Catch up on Part 1 here.
Taylor Compound.
In the foyer, Jackie fiddles with some floral arrangement as Mover Types mill about.
Kelly arrives and asks after them, with Jackie informing her that they're making room for the tables for the pre-wedding cocktails, and that the ceremony will follow outside, "on the veranda." Kelly says she didn't even know they had a veranda, and perhaps Jake erected one in the last twelve hours or so with some leftover wedding canopy materials and scraps from Mel's sex swing setup he assembled.
Speaking of Danny Zuko, he swaggers in all leather-jacketed and popped-collar douche with his tool belt slung just so over his shoulder and tells Jackie, "That should just about do it," I assume referencing the havoc that he's wreaked on Kelly's psyche and the undoubtedly lifelong intimacy issues he has foisted upon her.
Jackie leaves to go get Jake a check while Kelly and her just terrific dress are wounded: "You were just gonna leave without saying goodbye?"
Poor, exploited Kelly, you guys. She tells him, "I'm just gonna miss seeing you around the house. With everything that's been going on, you're the only person I can really talk to." This fucking dramatic music starts up in the background like this is a romance for the ages, when in actuality it's A CRIME and I don't have the energy. Jake then fires up the ol' gaslight and tells her, "Hey, just because I'm not workin' on your mom's house, doesn't mean I'm gonna stop being your friend." Given that Jake's tongue was swabbing her mouth, like, yesterday, Kelly queries, "Is that all I am? Just your friend? Because the other night, we were more than just friends."
He tells her, "Hey, let's, uh...just see what happens, okay?" and then he goes to tenderly repugnantly stroke her face like this and I have never thrown up more.
Kelly leans in to plant one on him as she huskily says, "I think we already have." He gives as good as he gets for a moment before pushing her away with a stern, "Kelly." She doesn't catch his pedophiliac snap and cutesys, "Jake, I want you to go with me to my mom's wedding."
But he shuts that idea down real quick, seeing as he probably doesn't want any witnesses to the offenses that he's perpetrating on her: "I don't think so...I'm the last person that you should be bringin' home to Mom." Because...you're her mom's age? Kelly is of course heartbroken by this and practically whispers, "Please don't say that." In summary: Jake kicks rocks.
Jackie hustles back in with his check and Jake takes his leave with a, "Bye, ladies," and then unnecessarily brushes riiiiiiight up against Kelly on his way out, probably to get his jock off one more time, and don't let the Taylor Space Hatch hit you in the ass or somehow bludgeon your skull into fragments on the way out or anything, Joke.
Also, not only is Jackie not a Regular Mom, but a Cool Mom, she's also a Fucking Oblivious Mom, as she merely goes back to tending to her bouquet as her clearly shattered daughter stands there to figure it all out on her own, per usual.
We fade to the Backyard of Taylor later in the day for the rehearsal. Kelly is regaling Brenda with her tales of woe re: Jake. Brenda decides now is a fantastic time to play armchair psychologist and advises her friend, "Don't you realize that Jake is just a fantasy for you? That's probably why you like him so much," though she fails to mention all of Jake's FLAMING NEON red flags and the fact that he's a fully formed adult human who should absolutely know better. Behind them, Donna, Mel, David, and three Randos convene.
As Jackie heads toward the dais, Kelly spits back at Brenda, "Thank you for your support." Brenda says she was just being realistic and Donna, noticing the squabble going on behind her, joins the other two and asks, "What's wrong?" As an aside, they all look fabulous here: I love Donna's mini with the flower appliques; Brenda fares the least successful, with a rather matronly, blousy tunic, but, as always, Shannen Doherty makes it work; and Kelly looks lovely in a simple, black babydoll-ish number.
Back to the quarrel: Kelly grouses to Donna, "I asked Jake to the wedding, and he turns me down; I am totally devastated, and now Brenda's telling me that I'm a fool for ever thinking there was something there." Brenda non-apologizes by saying that she had a garbage-day at school, as Dylan told her he wasn't planning on attending the wedding, either.
