The Prestige TV Podcast - Prestige TV Hall of Fame: The ‘Beverly Hills, 90210’ Season 4 Finale, “Mr. Walsh Goes to Washington,” With Bill Simmons and Juliet Litman

Episode Date: May 24, 2024

Bill and Juliet get together to analyze and celebrate the two-part conclusion to Season 4 of ‘Beverly Hills, 90210’ on its 30th anniversary. They begin by sharing their insights into the most pivotal episodes throughout Brenda and Brandon’s season-long MVP run before breaking down the tumultuous Mardi Gras finale in full. Hosts: Bill Simmons and Juliet Litman Producer: Chris Sutton Additional Production Supervision: Justin Sayles Video: Stefano Sanchez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, The Town, on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name's Matt Bellany. I'm founding partner at Puck and the writer of the What I'm Hearing newsletter. And with my show, The Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week, we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight. Which streamer is on the brink of collapse? And which executive is on the hot seat? Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who will never eat lunch in this town again?

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Discover the craftmanship behind every bite. Boershead committed to craft since 1905. It's the Prestige TV podcast. My name is Bill Simmons. I'm here with Juliet Limin. There has not been a lot of prestige TV lately. So we're doing a Hall of Fame episode of a show that is not prestigious, Juliet. But a show that's super important that once upon a time gave us one of the great two-part season-ending cliffhangers in the history of television.

I am talking about season four, Beverly Hills, 902-1-0, 30th anniversary this week of Mr. Walsh goes to Washington. An important show to both of us. So unbelievable. You mentioned it the two-parter. On Paramount Plus, they've condensed it into one episode. It's just like a straight-through. That really caught me by surprise, but I loved it. I'd like to see streaming services take more chances like that.

Great idea. Well, one of the important things about this episode is they actually kept some of the baby face performance. I mean, there's a lot of iconic things about this episode. But, you know, when these older shows from the 80s and 90s, they cut anything that has music in it. Right. So there's only a couple 902 episodes where they kept the music. They didn't keep all the baby face stuff. There's an Instagram account of all.

all the 9021010 stuff restored, all the songs that, like, the famous episode when Brenda was listening to Losing My Religion after she found out about Dylan and Kelly, that's not on the reruns, but this Instagram account restored that, but they restored some of the baby face stuff. So congrats to that guy. Seriously, I was happy to see him, you know. 902 for the finale is used to bring in a great guest every time. It was always very exciting. Oh, yeah. Like year after year and they always went two parts. This led to the two part at the end of season five and season six and there was

21st birthday season finale. But this was created in. Also like not a lot of two part episodes back in the day. No, definitely not. It was basically a two-hour movie. Big picture. Season four, 902, no. This is the freshman year when they go to college.

They go to California University. All of them decided to go to the same college, which was a great TV trip, including Andre was supposed to go to Yale. And Brenda came back from Minnesota, of course. She couldn't miss out on CEO. Brenda went back to the University of Minnesota and like three people asked her what Beverly Hills was like. She's like, this place is too small. I don't want to be the rich kid from L.A. and ended up going back.

This was a 32 episode season. It's unbelievable. It is so much TV. That is not a lot of time off for anyone involved. And on the one hand, it's why it's the greatest. So some people think season three is the best, those high school senior year when Dylan's dad blows up. To me, it's like no contest. Season four, they go all out.

They film an Occidental College, which is outside L.A. There's extras galore. There's fraternity stuff. They just blow it out. Even this episode, they go to Washington. They're actually in Washington. They started to cheap out in later years. But as a college experience, when I watched this show, I just graduated college like two years before.

And I thought they really hit some of the college elements. I mean, granted, nobody was living in a $10 million beach house like Donna, David, and Kelly. I mean, that place is iconic. Yeah. I think this season is my favorite season, like one of my top 10 favorite seasons of TV, full stop. Like, I have rewatched this so many times. There's a number of arcs that are wonderful, a number of arcs that are absolutely shocking. And these finale episodes, like, are how I like to think about nine or two.

210. Like if you're like described the show for me, I would tell you about these two episodes. And they're so good. Well, we'll go through this episode, but I got to set the big picture for season four in the characters. First of all, Brandon Walsh, the star of the show. This was his MVP season. I look at this the same way. Like I look at Tom Brady's 2007 with the 50 touchdowns. he dates at least five different women. He starts out in the first episode. They're kind of borrowing somebody's beach house, gets involved with some girl from New York.

And then we go through, there's some Emily Valentine randomly comes back into his life over Thanksgiving. Incredible. We have Lucinda, the married professor, who's just like the horniest character that was ever on the show, who happens to be married to Brandon's favorite professor

who has him tutoring the school's basketball star, so it becomes this whole fucking disaster. And then starts hanging out with Kelly, which is the big crux of season four, is Kelly's dating Dylan, and Brandon and Kelly, he needs to borrow a girlfriend because he's hiding his Lucinda relationship.

And he borrows Kelly for the weekend for a retreat. By the way, no friend I have would have ever done this. Either way, I wouldn't have lent my girlfriend to a friend, vice versa. Just never would have happened. and they go in this retreat, sparks fly. Do they ever? They do some square dancing, if I recall. A lot of magic does happen in the woods.

And the retreat, that must have been like in Will Rogers State Park or like in Topanga or something. But it really nailed the feeling of the woods. And you're like, oh, this is kind of enchanting. And I've rooted for Kelly and Brandon ever since then. And to your point about him being the MVP in this season, I mean, he is so not only lovable, but datable, even though he barred. borrowed a girlfriend to hide his relationship with a professor. I mean, there's something so eminently, like, appealing about Brandon in this. Or you also could, like, picture yourself with him because he's just Brandon.

But, oh, my God, he is the best. This is also the last year when he kind of wasn't mailing it in as an actor. Because I think the next season, he starts directing more. And he's just on autopilot from season five on. Season four, he's still really good. But the end of the episode from the retreat, they're all together. And they're all at, like, the beach house. and Dylan gets a little testy with Kelly

and he turns to Brandon and he says, you know, if you ever want to bar again, knock yourself out or something and walks away and then Kelly's just staring at Brandon with like the all-time asking for it face and Brandon's like, whoa, are we, we're going to do this? So they set all that up. Dylan, they've been setting up for,

I don't know, really since the Christmas episode. This woman randomly comes back into his life who claimed to have dated his dead dad who had blown up in a car. even though he comes back and season nine, but we pretend that didn't happen. And his half-sister. Yes.

Which this is the second half-sibling on this show, but there were more. I think by the end of the run, everybody had a half-sibling. Yeah, there's siblings just coming out of the woodworks and then, of course, the step-siblings of Kelly and David. That's like the most important sibling relationship

to fight despite the fact they're not siblings. But then they each have Aaron as a half-siblings. That really binds all of it together. Yeah, Aaron was a half-sibling, but then Kelly found out her dad, had another daughter that was another half-siblings. Steve had two half-brothers. There's just half-siblings all over the place. True to LA in the 90s? What do you think? No question. It was a crazy time. So this lady comes back in Dylan's life. It's a media like,

hmm, this sounds a little suspicious. And they're just setting this up. At one point, she has money in a bank account that Jim Walsh finds because she can't sneak anything about Jim Walsh. It's one of the best financial guys in L.A. And Dylan calls her out on it. It's all fine. She starts working at the Peach Pit because when they never knew what to do with the character, they would get them a job at the peach pit. And then all of a sudden this guy, Kevin shows up. What was his job? Kevin is a biochemist and his goal is to save the bay. Like very explicitly, all he says is like he wants to get into new technology to save the bay. And they have the most menial language to discuss like the idea of like acid rain and pollution in the water. It's

so funny and they just completely buy it. It's the hottest biotech idea in the world, but nobody understands what it is. Dylan tells Jim, it's a biochemical company that he's trying to start. What they're doing is working on cleaning up the environment, just the whole thing, cleaning up the environment full stop. Sounds like a billion dollar business. So they're just planting the seeds and Kevin, he's got this thick mustache and I don't think you could look more untrustworthy than Kevin and Dylan is just roped in. There's another Dylan piece here. There's another Dylan piece here. Dylan, Dylan was the season three MVP. Dylan's season three was another,

just great, great season. Like the, you know, he ends up in the love triangle. His dad blows up, cheats on the SATs. Like, just was killing it. Season four, not a lot to do for Dylan. There is like he gets carjacked. He kind of breaks up with Kelly.

