Beverly Hills, 90210: Remember the Alamo

The people have spoken in survey form (you can still take it! one question!). It was cool to see the responses, and our beloved Beverly Hills, 90210 won by a landslide, but there was significant interest in other areas as well, so none of those are excluded. All this means is that I'll make the Bev Hills effort more than once a year!

I can't promise any sort of chronological order since, let's face it, I've watched the whole series a lot and sometimes I just want to skip whole eras. And I've explained that, unlike most BH90210 nostalgia blogs and podcasts and message boards, I am unabashedly pro-Kelly Taylor, and to stay that way I need to avoid some of the Brandon/Kelly episodes, since I found her insufferably sanctimonious during that time. (I will take doing a crap thing to a friend as a teenager in the Summer of Deception any day over smug-faced sanctimony)

Nonetheless, I happened to be doing an episodes fly-by and fell on one where my girl is not at her best. I'll cover it anyway.

It's the premiere of the seventh season and David is directing a video starring Donna, since she is the hottest thing to ever happen, according to her actress's EP father (early shades of Trump??). I can't quite remember what was going on here, other than David and Donna working together as... what, music producers? And David is a director? How does that make sense? David doesn't give a shit about anything Donna is saying about "at least we have each other," and she gives some pained looked in response. It's a day ending in Y.

New Season 7 credits, killing me with Kelly's bad hair. And Joe E. Tata is main cast now. 

Beach apartment. Kelly's hair is actually growing out okay. Claire shows up looking like she wrote and invented the 90s.

Brandon called to say he and Steve are staying in San Antonio and Claire is surprised to miss him this much. I don't blame her, since Steve was my least favorite character until (a) Season 10 and (b) my rewatch of the whole dang thing in which he's utterly dopey and endearing and less of a smugshit than anyone else ever was on this show.

Cut to Texas, where they try to make it look like it's 1951. The tow truck driver is very impressed that Brandon and Steve must know all the movie stars, so that's not condescending at all. PRIESTLEY'S FROM CANADA, please. The mechanics make "fruits and nuts" jokes toward Steve and Brandon, and Brandon talks about Steve's tongue in his ear or something. Allies! Ha. Steve wants to call Claire and Brandon says, "Be gentle, she's a small girl," which is not as cute as anyone thinks.

Brando calls Val, who is feeling sorry for herself because she's like 20 or 21 and lives in a mansion and owns a popular club in Los Angeles, and you guys: SHE'S SMOKING POT!!!! Terrible! Now we know she's still "bad."

Brando meets a black girl in the library in Texas so here we go. He's going to teach us all by being a white savior in a not-at-all condescending storyline.

Kelly needs to find an internship for her major. Val shows up where Kel and Claire are, and is somehow offended that Kelly hasn't contacted her all summer. These two have the dumbest pissing contests over the years. They openly hate each other, but somehow Kelly's a bitch for not visiting. Val announces she'll wait till Kelly gets a new man so she can go after him, and they smirk at each other because they are awake.

Mariah's boss at the library is super-rude to her, and Brando's all over it, savior-ing.

Those stereotypes from the mechanics' place see them together and legit say, "Salt and pepper, don't that make you sick?" because sure, small towns, WRITERS.

Val meets the infamous accountant Kenny. A lot of this is hard to really respond to as if I'm not seeing it for the thousandth time with knowledge of the future, but Kenny is a DUD. Why did this show think this was the best Val could do?

Donna's hair is the worst and their musician is a bad UK stereotype, because we haven't done enough regional cliches yet this episode. He remembers Kelly bizarre Seventeen Magazine cover, and she agrees to hang out a bit to help Donna keep the client. 

Brandon is douching it up with Mariah, who is played by Maia Campbell who blissfully had a good sitcom career after this humiliation, and they're talking about former relationships.

Honestly by Season 6, this really turned into a daytime soap format at night -- the scenes are so short. This really depresses me about the whole genre. ANYWAY. The English idiot is taping his video on the beach and mainly cares about whether or not Kelly approves. David is outraged at Donna for distracting the artist with Kelly. Taz! That's the artist. Ugh, this show. Was there a stereotype they ever ignored? 

