Season 2, Episode 20: A Competitive Edge - Steve's Back To Being A Complete Dildo. Show Of Hands Of Those Of You Who Are Surprised? Zero? Zero Hands? That's What I Thought.

In which fucking Steve, man.  Just...what a blight upon mankind and his friends and curly hair everywhere.

So we start with approximately 87 hours of track and field events in slow-mo.  First up is this guy doing the long? jump? And panting.  And grunting.  Also presented in slow-motion.

And then this different guy lands in the sand pit thing or whatever, with a bunch of Randos watching from the sidelines.  All of this is nearly as fascinating as the early-episode hockey antics we were subjected to during "Fire and Ice."

High jump.  More grunting.

These people run around the track, huffing and puffing and some are wearing Spandex bike shorts, which was required of anyone participating in a physical activity in the early '90s.  Or by girls like me who badly wanted to be their middle school's Clarissa Darling or Kelly Kapowski and failing miserably on all counts.

A baton is passed.  My nose begins to bleed because I've snorted a bunch of methamphetamine in a desperate attempt to stay awake.

This 37-year-old man prepares a shot put.  We'll be dealing with this piece of shit's smug face more in a few minutes.  Anyway, he - SHOCK - grunts and throws the shot.

Steve.  Stretching.  In one of his trusty Forever 21 clearance rack racer-back tanks.  Which provides just a hint of a view of his right nipple.  Thanks for that, Steve.

There's a gun shot, unfortunately not directed toward Steve's hair.  It was actually a starting gun for these FUCKING GROWN MEN, like, straight-up 30-something-dudes, to start their hurdle race.

Then we get this shot of an old-school stop watch being stopped or started and we see that it belongs to...

...This Guy! You know, the guy in "The Next Fifty Years" where Dead Scott dead-Scotted himself into that great big dude ranch in the sky? Mr. Chapman! Or, Chappie, as I like to call him (no, I don't, but it stays for the remainder of the recap).

Here's a guy pole vaulting and can you guess what he's doing while vaulting? Can you???

Run a knife across my throat.

Season 2; Episode 14 - The Next Fifty Years: Of My Life Will Be Spent Coming Up With New Ways Of Saying "Steve's Hair Is A Sinister Underworld Filled To The Brim With Excrement" And "I Really Fucking Hate Brandon." Read On For The Most Recent Additions To My List.

(First and foremost, I'd like to send a birthday shout-out to the one and only Rach! A ride-or-die kind of a broad who's been an immense source of support of this nonsense for a while now...which actually kind of makes me question her judgment and psychological stability, but that's neither here nor there.  For your special day, Rach, as requested, I got you this profanity-laden blog post about a fair-haired loser who accidentally shoots himself and dies.  On his birthday.  So.  Happy Birthday to you? I guess? This is a really dreadful gift.)

In which we all know what happens in this one: Brenda bestows us with the dance move that launched a thousand-and-one imitations.  In my life anyway.

I've attempted to recreate this Julliard School Dance Division-worthy move since the moment this episode aired, only in the privacy of my own bedroom and, in more recent years, only with (potentially) a few pairs of judgy-ass cat eyes on me.  I've never been able to fully capture the grace and elegance Shannen Doherty clearly brought to the table with this one, but I try.  Still, I try.  Even if I ever only achieve 1/1,000,000th of the funk she's serving up here, I would be unable to share it with the public.  Mikhail Baryshnikov and Twyla Tharp and Blossom Russo would be so overcome with boiling jealousy and self-doubt, they'd never dance again, and I just wouldn't be able to live with that.

Oh, and also: Scott blows his digestive tract off.  And dies.  Whatever.

We open - as is so often the case - with the tip-tops of palm trees as we hear "This Is My Country" on the soundtrack.

We slowly pan down, seeing Douglas Emerson's name's final appearance onscreen...

...to the parched quad area of West Bev.  A choir is singing the aforementioned song and a bunch of other students who apparently have nothing better to do are gathered 'round.  We also see the banner proclaiming, "West Beverly Hills High School Time Capsule," and then the dates 1941 and 1991, hanging from the balcony.

Pan over the choir dorks.  I can say that because I was a choir dork in middle and high school.  And a really atrocious one at that.

