Part 1 of Season 3, Episode 7: A Song of Myself - SEPTEMBER HATH RISEN, IRL and in this very episode. Also: yet another Terrible Man© has been unleashed to torment the females and add to my ever-present and all-consuming agita.

Noted philosopher Scheana Shay once declared, "It's all happening." And indeed it is: it's senior year! We're headed into a stretch of episodes that altered my genetic code in fundamental and irreversible ways.  As much as I can get excited these days - which is to say: hardly at all - I'm excited.  Away we go.

FUCKING FINALLY, we're back at West Bev.

As Horn-and-Cowbell-Heavy Synth plays, we pan down from the tip-tops of the palm trees to an empty courtyard...

...which gradually fills up with students...

...and then I'm sadly reminded that this is the episode where we're introduced to the only person to ever rival Brandon in terms of Smarm Douchery: Gil Meyers.  Pity.

The camera lands here with Brenda, Dylan and Brandon.  Brenda looks TREMENDOUS in a shorts suit-type look.

Brandon, all unnecessarily swaggery WHAT'S NEW, asks, "Am I the only person that missed this place?" and then launches into The Hymn of Brandon, He Who Works at a Diner Ten Hours a Week MAX Toils in a Coal Mine: "All I know is that for the last three years, I've been workin' and studying my butt off.  This year, somethin's gotta give.  I gotta have some fun." He walks off and I pluck my eyeballs out of their sockets and roll them on the floor because rolling them inside of my skull isn't enough.

Brenda and Dylan stay behind; he says, "I thought that's what we been doin'?" and then proceeds to eat her face off.  Please stop.

These two.  VISIONS in white.  Donna's baseball-stitch dress is one of my all-time favorites, and her giant, Suzanne Sugarbaker hair here is the stuff of my dreams, I love it so much.

Donna queries, in reference to Brenda/Dylan, "How long do you think those two can really last?" Kelly, a giant bitch when she really has no place to be one, snoots, "I don't know, I'm not an astrologer, Donna." Donna adds that some people end up marrying their high school sweethearts, and then the familiar nasal of her high school sweetheart who she's SPOILER dismally going to marry in about seven years' time pierces through the air via the P.A. system: "Good morning, West Beverly.  This is your conscience speaking"...

Part 4 of Season 3, Episode 6: Castles in the Sand - Pour one out for summer episodes; the Beverly Hills Beach Club; Worthless Henry; and the time in your life before you heard David Silver whisper-sing the words "I love to touch."

(Before devouring Part 4, catch all the way up with Part 1; Part 2; and Part 3.)

Just as within the show, in real life, I'm done with summer.  It's been one of the worst I've known, for myriad reasons, and I'm ready to turn the page...mostly away from the weather season itself but also away from recapping these things and being subjected to seeing Steve in minimal-coverage attire.  So let's take one last look at the final Summer Episode of Beverly Hills, 90210.  EVER.  We'll miss you, Worthless Henry.  Promise you'll write.

We come up on the clambake of the CENTURY underway: some randoms mill about; others wait in a line for food.

Over to a table where Kelly, David and Donna sit (Donna wearing one of her All Time Bests©), eating...

...and then joining them at the next one over are Jim, Cindy, Jackie, and Mel - who really went out of his way to not dress up for the occasion, and let me be the first to advise him that no one is eager to catch a glimpse of your Degree-greased pit hair while consuming shellfish, bud - with the camera finally panning alllll the way over and up to...

...Henry.  On the phone.  Griping to some manager-type about the absentee musician he hired to play the Red Lobster-sponsored Seafood Fest at the Club.  Remember? Because Steve bought some guy off or bribed him or threatened him with the wrath of his mullet? Me, neither - I had to go back to something I wrote literally one week ago to jog my memory.

He walks up to another area of this positively sprawling deck, continuing to rant at the person on the other end of the line: "Look, I want a combo.  I don't want some guy from Pennsylvania playing some accordion." You're telling me that in alllll of Los Angeles - the entertainment capital of THE WORLD, Tinseltown herself, where you can't throw a $25 Erewhon smoothie without hitting a fame-hungry artiste who's clamoring to be onstage, any stage - only a squeeze-box playing Pennsylvanian is available as a last-minute replacement? Once again, it's just a tv show, you say? And I should be caged while I await further psychological evaluation? Roger that.

It's here that we find out the BHBC apparently doesn't have any "Employees Only" zones or locked doors or security, because Steve just appears as if from nowhere (or from the 75% off end of summer blowout clearance sale at the Beverly Connection Structure, given the blight he's changed into) as Henry shouts into the phone, "Well, just get some people over here now, okay?!" and then tries and fails to hang up the call with any amount of intimidation, seeing as it's a cordless and pressing a tiny, rubber button doesn't really have the same effect as slamming down the receiver of a regular phone.  Ah, the '90s.

