Part 4 of Season 3, Episode 3: Too Little Too Late; Paris 75001 - SPOILER ALERT: I hate it here.

In true HERE WE GO fashion, here we fucking go.

Fade up and onto a Parisian restaurant balcony where Brenda and Donna sit at a table, eating.  Donna's yammering on about all the delicious French pastries she was just shoving in her maw at a human trafficking soiree that was absolutely reported to Interpol.  Brenda busies herself pushing food around her plate while not paying attention.  Donna notices this and queries, "What's wrong, Bren?"

Brenda says, "You know how you keep on thinking that you're seeing David? Well, it started happening to me." I know that sounds like a fucking waking TERROR, but she actually means that she's now falsely seeing Dylan everywhere, as evidenced in Part 3.  She continues, "I started thinking, what are we doing here?"

Donna, now living that glass half full life, declares, "We're...immersing.  We're learning new things in a new language, in a new culture." She's really selling it and I'll say it again: I love these two together.

Brenda agrees, continuing, "I would hate for people to look at me and think that I was some pampered kid from West Beverly High.  I really wanna be a whole person, with many sides, many talents, and many interests.  I just don't know what they all are yet." Erm...is it bad that I'm one thousand years older than Brenda and am still striving for these very things?

Donna says that she's glad Brenda came to France instead of Kelly - which: SAME - because, "She'd be the one complaining, and I would've felt like I had to cheer her up.  And honestly, I just haven't had it in me." Glad to have confirmation from her oldest mate that Kelly is, and always has been, a self-involved slag.  A real friend for the ages.

Brenda seems touched and assures her, "You know, you're gonna be okay.  And I'm gonna be okay.  I mean, this is the summer before our Senior year.  We're gonna find out what it's like to be on our own, and we are gonna have the time of our lives." I'm pretty certain this soundbite was used in the tv ads for the Season 3 summer episodes because hearing it is making me feel some kind of way: young, hopeful, unjaded, and non-dead-eyed for the first time in at least five years, so.  Nostalgia's a helluva drug.

Donna agrees with a non-grating giggle (those are reserved for Mz. Taylor OH YOU'LL SEE) and a, "Absolument!" She then sheepishly asks, "So, uh, what was that time difference again?"

Brenda cutes, "I'll race you to the phone, because I want to catch my boyfriend right before he proceeds to have a good ol' roll in the sand - the first of SEVERAL times he's going to do that this summer - with my pick-me so-called best friend, because being betrayed and repeatedly lied to by them over the course of the next many months won't instill in me a deep-seated distrust in all people, including and especially those closest to me, that I will never overcome or anything"...

...and then they scamper off into the night.

Part 3 of Season 3, Episode 3: Too Little Too Late; Paris 75001 - The writers of this show really said, "Non-toxic men? I don't know her."

How many more ways can I state that the guys on this show - main cast and tertiary - are true, witless pig-men who should be banished from society? I know it's only going to get worse before it gets...significantly worse, so joke's on me.  Enjoy some more Y chromosome nonsense, I guess.

Kidz Kampztown, USA.  They're playing Red Rover.

How the hell was this game ever allowed? Remember the bruises? And the persistent burning sensation in your wrists after another kid barreled through the chain of arms? Parents: is this still a thing? Because I can't imagine it is.  Signed: Ye Old Marm who's clutching pearls over her uncouth childhood activities.

Fuuuuuuuuuuck.  Still lurking from the sidelines: Steve, topless and broiled; Brandon, self-satisfied and not working.  Brandon queries, "What is it about guys that makes them suddenly want the one girl they can't have?" Because you're a manipulative, narcissistic prig who views women as less-than and mere prizes to "win," thereby feeding your already-bloated ego? And I'm sure a host of additional personality disorders but that's the first theory that comes to mind and we haven't got all day.

Steve, still 44: "I don't know, I think it's hormonal." Please.  I just ate.

Back over to AHHHHHHHNdrea: she blows her only friend - i.e. the whistle - and announces lunch...

