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"...
...and then we're inside the halls and at the DJ booth with the scourge of the airwaves as he continues his diatribe into the mic: "The administration has asked me to inform all new and transfer students to report to the main quad where you'll be teamed up with your senior buddies. There, they'll be able to answer all those burning questions you may have, like, where exactly is the main quad anyway." Casey Kasem he is not.
We eventually come to see that Nikki Witt of "Sex, Lies and Volleyball / Photo Fini" fame is goggling at him through the glass. What a surprise! Except not at all. But I'm glad to see her and mostly sad that she's going to go from one terrible doofus (David) to another (Brandon) during her time on the show and she absolutely deserves better.
David flips on some dogshit track and then notices her standing there. He looks...constipated.
He then has a really aggressive flashback of them sucking face on the Taylor/Silver futon at the BHBC a few weeks back...
...and the camera, like, excessively double-zoooooooms in on the action and it was honestly the last thing I needed today or ever.
Anyway, Nikki takes his my stomach just dropped into my asshole expression as an invitation to enter the booth. Once inside, she enthuses, "You told me you were the school DJ, but what a setup!" Nikki really needs to get out more.
He asks what she's doing there and she explains she transferred from San Francisco, that, "Things got really hairy at home, so I convinced my folks to let me move down to La La Land and live with my aunt."
David, who doesn't think it's great, says, "That's great," and then Nikki's off! To meet her senior buddy GEE I WONDER WHO IT WILL BE.
David's only response to her exit is to smile-grimace like a milquetoast simp.
To the quad. There's a table with a banner over it that reads "FRESHMEN find your SENIOR" where people are queued up, retrieving their nametags and buddy assignments.
The kids in line look like actual high school students...
...in stark contrast to the pan-over to and ultimate jump scare of Steve (standing with Brenda and Donna) looking all of his 43 years. Donna asks, "Did we ever look that young?" The answer for most of you is a hard no. Steve, wearing a poly-blend blouse from County Seat's Mature Madam Collection, non-sequiturs, "I can't believe I'm doing this." I'm pretty sure he meant to say, "I can't believe I'm wearing this," but what the hell do I know? Brenda asks him when he got such a dose of school spirit, but he assures her that he's only participating in the buddy program so that he can add it to his college application, which won't mean a thing given that I'm sure Mommy and Daddy Sanders are going to Aunt Becky his way into wherever he goes, but I digress.
And being that he's also an unrepentant swine, he adds, "Besides, I just may be paired up with some fine, post-pubescent feline." Hearing those words exit the mouth of a middle-aged predator with a spiral perm and a penchant for synthetic fabrics is too much for me to process at the moment.
Just then, a girl with a binder approaches, asking, "Are you Steve Sanders?"
He steps toward her and seeing the age-gap between the two of them is laughable. He asks if she's his buddy...
...to which she answers, "No; that lost little kid right over there is," and points at the soon-to-be-revealed Herbert, a guy with hair almost as terrible as Steve's. Speaking of Steve, he turns back to the gals, groans and says, "I'm outta this." The ladies exit stage left with a, "Too late"...
...as Herbert approaches: "Steve Sanders? I found you!" This poor bastard.
He intros himself as "Herbert Little," I tell him to run for his goddamn life, and he holds out a hand to shake, because, unlike Steve, he's not a pustule and has an EQ higher than that of a dildo with the pelt of a Portuguese Water Dog slapped on it, i.e. Steve.
Steve proves this by immediately jumping to "needlessly hostile": "Let's get one thing straight. You're not my little buddy. I'm only doing this because it looks good on my transcripts, so if you stay outta my hair [PLEASE DO; NO ONE wants to get involved with that nest], don't embarrass me [LOOK IN THE MIRROR, SIR], we'll get along just fine. Got it, Hubert?"
Herbert corrects Steve, Steve doesn't care but rather, chuckles, lightly taps the side of Herbert's face then leads Herbert off into the depths of the underworld, probably.
Over here, Brenda approaches Sue SPOILER Scanlon (and whose surname we don't find out until later in the episode, but whatever, we live in the world and all know she's of the Scanlon Brood) and introduces herself. Sue's dressed very prim and proper but looks preppy and adorable with her tied-around sweater and plaid skirt. She asks Brenda where the bathroom is...
...and then we're there, Brenda pacing back in forth in front of the sink looking at her watch and asking, "Is everything okay in there?" Sue affirms that it is and she just needs a few more minutes.
