Beverly Hills 90210 S01 E01 – I don’t think we’re in Minnesota anymore.

Tune in everyday this week for our Back to School special. Each day we’ll be recapping a high-school-themed pilot and leaving you with valuable life lessons.

Sweeney: As popular culture bloggers who focus primarily on shitty 90’s things, I’m honestly surprised it took us this long to pay tribute to the awesomeness that is 90210.

One of the easiest things to snark in teen dramas is how accidentally comical they get in adhering to the various formulas. But Beverly Hills 90210 (a distinction that I resent having to make, lest we get confused with that CW abomination) basically invented it. Every annoyingly doe-eyed new girl on television has, ironically enough, Shannen Doherty to thank for their character’s existence. While the magic of Sweet Valley High was brought to dumb down the reading public in the 1980’s, in 1990 Aaron Spelling knew that the television-watching masses were ready for weekly sexual assaults and murders and stuff that people instantaneously recover from. Why? Because television has end-of-show music to make it all better. I bet if Francine Pascal could have put end-of book music in there, we’d totally be on board with all things Sweet Valley. Totally.

Lorraine: You know, I agree with you EXCEPT for the Marg0-kills-babies miniseries. No amount of Wistful Strings of Lessons Learned could ever undo that. But, you know, otherwise, end of show music is where it’s at.

Sweeney: Now that I have finished my sermon on why this show that premiered when I was two is still the universe’s gift to trashy television lovers everywhere, let’s get to the recap. The 90210 pilot took place in two parts, so this is going to be a long one.

We begin our introduction to Beverly Hills through the equally n00b eyes of the Walsh family. We know right away that they are also new because we see boxes labeled “Brandon” before we see actual people. Then we have Brandon’s obnoxious alarm clock that is better suited for a nine year old than someone in high school. He turns off the alarm, and turns on some rockin’ music before announcing to absolutely nobody (because I’m always so eager for conversation when I wake that I just make up people to talk to) that he’s in a new house in a town on his first day of school without any friends. Probably because of the whole talking to yourself thing.

Lor: That was probably the worst piece of clunky exposition I’ve ever seen, ever. The writers weren’t even trying. They didn’t even give him someone to exposit to. I’m already in love. Carry on.

Sweeney: We move from Brandon to Brenda who is in an epic panic over her hair and fashion choices. Completely fair. She tears through the house and eventually goes to tell Brandon to get up in order to help her pick out something to wear, which is just the kind of decision making that would explain her predicament. This scene mostly happens so that we can learn that they are from Minneapolis, where Brandon was super popular, and Brenda was not. She is looking to reinvent herself. Brandon then makes a suggestion to her, but in a totally kind of creepy way for a brother. Brenda ignores him, proving that there may be hope for her yet.

Brandon continues to be completely annoying, prompting his mother to dump out a box of kitchen stuff on the floor, rather than actually speak to him. I support this choice.

The kids leave for school and we cue the totally epic theme music. This back-to-school-special week wouldn’t be complete without these amazing musical masterpieces. Let’s all take a moment to appreciate this:

Lor: So, I wasn’t a big 90210 watcher because my mom said I was too young and it was pretty much the devil. (Have I mentioned my mom thinks everything is the devil?) Point is, I’ve only seen a few episodes, but I know this theme music. Of course I do. It makes me wanna tease my hair and be fabulous.

Sweeney: As it should.

After the theme music we are introduced to the school’s radio show. Popular culture tells me that this is an actual thing that happens in schools, but I have never encountered it in life. I can maybe accept that a high school radio station is a thing. What sets West Beverly High’s radio station apart is the fact that it’s basically a forum for talking about parties and high school gossip. In a school sanctioned setting. In other words: it’s amazing. Also, the DJ is the only black kid in school.

He welcomes the incoming freshmen, and we cut to David Silver, our over-eager freshman who is randomly included in the story. He sees the seriously amazing Kelly Taylor drive by, yelling at people in her red convertible, all entitled, as she should be, because she’s fucking awesome.

 

Steve Sanders talks to her while she’s in her car and he gives her a underhanded compliment about her nose job. We learn that they used to date, and that Steve was not good enough for her, even though their status as ultra jock and queen bitch make their history sort of fated.

