Morning After Report: 90210 Episode 17 'Life's a Drag'

Wasn't life a drag without new episodes of the new(ish) 90210 to obsess over? Luckily the CW was heavy-handed with reruns of the first 16. Ahem. So, despite a several week-long stall, we're picking up exactly where we left off.

Liam is sporting fruit! (Photo via The CW)
Naomi kicks things off with an apology to the underage bartender she tried to woo at the imaginary W Hotel. He responds by throwing her against the lockers and giving her a tongue lashing--i.e. right down her throat. Rrrrowl! Not only was he happy to see her...but he also had a banana in his pocket. What? Clever little dream sequence. But guess who was getting down and dirty at West Bev? Silver and Dixon, the little bunnies, are scrambling to re-dress after doing it in the media room. Oh, and how does the location work for them, per Silver: "Media Room: better than under the bleachers but not as good as the cafeteria." Gross. Get a room. Dixon at least wants a bed...Silver wants a bed of roses at the Huntington Gardens. Well, that sure would give Pasadena's horticulturalists something to talk about.

Motormouth Annie is apologizing ad nauseum for using Rhonda's story for her acting class. Ethan isn't into it, because what she did was sucky, but her acting was so good he now doesn't know who she really is. Teenaged boys these days are deep thinkers! So are teenaged girls, because Silver is beyond enthused about Lord Byron and love poetry.

Naomi is in Geometry class--awake and not dreaming--when the underage bartender strolls in late. He does not know some formula, and I long to jump into the TV to tell all of them that for the most part, this material has zero application in real life, when I notice that new 90210 shares a funny quirk with old 90210--just like Brandon carried around for three years the same Biology text book I used in the 9th grade, right in front of Naomi sits the exact same Geometry text book I hated to crack open in the 11th grade. Anyhow, Naomi needs some extra credit so she offers to tutor underage bartender in Geometry. I'm guessing that would be like me offering to tutor someone in Geometry. Oh well. Let's roll that opening theme riff and enjoy some ads for zit cream...

Adrianna and Naomi are having a typically insipid high school girl conversation about underage bartender Liam. Will math win him over? Why can't Naomi just feed him potstickers (oddly, not a euphemism for anything)? "But did you Google him?" asks Ade. Liam comes up a social networking nobody, though (the horror!): "No MySpace, no Facebook," laments Naomi. Ade has some good rumors to share, though: He's in a gang (Naomi says no, she can't see him in a do-rag) and he cooks meth. We do know he has a penchant for skipping school and drives and old orange muscle car. Like OH MY GOD, OKAY!

Dixon, despite never working, still has a job! (Photo by The CW)
Silver is filming Dixon working at the Dr Pepper pit. While I know this is for the video project she promised Semi-Hot Teacher she'd do, I think it could also be so that there exists some record that Dixon actually WORKS at the Dr Pepper pit. If I were Nat, the first opportunity I had to step away from leering at teenage girls I would so can his ass. he's no Brandon Walsh. Especially because I don't think Brandon ever agreed to bang his girlfriend in the storage room of his workplace. Silver needs an intervention or something.Annie is home instead of at rehearsal and she's fixing a sandwich. She needs to fix herself about two dozen, then start chowing, because seriously, that girl is a skeleton. Oh, but she's there because she quit the play. Small part, yadda yadda. Oh, and because of Ethan. Mom is pissed--and also, unless it's the lighting, appears particularly hyper-tan and gaunt faced at this moment...scary--and she wants her daughter to focus on herself, and wonders if they should forbid the kids from seeing each other. Way to get all Montague and Capulet, Mrs. W. "Honey, really?" says Principal Dad.

Silver is editing her video. Looks like Blair Witch on Prozac. She babbles a lot about how she feels about film making. Next we see a really lovely SoCal sunrise, and Dixon waking up. "Morning baby!" purrs Silver. "I'm gonna rock your world!" Now I know young people like to get it on, but this is beyond creepy. Is she on uppers? Even Dixon is wigged out. Cut to commercial...Who wants to hit up the Hannah Montana movie with me at the El Capitan?

