I gotta say: Part 1 has me snoozin'. But at least Brandon feels terrible the whole time, so I have that to keep me warm on this frigid Los Angeles eve.
We start at the Beach Club...
...with the Kampz for Kidz or whatever the hell...
...and the smalls have clearly tired of Brandon as much as the rest of us, seeing as they're burying him alive in the sand. They're gonna need to shove a couple of scoopfuls in that maw of his, however, seeing as he's still able to breath and speak, calling out, "AHHHHHNdrea. AHHHN...AHHHHHNdrea, AHHHHHHNdrea. This is gettin' a little out of hand."
AHHHHNdrea for some reason still enjoys his company and giggles, "Sorry, Brandon, I can't help you. I'm busy right now!" probably talking the ear off some poor 7-year-old about her Senior year syllabus as Editress-in-Dweeb for the ever-loving, National Press Club Journalism Award-winning FUCKING Blaze.
Cut over to this little boy. As a non-spoiler because this is a long-in-tooth episode of television and we're all marching toward death so who cares: this kid's name is Cameron and he's deaf and AHHHHHNdrea will overstep some boundaries this episode to get him in the Kidz for Kampz program; his mother will be kind of a drag about the whole thing which is entirely understandable due to the AHHHHHHHNdrea of it all; and Brandon will use him as a pawn in order to get AHHHHHNdrea to stay in town instead of going off to the Republican National Convention (fuuuuuuck) with her damp paper towel of a boyfriend, Gray Berman or whatever the fuck his non-name is and it's just as much of a heart-string-puller as it sounds - that is to say, not at all.
Anyway, it's clear that Cameron's interest in Kiddie Kamptown USA is piqued, but he knows his downer of mom won't let him join so he just makes a frustrated face to himself (mayhap because he senses The Zuck on his horizon?), asks for a book to read and calls it a fucking day. Same, Cameron. Same. Except instead of "asks for a book to read," mine would be "asks for a bottle of wine to take to the head."
Worthless Henry! Having reached peak worthlessness in the previous episode, he's back to rib Brandon about being whatever is the opposite of Employee of the Month: "Layin' down on the job again, Walsh?" - WHEN IN THE FUCK IS HE NOT - "Get back to work, you lazy bum." DRAG HIM TO FILTH. Except that this is all said good-naturedly before he walks off to go, I don't know, meet Worthless Nat at the Peach Pit for their weekly Worthlessness Anonymous gathering. Thanks for coming out, Worthless Henry!
AHHHHNdrea announces to the kids that it's lunchtime and everyone runs off, including AHHHHHHHNdrea...
...leaving Brandon behind as he should be, always and forever.
Sadly for her, he manages to extract himself from the sandpit and catches up, saying, "You got a good group of kids there," and then begins to ask her to hang out later that night...
...but as in the last episode, she cuts him off to call out, "Jay!" who has arrived to pick her up, and then back to Brandon: "I'm sorry, 'scuse me, I gotta go. I'll see you later, okay?"
Brandon sad sacks, "Okay," and inject this directly into my VEINS I love it.
Cindy appears out of thin air for her 45 seconds of airtime, asking, "Oh, is that AHHHHHNdrea's new boyfriend?" Brandon me-OWs, "I don't know, he's a boy; he's her friend," and oh, how I cherish a bitchy and bothered Brandon.
Shot of Jay and AHHHHHHNdrea hugging like the two no-sex-having geeks they truly are. Steamy.
It's obvious Cindy is only here to torture her shitty spawn, which is apparent when she twists the knife even further: "Well, she certainly looks happy!" Brandon laughs through a grimace with, "I hadn't noticed." Having done her part to inflict spiritual damage upon her weasel of a son, Cindy's off to go hang with another turd - Jim - to play gin rummy. Sounds like a nightmare!
BAH. A true jump scare occurs as a topless - and epidermically defiled HE'S SO PINK - Steve appears, also as if from nowhere, holding a folded-up newspaper (sure, Jan); he asks Brandon, "Have you seen today's Times?" There is no way in HELL that this brain-wormed stooge reads "the Times" or anything other than the back of the Alpha-Bits box on the daily. I guess we've already reached the inevitable point in the episode where I need to slap on my Suspension of Disbelief dunce cap. Anyway, Brandon says he hasn't seen the paper and Steve tells him, "Dylan's old man made the front page. He's up for parole."
Brandon reads the headline and lets out a big old theater kid-exhale: "Well, to tell ya the truth, I think Dylan's better off with his old man behind bars." You know what should also be behind bars? Whatever is happening atop Steve's head right here.
