A NEW BOMBSHELL - i.e. Season 3 - HAS ENTERED THE VILLA. We've arrived at what is at once my favorite and least favorite season of the show. I haven't watched these episodes in yeeeeeeeeeears, so I know some story lines are going to come as a (probably puzzling) surprise, e.g. Steve working at the Pit for a total of 25 minutes? Why the heck not? That's called engrossing TV, people!
Pre-credits, we're instantly inside the empty halls of West Beverly as some electric drum-heavy "mystery" music plays. Skulduggery must be afoot!
The camera slowly pans over to the true jump scare of one Steve "Top Button" Sanders and the mullet he rode in on. He priggishly nods, immediately after I say aloud to my laptop, "This fucking dildo." Coincidence? I don't think so, friend.
He then whips around (the ever-growing baby Bedlington Terrier protruding from the base of his skull leading the way; seriously: that thing billows in the West Bev breeze as he spins his head as though he's Finesse-ing his hair to beautiful like there's no tomorrow) at the sound of:
Mrs. T! and her SHOULDERPADS! saying, "Oh, Steve! I've been looking for you." You're better than that, Mrs. T.
Steve chuckles all nervously, and if you've yet to figure out this is dumb Steve's dumb dream, wherein Mrs. Teasley tells him that he didn't pass any of his classes - which, fine, believable - and will have to take his Junior year over, I don't know how to help you. They go back and forth a few times and then! Dream School Bell rings, and we cut to:
Steve's glass-blocked holding pen and him JOLTING awake from the nightmare and cartoonishly gulping and gaping around the room. My ultimate nightmare, you ask? Steve's tight tendrils.
Exterior, Peach Pit. Steve's humiliation of a license plate with a Corvette attached is parked out front.
Inside, Steve regales Brandon with a very theatrically detailed description of the dream and it's abundantly clear that Brandon couldn't care less, probably because he's too busy thinking about how truly great his hair looks now, finally, two fucking years into this goddamn thing.
But still: he assures his ringleted friend, "Well, we're not [Juniors]. We made it. We're gonna be Seniors...but first: two months of glorious, uninterrupted freedom," and then walks around the counter and flings an arm around Steve's dense underbrush and they basically plan out how they're going to be sex pests at the beach club all summer, picking up "hot, beautiful, babe-licious, sexy, half-naked, lonely racists with terrible hair chicks," and both of these absolute predators should be on some kind of a watchlist. Steve breathlessly calls it, "Hot fun," and I need a quaalude-dosed iced beverage with a side of the number for a good lock-down mental facility, post haste.
Oh, and then they pull snaps off of each other instead of pulling knives on each other and saving us all from another six seasons of their utter buffoonery. Also: glad that Steve's so gung-ho about his pending, literal seniority that he'll almost torch it to the ground in a few months' time with some harebrained pre-The Net-style shenanigans, costarring some poor, impressionable sack with a coiffure nearly as bad as his own. Flop Era, thy permanent resident's name is Sanders.
We then get the opening credits, which are the same-old/same-old, though it was a real punch to the gut and tear ducts when it got to Shannen. Obviously, I've seen grillions of her pictures online and on social media following her death, but this is the first full episode I've viewed since and seeing her so young, with the theme song playing, really kicked my ass. Our be-banged Queen forever and ever and ever. Cry count: infinity.
Open on: HoW. We hear Cindy calling out, "Brenda! Hurry up! Kelly and Donna are here."
Inside, Cindy enters the kitchen where Donna and Kelly and their amazing dresses are waiting. Cindy looks like Cindy: cute blouse, mammoth SHORTS, waistline to the nips. Kelly asks about Brenda, and Cindy responds that she's miserable.
Right on cue, the source of Brenda's misery enters, Gordon Gekko'ed to the GAWDS, glad-handing the gals and asking Kelly about Jackie as if he gives two shits. Per Kelly, her mother is, "full of regret about her decision to legally bind herself to a man who will inevitably destroy her very soul big; very, very big."
Cindy, that cunty one-upper, scoffs at Kelly and brags, "You don't know 'big' until you've carried twins." I would imagine Brandon's already MASSIVE in utero ego made up a lot of that weight you were carrying around, Cin. Let's hope it was a C-section.
