It's time to beam aboard the good ship 90210 as we join the rich and famous as they mingle and revel in their money, good fortune and corrupt morals on the open seas. 

Tonite's episode: "Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat"

I have to admit here, I'm liking the continuity of these episodes, each episode picks up what seems like mere moments after the episode before it as we see Dixon in the "principal's" office, and if by "principal's office" you think I mean his Dad's office, then well, you're right. PrinciDad is lecturing Dixon about randomly punching Awkward Hi guy at the end of the last episode (and so it's actually the next day, which begs one to wonder if PrinciDad just found out about the punch and not, oh I don't know, immediately after it happened on school grounds YESTERDAY! What kind of school is he running here?) .  Dixon writes it off to having a bad day and then after mere seconds of questioning, buckles like a belt and tell's PrinciDad that he was defending his sister's topless pride.  PrinciDad immediately dismisses Dixon and then exhales a deep sigh at the news of his little girl's exposure to his entire study body.  (No I will not make a student body pun. I have standard).

Out of the frying pan and into the fryer as Dixon walks out of the office only to bump into Silver, carrying a box of Dixon's personal items that were at her house.  You know, the awkward post-breakup returning of items which includes some random stuff, a DVD and three of his socks, which Silver babbles on about not understanding why or how she had 3 of his socks.  Uhm, maybe because you're crazy and obsessed?  What starts off as a cute exchange that makes you think maybe they shouldn't have broken up breaks down into catty fighting as Dixon realizes that everything they did as a couple, every movie, every concert, every meal, was what she wanted.  Now, I know in High School relationships are melodramatic, but how long did they go out for?  By my count it was a few months, at best.  How many concerts did they actually go to?  Besides, Dixon is just a teenager and hasn't learned that when it comes to dating women, he better forget about doing what he wants, but that's an entirely different article. 

Annie pulls into her parking spot in her HYBRID Saturn SUV (I know it's a Hybrid because of the HUGE Sticker on the back window), and immediately bumps into Teddy the Himbo and drops her books.  This girl is constantly bumping into people she wants to avoid, making her very bad at avoiding people.  Himbo says he recognizes Annie from somewhere and she immediately thinks its from when he drove behind her after she MURDERED A RANDOM HOBO WITH HER CAR.  But no, it's actually because everyone at school saw her topless in the infamous sext message last episode.  Annie and Himbo walk into school together while he tries to console Annie, but he's like 2 feet taller than her and I don't think she hears what he's saying.  Annie walks to her locker, as other kids snicker and one thinks it's just because of the sext, but no, things just got worse as someone has spray painted on Annie's locker the word: SLUT. 

And at this moment I realized what the writers are doing to Annie.  They're turning her into the 21st century Kelly Taylor! For those who may not remember, while Kelly was a student at West Beverly, someone had carved on a tile on the wall, "Kelly Taylor is a Slut" in reaction to news of her sleeping with a football player as a freshman.  A cathartic moment for our heroine Kelly as it formed her persona for most of high school and then proceeded to have bad thing after bad thing happen to her for the rest of her life (Burned, Joined a Cult, Shot, Out of Wedlock child with Dylan, the list goes on and on).  And so with her inauguration into the Kelly Taylor development program, Annie has now been branded a slut, I know this because of the ominous music.

Does this mean that perhaps we'll get a Kelly Taylor appearance this episode? Crossing my fingers...

Liam tries to make her feel bad, but she blames him for all this stating that if he would just tell Naomi and her nostrils the truth about not sleeping with Annie and sleeping with Nostrils' evil sister, than none of this would happen.  Liam stands there speechless, which for an actor isn't really a good way to be.

Fast forward to lunch and the gals of three, Silver, Nostrils and Adriana are outside dining on sushi, because we're in Beverly Hills.  Silver is ranting to her BFFs again about Dixon.  You know, even I'm tired of hearing about their relationship and I'm watching this voluntarily.  Annie walks up to Nostrils and confronts her for sending the sext.  Nostrils denys it of course and claims she's never seen the topless pics, and storms off, with Adriana following silently and Silver going in the opposite direction.  Oh, the tension!

Adriana goes to the Blaze office after Navid texts her to come meet him.  They're still fighting over Navid's ambush interview of the Himbo, because of Navid's jealousy over his sexual past with Adriana.  And then what was probably meant to be a very cute idea turns into one of the creepiest things I've ever seen.  Navid plays the video he's been editing for Adriana and it's an interview where Navid is interviewing...Navid about why he was such a jackass.  And as if it can't get any weirder, Navid breaks the fourth wall during the interview and addresses Adriana directly, while in real life, he's sitting there watching her watch him interview him as he apologizes to her.  Bizarre, but she eats it up and they make up.

