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?"
Look. This is a daytime horror from which none of us will ever fully recover, individually or collectively, so let's just get the lyrics I was able to transcribe through the tears and violent retching out of the way first thing: I love to touch, your sweet caress, I think of you and only you, that I must confess, lonely days and lonely nights, my world's falling apart (SO IS MINE. LIKE, ACTIVELY RIGHT NOW), I need you with me by my side, I need you in my heart, 'cause there's a space you can only fill (filthy), please, please be my love, yeah, be be be my love, ooh, be be be my love...
Initial thoughts: if he wrote this song about Donna, she should sue for defamation and extreme emotional and gut microbiome distress. Secondly: if your reproductive organs rotted off of or out of your person whilst reading those lyrics/watching this scene, you're not alone.
As David is breaking his version of the United Nations Convention Against Torture, the camera jumps back over to Andrea, Steve, Kelly, and Donna sitting around their table, somehow without blood dribbling out of their ears...
...and then a pan over to the adults, where these poor fucking people have to smile rigidly and uncertainly bop their heads along and pretend that they're picking up whatever David's putting down, namely: hot trash.
Back here, Donna humiliates herself further by proclaiming enthusiastically, "Wow! He has gotten so good!" Like Cameron before her, let me inform her: Donna, you're better than this. Even Kelly, who is terrible, is better than what she adds: "Yeah, I had no idea."
Steve decides to make David's non-success and non-talent All About Steve: "Yeah, well, I'm bringing him along slowly, you know, teaching him how to phrase a lyric, sell an audience...all the things a top-notch manager does."
Blessedly, Donna's not having it: "What?! Like, shut up and let everyone else listen to his song." I thoroughly disagree with the let[ting] everyone else listen to his song bit, but the rest rings true.
Steve responds by curling his lip in her direction...
...then leans into poor Andrea's ear and repeats, "I'm bringing him along slowly," which elicits a laugh from The Zuck, most likely a tactic to get Steve away from her faster than if she put up a fight and reminded him that he's possibly one of the worst representatives of the human race and should've been formally censured from society a long, long time ago.
It's still going.
...
...
...
Another shot of Jim and Cindy in HELL.
We get a brief reprieve from the soundtrack to the downfall of civilization as we head over to the beach near sunset, where we see Brenda and Dylan watching the waves, each in a nearly identical sweater/jeans combo.
The pan-around shot shows us he's using her leg and foot as sort of a pillow and goddamn it, this would be Dreamboat Central if he wasn't such a skank.
Brenda launches into a swoony sort of Tale o' Her Travels: "When I was in Paris, I'd wake up early to take a walk down the Seine, just to see the moon get lost in the morning light. And I'd be thinking about you, halfway around the world, wondering if you were somewhere on the beach looking up at the same moon."
He lie-tells, "I was," failing to mention that his arms were wrapped around Kelly's waist and vagina (? whatever) whilst taking in said moon.
She continues, "And then I'd wonder if there was anyone else in your arms."
This facial expression brought to you by Guilt.
She goes on to say that she eventually stopped worrying about it, figuring, "If there was anyone else, it was only because I was there and you were here and vice-versa." Yes, that's a little thing called "cheating," Brenda.
All he can add is, "That's right." WTF is this conversation?
And then unlike Dylan ever plans on doing, Brenda makes her confession: "I met someone in Paris. Rick, my tour guide. Well, actually, I was his tour guide. It's kind of a long story. We were only together the last couple of days I was there, and it really didn't amount to anything much."
Dylan proceeds to: 1) Go all Scowls McKay, and may I remind him to BLOW IT OUT HIS ASS...
2) Throw up a hand and turn back toward the ocean in a huff, and may I remind him SEE #1...
...and 3) Spit a pissy little "So, are you finished with your summer vacation?" her way, and AGAIN, please refer to numbers 1 and 2 above. She doesn't owe him anything, but doesn't know that yet, so she says that yes, she's finished, and he continues to be a real bitch and turns around to glare at her.
And it's here that we meet yet another burned-on-my-brain-forever line: "What about you? Are you ready to start our senior year together, you and me?"
He looks away JUST FUCKING TELL HER...
...and she seems to sense something is amiss NO KIDDING so she anxiously presses, "Dylan?"
His only response is to sit up and say, "Welcome home, Brenda,"...
...then kiss her collar bone? Sure...
...and then they lie back and I guess have some sunset public beach sex, the hottest kind of sex there is.
No.
No.
I don't know what is happening, and I'm scared.
To Steve; he looks over his shoulder, 40 and smirking...
...at Henry, who smiles out of obligation, and also out of gratitude that this is the last time he's going to have to deal with any of these fools ever, ever again following this evening...
...and then more Steve making this am I a stud, or what? gesture and I guess I'll be the one to break the news: the answer is most definitely always the latter with you, my guy - or what.
Henry smiles again rather than lighting himself on fire.
No.
No.
No.
No.
Should someone call an ambulance? This much non-rhythmic convulsing must be a symptom of a much deeper issue.
...
One final little dipshit spin and he's done! PRAISE BE!
And then Kelly and Donna clap. Out of pity.
Steve cheers and pumps his fist. Out of pity.