Henry turns around and doesn't immediately call the cops about Steve's overt trespassing; no, rather, he confides in him: "Can you believe these guys stiffed me?"

Steve, in turn, smarms, "What can I say, Henry? There're a lot of flakes in this business."

Henry, please no: "Can your guy really sing?"

The answer to that is a resounding NO NOT AT ALL, but unfortunately, the synth tsk-tsk-tsk of "Be Be Be My Love" or whatever the fuck starts up, so we know how this turns out.  But first, oh, brother, Steve lowers his shades and rhetorically queries, "Can he sing?"

Part 3 of Season 3, Episode 6: Castles in the Sand - The satisfaction you'll feel at the end of this one far outweighs the mundanity (sand castle psychosis), the deceit (get all the way bent, Dylan and Kelly), and the stupidity (Steve cosplaying Jim while wearing a clown's wig on the back of his neck) that come with it.

In case you need to catch up on your summer reading: Part 1 is here; Part 2, right here.

Garbage Person Brooke's reign of ethnocentrism comes to a merciful conclusion, meaning our only remaining threat is the napping LaPerm cat that has annexed Steve's head as its bunk.  These perils, they are unceasing.

Oh god.  Poor Henry.  Back at the Beach Club, Steve and the outfit he pilfered from Jim's closet have velcro-ed themselves to Henry's side.  Henry's just trying to prep for the clambake, Steve!...

...by moving this potted plant from here...

...to here, two feet away.  Leave him be! He's probably picking up all of Brandon's slack, while Brandon hangs out with an awful girl with awful hair who undermined Henry's very existence and profession just a few short minutes ago.

He definitely doesn't have time for Steve's nonsense: "Look, SAUNders [and yes, he said it just like that because he can't be bothered to learn the correct pronunciation of this doofus's name], I don't have time for all this Hollywood jabber." Amen, though, as previously discussed, Steve's about twenty-seven degrees separated from even the lowest dregs of Hollywood anything, so no need to be so generous.  Obviously Steve is pestering Henry to have David play the closing? ceremonies? of the Beach Club season? later that night, and promises, "If you let David play...I promise I'll stay out of your face forever." Is this all it takes?!? Sign me up!

Henry reminds him, "I told you, I already hired a band for tonight," but Steve, a piece of shit, demands, "So fire them." The more I think about it, the more I believe Steve and Brooke are each other's true, rancid soulmates.

Henry's an actual decent human being, so he tells Steve that's he's not going to fire the band, "They've got a signed contract," and Steve, someone who's read The Art of the Deal one too many times and thinks it's a piece of non-fiction that was "penned" by someone who isn't a complete bankrupting failure in real estate, casino ownership, the presidency, and life in general, insists, "In this business, contract's are meant to be broken."

Henry is my best friend forever because he slings an arm around Steve's neck - don't get it caught in that thick, dense bramble back there, Hen! - and advises, "I guess that's why I never went into this business, babe."

As Wacky Keyboard Plinks start up, Henry gets the fuck away from Steve post haste, as one does, and I'm sad that this is our last episode with Henry.  I know he's Worthless Nat's Worthless Summer Proxy, but, much like Nat, he often serves as a nice reprieve from all the dramzzzzz.  They should've somehow kept him on the show to expand the Peach Pit with Nat (for some? fucking reason?) or to open up a a new sporting goods store in the area.

Part 2 of Season 3, Episode 6: Castles in the Sand - Come for the gals' timeless beach looks; stay for Brandon bringing down the hammer on Brooke's verbal hate crimes...and then his boner gets in the way and it all goes to hell, so thanks for nothing, Minnesota.

If I don't keep writing this nonsense, I might just cry...more so.  So Tag Team, we're back again.  We're going to check it AND wreck it and then we're going to lie down with a couple of cats because we're tired and sad and existing right now is a CHORE. 

Some Synth Drummage that then segues into a Doogie Howser, M.D. theme song homage plays us to the Beach Club, where yet another banner is being strung up, this time advertising "BHBC CASTLES IN THE SAND." Andrea must've experienced her first series of multiple orgasms upon seeing this.

The camera pans over a bunch of extras earning their day rate by pretending to know how to construct professional-grade sand castles...