They get back together. There's some Brenda stuff, but not really. It's like they don't really know what to do with them. So the scam was like his big plot. Right. So they still needed to have him be at odds with Jim, even though he was no longer dating Brenda. Right.

So this was like a way for him to continue to fight with like his main antagonist, essentially. And then Brenda makes her own MVP run this year. She goes to Minnesota, drops out, comes back to L.A. She meets Stewart, rich, rich son of a gym business partner. They have a world run romance. They end up getting engaged in Vegas and they're going to get married in Vegas and the whole gang goes for a very great Vegas episode. But then the last second,

they decided we're rushing into this. The very last second. They don't get married. You know, it's great about that episode? I didn't really understand. I was a young person. I'd never been to California. I didn't realize how close Vegas was to L.A. and in a fact, you just jump on a flight in Burbank and you're there really quickly. So I really learned something from that. It wasn't necessarily to not get married when you're a freshman in college, but I did appreciate. the geography lesson it gave me. Yeah, this show was in a weird spot because a lot of the people

they had cast, except for Brian, Austin Green who played David, were older than the characters in high school, right? Which first year, second year, it's fine. But once you get to college, now you have people who look like they're 25, 27, 28, playing college freshman. So they,

on the one hand, we're trying to speed up the adult stuff, but they have Brenda getting engaged in almost married in Vegas as a college freshman, which easily would have been the craziest thing that happened to anyone I knew in college. Oh, definitely. Like, what happened to Sally? Oh, she almost got married in Vegas last week.

I would have been like, what? Especially in the early 90s. And then Andrea gets pregnant. We'll get to her later. But anyway, Brenda almost gets married, doesn't. She then kind of has this weird, you're not really sure what's going on with her plot, leading to she decides to really get involved with rescue dogs.

And then animal protest on campus almost gets a... gets arrested by the FBI, but it turns out she's exonerated and then ends up in the single best plot that she had probably in all four years being the lead actress of the school play, which I know you have a lot of thoughts on. Brenda's the lead and Cat on the Hot Tin Roof directed by the great Roy Randolph. It comes at the expense once again of her friendship with Kelly and the sanity of a woman named Laura. The main thing about Brenda being in Cat and Hot Tinroof is we get to see her in many white negliges and I have to say she's never looked better. Shannon Doherty looks so beautiful

in this final arc of season four. I actually wanted to ask you, perhaps we'll come back to it when we cover all of the women. I'm ready to talk about it right now. I'd like you to power rank the beauty of the women in these episodes because there's a lot of really stunning women between Lucinda and Kelly, Brenda. I think Claire,

though she may be young. Early clear. But Claire was older than the character she was playing. Yeah. It's the best year they ever had for women. Even the New York girl

in the first episode was great looking. This Shannon Doherty season, she's never looked better. She's skinny. It looks like she's been going out in L.A. four or five times a week.

Sure. Like there may be a reason she was a little skinny, but it's skinny a little bit. Like I shouldn't have stayed out until 4 in the morning, but it's like a cool. It's a look that made sense

in 1994. And I think in 2000, 24. Like, this is how a lot of people dress again. Like, they're wearing a lot of Doc Martins with short skirts, and it's such a cute look. Yeah. Plus, she has the side, I mean, the center part hair with, like, very hard to pull off

bangs. Like, she just looked so beautiful. She also was, like, very manicured eyebrows, but it works for the look. Everything about Shannon Doherty in these episodes, I, too would let her into my home and select her to be the lead in my play, if I were Roy Randolph. She was great. Totally checks out. Like, she was almost too hot because any time she made her.

to move on Dylan. You're like, Dylan's doing this. Like, come on, he's not fighting this off. But this is also the best Kelly's ever looked, except maybe season six when she came back from, when she fully recovered from her burns and had no residue of them. But she looks great. And this was her last year with long hair.

And she's playing Brandon and Dylan against each other. But so anyway, Shannon Doherty, Brenda has this whole cat in the hot tin roof. The other actress who tries to sabotage. they dip hard into a Tanya Harding real-life plot to try to sabotage. It's really crazy. It was like literally right after Tanya Harding, too. And then Laura Kingman then tries to hang herself on the school stage.

Yeah, but it culminates with an attempted hanging. You know, when we talk about 2024, some of the storylines in this, Laura Kingman maybe would have been re-evaluated. There's a whole date rape episode with her. Yeah, this is her second storyline of the season. This one is more tragic, but the first one may have caused the second one. Like she's clearly like not a well person. And they're just like, yes, Steve should date her.

Steve should be her tutor. There's no way this character would exist now in 2034. So anyway, Brenda, this all leads to the last episode where she's going to make one last run of Dylan. But she's also going to Roy Randolph. Well, we'll get to that. Kelly, so she joins a sorority. She's dating Dylan. Dylan is, Dylan's just a pill this whole season.

He's like, I don't want to do any. I don't want to go to parties. is like just not a fun hang in any respect. All he wants to do is stay home and read books. Yeah, he dragged Kelly down too. She's like miserable while dating him. It's not a good relationship. It's a couple that never made sense and was,

I don't know, fairly toxic from the gecko. I disavow their ending. I just think that's one other reason why I think of the show as season four. I disavow the ending of the very end of the show of that couple of Kelly and Doe. So I don't like to think about it. They're terrible. Well, it starts out the whole season four starts. They came back from France and Kelly,

left early and things aren't going great. And then that's just how it goes. She gets a ball with John Sears, who we see come back in this episode. John Sears, who is like head of the frat, who's just making a run at her and you know is a bad guy. Great villain. They've good villains this season. Great villain. So you have, she's got that.

She's bad. Then she ends up back with Dylan, but then the Brandon retreat. And then now that's like the storyline. So she's never looked better. Nice Beach House. Oh, the beach house is incredible. The retreat is episode 22, by the way. Like, it's, like, deep into season four.

Like, it's, like, it sets up so much. And yet, there's 21 episodes before that. Network TV was crazy. I love it. Yeah, I can't even, like, in Netflix, what's the longest show they have? Like, 10 episodes? 10 episodes. Amazon, this is 10 episodes.

Like 32 episodes is bonkers. But she's never looked better. The other female in the group, Donna, who roughier for Donna. You know, I actually think this is one of her best looking years as well. But by the end, she looks great. Best looking year. Yeah, I agree with you. But they basically, she's in college, trying to get the radio show going, David.

And we should talk about David as part of this because she stays a virgin, which was a pretty funny 90s theme. Like this age beautifully. Like I can't imagine anyone watching this going, wait, what? And her virginity and her lack of sex with David. drives him to crystal meth. There's no other reason. He has a case of blue balls to the point that he has to go to hard drugs

to try to fight it off. Like, just have sex with them, Donna. For God's sakes. All the ways that they try to avoid saying crystal meth and all the ways that they come up with different terms for drugs too. It's like so funny. It's just a constant euphemism

to not get to the point of like, well, he's frustrated. It's actually frustrated. so he's doing drugs. He's unhappy, so he's doing drugs. His relationship is maybe the most toxic, and yet it's the most lasting of the whole show. It's so funny.

