Welcome back to wonderful land of Beverly Hills, where the girls haven't gained any weight, logic doesn't apply and everyone jumps to conclusions.  It's the first episode of the second season of 90210, the updated version of the classic night time drama that started it all. 

Tonite's episode: "To New Beginnings!"

After a quick recap of the important points from last season, we're thrown into Naomi and her nostrils having a daydream where she's on the beach making out with an older man who looks like a cross between Noah Wyle and Jeff Probst.  She's brought back into reality as the school bell rings...because she's in summer school, along with Silver and apparently half the school for no explained reason.  Reality means it's the last day of summer school and they're able to execute the "WAH-HOO School's over!" scene that they never shot last season, including yelling and throwing papers off a balcony.  It would have been much more convincing if the other students partook in the mayhem besides Silver, Naomi and Naomi's nostrils.  I had to go to summer school once, no one cheered, ever. Even when it was over. But anyway....

Now that school is finally out, Adriana picks up Naomi and Silver and heads to the good ol' Beverly Hills Beach Club.  First observation:  Silver is friends with Naomi and Adriana?  Oh dear, she's normal!  What happened to the edgy Silver who made fun of people like Naomi and Adriana?  It must be a side affect of her bipolar meds.  The Beverly Hills Beach club appears to have gotten some major upgrades since we last saw it 15 years ago (and since Henry quit to take that surgeon job in Seattle - bonus points if you get this reference), including Disney-esque fish fountain statues.  We get some gratuitous shots of the girls in their bathing suits as Naomi gushes about her current beau, Jason, who she met at Barney's and is an older man.  At this point I'm putting money down that he's married...

As the girls hit the pool, for some unknown reason a Beverly Hills mother makes fun of the girls which leads to Naomi and her verbally sparring.  I would understand if Naomi had started it, but I'm clueless as to why a 30/40+ mom would pick a fight with a teenager.  But the fireworks are over quickly and the girls dive into the pool for some swimming fun, until Adriana sees another pair of moms with toddlers and remembers that she had a baby! And she gave it away!  How will she ever live with that decision? Now she's forced to pause and get lost in thought every time she sees a baby!  The other girls notice her pondering and she explains how she is done with her dramatic life, making different choices and most importantly, not having sex with Navid. They're going to wait.   Clever idea, if only she had thought of that before she got pregnant last season.

Cut to Navid and Dixon pulling into the parking lot at the beach, boogie boards in hand, in Navid's....Lamborghini?  Ok, now I get that they're rich and in Beverly Hills, but a Lamborghini? Really?  Steve Sanders and his Corvette was at least believable.  No one gives a 17 year old a Lamborghini.  Navid begins to explain to Dixon how he and Adriana will be having sex, and he finally be able to lose his virginity.  An here we go with the classic teen drama conflict.  You see, he thinks they're gonna do it, and she wants to wait.  Suddenly this is more like Degrassi than 90210.  The beach scene ends with a homoerotic tackle and romp in the sand between Navid and Dixon.  

Cut back to the beach club and Silver is explaining her situation being torn between Ethan and Dixon to her friends.  Wait a minute! I'm still not over the fact that she's friends with these girls!  How did that happen?!  Naomi and her nostrils change the conversation back to her as she gushes more about Jason and ever so subtlety compares him to Liam, who apparently despite ending last season by being dragged out of his house by military school types as his parents try to instill some discipline in him, has been rumoredto have moved back to Long Island, which leads to some disparaging comments by Naomi about Long Island girls, which I don't appreciate at all.  Naomi then reminds us that she thinks Annie slept with Liam at her party after prom, where Silver tries to point out to Naomi that she had no proof and only circumstantial evidence that Annie slept with him, which is the logical interpretation of what happened.  But this is the land without logic, and Naomi refuses to hear it, branding Annie a skank and hating her or calling the cops on her party (which she actually did).

Speaking of Annie, who we last saw driving drunk after the party where she may have hit a deer or a person, we don't know, is sitting on her bed with her computer in her families new, much less mansion-y house. Annie is full of attitude as her Mom tries to get her out of the house but Annie is full on moody teenager.  Once left alone again, we see she's pouring over news articles from 3 months ago in May about a John Doe who is in a coma after being the victim of a hit and run accident.  So it wasn't a deer! It was a person!  Maybe, if we're lucky, it will turn out to be Ethan!