A few feet away where no one cares, Pastor Type tells Jackie and Mel, "Now, I'm just going to ask you to join hands and repeat your vows after me," and Mel quips, "I think we're both familiar with this routine."
Cut to the two Randos, who are, I guess? Mel's most-likely equally-as-deviant groomsmen, and David, Deviant-in-the-Making, chuckling heartily. Dysfunctional multiple failed marriages due to serial substance abuse and/or rampant philandering? That's gold, Jerry! Comedy gold!
Kelly, however, has reached her limit: "Dylan McKay! That's all we ever talk about. Did it ever occur to you that other people have relationships that they take seriously?" Perhaps this was the impetus of her forthcoming Brenda Betrayal?
Pastor chimes in from behind with, "Girls, can we please have one rehearsal here?" Brenda gets her back up and snoots, "How can you compare your problems with Jake, who you barely even know, to my problems with Dylan?" She's not wrong. And then: "I mean, you're not even up there with Donna and David." Again: not wrong. Donna demands, "What's that supposed to mean?" and Kelly shoots back, "That means that Brenda is being a self-centered little bitch." Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, people in the self-centerediest, bitchiest of glass houses - like theeeeeee bitchiest - shouldn't CONSTANTLY THROWN STANK BITCH-FACES, Kelly.
Brenda, obviously, flees; Donna runs after her; Jackie questions Kelly as to her fucking attitude and she in turn briefs her mom: "I have a life too, ya know. I have feelings. Nobody here pays attention to them, but they're there." Mel interjects here with a legitimately hilarious line, I am ABSOLUTELY NOT lying: "You think it's too late to elope?" Matthew Laurence rarely intones his voice with...well, anything, honestly, but that deadpan delivery of his really worked here.
Jackie, coming for that Mother of the Year: Preoccupied Bridezilla Category crown, descends from the canopy, asking of her daughter-in-obvious crises, "Can't we talk about this later?" David's face is all of our faces following that ask.
But hold that thought! High jinks are afoot! Donna reappears at the back door, adorably freaked, informing the others, "It's raining in the living room! A pipe must've burst or something; there's water everywhere!!!"
Jump cut over to the Peach Pit.
Inside at the counter, Brandon continues his reign of not working and Kelly fills everyone in on the latest in the Taylor/Silver Wedding Downfall Extravaganza. Donna non-offers, "I'd say you guys could have the wedding at my house, but since my parents are talking about getting a divorce, it's probably not the best time." Thanks for playing, Don.
Enter: The Zuck, come to make a complete embarrassment of herself WHAT'S NEW. Long, humiliating story short: her low-rent Valley mother had AHHHHHHHNdrea's wedding invite in her probably-non-designer purse for the past two weeks and forgot to pass it along to her daughter, who is now clutching onto the thing for dear fucking life. She further shames herself by saying these words, aloud: "I thought I wasn't invited." Oh, cripes. Have some dignity. Have some pride. But of course, as we all know, AHHHHHHHHHHNdrea has neither.
I will say that during the girls' exchange, Brandon has a very sweet, very un-Brandonly look on his face, like, "I told you, AHHHHHHHHHHNdrea," but like, not in his usual smuggy, condescending, dick-smack way. I don't know; it was nice.
And then he's a well-intentioned moron and offers up the HoW as the wedding venue...
...which goes over about as well as you can imagine back at the Walsh Homestead: "You said we'd do WHAT??????"
Brandon explains that he told Kelly that he would merely ask, but, "obviously, the answer is no." Then the phone rings. GUESS WHO GOES TO ANSWER IT.
It's Jackie! Cindy's end of the conversation unfolds thusly: "Oh, she did? I did? Well, I...I mean, of course, well, we've talked it over, and..."
Back over here, Jim makes this very funny "noooooo" face and hand motion. It may just be the seven glasses of New Year's Eve morning mimosas that I've tossed back talking, but there is some genuine humor happening here and it's very unsettling.
In conclusion: the Walshes Save the (Wedding) Day! Because dumb hicks from the Midwest just can't say no.
