Tooch

My favorite episode ever, finally! I have all the thoughts: Unpopular Opinion: I liked Donna's hair. It IS crispy, but as someone with hair that would only take a curl like that if it were teased and sprayed with shellac, I can understand it. And I just kind of like it. Her dress on the other hand... Brenda's drag queen eyebrows and overall Elvira aesthetic in this back half of the season make me sad. She really reached Peak Brenda Beauty during the Summer of Deception and it's all down hill from there. Loved her dress though. My Kelly hate is showing: Her dress looks like a bridesmaid dress, as does Andrea's. I hate defending anyone on this idiot show for trying to defend teen drinking or whatever, but I think what made everyone so agitated about the rules was the punishment, rather than the rule itself. It seemed like drinking was probably always against the rules, but now they're saying "you don't get to graduate if you get caught" at the last minute and everyone freaked out. HOWEVER: they're all still idiots, because that is a totally valid punishment for getting drunk at the prom! Christ. And now my overall biggest beef with this episode - Why on earth didn't David just shove Donna into an elevator and take her up to the room he had reserved for them! Obviously they were not going to bone, but she could have passed out in privacy rather than the elaborate show of trying to get her across the lobby in front of all the teachers. So dumb.

I am salivating to get to the Donna Martin Graduates episodes! But imo, Donna isn't the worst part of either of those episodes. Brandon's smug bullshit snide-o-rama towards every authority figure in the world after his friend is justifiably punished for breaking the rules and getting shit-faced is definitely the worst. Donna is a bad drunk but you could argue that she didn't intend to get drunk, it was an accident because she hadn't eaten and wasn't expecting the bubbly to hit her like a ton of bricks. Oh, Brandon...I can't wait for Sarah's ranting about how nonstop fucking awful you are in that episode!

We are supposed to assume that after the diet pills incident Brenda decided to get over it because she loves Kelly despite everything. It's oddly believeable to me that finding your estranged friend unresponsive on the bathroom floor would put things into perspective for someone, but I still wish they'd taken longer with Brenda and showed more of people siding with her in any way (like maybe one conversation where Brandon gets pissed at Dylan for completely betraying his twin sister?).

I think it's just because it's a soap, where stuff that doesn't happen in everyday life for 99.9% of people seems to happen all.the.time. Even in these early years, these kids were subject to way more petty-to-major crime than most people would ever even hear about. There were the skanks who stole Steve's car, Brenda's Peach Pit holdup, Brenda getting nearly scammed by the traffic accident lady, Jack getting blowed up, Andrea getting hit-and-runned, the big break-in at the beach club, the school computer hacking/blackmail, and then the "hilarious" petty crime of this episode! And that's probably not even everything, and that's all before they graduate high school. Hilarious. It gets less amusing and more annoying as the years go on, what with all the stalking, attempted rape, actual rape, wife murder, kidnapping, drive-by shootings, and various other traumas, mostly happening to Saint Kelly.

WHY is the show trodding down this path and turning Deb into a less likable character than Frank? Frank is the worst human I think I have ever seen portrayed on TV but there's something at least a little entertaining about him occasionally. Deb has just turned into a sour, annoying, rag who I just want to shut up. Hey Professor Daddy, maybe walk your charge in to the rehab place? You're such an experienced drunk and you don't make sure he goes in before driving off? Good christ, I can't with this, and I actually like the story idea of having this guy become a father figure to Lip and help him right the ship. Also, Lip is 22, while Debs is somehow still 15? How old is Ian? Last season finale, Carl was sentenced to a year in juvie and got out "a couple months early" due to good behavior at the start of this season, so that means 10ish months passed. But in the meantime, no time at all passed for the others in the family, because Fiona said either Gus Jimmy or Sean could have impregnated her. At the time she finally got her abortion Debby was like 5 months pregnant, even though they got pregnant at the same time. Meanwhile, Lip somehow turned 22. I know the show has never really stuck to a timeline but good lord.

I am just sitting and thinking about what would happen if a male teacher pulled out his cock and showed it to a female principal in the middle of trying to reprimand him for his inappropriate behavior. Oh, that's right, he'd probably be fucking arrested, or at the very least fired. I'm a fire-breathing feminist and don't tend to make these type of double standard arguments because most things aren't that black and white, but in this one, I cannot even remotely find humor in it. The poster up thread who mentioned that Hannah has actually DE-volved since season one is spot on. In the first couple seasons, Hannah was annoying, sure -- but she was also ambitious and creative in a relatable way. I never truly bought she was such a gifted writer, but the show tried to show that. Having her pursue that career and watching her find successes and failures, and then try out grad school. Those were all realistic steps for this character. But they've kept with this teacher plotline for two seasons now and nothing about it has been even remotely realistic. I hate it so much, particularly Fran, who would just flat out never be with her. His disdain for her is obvious, why would he push back when she said she wanted to end it? I don't understand.