We’re almost done with introductions: we cut to the *gasp* CITY BUS dropping of Andrea, a super nerdy-looking chick. We know that she is nerdy and achievery because she has glasses and is wearing a blazer. Also, she took the city bus, which is gross.

Also gross? Heavy girls. A chubby girl with drag queen makeup almost sits next to Kelly Taylor in bio, just as Brenda walks in. Kelly tells grossfatgirl that the seat is taken by “that girl,” because being lab partners with a fatty would be worse than a rando. Bonus points for Kelly, because it turns out that her non-fatty lab partner is smart!

Lor: And didn’t arrive on the city bus. *phew*

Sweeney: In Spanish class, Steve is willfully obnoxious and makes racist jokes about the teacher, while Brandon is just an idiot, though we are told that he was a brilliant hot shot at his small town school. The class stares at the teacher dumbfounded, but guess who raises her hand? Poor Andrea!

After Spanish class, Brandon goes to the journalism room, where Andrea is basically running shit. Apparently they don’t have a teacher to oversee this? A teacher would totally get in Andrea’s way. She doesn’t have time for silly new students, but she humors Brandon’s request to join the paper, with a completely asinine “test.” She asks if he wants to write about girl’s water polo or toxic waste and, like any sixteen-year-old boy, chooses girl’s water polo. Andrea responds by being a huge bitch and making feminism look bad. After she’s done with her nonsensical soapbox, Brandon agrees to write the toxic waste story.

I guess I give her soapbox credit because she got the job done. “This is one of the top ranked high school paper’s in the entire country, and I intend to keep it that way!” Bitch is hardcore and I support it.

Lor: Meh. I’m not sold. He said he was a sports editor and he picked water polo. Which is a sport. It was a stupid test.

Sweeney: Oh she is ridiculous. I am not supporting the validity of her test, so much as her brand of crazy.

At lunch, Kelly gives Brenda the lay of the land, further driving home how srsbsns the social scene is around here. And, ew, there’s a kid sitting alone – Brandon. Brenda pretends not to know him.

As we are now about ten minutes into the episode, it’s time for a party invitation! But how do these things happen in Beverly Hills? WITH AIRPLANES. You know, because they’re rich. Multiple airplanes, in fact, with banners attached to them. The last banner reads, “NO FRESHMAN.” I am trying to wrap my head around the grammar here. The fact that this is what bothers me most is why I probably wouldn’t have been at this party even if I had gone to West Beverly. I would have been in the journalism room being bossed around by Andrea.

Lor: And while this was supposed to be super impressive, it only made me super thankful for email and text messages.

Sweeney: On the ride home, Brandon awkwardly asks Brenda when they should go to the party and Brenda has to tell him that she made plans with her new friends. Brandon doesn’t have friends because his dopey nice guy routine only works in small towns, you see.

Sidebar: Brandon is really annoying. Watching this again, I am confused by my undying devotion for Brandon/Kelly, because Kelly is way awesome and I can’t for the life of me figure out when I decided he deserved her. I think it’s mostly because Kelly is not allowed to have Dylan. Sidebar confessional: I watched the first five or six or whatever episodes of the awful reboot, solely for Jennie Garth, until the revelation that Dylan is Kelly’s baby daddy, at which point I said, “NO. SHOW. I DO NOT ACCEPT THIS.” And stopped watching.

That night, Brenda’s mom comes out to meet Kelly and ask about curfew and basically humiliate Brenda with her silly mid-western values. Also, Donna! We met her at lunch, actually. This is before Aaron got the balls to give his talentless daughter lines with many sentences. He waited until at least like episode four for that.

At the party we gush over Kelly’s nose job some more. Then Kelly pulls out a brochure about plastic surgery. Like, she legit carries this thing around in her purse or something. I have no words for this.

Brandon is boring and Steve is pathetic in a funny way, while David Silver’s expectation that a high school party is like a Girls Gone Wild video is impressive given that this is before Girls Gone Wild, though not actually funny because I find David Silver incredibly boring. Yes, you’re a major loser who will some day marry a girl who is a sidekick in the in crowd, but that’s kind of the height of your accomplishments, which makes you boring and unfortunate. Also Megan Fox, which doesn’t really change my point about not caring.

