In which FUUUUUUUUUUCK remember when television shows aired like, 75 episodes per season (reality: 25-28)? I realize that the first couple of 90210 seasons were longer because of the Summer Episodes, but Jesus Christ. I am so ready for Season 3, even though it includes My Least Favorite Story Line In The History Of Television.
We open with some horrible rockabilly-adjacent music (which is almost certainly some ass-track they had to replace whatever originally played here for the DVDs) playing as we see a bunch of Old Timey pictures, the first of which is the HOLLYWOODLAND sign...
...then Grauman's Chinese Theater...
...then this one, which is a picture of the set from the Babylon sequence of the 1916 silent film Intolerance. (The Hollywood and Highland Center, which is directly to the east of Grauman's, has a three-story courtyard which was inspired by this scene. Do you care? No? Just me? Okay.)...
...an autographed photo of Walt Disney...
...a black-and-white of Don Drysdale...
...the Capitol Records building...
...the inside of the Peach Pit in the Olden Days, and then over to Season 1 Peach Pit? I guess? I am already so bored.
We finally pan down to Worthless Nat, who's been Sad Sackily (and Worthlessly) gazing upon all of these photos. We hear a ruckus in the background...
...which turns out to be Brandon, Steve and Dylan playing air hockey of sorts with saucers and coffee mugs on the counter top. Because they are entitled rich assholes.
Nat agrees.
Willie! arrives and says nothing, because Willie's basically a mute until Season 5.
Brandon "wins" or whatever and hops over the counter like a completely unsanitary boor.
He and Dylan do some ludicrous bro-clap...
...and then he reaches down to grab the saucer that wound up on the filthy fucking floor, but Nat gets there first and snips, "Why don't you and your 'fans' stomp on my dishes next time? That way they'll be sure to get broken?" Brandon apologizes, even though he really doesn't mean it, and then Nat gets his cunt on some more and gripes about Brandon doing some work for once in his goddamn life.
After Nat heads to the back room, Steve's all, "The Peach Pit. L.A.'s newest fun spot." Oh, go buy yourself another silken blouse from Casual Corner and choke on it, you curly-headed stye.
Later, Brandon comes around the corner and into the back room of the Pit and runs into Willie, who says, "'Scuse me, Brandon," so I'm a liar.
Brandon then heads over to Nat, and they talk about mustard and what a little bitch Nat is being, and then Nat waxes regretful about remodeling the restaurant right before the recession hit, and hopefully also about all the free food he gives away on a daily basis.
And then because everything's always All About Brandon, he asks, "Should I start lookin' for another job?" Nat says no, that he'll probably have to get rid of Willie (who most certainly runs circles around Brandon) because he wants a raise after five years, which isn't asking for all that much. Brandon's all incredulous about Willie getting the boot, and Nat dramatics, "I'm not made of money. Somethin's gotta give." Good thing you spent a bunch of scratch on karaoke equipment and then got rid of it in like, a week, in the previous episode. Nat is officially the savviest businessman I know.
(Also: if you'd prefer to listen to me talk about this one rather than reading the overly-descriptive garbage-pit I call a "blog," head on over to the amazing The Blaze with Lizzie & Kat podcast and tune in to hear my ramblings on this very episode.)
Without further (non)ado...
...we open here...
...and then we're inside, where Brandon and his wee arms are exiting the back room carrying some kind of electronic device box.
He's followed by Worthless Nat, not being worthless for once, and Jim, non-sexually tag-teaming another box.
Jim sends Brandon to get another box out of the car and tells Nat, "I got a good feeling about this...did you read the brochure my client sent over? This is the perfect place for one of these things." Yes, a diner is a perfect venue for karaoke. He continues, "You already have a well-established clientele. This is only gonna bring in new traffic. Believe me, that cashier's gonna ring." I think what we can conclude from all of this is that Jim has clearly quit the CPA biz and is now a low-classy karaoke salesman.
Brandon re-enters with the box in hand, and Jim tells him, "Make sure the whole crew is here tomorrow night when we crank this baby up, 'cause we are gonna rock and roll." Take it easy there, Fonzie.
Brandon makes a face like one you'd make when you finally come to the realization that your father's a complete disgrace.