Apparently PrinciDad's school has zero faculty or janitorial staff as Annie is trying to wash the SLUT off her locker with paper towels and no cleanser of any kind.  Silver swings by with a new roll of paper towels and tries to be Annie's friend.  A real friend would have brought some paint thinner or some Comet at least.  Or the janitor.  Silver defends Nostrils' claim of not sending the sext and Annie flips out yelling at Silver for trying to be both their friends and storms off.  Her locker still says SLUT. 

Opening credits are not only still bad, but the audio levels were way higher than they should have been, thus reminding me of how much I hate these opening credits.

For some bizarre reason Annie is talking to Awkward Hey guy who took the nudie pic of her, as he explains to her that since her brother "sucker punched" him (he kinda deserved it, don't you think) that they probably shouldn't be talking.  But Annie has got other ideas, which include recruiting Awkward Hey guy to help her, to which he agrees and has the gall to tell Annie that it's gonna cost her.

Back at the Blaze office Dixon is distracting Navid with his moaning about Silver and how he had no identity with her and how he's going to search for a female version of Dixon.  Navid is justifiably grossed out and I wonder if these kids ever watched Seinfeld, then they'd know that a female version of you is not someone you want to date.  Himbo stops by and invites the guys to a party on his Dad's yacht (of course he's throwing a party on a yacht), to which Navid excitedly agrees to attend much to Dixon's confusion.  Navid explains that Adriana likes Himbo, and so he has to pretend to like Himbo, and even over compensate because he loves her.  Aww.  All this talk has made Navid forget to order the pizzas for the Blaze meeting!  He gives the keys to his Lamborghini to Dixon as a way to convince Dixon to run the errand.  IF YOU OWN A LAMBORGHINI YOU DON'T LOAN IT OUT TO YOUR TEENAGER FRIENDS!  Gah!

Dixon apparently ran home and changed into his Duckie outfit as he rolls into the pizza place with sunglasses and a hat, to meet a very attractive woman cheering on an anonymous baseball game.  A little flirty banter and its revealed that she's a Baltimore Orioles fan (those exist?) and she chastises Dixon for being a Yankees fan (Which I have to agree with her on).  The Orioles fan's name is Sasha and apparently she paid a lot for her teeth whitening as she cannot stop smiling.

Back at the still a mystery why it's so small home of Annie and Dixon, Annie is getting a lecture from her mom, who was not only on Full House but also the best BMX movie ever "Rad", about "Being intimate" and how her "decisions" can affect her life, basically yelling at her for being a slut.  Annie reacts with her teenager angst indifference and dismisses her mother as being better because, according to Annie, she's had "like no sexual experiences."  Whoa.  What is wrong with this girl that the idea of that sentence would even cross her mind?  PrinciDad agrees and quickly cuts her off and grounds her, to which Annie stomps away like my sister used to do when she was a teenager.  Full House Mom and PrinciDad proceed to have one of the most cliche' arguments about parenting, where he criticizes her for trying to be their friend and she's angry at him for swooping in and solving things.  You see, even parents are fragile in the real world, thanks 90210 for pointing this out.

Dixon is STILL at the pizza place with She Who Will Not Stop Smiling.  Turns out she's a DJ, for a living.  And in finding this out, Dixon also finds out that she's older...much older.  By my math this woman is about 25 or so at least.  Their mutual love for music and baseball leads to a date this coming Sunday, because she has to work on Saturday.  The Lamborghini doesn't hurt Dixon's story either...

The next day at school, Dixon, Navid, Liam and Himbo are hanging out while Dixon brags about his older woman.  And I'm still not buying the fact that these 4 guys are friends.  At all.  Sorry.

In PrinciDad's office, as opposed to finding out why the Janitorial staff has gone missing, PrinciDad is getting some advice on parenting from....KELLY TAYLOR! Hallelujah!  Finally!  In this scene I found out that Full House Mom's first name is Debbie.  I didn't know that.  Anyway, Kelly in all her infinite wisdom thinks that grounding Annie was a bad idea and the concept of public humiliation by her peers could be punishment enough.  Kelly reminisces about her time in High School (no mention of her slut tile) and how thankful she is that there were no camera phones, as she was "pretty crazy."  If you call OD'ing on diet pills in the Peach Pit bathroom as crazy, then yeah, she was nutso. 