Brenda busies herself in the mirror by futzing with her hair and advising her mentee, "Like I was saying, when I first transferred here, my friends thought being a cheerleader was really uncool. So I didn't go out for the pep squad even though it was something I really wanted to do. Just remember, the key to being happy in this school is to forget about everybody else and just be your own person."
At that, the stall door opens and a Brand New Suze emerges, looking like a mid-'60s Haight-Ashbury reject and smoking a cigarette, asking, "So what were you saying about pep squad?"
Brenda somehow doesn't burst into gales of laughter at the sight of this sartorial buffoonery and merely smiles and chortles weakly as ~kOoKsTeR~ Synth plays.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. A door. More specifically: The Blaze classroom / meeting area / office / conference room / whatever-the-fuck door. Brandon peeks through the window...
...at Andrea - who probably slept there the night before - hanging out with her only friends: loose-leaf pieces of paper.
Tense-Adjacent Synth starts up as he walks in. She looks up, activates scolding mode and tells him, "There you are. I was about to give up on you."
Brandon apologizes, refers to her as "Chief," I regurgitate bile into my mouth, and he adds, "I was gonna call you last night, but it got a little late."
Andrea - who's wearing the same blazer she wore on the first day of their junior year; this is to indicate to the audience that she's nothing but A Poor from The Valley - starts right in, demanding, "Come here, I wanna show you what I did so far." She goes all in on how she's already setup some assignments and then I and, I can only assume, the rest of the viewers, lapse into a perma-stupor from which we will never fully awaken.
They then have this really revolting exchange about how they have a new faculty advisor (the aforementioned Gil Meyers, Professional Douche) because their previous advisor, Ms. McCormick, got pregnant, and Brandon's all, "I didn't know she was married," because that's apparently a prerequisite for gestation, but Andrea informs him with raised eyebrows, "She's not," and they're both sort of scandalized and ALERT THE TOWN ELDERS it's just about time for a good old-fashioned stake burning! I don't remember 1992 being this way but I'm sure it was and it's also terrible now so what the fuck am I even talking about. Oh, and Andrea asks if she should run a story on it in the paper???? I'm out.
So then Brandon takes the opportunity to break to her that he's not going to work on The Blaze any longer, and she of course digs in her heels and refuses to accept his resignation...
...and as they're arguing, an extraordinarily smug man enters the room and observes the exhausting dynamic that we've all come to know and despise for the past two years. He's all smirk-jerk about it, which really just appears to be his default factory setting, so whatever.
Their squabble reaches its dumb crescendo and Gil starts chuckling in the most smugly way possible, which alerts Andrea and Brandon to his presence and mercifully stops the argument in its tracks. He smarms, "Don't stop on my account. You two were definitely on a roll."
Blah blah they all introduce each other and it's already painfully obvious Gil is a huge misogynist who has a boner for the undeserving white guy in this situation, and then he describes his and Andrea's full court press on Brandon to get him to stay working on the paper thusly: "[Two against one.] Those are my favorite kinda odds." I need a shower.
Another classroom. Kelly enters...
...and who do we have here. He, once again, does not deserve to look this good right now.
Kelly takes the seat next to him. He called her the night before; she was home all night; he hung up when David answered (sounds reasonable to me); she tells him not to sweat it after he says that he wanted to talk to her before starting the school year. These two are simultaneously enraging me and putting me to sleep because WE'VE ALREADY WATCHED SOME VARIATION OF THIS CONVERSATION. NUMEROUS TIMES.
Enter a chirpy Brenda: "Hi, guys! This is great! The three of us are finally in the same class!"
These two...
...and their cursed, covert love exchange a scumbag look and I couldn't hate them more if I tried.
Sigh.
Andrea spots him and comes HUSTLING down the stairs as fast as her little legs can take her. She calls out, "MR. MEYERS! MR. MEYERS!" Andrea should take her senior year to focus on educating herself all about the concept of "shame."
She manages to catch up to him, he seems less than thrilled, she tries to pass off to him her "preliminary report" that she compiled with ideas for the paper (woof), he denies her but says they'll chat at The Blaze org meeting he's hosting after school.
After reaching the door to the teacher's lounge, you can tell Gil thinks he's home free from Andrea's nerdly wrath; but au contraire, you pervert: AHHHHHHNdrea will not be deterred. She thanks him for joining her into badgering Brandon to remain on the paper, saying that Brandon can "get a little lazy" if he's not pushed - yeah, we've seen his work ethic in all of its spatula-polishing, slothful glory - but that he's a terrific writer with a lot of potential. Gil manages to finally shake her with a, "Human beings are like that sometimes. See ya." Yes, Andrea's annoying and overbearing and giant pain in everyone's asses, but the nonsense that's about to be pulled on her by this chauvinistic weasel-with-a-neck-beard makes me physically ill.