But he is such like a weasel. I'm like, do I like David? Do I hate David? Do I have any respect for David? I don't know. But he adds a lot to the show because it's so outrageous. Well, it's the first season where he actually, like, he's grown, because he was like the scrawny teenager in the beginning.

And by season four, he's like grown up, handsome guy. He's ripped, yeah. But for some reason, they have them, the college radio station, they have like the middle of the night shift, which I don't think exists at any college station, but whatever. And he's trying to stay up. He's tired. So he ends up taking some speed. And within like two weeks, it leads to Crystal Meth. It leads to him stealing medication from his dentist dad.

Why is his dentist dad have this kind of serious hardcore medication, by the way? I think you used to get oxycodone for like a bad cavity or like a tooth pole or something like that. you'd get a painkiller. Oral surgery you can hurt. Okay. Do you get crystal meth? You crunch it up, you know, you mash it up, and then you start storing it. So maybe it's the same purpose.

Like if they had this show in 2024, would he just be doing fentanyl? Yes, probably. He'd be like, oh, yeah, hooked on fentel. So he's doing meth for like two weeks, which I'm pretty sure is like a life ruiner. Like once you do that, you really never bounce totally back. He's fine in like a week. And then him and Donna adopt a dog that leads to a little rescue. dog pot. He really has nothing to do the rest of the season, except once we get to this episode,

which we're going to dive into, once he starts getting into the musical planning side. So that's his plot. Donna doesn't really have a ton to do. Season five, they really step her up with Ray Pru, one T, and all that. So, and then the other female star of the show, who really should have been written off after season three was Andrea, who was already old for the show. You know, it was legitimately in early 30s when playing like a high school senior. But then gets pregnant in real life during season four. And they have to speed rush. She went from being a virgin all through high school to having sex with her RA to then falling for this Latino bartender who looks like he's 38.

Well, he's in law school as well. So, you know, he is older. How old? Like, how old is this guy supposed to be? He's got a receding hairline. I think he's supposed to be like 25 or something. I do remember as a kid, I thought he had a real calming presence. I was like, oh, Jesse, he's a great guy.

Well, he's got one of those, like, my wife pointed this out, like one of those Obama voices, like great deep voice. But she meets him at the Walsh's 20th anniversary party, which is like, you know, like Thanksgiving range, whirlwind romance. And by final exams in this episode, she's having a premature baby. I don't know how the timelines. I don't know how long it takes to have a baby, but I'm pretty sure it's not five months.

One thing I was also really confused by is she's waking up to take a 3 a.m. pill. As far as I know, you don't take any pills while pregnant. Like, I don't think there's a medication you should be taking regularly. Well, they say in this episode, she has the baby. And they're like, yeah, the baby's only two pounds, eight ounces. And I'm like, that's a pretty big baby considering it's four and a half months old. That's a giant kid. Considering you just conceived it over Christmas.

Also, she's so pregnant. It doesn't make any sense. She does look really, really pregnant. Of all this sort of like scared straight, like have protected sex storylines, I feel like Andrea is one of the most impactful because she really, she goes from like being the nerd valedictorian who's going to go to Yale to being a 19 year old mom with a premature baby and a law student like baby daddy. And like that's just really not how things were supposed to go. So wrap it up, folks. Like it's just a real cautionary tale with Andrea. I think they were afraid to write her out of the show or send her packing until she had the kid for legal reasons. Oh, interesting. It's just a guess. But from the moment she gets pregnant, this becomes not only the worst character on the show, but it just brings the show to a screeching halt every time they try to get some whole pregnancy drama. And oh, my God, she might lose the baby. No, she had the baby. Oh, the baby's too small.

And oh, I'm scared about the baby. and it's just every scene, it's like, can we go to any of the other characters? It's an all-time fast forward. Oh, completely. And it's also not really related to anything. The only thing it does is it gives people like a place to go to provide an update.

Like it's helpful with exposition, but I'm certain they could have figured other ways to do that. It's also an unrealistic thing about college because when you're in college, you're just a narcissist and be like, hey, Andre's in the hospital with the baby. Like, oh, tell her I said hi. You would never be like, yeah, I'm going back to the hospital.

So then you have, Steve Sanders, we mentioned he was accused of date rape and his girlfriend tried to hang herself during a school play. He jumped into a frat, which was a side storyline I really enjoyed. Like when he got iced out of the volleyball team,

there's a whole, it turns out the president was secretly gay of the frat and he finds out about it a coffee house and spills the beans to the rest of the frat. It's actually a really good episode and also an insane episode. Like I feel like if it came out now, people would die.

But Steve, this is a good Steve Sanders season, right? Yeah, definitely. He's likable because he's also humbled. But he comes out on top. Like, he actually, he gets a redemption arc with the Laura storyline. And then you're like, oh, he's actually, not only is he trying to help Laura and then be loyal to Laura, he like won't go see the play because of Laura. Like, he actually gets to, like, grow and he's not just like the idiot that when he was in high

school. So it is a good storyline for him. It's also the last year he looks like he's a realistic college. He looks handsome this season. Yeah, the next year, the hair starts going back too far and being into some trouble. Him versus John Sears. It's fun having the bad boy be the antagonist for the villain. And that's like a really fun relationship too.

John Sears is like beyond evil. Like he's such a bad, bad guy. It also really helps Steve because it makes Steve seem like totally like, yeah, acceptable level of bad for a college guy. Yeah, we think John Sears might be a bad guy. and then he's trying to get Kelly to have sex of them. And he's doing the, come on, I know what you're about. And it's like, oh.

And then later tries to sleep with an underage girl that Steve stops. They have that, the girl from my so-called life. Yeah, so Steve, the other great, he had the great episode he had this season, which I actually wrote about as an ESP in the magazine column, was when him and his dad played golf against Barry Bonds and Barry Bonds his dad. but Barry Bonds on the show is called Barry Larson. And it's like the father-son tournament or I forget what the plot was, but Steve's dad who's getting older.

By the way, this made me feel old because I think Steve's dad is right around my age now and he seems like 20 years older than me. But he's juicing like the golf balls. And Steve finds out this is in 1994. They're playing Barry Bonds who five years later becomes like the face. of PDs, basically. And somehow Steve Sanders, his dad is cheating against Barry Bond, same thing. So it's fucking nuts.

But that's a hilarious episode. I'm glad you mentioned that you wrote about this because before I knew you, I have two very clear memories. One, you always wrote about Andrea and how old she looked for the shell. Yeah. One of my favorite pots. And then on September 2nd, 2010, famously, you and Matthew Berry did the 90210. And that is an all-time podcast.

and I was like, I was like, I got to work for that guy because he respects his television show. Yeah, we did it. I think it was September 2nd, 2010, 9-0-210. Yeah. Yes, exactly. That Barry Bond's episode is the 24th episode of this season somehow. It's called Cuffs and Links.

I highly encourage people to watch it. It's so deep. This run from episode 26 where Steve finds out his frat president is gay, that whole episode is immensely entertaining. The next episode is Divas when Brenda meets Roy Randolph. That takes us all the way through to the 30th episode, which sets up the final episode. So this is basically six episodes.

And then the first nine episodes of season five, this is my favorite 15 episode stretch, maybe of any show. I completely agree. Other than maybe like the sopranos or the wire. There's something about the propulsive energy of first the Roy Randolph plot into Kelly and Brandon that is so thrilling

and just like feel so right with this group of people. It's like they're constantly rearranging the pieces on the board and they finally get the right configuration. And it works so well. Brandon has big man on campus

with hot girlfriend, like was his destiny from day one. With girls throwing. Yeah. And for some reason, they get away from it the next season. It's like you had the recipe. I know.