It's the weekend and you know what that means, time to party down on a yacht that's bigger than my apartment.  Apparently when you hang out on a yacht, you have to wear a really big hat, because all the girls have huge hats on.  Is this a hat theme party?  Nostrils and Silver roll up in time to see Annie and Awkward Hi guy boarding the boat?  What are they doing there?!?  Awkward Hat guy doesn't know either as he expresses confusion and Annie tells him to relax and not to forget about their "agreement."  Looks like someone has a scheme up her sleeve.

The rest of the gang arrives, Adriana (in a hat) and all the guys in sunglasses, including Dixon who still thinks he's Duckie.  Navid starts overcompensating with an awkward hug of the Himbo, while the others go explore.  Looks like Nostrils and Silver have camped out in the front of the boat where everyone can see them but they can't see everyone, like Liam staring at Nostrils and Dixon seeing Silver and slinking inside to avoid her.  Inside he spots The Smiling Older woman convulsing like a she's having a seizure.  Oh wait, she's just DJing.  This was her job on Saturday!  Dixon panics because the boat has left the dock and has set sail, with him trapped with his ex and the older woman he's chasing.

Now I don't buy that this woman is a DJ full time for the following reasons: 1) She's on some sort of mixer that looks like it was an amateur deck bought at Radio Shack, on a table in the middle of the room.  Weird. 2) She's playing "Poison" by Bell Biv Devoe.  Not an ironic remix either, the actual song.  And the crowd is LOVING it.  (Coincidentally, "Poison" is now the offical theme of the Fall TV season)

Dixon is freaking out, but his boys have his back offering to lie to Smiling Sasha as well, to continue the myth that Dixon is anything but 17.  Now as long as Silver doesn't meet her, he'll be set!  So he goes back in and starts cozying up to her, and to be honest, if I had hired her, I wouldn't want her mixing with the guests in this manner.  But hey, the music is on and people are dancing, so whatever.  She asks what Dixon does for a living, and he decides to pretend he's a Music Executive, thus revealing that all that smiling has rendered her THE WORST JUDGE OF AGE ever in all of history.  She takes the bait hook line and sinker and they dance.

In the front of the boat, Annie drags Awkward Hi guy to Nostrils and Silver and he reveals that Nostrils stole the photo from his phone.  Silver is shocked! Nostrils = Busted!  As opposed to Annie being vindicated by Silver, Silver complains about not being able to deal with these two and storms off.  Nostrils threatens Annie again (every episode this one with the threatening!) saying that Annie may have won this battle, but she started a war.  A war of hats apparently.

Full House Mom, or "Debbie", is curious as to how Annie is on this yacht party when she was grounded.  PrinciDad explains that she's been punished enough by the other kids and came around to letting her run wild again, which is how she got into trouble in the first place.  He also let's it slip that he got this advice from Kelly, which pisses "Debbie" off.  Apparently its ok when Kelly says to not punish them, but not ok when "Debbie" says it.  Can I just interject that if they do some sort of triangle between Kelly and these insane parents, I'll be really disappointed.  It's just so cliche' and obvious. 

Meanwhile, on the boat, Annie attacks Liam, blaming him for her problems.  She pushes him to tell Nostrils the truth, in the hopes to end this war.  I can only assume that his blank stare equals agreement as we cut back to the party inside as Smiling Sasha is...smiling and dancing.  Seriously, her constant smiling is freaking me out.  She finally stops smiling long enough for her and Dixon to kiss, only to be interrupted by Silver and her hat giving them "the stinkeye," as Smiling Sasha put it.  Maybe she's not so bad afterall. Dixon explains that she's his ex and it's all cool.  And Smiling Sashs buys that Silver isn't a teenager either, continuing her poor judge of age in people.  But look at her smile!

Annie and Liam confront Nostrils, with Silver lurking in the background.  Annie begins to tell Nostrils the truth about prom night and then makes a left turn, admitting that she and Liam did in fact sleep together.  Liam is shocked and tries to explain, but not very hard, opting to bail.  Nostrils looks like her world is crashing down around her, which is kinda silly since she fooled herself into believing this story since episode #1.  Silver's seen the entire scene, including Annie's genius improvise of telling Nostrils about how she and Liam would lie in bed after doing it for hours and just make fun of her.  That was devilishly unnecessarily mean.  I liked it.  Then Annie throws the fact that Ethan and now Liam all ditched her and fell in love with Annie.  Just to drive the point home.

Back inside, Dixon and Navid stare at Smiling Sasha, patting Dixon on the back.  Liam comes looking for Dixon, so he leaves Navid with Smiling Sasha, saying that Navid is his assistant AND SMILING SASHA BUYS IT AGAIN!  This woman is so gullible, it's amazing. 