Cindy and Jim clap. Out of pity. And also because Cindy is blammo.
Mel, who's filing an emergency Termination of Parental Rights petition with the court first thing Monday morning, and Jackie clap. Out of pity.
David - who should really just go back to being a pervert voyeur with his video camera, skeeving on girls and interviewing his goon soon-to-be-deceased former bff, because these things would be more acceptable and defensible than whatever fire and brimstone he hath wrought upon us in the last three minutes - squeaks into the mic, "Thank you, um...let's all take a break now. We'll be back in...sorry, I'll be back in 15 minutes. Thanks."
And then I can only assume there was a mad dash to the exits that involved more than a few stampede-related injuries, because we cut over to Brandon, actually fucking working on his last day on the job, picking up paper plates and cups left behind by rich, entitled clambake patrons and shoving them in the trash bag he's carrying.
Steve catches up to him, and apropos of nothing, spouts, "Andrea said you sent Brooke packing." Brandon confirms this, then says, "She's all yours, buddy." Sooooo, Brandon's just fine with hoisting his friend on a known white nationalist super-villain, who espoused the wackest views this side of the current-day Trump regime? We had a decent run, Minnesota. But we're officially back to our regularly scheduled dynamic of me hating everything about you.
Anyway, a delusionally disgusting Steve, who's dressed for his assistant night manager shift at the Radio Shack, looks on the bright side: "I guess it's better we're available now for all those pretty young things that are gonna be starting Beverly and West Beverly."
Snaps are then pulled to celebrate statutory rape and the future vile crimes they're both going to commit against the underage. I hate it here in 2025 and I hate it there on my screen in 1992.
Steve departs to go work on his forthcoming alibis while Brandon continues cleaning, eventually coming upon Kelly, who sad clowns, "You look like you're having a good a night as I am." I mean, you did seem to be having an okay night when you were pretending to be into your stepbrother's sorry attempts at "music," but I guess that was just a front.
WHO CARES he complains about his supposed shitty summer; she compliments him on having at least gotten a good tan; he responds by kissing her on the nose for some reason. These people all really need to work on their interpersonal behavior and social cues, immediately.
Fade to evening. Brandon and Dylan are carrying drinks from the Snack Shack...
...to a table where The Gang minus Ms. Taylor sits. They inevitably toast to David's cursed lack of musical talent and Andrea's sand castle competition win (maybe she can write about it in painstaking detail in the first issue back of The Blaze!!!! Oh, she's already written a draft? And another draft? And has run it by the copy editor and editrix-in-chief, both of which are her? And created a mock up of the layout of the issue with the article as its front page, feature story? Sounds about right)...
...and then Brenda decides to jump on the cornball bandwagon and proffers her own: "It took me going halfway around the world to realize I have the best bunch of friends a girl could ever have. And I love you all." She looks at Dylan: "Especially you."
He smiles feebly. Because he's a dirty dog.
Steve chimes in to irritate everyone with, "Well, uh...here's to us. And our senior year," and, looking at his watch, "which starts in exactly six days, eight hours and...24 minutes." Steve, don't front like you can do on-the-fly addition or tell time like that. We know better.
Groans all around.
Steve, still in the throes of some kind of a hallucinatory event, adds, "At least we'll rule the school this year." My god.
Donna chirps, "I can't believe summer's almost over," which prompts Brenda to reminisce, "Yeah, but we'll always have Paris."
And, oh, puke, this causes Dylan to somberly hark back to the Casablanca-quoting sniper spree that he and Kelly were on all summer and he sits there with a wistful look on his stupid face.
Shore-side.
Kelly stands looking out at the Pacific, gorge in a great cardigan.
No. You go away.
She reminds him, "You don't have to keep checking up on me."
He says it's not that, that he just wanted to thank her for yesterday. She sadly notes, "That was yesterday?"
And then, in a true THE FUCK moment, he says, "Kelly...ya know. You're a smart lady." WHAT DOES THAT MEEEEEEAN.
They stop and face each other again and, while verging on tears, she tells him, "I'm happy for you...and for Brenda. You guys belong together. So let's just leave it alone, okay?"
He asks, "Where does that leave you, Kel?" to which she answers, "We can't have it both ways." He weirdly demands, "So you're tellin' me just go back to Brenda and forget everything that happened?" This is some Olympic-level flip-floppery right here.
And then noooooooooooooOOOOOOOOO: "We'll always have Paris."
He informs her, "It is not funny anymore," as if it was at all, in any way, shape or form, to begin with.
They both look down at the turd of a sculpture of Paris that he, Brenda and Donna worked on...
...and then Kelly dramatics, "I guess nothing lasts forever." It's very, "Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories," from An Affair to Remember, which is at the very least not Casablanca, so that's something, I guess. She looks at him one more time and then walks away.
He calls after her weakly...
...then looks back at this crap-tastic creation which I guess is some fucking metaphor for their doomed, clandestine love, barf. It honestly looks better here, half-washed out to sea, than it did immediately following its construction.
Eyes on the water. Fin. And: I continue to loathe all of this.
Also, as an update no one needed: Dean "Reek" Cain continues to be an unabashed lowlife. I know you're as blown away by his continued devolution as I am.
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