Enter Brenda, in a gorgeous, windowpane-print pale yellow shift, with hair that made me weep as a 12-year-old, just as it continues to make me weep as a 44-year-old. Be prepared for some version of this sentiment ad nauseam over the course of these summer episodes, and actually, the remainder of her time on the show. She's had majority sartorial wins thus far, but, in my non-humble opinion because I'm wholly correct, Seasons 3 and 4 hold her most legendary looks.
The girls are going bikini shopping, and Jim, emotional terrorist and manipulative pee-stain, digs his AmEx card out of his wallet and gives it to Brenda in a bid to buy back her affection. She reluctantly takes it and I really hope she uses it to rent a fuck-den at the Bel Age for her and Dylan and Jim sees all of the charges on his next monthly statement and then he pants a bunch while wearing suspenders, which is always.
On the road in Donna's golden Beemer.
Inside, Brenda thanks her friends, calling them lifesavers. Donna scolds her about how she "can't keep doing this the whole summer. You should've heard your parents; they're really worried about you." Brenda queries, "What do you suggest, I join a convent?" which, yes, that's precisely what Jim would like her to do.
So it turns out they're not actually going swimsuit shopping; Brenda's been using Kelly and Donna as her covers for clandestine meet-ups with Dylan, who we see across the street, awaiting her arrival next to the Porsche. In addition to being a hype-man for Brenda's everything, prepare yourselves for a lot of "dYlAn'S HaIr LoOkS sO gOoD," in the coming episodes, even as he's slithering around the beach club with Kelly and kissing shoulders and waxing banal about old movies and damaging the young women and men of the early '90s on a cellular level with his treason and misdeeds. Too much? Whatever.
Donna pulls to the side of the road and as Brenda prepares to exit she asks how she looks, and Kelly predicts her own very-near future with, "Like a lying, sneaking, conniving..." and oh, pot, you're about to be all UP in kettle's space.
After Brenda leaves and Kelly buckles back in, Donna admonishes her: "You're one to talk; you have been sneaking around with Jake for weeks!" Gross. And: why? And: you guys? I really thought about recapping the first two episodes of Melrose Place, the ones with Kelly and some of the other 90210 crew making appearances, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I didn't feel like watching three-decades-old TV programming that further normalized a grown-ass man's entanglement (read: crime) with a 17-year-old. I'm far too beaten down and disgusted for that. (And yes, I know this show has MORE than its fair share of problematic plot lines, and yes, they'll be discussed, but I can only handle one formative television show from my youth that aged like already-curdled milk left out in the sun at a time.) Donna continues to hardcore bum about her role as accomplice to her friends' duplicity: "I have to cover for both of you. I must be nuts!" Kelly tells her that she'll be off the hook soon enough: "Brenda's gonna have to figure something else out while we're in Europe."
As Brenda goes to settle into Dylan's car, Donna yells over to her, "Be back here at 6 sharp!" Felice would be so proud.
The blondes drive off in the opposite direction as Kelly bemoans, "I cannot wait to get on that plane to Paris. Get away from Brenda and Dylan and Mel and Jackie and the baby," and Mel's nerdly-yet-shuddersome presence alone would make me want to lam it across the Atlantic for eternity a couple of months, so: same, girl. Donna asks after Jake, like, yeah, is he in prison yet? Kelly clichés, "Maybe absence will make his heart grow fonder." To this I say: when will death come? Donna goes in on her whole I-can't-go-to-Paris-because-my-mom-stepped-out-on-my-dad-in-the-most-classy-Color-Me-Badd-soundtracked-way-possible-and-now-they're-getting-a-divorce schtick, but Kelly reminds her, "If their marriage is falling apart, it's gonna happen with or without you. Believe me, the further you are from the war zone, the better," an opinion with which I whole-heartedly concur.
Back here.
Worthless Nat! He exits the kitchen with an envelope in hand: "Here ya go, Brandon. Your final paycheck." Brandon accepts the check and smirks, "Thanks, Nat. And thanks for lettin' me off easy this year." That sound you just heard? The audacity-induced detonation of my cranium from the bowels of central Los Angeles. Nat wasn't given the opportunity to let you off easy last year, you pustule. You royally fucked him over! And he forgave you for it! Very readily! And welcomed you back with open arms in the fall! So actually: choke, the both of you!
Nat, Storied Los Angeles Restaurateur, again lets the dweeb off the hook, saying, "Just as well. I woulda had to cut back your hours for the summer anyway." What, from eight per week????