Cut back to the sun tanning trio at the beach club where Naomi spies her older man, NoahWyleProbst, arriving.  Right as she's about to run over to him, he's bombarded by 2 kids...and his wife...the same woman that Naomi got into a spat with earlier.  Didn't see that one coming!  That's sarcasm folks.

Oh no! They changed the opening credits and it's awful.  Even worse than last years. At least that one had some energy to it.  They can't leave well enough alone can they? This one actually has the numbers of 90210 being spelled out by people and objects.  Talk about cliche'.

12 Minutes in and no sign of Kelly Taylor, for those keeping score at home.

Now that NoahWyleProbst has been outed as a married man, Naomi and her nostrils are on the hunt for another man and drags Silver to play tennis so they can spy on a new blonde himbo at the beach club.  Seriously, the real Silver would NEVER be caught dead playing tennis. Not to mention there is some horrible song in the background using The Cure's "Close to Me" as a sample, I almost puked.  What's this? The blonde himbo, Teddy, seems to like Silver more than Naomi?  And what's this again? He was Adriana's boyfriend from summer camp "years ago".  So what, like when they were 12?

We move over to Annie and Dixon's new house, where the family is having a BBQ in the much smaller backyard.  Still no explanation as to why they moved and how they sold that huge mansion so quickly, especially in this economy.  We do find out that they seem to have shipped Grandma to Vegas to star in a show there.  Convenient.   Annie iss still a brat and gets a text message alert that her "SEARCH QUERY HAS YIELDED 1 RESULT"!  So she storms off to her bedroom to open her laptop to see the 1 RESULT.  Turns out John Doe has died.  It looks like she's starting to freak out and hops in the car with Dixon, ready to tell him everything.  It's been nearly 3 months since she hit this guy and NOW she freaks out?  I don't know about you, but I would last maybe 3 days.  

Meanwhile Naomi, Adriana and Silver ARE STILL FRIENDS!  And they're at the Beach Club for the big End of Summer bash.  Naomi runs into NoahWyleProbst again and Silver gets a text message from Ethan, which proves that it wasn't Ethan who was hit by the car by Annie and I'm immensely disappointed.

Dixon and Annie pull over and Annie starts to tell him what happened, but before she can, Dixon jumps to conclusions and thinks that Annie is upset and feeling guilty about sleeping with Liam, which she actually didn't do.  As opposed to, you know, correcting him, Annie stands there slackjawed and shakes her head.  Dixon reads her the riot act for not being able to say she's sorry to Naomi, which leads to Annie yelling "Screw you Dixon"  Jeez, for brother and sister, these kids sure can't communicate.

For some bizarre reason, Dixon takes Annie to the party, where within minutes she is spotted by Naomi.  And we're talking a 7 on the nostril Richter scale. Naomi threatens Annie and warns her to stay away, even though it was Naomi who went running to Annie once she saw her.  Maybe she should take her own advice.  Seeing Annie makes Naomi decide not to continue things with the older man, because she doesn't want to be a cheating skank, like Annie...and not like all the women her father slept with last season, because that wouldn't make any sense, now would it?

Back in the C-Plot, Navid maneuvers the key to a cabana to prep for a romantic night with Adriana, while Dixon and Silver get back together. THANK GOD!  Maybe this is the step in the right direction for Silver to get back to her normal self.   Annie is pouting on the beach when a senior stops by and her offers her a drink from his flask.  Now it's been years since I was a teenager, but I challenge you to find me a 17 year old who actually carries around a flask filled with booze.

Time passes, the sun goes down and the party appears to have moved inside, where all the kids are partaking in some sort organized hip hop line dance.  I didn't believe it until I saw it, and had to rewind and watch it again just to believe this was actually happening.  THEY ALL KNOW THE DANCE MOVES?  Again, it's been a while since I was a teen, but even back in the 90s, line dancing wasn't cool.  I refuse to believe it is now.  Even to some hip hop song.  AND THE DANCING GOES ON FOR LIKE TWO MINUTES!