A bench. Donna fills David in on her new, wonderful student buddy...
...AND LOOK WHO IT IS I NEVER SAW IT COMING.
Donna beckons Nikki over to make introductions, Nikki plays it cool...
...David, once again, looks...clogged up? but also keeps the ruse going that this is his first time making Nikki's acquaintance.
Another bench. Dylan wants to leave campus and go back to his house and fuck (no, really) but Brenda tells him, "Not the first day of school, anyway."
More of this...
...and Kelly spies them from afar...
...looks dejected...
...and keeps on walking.
Brenda comes up for air and spots her friend, calling out to her, but Dylan stops her: "Let her go, Bren."
She asks why and he fumbles all over himself to say, "I just wanna have lunch alone." Brenda finds this "sweet" while I find it "sinister" and "demoniacal." And he somehow manages to pull all of this off while looking guilty and hot at the same time. True warlock vibes.
Now we're in the exciting newsroom underbelly of The Blaze! Aren't you THRILLED???? Yeah, me neither. But the girl from California Dreams is there, so that's a feather in our collective cap, I guess.
Gil's passing out cards for the staff to fill out: "Let me know a little about yourself. And don't be shy, because, well, I'm easily impressed." My digestive tract just unalived itself.
After handing cards to Brandon and Andrea, Gil yammers on further: "More importantly, I wanna know what you want to do on the paper this term, so that you don't keel over from terminal boredom."
As an aside, Andrea whispers to Brandon, "This guy is sharp. What a great way to boost morale." Lady, he doesn't deserve your praise and you're about to find out why.
Clearly loving the sound of his own voice, Gil continues, "In any event, I read the first four issues of last year's paper over lunch, and, well, I found it to be eminently more digestible than the mystery meat they were serving in the cafeteria" - no one finds you funny, bud...except for apparently everyone else in the room because they all bust a gut laughing at his non-funny non-joke - "You guys did good work. I was very impressed. But I know you can do better, a lot better."
At this, Andrea's face falls into the bowels of the hadopelagic zone. Before Gil can continue his never-ending monologue, she chimes in: "Excuse me, Mr. Meyers? What specifically didn't you like about it?" He insists underhandedly that it was very "readable" but that the layout needs more graphics and the editorial style could use more precision, which is basically tantamount to spitting in Andrea's mouth, given that she's the editor and which, along with sand castle-building, is seven-eighths of her entire personality.
The Zuck. Is. TRIGGERED: "Well, what you didn't know is that 70% of the staff was new last fall, so I'm sure when you read what we did in the spring, you'll see why The Blaze went on to win a Quill and Scroll Award." Someone's ready to take this fight to the streets.
In the most this female needs to calm down, she's probably on her period tone possible, Gil slowly condescends, "I'm well aware of your accomplishments, Anne-drea." I would say "them's fightin' words" which they kind of are in this instance because she corrects his pronunciation immediately, but I'm left wondering why she never manages to correct Steve when he does it, which is ALL OF THE TIMES, but okay.
Gil eventually throws her a bone to shut her the hell up: "Clearly, you're a first-rate editor, and since this is my first day, I don't wanna ruffle any feathers. But that doesn't mean there's no room for improvement, does it?" After tentatively agreeing with him, he goes on, "Now, moving right along, does anyone have any questions?"
Girl from California Dreams: "Are you married?"
The rest of the staff AND Gil: laughing laughing laughing at something that should never be laughed about.
Andrea doesn't join in the laughter, though, mostly because she's still a-stewin' but also because it's fucking gross.
Outside, things get even grosser: as Brandon and Andrea exit the school, she complains about Gil not liking her and that she feels like, "All day I've been saying the wrong thing to him." Brandon invalidates her feelings entirely by theorizing, "Maybe you have a crush on him." And then it gets LOADS worse when he asks, "What was the name of that drama teacher you went out with?" Firstly: how dare you remind me. Secondly: I think that question should actually be framed as, "What was the name of that ADULT predator that took advantage of you, a 16-year-old girl, and who should absolutely be incarcerated right about now?"
Rather than never speaking to Brandon again for bringing up what was probably a pretty traumatic experience for a young girl, she scolds, "Will you get your mind out of the gutter, please?" and then vows to find a way to show Gil how much passion she has for the newspaper and how committed she is. Andrea, dogs can see those things. Blind people. The dead. No additional proving of anything necessary.