Way back in the halcyon days of early-2013, when I was a just a plucky 30-something hayseed from the backwoods of Colorado, who had come to L.A. with stars in her eyes and several cats in her hands, the original intention of this blog was to go through each episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 and make fun of the clothes. Hence the title. Genius, right? No.
Instead, as I am prone to do, I got carried away with recapping entire episodes so that I could RAGE TYPE about various story lines that have been lodged in my craw for the past 20+ years, and also to express my undying devotion to certain characters (BRENDA, Felice, Jackie, Cindy, Dylan For A While, etc) who remain near and dear to the cold, blackened organ in my chest cavity that some refer to as a "heart."
All of this to say that I will continue to recap episodes here (every 3 to 6 months, as is the norm), but I'm hoping to update Brenda Walsh Is Always Best Dressed daily (ha!) with 2 or 3 outfits per character, per episode. I will then obliterate them with my brilliantly scathing rapier's wit. I.e., I will write a bunch of curses and improperly-used grammar to convey something filthy in some margarita-or-boxed-wine haze and call it a goddamn day.
So! You know what this means, don't you?!? I'm takin' it back to the Old Old School and revisiting the show from the start, meaning, Pilot, meaning this monstrosity wrapped in a mullet:
Hi, trash! Also: HOLD ME. (Also, follow me, please!)
- All images courtesy of the author's Mad Microsoft Paint Skillzzz.
In which a series of painful hysterical mix-ups and misunderstandings cause me to cry myself to sleep a little harder than normal. Read on for all the agony hilarity!
We start off with Sappy Music as Jackie flips through a photo album, full of Jennie Garth's Kelly's baby pictures.
There's this one of Jackie looking at a Baby Kelly, at a time in her life when she wasn't coked up to Jesus. I mean, I hope she wasn't.
Young Jackie holding Baby Kelly.
Pigtailed Kelly in one of those requisite class portrait shots with the 1980s' sky-blue background.
And another.
We fade to Current Day Knocked Up With An ABOMINATION Jackie, flipping the pages of the album, smiling vaguely. Because she knows that she was such a heaping garbage-bag-full of a drug-addicted, alcoholic crap-mother and doesn't want to ruin her next kid's Mother-Daughter Fashion Show in fifteen years? I assume?
Enter Kelly, who sees what her mother is looking at and smiles, asking, "What are you doing?" Jackie tells her, "Oh, I was just remembering how sweet it was to hold a baby in my arms while still managing to cut a perfect line of coke, that's all." Kelly decides to brag about herself, even though it has nothing to do with what Jackie just said: "Yeah, I was kinda cute, wasn't I?" Jackie's only response is to laugh politely because it's not always about you, Kelly.
Kelly decides to cut a bitch by making her feel like a weathered, hanging-on-to-sobriety-by-a-thread old hag (oh, wait) and is all, "That was a long time ago." Jackie concurs, adding, "I'm too old for this."
As Jackie posts up to the island in the kitchen, Kelly asks, "You're going to the doctor today, aren't you?" Jackie corroborates this, saying, "As if I need him to confirm what every home pregnancy test on the market has already told me." Kelly asks, "What does Mel have to say about all this?" And I answer, "Who THUH FUCK cares?"
Which is basically Jackie's answer as well, seeing as she completely ignores the query and busies herself making eggs. Kelly presses further and discovers that Mel doesn't know that Jackie's pregnant, because all he ever talks about is the day he'll finally be rid of his atrociously-coiffed, burden of a son, when he can finally throw all the all-night, group-sex-filled debacheries he's only ever dreamed of.
Kelly insists that Jackie must tell him and it's not a big deal: "He doesn't want a baby, you don't want a baby. Why don't you just tell him that you're taking care of it?"
Jackie says nothing as the Serious Synth version of the theme song plays...
...and then we're in the living room, where we see the backs of the following heads: Cindy, Jim, Brenda, Dylan, AHHHHHHHHHHHHNdrea and her rat's ass...rat's ass, and Brandon's, who's sitting on the floor where he belongs. They're immersed in some news report on the television, which goes a little something like this: "You've heard the old expression 'children should be seen and not heard'? Well, now there's a government survey that wants to know what kids have to say on a variety of subjects, but one of those subjects has some people up in arms. Evan Eber reports."