...and we wind up here: Brandon in his work uniform - once more: decidedly not working, just getting paid to fuck off, I guess - and holding a shovel; and Brooke donning something similar to the slovenly, perspiration-soaked volleyball top she wore in "Sex, Lies and Volleyball / Photo Fini" and dumping out of bucket water.  Brandon insists that they're out of their league in this, sighhhhhhhhhhh, sand castle competition, but Brooke reminds him, "That's why [the pros] are in their own division."

He admits that he's never built one before - not even on the shores of Lake Minnetonka?!?? I won't believe it - and she calls him a "virgin." I barf in my own mouth as she continues: "Seriously, if we can't beat sister Brenda, and Andrea [she pronounces it "Anne-drea" - them's fightin' words!] and the kiddies, and whoever else, we're pretty sorry stuff." Brandon comes around but reminds her that he can only help for a little bit: "I've got work to do." The self-roasting is incredible.  Fucking Rickles over here.

Brooke proceeds to feign disappointment in her Theatre Kid Camp way, coquettishly teasing, "Okay, if you're busy...I'm sure Steve wouldn't mind getting into the wet sand with me." Firstly: sickening.  Secondly: Brooke is deranged.

Which is all the more evident as she gives this him sly, sultry look, the effect of which is lost entirely due to that hairdo of hers.

He beckons her toward him with the wriggle of his index finger and demands, "Gimme those lips, honey"...

...then concerningly clasps the back of her neck and head with the Patented Brandon Death Grip© and they start aggressively macking...

...and then he LITERLLY LIES HER DOWN IN THE SAND WHAT IS HAPPENING and let's take a look-see in the background, where Brenda and Donna sit on a mound of sand, watching all of this grotesquerie play out with what I can only assume is extreme gastrointestinal distress...

...and then we're up close with gals, Donna saying, "Wow, she is into your brother something fierce," and Brenda teasing back sarcastically, "Yeah, so you noticed."  They do this adorable torso-check with each other and I love their friendship.  And the outfits and accessories here: everything they're wearing and how they're so simplistically and chicly styled is burned on my brain forever and ever.

Part 1 of Season 3, Episode 6: Castles in the Sand - Set to the tune of "Islands in the Stream," right? Because I'm not going to be the only fucking one with that song stuck in my head as I write this thing.

It's been a beat.  Lots going on; none of it good. So let's not waste a minute more in the hellscape that is our current reality and instead dive on into the only distraction I have left in my life: an overly-wordy rehash of a very old television show about a bunch of 27-year-old 17-year-olds.  Come along as I do my worst.

So even though we all live in the world and know what we're about to witness is a dumb dream, we're meant to believe we're still in Paris...

...uh huh...

...once more with feeling: Paris.

We wind up here in a park, Brenda - a VISION in this white halter dress - walking on a bench while holding Rick's paw as he strolls alongside her on the grass.  She tells him, "Here I was, feeling guilty for deceiving you when you knew all along I wasn't French."

Rick pretends that he's not a total nitwit (spoiler: he 100% is) and that he wasn't completely bamboozled by her horrifying accent work in the previous episode and lies, "Well, maybe not all along.  But the truth is, I'm really glad you turned out to be a red-blooded American girl." Oh, we know, Dean Cain.  We fucking know, you pile.

They stop and he literally lifts her person from the bench and sets her on the ground before him, something I'm pretty sure I thought was "hot stuff" at 12-years-old but now find to be the height of infantilizing and squicky.

He asks, "You don't regret missing your plane, and stayin' here with me in Europe?"...

...and instead of telling the truth - "Oh, no, I totally do!" - Brenda says, "No, not at all.  I really think I'm falling in love with you, Dylan."

The realization of what just happened takes a moment to dawn on Rick - given that the inside of his skull probably looks like this - but he eventually furrows his brow as Frantic Synth comes in...

...and Brenda, realizing her gaffe, quickly tries to course-correct with a stuttered, "I mean, Rick"...

...and then we're immediately inside the U-S-of-A-bound plane, with Brenda snapping-to from her really boring dream (strolling with the incel-adjacent, stupor-inducing Rick in a park? Talk about a drag).  She sighs and takes off her headphones, making a mental note to never fall asleep again.

The camera pans over to Donna seated next to her, expositing for Brenda and the audience, "We're almost in New York.  Can you believe it?" Brenda says that she can't and, "I miss Paris already." Donna concurs but apparently longed for the feeling of her boyfriend's persistent semi-upright chub pressed against her thigh more, because she adds, "I can't wait to see David."

And then OOPSIE POOPSIE Brenda just can't help herself and declares, "I know what you mean.  I can't wait to see Rick."

They exchange A Look and sort of giggle and I really won't be happy until "Rebel with a Cause" when Rick is given the ol' heave-au revoir and relegated to but a distant and dull short-term memory.