90210 – Secrets and Lies

by Kona Gallagher

Last night, we elected Barack Obama, in no small part because he was so effective at getting out the younger vote. CW, on the other hand, still thinks that the younger demographic doesn’t give a crap about the world around them, so they aired a new episode of 90210 during one of the most historic nights in recent history. Way to go, dickbags.

Scheduling bitterness aside, there’s another reason this episode is driving me completely crazy: I liked it– and I’m so ashamed of myself. Every week I fight this show. Some episodes make it easier than others, but I so do not want to give myself over to 90210, because I feel like if I do, then I’m going to develop some crazy Flowers for Algernon-type brain disease that’s going to make me completely brain dead in short order.

Last week, I talked about how I couldn’t really figure out how I was supposed to feel about Naomi. She started out as a stereotypical Mean Girl, but in general, she’s become more likeable. Even the whole thing where she asks Annie not to date Ethan seems less manipulative (as I originally thought) and more straightforward and coming from a place of pain. It was her interactions with Annie in this episode that really tipped the scale in her favor though.

All of the girls at the original slumber party did this very well, but the way in which Naomi dealt with drunk Annie cracked me up. I have been in Naomi’s position more times than I care to count. You’re at a party and there’s always that one friend who is completely incapable of keeping her shit together. If you’re lucky, she’s more amusing than trouble, but either way, she’s always kind of annoying. This whole interaction was very true to life, which isn’t something I normally expect from this show.

Less true to life was Harry’s reaction when he peeled drunk Annie off of the floor after breaking up the party. I guess I understand how Harry’s revelation about having a son may have messed with her, but the fact that she used that as her excuse for downing half a bottle of tequila is ridiculous; and the fact that her dad bought it is just stupid.

Annie didn’t drink because she was mad at her dad, she drank because she was at her friend’s house with no adults around and a bottle of tequila. Christ. It’s not hard to understand: Teenagers – adult supervision + booze = vomit boots. Besides, as an adopted son, Dixon is really the one who should be feeling more threatened, yet somehow he avoided spending the night making out with Jose Cuervo.

In any case, Annie was less scrunchy-faced and thus, less annoying than usual. And the whole episode was pretty entertaining.

Dammit.

Other items of note:

The whole Navid/Adrianna thing is weird. They really didn’t set this up very well. The two of them barely interacted for the first several episodes, and now all of a sudden he’s completely in love with her, to the point that he’s a borderline stalker and Adrianna thinks that he expects sex in return for paying for her rehab. Nothing about this storyline feels right, including the fact that Adrianna was in rehab for what, like a week?
It didn’t look like that kid saw Ryan kissing Kim; he just saw her getting into his car. Maybe I’m missing something, but if I were in Ryan’s situation and some jackass came to me after class and tried to blackmail me, I would have laughed in his face and threatened to expel him.