Part 3 of Season 3, Episode 8: The Back Story - My back? Aching. My story? Mostly boring with a *pinch* of despair.

(First, let's play catch up with Part 1 and Part 2.)

Unsure why this one took me so long.  Other than being mentally and creatively paralyzed because of every single thing happening in this country, I guess.

Back at it.

Inside Blaze Central Command, Brandon and Andrea sit on a table before...

...Mrs. T and her SHOULDER PADS from the set of Big Business, come to caution the Editor-and-Editrix-in-Chief about Back Story darkening the doorway of West Bev: "We had to escort a cameraman off the premises and they have a Winnebago parked on Alcott Drive." Okay, so not on school grounds, but just, like, parked on a patch of grass? Because that's for sure trespassing of some kind, no? To whom does that patch of grass belong? TO WHOMMMMM?

A pre-melting down Brandon nervously asks, "So no one asked for permission?" obviously harkening back to his earlier episode advice to Brenda and the fact that he absolutely knows she absolutely didn't heed it.

And Mrs. T is more than happy to confirm his fears: "No, they did not, probably because they knew we wouldn't give it to them.  So, please, put an announcement in the paper that we don't want any students cooperating with these people." Or...you could maybe...make an announcement over the PA, like, immediately? Have DJ Jazzy Dave do it.  And how often does The Blaze come out - bi-daily? With The Zuck at its helm, I wouldn't be surprised.

After they assure her that they can squeeze the warning into the next issue and Mrs. T takes her leave, Scary Synth begins and Andrea proclaims, "Ohh, I hate tabloid journalists.  They are the sleaziest," undoubtedly thinking back to her gritty, hard-hitting undercover piece about the sordid underbelly of *checks notes* school cafeteria cuisine, which set the high-brow journalistic standards The Blaze prides itself on each and every day.  She turns and notices Brandon's semi-stricken face and asks what's up.  He's all, "I gotta go talk to Brenda," and bounces.

Part 1 of Season 3, Episode 8: The Back Story - It's about to get sordid in the Hills of Beverly, yo.

Time for our latest installment of An Adult Tertiary Character Oversteps A LOT of Societal Boundaries With These Kids.

We're on a street...

...and then pan over to an office-type building...

...then head inside said building to a sign that reads "Albert B. Cooke SAT REVIEW COURSE SUITE 526." As you may recall, it was called "Alfred B. Cook" in the Season 1 episode "It's Only a Test," but who the fuck cares about continuity, I guess.  Maybe Albert is Alfred's brother who added an "e" to the surname to stand out in the world of standardized test preparation.

As we hear a monotone man begin to speak - "And you will look forward to the morning when you will awaken from a good night's sleep.  Bring your ID and your #2 pencils, and arrive at your SAT testing site approximately 20 minutes before the test begins" - we go into a classroom, wherein sits Kelly, zoning out...

...Brenda, looking attentive and gorgeous...

...David, with the jump scare in follicle form, Steve's hair, behind him...

...and as David leans over, there's Donna.  David whines re the arrive at your SAT testing site approximately 20 minutes before the test begins, "Why? So we can worry for an extra 20 minutes?" but Donna informs her incredibly stupid boyfriend, "No, so you don't have to worry about being late on top of everything else."

Steve, who only ever seems to butt himself into conversations, I assume because no one in their right mind wants to organically start one up with him, tilts forward and dispenses with the insults, as is his wont: "Relax, Eraserhead, you're a junior.  Come on, it's a piece of cake." I don't know if the "Eraserhead" is a slight about the shape of David's coiffure, but if so: THAT IS RICH.

The odd proctor/instructor man then provides them with his cultist mantra for the day of their testing: "Simply breath and bring yourself back to the sound of my voice saying, SDSM.  Scan, discard, select, move on.  Scan, discard, select, move on." This guy and his spooky, monotonous voice absolutely went on to form a Heaven's Gate-esque super-sect after this.

Lobby.  These hot broads.  Each dress is a dreamboat, then and now.

As they enter the area, this woman (whose name we soon learn is Beth) pops up from a chair with her Early '90s' Business Bitch dress suit and cute hair, cheerfully asking, "Excuse me, we're from KTMB TV.  Would any of you be willing to talk to us about the pressure you're feeling getting ready for college entrance exams?" We see the goatee with a cameraman attached stand up behind her.

The gals, looking like they would've been my favorite '90s' girls' group, exchange looks and sheepish smiles.

A while later, Steve enters the lobby, standing next to Kelly and asking, "What's goin' on?" She tells him, "Oh, just the local news"...

...and over to Brenda, standing front-of-camera, being interviewed by Beth.

BUT.  Steve spots ~sOmEtHiNg~ is amiss...

...which is an equipment bag with a logo on it that reads BACK STORY...

...and that's enough to set.  Steve.  OFF: "The hell it is!"

Angry Synth Drummage start up as he charges toward the filming, aggressively yanking the mic from Beth's hand, which is just a fantastic way to approach a woman, let me tell you.  Beth demands, "Can I have my mic back, please?"

And Brenda is scandalized: "Steve! What are you doing?"

