S05.E02: Under The Influence

[Primetimer]

Donna ponders an extreme(ly WASPy) plan to avoid David, while Dylan finds out about Blondie And The Boy Scout.

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[Primetimer]

Donna comes out (not like that), Dylan gives Hannah a run for her money (since he has none left) in the being-a-baby department, and D'Shaun wears a tux, you're welcome.

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[AndySmith]

Quote

anyone hitting on Jesse for any reason

Free drinks, I guess?

Kelly looked good in that red dress.

This version of Dylan is kind of fun.

[benteen]

20 minutes ago, AndySmith said:

Free drinks, I guess?

Kelly looked good in that red dress.

This version of Dylan is kind of fun.

Bad legal advice?

[Earmuffs Mom]

I love the irony of Kelly being so upset about Donna and how debuting was like joining a cult when in six months, Kelly will be joining her own cult.

These writers really missed a great opportunity with Donna and D'Shawn.  I would have loved to see Felice's head explode every time Donna brought D'Shawn home for dinner or the holidays.

[TeeVee329]

Leaving my mostly negative feelings about the Brandon/Kelly/Dylan triangle and the players and pairings within aside, I did find the situation - an alcoholic who's fallen off the wagon stumbling into a fancy reception to call out his best friend on dating his ex-girlfriend and making a huge scene - soapy as hell.

What I don't get is why Dylan is all mad at his friends and Jim/Cindy for what happened with the scamily.  None of them can help him or offer their support if he doesn't tell them what's going on.  And people who are mean to Cindy should be beaten with a beehive.

"And on a school night, no less!"  Oh Val, I heart you.

Edited September 1, 2016 by TeeVee329

[scarynikki12]

I've never been a deb but, isn't college sophomore-almost 20 years old-Donna too old to debut?  Or is there not an age requirement?

[CurlyATX]

I didn't listen to the Podcast yet (saving it for my commute home like a warm gummy bear).  But was Kelly going to Dylan's house for a bootycall? And is Dylan completely broke? How is he affording the drinks and the table sponsorship?

[CurlyATX]

Kelly does look fantastic. Val is gorgeous but a strong reminder that those high cut panties (or swimwear) are not a good look. 

Why is Dylan so mad?  He and Kelly broke up and she moved on to his best fried.  Um, pot...kettle? And he's still hooking up with gals all over the place?

[nkotb]

I agree, Donna & D'Shawn were great in this episode, and I wish they'd have gotten together for real. However, I actually liked that prissy, prim & proper Donna went for a blue-collar guy like Ray, initially, you know, before he cheated & beated. 

This episode was one of my favorites, because of the afore-mentioned Donna/D'Shawn, but I really liked how light & breezy Kelly & Brandon were at the ball, kissing & flirting, before Dylan showed up & embarrassingly blew up all over everyone. I thought it was a total contrast between the 2 relationships in the triangle. Dylan busting in like that was a great scene, & I thought it was a realistic reaction to him finding out about "my best girl & my best friend, Blondie & the boy scout." 

Unpopular opinion, but this season, along with season 3 are my favorites of the entire series. Initially, I liked Kelly & Brandon, & I really loved Dylan pining for Kelly. I also liked that literally everything was different from the previous year: Brenda was gone & Valerie was there, Kelly & Dylan were done & she was with Brandon, Donna & David were done & both moved on, Andrea was married with a baby, I guess Steve was pretty well the same, but everyone else changed quite a bit. I was in college myself when this ran, & I thought they did do a lot of realistic college stuff. 

[TeeVee329]

In other news, why is Felice so hot on Houston society?  She lived there for one year.

Edited September 1, 2016 by TeeVee329

[SoupThrower]

Felice probably found an old friend or something. Who knows. 

Sucks that D'Shawn's 3rd last episode was this. He could have been so good down the stretch with the season. So much better than Jesse and Andrea's story. But hey we get Clare back. 

That one single scene we get of Brandon and Kelly being all coupley but not in your face coupley was nice. Was more surprised to see that someone actually paid for something in the PP. It actually happened. 

Huh I never knew Cress was born in Germany. That's really cool. 

[maxineofarc]

I was about to write SOMEONE PLEASE DATE D'SHAWN but then I remembered D'Shawn is much too good for any of these nitwits.

[txhorns79]

Quote

I would have loved to see Felice's head explode every time Donna brought D'Shawn home for dinner or the holidays.

Part of me would have loved if they had gotten married, and Donna changed her name to "D'Donna" out of some misguided show of devotion. 

[Uncle JUICE]

Any chance Donna is going with that hair to distract from the gaping wound in the middle of her chest? 

[YoSaffBridge]

Re: Dylan being such a giant cooze to Cindy: I really hope Cindy is allowed to go through menopause before this show ends to give her an excuse to say some shit, because regular Cindy is too nice. But hot flash Cindy? "You little dickheads treat my house like your own personal bed and breakfast and my own son takes a tone with me that you wouldn't use with a shitty waiter. So how about all you dicks keep the house? I think I'll head off to precisely anywhere not around any of you."

