After watching last night’s “Hello, Goodbye, Amen” episode of 90210, I have to wonder if showrunners are serious about viewers believing Harry Wilson is intelligent enough to be the principal of an entire high school. If so, he’s got to be one of the dumbest administrators in the history of secondary education, too.

In short, here’s what happened on the episode, which takes place right after winter break at West Bev:

ANNIE

Suspicious Annie and her mother Debbie finally convince totally clueless Harry (He’s my son! I just know he is! I feel it in my gut!) to ask Sean to take a paternity test before handing over $200,000 that Sean claims his no-good, dead adoptive father, who supposedly committed suicide, owed as a result of his gambling addiction (Yeah, right!). Of course, Sean cuts out before test time, but not until he turns psycho on Annie and tells her he thought she, of all people, would understand what it’s like to want a chance at a Beverly Hills lifestyle. Clearly, he thought wrong.

NAOMI

Naomi, who spends most of the episode trying to make Annie jealous about her much too-close and thoroughly skeevy relationship with Sean, blames Annie for screwing her family again when Sean vanishes without a trace. It turns out that her mother Tracy made a deal with her father in their acrimonious divorce and gave in to some of his demands to get the money to give to Sean, who stopped by for it before disappearing, along with the private investigator Harry and Tracy hired to find their child. Tracy is the episode’s second biggest idiot, followed closely by her boorish and boring daughter, who so needs to get over this lame rivalry with Annie. It grew old, like, five episodes ago.

ADRIANNA

Adrianna learns her rehab buddy Hank tested HIV+ after relapsing. Most distressing of all, she slept with him a couple of times — along with a whole bunch of other guys during her slutty druggie days — and she discovers she’s pregnant, but not HIV+, when she gets tested at Kelly and Brenda’s insistence. All 16-year-old Adrianna can think about after learning the devastating news, however, is what Navid, who’s completely absent during this outing, will think. Judging from the brief promo after the episode, we’ll find out next week, and it ain’t good.

KELLY & BRENDA

Kelly and Brenda finally mend fences when Brenda reveals she’s thinking about adopting a child after recently learning fibroids she had removed in the past have left her unable to bear children. Maybe the two women will get over sleeping with the same guy yet again — this time teacher Ryan — after all.

DIXON

Assuming that cheerleader Christina is romantically interested in him — and neglecting to share that assumption with Silver — when she lavishes attention on him, Dixon eventually learns she’s not only bisexual and has a girlfriend, but her father Franklin Whitney, the owner of a record label, knows more black people in Beverly Hills than Dixon imagined even lived there. Finally letting Silver in on why he’s drawn to Christina — she’s black like him in a very white town — Dixon is surprised that all his girlfriend wants is to meet Denzel Washington at Christina’s father’s celebrity-filled gospel barbecue. Obviously, the waif has her priorities in order.

The longer this episode wore on, the more tiresome it became to me, mostly because it was ridiculously clear that Sean was a fraud and a scammer from the get-go. Watching people get taken that easily isn’t my idea of entertaining, but I did enjoy the tremendous camp value of Kelly’s clownishly over-mascara-ed eyelashes (What was up with that? Did she shoot her scenes on the makeup artist’s day off?) and Adrianna smiling like a doofus while making a speech about her former drug addiction in front of her rehab buddies. The last was just so perfectly inappropriate and downright weird — honestly, her cheeks must have ached after the director yelled “Cut!” — I couldn’t help but smile — or rather, laugh — myself.

But, that’s just me. What did you think of “Hello, Goodbye, Amen”? Leave a comment and/or vote in the following poll to share your opinion.

Post from: Grrl TV

Apparently, lately 90210 fans have been obsessing over which character will eventually emerge from the closet. I have no idea why people still find the sexuality issue such a big deal, but it clearly continues to occupy a lot of minds once it arises.

Over at TV Guide’s website, visitors were assuming the person is a guy. But now the site reports the show’s first — as far as I can remember — gay character is not only a woman, but actually bisexual. Who is she, you ask?

