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."
McKay McKraftsman.
Brenda and Dylan enter carrying grocery bags, Brenda expositing as she goes, "All I can say is everybody better be hungry; you have a ton of food" re: their rations for the barbecue. I love the ponytail-with-scarf combo she's wearing.
I also love her shirt which we get a look at after they set down the bags on the dining room table and take off their jackets. It's here that Dylan claims he doesn't know how to cook; that he's never barbecued anything in his life; and that, "I ordered room service, remember?" Yes, we know, you're the Original Poor and Little and Rich Boy. We got it. Also, this is apparently the first time in nearly TWO YEARS together that Brenda's hearing about his cooking inabilities? Sure, why not, whatever.
After dramatically declaring, "This is gonna be a total disaster!" she walks past him into the living room. He queries, "You'll help me, won't you?" and after manipulating her with a cheek kiss and a shoulder squeeze, repeats, "Won't you?" Ick.
And she will, but: "The first thing we better do, if you're gonna have a party, is clean up." She begins clearing items from his messy futon, and he joins her by hoisting up a guitar? and plucking at the strings? Again, sure, whatever. What do I care about this complete and total randomness? He whines, "Do we gotta do that right now?"
AND THEN: Brenda finds and picks up a lone earring, demanding, "What is this?"
Dylan, a seasoned sociopath, lies handily: "Looks like an earring...must be my mother's. Remember, I told you she stopped by here for a few days on her way to a convergence retreat in Sedona." The ease with which is does this is chilling.
Brenda, not seeming to fully believe him BECAUSE SHE ABSOLUTELY SHOULDN'T, holds it out and says, "Right. Well, you better call her and tell her that you found it."
She exits the room as he stands there squinting amidst the Shifty Synth Horn + Synth Keyboard of it all.
Fade to the West to the Bev.
Kelly walks (in a dress I desperately still need in the year 2025); Dylan walks...
...they meet up. He asks after her schedule and she informs him she switched it around: "I wanted to take art with Donna."
Like Mrs. T before him, Dylan is AGHAST: "No offense, Kel, I've known you since kindergarten; you couldn't draw a straight line if you had a ruler." What's with these people? This isn't like changing your major in college or something.
He then holds up the subject earring from the night before; she thanks him, saying she was looking for it, and he actually chuckles like a true maniac and informs her, "Don't thank me, thank Brenda. She's the one that found it."
Kelly freezes: "You didn't tell her, did you?" These are vile people. He assures her no, he didn't: "I said it was my mother's."
She rolls her eyes and throws the thing into the nearby bush, adding pissily, "Guess I won't be wearing those earrings anymore...I didn't like 'em anyway." WHY IS SHE MAD, my GOD.
He gets all broody and sassy and squinty again, some more, and says, "For what it's worth, if you hadn't changed your schedule, I would have. That way it'd be more comfortable for everybody."
Kelly, proving yet again that she thinks only of herself, spits back, "I am not doing anything to make things more comfortable for everybody. Just for me. You and Brenda have each other. And I don't begrudge you that" - mmm, kinda seems like you do? - "but I don't have to sit around and watch it with a perpetual lump in my throat." Let me say once again BITCH YOU AND PEACHES 'N CREAM SIDEBURNS OVER HERE DID THIS. Stuff a sock in it, I beg of you. She doesn't do that, but she does storm off, so: deuces. I will add, however: Jennie Garth is doing an excellent job with these scenes.
Brenda, Donna, hallway. Love Brenda's vest. Unsure about Donna's off-the-shoulder rosette trimmed top? She's kind of pulling it off. They discuss the ever-loving barbecue (the new "sand castle competition," apparently) when suddenly, Brenda stops and says, "Oh my god, hide me."
The thing from which she wants to be hidden is Sue - wearing a denim diaper avec bike shorts underneath - and her motley crew, giggling their way down the corridor. Sue very sweetly greets the gals, "Hi, Brenda! Hi, Donna!"
After Donna asks where she's going, Sue laughs, "Wherever they're taking me!" as they continue down the corridor.
Sighhhhh, Brenda asks, "How do you know her?" Donna says, "That's Sue Scanlon." An even BIGGER SIGH Brenda snits, "Donna, I know who she is, she's my freshmen buddy."
Rather than smacking Brenda upside her amazingly-haired head, Donna patiently explains, "She's also Scott's sister. Scott Scanlon." Brenda breathes, "Wow, I can't believe I didn't make the connection." Yeah, neither can ANY OF US. It's not like Scott's last name was "Smith" or "Jones" or something; "Scanlon" is pretty unique. Also: YOU WERE AT HIS HOUSE THE SAME NIGHT HE ACCIDENTALLY SHOT HIMSELF DEAD, LESS THAN A YEAR AGO - YOU GRINDED UP ON HIM. And then there was a GIANT memorial service at the school. His name was probably plastered around the halls. These people have the memory of goldfish.
Ahem. Anyway. Felice? for some reason? has all the dirty deets on the Scanlon Clanlon, as Donna adds, "Well, my mom says that family has really fallen apart since Scott shot himself. Mrs. Scanlon's always been kinda weird, though." Believe me, we remember. Brenda bizarrely observes, "Like mother, like daughter," though I'd say Sue's behavior is more of a trauma response to her brother's untimely and horrific passing + her KOOK of a mother + the fucked up shit we learn a few episodes from now.
Classroom.
Gross! No.
As everyone starts gathering their things and exiting, Gil turns and requests, "Andrea, could you stay for a minute, please?"
As she should, Andrea looks disgusted, then appears doubly-disgusted after Brandon looks at her before standing and leaving the room.