I call Steve as the MVP as being the only one of the gang (until Val like three seasons from now) pointing out the odiousness of how Dylan and Kelly got together while Brenda was away, and for calling Dylan and Kelly "gloomiest couple" in the senior poll. Hilarious. Hooray for Steve. Also on Steve: "everybody's got a girl but him?" Fuck off Brandon, Steve has Celeste, who picked him over you, and if memory serves he squires this beautiful lady to the prom next week when you plan to spend the evening sulking alone at the Peach Pit until Andrea bails you out. You squeef! I do remember thinking the uvula swinging was incredibly charming. Probably the last time I found Dylan charming in any way, actually.

It seems that Greys/Shonda has never really cared about chemistry. Cristina had off the charts chemistry with Jackson, but they never explored it and kept her tied to boring-ass Owen for years and years. And of course Callie's best chemistry ever was with Mark, but they were so insistent on pursuing the Arizona relationship (that was great at first but then turned very sour around their third or fourth breakup) that they demoted Mark to a boring-ass relationship with Lexie, who herself had far more chemistry with Karev. And now we're stuck with boring-ass Callie and Penny, sigh.

I assume Catherine wants to sue. For custody perhaps, or maybe even for the right to force April to have the genetic testing. But it's so macabre, and out there. Catherine has always been a lot to take but I never thought of her as evil. She was so sweet and gentle with April during Samuels diagnosis and death. I would have seen her character be simply excited about the unexpected grandchild. There was a good episode of How I met Your Mother where three bad couples broke up. I was really hoping we'd get that tonight with Deluca, Hunt and fucking Penny all getting the boot. Ugh, so annoyed. Two out of three ain't bad? Finally, the body double for Zola is waaaaay too little. Bailey, who is like three or four at the most (who can tell with this shows timeline) was basically the same height as her. I feel like Zola would be about 8 years old now right? So the littlest baby just slept all day...?

Brandon winning "most likely to succeed" bugs the shit out of me with his B+ average (as we learned in the college application episode). A B+ average would park him squarely in what...the top 25% of his class? Maybe top 10% if there's a lot of dopes. Andrea was the valedictorian and a known overachiever so her winning makes sense--but aside from working on the Blaze what has Brandon done at this point to earn such admiration from his classmates? Fuck all, as far as I can tell. And then gives Bren, who cared about winning something but didn't, a hard time? What a dick. Also, Brenda is going through a bad hair/makeup phase right now, but she is demonstrably way more beautiful than Kelly, who is merely cute. And her winning the award alongside Dylan would have been AMAZING--dropped ball, writers.

The retcon of Dylan and Kelly as "meant to be" is just the worst. I believe they've known each other since grade school, and I actually did buy that Kelly was always into him and was jealous when he got together with Brenda. But their whole "shared tortured history" as sad lost children? No.

I....hope Marnie used a condom when she fucked an IV drug user with garbage bags on his windows.

Debbie's storyline is the absolute worst. I was hoping and praying once it became clear they were going to have her have the baby that she would have the revelation that the best thing for her to do would be to give it up for adoption. Even tonight I was hoping after she fell asleep and dropped her that it would lead to that. But no, it's just all "you're a great mom!" I mean, FUCK. The ending was quite intense and I did like someone finally pointing out that Frank needs to GTFO. I do not understand what the show wants the audience to think regarding Frank. I think about the tearful story Fiona told the court about what a horrendous negligent father he is/was. Then the CPS incident. Fiona has thrown him out of the house ten billion times but for some reason he still seems welcome there...? Even now that she owns the house outright, in her own name, she HAS the power to tell him to hit the fucking bricks but won't. I don't blame Sean for being like "Seriously what the fuck?" I am very much holding out hope that Lip's professor has some sort of revelation that Lip's issues stem from his own alcoholic horrible father, takes pity on him, and gets him out of trouble. I'm not interested in a "Lip gets kicked out of college and has to be a south side ghetto kid again, some more" storyline. Lip's upward mobility is like the only thing keeping me coming back at this point. Him and Carl. So obviously Carl's story will end horribly on this neverending grim mess.

I don't hate this episode! I like that Steve got a win for once. And I actually find it believable that Kelly's medical emergency would cause Brenda to think about how important their friendship is/was and try to get over the Dylan crap faster. <br /><br />That being said, whiny/sad/bitchy Kelly stays for so long and it's sooooo tedious.

True. It takes Kelly at least 2 or 3 episodes to be cured!