Well, I suspect many people might have to wrack their brains to remember her since she’s not exactly what I consider a regular cast member. The lucky woman is that cheerleader who had an obvious thing for Dixon back on the last fresh episode that aired, November 18th’s (seems ages ago, doesn’t it?) “That Which We Destroy.”

Her name is Christina, and she’s played by beautiful 23-year-old actress Lauren London, who has also done time in the past on sitcom’s like HBO’s Entourage and The CW’s Everybody Hates Chris. She’s been in a few movies, as well, including last year’s This Christmas.

The thing to remember about Christina, however, is that although she swings both ways — and will even get/reveal a girlfriend on 90210’s January 6th return episode — being bi means she can still irk the hell out of Silver with her Dixon infatuation.

Oh, the plotlines that await fans next year! I sense things are about to get cattier than ever at not-so-sunny West Bev. Goody!!!

Post from: Grrl TV

When Annie’s not preparing to get her driver’s permit, she and Ethan make plans to go to the homecoming dance … just not with each other.

Naomi deals with the fallout from Adrianna’s drug overdose … although Adrianna’s confession gets her off the hook.

Navid is determined to help Adrianna through recovery … while Naomi avoids her former best friend.

Debbie confronts Tracy about her inappropriate relationship with Harry … after encouragement from Tabitha.

And, best and most interesting of all, Ryan catches Kimberly buying drugs at the homecoming party … and finally learns what the real deal is with her.

Just follow the jump for photos.

 

90210 airs Tuesdays on The CW at 8pm EST.

Post from: Grrl TV

A student at West Beverly Hills High gets busted for drugs (Adrianna, is that you?).

Annie and Ethan are partnered for a school baby-care project.

Harry learns that Tracy has hired a private investigator to find their adopted child.

And Ryan turns to online dating during Kelly’s absence.

Belated photos from the episode follow the jump.

90210 airs Tuesdays on The CW at 8pm EST.

Post from: Grrl TV

Druggie Adrianna continues to deny being a druggie.

Debbie gets to do a fashion-show photo shoot for Nylon magazine.

Naomi’s parents have a huge blowout at said fashion show.

Kelly gets a phone call from her baby daddy.

And Adrianna admits she’s a liar to Annie when Annie is (too) nice to her.

Take a look at a slew of belated photos from the episode after the jump.

 

90210 airs Tuesdays on The CW at 8pm EST.

Post from: Grrl TV

After last week’s drama-filled “Model Behavior,” 90210 has almost succeeded in getting me to stop making fun of the show and instead just enjoy the ride. This week’s “Hollywood Forever” helps a lot in that area because it has a couple of great developments that make for really good TV.

On the less interesting side, Annie and Ethan are teamed up as a couple in their health class to take care of a fake baby that cries if you ignore or mistreat it. The two learn as they work together that maybe there’s still some feelings there, but they don’t get a chance to fully act on those emotions in this episode. More developments are definitely coming.

Meanwhile, Silver, in her never-ending quest to stand out and apart, is absorbed with celebrating her half birthday, which is exactly what it sounds like: the six-month point in between birthdays. She’s dismayed to learn that Wilson doesn’t share her love of horror flicks (I completely understand — that’s a potential deal-breaker for me, too), but he scores some points when he researches The Ramones, one of her favorite rock bands.

Now moving on to the good stuff: First of all, a sassy new student named Kimberly, played by previously announced cast addition Jessica Lucas, is assigned to Ryan Matthews’ class. From the moment she opens her mouth and starts giving the teach and annoying Annie a hard time, I can’t help but love her. We discover at the end of the episode that there’s a reason why her attitude is so rebellious: Kim is actually an undercover cop assigned to West Beverly Hills High to help nab whomever is dealing drugs to students.

Her arrival is almost simultaneous with a drug search, complete with drug-sniffing dogs and cops in uniform, to trick the dealers into thinking the worst is over and the police are done investigating their activities. The unexpected drug search also coincides with a much better storyline for Naomi, who finally comes to terms with the fact that her parents’ marriage is over, thereby ending the dullest subplot of the series thus far.