House of Walsh, later that evening.
This scene amounts to Jim being unable to light the outdoor grill in order to cook burgers and everyone clowning him about being an abject failure at life...
...Dylan leading Jim back outside to show him how it's done...
...Brandon, Brenda and Cindy staying behind to gossip about Jim and Dylan's burgeoning rekindling of their love...
...Dylan coming back in to ask Cindy for newspaper for the grill, a joke that falls flat on all possible levels...
...and finally, we end with the grand Walsh Tradition of the inappropriate fondling of bodies and tongues in front of other family members.
An immediate jump over to Kelly's brain-shaking bedroom, where she's lifting dumbbells in front of her full-length mirror as David sits on her bed and probably, I don't know, jacks off. She gripes, "Every time I see them, he's hugging her or kissing her. I don't know if I'm gonna make it through a whole year of this." This is bizarre rhetoric. Despite everything that's gone down, Dylan and Brenda are still coupled, so what did she expect?
Thankfully, David and his Cars Land-ass looking jacket manage to ask the important questions: "Can I ask you something, and I really don't mean to be getting too personal or anything? Are you in love with Dylan or something?" A big fat DUH but at least he's figured out that the burn-it-with-fire kiss he witnessed between Kelly and Dylan was far from a one-time occurrence.
She joins him on the bed to insist, "No! I just can't stand being in every class with him and Brenda. That's all." Kelly, your lies are trash.
David frets that he may not last a week: "Remember Nikki, that girl who I messed around with this summer? She transferred to West Beverly, and guess who her senior buddy is?" All Kelly can say is, "Uh-oh," before he continues, "When the three of us are together, she acts like she's never met me. When we're alone, she's clearly coming onto me." Yes, Big D: alllllll the girls are in heat when in your hunky-hunky presence.
Kelly, continuing the establishment of her being a god-awful friend to Donna, advises him, "You're right, you're probably not gonna make it through a whole week. Come clean. That's your only choice." And after he asks her, "You really think honesty's the best policy?" she has the audacity to add, "Absolutely. It's better that Donna find out from you than from Nikki." The lack of self awareness with this one is eye-watering.
Which David manages to point out with a sarcastic, "Oh, okay, Kel. You're the expert"...
...and about which Kelly manages to look at least semi-guilty.
The Beverly Hills Public Library. We all know who's haunting its communal reading areas!:
Andrea, you're so predictable. And behind her, lurking in the stacks, is Gil. Probably looking for young girls with which to engage in completely inappropriate and illegal flirtations.
The permanent smirk plastered on his face gets smirkier as he approaches her and slimes, "You're a teacher's dream, Zuckerman." Does this man know Mel? Because he really should.
Andrea, eager to get in the good graces of this very average man, leaps to her feet all, "Mr. Meyers!" He asks, "What are you doing at the public library on the first night of school?" She (barf) quotes him from earlier in the day: "Like you said in class today, reading a good book is like doing aerobics for the imagination."
And HERE WE GO: he goes all cosplay elbow-patched professor and hikes his leg up on the chair and inquires very seriously about another very average male, Brandon: "Is he motivated? Do you think he's a leader?" Andrea affirms both of these things before Gil continues, "I think he's a little bored being the sports editor. I was thinking that he has a chance to be a real star, but he needs a swift kick in the butt" - PLUS THOUSANDS OF UNDESERVED OPPORTUNITIES - "and since you've done it for the last two years, I was thinking we make him editor-in-chief, and you could be the woman behind the man." Gil - and I say this with the utmost respect and deference to your position: I hope you're murdered on the way to your car tonight.
Andrea stands there, appropriately gutted - probably thinking about how yet another suboptimal man is failing himself upward, maybe even toward, eventually, the highest political position in the land - and offers up a feeble smile and an even feebler, "Yeah."
Dean Cain Watch (henceforth called Chi-CAIN-ery? Let's noodle on that): he's injured himself - NOT during ICE training, he insists! - and apparently can't afford a $20 arm sling from his local CVS. I guess we'll all have to wait a little longer while he recovers to get a taste of all the sick, butch moves he's learned under the tutelage of the crack U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement team. I tremble with anticipation to see him - masked up to the GODS, natch - take down Door Dash drivers, parents, grandparents, asylum seekers, car wash employees, teenagers, food vendors, cancer patients, and more! All because we libs have ruined the country. Cue me up some of that sweet Lee Greenwood.
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