Part 3 of Season 2, Episode 28: Wedding Bell Blues - THE END (of this season and my rope) IS NIGH.

HURRY!! CATCH UP!!!! Part 1: here.  Part 2: here.

Back at the Walsh Wedding Venue, Donna and Kelly enter the hubbub, Donna proclaiming it a madhouse with Kelly reasoning, "At least it's dry," and unironically wearing a possibly-denim button down adorned with cows, reminiscent of the time she thought Button Down With Pugs was the zenith of early-'90s' fashion.

The nightmare blunt rotation that is Steve, David and Brandon enter, carrying flower arrangements and scolding the girls about not aiding them in their manual labor.

Kelly exits to go clear the air with Brenda in her bedroom, and Brandon, who is OF COURSE doing the least - carrying the smallest, pint-siziest baby bouquets the florist probably had to offer; the currently in utero Spawn of Silver could schlep a heftier load - leans in and hisses in Donna's ear, "I smell trouuuuuble," after Kelly's retreating figure, like, okay, Truman Capot-not.  Nothing comes between this rhododendron-toting, gossip-mongering bitch and a cat fight.

Part 2 of Season 2, Episode 28: Wedding Bell Blues - THE END (of this season and my rope) IS NIGH.

 Catch up on Part 1 here.

Taylor Compound.

In the foyer, Jackie fiddles with some floral arrangement as Mover Types mill about.

Kelly arrives and asks after them, with Jackie informing her that they're making room for the tables for the pre-wedding cocktails, and that the ceremony will follow outside, "on the veranda." Kelly says she didn't even know they had a veranda, and perhaps Jake erected one in the last twelve hours or so with some leftover wedding canopy materials and scraps from Mel's sex swing setup he assembled.

Speaking of Danny Zuko, he swaggers in all leather-jacketed and popped-collar douche with his tool belt slung just so over his shoulder and tells Jackie, "That should just about do it," I assume referencing the havoc that he's wreaked on Kelly's psyche and the undoubtedly lifelong intimacy issues he has foisted upon her.

Part 1 of Season 2, Episode 28: Wedding Bell Blues - THE END (of this season and my rope) IS NIGH.

 THE FINAL EPISODE OF SEASON 2.  I began the season almost TEN YEARS AGO YOU GUYS, on January 5, 2014, with the excremently-christened "Beach Blanket Brandon."  And yes, that title and episode still haunt my nightmares and night terrors, my day-mares and day terrors.  Here's to hoping that Season 3 is a little less of a slog.  It is infinitely more melodramatic, so that's a win for us all, I guess? BUT AT WHAT COST? Sadly, we already know the answer to that one, *sob*:

It's just about time to pour one (or several hundred) out for these two Hot Sluts.  But first:

We begin where we ended in the last episode: Border Inspection.

Inside some holding room: Dylan looks like we all would if we knew that the nerdlinger wrath of one Jim "Butch" Walsh was high-speed comptrolling its way down the Golden State Freeway at that very moment.

Brenda, supes cute in a very Taylor Swiftian Red-era ensemble, is, justifiably, freaking the fuck out, since she knows her dildo of a father is going to go completely and totally unreasonably ballistic on her, especially in comparison to the time her brother almost drunkenly killed a man, or the other time where he was on scary, scary drugs and left his car for dead and lied about it for days and days, and I know I bring this up every mother-fucking chance I get, but COME ON PEOPLE.  As a child I recognized the hypocrisy, but was mostly just like, boo, poor Brenda, but I'm now An Old and have lived in the world (pathetically, mostly, but that's of little importance) and I'm like, STRAP JIM TO A RADIATOR IN THE HOUSE OF WALSH WITH HIS FAVORITE PAIR OF SUSPENDERS AND BURN IT TO THE GROUND.  Mostly-mostly: poor all of us women of a certain age, who grew up watching this crap and thinking it was the norm, no matter the unfairness of it all, and believing it was just How It Was.  And it's only going to get far, far worse on this toilet heap of a show of which I will never, ever get enough, please help me it's been so long.