More panning over the crowd.  This recedingly hair-lined dude wearing the unfortunate combination of a turtleneck under a button-down shirt (ah, the early-'90s) appears to be a member of the SAUNders family, or perhaps just another student giving Steve a run for his 41-year-old money in the 41-year-old department.

Sidebar: I didn't notice this person until I started screencapping but seriously, WHO THE FUCK IS THIS GUY.  He clearly arrived in 1991 in a time machine from the 1984 movie, This Is Spinal Tap.

Finally (and regrettably) we wind up on David, filming the goings-on in a shirt he appears to have fashioned out of the fabric scraps left over after Vivian Ward's polo match dress was made.  Except that since his shirt clearly moonlights as a fumigation tarp for the Spelling Mansion, it's more likely that he so fancied Vivian's dress that he headed to ALL the Jo-Anns to buy ALL the bolts of this fabric in ALL of the state of California, as well as parts of Arizona and Oregon.  Also: we're only 2:02 into this episode and I've already made a Pretty Woman reference.  I can hardly wait to see how many more I can cram in, given that I'm going through withdrawals, having not made a single one in my "Halloween" recap.  Moving on.

So then we get David's vantage point of looking through the camera (how clever) as he focuses on the banner.

Then we sadly get David's tinny voiceover as he pans down to Brandon and his Smug Brandon Mug (slathered in Blush-&-Bashful Bronzer, it appears) wearing a sports coat and a tie, and AHHHHHHHHHHHNdrea wearing what could be a cute dress but is more than likely an abomination.  I mean, it's AHHHHHHHHHHHHNdrea after all.  David says, "That's Brandon Walsh with the editorial board [ed. note: oh, please]; AHHHHHHNdrea Zuckerman, [and he seriously says "AHHHHHHHHHHHNdrea," like, exactly how I write it, and he sounds kind of irritated with it, which was pretty boss and very un-David-like, really] editor-in-chief of the Blaze."

Mrs. T.  Dressed as Bette Midler and Bette Midler's SHOULDER PADS in Big Business? Silly Mrs. T. - Halloween was last episode!

And then David gets this guy, "Mr. Chapman," who we'll see later in the episode as well as later in the season as Brandon and a 'roided-up Steve's track and field coach.

The Blonde Brigade, surrounded as always by a bunch of Nobodies.  David refers to them as "the Three Amigos," because he's just as quick-witted as I am.

He then sets in his sights Dylan and Brenda, and what a fucking nuisance to everyone else in the crowd, lurking around, stalking the clique he so desperately wants to be included in.  Also: see the horror in Brenda's eyes at his approach? That's pure, primal fear right there.

As he gets closer, he says, "Dylan McKay and Brenda Walsh, popular...a campus couple," and of course Dylan's reaction is to tell the troglodyte to go fuck himself.  Well played, Dylan, well played.

David creeps around getting more footage ("footage" = "jack-off material for later") as we wind up back with Brandon and AHHHHHHHHHHNdrea onstage.  (Don't hate me but I like Brandon's hair here; what can I say? I like a good pomp.)  He asks AHHHHHHHHHHNdrea how many verses are in the ever-loving "This Is My Country," because seriously, it's been going on for several hours at this point.  AHHHHHHHHHNdrea then reminds Brandon that, "Citizen Kane is Saturday night," which sounds like a surefire cure for insomnia to me, especially in the company of AHHHHHHHHHHHNdrea and her rat's ass hair, but whatever.  Brandon then makes the grave mistake of bailing on her, seeing as he's got a date with Emily that night, and though barely audible or visible, if you look hard enough and listen hard enough you'll observe AHHHHHHHHHHHHNdrea turning away and seething, "If I can't have you, no one can," out of her foaming mouth.

FINALLY, the choir is through and Mrs, T. and her SHOULDER PADS head to the microphone, advising everyone assembled, "I'd like to thank our special guests from the Class of '41, who invite all of you to take a closer look at the time capsule.  Thank you.  We'll see ya tomorrow." And then everyone claps.  Because this lame assembly is over.