Immediate cut to the McKay House of Detention.
Inside, Jack, that slippery-yet-charming bastard, enters the visiting area...
...where Dylan, giving off some true awooga vibes here, good lord, stands from his seat at a table as Jack approaches.
They shake hands like the loving daddy/son duo they are; Dylan tells Jack he looks great, to which Jack responds, "I feel great. Been waitin' for this all year," "this" meaning his potential parole, I guess.
All of these niceties boil down to Jack just needing a favor from Dylan: a letter extolling what a downright stand-up guy and fantastic father he is. Which is really revolting, in light of everything we know about this shady, shady shadester, including the most recent revelation from "Wedding Bell Blues" that he apparently used to beat Dylan? What a gem! They're lucky they got such a charismatic actor in Josh Taylor to play this role; otherwise, he'd be real easy to despise.
Dylan sees through it all, though, seething, "You never change, Jack."
Jack, slightly rattled: "What're you tellin' me? Are you tellin' me you're not gonna help me out here? If you were in my shoes, I'd be there for you. And you know that's true." Your dismal - and I mean, truly in the fucking depths of the gutter - track record would prove otherwise, but sure! I'm already wearing my Suspension of Disbelief hat; what's a few more minutes?
Dylan looks down and begrudgingly agrees, saying, "I'll see what I can do," just like any good physically/emotionally/psychologically neglected child worth its salt, and Jack tells him to have the letter to the lawyer by EOW. I feel like Jack was a whole lot nicer in the Christmas episode, yes? Maybe he's just an unscrupulous criminal who's also a sucker for the holiday season?
Having gotten everything he wanted, Jack stands to peace out, but first, makes some terribly stunted small talk with a shrug and, "So, uh...how's that girlfriend of yours doing? What's her name, uh...Linda?"
Dylan does not burst into laughter as I did; he merely corrects his father: "Brenda. Her name is Brenda." And don't you forget it! Except that you already have. Or are already on your way. Especially beginning in the next episode. In conclusion: I pre-hate you for it.
As stereotypical French music plays, we faaaaade over to stock footage of the Eiffel Tower....
...which fades to stock footage of the Arc de Triomphe...
...and then one final fade to a taxi turning onto a street.
Said taxi carries Donna and Linda and their 57 pieces of luggage. Brenda delights, "I cannot believe that we are actually in a warehouse complex in Van Nuys and then also Universal Studios Paris." Donna asks her what time it is back home, but Brenda refuses her: "No way, Donna. We are not calling home right now. We just got here."
Donna is ON ONE, however: "Please do not lecture me right now, Brenda. I am so tired, my stomach is a wreck, and I have a sore throat from all the people smoking in the airplane," and the fact that people could still smoke on planes in the early-'90s is WILD to me. A real "okay, Nana, thanks for the story, now let's get you to bed" moment.
Donna concludes, "If I had to smell another cigarette right now, I'd absolutely hurl," and then proceeds to demonstrate how exactly she would look during said hurling.
Of course it's at this moment that the driver pulls a cigarette from his visor and lights up...
...which sends Donna into a olfaction meltdown as she gags and covers her mouth, while Brenda tries desperately to ask him to put it out in French, with a Spanish por favor thrown in for an added layer of true aMeRiCaN iN pArIs zaniness.
Donna fights her gag reflex long enough to advise Brenda, "Tell him that smoking causes lung cancer, and heart disease, and emphysema. Tell him!" which was a very funny line reading from Tori Spelling. Brenda reminds her, "My French is not that good"...
...and then Cabbie and his Harry Dunne-with-a-perm-ass hair comes to an abrupt stop, turns to them and rages in French, then points at the door with, "La porte est la! The door is there!"
He throws his hands up in the air, exits the car, heads to the trunk and starts unloading their luggage. Brenda scurries back to him and asks what he's doing, and he can only say, "I smoke! I smoke!"
He hustles around to Donna's door, opens it and demands she exit...
...which she does and then joins Brenda on the sidewalk. Brenda reassures her friend that she can handle it: "Look, I'm sorry, you can smoke if you want. I mean, it's a free country, right?"
She receives only a creepy smirk from Cabbie...
...to which she meekly queries, "It's your country, n'est-ce pas?"
It is his country, and he can huck Donna's bag over the car to her and speed the hell off if he wants to...
...and he does!
Donna and Brenda stand on the sidewalk despondently as the camera pulls back. Donna: "Thanks for handling that, Bren." Brenda: "Any time, Don." I like their acting chemistry together and Summer of Deception aside, I'm glad we get to see their characters bonding over the course of these episodes and beyond during Shannen Doherty's remaining time on the show.
