Season 2, Episode 19: Fire And Ice - I Will Deduce From This Title That Brandon Dates Another Emerging Arsonist Who Also Sculpts Ice? On The Side? Am I Even Close? Even Though I Already Know What The Title Refers To, Given That I've Seen This One Approximately 317 x 1,000 Times?

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Season 2, Episode 18: Walsh Family Christmas - Please Don't Make Me.

In which it's February and I'm writing about Christmas.  This was like the least fun thing ever.  And that includes the time I was hit by a car and left for dead by the side of the rode and then mauled by a pack of rabid coyotes.  And none of that ever happened but I'm pretty sure it would be a more enjoyable experience than anything having to do with this episode.

We open on this sign that says "New Mexico - Land of Enchantment." I've only ever driven through New Mexico (quickly), but never found it particularly enchanting.  Also, this music that you'd expect to hear on the soundtrack to Walker, Texas Ranger, plays in the background.  There's no other way I can describe it.

This bus rolls past the sign and since we unfortunately had to sit through the previous episode, we can be pretty safe in our assumption that this bus holds the fluff-headed dink we've all come to sort of grudgingly accept, one Steve "The Steve SAUNders Special" Sanders.

Sure enough, as the bus comes to a stop in front of some shabby building, we see Mr. Sanders' mullet peering out of his open window.  I'm certain that all of the other passengers really appreciate the open window, given that it's probably, like, -13 degrees there in December.  My takeaway from this is that everyone from Los Angeles is a hideously-coiffed asshole.

Steve descends the steps of the bus, saying, "Sure is cold here," like, perhaps, then, you moldy q-tip, you shouldn't have had your window open.  He's followed off of the bus by a teenage-ish girl of indeterminate race, which is I guess supposed to tell us that Steve is not a racist.  A terrible person in many, many ways, including the hairdo and clothing departments, but decidedly not a racist.  Anyway, Girl (we never learn her name because of course she doesn't matter) says, "If we're lucky, maybe we'll have a white Christmas."

Steve calls the idea "kind of neat," and then Girl can't beat it the fuck away from him fast enough, lying, "It was fun traveling with you," and then confirming our theory that Steve is a self-absorbed garbage person, when, after he thanks her for listening to him, says, "What else was I gonna do for 16 hours?" They have a laugh over that one, although I'm assuming her laughter was a means of covering up her tears, she wishes him good luck on finding his bio-mom, then sees her mom and thanks her lucky stars that any interaction with this wool-headed douche is over.  Peace out Mexican-Maybe-Some-Kind-Of-Native-American Girl.  We really hardly knew ye.

So as this really, really terrible, like, diarrhea-heavy version of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" starts playing in the background, Steve flings his bag over his shoulder and starts hoofing it down the street like fucking Joe Buck or something.

Season 2; Episode 10 - Necessity Is A Mother: Actually, Necessity Is A Box Of Franzia Sunset Blush Wine (Chillable Red Will Do In A Pinch), Several Cats To Pet, And A Toned Pair Of Eyeballs For All The Rolling They'll Be Doing While Watching This Episode.

In which Iris McKay (the person, not just the name) finally blows onto our screens and even though she's an abandoning, derelict, neglectful garbage person parent, you can't help but be sort-of charmed by her hippie-dippy, Cocker Spaniel-haired Earth Mother routine.  (Mostly I love her because she's cunty to Kelly after she and Dylan start dating in Season 3.)  Also, anyone who can give Cindy enough peyote-laced wheat germ to do this:

And then THIS:

Is all right in my book.  Tuck in.

We open inside a pool hall.  Bluesy, Bo Diddley music plays in the background.  You should get used to it, because it will play approximately 1,357 times this episode, always to let us know that we're in this billiards hall which is undoubtedly on the wrong side of the tracks and that all the people you see here are criminals and lowlifes.

We roll by several pool tables with loads of trashy randos who've given up on life standing around them.

We eventually wind up at YOU GUESSED IT Resident Beverly Hills Bad Boy Dylan McKay's table.  I'm pretty certain he was allowed in the pool hall given that he looks 29 here.

The Consummate Poor Little Rich Boy tosses his pool cue onto the table and walks away, like the rude, self-entitled little twat that he is.

He walks up to this guy at the register and gives him the rack of his balls.  I am 12, due to the fact that the term "rack of his balls" makes me chuckle.  Counter Guy asks, "Takin' off already?" and Dylan's all, "Yeah, I gotta get home.  Dinner with Mom."  Counter Guys goes from "Weirdly Dressed Guest Relations Person" to "All The Way Terrifying Serial Killer Whose Crawl Space Should Probably Be Exhumed" when he says, "Yeah, I had a mother once." Soooooo...he's a murderer, right? Like no doubt in anyone's mind? Okay, cool - glad to see we're all on the same page.

