GrahamV

Maybe I'm alone on this, but I actually found the Gina and Dylan fight/hate sex scene in this episode to be pretty compelling. I'm not saying that any of the actors on this show are often given top quality material, but Luke Perry and Vanessa Marcil managed to actually make me feel something here, which is really saying something since I can't even remember the last time that happened on this show. Vanessa Marcil in particular always manages to elevate the material, imbuing more pathos and emotion than I think anyone was expecting, let alone the writers. By this point in the series, the actors were doing all the heavy lifting in terms of making the show watchable, and especially compared to most of the others who are coasting or phoning it in, Perry and Marcil are still working hard, and this scene, for me at least, demonstrates that. That they're working with such shoddy material demonstrates that they're also good sports and true professionals on top of everything else.

I think Steve and Janet getting held hostage by a desperate butcher with a knife as a result of an exploitative stunt involving a little person posing as a leprechaun has got to be a series low point. I actually laughed out loud when he pulled the knife out. It was just so unnecessary! They could have done this story without that weird hostage moment. There was also a lot of weird moralizing going on in this episode. Matt refusing to arrange a prenup for strangers is absolutely ridiculous and he's absolutely projecting his own shit on to clients which is super unprofessional, but I suppose that's par for the course (but interesting that he was still more or less fine with representing a guy who beat and stalked his wife). And Donna bitching about the store's publicity being a result of paying guests to show up is insanely naive, even for Donna. You live in BEVERLY HILLS and you don't know how this shit works?! Dylan was MVP for me though, swooping in and crushing Noah's dreams. You love to see it.

That's what bugs me most about this storyline too! I'm not a mental health expert, but I know that schizophrenia is not generally something that you can just snap out of, even with medication. It is an extremely serious mental illness that usually requires a lot of medication and care to stay on top of. They got a few things right (it usually emerges in late teens or early twenties), but the way they e described her recovery is so far off the mark. It makes me wonder why they didn't just go with a mental illness that *is* more manageable. Or just find another reason to have had Lauren be away from Matt for three years.

I'm sure Gina will wear out her welcome at some point (and probably soon), but for now she's one of the very few bright spots for me (relatively speaking of course). I think the thing that tends to doom all of these characters (tragically, even the great Val) is inconsistency and lack of plausible motivation. Sounds like Gina will be no exception.

That actually made me want to scream too. Noah didn't deal with shit! That whole scene was hilarious to me though. Dylan getting lectured by Noah, David, and Steve was pretty rich. As if any of those three idiots have any claim on the moral high ground. Steve was just charged for peddling bullshit pickup advice, Noah has a history of drunk driving incidents (we remember, even if the writers don't!) leading up to...uh, a couple weeks ago?, and David has never not been in some sort of financial, sexual, or drug-related fiasco entirely of his own creation. The writers have been doing Dylan ZERO favours this season so far, but watching Dylan essentially tell these losers to (justifiably) blow it out their ass was pretty great. Also, this may be an unpopular opinion, but I'm kind of living for Gina. Maybe it's just that everyone else sucks at this point, but Vanessa Marcil is a pretty solid bitch, and I'm genuinely enjoying her screentime.

Yeah, he accidentally shot Noah's friend Gywneth towards the end of last season. But shockingly, David actually brings that up in this episode as a reason why he wants Dylan to get rid of the gun. I guess the writers did do their research occasionally.

I thought I'd enjoy this episode more than I did. I've been waiting a long time for Brandon to fuck off, but I feel like the show just couldn't quite let us enjoy that, and instead subjected us to a final forty minutes of everyone blowing smoke up Brandon's ass. Val literally calls him an angel. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Yeah, this pissed me off more than a lot of shit the writers have pulled over the past couple of seasons, which is saying something. Val's initial setup on the show is fantastic. She just wants to mess with these nerds, and I can respect that. Even when they first start to dip into the why of it, it still holds up (she's damaged and insecure and has suffered her share of trauma). But once they got into the whole sexual abuse thing, it all starts to fall apart for me. They flip flop on her motivations constantly, and the show never seems sure of whether we're supposed to pity her, like her, hate her, sympathize with her...it's just a mess. TAT sells it, but she can only do so much. This whole seducing Mom's fiancé thing was just such an unnecessarily hard turn into unlikable territory for Val and she deserved better.