Genuinely concerned about her best friend Adrianna (I didn’t realize they were that close, by the way) after hearing lots of rumors, Naomi tries extremely hard to talk Adrianna into getting help. But, as usual, Adrianna’s not interested, especially after landing the role she and Annie both auditioned for, and she continues to lie that she’s fully in control of her supposed recreational drug use.

The two are still going at it over this issue when the cops and dogs arrive at the school for the surprise locker search, right after Naomi sees the fake lipstick case that holds drugs in Adrianna’s bag. Adrianna goes into panic mode at the sight of the police, so Naomi “helps” by grabbing the lipstick case and rushing to the bathroom to flush the coke down the toilet.

Too bad a cop sees what’s happening and chases her, which results in Naomi’s arrest, her parents’ ballistic fit, and a visit to an attorney to prevent Naomi from having a permanent drug record and potentially going to jail. Adrianna promises to show up that night and confess when Naomi tells her how bad the situation is, but, unfortunately, her mother delivers another sob story about how they were going to lose their house and were saved by her latest acting gig.

Predictably, Adrianna doesn’t go to Naomi’s meeting with the lawyer, but there’s a good reason why. The final scenes of the episode show her on the ground with her lifeless eyes wide open, surrounded by frantic paramedics and apparently dead of a drug overdose. Naomi’s eerie last words to Adrianna come when she calls, pissed that Adrianna didn’t show: You’re dead to me. I guess “Truer words were never spoken” applies.

Yet another subplot focuses on Harry, who learns from Naomi’s mother Tracy that she intends to hire a private investigator to locate their son she gave up for adoption 22 years ago. Harry wants that, too, and Debbie doesn’t mind … until Tracy tries to kiss Harry in his office at school and he comes clean to Debbie later. Now his wife has an even deeper dislike of Tracy that could produce some high drama down the road. I’m not at all opposed.

And on the comic-relief side, we have Navid teamed with another bigmouthed male student for the baby assignment in health class and Kim constantly haranguing Ryan, who, unaware she’s a cop, thinks she just has one of those schoolgirl crushes on him. Some of the episode’s funnier moments happen when he resorts to online dating while Kelly’s away. After Silver more or less challenges him to date other women besides her sister, he attends an outdoor Psycho screening with an airheaded actress named Jacqueline who starred in a herpes commercial.

Kim has a ball with that one, and I had such a good time during her scenes, I hope Lucas is on the show for a long time to come. As of now, Kim definitely seems like a better fit for Ryan than Kelly is, so maybe the love connection announced at the time of Lucas’ casting will be with Ryan.

Factoid: With the arrival of Lucas, 90210 now has/had four actresses with the first name Jessica: Jessica Lucas (Kimberly, of course), Jessica Lowndes (Adrianna), Jessica Stroup (Silver), and Jessica Walter (Tabitha). I’d love to be there during group table reads!

Post from: Grrl TV

And the unlikely phenomenon that is 90210 continues on “Wide Awake and Dreaming”…

Silver, stage manager for the school musical, is so busy checking her blog during rehearsal and being rude to people when she’s not checking her blog that she insults the lighting-board guy badly enough to make him quit. Dixon to the rescue since he has the skills and the attraction to her.

Meanwhile, daddy catches horny Annie and Ty making out backstage and has a conniption fit, to his mother and wife’s great amusement. After Annie gets the so-called “after-school-special” SEX TALK with mom, she starts thinking about little else besides banging her boyfriend. Silver doesn’t think Annie is ready to not be a virgin, however, although Naomi is staunchly on the “What’s the big deal?” side of the fence.

The most interesting plotline has nothing to do with the central characters, however. Brenda begins to suspect Adrianna is in trouble when she repeatedly shows up late for or bags rehearsal, although she’s the female lead and has amazing talent. But, when Adrianna’s showbiz-obsessed mom Constance shows up, it becomes immediately clear to Brenda just how much stress Adrianna is under.