Bran is the next Bill Clinton and everyone wants to have sex of them. Like don't fuck this up. up and they fucked it up. I also think that season four and they all come back at the end of the season has the best guest stars. Like from Deshawn Hardison to Lisztah. Wait a second. Deshawn Hardell.

Sorry. Deshawn Hardell. I'm so sorry. Wow. That's so embarrassing. Yeah. Wow. Am I kicked off the pod?

Like one of your, no, that's one of your favorite characters of all time. I love Chris Williams. I love Deshawn Hardell. Horrible. When I was watching him fall into the dunk tank, I was just like, this is so great. I'm so happy to see this guy. I missed him. These are just side characters.

This is one of the reasons the show was so good. this year. Deshawn. Yeah, Deshawn. Who's basically like, I don't know, he's going to be a lottery pick and Brandon's tutoring him and there's a whole bunch of shenanigans with that thing gets hurt. John Sears, we mentioned. Kevin and Suzanne, the scammers. Roy Randolph, the lecherous play producer who, like, clearly would definitely take at least oral sex from Brenda without even thinking twice.

What do you think happened when she goes in, just acts? Like, what do you think happens? She's very comfortable. So this is an earlier episode than the season finale. The way she defends herself after when she's like, I've only had sex with two guys, Dylan and Stewart. It's kind of a non-denial denial. I've only had sex with two guys means like,

yeah, she might have blown him. Blow job, yeah. I think that's probably what happened. That's what I think too. She shows up in a trench coat and a nightgown. So something happens, right? Like, it's not a zero. Yeah, it's...

That's how I feel as well. I've always been pretty confident something happened. But that led to a great episode where her alleged friends, especially Kelly, who's the worst friend maybe of all time. Kelly is the quickest to slut shame of any woman ever created on television. And it's the biggest slut on the show. All she's doing is throwing it around. But the moment she has, I mean, her and Brenda hate each other.

That's one of the keys to the show. It's like they're the all-time front of me. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling ford Ask your doctor about Zepbound, terseptite. The first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. Zepound contains terseptide and should not be used with other terseptide containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines.

It is not known if Zepound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pins or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia.

If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonel urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsened kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99 or visit Zepbound.lily.com. Okay, so setting up this episode, here's what we got. Our big plots. California University's 28th annual Mardi Gras,

which is basically, I don't know, like a lousy carnival with babyface performing somehow. Yeah. Northwestern had that. It was called Dillow Day, and everyone got drunk. There was a performer. There's no, like, carnival, but it was similar.

Did it last for four days? No. Also, I did note how they did a good job of, like, going from daytime to night. Like, things got darker and later. and you could see it was evening. I appreciated those small touches. Brandon is a huge task force meeting.

He gets to meet President Clinton. So he has to go to D.C. Where he shows up at D.C. And some old flames are there, which we'll get to. That's plot number two. Plot number three is David and Donna are in charge of the music. But Babyface's second keyboardist has not shown up. And it's an emergency.

But fortunately, David knows all the songs. We'll get to that. We have John Sears now dating Celeste who Steve screwed things up with. I just want to go on the record as a full-fledged Celeste head. We forgot to mention her in the beautiful women of the season. She's so stunning. Diane Cannon and Carrie Grant's daughter. Oh, wow.

I have no idea why she wasn't a bigger star. Her and Lucinda, I have no idea why they. Lucinda was at least in Starship Troopers. Sure. I don't know what happened with Celeste. I don't know why she didn't stay in the show. I don't know why they picked Claire to move into the beach house over Celeste.

I don't know either. I guess they just liked, they must have really liked Kathleen Robertson. And she did evolve nicely. But Celeste was a no-brainer. I see, I liked her this season where it was like she was just

this young, precocious, like kind of sexual demon. And then within two years, she's just like yelling at Steve. It's like, what happened? You were such a fun character. Well, Steve. Maybe he brought me.

Maybe he ruined it. Yeah. dragged it down. She's like, why am I dating a guy? It's 35. We have the Dylan scam officially in motion. The Dylan scam. I just, I felt sad, honestly.

I was like, what's wrong with me? I'm like, what's wrong with me? I'm like, Dylan, no. Just like, don't give him your money. It was very upsetting. Jim Walsh is setting up this whole thing for Dylan, and then Dylan eventually decides, oh, I should just fund this.

One of the crazy things about this show that I've never had a real answer on. At various times, Dylan seems to have like $100 million or eight. And they can't seem to decide like how much money he actually has because the way it's presented

when he goes, the greatest single episode of the show when he goes back to Mexico to get his money back from these two, which is probably the greatest hour of TV ever. It might be the next Hall of Fame episode. So good. He gets his eight million back

and now he's like rolling in dough again. But meanwhile, he's like a third of it. But I just, how did he not have more than eight million dollars? His dad stole like billions of dollars. from people. Also, how did he maintain his life? Because he didn't have to move out of his house. He didn't have to sell his car. Like he was able to, and like, homeownership is inherently expensive. So if he's

not downsizing, there's got to be more money. I guess maybe he has like another kind of trust that gives him like an allowance each month or something. But yes, I feel the same way. Everyone's wealth is sort of like implied, but I would have liked some hard dollars about Dylan's finances because he never did anything, like at all. Well, and I don't care how dumb or naive Dylan is. let's say he had $8 million. That's what they stole from him. Who's going to put every single dollar they have in one business and leave themselves no other money to spend, basically?

Because by the time we get to season five, it's like Dylan's broke, he lost all his money. It's like, how did he lose all his money? That doesn't make sense. Why didn't he lose 80% of his money? Right. Or like a few million. Because even if you're Dylan,

let's say you lose $5 million or left with three, that's a pretty big hit. Three for that guy is not going to get you very far. So I have another question that's related. And in this episode, Brandon walks in and he says that Jim's an accountant. And then later, Jim is like putting together this investment group. Yeah. And I'm just like, is this within the bounds of an accountant's role?

He was more than an accountant. I always thought he was like a financial advisor. Okay. So Brandon was just trying to like cut him down a little bit by calling him an accountant. Okay. Yeah, because Brandon resented him for whatever reason. So we have that. we have David, I mentioned him playing with baby face,

but also the possibility of him cheating on Donna, which we'll get to. We have John Sears dating Celeste, and then Steve versus John Sears. Dylan's game in motion. Brenda still loves Dylan. Still loves Dylan. So we have that. We have unfortunately Andrea with the premature baby that we have to have. What part of that's unfortunate?

The premature baby? No, just six scenes in the hospital. I definitely in this episode do not want to be in the hospital. And then we have Dylan and Kelly break up and she goes to DC for Brandon. So this is the big plots. To say the least. Ripping through the episode. So Ariel played by Carrie Wurr, who was on an MTV show before your time called Remote Control.

I remember it. Where she was one of the hot early 90s babes. So her being on this show is a big deal. And she shows up as like a junior music executive who is working with David. Donna, who won't have sex with their boyfriend and is threatened by all other women because she knows, like, at any time, he could just be like, fuck this. Although Kelly and Brenda assured her, you can't keep a man with sex. Look at us. Right, right. Yeah, look at it. That was a great scene.

And that leads to a little bit later, David's eating a hot dog. Donna has to run off. And Ariel's like, let's get, like, where did you get the hot dog? He's like, I'll get you one. and she basically deep throats the hot dog. 100%. It's like... One of the craziest scenes of the 90s. She's like, thanks for the hot dog. It's a huge hot dog with like all the fixings and mustard.

And she takes this giant bite of it like it's a porn movie. And then she has like mustard all over her mouth. And stares at him. She's just maintaining a high contact. She's trying to seduce him with the hot dog. But I will say good storytelling. It told me a lot. about who she is and it's a scene we both remarked on so it worked do you think that was in the script

or carry words like i have an idea what if uh i think that's on her what if i think that's on her imagine being one of these writers and being like i'm just going to write into this ariel takes a big bite sort of like she's deep throwing it while maintaining eye contact with david she's giving him a preview of their future with the hot dog. So at the Mardi Gras, we have that plot where Ariel's clearly moving in on David. Donna is clearly sensing it. And then we also have John Sears with Celeste.