Yep, I'd be doing the exact same thing. Stirring that pot, making my own fun, sticking it to Brandon and Kelly. God this season was a chore.

Jesus this episode is a snore. Brandon saves the day via assumptions and speaking to people in a harsh, accusatory tone, Donna literally stumbles into further success against all reasonable odds, Val stirs shit up for no reason, David is pissy about literally everything and everyone he comes into contact with, Noah is there and useless. This sums up most episodes in season 8. While my hopes are not much higher for season 9, at least Brandon leaves, so they have to get a little easier to take.

That makes sense, thanks for sharing. That description sounds like it would have been much better than what we got. And it also explains a lot of the seemingly random plot lines that don't go anywhere. They probably ended up cobbling together bits of the ideas from their original pitch, but had to condense them to less than half the time they were counting on. More than anything I'm bummed we didnt get to see that full episode of the in-universe revival though. I bet that would have been something.

I kind of agree, there were too many storylines I didn't care about and that the show only seemed half-heartedly invested in. The stalker/arsonist storyline was ultimately pointless. And with 7 leads and 6 episodes, I felt like they didn't have enough time to really make the characters' personal lives truly engaging, so what time they did spend on it felt kind of wasted. Why bother spending ANY time on Jason and Camille's marital problems when it's going to be sidelined for half the season and wrap up via perfunctory exposition anyway, without any real drama? For me, the show was at its best this season when it was working the comedy, and focusing on the reboot itself. While I didn't really care about the characters' personal lives outside of that, their varied motivations for pursuing the reboot were very interesting, and I loved when they were all together. If the show were to get a second season, which I hope it does, in spite of my issues with it, I hope that the writers pick up on this and ditch all of the deadweight.

Bash is my favourite character too! I also appreciate how the writers and Chris Lowell have made him less of a spoiled rich kid than a surprisingly innocent, sweet, well-meaning guy. Of course, that baseline makes his arc in season three so much more interesting. He kind of becomes a huge prick, but you know most of it is stemming from an inability to be vulnerable, and deeply rooted insecurities that he refuses to face. I'd love a season four for so, so many reasons (GLOW has also become one of my all time favourite series), but Bash's road to self-acceptance (or not) is primary among them.

I agree, Shannen is quite good in Heathers. I remember reading an interview in EW a few years ago (maybe for the 25th anniversary?) and the director commented that he felt kind of bad for Shannen at the time of Heathers' release because she didn't really seem to "get" that the film was a dark comedy, and as such she more or less just played it straight. And then when she saw the film, she was embarrassed because she felt like her performance stood out from the rest of the cast who knew what the film was going for (don't quote me on this, I'm going by memory). I was surprised to read that, though, because I've always felt that she totally nailed her role in that movie, and her performance is totally in line with everyone else's. I only made it a few episodes into the TV reboot. Shannen appeared very, very briefly as JD's mom. She might have had more of a role in later episodes, but of the few episodes I watched, she was only in one and I don't recall her having any lines. I kinda dug where the series was coming from, and how it flipped things around and turned the "popular kids" from the film into power-hungry outcasts. But it quickly became pretty convoluted and it didn't take long for me to realize it didn't have a whole lot to say, and wasn't nearly as edgy as it thought it was.

Count me among those who found Jennie to be a highlight of the first episode. Surprising, considering I found Kelly to be super frustrating and annoying in the original series (at least by the time they got to the college years). She seemed to nail the tone that resonated with me the most - mostly campy and fun, but with just enough acknowledgment of the dark shit going on beneath the surface. Her snarky comments throughout got the biggest laughs from me. I will definitely keep watching, but as others have pointed out, the pacing felt a little off to me, and at times the first episode felt downright chaotic and weirdly hard to follow. I feel like I missed bits and pieces of dialogue because the editing was so jumbled. But hopefully that evens out once they start following a more linear, cohesive storyline.