Brandon, in turn, holds up the spatula he never uses - just polishes - and warns, "Just don't let me catch anyone using this until I get back." Nat finally DRAGS HIM TO FILTH AND BACK AGAIN with, "Where am I ever gonna find someone who wants to work two or three hours a day anyway?" END HIM. But really: he just tells this failing-upward fuck to have a great summer.
In the back room, Steve, a patron, enters. To watch Brandon change? Sure! He sees Brandon mulling over his pay stub and asks, "Is it all there?" Rude, but considering it's most-assuredly Renowned Bookkeeper Nat Bussichio we're talking about, I kind of understand the ask. Brandon says, "What there is of it," and after Steve questions how much is there, instead of karate-chopping the Chia Pet creeping down Steve's nape, Brandon hands over the check.
Of course Steve, entitled one-percenter, chuckles upon seeing it and asks, "This is for like, a day, right?" Brandon informs him it's for an entire week, and Steve, who should be murdered, cackles and wheezes out, "That's pathetic! This is it? This is pizza money!"
Brandon snatches the non-coveted title of Line of Episode and asks, "Steve, when they say, 'Die, yuppie scum,' you know who they're talkin' about, don't you?" They have a bit of a slap-and-tickle fight about Steve being The Worst and foreseeably suckling off of the Hartley House teat for the rest of his life; Brandon calls Steve, "sweetheart" and challenges him with, "Why don't you put your money where your mouth is? I will bet you this paycheck, in its entirety, that you cannot get and keep a job for one week."
Cut to: this chump, who has been unwittingly selected as a pawn in a wager between two privileged pricks. What fun! Nat sort of laughs in Steve's Brillo-framed face at the idea of him working as a waiter at the Peach Pit and asks, "This is a joke, right?" No, Steve's the joke, Nat. Steve. Anyway, Steve gets the job and will leave Nat in the lurch in about a week-ish, and there’s nothing quite like pulling one over on the moderately down-on-his-luck owner of the greasy spoon you and your friends frequent and from whom you receive constant on-the-house Mega-Burgers, et al.
The coast.
On the beach, the Hottest Sluts who have ever slutted sit on a blanket and nosh. Dylan advises that he's going to see Jim the following day, to request a new trustee for his millions. Brenda tells him not to rock the boat, and they mildly bicker about the difficulties of keeping up their ruse once Donna and Kelly head to Paris and how, given that his name can't even be mentioned in the HoW, it's clear that Dylan's no longer an honorary member of Fam Walsh and because of that, he doesn't want Rambo: First Blood's younger, bookish brother, Jimbo: First DUD (ZING) having control of any facet of his life.
Brenda lies back Brendaly, wishing it was her and Dylan going to Paris instead, and then Dylan conjures the ancient lore of Rich Boy: Poor and Little by telling her about allllllll the Euro trips he and his debased and dysfunctional family went on when he was younger (perhaps when he was bedding gaggles of Older Lady Types as a preteen, and pardon me while I surrender myself to the full-body dry heaves that have seized control of my person) and how Jack was a "shady, shady criminal with probable mob ties high roller" then and that they'd be escorted to the Parisian countryside in limousines for picnics just like this one.
Macking.
Dylan's playground parachute shirt was no match for the gusts coming off the sea in Santa Monica on this particular day.
A barren Beverly Hills Beach Club can only mean one thing!
Worthless Henry! Is back! He's on his office deck, I assume watching his soaps. Remember? The thing that made up about 65% of his personality in the Season 2 summer episodes? REMEMBER???
Brandon seriously struts out onto the deck a la Naomi and fucking SALUTES Henry while proclaiming, "Private Walsh, reporting for duty, sir."
Henry fails to throw Brandon over the railing to his death, or, at the very least, a shattered femur; rather, he acts all perturbed and reminds Brandon not to impede on his Young and the Restless viewing time but PSYCHE it was all a ludicrous joke and this true Nat-by-Proxy tells Brandon, "It's great to see you" because he's also an adept spinner of all the yarns.
They head down for a walk on the beach, which is really used to squeeze in a mention of the LA Riots that took place the previous April and May that devastated the city, and in this universe, the sporting goods store Henry and his brother-in-law had recently opened. It's pretty depressing, and thank goodness Brandon puts the brakes on the White Savior nonsense he so loves to pull out any chance he gets. I suppose he's merely saving it up real good for his tomfoolery in the forthcoming Home and Away episode. Something to shoot your television screens with an assault rifle over look forward to.