They find out Steve gets super jealous. We get some dunk tank scenes, some mud pit. Every thing with the dunk tank mud pit, we get the Sean Hardell on the dunk tank. I know you and I are aligned on this. One of the big TV tragedies of the 90s was that they didn't say fuck it. and have Deshaun Hardell date Donna.

It was sitting there. I think they thought about it. I think her dad, Aaron Spelling, who ran the show and had a whole production company, I think was just like no fucking way we're doing that. But it was sitting there. It would have been so great. I wish that someone would make a show that's like set in the 80s, the late 80s, about Deshawn.

Just like, why not? Like, why not do like his backstory? Oh, like a 902 no prequel? And it's just the whole DeShan? Yes, exactly. It's like a Southern California basketball story. from the late 80s, find a really charismatic young black actor,

launch someone's career, like, who says no? This is a great show idea. Well, great idea, but also the second episode of the fifth season, the show is great at really disgusting casual racism from some of the characters. And the best moment ever for that is

they have that, like, debutante ball thing. Yeah. And Donna starts dancing with Deshaun. And Donna's mom is talking to somebody, and she just stops. Like there's... Donna's mom is like disgusting. Donna's mom stops in complete horror

like a homeless man is taking a dump on one of the tables. And it cuts to Donna dancing with Deshaun. And she's so horrified and upset about it. And it's like, it's just an incredible racism moment. They do have a lot of that in the show. But it also like, I don't think they did this necessarily to like call anyone out. But it's kind of realistic, right? Like Donna's mom probably would have felt that way,

much like your hypothesizing Aaron's spelling may have. Yeah. Well, maybe Donna's mom is a proxy for Aaron spelling. Yeah. Yeah. It kind of reminds me of Bridgeton, honestly, when the couple's, like, dance in the middle. And they're like, I can't believe they would do that.

And it's not that different. So as Mardi Gras is going on, we have Dylan and Jim and Kevin figuring out all the financing. They do a good job in the first hour, setting up all hell breaks loose in the second hour. We have Roy Randolph trying to get Brenda to go to London and flirting with her one last time. Maybe hoping for a little repeat.

As I get older, I find Roy Randolph more attractive. I'm like, yeah, I see it. He's a nice size. He looks like a magician. He does. He looks like some person that, like, you'd meet once and have like a really fun night with, or at least for me, a really fun one-nighter with that guy. With Roy Randolph?

Yeah. Maybe he's available. I hope he's listening. I think Brenda felt the same way. There's a lot of Jesse Andreab baby stuff that we're going to skip. But you don't want to talk about him sanding a wooden bassinet that looks like it's for an Amish person or an Amish baby? I don't.

We have Brandon and Brenda's last scene ever together, and I think they know it. Okay. Thank you so much. This is such a weird rewatch because there is like wistful music. Obviously in post-production, they knew it was going to be Brenda's last scene. They like, or Brendan and Brandon together. But it's like barely a goodbye. It's just sort of like a good job, sis. Good job, bro.

And they deserved more. Like, I don't know. They deserved a real like something in the bathroom. I don't know if they knew for a fact. she was leaving. I think they allegedly was causing just a shitload of problems behind the scene. She's, by the way, would be an amazing documentary

because, you know, she was like, like, quickie marriage, like a null, dated a bunch of different celebrities, was in that whole like Viper Room type of scene. So I think they had kind of had it. She kept showing up late to set. Right. She was fired from charms subsequently to charm. Right. So I think, but I just think, like,

in my dream scenario, you get a goodbye similar to how Valerie was introduced, like in the bathroom with the connecting rooms. No, totally. What is important about this last scene together is they were able to maintain the creepy sexual attention they had for the last couple years. No brother and sister have ever interacted like this on TV where it feels like they might start making out at any time. Even in this last scene, they're standing like two feet away from each other.

I promise you, I have a son and a daughter. Like, they do not interact like this. No son and daughter interacts like this. I have a brother. That would like really grosses me out. Hey, sis, how you feeling? It's like he's going to buy her a drink. They're trying to make it seem like a sibling rivalry,

but it's like sibling sexual tension. It's gross. Yeah, it's disgusting. So things really take off when Brandon gets to D.C. Do they ever? This is one of the best stretches in the history of the show. He runs into Claire because she's with Chancellor Arnold, and she's already made multiple runs at him.

But then Lucinda's there. Lucinda was the married professor that he had the affair with. Then she hit on Dylan. which I guess was another interesting Dylan plot. So he cuts things off with her. And now she's back. Yeah, I mean, it speaks to the two triangles and Dylan's in both. Dylan Brandon Kelly and Dylan Kelly Brenda.

So, you know, he's trapped with the twins. It's kind of funny to think about it that way. Yeah, when Dylan and Brandon, the last Dylan, when Dylan gets married and they're like playing poker and it's like, you're the best friend I ever had. And it's like, all you guys did was like fight over women. You guys were terrible friends to each other. but Claire and Lucinda both want a piece of our guy. Of course.

I still do. Well, it keeps going because Brandon goes back to this hotel room. Claire is taking a shower in his room. How did she get in? There's a lot of how do they get into the room. Who lets somebody just in somebody else's hotel? I know.

I'm positive hotels don't work that way. I know. And then, yeah, we'll come back to that later on. They have a weird kiss. He's like, stay here. Then he runs into Lucinda. she comes back with him on the elevator. Now they're outside.

Claire invites Lucinda to dinner. Now we're at a dinner where they're sitting on either side of him, feeling them up. It's hard to understand how he continued to function at all. Like, wouldn't... Right. He's at this huge task force dinner with the chancellor. And he's like, there's like two women vying to give him a handjob under the table, and yet he's able to like continue a conversation.

He's able to just keep it. So here's one of the most unrealistic parts of this episode. And I say that knowing that this is an episode that involves David jumping on stage and playing second keyboard with baby face. Just because he knows the song by heart. I know every song. You literally know every baby's-sip face song? Okay. I just think Brandon at age 19 is saying, fuck it.

I'm going for the threesome here. The threesome's on the table. Sure. I agree with that, especially because Chancellor Arnold is aware of how crazy his daughter is. We learn that in this episode. Yeah. And clearly Lucinda and Claire have like some kind of connection there.

They both seem like they would be down for it. And yeah, I agree with you. I think he would just go for it. There's a lot of chemistry between Lucinda and Claire. And it eventually leaves the Brandon's switching rooms so that they won't figure out where he is. He decides, I got to get out of this with both of them. And then the two of them running each other and like, let's have breakfast.

And it's like, are you guys? First of all, Lucinda is like 27 and Claire's a high school senior. but it's like, wait, are you guys going to hook up? What's happening? And that's the last time we see Lucinda. Which is tragic. We deserve more. We deserved to Brenda and Brandon goodbye.

And we deserved more Lucinda. Like, honestly. Lucinda was great. I don't know why she'd have a bigger career. Dina Meyer was the actress. I wish she had been brought back multiple times for the show. What do you think happened to her masks? You know, like those props?

Because I would buy one on eBay if it was available. What do you think happened to her documentary? That's a great question. Probably went to the Tribeca Film Festival. several years later. She sold it for $11,000. Yeah. So then we get

Brendan tells Kelly and Donna, she's going to London. And Donna starts complaining about Ariel. This is post hot dog scene. And they're like, don't worry. David loves you. And she goes, it's easy for you guys to say,

you guys slept with your boyfriend. Just incredible. The whole scene is just amazing, the three of them. And Kelly's like, yeah, you're right. Look at us. Any guy I date keeps coming back. It's like keep giving it up.