It's like, I know that plausibility has absolutely never been a concern to these writers. But what the hell: Svetlana would not be fucking deported when her infant son is a full-blown American. Not only was he born here, his father is a full citizen so it's not even a situation of someone coming here just to have a baby and avoid deportation. There was a million interesting stories they could have told about Svetlana and Kev/Vee and their little three-way parenting situation. This is not one of them. I'm coming around on Lip's alcoholism. The best moment of the episode for me was the way he used the fact that he started drinking at 10 years old as if it were some kind of valid defense, without even hearing himself and realizing that taking up drinking that young is not normal. I just truly hope he doesn't end up getting kicked out of school. I know it's dumb to hope, but I want to see these kids do one good thing to help themselves and their lives before this series wraps up. Ugh.

The whole "I was a chubby kid and now I'm taking diet pills so I never get that way again!" thing was DONE before, with Amanda the bitchy friend at the slumber party, and Kelly was the one who pointed out that Jackie used to abuse them. I was surprised Donna didn't bring that up to her. You know, Brenda may have been slightly out of line with her comment to Dylan but I still give her character about 10 truckloads of credit. It's one thing to swallow her pride and get Dylan to come stay with them after his father's passing, but to have him AND Kelly over for a little dinner date? Again, this is all basically like a month after he dumped her and told her about the cheating. I think she's pretty fucking gracious, especially with Kelly giving her shit about it right to her face. Damn Kelly is such a terrible person.

Hannah accepting her body type is a great aspect of the show--and realistic. I see women shaped like Hannah who wear bikinis at the beach, etc, and I say good for them. Wear what you like! But I also sometimes roll my eyes at just how far Lena takes it. Like let's get the most horrible possible bathing suit for her body and then shoot her from behind, from below. Like, what's the point of that? I am a lot fatter than Hannah and even I was like "good god woman, that is not a good look". I wasn't into the random lesbian hookup, and did not think Hannah going down on a woman was in character at all.

I recall him telling Brenda that he had to sneak away from Kelly's fiftieth shoe store of the day to go find Balzac's house on his own. I just saw it as proof that he and Brenda were always more compatible. But that's my Brinda Bias showing!

It's unfathomable how quickly college Kelly starts sucking lemons. It happens before they even start CU, when her rich-ass boyfriend takes her to fucking Europe for the summer and she spends the whole time dragging him to goddamn shoe stores and whining like an asshole. Oh god she is the woooooorst. I don't know why they didn't have Dylan and Brenda hook up that day they spend fishing just so she can get a nice bitter dose of her own medicine. In my mind this is what happened, and yaaaaaas it is so good.

This is one I haven't caught a rerun of in at least ten years but I still remember thinking the final song when he's hugging Dylinner child was soooo sad. Now I just crack up at the cheese! Found it on YouTube. Awww.

Ugh, Dylan and his goddam money. I love that it is literally ONE year later that he has this exact same argument with Jim to get his money out of trust *again*, all in the name of family, *again*. Was Erica the most annoying cousin Oliver ever? I think she was more annoying than fucking April from Gilmore Girls. Anyway, no shit, I literally was so inspired by this episode that I went out and took a self defense class. I still remember the moves! If anyone tries to attack me in a super specific way I'll totally be ready to hip throw them, lol.

Good episode. I don't know how I feel about Lip's alcoholism, realistic as it may be. Ugh. Can't the kid ever just have things be good for a little while? And tell me again why all these hot sorority girls are so desperate to get with a sloppy drunk who can't be bothered to remember which ones of them he's banged or their names? Is it the same Gallagher "disgusting drunk who probably stinks" pheromone that draws women inexplicably to Frank?

What sticks out at me about this episode aside from Brenda trying to mend fences way too quickly, is Donna appearing to have landed on "team Kelly"...with how she was like "that's rude" over Iris talking about Brenda in front of Kelly. Which, yeah I guess Iris was rude there, but I would have liked a single conversation with Donna and Brenda about the whole thing with Dylan cheating with Kelly. I know Donna wasn't going to drop her as a friend, but some acknowledgement of Brenda's betrayal would have been nice.

I'm curious about the next episode regarding Losing My religion as well. The song plays throughout the whole episode as she has various awesome revenge fantasies, including hacking Kelly's hair off with comically large scissors. She even name drops the song to Brandon when he asks her why she keeps playing it! It's going to suck if they cheap out. Also dreading the downfall of Brenda from here on out. She also immediately starts half-heartedly talking to Kelly again in the next episode, at the encouragement of Iris. Look, if the scenario was just that they broke up and he moved on to Kelly, I can see not staying angry forever. But she knows now how they betrayed her, and she just immediately tries to get over it? No 17 year old would ever have that level of chill.