-Parisian street.  Donna carries a HEAP of shopping bags, and Brenda says that she deserves a key to the city for "single-handedly reviving the French economy." Donna will be joining Maggie soon to shop some more at "Les Halles," but Brenda declines: "I am shopped out, or at least my wallet is.  Buying Dylan's present left me awfully low on francs." She won't regret this gift at all; no, not at all.  Also, the only gift Dylan deserves after the last episode is a swift punt to his penis and a fresh turd slipped down the back of his wetsuit.

Let's pause to appreciate both of their outfits here.  Brenda's quilted leather vest with the mini is so chic, and Donna's floral dress is very of the era but also timeless and I want both of these looks in my closet, post haste.

So Donna's off to shop, and Brenda's planning to soak up their last few days in Paris outdoors.  Before they head off on their own, Donna stops in her tracks!: "I almost forgot!  I'm supposed to call my mom today.   What time is it [back home]?"

Brenda provides another iconic (only to me) line when she responds with, "Oh, it's just about...beach time." They giggle adorably...

Part 4 of Season 3, Episode 4: Sex, Lies and Volleyball / Photo Fini - Let's get repulsed! For a few reasons.

Get all the way in: Part 1.  Part 2.  Part 3.  And now - FINALLY - Part 4:

Fountaines de la Concorde, oui oui.

Inside a probable den of iniquity, we see a tacky party going on and Pierre and Donna standing in the middle of the tacky happenings.

Pierre, possibly the biggest cheesedick in the cheesedick game - and that includes one Steve "Business in the Front, Party Nowhere to be Found" SAUNders - points out to Donna some other presumable-lech from across the room, "Christophe," who's the head of the modeling agency, and therefore, Donna should "act like [she] know[s] who is he." He's probably also on Interpol's Red Notice list, so I'm certain half the world's law enforcement knows who he is as well.

Pierre goes on: "Everyone else, you can yawn in their face, or even step on their toes.  But not him, d'accord?" She laughs and agrees, then asks, "Do you think we can go somewhere and talk for a few minutes, just the two of us?" He tells her that they'll speak after the party, but when she presses...

...she's ignored as Pierre greets the aforementioned Christophe, who is shockingly more viscous than Pierre himself, and who comments on Donna's beauty en francais...

...then does this, which means Donna's now going to have to decontaminate her hand by sawing it off, urinating on it, then lighting it on fire.

As all of this is going down, we get this shot from behind Beret a few yards away, undoubtedly observing some kind of sex trafficking ritual...

...then we see her head-on, still looking confused / concerned.

Part 3 of Season 3, Episode 4: Sex, Lies and Volleyball / Photo Fini - Please. No more volleyball on which I poorly provide play-by-play commentary. What's that, you say? There's another whole part to recap after this one? And it ALSO includes volleyball? *begins silently weeping*

 Have a look-see: Part 1; Part 2.

And now you're all caught up and can dive into Part 3 with vim and vigor and dread because Steve is a true piece of shit within the first ninety seconds.  Check it!

We open with these two in the middle of a conversation and Steve laughing like a goon and saying, "What? Wait a minute, are you trying to tell me that you and Donna still haven't done the nasty?" I want off this planet.  For a variety of reasons but let it be known that this right here was my coup de grâce.

Buffoon David asks buffoon Steve to keep his voice down: "It's not that I don't want to.  It's just that Donna wants to wait until she's married." Steve, a pig, responds, "Then what's the problem? If this girl Nikki wants it from you, which personally makes me question her sanity, then go for it." What a grand friend to Donna, someone to whom we've been told he's been close for many years.  With friends like him, you should probably voluntarily commit yourself to an institution to undergo extreme psychological analysis and gain the tools to extract such toxicity from your life for good.