For some reason, Kevin and Suzanne have a wedding reception during this episode. I wonder, was like, were we supposed to think that he was getting, they had to get married for her to like inherit some of the money? I was trying to think about like, is that part of the scheme or is that just like to stonewall gym or just inexplicable? I don't really understand it. I don't understand why they didn't do more with the wedding and maybe cut like two Andrea Jesse hospital scenes.

That would have been my choice. But anyway, Kevin, this is where he's like, we should cut Jim out of this deal. It'd be us. We got, this is hot and stupid Dylan. Dylan, who I thought was always smarter and savier than this, but not too savvy in season four. Do you think anyone other than Brandon and Andrea

are supposed to like really be smart? Or does anyone actually show that they're actually smart? because I can't think of much. I can't point to much for anyone else. You knew Dylan wasn't smart when he bought half of the peach pit. After being there for four years, as Nat complained about how bad business was.

And Dylan's like, I'm in for half. Also like a place, someone who would hire his scammer, fake stepmother. Like, you're like, okay, sure, I want to be in business with you. So we have, Dylan takes Erica to the Mardi Gras

and then we plant some Dylan, Brandon stuff. we have Steve and Jesse have a lunch scene together, which is really Steve's big scene when Jesse said, who does a kid look for? And Steve goes, I don't know anyone who looks like me.

I'm adopted. They have a moment. They do have a moment. I thought that was actually kind of sweet. Steve proved himself as a good friend in the back half of the season. And that's like kind of the best version of Steve. Yeah, they really redeemed him

from some of his behavior in the first couple seasons. There's also, as you know, Ion's earring is one of my favorite unintentional comedy actors ever. Sure. There's when I wrote this down when Jesse has to go back to the hospital and he gets up. And he's like, okay, yeah, yeah, I'll say thanks for coming. And he walks off and they just keep the camera rolling for three extra seconds.

And Steve does this, I'm going to put my drink down and stare off into the sunset thing, which was an eye-in-searing staple of like, and cut. Great job. I. And he really like milks the scenery. We have Kelly had told Andrea about Dylan and Brandon

Am I nuts? And Andrea says to be crazy about Brandon Walsh is not to be nuts She's off on a plane now She's gonna go find them And then Who shows up in Washington, D.C.

Kelly One thing that always works about 902 and O is because everyone's supposed to be rich And I guess like Even the Walsh's who are like The poorest, you can believe they would just

get on a plane right away. But like, yeah, Kelly would just buy a flight. Like, that checks out for me, even though she's in college. So he wakes up and Kelly's there and she has breakfast. I like how she thanks the guy, Michael, the room service guy. Thank you, Michael. It's all taken care of. And then, and they're just off.

They're going to spend the day together. Kelly is so beautiful when she arrives in Washington, D.C. And I don't just, but not just her look. She's sort of like, it's the best version of Kelly Taylor, one who's like in love, one who wants to be supportive, one who wants to, like, explore, like, like she comes with an open mind and an open heart and it really works. It looks good on her.

Great job, Jenny Garth. It's a reprehensible character for the most part. Yes, for the most part. She's a horrible friend. She will do anything for love at the expense of any other person. She's super whiny. I just don't really like her at all. She becomes a drug addict.

Yeah. A pretty unfun drug addict that I don't enjoy. She joined a cult. Just a bunch of shit went on with her. But this was the best version of her. I agree. Absolutely. This and the retreat are her two best episodes, no doubt.

So then the Mardi Gras, we get Babyface, David having to fake it for soundcheck. Do you know the rest of my songs? And then he goes and hugs Ariel. And Steve's watching. He's like, who's the babe all over David? And Donna goes, screw you, Steve or whatever, and storms off. You just know where that one's headed. one of the touches from the early seasons that went away

and I think it was because that guy Charles Rosen who ran the show I think he left after the fifth season but they have the Frank Capra homage which is why this is called Mr. Walsh goes to Washington. Really good scene with Kelly and then the camera fades back. She's like some good TV work. We have sad Mrs. Walsh trapped in the worst haircut of all time.

Cindy is such a just she never has a good moment. Like Cindy is never like the star. She's never the fun mom. She never gets a good haircut. but she has to move to China eventually. It's just all L's for Cindy. She dresses like an Amish housewife. Yeah.

Like this haircut she has here. What is this haircut she has in this episode? It's like high in the top. It's like a Damien Oman type of look. I don't get it. I think it's supposed to be like modest mom. Like I think it's supposed to be like, don't look at me.

I'm taking care of my household. And like that's all I do. Like I think she's supposed to be like very much like not hot. Whereas like some of the other moms like Jackie Taylor is much more stylish. She also has short hair. Jackie Taylor was smoking hot mom. Yeah, she was great. I was thinking about it because my kids,

Zoe, my daughter is the exact same age as Brandon and Brenda in this episode, right? She's just finished her freshman year and college. So my wife is technically the Mrs. Walsh of this whole thing. My wife would never hang out with Mrs. Walsh. None of her friends would be like, hey, Cindy Walsh is coming over. They're like, oh, no, she sucks.

She just talks about her kids. Isn't Cindy Walsh, like the Arkansas? type mom of like the early 90s where it's just sort of like all you do is you're the mom and wife to this family and that's it. Yeah. So she's like go to, she's basically tells Brenda, go to London. Do the thing I never had the

balls to do myself. That's true. Good advice. But then get so mad at Brenda because then they're watching Brandon on TV like literally five minutes later. The task force, yeah. Yeah, the task force on TV with Bill Clinton. They actually like seem to have licensed footage from C-SPAN. Love it. So it's the real Bill Clinton followed by the fake Bill

Clinton shaking hands with everybody, which is another great 90s. The TVs were a lot fuzzier and you couldn't really get it. But now the picture's nicer. You can see it. And Brenda is like so jealous and resentful that her parents are like proud of Brandon. So she's like, fuck it. I got to get out of here. And I shout at Shannon Doherty. She does a lot with a little of just being like so mad about how they're excited that their son's on TV. But I'm like, Brenda, this is a big deal and doesn't at all take away from you going to London. So like just be a better sister. It's, It's like the perfect Brenda moment where you're like, oh, this could have been a beautiful goodbye,

but nope, you're just like an unhappy person. Can I push back on that? Can I defend Brenda? We're here to embrace debate, of course. We're here to embrace debate. Coming up next. First of all, I took the scene as she's watching her parents react, realizing that no matter what she does,

Brandon's going to be the golden boy. Well, that's true. So I don't think she was angry about it. I think it was more like crap. And also she was kind of a mess the whole season I mean she got engaged she got arrested Like a whole bunch of shit happened with her But yeah

I think she realized like I need my own thing Because even she says during that scene She's like well she's like I'm Mom says I'm so proud It's the proudest moment She's like well just wait till I win an Oscar Like she's just like Can you give me some

Some anything please So I feel bad She's like mom shoot aim higher for me She's like don't be proud now Be proud in the future Okay that's fair I just feel like she's overreacting to her parents being excited that their kids on TV at the president

because it is exciting. It would have been funny if the mom turned around and it's like, look, you're getting ridden off the show. You've got to care more about Brandon. We must send you away to London now, farewell. Next year, Tiffany Iberthes ends joining the show is Valerie. And life will never be the same after that. So this is when it goes to a whole other level

because we get the task force, which for some reason is being shown on all the TVs in Beverly Hills. It's like, hey, some kids are meeting the president. It's like, put this out of every TV. The task force is also impressive because correct me if I'm wrong, but the task force is basically a plot device for the entire season. And there aren't a lot of season-long plot devices. And what's the task? What tasks do they have? Well, I believe he says the report is about how public education is failing in America and there's something like that. And so it's about, you know, the public university and making the case for public

education, which of course I support. But yeah, like, what's Brandon doing to contribute to that? Like, from Beverly Hills. I don't understand. One thing I loved about this season and the next one, and then I think they lost the narrative after that. And the biggest mistake they made was when everybody graduated college. And it was like, now it's going to be realistic.