Brandon wanders off alone and accidentally meets the girl who is hosting the party, who also happens to be alone and also incredibly desperate. And also has permanent duck face. When he goes to leave she makes him stay by telling him he smells good. #creepy

Lor: Made better by the fact that he admits he smells like Tide. I’m team clean laundry. Also, I’m very confused by the Saxophones ‘o Sexy Times that are overpowering this scene.

Sweeney: Their soundtrack gets worse later on.

Kelly and Steve have a spat, in which he is kind of a douche, because that’s his thing. He meets David Silver, because David is in love with Kelly, and also, apparently Steve’s mom, who we learn is a television personality. Enter, Steve’s Childhood Trauma: he has the PERFECT LIFE, but it’s totally not, because his mom is probably a shitty parent and his ex-girlfriend’s a bitch and blah, blah, blah poor little rich kid.

David’s irrelevant sidekick got a ride home without him, and somehow Steve’s friends who have the wherewithal to keep Steve from driving his own schwasteyfaced ass home, don’t have the smarts to recognize that they are handing the keys to Steve’s very expensive sports car to a toddler. David tells Steve that he doesn’t have his license, but Steve is obviously too drunk to understand/care.

Favorite Steve moment is when the girls’ car pulls up beside them and shouts, “Hey Steve, there’s some nerd driving your car.”  Drunk Steve giggles and says, “She sure told you.”

David manages to get Steve home in one piece, but forgets to put the parking break on, so the car rolls down the driveway and it’s not good. David runs off. I guess he runs home? I don’t know.

More sibling chat on the ride to school the next day, in which Brenda manages to be supportive without sounding moderately incestuous. See, Brandon? That’s how it works.

Also, our good friend the high school DJ announces that Steve’s drunkenness is now the stuff of legend. Steve is now on a mission to find the kid who drove him home last night, because he has no recollection of who it was, but wants to find this person and punish him. David Silver learns this and is understandably afraid.

In biology, Kelly is “such an artist” for manipulating Brenda’s Minnesota ID to make it say she is 21.

Lor: Wait, is she doing this with a pencil?!

Sweeney: If you have a foreign Minnesota license, people in California will totally believe it is meant to be drawn in pencil.

Also, the teacher yells at them and tells them that they should pay attention or leave, the sort of thing that would maybe happen in a college classroom, but high school? Seriously? Leave? Leave is never an option, because everyone would take it.

Brandon runs into Duck Face and tries to make a joke about running off to Paris for the weekend, which misses the mark because this girl is totes loaded and would be able to do stuff like that. Fortunately for Brandon, the flirting still goes well and they have a date.

He goes to Andrea and they have a RAH RAH DEADLINES / BLAH BLAH THIS IS HIGH SCHOOL conversation, before he asks her for a restaurant suggestion, which is all kinds of awkward, because Andrea has the hots for him. She doesn’t go to parties because that would interfere with her ivy league dreams. This is why she was the obvious choice for teen pregnancy. Actually, mostly because her character wears frumpy un-hot things (you know, because she’s nerdy and poor), so they could afford to deal with her being fat and pregnant.

Lor: SHE GETS PREGNANT? Bet the newspaper goes downhill after that.

Sweeney: I think she’s in college at the time, actually, but it’s after she throws aways Ivy acceptance because of reasons.

That night Brenda and the girls are using their fake IDs to go to a club. As Brenda gets ready (obvs telling her mom it’s a party) her mom is talking to her about makeup and how she’s so pretty she doesn’t need it and curfews and things and I am genuinely stunned because so far, I actually can’t find fault with her. IT’S A NON-NEGLIGENT MOTHER! It’s because she’s from Minnesota, you see. Don’t worry, give her a little time in Beverly Hills and that will fade.

Brenda is explaining to her how parents in BH are, and how they let their kids do what they want, and basically she’s reciting the Childhood Trauma Parenting Manifesto.