Yick. Their Styrofoam-looking hotel or boarding house or hostel is called the Casanova, which mostly just sounds like the name of a nauseating cologne Steve would wear.
Inside, Brenda hauls in the last of the luggage as Donna sits on a suitcase and pouts, turning to Brenda and demanding, "I wanna go home." Brenda says that she didn't just carry their stuff five blocks up a hill for Donna to give up now. Donna reasons that, "Once we get in the room, everything will be fine."
Cue an older woman and a handyman descending the staircase. She appears to be bitching at him and he appears to not give a fuck. Hey! Just like me, about this whole episode thus far!
The woman spots the girls and approaches, introducing herself as Madame DuBois and speaking very rapid French at them. Brenda asks if she could give 'em a little anglaise, and Madame D, not unkindly, chides them about being in the immersion program: "All the girls, they love for me to speak French with them."
Brenda tells her that they had a really long trip and they're not ready to fully immerse quite yet, and can Madame D just zip the lip and take them to their room? But like, in a nice way.
They arrive at the room, and while I think it's relatively cute and cozy (and adorably nicknamed "Marie")...
...Brenda and Donna find it to be a rotting crap shack. It's very this-coded.
Their window faces a brick wall, which, okay, not great, but still: character!
Madame D shows them their wardrobes and Donna has what is her seventeenth mental collapse of the day and complains about the lack of space...
...then sits down on the bed and the middle caves in and again: she's so good with this type of comedy. I adore her.
Brenda assures her, "It's not like we're gonna be spending any time in our room," and Madame D chimes in about wanting them to get dicked down, apparently, because she adds, "You will be in the program all day and out with the parties all night." Like, sex parties? 'Cause that's kinda how she says it.
Three girls arrive at the door. Madame D asks the lead one on the right, Maggie - who has amazing style and hair and I was OBSESSED with her when I was a kid - to tell Donna and Brenda that they're going to be busy busy busy! while in Paris. Maggie puts on an exaggerated French accent and promises them, "Ahh, oui! We shall give ourselves to our French lovers and then go home with broken hearts but a lifetime of memories."
She introduces herself and regarding the other two: [These] creeps are Lynette and Anne." Madame D excuses herself and the bespectacled rube one, Lynette, twangs, "We just wanted to see who got stuck with Marie." She and Mute Anne wave goodbye and bounce. Thanks for playing, Lynette and Anne! You're doing wonders for the Worthless community. Nat and Henry will be so proud.
Maggie saunters into the room and Brenda introduces herself and Donna. Maggie tells Donna, "Cheer up. Look, I got stuck with Antoinette and it ain't a whole lot better." Brenda again reprimands Donna about being mopey and complaining and moaning and that she's had enough: "I'm gonna go take a bath," and to Maggie, "Which is where?"
Maggie teasingly informs her that it's on the third floor and that the water heater takes tokens.
At this, Brenda joins Donna in her spiral, saying, "Oh, my god," and Donna's only response is to say, "I've gotta call David." Gross! Why? Maggie explains that there's a phone in the courtyard, but Brenda begs her not to do it: "If you call him before you get settled in, you'll get even more homesick."
There's then a back and forth wherein Maggie asks where they're from, they don't want to tell her it's Beverly Hills - presumably because people like Steve and Kelly and all of the reprobate parents and pervert oral surgeons roaming the gilded streets really give it a bad name - but she finally manages to pull it out of them and smugs, "I knew it!"
At that she sits on a chair, throws her legs over the arm and asks, "Anybody got a cigarette?"
Nighttime. Alice's Restaurant. Malibu Pier.
Inside, a dry piece of wheat toast is telling AHHHHHHHNdrea, "I don't think I could last one day babysitting those little tykes." As this scene goes on for far too long, I already need an out, so I'll give you the condensed-yet-still-sick-making version: Jay here is going to the Republican National Convention (HORK) with CNN the following week and thinks he can get AHHHHHHHNdrea approved to attend as well. She calls it a chance to infiltrate enemy territory and then this very dull man who has probably never met a Quaker rice cake he didn't love, proclaims that he's in fact a Republican (TUPLE HORK) and it's at this moment that AHHHHHHNdrea should've detted the vest. Or at the very least, nose-dived over the side of the pier and back-stroked her way to freedom or into the mouth of a rabid dolphin. Either is a superior option to what she actually does, which is continue to engage with this greige thumb of a man who has now self-substantiated his heinousness.