The next morning, David, Steve and Brandon play butch and carry tacky chairs for the ceremony across the Lawn of Walsh. Cater waiters swarm.
Cindy, wearing some FULL-BODY-ODY-ODIED pleated JEANS that represent End of Times, and Jim, Casual Jim if you're nasty, standby like useless assholes, and Cindy advises Jim that a "small" wedding in Beverly Hills is a "relative term." Oh, us ~wAcKy~ Left Coasters!
Jackie hurries over, out of breath and wearing a Flags of the World tunic for no discernible reason. She profusely thanks Cindy and Jim, insisting they don't need to lift a finger, she'll never forget their hospitality, not even in about nine months when her marriage goes to shit because Mel is yet another wholly disappointing male on this show, etc.
As Jackie makes good on her promise and whisks a waiter away to show him the location of the kitchen, Cindy turns to Jim with a grimace and instructs him to, "Smile!" through clenched teeth. Will the shenanigans ever start end???
In the KoW, Steve's pit stains - who have never had to do a hard day's work in the their lives - gripe about manual labor: "This better be a long and happy marriage. I'm beat." And then he makes a cunty, vaguely classist comment about Jake: "Where's that guy Jake when we need him?" On the lam, Steve. Crossing state lines like there's no tomorrow. And since Jake is a slimy miscreant preying on an adolescent girl, I must declare: read him to filth and back, Steve-O.
Steve's hand then gets slapped by a waiter as he reaches for a handful of plattered hors d'oeuvres, rather than his mullet getting slapped for his appalling choice in shirt-wear and, clearly, total lack of anti-perspirant.
After Cindy comes bustling in, asks for Brenda's whereabouts (per Brandon: "I think she's in bed"), then bustles back out with an eyeroll, Steve and Brandon go all in on the hors d'oeuvres thievery, throwing glances in the direction of the snippy waiter to make sure he doesn't see and once again, causing genuine laughter to escape from my body, and I absolutely need to be sent to the seaside for whatever this version of Female Hysteria is. Wine-induced? Oh.
Upstairs Cindy busts into Brenda's room without knocking or anything, and maybe these fools could earn their daughter's FUCKING respect by respecting her. Just a thought.
After further discussion of Jim's punishment and treatment of both his daughter and Dylan, Brenda - who really should've had her own pajama line - poses the most accurate rhetorical question ever asked in the history of MAN: "Is he the only one who makes decisions in this family? Don't you have a say in what goes on around here?" LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK. Thank FUCK someone finally said it.
But Cindy, cowed in the face of her husband's vast collection of suspenders and of his innate accountancy musk, claims that while she's stood by Brenda and Dylan in the past, she fully agrees with Jim on this one and tells her daughter to, "give it some time. Things like this have a way of working themselves out." Brenda says that Dylan's not coming to the wedding and Cindy, aghast, asks why. Cindy, I adore you, but ARE YOU FUCKING THICK? Brenda says that, after Jim's living room scream-down earlier in the episode, she doubts Dylan will visit the HoW again: "He has his pride, too, ya know."
Back in the kitchen, a now completely sweat-stain-free Brandon and Steve are going to attempt to execute a champagne tower...
OF COURSE we head over to the Peach Pit, where OF COURSE the Speedster is parked out front.
Inside and over Dylan's shoulder, we see him handling Cindy's envelope.
Dylan asks, "What's this?" Brandon, Sassy n' Stylish in his tangerine Cherokee t-shirt from Target and his hands on his hips, says, "I don't know, I'm just the messenger. Open it," then pats Dylan on the arm and walks away, rather than being the nosy bitch I would be and wanting to know every, single dirty detail of the contents of the envelope.
Dylan looks adorable while reading this and mulling things over as we fade to black but since we all know Jim hardcore SUCKS and is going to blow up Cindy's kind gesture, why the fuck does it matter? In closing: it doesn't, so let's take a nap.
See you back here for Part 3, you know, whenever.
I love your posts. Thank you for writing this. So much fun to read. Sorry I'm not much for commenting on content itself.
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