Constance informs her daughter and Brenda that several agents are coming to the play, so if Adrianna would just do well, she could start working again and they’ll be alright. Nice — the child financially supporting the so-called parent.

The resulting pressure causes Adrianna to turn to drugs for relief, and she gets too high to perform. What’s Brenda to do but call on Annie, the understudy, to take over? Unfortunately, Annie is already suffering from a bad case of pre-show jitters, made worse by all the talk of sex and her dad’s obvious distrust of her ability to do the right thing when it comes to sex. He’s a smart dad, isn’t he?

As we eventually learn, Harry’s concerns are warranted. After the play ends a success, Annie borrows a condom from Dixon before heading to the private room Ty booked for them at the Roosevelt Hotel, the site of the show’s afterparty. She arrives to find Adrianna, still high as a kite and spiteful as hell, already there, wrapped in a towel and pretending Ty is in the shower.

Annie must never watch TV or movies or read any books because if so, she would see right through Adrianna’s act. Instead, she takes obviously spaced-out Adrianna’s word for what’s going on and runs out like a big baby. Perhaps that’s partly due to Naomi and Ethan’s repeated claims that Ty is just a player out for one thing.

In any case, Dixon fares much better with bossy Silver, a girl he actually gets. Now give her a pizza or something so I can stop getting preoccupied with how ridiculously skeletal she is every time I look at her. I just saw Jessica Stroup in (the awful) Prom Night remake a few weeks ago, not to mention Reaper last season, so I know for a fact that bone thin is nowhere near her normal weight.

Back to the episode: there are also some scenes thrown in about Naomi’s parents, who decide to get divorced, but they’re so boring and predictable, especially in comparison to all of Annie’s sex stuff. Good thing for The CW that fans are eating all of this up, although why I don’t know.

Post from: Grrl TV

Geesh! I’ve got so many photos from tonight’s “Wide Awake and Dreaming” episode of 90210, you really don’t even have to watch it (don’t tell The CW I wrote that, though). And for those who, like me, only really barely care about the characters from Beverly Hills, 90210 anyway, there’s even several snaps of Jennie Garth and Shannen Doherty.

Unfortunately, most of the younger actresses still look like they could use a nice-sized sandwich (or two) and a bag (or three) of chips. I guess all the talk of eating disorders and scary skinniness isn’t sinking in as of yet. Give it time, I suppose.

The photo preview follows the jump.

 

90210 airs Tuesdays on The CW at 8pm EST.

Post from: Grrl TV

Well, we all know what’s on Annie’s mind during the “Wide Awake and Dreaming” episode of 90210 if the following clips are any indication. Both could easily be named “Busted,” the second time by daddy and his colleagues, no less.

Reliable old 90210 — so irrelevant, so cheesy, so lightweight, so meaningless, yet so much darn fun!

The videos are after the jump.

90210 airs Tuesdays on The CW at 8pm EST.

Post from: Grrl TV

The overall winner when it comes to the number of look-sees? Clip Number Three, which features original Beverly Hills, 90210 cast members Jennie Garth and Shannen Doherty together. Given their alleged bad history on the earlier show and over the subsequent years, I can totally understand the fascination with the duo.

If you haven’t already checked them out elsewhere (or just want to watch again), Grrl TV has the three previews after the jump, too. The first features Dixon applying for a part-time job at the Peach Pit and talking with the owner Nat, played by original Beverly Hills, 90210 cast member Joe E. Tata, of course. Then, in the second video, Annie and Ethan chat in the West Beverly Hills High hallway.

And, finally, what we’ve all been waiting for — Kelly and Brenda grabbing some food while having a little woman-to-woman discussion. The last sounds sort of anticlimactic, I know, but fans have to take what little they can get.

The videos follow the jump.

90210 airs Tuesdays on The CW at 8pm EST.

Post from: Grrl TV