Unfortunately, he's far from done: "First of all, Donna may wanna be a virgin until she's married, but finally, when she decides to do it, she's not gonna want some inexperienced bozo.  And second, Donna is in Paris, remember? She's probably got French dudes crawlin' all over her." After David insists Donna would never do that - bang someone behind his back...you know, like he's going to do to her several times over during the course of the series - Steve puts on an exaggerated French accent and advises, "While ze cat is away, ze mice will play." I'll bet you if Steve got a brain scan, nary a gyri or sulci could be found.  Also: I'm offended not only on behalf of French people everywhere, but also humanity as a whole.

From a few yards away, Brooke appears: "Steve! Game time!"

Steve, the lamest man to ever walk to the earth: "Ooo, excuse me, lame-o.  I've got some scoring of my own to do.  Mm!" Let us know how that turns out for you, you definition-of-shame-come-to-life.

And then he and his not at all a 17-year-old boy's torso run toward Brooke and head to their match up.

Part 2 of Season 3, Episode 4: Sex, Lies and Volleyball / Photo Fini - Get ready for a state of unconsciousness, because this one is basically that box of tea with the comatose bear on it.

Check it: the Part 1 recap can be found here.

And now onto a complete barbiturate of a Part 2.  Prep your adult sleep sacks for a nice, long nap after this one, babes. (Am I selling it?)

Synth Drums.  Volleyball match in progress.

 

Pan over to another court, where the duo of Kelly and Dylan are competing.  Go team? Absolutely not.

They volley back and forth with the other pairing...

...Kelly makes her squeaky baby noises the entire time, which really made me reconsider this whole "being alive" concept...

...Kelly sets Dylan up...

...he spikes it...

...they win! I don't care...

...double low-fives...

...laughing...

...shaking hands with the losing team...

...beach loungers and a cool down.  Kelly flirts, "That was pretty good for a surfer boy," and Dylan flirts back, "Oh, yeah!  So, what do you wanna do to celebrate our first victory?" Might I suggest walking into the vast body of water a few hundred yards thataway, you lowlifes?

Whatever, it's decided that Dylan's going to go over to Kelly's house - she's sitting for sinister Baby Erin because Jackie regretfully has a date night with Mel, a real post-partum depression accelerant if ever there was one - and they're going to watch Casablanca, a movie he's desperate to share with her because he's a brooding, pick-me cliché of a Bad Boy; and which she's never seen because she's a dumb bitch - as am I, having never watched it myself.

Also: he really needs to stop being so attractive while also being an absolute scumbag.

Part 1 of Season 3, Episode 4: Sex, Lies and Volleyball / Photo Fini - Alternative title: Sexual Harassment, Complete Fabrications About Being Attracted to David Silver, and Volleyball / Donna Gets Trafficked

Let's have a laugh in the midst of *gestures at the entirety of the universe*.

Synth Drummage and a Sweet Ghee-tar Lick greet us above the BHBC as the camera pans down the gorgeous Los Angeles coastline (LA forever and ever and ever)...

...to Club employees bustling about, some of whom are hanging a sign that reads, "Annual Santa Monica Bay Interclub Volleyball Tournament" and then something about all of the proceeds benefiting Friends of the Bay.

We cross the beach volleyball court over to...

...to Brandon! Working! Carrying not one but TWO folding chairs! His friends and family will be hearing about this feat through at least Thanksgiving.  How he manages to speak whilst hauling this monumental burden is beyond me, but speak he does, and in the most grating and Brandonly way possible: "Well, well, welly, well, well." My cochleae have officially retired, packed a bindle, leapt from my ears, and skipped town following that monstrosity of a non-sentence.  He then greets an even bigger dweeb than himself: "If it isn't Mr. SAUNders." Yes, that happened.

And here he is in all his "Mr. SAUNders" glory: clowncore wig applique attached to odd Tour de France cycling cap; windbreaker on what I'm assuming is a windless, 97-degree August day, with the arms pushed up just so and the front unzipped to the lowest depths of Hades; and though unseen at this angle, I assume a pair of mid-and-lower-buttocks-revealing dolphin shorts.  He's leaning against a folding table littered with trophies and there's another sign hanging above it that declares "TOURNAMENT REGISTRATION," that he'll be working.  Fantastic! This pest will get to sexually harass each and every unwitting female who's entering the competition.  A real treat for their psyches.