Turns out Silver really is there to bone Dixon (how did she get into the mansion?), in celebration of finishing her movie masterpiece. I'm waiting for Dixon to ask "Are you high?" because, seriously, she's giving me the shakes. He's not so into getting it on with his parents down the hall. Silver is also into the idea of renting a theatre to screen her 45 minute video. She admits it's expensive, so my question is, "how will you pay for it?" I'm guessing since this is imaginary world, that won't be a problem. But considering she supposedly lives with her half sister Kelly Taylor and not either her philandering oral surgeon father Mel (whose name we dare not speak) or her drunkard mother Jackie (who has been passed out in a pool of her own vomit since around episode 3 and doesn't seem to mind that Kelly is minding Erin "call me Silver") this would be a very legitimate concern of mine.

Now Principal Dad, Mom, and Dixon have a pretty standard chat in the kitchen about men, women, and sacrifices made in relationships. Yawn.

He's just not that into you, Rhonda. Or is he? (Photo by The CW)
At school, Ethan finds Rhonda in the hall and admits he's been avoiding her (because she is the only West Bev student he knows who actually looks like she goes to high school?) because he needed to sort things out. Oh goody, he's sorted out. Turns out he's into Annie, and wants to be friends with Rhonda. Rhonda, however, wants more, and since she's an all or nothing kind of gal, looks like they're left as being "not friends." Hoping to make her dream a reality, Naomi gets all sex kitten on the hood of Liam's car, says all the lines from her dream, only instead of Liam tonguing her, he tells her to go for it, tutor him. Bow-chicka-bow-bow! Oh, and oopsies, turns out Liam knows more about Geometry than anyone should admit. Naomi's busted, but still allowed to tag along with Liam wherever he's about to drive off to in his orange car.

Suddenly Ade and Annie are besties. Annie is (take a guess!) talking about Ethan. Big drama, they're going through a rough patch, etc. Ade is like, "oh, yeah, totally, I know" and Annie's like, huh, what? Turns out Ade is talking about Ethan kissing Rhonda at the dance, when Annie was talking about Ethan busting her using Rhonda's life as acting class fodder. Whooops, Ade. You just spilled some serious beans. Way to go! Now Annie has no choice but to confront Rhonda. Cat fight! Cat fight! Put down your pink backpack and your pink folder and come out swinging. Or not. Rhonda tells Annie to take it up with Ethan. Annie calls Ethan on her cell, calls him a liar and a cheater, and then asks Sassy Drama Teacher if she can get back into the play. Sorry, girlie. This isn't your day.

Never trust a psycho with a video camera (Photo by the CW)
Some random dude approached Ade and Annie, goes for the obvious and calls Ade Juno (remember, she's preggers) and then says a bunch of the kids are going to go hang at Griffith Park. Ade says no, Annie says yes. Parks that have just been named Historic Cultural Monuments are COOL! Meanwhile, after pumping some iron, Ethan hears Annie's nasty voicemail.And then...we find out just what theatre Silver booked for her movie. It's...the Vista. On the marquee there's a notice proclaiming that their current showing, 3 Days worth of The 3 Stooges, has been "Canceled due to lack of interest" and is replaced with "Love, Love, Love," a film by Erin Silver. Los Feliz will never be the same...

The theatre isn't exactly filling up, despite Silver having put an invite up on her blog. Semi-Hot Teacher shows up, and agrees to give the film a little intro, you know, "like they do at the ArcLight." (Do people who don't live in LA understand this reference?)

It's presumably now just before 8 p.m., since that's the movie's start time. Naomi, who hopped into Liam's car after school (3-4ish, I'm guessing?) is still cruising around with him, only it's dark out now, and that means they've now be hanging out for 4-5 hours. They could be almost all the way to San Francisco at this rate, but they seem to be on some random LA street, and just now getting to having a conversation about Liam's background. "So where are we exactly?" asks Naomi. "A long way from Beverly Hills..." is Liam's enigmatic reply.

And wherever they are...they are about to be part of a drag race. You'd think after over 4 hours of driving Liam would need to gas up first.