Steve and The Very Hungry Caterpillar sitting atop his head have some seething to do: "Don't you know who these people are, Brenda? Did you ever hear of a sleazy tv show called Back Story? It's a junkathon news magazine that goes out of its way to ruin people's lives on national tv." Beth insists that's not the case, but ol' Mommy Issues over here sees it differently: "What about the story you ran on Samantha Sanders? That was a hatchet job if ever I've seen a hatchet job." Why were we robbed of seeing at least a CLIP of The BACK STORY of Samantha Sanders? I bet it mostly involved her voicing sheer terror over the advancing crimescape mullet growing out of her recently adopted infant son's head.

Kelly rushes up to whisk Steve away with, "Let's just get outta here."

David and Donna follow suit, him saying, "Come on, man, don't waste your breath," and Donna adding a sassy, "Really," capped with a filthy look thrown in Beth's direction.

Speaking of, she requests her mic back once more and Steve complies, but with a lovely side salad of a potential threat of violence: "Next time I'll break it.  And your camera, too."

After the towheads + DJ Dave exit, Brenda explains to Beth, "Samantha Sanders is his mom.  He's very protective of her." Beth understands, then wishes Brenda good luck on her SATs.  Don't worry: Beth will be back in a few minutes to be yet another fully grown-ass adult who inappropriately interacts with a minor on this show.  What fun.

Part 3 of Season 3, Episode 7: A Song of Myself - Brandon has zero lines in this one! YAY. Gil has far too many and they're all TRASH, just like his blotchy beard and floppy hair and I hate him so, so hard. BOO.

I'm tired and sad and maybe the teensiest bit hopeful? We'll see how long that last one holds out.  In other news: another week, another Gil-involved scene in which to channel my feminine rage.

Nighttime at the Peach Pit.

Inside, Steve and the golden mold spores cascading down his neck unpack a box of 45s that contain some of the worst music you'll ever lay your ears upon, i.e. some David "Funky but Decidedly not Fresh" Silver Originals.  David asks the obvious for humans living in 1992 and beyond: "Who plays 45s anymore?"

Steve takes offense to David daring to question his non-genius and nongenuity (rim shot?), picks up the cursed box and walks it over to the juke: "Get with the program, David.  I'm gonna put these in jukeboxes.  I'm gonna have this puppy playing in every diner in town."  Los Angeles should've declared an immediate state of emergency after that terroristic threat was uttered.

What follows is nefarious on a few levels: David asks Steve not to play the record at the Pit, because Donna thinks she's the first person to ever have the displeasure of hearing it, and Nikki thinks she's the first person to ever have the displeasure of hearing it, and he doesn't want high jinks or cat fights to ensue if either of them were ever to discover the truth.

Ian Ziering gets a great line delivery here with, "You told me I was the first person who heard the song."

But the baseness continues as David frets about coming clean to Donna about his summer atrocity with Nikki, and Steve, one of Donna's oldest friends and a completely disloyal pig-man, insists that David doesn't have to tell Donna anything; that Nikki only wants to break David and Donna up so that she can have that DJ DS dong all to herself; and that what David should actually do is keep Nikki as a "little side dish." What a terrible day for me to have the ability to hear things because: what a massive pile.

 

David further agonizes about his fear that Nikki will tell Donna herself: "Ya know, the two of them have gotten pretty tight"...in three days...or five days...or whatever the hell timeline this episode has portrayed.

Despite Steve's above rhetoric, Mr. Ziering manages to make me laugh again with the following: "Let me tell you three words of advice that have always worked for me: deny, deny, deny."

Part 2 of Season 3, Episode 7: A Song of Myself - Andrea wears a great dress! And has a spine! And tells Brandon to go fuck himself! And Steve's mullet for sure has its own pretty substantial gravitational pull!

Let's not mince words: things are bad.  So for a few minutes, reminisce and laugh and take a load off with the following ridiculousness.  But first: if you haven't yet, here's Part 1 for your reading pleasure. 

Kicky Drums play us back to school the next day.

At a tree, a young girl has been cornered by a 43-year-old man who has apparently wandered onto campus to strike fear and loathing in the hearts of all females and anyone with fashion sense and a good head of hair in the school.  The girl has the telltale stiff smile all women learn to plaster across their face when confronted with some unfuckable weirdo who wants to suck the life-force out of them with flirting-disguised-as-inane banter, as Steve demonstrates here: "Well, if you ever need a ride home, I've got a 'Vette." Just say you have a micro penis and move along, dude.

Herbert! - who, unbeknownst to him, is now this poor girl's lord and savior - jogs toward them, calling out, "Excuse me, Steve!" in a very friendly manner that Steve absolutely does not deserve.

Steve tells his hostage, "This'll just take a minute"...

...then walks toward Herbert with a grimace on his face, calls him by the wrong name again and demands, "Make it quick." Herbert wants to know the location of the computer lab; Steve gives it to him as if he knows where anything involving education or learning is, and for cruel measure, adds, "Just follow the dweeb droppings."

Also: LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT MULLET.  That thing resides in a separate zip code and stars in its own show called Beverly Hills, 90211.  The tail end of it enters a room a good 5 minutes after the front of it does.  That thing is a wholly hostile entity hellbent on toppling societies and overthrowing governments.

It also clearly scared the bejesus out of the girl Steve was victimizing after she caught a glimpse of it from behind because when he turns back around from speaking with Herbert, she's vamoosed, probably into the welcoming arms of the Witness Protection Program and a safehouse where Steve nor his hair can't hurt her ever again.

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"...