Dylan and his dreamy eyebrow scar assure Brenda everything's going to be okay; that yes, her father is a gigantic ass-face who likes to swing his probably-micro-penis around and generally tyrannize his daughter and hold her to ludicrous standards to which he doesn't hold his smug-mugged son while huffing and puffing about like he's fucking Charles Bronson With A Receding Hairline, but that it will all work out and and it was worth it and that they had a weekend that they'll never, ever forget, and I'd say that takes the lucrative title of Understatement of the Episode Thus Far.

Out in the hall, here comes plaid-cloaked Certified Tough Guy© Jim Walsh, best known in accounting circles as This Fucking Dweeb.  Border Agent from the previous episode leads him to Brenda and Dylan's holding room, explaining, "It's not that we didn't believe her, but we have these rules and regulations." Jim gets Hyper-Masc by placing his hands on his waist and shooting the door a filthy look.  I'm quaking.

SUCK IT, JAY SHERMAN.

Upon his arrival, their grab-ass and face-sucking is put on pause and they manage to peel themselves off of each other, Brenda whipping around with a, "Dad, hi," rather than the, "Don't even start with me, you fucking anal rot," I would've thrown his way.

The kids try to explain themselves but Jim and his ill-fitting slacks with diaper insert are having none of it and he goes Full Bitch as he turns on his heel all, "I said, let's go." Settle down, Death Wish.

Part 4 of Season 2, Episode 27: Mexican Standoff - I Mexican't stand where this is headed.

Let's play catch up! Part 1; Part 2; Part 3.

Back in Mexico, Dylan and Brenda sit at a restaurant table eating while "Guantanamera" plays in the background, because it wouldn't be a tv show about white people visiting Mexico without it.

They continue to argue about In Absentia Stacy, but despite this, Brenda declares she's having a wonderful time and shoves some refried beans really aggressively into her mouth.  Because nothing says "joyful" like plunging a forkful of legumes down your maw.

But! This Walking Trope is there to lighten the mood and save the day! He's the restaurant's traveling guitar man, and approaches Dylan and Brenda's table to serenade them with "Feelings." En Español. ¡Olé!? Oy vey!

Dylan pulls this face...

...and this one...

...and Brenda, this one...

...and then they decide to straight laugh and laugh and laugh in this poor man’s face as he's just doing his fucking job, and I would be a lot more peeved about it but LOOK AT LUKE PERRY.  I think I may have the vapors for the first time in my life.  To the fainting couch!

Although he almost ruins everything when, after the hapless musician walks away in devastation and tears (I assume), he begins crooning the English-version of "Feelings" in Brenda's face.  He's lucky he's pretty.

They decide to make up and then toast over ginger ale and Dylan throws in some more casual racism with yet another indeterminately "Spanish" accent and between this and the flippant depiction of Jake's rampant ephebophilia, I may have to go soak my head at the bottom of a frozen-over lake for a few months hours.

Part 3 of Season 2, Episode 27: Mexican Standoff - I Mexican't stand where this is headed.

Catch up on Part 1 here; and Part 2 here.

Back here.

Inside, Kelly and her very cute skirt and equally cute hairdo place some frozen something-or-other in the microwave.

The phone rings, she answers it, and...

OF COURSE it's Cindy, back in her happy place (that is to say, on the fucking phone), calling to speak with Brenda, and, again, this can wait! I guess she's just returning Brenda's initial call, but still.  Please find some friends, Cin.  Anyway, Donna's scheme is set into motion, as Kelly tells Cindy that Brenda ran out to grab them some food and she'll call Cindy once she's back.  They hang up and Kelly scrambles to find the number in Mexico (won't these charges show up on the next Phone Bill of Taylor?)...

...and we cut over to Not La Boca de Grande, where Dylan and Brenda are back in the lobby, continuing to argue about Last Summer Stacy and Dylan wanting to "start over" by taking her to some cantina and Brenda drama queening, "I don't know what I want anymore."

More telephone antics when Rosalita answers Kelly's call, passes the receiver over to Brenda, and then Kelly tells Brenda to call home ASAP.  Good lord, the time before texting.  What kind of animals were we?

Back on Turf Taylor: here's this Grade A side of perv - having finished, I don't know, erecting a koi pond, whittling wooden creatures for the garden, securing Mel's sex swing to the ceiling - come to wash his hands, flex his bicep and flirt with a teenager.  What a catch.