Mama Walsh is not having that and gets Brenda to give her Kelly’s number and agree to the whole curfew thing. I’m not sure how I feel about all this proper parenting. It’s confusing me.

At the club, only Brenda gets in, though she doesn’t realize it until after she is in there all alone. Kelly sort of makes a half-assed attempt at calling out to Brenda, but when the other girls are all, “Let’s go.” She’s all, “Yeah KBYE.” Brenda is looking for her friends all distressed when a random guy standing by himself spots her. She was going to try to go home, but he wrangles her into getting a drink.

Lor: PEDOALERT.

Sweeney: Skeevy McLoner asks Brenda questions about herself, which she mostly avoids by answering with questions. She tells him that she goes to UCLA. Unfortunately, Skeevy McLoner went there for law school and when she says she lives in a sorority house, he asks which one and says he knows all the houses. Girl, if he was a law student, he should not be so well-versed in the sorority houses. He wouldn’t have time for that, unless he’s a complete creep. Anyway, she says that her entire sorority house moved from Minnesota, a bit of nonsensical whatever that Skeevy McLoner finds weird, but ultimately accepts, because nobody is more accepting of shit that makes no sense than people who want to get laid.

Meanwhile, Duck Lips has a motorcycle, which she and Brandon ride.  Oddly sexual music plays in the background. This motorcycle montage lasts for a long time and it makes me really uncomfortable.

Lor: Sweet Valley High taught us that motorcycles are evil, mainly because they are a metaphor for sex. So, both the oddly sexual music and the uncomfortable feeling make sense. And I +1 them.

Sweeney: It is finally put to an end with a hot tub scene. Duck Face is ready to go and Brandon shuts it down. This is how we know that Duck Face is easy and Brandon is suchaniceguy. (L: And that Lor was right about motorcycles.) Brandon slows it down and we talk about how guys in this town expect more from her and always get what they want. This is where we learn that she’s actually just been egregiously victimized and she’s all tortured and shit. Daddy issues, of course. But Brandon is here to show her the light!

“Didn’t your mother teacher you about playing hard to get?”

I hate him.

Blah, blah, blah, mommy issues mixed in with our daddy issues. The speech briefly makes the fair point that her peers see her as either party girl or stuck-up and she can’t really win, but I hate everything else about this scene too much to allow her that.

Brenda goes back to Skeevy McLoner’s apartment. Things heat up really quickly, because he’s old enough to have graduated from law school already. Brenda panics and stops him. He manages to become more creepy by way of the long pauses he takes when telling her that he doesn’t want it to go any faster than she does. She gets dropped off at UCLA and cabs home, where she arrives at the same time as Brandon.

The sun is out, but apparently it’s still the middle of the night when Brenda calls Kelly to gush about it. Kelly’s mom walks in to complain about the phone call and reveal herself as just the sort of negligent mother we are accustomed to here. Short version: Kelly’s mom is too busy “doing her own thing” to be a mother.

At school Kelly is teasing Steve about his car and reveals that she saw the kid who drove him home. Though she doesn’t know David Silver at all, she is able to point out to Steve that the kid was probably a freshman. Also at school: Brenda who has been too busy dreaming about Skeevy McLoner to be worth cheating off of; Brandon gets flowers in Spanish class.

That scene is great because the Spanish teacher makes the flower delivery guy speak Spanish. Brandon doesn’t understand, and the guy whispers, “She says to sign for the flowers.”

Brandon and Andrea chat about Duck Face. Andrea doesn’t like her because Andrea likes Brandon, but Brandon is too busy pretending to be deep. Andrea keeps it classy and suggests that Brandon write for the advice column, which is an awful, awful idea. That’s how you know it’s going to happen.

In gym class, the DJ and some random kid try to get Brandon to tell what he did to get Duck Face to send him flowers. Brandon, in a demonstration of his unfailing wisdom says:

“I did something with Duck Face on Saturday night that most guys probably couldn’t handle. [What?] Use your imagination.”

Nice, Brandon. Nice. What he meant, though there is no possible way to infer this from that answer, is talk. They talked.