And then AHHHHHHHHHHHHNdrea like, NERD SPEWS all over everyone, "Oh! This is it! This is it! Turn up the sound!" You're in someone else's house, bitch! Have some manners.
Onscreen, there are various shots of campus-y-looking places and a voice over of the reporter: "Many of the questions pertain to sex, and therein lies the controversy. Critics contend the government-funded survey promotes a message that casual sex is okay."
As he speaks, we get more shots of students walking around, and protester-types holding up signs that say things like, "SEXPERTS GO HOME!!" which mostly reminds me of this and if these so-called "SEXPERTS" are anything at all like Carrie Bradshaw, then, yes, please do go home. Because you clearly suck at your job and are annoying.
Here's a shot of 27-year-olds-parading-as-17-year-olds coming down a staircase, that shitty dweeb John Griffin from a few earlier episodes among them.
Another shot of signs with some wicked burns on them, including one that reads, "CASUAL SEX KILLS" and another, ""SIN SURVEY = SINFUL WASTE." These people better step up their protest sign game if they ever want to work their way up to protesting homosexuals' funerals on behalf of the Westboro Baptist Church. The reporter continues: "They claim that teen pregnancy, AIDS, and other consequences of adolescent sexual behavior cannot be prevented unless we know something about the behavior itself." The behavior itself being...? Teenagers are horny?
On the screen, Mrs. T!...
...followed by this middle-aged lady, who must be a school counselor or perhaps a teacher at West Bev or...oops. It's just AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHNdrea. My bad.
AHHHHHH: "I look awful!" *crickets, a squeaky door opening and shutting, someone coughing, as no one disagrees with her* Finally, the uncomfortable silence is too much for Cindy to bear and she provides an over-the-top, "Oh, you do not!" that no one believes anyway.
Dylan, again grabbing the much-lusted after Line Of The Episode prize with this gem: "How come I don't see your bones up there, squeef?" of Brandon.
Brandon points to the t.v. and says, "There I am! Right there! That's my elbow, right there! See?" Everyone leans in for a closer look because Brandon is a lying sack of shit. Brenda attempts to soothe her brother's ego with, "We could see your whole face if the sign wasn't luckily covering it."
And then this Rando Man who's WEARING A POLKA DOT ASCOT, because he apparently had to get himself all fancied up for the protest, addresses the issue: "Our public health is not served by prying into every corner of our children's lives."
Shot of AHHHHHHHHNdrea, SHDH as Ascot finishes up: "This is a wrongful allocation of taxpayer money, and we think the department should freeze the funding immediately."
Then we finally see Evan Eber, as he ends his story with a wooden, "No matter what happens tomorrow, one thing remains clear: when it comes to the issue of teenage sexuality, everyone's passion can become inflamed." Gross. And: Evan, you're terrible at job.
So Brandon is sad that he "ended up on the cutting room floor," and Jim reassures him with, "Better luck next time, champ." It's pronounced chump, Jim. Chump. And then the Boring Old People are off to bed, and I'm not quite sure why AHHHHHHHHHHNdrea didn't join them. Also, Brandon, like a boor, sits on the arm of the sofa with his feet on the seat. And no one says anything, maybe because they're all oblivious, but most likely because he's a known asshole and they're not in the mood to deal with it.
And then Brenda and Dylan start making out, like, he sort of ROLLS ON TOP OF HER AND WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FREAK SHOW FUCKING FUCK IS THIS FUCK??? HER BROTHER IS RIGHT THERE. Number of times I made out with my high school boyfriend in front of my brother? Well, I didn't have a high school boyfriend until I was almost out of high school, but that's beside the point. The answer would've been zero.
Brandon fronts like he's not going to be masturbating to this image later and awkwardly asks of AHHHHHHHHHHHNdrea, "So, uh, staff meeting first period tomorrow, huh?" and she's all, "Yeah," and he's all, "Great," and she's all, "Great," and I'm all, "Fuuuuuuuck."
And then these pigs continue to make out IN FRONT OF HER BROTHER and I'm physically ill right now. Physically ill.