Henry awkwardly points out Brenda and Dylan in the distance, and Brandon's all, "Would you excuse me for a minute? I know you just shared with me a horrifying anecdote about your life falling completely apart and having to rebuild from nothing, but I have to go be my daddy's envoy and berate my sister to within an inch of her life. BYEEEEEE!"
More strutting ensues, this time with a gratingly SMUG narration as he approaches: "Well, if it isn't Romeo and Juliet."
He asks about shopping with Kelly and Donna and Brenda, no fucks detected, takes a bite of something and says, "Mmm, change of plans." Jim's number one boy scolds, "You don't ever learn, do ya?" and after Brenda reasonably advises him, "You're not my warden, Brandon," he spits back, "I know, it's none of my business, but I'm not gonna be your accomplice, either," and then struts off AGAIN in his crotch-suffocating jeans and, one can hope, into the waiting arms of a rare, Los Angeles shoreline tidal wave.
For what must be completely masochistic reasons, Dylan runs after him, telling him to hold on and that, "None of this would be happenin' if your parents'd stop treating me like some kind of pariah."
Jason Priestley gets in some Emmy-worthy hand-and-arm acting and says, "I don't speak for my parents," and he's right: he doesn't speak for his parents; he speaks for Jim. Let's leave Cindy out of this. Dylan asks what he did that was so wrong and Brandon veers the conversation into oh, get FUCKED territory and says, "You're the guy who's taken their little girl away. It scares 'em." Hmm, seems like that's a them problem. They should probably seek therapy.
Dylan reiterates that she's not a little girl, because that's creepy and antiquated MALARKEY and says, "If they'd let me in, I wouldn't have to take her away." As Brenda looks on, Brandon's only response to Dylan is, "I'm not judging you. But there's nothin' I can do either way" SO WHY DON'T YOU STAY OUT OF IT ENTIRELY, YOU SAC MUNCH.
Back here; Kelly and Donna await Brenda's arrival, Donna proclaiming, "If Brenda is not here in five minutes, I'm leaving. I don't know why I let you guys talk me into these things!"
At that, the Speedster is conjured.
After a pan over to the Porsche, Brenda and Dylan say their goodbyes. Brenda asks if she'll see him tomorrow, and Dylan begins planting the seeds of fuckery with, "Maybe." He says that he's tired of all the sneaking around. Brenda advises that the only other option is for them to not see each other: "Is that what you want?" "I'm not sayin' that" and "why don't I call you once my parents are asleep" get bandied about, and Brenda tells him that she loves him.
Hubba.
Fade to the KoW. Cindy - who only ever cooks, gardens, or answers the bloody telephone on this show - carries a roasted chicken to the table, where the twins and a macho CPA are seated. As Cindy tucks in, she asks Brenda, "Did you find any cute bathing suits, honey?"
Brenda, in a fugue state given her current seating arrangement, barely registers her mother's question and responds with, "What?" Brandon, a blemish on mankind and an adversary to ALL, lathers on the sarcasm real thick and reminds her, "You went bikini shopping, remember?"
Brenda snaps back, "Yes, I remember, Brandon. And no, I didn't buy anything." Brandon, reveling in her discomfort, says, "Hey, don't bark at me." Jim, ready to triangulate THE FUCK out of his children, shoots them a warning, "Guys..." Brenda apologizes and says she's not in a good mood and Brandon simpers sarcastically, "Oh, really, I wonder why" I HATE HIM.
Brenda gets her sass on and tells him, "Why don't you just shut up?" something that should be lobbed his way not once, not twice, but thrice daily.
His only response is his patented shit-heel smirk.
Jim, itching to lay into Brenda again: "You've been moping around here for weeks now. Don't you think it's about time you snapped out of it?" She takes a beat and then tells him, "No. Not if I can't see Dylan." Jim, judge and jury of the HoW, seethes, "That's a closed book, Brenda."
Brenda, icily, playing along...FOR NOW: "Whatever you say, Dad."
Brandon: remains a pile of pig shit.
So. That was infuriating. I really hope Brandon gets what's coming to him! What's that? He never does? And never will, like, ever? Well that's just delightful! Anyway, come back for what's sure to be an even more enraging Part 2. SEASON THREE IS UNDERWAY and I feel like a fucking 13-year-old MEGA DORK (non-derogatory) again, y'all!
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