After she tells him she's a "card-carrying liberal," they get into a non-saucy banter about conservatives being "lousy lovers" and I can take almost anything other than The ZUCK playing coquettish and saying my least favorite word while wriggling her eyebrows at a wholly undeserving DRIP who votes like a prick. (Election trauma? Never heard of her.)
And then he wants to prove her theory wrong by groping her in public, and when she won't allow it, humiliating her by standing up and loudly demanding a PDA in front of a restaurant full of strangers. That tracks.
But she finds all of this endearing for some reason because she has obviously experienced a recent and very serious untreated penetrative TBI, so she stands and they mack and the other patrons clap and cheer which was violently disturbing to witness and a total assault on my innards. She also pulls away at one point and tells him, "William F. Buckley has nothing on you, boy," and they go back to tonguing each other but I missed it because I blacked out from dehydration after throwing up every single thing I've eaten for my past three lifetimes. Moving on.
Back at this. These two watch Cameron, who's again sitting nearby with his mom, signing. AHHHHHNdrea comes over and explains what sign language is to these two idiot children and demands that they stop staring and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
She then walks over to Cameron and his mother and starts signing at the kid before saying anything to the mother, and, I don't know - feels like a little encroachy? That's Our AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHNdrea! Whatever, they introduce themselves, AHHHHHNdrea talks up Kampz 4 Kidz and invites Cameron to join, his mom is like, "Hard pass," with no explanation (though I assume the explanation is The Zuck herself) and then they walk away because AHHHHHHHNdrea. Once more: smell ya later, Schmaaaaaaaaandrea.
Fade to Paris. Donna and Brenda descend a staircase of what looks to be a museum, Brenda marveling, "You know, there's something about being in a city that's over 2,000 years old. It gives you such a sense of history." Donna responds by saying her feet hurt. Brenda can't believe that Donna couldn't find a decent pair of walking shoes in all that she packed, and Ms. Miss here is one to talk, given that she's wearing (very cute) clog-adjacent heels that are in no way "decent walking shoes."
Donna ends up sitting down and Brenda nags, "They strongly recommended that we see as many landmarks as possible before classes start. Levez-vous, s'il vous plait."
At that moment, a man walks by and catches Donna's eye; she sighs and explains, "Ohhhh, David has that same shirt. Well, I mean, it's not exactly the same shirt, but it's the same color. Well, it's not exactly the same color, but..." and it's probably not the same size, either, given that David's would be outsized enough to tent the Palace of Versailles and its grounds for its annual fumigation.
Whatever, they're off to see Balzac's House - Maison de Balzac, if you're nasty - but first they have to bicker about Donna wanting to go home and Brenda wanting to stay and grow and LIVE, rinse and repeat, one more time.
As Brenda finishes up her mission statement about her experience in Paris and what she hopes to get out of it, Donna notes that they've stumbled upon the House of Balzac: "I think the word is voila?"
They bustle over to its door but Brenda stops upon reading the sign attached: "I don't believe it. It's closed."
Donna rolls her eyes just as I roll my eyes because I'm cranky and this is tedious and I desperately need a nap or maybe some off-brand NoDoz.
Lamentably, it's not going to get any better, seeing as we're back here...
...where a 9-year-old-presenting Randy Spelling, in a BHBC issued uniform, is picking up a child and, I don't know, throwing her into the sea. I much prefer him here over when he shows up three seasons from now as Steve's wayward half-brother, Ryan, a confirmed fucking moron - more so than Steve! STEVE, you guys!! - if ever there was one.
Over here: AHHHHHHNdrea coaches a child on how to throw a frisbee...
...and then a scary Republican man comes up to assault her from behind. Again: that tracks. But really, this profound tool covers her eyes with his hand and leers, "Guess who?" and she says, "Uhhhh, Dan Quayle!" and oh, the '90s. So quaint.
The news of the day is that, surprise! She can go to Houston with him to be around a bunch of soulless ghouls for a week! Hooray? They hug and kiss and hug again...
...and Brandon sees all of this from afar and the Sad Synth Piano starts up and fuck all the way off, Sad Synth Piano. We're very well aware of this fool's bread-crumbing, attention-seeking, manipulative little angle and we're having NONE OF IT. Except that AHHHHHNdrea will continue to have alllll of it. For like another season. But for now: sucks to be you, Minnesota.
Part 2, in time for Thanksgiving? Eh. One can hope.
Feeling so nostalgic reading these recaps. When I first watched this show in the 90s, Brenda was everything I ever wanted to be. In 2024, she still is.
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