He then proceeds to prove my theory correct almost immediately: "Do you realize in about one hour, this place is gonna be packed with some of the most incredible hard-bodied babes from all over Southern California? You remember last year's tournament? This place was one big meat market.  And I am going to do my shopping early."  What does it mean when bile starts coming out of your eye sockets as well as your mouth? Do I need to go to the ER, or should I just stop watching scenes that involve this barely sentient sub-of-a-subhuman?

Brandon, though - done with his seven minutes of work for the day - applauds Steve's efforts: "Aha, a man with a master plan."

Steve, the most insecure television character ever written, brags, "Mmm, confidence, mon frere.  We make an incredible team.  I'm gonna win this tournament.  You're gonna flash that smile."

Cue cheesedick grin.

Cue Steve's astonishing delusion: "Boom, we'll get whoever we want." I beg of Steve: reevaluate your entire existence as well as your apparent aversion to having full-length mirrors in your home.  He looks off into the distance: "Mmm, if my eyes don't deceive me, I see our first customer"...

...and he spots heretofore mentioned Nikki Witt, who's really going to go through the fucking wringer during her short tenure on the show in terms of the rapid succession of terrible men she'll have to fend off / pretend to be attracted to / date, so kudos to her on her fortitude and apparent cast-iron stomach that prevents her from ever feeling queasy in the face of gross dudes and their really gross personalities.

Back over to Steve, he decides she'll make the perfect first victim of his unwanted advances: "That young damsel appears to be in distress.  Hmm, perhaps I should offer some assistance." He gives Brandon a devilish look, laughs like a goon and struts off to go torment a poor, unsuspecting girl who's just trying to live her goddamn life.

This dork, having no friendship standards to speak of, watches his pal go and says to himself, "And they said chivalry was dead." Nothing like enabling your bosomest of buddy's foul behavior, you dildo.

I Love You, L.A.

I love L.A.

I grew up in Littleton, Colorado, a suburb thirty minutes south of Denver, which to me was the epicenter of mundanity.  I wanted out, early and often.  Initially, it was to New York City I wanted to flee, having experienced it secondhand through TV and movie screens and embarrassingly fancying myself a six-year-old Big Apple oracle.

Around the age of seven or eight, my fixation shifted to Los Angeles.  Maybe it was being surrounded by my dozens of blonde-haired, bikini-clad Barbies, or the L.A. Gears my parents gifted me - the HEIGHT of West Coast chic and a key(chain) to a city I had only ever visited as a teeny toddler in the early-1980s, and of which I had no memory.  

My dad always had on in the car KOOL-105, the oldies station in Denver, and I remember listening to The Mamas & the Papas' "California Dreamin'" and the whole of the Beach Boys Surf Rock era catalog, on particularly bleak winter days during that period between mid-January and mid-March, after the city had been stripped of any and all of the twinkle and sparkle and glow of the holidays, and all that was left were nude trees and brown grass and seasonal affective disorder at a time before anyone was willing to admit they had a mental illness.

Surprisingly - to exactly zero people currently in my orbit - the preoccupation with the City of Angels gained a foothold in my brain and heart and soul when a little show called Beverly Hills, 90210 premiered in 1990.  Ten-year-old me was done for.  Big L.A. had won.  It was only matter of time until I made her mine...

 ...twenty-two years later.  What can I say: a dumb bitch called "life" got in the way - "best laid plans" and all that muck - but at thirty-two, I arrived.  For various, boring reasons, I had to move to the Bay Area for a five-year period between 2016 and 2021.  I am forever grateful for that time - I met a couple of my closest friends during that period, and because of them and their love for me and of San Francisco et al., I came to appreciate an area of of this state I had only ever viewed as a vacation destination, but nowhere you'd actually choose to live.