...and this complete irritant ditches his dermally-compromised companion to run after her, GRABBING HER ARM IN THE PROCESS OF COURSE - which just made me feel like this, and also a whole lot like this - to which she responds, "Not now, Brandon." NOT EVER.  God.

STILL HOLDING ONTO HER ARM, he ignores her very clear and concise boundary-setting and begs, "No, come on, please just listen to me for one minute, okay? I didn't sleep much last night.  I was thinking a lot about what I did and what you said.  You were right.  I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to offend you or insult you."

AHHHHHHHHNdrea's titanium spine melts down into a puddle of T1000 right then and there and she immediately (and far, far too easily) forgives him with a smile and a, "Apology accepted."  Goddamn it, The Zuck.

At least she promptly turns and walks away from him and his low budge apology, though he, naturally, can't let that be the end of it, so he follows her and asks, "That's it? Just like that, apology accepted? Ya know, you do have every reason in the world to think I'm scum." Self-aware king? She takes it a step further and calls him pond scum - yes! More of this! - but she's entirely too nice about it and when he asks if they're still friends, she much-too-kindly tells him that they are.

They smile back and forth at each other...

...and they're very cute here and if he wasn't such an arrogant, pustulating penis fissure, I might have endorsed their union at some point.

He also can't seem to turn the fucking page because he continues to follow her and asks, "You really like [Jay], dontcha?" because he desperately wants her to Cheap Trick him since it really gets his rocks off, so when she confirms that yes, she bafflingly does like that soggy piece of wood mulch in mortal form, he has to cover his ass and say, "That's good.  I'm happy for ya." He's also miraculously able to admit, "You called it.  Ya never know what you've got 'til it's gone," which I guess was admirable, but the bar for this clod is truly located in the absolute dregs of the Dead Sea, so that's not saying much.

Whatever, she walks away and he stares after her wistfully and don't worry, Brandon: your dreadfully-coiffed, deeply bigoted, equally-as-unjustifiably-smug princess is right around the corner.  I can't wait to drown myself in the tub before then!

Part 2 of Season 3, Episode 3: Too Little Too Late; Paris 75001 - Join me for a horrifying journey into the depraved mind of an egomaniac YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHO

 Brandon reaches PEAK atrociousness here.  Let's beat him to death.  With words.  And maybe like, The Craft level shenanigans of some kind.  AHHHHHHNdrea could learn a lesson or two from the great Nancy Downs.

Such as: not doing this with this alarmingly uninteresting - and dastardly, given the Young Republicans of it all - bag of uncooked farina.  I'm loath to make such a proclamation, but: YOU'RE BETTER THAN THIS, AHHHHHHHNDREA.  And also Brandon.  But we'll get there.

And for now, she's giddy: "Pinch me, I still can't believe I'm not dreaming." As she says this she's running her hands up and down the back of his neck, which damaged me on an anatomical level from which I will never fully heal.  He smarms, "Hey, chalk one up to the dreams do come true department," so not only is this guy a grade-A BORE, he's a fucking cheesedick who goes around spewing truly vom-inducing lines like that one.  The camera pans back and around these two sick fucks...

...to Brandon, clearly in a real place of lurk as he pushes a laundry cart and glowers in their disgusting direction.

As is his wont, this lowest common denominator appears because of course he does, to add his two delusional cents to the mix: "She's tryin' to make you jealous, ya know.  Girls pull stunts like this to make you realize you like them," and this has just positively never happened to Steve, not once.  Brandon insists it's nothing, and that he wasn't even staring at AHHHHHNdrea and the putty-colored probable-bigot with whom she's currently canoodling.

Steve, 44, lays it on the line: "If you're gonna make a move, buddy, you'd better do it before it's too late." He then walks away to go blind other unsuspecting victims with his nuclearly braised upper body.  Brandon looks back over at...

...this, stop it...

...then exhales and violently shoves the laundry cart out in front of him, because nothing says "quality guy" like one who throws a fit after being rejected by a woman.