And now Silver's little movie. Some "She walks in beauty" recitation, images of her, Dixon...and then...crank the guitars, it's footage of them boning in the storage room of the Dr Pepper Pit. Uh oh. Classic: "You filmed us having sex?" asks Dixon. "You're upset?" asks Silver. Uh, you think? "What's wrong with you?" asks Dixon. Semi-Hot Teacher asks for the movie to be shut down. This is a foul up of massive proportion. Why didn't Silver just arrange to have people over to watch this movie on her laptop, since like 8 random strangers, Dixon, and Semi-Hot Teacher are the only people we know in the crowd? She spent an unimaginable amount of imaginary cash to basically show a handful of nobodies her and Dixon playing teenage Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee... She doesn't need an intervention, she needs her head examined.

He's such an enigma (Photo by the CW)
Meanwhile, in the part of town that isn't Beverly Hills where people drag race--which looks like down by the port in San Pedro, about a 30 minute drive in moderate traffic and not a 5 hour drive, by the way--Naomi is in the car with Liam as they race. Cue her shrieking. They win. And now it's time for beer. They're so edgy."I honestly thought you'd like our movie!" Silver is wailing. "It's about our love, about us connecting!" Dixon thinks Silver is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. He basically tells her to take a long walk off a short pier. Oh no...Silver is about to become 90210's girl interrupted. I smell shades of Emily Valentine. What teen soap doesn't need a psycho bitch?

Naomi, who is edgy enough to hang down in Pedro and drag race isn't cool enough to open a beer bottle by hand, so a kind gentleman rescues her. Actually, he hits on her, and Liam hits him. That's how he rolls.

Principal Dad presents Mom with a camera lens to show he cares about her identity as a photographer. Enough with them. Dixon sniffs around and tells mom her soup is burning. No, Dixon, that burning smell isn't coming from the kitchen... Maybe Emily Valentine set the homemade homecoming float on fire in the Walsh's driveway...err, uh, I mean, looks like Silver set a trashcan full of her film and the posters on fire in the Wilson's yard.

In case we all forgot, while Mrs. W was cooking dinner at around 8:30 p.m., and Naomi and Liam took a 5 hour drive to the South Bay to drag race and drink beer, Annie and the random kids have been up at Griffith Park for several hours now. These kids like them some Griffith Park. Annie is lying down next to the kid who invited her out, and they are gushing about the stars, and borderline cuddling...when who shows up but Ethan. How he found Annie in a gigantic park, when, to the best of my knowledge Annie didn't even tell Ethan that's where she was going, is beyond me. He must have his Eagle Scout tracking badge or something. He's good. And then he dumps Annie. They've "grown apart," and, turns out, he "did feel something with Rhonda." Ahhh, it's the whole "I don't want a girlfriend right now, I need to figure out who I am. Alone," thing.

While it took Naomi and Liam 5 hours to get to San Pedro, it's taken them about 15 minutes to get back to West Bev (which, if we're being location purists, is in Torrance). They share a hot kiss, and then Liam leaves. It's not clear if he had a banana in his pocket, though.

There's nothing sexier than doin' it in the storage room of a restaurant, unless it's watching secret footage of you doin' it. (Photo by The CW)
Semi-Hot Teacher calls up Kelly Taylor because he's concerned about Silver. A pretty smart move. He's walking into his sad, unglamorous single guy with a teacher's salary apartment. But...uh oh. Broken glass on the floor. And one major psycho bitch inside... Silver is going on about how she's onto Semi-Hot Teacher, and how she figured out that he didn't get over the fact that she blogged about him, and that he was pretending to forgive her, and that he has set her up to fail by tricking her into making the movie as revenge. She is more unglued than all the psycho nutjobs who ever appeared on the orginal 90210...the teen runaway who tried to shoot Kelly, the actress who lost a part to Brenda in the college play who tried to hang herself in the theatre, the lesbian who fell in love with Kelly after the fire, the girl who dated Steve just so he could take her to see REM in concert, Emily Valentine, and, well, let's be frank, Brenda Walsh herself. "What do you want from me?" asks Semi-Hot Teacher.

"I. WANT. YOU. TO. FIX. ALL. OF. THIS!" rages Silver.

Uh huh. Sure. See you next week!

90210 airs Tuesdays at 9 (new time!) on the CW

Get caught up: Episodes 1 & 2; Episode 3; Episode 4; Episode 5; Episode 6; Episode 7; Episode 8; Episode 9; Episode 10; Episode 11; Episode 12; Episode 13; Episode 14; Episode 15; Episode 16; or go retro.