Liam barks at Dixon about what Annie did, which seems somewhat misdirected as Dixon has no clue what's going on and thus is no help.  Liam does bark that "he can't take it" Neither can Navid apparently as he gets seasick and runs to the outside of the boat, just in time for Himbo to see him and to offer some help.  In doing so, Navid and Himbo bond, as Himbo explains what really happened at his old school, about how he took the fall for a friend yadda yadda.  Navid realizes that Himbo is a person too and maybe he was too hard on him. 

Left alone, Smiling Sasha is at the bar when Silver pulls up a stool and starts chatting her up, asking about her and Dixon, because she's crazy and obsessed.  But of course, as they always do, the girls get along and chat away.  Silver finds out about Dixon's little fib about his age and has some fun with it when Dixon joins them and then passively aggressively congratulates Dixon for finding someone he can finally be himself with.  Zing!

Adriana is in the kitchen along with Himbo making Navid...something.  They never reveal what she's actually doing.  What the do reveal is the Himbo does have his eyes set on Adriana and moves in for the kiss, but gets denied!  Awkward.

Later that night everyone is back on land and at the beach club, because they built that set and dammit they're gonna use it.  The party has turned into an ice cream social as Navid and Adriana are eating the largest hot fudge sundaes I've ever seen.  Navid is gushing about the Himbo, but sincerely this time and how they're gonna be great friends! Oh the irony!

Dixon and Smiling Sasha butcher some references to Casablanca, because that's like totally both their favorite movies! I guess Dixon has enough of her manic smiling as he deals with it the only way he knows how, by kissing her for an awfully long and fairly graphic amount of time.

Silver is in a room filled with cabinets, god knows where, looking at a bandage on her stomach - looks like she finally went to get her DIXON tattoo removed.  Nostrils catches her in the act and as opposed to being there for her starts whining about how everyone hates her.  The conversation turns into an emotional gush fest as Silver explains how angry she is at Nostrils for sending the sext and for lying, but after seeing how Annie behaved, she's not sure Nostrils was behaving out of line.  It then then into a mutual appreciation meeting as Silver tells Naomi how popular and confident she is and how she admires that.  I may puke.  Nostrils counters with how confident Silver is and how original and apart from the crowd she is (up until this year at least) but this allows Silver to show her flaw as she opens her pants and shows her tattoo which is all scarred from being removed.  They held that shot of her open pants for an awkwardly long time too...weird.  Anyway, they cry, inflate each other's egos and then start laughing.  Sometimes I'm glad I'm not a girl.

Back at the moderately priced new home of Annie and Dixon, PrinciDad and "Debbie" are enjoying a quiet moment as she's reading a book and he's working on his laptop.  And thus begins the insanity.  He gets an IM from Kelly, who types "How r things?" I'm sorry, I don't buy that Kelly would abbreviate like that.  I know, nitpicking, but seriously? She's not a teenager.  Anyway, PrinciDad IMs that things are not so good and they make lunch plans on Monday to "Talk."  I definitely don't like where this is headed.

Back at the unsupervised party at the Beach Club, Navid wants to throw a party for Himbo and Adriana awkwardly nods along. Dixon comes begging for the keys to Lamborghini and for some reason Navid gives them to him.  Annie walks up to Awkward Hey guy who says, "Hey!" awkwardly.  He reminds Annie that they had a deal, and she nods agreeing that a deal is a deal and he says ok and to give him a few minutes and to meet outside.  OMG is she going to put out AGAIN with this guy? She never learns. 

And then thing get crazy as Liam is outside, somewhere and goes into a basement where he angrily clears a table and opens up blueprints and bangs the table.  I have no idea where he is or what he's doing, but he's angry, I can tell that much.  Maybe he's into extreme architecture? Where the hell is he?

Back at the Lamborghini, Smiling Sasha snags the keys and informs Dixon that their date starts now and they're driving to Napa!  Now that's at least an 8 hour, if not more, drive. I don't care how fast your car is, no way they make it to Big Sur without falling asleep at the wheel and dying in a fiery wreck.  I guess we'll have to wait until next week to find out.

The final tally:
# of times Navid's car is referred to as a "Lambo" - Too many
# of kids Smiling Sasha thinks are in their 20s - 3
# of scenes with Kelly Taylor - 1

Final Episode Grade  - B

Definitely building on last week's momentum, this had some good movement of both characters and storylines.  Now if only it had less insanity and contrived situations/reactions, but that comes with the territory I guess.  Oh, and it would have gotten a B+ if we just got one more scene with Kelly.
 

Article Tags

Write a Response