These same friends quickly - though good-naturedly - grew weary of me and my perpetual mentions of Los Angeles.  It was as though I was the worst kind of person - the dreaded Name Dropper - but the only name I was dropping was that of a fucking metropolis almost 400 miles away.

Nearly two years into the pandemic, I made the decision to move back to my beloved.  It was time.  In anticipation of the relocation, I wrote on the blog: "An unwanted relocation.  Divorce.  Death.  Some of the worst humans I've ever encountered.  But also: a couple of the best.  And finally, FINALLY: a return to the (adopted-by-me) Mother Land (i.e. L.A.) by year's end." I was READY.

I've been back three (THREE WHAT) years now.  It's home.  My home.  As corny as it sounds, I feel that in my bones.  The history.  The architecture.  The evening air.  The constant scent of oranges.  My favorite neighborhoods: Whitley Heights, Hollywood Dell, Beachwood Canyon, Franklin Village, Los Feliz, Echo Park.  The tallest palm trees I've ever seen in my life.  Seeing those same trees with a backdrop of a dusky pink-and-periwinkle sky as you're driving south on Sunset through Silver Lake toward downtown.  My heart skips a beat and I love L.A. over and over and over again.

Cue Randy Newman forever.

Part 4 of Season 3, Episode 3: Too Little Too Late; Paris 75001 - SPOILER ALERT: I hate it here.

In true HERE WE GO fashion, here we fucking go.

Fade up and onto a Parisian restaurant balcony where Brenda and Donna sit at a table, eating.  Donna's yammering on about all the delicious French pastries she was just shoving in her maw at a human trafficking soiree that was absolutely reported to Interpol.  Brenda busies herself pushing food around her plate while not paying attention.  Donna notices this and queries, "What's wrong, Bren?"

Brenda says, "You know how you keep on thinking that you're seeing David? Well, it started happening to me." I know that sounds like a fucking waking TERROR, but she actually means that she's now falsely seeing Dylan everywhere, as evidenced in Part 3.  She continues, "I started thinking, what are we doing here?"

Donna, now living that glass half full life, declares, "We're...immersing.  We're learning new things in a new language, in a new culture." She's really selling it and I'll say it again: I love these two together.

Brenda agrees, continuing, "I would hate for people to look at me and think that I was some pampered kid from West Beverly High.  I really wanna be a whole person, with many sides, many talents, and many interests.  I just don't know what they all are yet." Erm...is it bad that I'm one thousand years older than Brenda and am still striving for these very things?

Donna says that she's glad Brenda came to France instead of Kelly - which: SAME - because, "She'd be the one complaining, and I would've felt like I had to cheer her up.  And honestly, I just haven't had it in me." Glad to have confirmation from her oldest mate that Kelly is, and always has been, a self-involved slag.  A real friend for the ages.

Brenda seems touched and assures her, "You know, you're gonna be okay.  And I'm gonna be okay.  I mean, this is the summer before our Senior year.  We're gonna find out what it's like to be on our own, and we are gonna have the time of our lives." I'm pretty certain this soundbite was used in the tv ads for the Season 3 summer episodes because hearing it is making me feel some kind of way: young, hopeful, unjaded, and non-dead-eyed for the first time in at least five years, so.  Nostalgia's a helluva drug.

Donna agrees with a non-grating giggle (those are reserved for Mz. Taylor OH YOU'LL SEE) and a, "Absolument!" She then sheepishly asks, "So, uh, what was that time difference again?"

Brenda cutes, "I'll race you to the phone, because I want to catch my boyfriend right before he proceeds to have a good ol' roll in the sand - the first of SEVERAL times he's going to do that this summer - with my pick-me so-called best friend, because being betrayed and repeatedly lied to by them over the course of the next many months won't instill in me a deep-seated distrust in all people, including and especially those closest to me, that I will never overcome or anything"...

...and then they scamper off into the night.