He asks her, "What's a girl like you doin' home alone on a Saturday night?" which is like, the fucking tagline of The Groomer's Playbook.  Time to get a new angle, my guy.  And by "angle" I of course mean "prison."  Sadly, Kelly is flattered by his inquiry, and tells him, "Brenda's in Baja with Dylan, and Donna's out with David and that leaves me," because Kelly knows, as we all do, that Brandon, Steve and AHHHHHHHHNdrea don't matter.

Non-Slick Rick then slips in, "No, uh, no boyfriend?" and way to act like you've never tried to pick up a 17-year-old before, Jake; we all know better.  The Sexy Sax starts playing as she tells him, no, no boyfriend; he smiles in "YOU'RE TOO FUCKING OLD";  she says he doesn't have to rub it in (barf); he smirks, "Sorry, you told me to get personal."

It just keeps getting more sick-making as Kelly asks him to stay and share her lasagna and Jake leans in wayyyyy too close as she sets it on the counter and says, "Smells great," and Kelly says, "Yeah, I love lasagna," and Jake, having never conversed with a woman over the age of 25, i.e. the age at which the frontal lobe is fully formed, says, "I'm not talkin' about the lasagna" and truly, it's one panty-dropper after another with this guy.  Melrose Avenue is that-away, you sick fuck.

Part 2 of Season 2, Episode 27: Mexican Standoff - I Mexican't stand where this is headed.

Catch up on Part one here.

Over to the Office Building of Taylor-Soon-To-Be-Taylor/Silver-But-Not-For-Long-Because-Of-Mel’s-Wandering-Peen-So-Don’t-Worry.

Inside, everyone discusses the wedding, and I’m going to have to side with Kelly here and say I am so over all of this.  Until the actual wedding in the next episode, that is, just to see all of the lewks (I’m so, so sorry) being served up.  Also, why are the children so involved with the planning of this thing? I realize David is the Best Man (and I use that term very loosely and only in the context of his role in the ceremony) but were wedding planners not a thing in the ‘90s?

Over in the corner, Kelly bitch-reads a magazine and makes derogatory comments about the upcoming nuptials.  After Jackie calls her out, Kelly huffs out of the room, as anyone with a modicum of self-respect would do if faced with being in the vicinity of one Mel “Mental Dental” Silver for more than a few minutes.

The next whatever: Rodeo Drive, baby.  I mean, I assume.

Inside a boutique’s GLORIOUSLY tacky changing room, Brenda, Donna and Kelly finish up trying on their bridesmaid dresses.  Brenda gripes about the Walsh patriarch, telling the gals, “The last time I saw him like this was when Brandon was 11 years old and tried to ski off the roof.” Yeah, right.  I'll bet Jim just chucked Brandon on the chin and then talked to him about laying the wood to his future girlfriends in his childhood bedroom.  Donna then suggests the plan that will inevitably lead to Brenda and Dylan’s downfall: “You could say you're staying at Kelly's and then go to Baja anyway.” I feel like Donna as written (at least as of Season 2) wouldn’t come up with a scheme like this, which is then explained away when she says that some cousin of hers used to do it all the time.  She probably also subconsciously picked up a few tips from her philandering mother?

My apologies: a trigger warning should’ve preceded this monstrosity (Momstrosity? I’ll show myself out).

Including this shot to show you that Kelly’s dress is fantastic, as is her hair, and also give us a miniscule sneak peek of what are, in my opinion, the best bridesmaid looks to ever grace television or movie screens.  Brenda, especially, will don it with aplomb.

Jackie, looking like the interior of a Vans store projectile vomited all over her muumuu, comes waddling in to tell them that her wedding gown doesn’t fit over her ever-expanding bump that houses Mel’s DEMON spawn that’s growing in her uterus and that it’s in the process of being altered.  She needs Kelly to run home and drop off a check to Jake the Snake: “This guy is too good to lose and I'm stuck here for at least another hour.” Pray tell: how does Jackie know this? Did he audition for her by painting swatches on the house? Me thinks she liked the cut of his jib more than anything.  And maybe his biceps.  Our Jackie is no stranger to ogling seaside beefcakes a good 15+ years her junior, after all.

