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 4 of Season 3, Episode 7: A Song of Myself - Things are going great. Except that they're not. So let's discuss 1992 teen soap opera dramzzz while the world burns.

Missed Part 1? Well, here you go.  Bypassed Part 2 because you've been a little too preoccupied re: the fall of democracy? Same; totally understandable; and you can catch up here whenever you need a moment of reprieve from coordinating next steps after the insurrection has been declared.  Sidestepped Part 3? Lucky! Because it was a big fat snooze, but if you must: have at it.  And now, onward to Part 4.

Another day? The same day? Who knows.

Steve descends the stairs...

...and spots this scene playing out below: three cartoonish goons tossing Herbert's briefcase back and forth as he stands helplessly in the middle of them, trying in vain to get it back.  One of the goons? Oh, just Tony Miller.  You know: the blood-thirsty, anabolic steroid-abusing menace from last season, who will NON-SPOILER escort Brenda to the prom at the end of this season and NO ONE - not her brother, none of her friends, zero - will have a problem with it, like, good luck, Bren! Hope he doesn't throw you up against a wall in a juiced-up fit of rage.

But that's a rant for another time.  Steve shakes his head and approaches, miraculously coming to Herbert's sort of? rescue?

After he asks, "What's goin' on?" Tony smirks and tosses the briefcase his way, calling their bullying merely "a little healthy hazing." You know a fraternity currently on academic restriction hates to see this guy coming next fall.

Steve catches the case and hands it back to Herbert...

...and the three 32-year-old men post up and shoot Steve their nearest approximation of "mean-mugging" as Tony demands, "What's your problem, Sanders?" Maybe it's the fact that you've violently thrown him up against a chain link fence within the last seven months? Just a thought.

Steve informs these clods, "You can pick on all the freshmen you want, just not my freshmen, okay?" How...nice? But also, poor Herbert, being claimed by Steve "Continental Cut" Sanders in such a way.

After Herbert thanks Steve followed with a "sir," the meatheads chortle in their brain-dead way, and then they're off, probably to go score some rohypnol for their ruckus Friday evenings ahead.  Brenda's a lucky, lucky lady.

Steve turns back to Herbert and scolds, "You really are a nerd, aren't you? Don't call me 'sir'."

But Herbert gives it right back: "Fine.  As long as you don't call me 'Hubert'."

A laughing Steve takes that to mean that he can inappropriately grab Herbert around the upper torso and lead him away and all of these people need to take a crash course in personal space and physical boundaries.

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.