These kids are going to have trouble finding jobs. And it was like, that's not the show I signed up for. I signed up for Brandon's the next Bill Clinton. Valerie is going to, at age 19, be able to run a nightclub. David's going to be able to go on stage with baby face and just play an entire concert with them. That was the whole point of the show. It's like anything was possible.

Could Brenda be like the next hot actress in America? Yeah. Because it's not in 2 and O. Who cares? I do think to your point about the after dark, that is to me a real pivot point. Like obviously they get older and stuff. But like when there's counter programming to the peach pit,

it does really change. Like when they have graduated from the diner. Turns into Morrow's place. Yeah, they basically wanted it to be an adult drama. So the gladiator mud pit, it just, it's for some reason John Sears and Celeste just every day are going to the Mardi Gras. Like no other day, it's going to take her to a concert, take it to a restaurant. But Brandon and Donna tell Celeste about John Sears leading to a scene that I've had some nitpicks

with over the years. They all flashed John Sears so Steve can knock them off the mud pit and win the bet. And they all rip off their blasts and the buttons fly. but then it's like, so how did they, what do they wear the rest of the night? I think they're wearing a few layers. Great question, though. I don't know. My wife's big note on the episode was,

nobody is ruining their shirt because Celeste wants to help Steve in the mud pit. I have another note for you, which is I think that the carnival is just one day and we're seeing a really long day. Oh, interesting. I thought it was like four days. No, I think it's a really long day because it's at least two days. It's at least two days. I think there's like the day one, which is when Andrea goes into labor and like Kelly tells

her she's going to be going to Washington. And then there's day two, which is like the actual day of the carnival. And like we see it go from day to night. And like the sun goes down and all that. So I think we're just getting two days. I don't know. We'll never know. You'll watch again.

We'll never. We'll never know. There will never be an answer. Well, this is when we go to a whole other level because David goes on stage and plays. plays with baby face. By the way, I really like that song. Me too. I had the baby face CDs when I was, you know, this time.

I loved baby face. Austin Green's up there just fucking killing it. They cut to Carrie Wurr, who is just like basically in heat. She's so proud. She's like, does they have a hot dog? The hot dog's gone? That part's great. We get Brennan and Kelly in bed.

I like being in your world, Brandon, with her little baby voice that she uses. Also, we have to assume that he's in love because I believe he has the dream about how sex that love is pointless and I'm assuming he and Kelly have sex. And then she's like, I got to bring you tomorrow, the task force. Hold on, let me call the chancellor to get you security clearance. I'm pretty sure that takes like a week.

Yeah, I think you have like an FBI interview or something. something like that. I'm going to let you take this one. Where do you stand on Kelly breaking up with Dylan and then immediately flying in D.C. and having sex with his best friend, Brandon, like within three days. Aggressive. It's aggressive. I support it. Like, where do I stand? I support it. It supports love and sex. I support love and sex. I pursue women having, I support women pursuing sex when they want to. I also just more than anything, support like the relationships I love on TV. So that includes Brandon and Kelly. And so if this is part of putting them, getting them together, I support it.

So do you, Kelly, whatever. Well, we go from the flash of John Sears to David playing with baby face to Brandon and Kelly in bed to Donna and Brenda now looking for David. And it's like all the limos over here. By the way, why are there so many limos at the fucking California University of Mardi Gras? There's like 12 limos. I guess the baby face has a big entourage for a lot of limos. It's like, are they in babyface's limos?

do you think? Unclear. But one of the guys just is like, hey, have you seen David Silver? Yeah, he's in that limo over there.

The fucking limo is probably rocking. And for some reason, they just pretend you're not there in the limo. Just lock the door. She's never going to know you're in there.

Just be silent. Yeah. And be like, he doesn't try hard at all. I think that Ariel screws him over. I think she's like, she encourages him to roll down

the window and she wants to break them up. She wants Donna to know. Donna comes sits down, sees Ariel who's just like buttoned back up her blouse. It's got to be like gross in there. Limma's got to have like probably a sex smell, right? A musk, yeah.

Like a little bit of a sex cologne in there. She sees the, she starts going, oh my God, oh my God. And then she sees an Excel condom wrapper. Is that like a magnum? I guess so they probably couldn't use any brand. Was David packing? David's got a hot dog, you know?

Apparently. And the condom wrapper is used. When she goes in the limo, David's pants are on. So did they already have sex, but they were still in the limo? I already have a lot of questions. He buttons them up. Like, he's very quickly putting his pants back on when the scene starts. So I think they already had sex.

My wife was saying how funny it would have been instead of the rapper of the condom. It was the actual condom. She's like, oh, no. I did think about that. I was like, where is it? I think it stayed on David. This is one of the great, and by the way, they've been building to this moment for three years of her walking in on him having sex with somebody else.

It finally happens. We get Brenda consoling Donna after, I thought he understood. And then the greatest moment of this episode, Brenda saying to Donna, you're beautiful and you're smart. No, I'm not. Donna responds, no, I'm not so quickly. No, I'm not. Yeah. She's like, no.

It's very funny. No, we're not saying that. Then Donna says to Brenda, you're my best friend. And it's like, is she? I thought it was Kelly. Right. You're my best friend. And I'm never going to see you again in an hour.

We mentioned the task force of Dylan signs over his money to Kevin. Just here. Great job, man. Let's leave the bank together. And then the reveal, Suzanne's in the parking lot. Incredible. And he doesn't get into his car. He goes back over to the other.

one. It's so good. It's so good. I mean, on a Netflix show, this would happen in like one episode. They're setting this up for like half the season of a 32 episode show. It's just you're never getting anything like this again. We get David Chiron and apologize to Donna.

It was right there. It was right in front of me. I couldn't say no. Like maybe don't talk, David. And then she's like, was that your first time? Was that your first time? And he's like, No, but only with her. Is that better or worse?

What was the other time with her? I don't know. I think they just were in the limo for 24 hours. And then the last two things that happened, Erica is now in the airport getting pulled to Brazil with their parents, which she had mentioned she overheard in like a previous episode and leaves a note with some gum, please send to Dylan McKay.

They're taking me to Brazil and the note falls in the bathroom floor. Good. Good job by her. And then the last one, Brenda, we end with Brenda going to see Dylan. I'm going to London. He says, I'll applaud you from afar. And she goes, I don't want your applause. I want more than your applause.

And then they start going at it. So this episode, Juliet, four cliffhangers. Dylan gets ripped off, doesn't know yet. Brenda and Dylan are back together. Brandon and Kelly are together. Nobody knows this either. Donna and David, it's completely. broken up.

And then a semi-fifth cliffhanger, nobody really cared about, was that Andrea's baby. We'll see what happens. Andrea is a mom, right? And her baby's premature. But really, for a two-parter, really strong, to have five awesome cliffhangers that you're going into like the summer, you're like, wait, what? What's going to happen? And also, every character that matters, like, except for Steve and I guess Andrea are, like,

are involved. It's not even like tertiary stuff. It's also, again, it's all about the rearranging. of the pieces. It's like, who's going to be with who and like, where are they going to be? It's a real, they just shake everything up. It's really well done. I also was just thinking, like, it's so earned because you've asked people to come along for 32 episodes. And it really, it really delivers. It's such a great, it's such a great two-parter. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want.