And then, completely inappropriate AS FUCK, Gil advances toward her and inquires, "How come you've been shooting me death rays for the last hour?" What a totally non-alarming, reasonable line of questioning from a teacher to a student. Andrea answers him with her own query: "How come you haven't called on me in the last hour?" He goes for "flirtatiously impish" but winds up at "really creepy dude" with, "Because...I knew you knew all the answers."
Andrea has no desire to continue dialoging with this mutant so she ignores the idiocy that just escaped his mouth and instead drops a bomb: "I was gonna wait until the newspaper meeting to tell you this, but I might as well tell you now. I'm resigning from The Blaze."
Gil has to feign shock and concern so he stands and wants to know why, oh, why.
And GO ANDREA: "Because you ripped me off, that's why." Now FINISH HIM: "I'm the one who saved the paper when nobody wanted to work on it. I found new advertisers, I recruited staff, I updated the computer system. I sacrificed my nights and weekends. And then you walk in, and in one fell swoop, you take the whole thing away from me." Sisters! Are doin' it for themselves! Or something.
This prick: "My god, Andrea, I had no idea you felt this way. Why didn't you just say something?" Yeah, lay the onus on her, you hobgoblin.
And this is sad: "Because I wanted you to like me." Oh, dear. He says that he does like her, and she rightly calls him on it, pointing out, "But not as much as you like Brandon."
I blacked out during Gil's next round of blatant misogyny, but I'll give you what I was able to transcribe in my blind fury: "You know why I put Brandon in charge. He's the kinda guy who needs a push, we talked about this. Now that doesn't mean I don't think you're terrific. But don't you think it's time you learned how to be a team player? You're not always gonna be number one, ya know? And sometimes, overachievers like you have to get past their own egos and learn how to accept disappointment." I'm glad noted psychotherapist Carl Fucking Jung over here came to all of these conclusions about the dynamics and psychology behind this situation in less than ONE FUCKING WEEK.
Andrea's gutted, disbelieving, disgusted face here gets an A++ from me...
...and she follows that with a hurricane of a scoff as she rounds on this pathetic, weak little man: "That is so bogus! If I were a guy, you would be congratulating me on my ambition instead of calling me an overachiever. You're teaching the male how to be a leader and the female how to be a team player."
Sexist Man doesn't like being called out for being a Sexist Man, and he defensively warns her, "If you're implying that I'm sexist" - no, bud, you implied proved that all on your own - "you are dead wrong." Sexist says what now?
But Andrea's not done just yet: "Oh, really? Why is it we call a male 'assertive' and a female 'pushy'? Why is a guy 'tough' and a girl a 'bitch'? What would Walt Whitman say about that...Gil?" 10s across the board, with an additional 157 thrown in for the fire-breathing "Gil" at the end there.
She grabs her stuff and exits as the crowd, i.e. ME, cheers, and all this mottled-beard cuck can do is sit there looking on the verge of tears. GOOD.
Another hallway. Donna and Nikki walk and talk. They discuss their love of their art class and the fact that Nikki has the same top as Donna. They have so much in common!
Including, unfortunately, a turd named David Silver. Which comes to light after Nikki - under the assumption that the evening before, David kept his promise and told Donna about his and Nikki's dalliance...which is kind of a wild assumption to make, given that she and Donna are giggling like besties and Donna hasn't spoken a word on it, but whatever - gushes, "Listen, Donna, I'm so glad you're okay with all of this. I have to admit I was real nervous about David telling you."
Donna immediately gets suspicious: "What are you talking about?" Nikki's all, "He didn't tell you? He promised me he'd tell you last night."
Donna demands the full details, and Nikki provides them: "Believe me, nothing happened. It's just, when you were in Paris this summer, and I came here to Beverly Hills to visit my aunt, I met David at the beach club."
Donna, now practically gargling vomit, demands to know how far things went: "Did you sleep with him, Nikki?" But Nikki insists that she didn't! Mostly because that's revolting!: "Please! It was nothing like that! We met, we listened to music. And we just kissed, that's all." Don't remind us.
Donna's not wrong as she shoots back, "So I'm supposed to feel relieved because all you did was kiss? That's all we do."
Nikki then declares David a "great" guy and assures Donna, "I want you to know something. When it came down to really fooling around, David told me about you and said that he couldn't. If you never wanna talk to me again, I understand. But don't blame David, please." YES BLAME DAVID FOR IT ALLLLLLLL.
THANKFULLY, Donna's with me: "Yeah. A great guy who somehow forgot to tell his girlfriend about the fling he had this summer?"
Nikki...needs to go to therapy because she adds, "Don't get mad at him." Lady, stop defending terrible - and I use this term as loosely as possible - men.
But as Twinkly Synth starts up, Donna has moved on from anger to sadness to payback in quick succession: "No. I'm not gonna get mad. I'm gonna get even." I hope Donna "getting even" with David entails her riding someone else reverse cowgirl-style in front of him as he weeps.
Hey! Wonder who's still a colossal piece of shit? If you guessed the entire MAGA party, you're correct! And that includes Beverly Hills, 90210 Alum But We Totally Don't Claim Him, Dean "The Stain (on Society)” Cain! Take a look at one of his most recent dirtbag takes here. You wanna know what disgusts me? I'll give you one hint: it rhymes with Schmean Blain and his entire cult. I can only hope that the next time he pops up in our algorithms, it's merely a wordless ad for his new line of sweatshirt-as-arm slings, for the washed up actor in your life.
I really like Andrea's dress in that scene.
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