David, in a shirt Dorothy Zbornak would deem "too shapeless," heads back over to Dylan and Brenda, embarrassing himself further by begging Dylan for "just one sound bite, please.  That's all I ask."

Season 2; Episode 9 - Ashes to Ashes: You Should Read This While Intermittently Watching Videos Of Kittens And Puppies Romping, Because It's Both Boring And Depressing And Videos Of Kittens And Puppies Romping Fixes Both Of Those Things.

This thing would've been up last weekend, but I was sick with what I'm pretty certain was Ebola or something in the same strain-family as Ebola, and also Gilmore Girls (shut up) arrived on NetFlix so that's been eating away at my entire existence taking up some most of my time (I said, shut up).  So, here it is.  Perhaps not the most inspired of posts (are they ever?)  but whatever.

In which I get to dissect an episode about police brutality against a black youth who's armed only with a pitiful bouquet of flowers and a tub of strawberry yogurt.  So...this shouldn't be awkward and uncomfortable in the slightest.  Can we go back to finding new ways to describe the decaying prairie dog corpse residing on top of Emily Valentine's head? No?  Okay then.  Let's get squirmy.

We open at House Of Walsh, nighttime.

Inside to the Living Room Of Walsh where a bunch of Adult Randos who fell straight out of 1982 are convened and sitting on folding chairs and looking at...something.

Which turns out to be this guy, standing at the front of the group, looking at his wristwatch.

Brandon and his trashy hair and Brenda, with her reasonably cute sweater and Vulvodynia Jeans, stand in the doorway and judge all the Old Timers.  Rightfully so, I believe, given how all of them are dressed.

And then Rando Guy launches into, "Believe it or not, that was 90 seconds.  Not a long time by any means, but certainly long enough for any garden-variety criminal to rob your house; rob you bat blind!  It's not my intention to frighten you!  I'm simply trying to point out that in that same 90 seconds, an armed guard from the West Beverly Hills Patrol would've been at your doorstep!" and dude needs to calm the fuck down and work on his presentation skills (or cut down on the coke) because he's like, shouting at everyone and coming across like a real bossy prick.  So basically, he's coming across like Brandon.

Cindy, Jim and some biddy sit in the front row and nod in approval.  Side note: Cindy looks very pretty in this scene.  Not that you can tell from this still.  But she does.  Trust me.

So Rando Guy says, "Before I take any questions, I'd like to thank our hosts of the evening - also they are our newest subscribers - Jack and Candy Welsh."

That was...GLOOOOOOOOORious.  As is Cindy's Cut A Bitch face.

As Rando Guy chuckles like some kind of sweaty sexual deviant and the crowd of Old Timers applauds, Jim and Cindy turn around and Jim clarifies, "It's Walsh.  Jim and Cindy Walsh."

Later, Rando shows Jim the ins-and-outs of the Walshes' newly installed alarm system.  Brandon and Brenda walk by making faces and Brandon condescendingly mutters to his father, "Well, now we can sleep at night." Jim mutters back, "Huh, don't get me started, this was your mother's idea," because he apparently thinks the man standing RIGHT NEXT TO HIM WHO WORKS FOR THE ALARM COMPANY HE'S CURRENTLY DISSING can't hear a single dickish word he's saying.

Cindy, meanwhile, has her hands full with the biddy, whose name we find out is Mrs. Cooper.  Cindy's talking about being another "block captain," because it will make her feel important in society and she won't have the need to knock back a bottle or three of Sutter Home white zin every afternoon (I'm paraphrasing).  Mrs. Cooper talks about some Lieberman's in the neighborhood whose house was recently broken into in broad daylight, as well as the some dude with the last name of Kaplan who has a bunch of yapping dogs.  And then she asks Cindy if she knows of the new people who moved into the old Walker house.  Cindy's all, "What are they like?" and Mrs. C. tells her, "Colored." Hahaha, just kidding.  She merely chortles all racistly and says, "Oh, you'll see."

Season 2; Episode 2: The Party Fish - My Idea Of Hell On Earth? A Horrifyingly-Titled, Brandon-Fronted Episode Where Steve Gets To Say A Lot Of Words And Brandish His Increasingly Worrisome Chest.