Counter Guy keeps randomly laughing like the fucking mental patient and sociopathic life-ender he is and tells Dylan, "You know, McKay, you're about the last guy who would ever struck me as bein' a mama's boy," which prompts Dylan to look at him like this (i.e. with a mixture of fear and...fear) and then slowly back away from the counter and out of the pool hall.

Season 2; Episode 7 - Camping Trip: Here's The Recap That Took Me Seven Centuries To Complete Because (SPOILER ALERT) It's Just The FUCKING WORST.

In which WHO CARES.  This episode sucks.  Many, many dicks.  And, as stated several times previously: Brandon almost dies, but doesn't.  SO WHAT'S THE POINT? TELL ME.  Also: there's this Rando Just Married Couple that shows up, and they're mostly creepy interlopers who completely lack boundaries, and who are well on their way to being deranged, typically fucked-up Beverly Hills Parent-types, but they Learn A Lesson from the kids and Steve and AHHHHHHHHNdrea so whatever, it's fine.  As long as the rich asshole teenagers from West L.A. feel good about themselves, that's all the matters, right? Right.  So anyway...did I mention Brandon doesn't plummet to his well-deserved and much-anticipated death in this one? No? Well, he doesn't.  I haven't been this disappointed since Brandon didn't die in a fiery, soused-up car accident after binge-guzzling Steve "Sandra [SAUNdra?] Lee" SAUNders' Semi-Homemade Hooch.  Anyway.  On with the (JUST GOD-AWFUL) show, I guess.  Go there.

We open, where else? on House Of Walsh.

Up to Brandon's room, where he's currently being squaty-legged and rummaging for something on the top shelf in his closet.  As he does so, Brenda calls from off-camera, "Brandon! You better give me your toothbrush and stuff if you want me to pack them for you!" Ooo, intrigue about where they could possibly be going!  And by "Ooo, intrigue about where they could possibly be going!" I of course mean "They're going camping with The Gang and I have maybe three moist shits to give about all of this."

Brenda enters her brother's room and sees him foraging for something (shoe lifts?) and says, "I hope you're not finding more stuff to take.  Your half of the bag is already full." Seriously, they're not allowed to bring more than a bag? The van that they've rented (I guess?) looks pretty huge, as you'll see, but I guess most of the space will be taken up by Brandon's ego and princely ideals of himself as well as Steve's Power Mullet and garment bags teeming with his trusty belly shirts.

Brandon finds whatever he was looking for and then almost eats it and crushes his skull and shatters his pelvis and snaps his spine and dies while coming off of the chair but doesn't, and this episode, in addition to being totally imbecilic, mind-numbingly tedious and a fucking waste of LIFE, is also really just one big tease and I don't appreciate it at all.

So what Brandon was looking for and found was this hat that I can only assume was part of his Boxcar Willie costume the previous Halloween.  And then there's this massively cringe-worthy moment where Brandon says it's his "lucky" hat, and Brenda LITERALLY describes it as "one nerdy looking thang," (yes, "thang") and he tells her that he thinks it's cool (of course he does) and her response is, "Well maybe to a beaver," and it's got to be the most awkward and unnatural scene between these two, ever, and it really made me clench my backside in a really unpleasant way.

Kelly then stomps into the room, wearing a Cherokee for Target t-shirt she borrowed from Brandon, and the shorts I wore everyday in 8th grade.  And she tells him that Steve is the fucking worst.  And no one in CREATION is surprised and everyone responds to her with a collective, "DUH."  But really, she comes in to tell Brandon, "You have got to do something about [Steve]...he is unpacking Donna's suitcases.  He said she's exceeded her luggage allowance." I would suggest that Steve has exceeded his word allowance for a lifetime, as well as the allowance of the number of racer-back tanks somebody can own, but no one ever listens to me so never mind.

Brandon leaves the room to go try to be all butch with Steve and throws his hobo-hat atop Brenda's head.  She immediately rips it off of her skull, fearing that his gross hair is catching.  I don't blame her.  So then the girls talk about how Jackie forced Kelly to bring David on the camping trip, because Jackie and Mel are going out of town to probably hang with a bunch of degenerate, couple-swinging oral surgeons or whatever revolting shit Mel's undoubtedly into.  And then Brenda says that Dylan's not going on the camping trip because his mom moved back? from Hawaii? Hell if I know.  I mean, obviously I knew Iris had moved back to L.A. with Dylan because of subsequent Season 2 story lines, but I find it odd that none of this was mentioned in the previous episode.  Like any sort of conversation about where Dylan's going to live and with whom.  Whatever.  Why I expect this show to be some beacon of continuity is beyond me.