Lor: I call bullshit on the male population of West Beverly Hills being super impressed by a bunch of roses.

Sweeney: I was too blinded by all the other contrivance to catch that, but yes. +1

Obviously, this sets off a rumor that they slept together, including a mention on the school radio station, and Duck Face is pissed and punches Brandon. Their whole stupid plot was worth it for that glorious moment. Andrea tells him off in Spanish class, prompting the teacher to call him a stupid pig as well. Is all of this fair for what Brandon did? No, not really. However, I consider it fair on the grounds that I just don’t like him.

Steve finally has it out with David Silver, who manages to get out of getting his ass kicked by being cleverer than Steve, which is a testament to Steve’s stupidity, not David Silver’s intelligence.

That night, Brandon goes to Brenda for a heart-to-heart that is also not interesting, while Brenda gets ready for date night with Skeevy McLoner’s friends, which he apparently has.  Brenda’s lies expand to include being an astronomy major and while I understand Skeevy McLoner’s willingness to accept Brenda’s bullshit in his quest to get laid, but his lawyer friends? Not one of them thinks to question her complete lack of knowledge about anything?

At school the next day bring home the good kid/bad kid dichotomy of the Walsh household. Brandon uses the contrivance radio station to tell the whole school the truth and woo Duck Face, while Brenda is slipping in school because of her relationship. Since he has told her to plan to spend the night on Friday, Kelly is on team, “YOU HAVE TO TELL THE TRUTH.” I mean, she should be on team, “HE’S 25 AND YOU ARE 16 AND EW CREEPY EW,” but this is close enough.

Also Brenda is in trouble for being a shit student. She has to go to the principal’s office and has to take home a form and have it signed. Score two for non-negligent adults! I am so impressed! They’ll be gone soon, but it’s fun to know that they were sort of maybe around for a second or two.

Lor: Before they learned a great life lesson: writing/being a responsible adult is hard. And boring.

Sweeney: Duck Face forgives Brandon, but doesn’t actually take him back, because she’s feeling all empowered by this whole situation, though I’m not sure how, exactly, since her whole plot was about her reputation was sullied and restored all without her doing anything at all.

Brandon goes to find Andrea to see if she heard his big epic redeeming speech. She did not, and she wouldn’t listen to him so HE FOLLOWED HER HOME. Oh, you won’t listen to me? STALKING YOU.

Since he followed her to the bus stop and then drove behind the bus all the way to where she got off and then, I don’t know, drove slow and stalker-like behind her until she got home, he now knows that she’s (1) poor, and therefore (2) lies about her address to be able to go to West Beverly. Andrea understandably freaks the fuck out, but he promises to keep her secret.

Lor: Though really she should be agreeing to keep his “I”m creepy ass hit” secret.

Sweeney: But he’s from Minnesota! He is suchaniceguy!

That night on Brenda’s date with Skeevy McLoner, he is being a douche about how expensive the meal is and he mentions the last relationship he was in that broke up over serious adult issues like couch selection. Brenda finally tells him the truth. While him freaking out is fair and understandable, his doing so in the douchiest way possible is, you know… not. But A+ for this line:

“I should sue your parents.”

Good job, sir. He lectures, and she mentions that she was going to sleep with him. At which point, he briefly becomes nicer (ew) before she gets out of the car and slams the door.

Brenda walks in the house to find her mom at the door waiting for her. Brenda sobs, which earns her a little parental niceness, though I think she’s grounded when this picks up in the next episode? I forget. GROUNDING, GUYS! I don’t know what this is. What is all this parenting? Maybe we should import parents from Minnesota. I have a friend from Minnesota and she clearly has good parents.

We end the episode back in Brandon’s room for a final sibling heart-to-heart and suddenly Brenda misses Minneapolis because shit is complicated in Beverly Hills. They both awkwardly ask if the other actually had sex, both answering in the negative, because it’s the pilot so they’re still good non-sex-having Minnesota kids.

Back to school lessons from Beverly Hills?

1) If you are having a party, you need a sky-banner invite.

2) Real parents come from Minnesota.

3) Motorcycle rides aren’t complete without porn music.

4) Don’t let freshmen drive your car.