Jackie then asks Brenda and Donna to wait outside so that she can backhand Kelly in private after she throws yet another mini-fit about taking the check to Jake (although, make no mistake: I am still firmly Team Kelly, versus Team Anything Involving Mel): “You have been nothing but a pill ever since Mel and I announced our engagement.  [CAN YOU BLAME HER? And, in less than a year’s time, Kelly is going to look like a genius].  Now I have tried to be understanding, I really have.  I even made your friends my bridesmaids.” Yes, which was really weird and sad, Jackie.  Blah blah, nothing is resolved, Kelly pouts some more, again, FOREVER, rolls her eyes and marches out.

Part 1 of Season 2, Episode 27: Mexican Standoff - I Mexican't stand where this is headed.

Two years later and even less people read blogs.  Eh: The Squeakquel.

Sigh.  Thus kicks off the beginning of the end for Our Brenda and Dylan.  Actually, I'd venture to say that the beginning of Brenda's end was the day she met one Kelly "Lady Judas" Taylor, but that's neither here nor there.  We also get a bunch of Silver/Taylor Wedding of the Century planning shenanigans (plananigans?) in this one, and Jake Hanson is introduced to backdoor-pilot us into the (terrible-until-Heather-Locklear-saves-the-day) first season of Melrose Place, in addition to becoming the Taylors' Jack (Jake?) of All Trades, as well as showing us his whole, deviant ass as a seducer of the underage.  Here we go.

Dylan's Non-Craftsman.

Inside, we get a shot of, like, a FUCK TON of books, because apparently Brenda and Dylan are majoring in advanced-advanced-placement collegiate-level bio-molecular thermodynamics with a minor in encyclopedia-reading.  Which is totally a thing.

After a horndog pan-up of Brenda's and Dylan's intertwined, Levi's-clad legs (reminiscent of their roll-on-the-chaise in "My Desperate Valentine"), Brenda pulls away and asks, "You know what I'd really like?" To fuck? Because: I can't imagine that these two, who've already Done The Do, would be just dry-humping, fully-clothed-and-scrunchied, on the couch.  I'm not trying to be icky, but, c'mon.  They've presumably been sexually active for almost a year.  I would imagine this would accelerate pretty quickly.  I was in high school once upon a really long time ago and I...heard things from other people because I was an exceptionally late bloomer who didn't have her first boyfriend until her Senior year.  ANYWAY, she tells him, "What I really wish is that I didn't have to go home so early."

Dylan advises her to just "forget her curfew," and baby boy? Brenda's not Brandon.  She can't get away with things like he can.  Things like, say, DRUNK DRIVING, and ALMOST KILLING A MAN, and being a complete smarm douche who, over the ten-plus (!) years (dear gawd) this travesty has been on the internet, has probably contributed to this blogger's chronic migraines and debilitating TMJ issues.  Which is basically what she tells him.

He then throws Lower California some free advertising, again, some more, ALWAYS, and asks, "What about Baja?" Brenda repeats, "What about Baja?" in another throwaway line that I say, aloud, whenever the subject of Mexico comes up, forever and ever amen.  Dylan is OF COURSE planning a trip there the following weekend and wants her to come with.  Her: "My fuckface dad [I'm paraphrasing] won't let me." Him: "It doesn't hurt to ask, and I'm sure Brandon will stick his beak in for good measure, too [again: paraphrasing]."

She decides to forgo her curfew at Dylan's suggestion and instead bump-and-grind a hole in the crotch of her ill-fitting jeans, because that will absolutely end well and not kick off this entire, irritating saga wherein her father throws his sad little certified public accountant-weight around and holds Brenda to a wholly different standard because she has a vagina.

Brenda eventually creeps into the Foyer of Walsh...

...only to be busted by The Dreaded Jim "Tony  Soprano Wouldn't be Caught Dead Shuffling Around in a Hooded Cerulean Robe DORK" Walsh.  I wonder where he was the night Brandon was rolling on U4EA and menacing society and exposing his nips all over the place? Oh, that's right: he was fast asleep in bed, completely oblivious to his son's debauchery and crimes against the eyes/humanity.

They then have a relatively tame mano-a-dildo face-off where Jim attempts to go Full Butch and put his foot down, and Brenda tries and fails to convince him that she shouldn't have a curfew.  "I don't ask that much of you" and "I always do the right thing, don't I?" gets thrown in for foreshadowing's sake.  Whatever.