Teddy the himbo breaks away from the dance line to talk to Silver and give her cell phone back to her, because at some point she dropped it and he found it, all off camera conveniently.  But not before he reads Ethan's text message to her.  Now we know why she went back to Dixon.  Because Ethan has decided to stay in Montana (with no further explanation as to why or how).  And there you have it folks.  A character written off the show via text message, at least it wasn't on Twitter.

I don't know about you, but this Teddy guy appears to be up to no good.

Navid and Adriana are outside making out, not having sex, and have an agonizing conversation about not having sex.  Adriana explains she wants a drama free life, and that means no sex.  What she doesn't realize is that by making not having sex such an issue, she's creating drama.  Poor Navid just goes along with it because he loves her, but I tell ya, after that look into the camera at the end of the conversation, I wouldn't be surprised if he goes and picks up a streetwalker on Melrose later that night.  Navid locks up the romantic cabana, where he planned to make his move and gives the keys to Annie's senior, who leads a drunk Annie into the cabana for a little magic time.  

Back at the party, Dixon is looking for Silver and finds himbo Teddy.  Teddy says that he hasn't seen Silver since she got a text message from some guy named Ethan and that they kissed or something.  See! No good!  And what does Dixon do? Jumps to conclusions and storms off to break things off with Silver.  He really is an awful communicator.  Give the girls a chance to explain!

Before Dixon tells off Silver, Adriana and Teddy have a dance on the dance floor, while a champagne swigging Navid watches.  Navid is joined by Naomi who laments not being able to chase Teddy because he was Adriana's first, which then leads Navid to jump to conclusions about Adriana and what she intends to do with this Teddy guy.

The mean Beverly Hills mother and wife to NoahWyleProbst storms into the party, making Naomi worry that she's been busted.  But no such luck.  Turns out it was HER cabana that Navid stole to not have sex in, but Annie and her senior apparently trashed while they were having sex.  Himbo Teddy steps in and smooths things over with the mom, name dropping his actor father, causing me to roll my eyes.  Silver, recently dumped then walks in and slams Teddy for telling Dixon about Ethan's text message, telling him that he's "ruined my whole life"  and storms off.  Ouch.

New BFFs Adriana and Naomi go running after Silver who is hysterical about the idea of life without Dixon, after she realized she didn't like Ethan.  Now's about the time that someone should remind her that she's bipolar and this sort of drama can't be good for her? Isn't this how she had her breakdown last season? When Dixon broke up with her?  WHERE'S KELLY?

And now it's the first day of school and Silver is perfectly fine again!  In fact she's going to win back Dixon!  Now there's a recipe for disaster.  Navid is still driving a Lamborghini and Naomi admits to the girls that she's really still pining for Liam, who magically appears in the hallway, back for another year of school.  Since she's been pining for him all summer, you'd think she'd be happy to see him, but no, Naomi and her  nostrils go running off, down the hallway.

And then we get a scene of some kids break-dancing in the parking lot, surrounded by students cheering them on.  What is this? "Fame" circa 1985? First line dancing and now break-dancing?  Is this what our teen society has become? I'm shocked and appalled.

Annie pulls up to school and walks by another car parking...the mysterious Mercedes with the WBHH bumper sticker that followed her back in May after the hit and run accident! We know it's mysterious by the ominous music that begins to play.  Who's car is it?  Why it's none other than himbo Teddy, who we know is up to no good.  

Annie bumps into her flask toting senior friend who blows her off and then brags to his friends about how he nailed the principal's daughter and shows them the photo he snapped with his phone as proof.  Naomi overhears this and performs some cell phone magic and copies the photo to her phone, flares her nostrils and says to her BFFs Adriana and Silver, "I have a feeling this is going to be our year" which is followed by an over dramatic slow motion walk through the hallway by the 3 girls, showing off just how thin Silver has become.

Now for the finally tally:
# of conclusions jumped to without any sense of logic or proof - 4
# of bizarre story points that went unexplained - 3
# of nostril flares by Naomi - 2
# of characters written off the show via text message - 1
# of scenes with Kelly Taylor - 0

Final Episode Grade:  C+

Until they get Kelly on the show again, or Silver starts resembling her old self, 90210 is going to have a steep hill to climb.

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