At Casa Walsh, Val is walking around looking super-cute in a sixties-esque yellow dress and hairdo, and is delighted that Steve is home taking a shower.

Sanders wants to surprise Claire, but Val knows that Claire went to Texas to surprise him. Oops! Steve isn't thrilled. Steve wants to go back to Texas to catch her.

The dudes fixing Brandon's car say a bunch of super-racist things to him and Mariah. She tries to ditch him so that he doesn't have to deal with this bullshit but he is SUCH A WOKE SAINT that he won't bail on her. 

Oh right, Joanie and Nat are engaged. Taz keeps fixating on Kelly, and Val invites him to perform at the Peach Pit. Kelly's about to start volunteering at an AIDS hospice, which is a turnoff for Taz, which is fine with Kelly. Val thinks it's lame and that Kelly's just going through a martyr phase. Anyway, Kelly told Claire that Steve was home, so Claire's on her way back to BH while Steve is on his way to San Antonio. And now planes are grounded for weather reasons, which Steve finds absurd. If only they knew he was trying to see his girlfriend. Oddly, nobody at the airport cares. Claire and Steve are now in the same airport, and despite the fact that at least one of them has been using cell phones for the better part of a decade, they simply don't know!

Donna, in her acid wash and wretched hair, is dancing with David on the beach after the video wraps. A record company executive shows up with bad news that is pretty vague, and David looks grumpy, because what would you look like if Donna were your girlfriend?

Brandon is so charmed by Mariah's stories about her granny since Brandon is super down with his granny, having had one for one episode and never mentioned one again. The more Southern the offerings from Mariah, the more Brandon is down. Brandon's a bit down about Susan (MY FAVORITE COUPLING FOR HIM) (outside of Nikki). Mariah takes him to see some live blues, which apparently has long been Brandon's thing. Mariah's ex shows up and does some masculine posturing and the ex's friend sits down next to Brandon and Brandon's eyebrows go into ULTIMATE SMUG. Brandon postures right back. 

Claire and Steve find each other at the airport. They were pretty cute.

Steve won this show at the end, because he got Janet. I mean it's seriously shocking that he ended up in the best situation, and by that point he actually deserved it? But still. This was a thing he did that worked. So was Celeste, while he wasn't a shit.

Brandon has slept over at Mariah's and is confused about why she's not madly in love with him. Turns out there's a bus to NYC, so she's going for a job. Since there's just the one way out that durn small South-uhn town and if she misses today's, she's stuck in TV Writers' version of Texas forever!!!! She's getting out. Brandon is impressed. 

Kenny calls Val, and they flirt. Kenny's hair alone is not worthy of Val's hotness, so this is all so dumb.

She dated an MLB player and a movie star and a FBI agent, but this is her dude? No.

Donna and her terrible hair does not want to network with David.

He doesn't think she's taking their partnership seriously enough, and she's fine with that.

Brandon sees Mariah off at her only-way-out-this-year bus outta Texas, and she praises him and he cock-douches in return. The racist mechanics show up so the show plays some stupid harmonica music and Brandon kisses her. That'll show 'em! He struts back to his jackass convertible and drives off. THE END.

Comments

[Tana]

I vote for shows on syfy. Check out dark matter and killjoys...they are awesome and have good romantic storylines along with the plot.

[lulu]

Team Brenda FOR EVER AND EVER AND EVER and it will never change, to be clear.
ps: Kelly Taylor was a waste of air and ever will be.

[lulu]

And one last thing : i will never understand the people who could even like Kelly Taylor, let alone 'root' for her (nothing against Jenny Garth, i quite like her as herself or in What i like about you) but Kelly Taylor was the epitome of passive agressive smug bitch..the worst kind..not an even entertaining one, who owns her shit like a Claire or a Valery, or the ultimate one : Amanda Woodward on another cheesy Aaron Spelling prime time soap.
The only time i quite enjoyed Kelly was on the first Beverly Hills season with scenes with Brenda and Brandon..after that..game over..one of the character i loathed and despised the most..and i was a little child when i watched this show...i was very little and she was my first dislike on a tv show..