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Think about 32 episodes, how long that is. It's inexplicable. It's 32 weeks, which is basically, I mean, that's an entire NBA season? Yeah, I think it's longer than an NBA season. It's crazy. it's three quarters of the year. First of all,

this wasn't sustainable because they ran out of ideas with all these characters pretty quickly. They burned out all the actors. Everybody wanted to get off the show unless they were being overpaid. But why can't a show like this happen anymore?

I was just thinking, do you think it would work if they did it five nights a week over six weeks? And they were just like, this is a huge event, and you better tune in. And it was like one episode a night,

Monday through Friday on Netflix or something, and people just had to come back. And you like condense it. I don't think it would work because there was a watercural element with this show 30 years ago where everybody was watching it, mainly because we had less stuff on. There was less shows like this. And it was like going from week to week where people were like, what's going to happen next? Now it would just be a binge show, right?

So if you're doing a binge show, it can't be, you would almost have to do like three, eight episode binge. Just like 24 would be the max for a show like this. Because with Love Island, which we cover on Bachelor Party, me and Callie, that is like 40 to 50 episodes a season. And it's on six nights a week. And like people get really sucked in. And you have to kind of keep up. But if you don't keep up, you're kind of screwed. So that high barrier to entry, but it's like, it is very fun.

I think the problem with teen shows now is that they're like, they're just not willing to be as flagrant with like what is and isn't acceptable. Like, Steve was involved in, as we said, like, two mental health crises with a woman this season. Like, that would never happen now. And, you know, it's just like, it's just a different culture. I don't know. And I also think it's harder to get adults to play teens in a way that people are willing to go along with. Because, like, believing that Brandon would be in college or, like, any of these people, like, is just no way. It's just, it's too realistic now is kind of the problem.

Well, we talked about the O.C. and the 20th anniversary and we were talking about how that was like the son or daughter of this show and it came out 10 years later

it learned a lot from it. It did a lot of the same beats and ironically had a lot of the same problem where the first season they just did too many episodes and they ripped through

a shitload of plots. Right. And then there's been other ones since all of which you have loved. Yeah, of course. Right? Gossip Girl. Yeah, all of them.

Really none in the last like eight to 10 years though. I think that's like the summer I term pretty is like now the equivalent of 90210, but it's not nearly as like aggressive. And then I've been told euphoria is mostly watched by adults, like not by teens, even though Zendaya is really popular with young people. So like I think part of it also is like teenagers and 20 year olds aren't watching as much TV, which I know I'm not the first person to say, but that's part of the problem, right? That's why I do wonder if like if it's higher frequency and like you can watch it on your phone more quickly, like does that work? Because what if like each day of the week, what if it was like higher concept?

And it's like on Mondays it's a Steve story. On Tuesdays it's Brenda. On Wednesdays it's Kelly or whatever. And they're like intertwine and stuff. We're getting like different points of view or something like that. Like I think there's something about the format that needs to be evolved. And also a fuck itness or people are just like this is a storyline we're doing. Fuck it. And like we're going for it. Because like this is like a ridiculous show. But it's really fun. I'm not advocating for all of like the. offensive stuff to be brought back. But the melodrama of it and like the O-C did melodrama so well, like that needs to be amped up. Ginny and Georgia kind of does it.

I think that, if that was not a binge, I wonder if that would have a little bit more of the staying power because that also has like sex and people getting mad at each other. But I don't know. It's just a different time. I talked to my daughter about it because she watched every episode

of Summer I Turn Pretty devoured it, but was also like dissatisfied with it for a lot of different reasons. I'm not going to speak for her. But I think the reason she said why they don't have shows like this is she says the shows now are too self-conscious. Yeah. And they're always trying to check every box and make sure they're not going to be judged in

certain ways. And because she's watched some 902 and O with us. And she was like, the fun thing about shows like this is they, it's just completely unselfconscious and not self-aware at all. And there's so much unintentional comment in it. And now just everything is so self-aware. you almost couldn't have a show like this. Even the O.C, which had some unintentionally funny stuff in it, right?

Like the fact that Ben McKenzie was 28 years old and 5'7 getting in fights every week. But for the most part, it was a pretty meta show. Yeah, yeah. This 902 and O is not a meta show in any way. Like Steve, Ian Zering really felt like he was one of the best actors on TV. Definitely. And they became huge stars in the beginning of a different tabloid era. I think you kind of need a period piece to do some of this stuff.

it's top of mind because it's on right now, but Bridgerton is ridiculous, and part of the fun is how completely unrealistic it is, but they can hide behind it being in, like, Regency or England or whatever. And so, like, the sex on Bridgeton is, like, fairly explicit, like, more and more each season, and so silly and, like, not believable at all. But I don't think you could do that with, like, current London society. You kind of have to set it in 18-whet-whethe.

Well, so maybe the answer is to do another 90-2-0 show, like this and set it backwards. Well, that's another reason to do my Deshaun Hardell prequel. Let's set it in the late 80s in LA. Oh, my God. Early 90s. Nine of two and oh only got crazier because after this, one of the great things about this season finale,

especially if it's on like Pluto, we go into season five, Valerie shows up and just supercharges the show. Dylan falls off the wagon, starts drinking again. And the nine episodes when he's basically drunk all the time is probably the highlight of the show, at least for me. It's so good. I mean, so many crazy things still happen on this show afterwards. But it's interesting. When you lose the nuclear family, like the foursum, it does like really radically alter how the show thinks about itself. It's no longer set around like this, you know, this Midwestern family finding themselves in L.A. And it's kind of interesting. This changed a lot. It becomes such a money grab by the end. You have Brandon leaves a show. You have everybody living in the Walsh house, but nobody's related to the Walsh's. including people that they've never met,

like the Brandon replacement lawyer guy, it's so bad. So this is really, this is the highlight, season four. Some people feel like there's this Luke Perry Entertainment Weekly cover story that,

where he basically shits on 902 and O in it. And it was a pretty famous 902 ando thing where he's like, I don't know, where, you know, he was really unhappy with season four. And he's just saying like, I don't know what we're doing

with these storylines anymore. and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, you're just all due respect, Luke, but you're completely wrong? Season 4 is amazing? So wrong. Can we just honor Luke Perry for a second? He came to Grant Land to do your podcast,

and he came with his dog. He was so nice. He was so chill, and it was a life highlight for me. Thanks for letting me come along that day. We had two great experiences, or I did, because met him and Jimmy Kim alive when he came on.

And me and Tony Barbieri, another writer, a friend of mine, we got him to reenact the, Jack McKay desk scene and sink to his knees and scream no in a crowded green room of people wondering what the fuck was going on. He also that night, it was Monica Lewiski was the guest host. And we were under orders never to talk about Clinton in any way. Crazy. Poor Jimmy was so desperate for a ratings bump that we had to have her on, but we weren't allowed to talk about Clinton. And then near the end, Luke Perry was on the couch with her.

and at some point he turned to her and he said something like man I've always kind of dug you since that Bill Clinton thing like he kind of like started hitting on her it was like a bait and so he like broke the seal of it that's amazing but anyway so we had that and then the second time was when he came to Grantland with his dog and we did the pod which he was such a great guy everybody loved him he really was it's so tragic

by all accounts people really liked him too so I just feel lucky I got to meet him yeah all right that's it that's our holiday All the Fame episode. You can find it. It's on, I mean, these episodes, they're on Pluto, Pluto constantly. There's a 90-2-0 channel. Paramount Plus. Paramount Plus has all the episodes.

And then there's an Instagram account if you want to find any of the music scenes that got cut out. It's a whole universe, 902-0. Juliet, this is a true delight. Thank you so much for having me, Bill. I feel like we would have done this anyway, even without microphones. It was great just to chat with you. Thanks for doing it in front of a microphone with me.

And thanks to Chris Sutton for producing. as well. We will see you next time, hopefully with more prestigious shows than this on the Prestige TV podcast.