In which I'd like to welcome my new readers! There's been a bit of a bump in views these past few weeks, and I'd like to shout out to Rach, who somehow found my blog (probably when I had that gun against her head and told her to type "modcam1923.blogspot.com" into the browser, whatever) and then mentioned it on THE MOST AMAZING SITE YOU WILL EVER HAVE THE PLEASURE OF READING, NO I'M NOT EXAGGERATING, Full House Reviewed.  For real-reals you guys, this is the funniest shit you will EVER read.  As the tagline says, it's every episode of Full House reviewed in chronological order, but in the most vulgar, amazing way possible.  ANYWAY, Rach is a follower of that blog, and mentioned my little old waste-of-time-and-sanity in the comments section of one of the posts there.  A few other readers took pity and came by for a visit, and they're apparently a bunch of masochists because they've stuck around and started weeding through the archives! Also: A special thanks to Teebore, who has left far-more-insightful-than-my-own comments on several of my posts.  Thank you for making sense of my diarrhea-laced rants and then intelligently sharing your thoughts.  So now...onto the show, which is kind of a bummer, as I'd much rather discuss ANYTHING ELSE.  Why, you inquire? Because this is the one where Brandon wants to stick it in some 33-year-old BHBC waitress, but then he realizes that She Has A Secret, which is that she's currently riding the dick of some cokey-vibed beach club member who takes a really weird and spooky interest in Brandon getting a car.  Although my theory is: dude's a pimp and thinks that Brandon's baby blues and dimples will look really fetching in some Rough Trade while selling his "goods" (if he has any...which he doesn't) on Hollywood Blvd.  WHERE WAS I? Oh, fuck it.  Whatever.  Read on.

We open on the House Of Walsh.

In the kitchen, Jim asks, "What time does your express bus leave?" and Brandon, all Put Upon and Sad-Sacky (YES, FUCKING AGAIN) tells his father, "6:30," even though it's CLEARLY 10 AM outside. So because Jim doesn't want to be around Brandon any more than any of the rest of us do, he says, "You better get goin’."

So Brandon gets up all grunty and whatever, and Jim's all, "What's with you?" And I interject, "He's a piece of shit," but no one listens to me, and then Brandon tells him, "Job burnout," AND WHAT THE HOLY MOTHER-FUCK IT'S BEEN A WEEK.  And THANK MOSES Jim's there to agree with me and advise this monstrosity, "After one week?" and THANK YOU, JIM. Also: I kind of like Jim this episode.  Kind of how I liked him in the “It’s Only A Test” episode.  But just like that one, I’ll be sporting a major hate Woodrow for him at the end of this episode.  My feelings toward Jim are very schizophrenic.  I...don’t know. So Brandon, who thinks he's been working with radioactive materials or in a goddamn coal mine or something, says, "It’s the toughest job I ever had, Dad." So unlike mine, Jim's head does not detonate (that's two episodes in a row for me, if you're keeping track) and tells his WANKER son, "Spending your day at the beach doesn’t sound all that difficult," and SEEEEEEERIOUSLY, Jim's my boyfriend right now. Only not because that's a really unpleasant thought. And because I said it, I now need to go bathe myself in a tub full of flesh-eating ants and asbestos.

So then because Brandon is The Worst, Always And Eternally, he puts on this smarm-face and tells his father, "But you have no idea what my day is like.  I’m the first one there in the morning, practically the last one to leave at night, I’m so busy all day the only way I know I’m at the beach is because my shoes are full of sand." Or because the fucking Pacific Ocean is RIGHT THERE, MORON. So Jim informs him that there's no free lunch and that, "You get what you pay for in this world," and than Brandon HONESTLY TO GOODNESS SAYS, "Ah, but you see, if you were to pay for oh, let’s say, half of what my car cost, I could quit and actually pretend it’s summer." WHATWHATWHAT??? I mean...THE GAUL. THE NERVE. Like, the self-entitlement on this one is just beyond reproach. Jim and Cindy should just bag him up, take him down to the Los Angeles River, drown him and call it a damn day. Which is basically what Jim implies he's going to do when he tells him, "Have a nice day, Brandon," but in a really monotone, "fuck you, slut" kind of a way. Jim is my Forever Temporary Homie.