[fireice13]

I actually looked up debutante balls and Wikipedia has a good article with a section on US balls. It says the age is usually 16-21 with the South trending a little younger and the North a little older. It does mention how they all have to perform the St. James Bow (full court bow) with the exception of debutantes from Texas who perform the Texas dip. Apparently one of the most expensive ones is the International Debutante Ball at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. It's an interesting read:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debutante

Here's a girl doing the Texas dip at the Waldorf. She starts at about 1:05

[Petunia13]

2 hours ago, txhorns79 said:

Part of me would have loved if they had gotten married, and Donna changed her name to "D'Donna" out of some misguided show of devotion. 

I know but then because of her personality people would change it to "Duh, Donna" 

(hides from tomatoes) 

[Uncle JUICE]

Where does the debutante ball rank on "Whitest Things White People Ever Do" scale? 

[AndySmith]

You'd be surprised how many non-White debutantes and debutante balls there are these days...

[WhosThatGirl]

My only references of debuts are tv land: Gilmore girls and The OC.

Also I want some of Kelly's sandwhich as well.

[kell710]

Wow, how weird is it that upon re-watching this episode, Donna's best chemistry really was with D'Shawn. Missed opportunity.

This is also the season of the worst Kelly hair ever. Jennie Garth, what were you thinking? It starts off with this shag, that isn't great. After the fire, comes that awful mullet with the bangs. Ugh. All the while the season where she is the pinnacle of a central love triangle between the two male leads.

[StatMom]

We're now full into the Donna Bleat phase, too. Maybe the boob job caused some kind of bronchial damage. Or all that hair shellack has seeped into her Broca's area.

[scarynikki12]

Sarah already talked about this but AP credits can absolutely allow students to skip freshman year when they start college.  One of my girlfriends had so many AP credits that she started as a junior (suck it Claire!) but she still went for four years because the business school had about two years worth of classes that needed to be completed before she could officially join the major.  She just completed them as a junior rather than freshman/sophomore like the other students.

I've never been able to explain why, but Donna correcting Val's "THAT'S Brenda's Dylan?" with "no, Kelly's Dylan" has always annoyed me.  Sometimes I think it's because it was another way for the show to stick it to Brenda even though she was never coming back, other times I think it's because Donna says it in a way that makes it seem like Val should have known that Kelly used to date Dylan, and other times I just can't figure it out.  I do know that Kelly's possessive behavior regarding Dylan just gets worse from this point on.  Never mind that she was 100% unhappy with him, that she's all about Brandon or Colin for the next few years, or that he does things that she disapproves of, the second Dylan looks at another woman (even if it's just for a one night stand like this episode), she gets the Stank Face and can barely focus on anything else.  On the same subject, I can't wait for next season when Dylan and Toni get engaged and Kelly makes it all about her.  Actually, I can't wait until we get to the episode where Brandon tells Val that Kelly's hard on new people (which I think has to be a slam on Garth for initially being unfriendly and unwelcoming to Tiffani when she first started) and then Val repeats it back to her.  When Val wanted to be vicious, she was amazing but I do love these early episodes and her innocent act with Kelly.

I always have many thoughts on the behind-the-scenes shenanigans and one of them is that the costume department had something against Tori.  Because there is no way that anyone in Tori's life, not her parents, brother, close friends, costars, etc., thought that boob job was flattering.  Part of it isn't her fault, because I think the cavern is unfortunately just part of her anatomy (the scenes of Donna at the beach in the early seasons show it there as well but it wasn't noticeable or unflattering because she hadn't had the first boob job yet).  Yet the costuming for Donna from this point on goes out of its way to make her seem as unattractive as possible, including drawing unnecessary attention to the cavern. 

[pagooey]

All I can see, with Donna doing that curtsey-dip, is Maya Rudolph's character pooping in the street in Bridesmaids.

[Petunia13]

Cress Williams looks great in a tux. 

[Petunia13]

Bethenny Frankel has it too and is rich af just like Tori was at the time. All that money and still a flawed 'upgrade'. I think their issues are going too big for their weight and frame and maybe the elasticity of their skin. Not trying to be mean, but it looks painful and really unnatural. 

[bilgistic]

4 hours ago, pagooey said:

All I can see, with Donna doing that curtsey-dip, is Maya Rudolph's character pooping in the street in Bridesmaids.

Yes!!

I was so bothered by that laydown curtsywhateverthefuck when I watched this show 20 years ago. As a raging feminist, I'm even more bothered by it now.

Edited September 2, 2016 by bilgistic

[AllyB]

18 hours ago, Earmuffs Mom said:

These writers really missed a great opportunity with Donna and D'Shawn.  I would have loved to see Felice's head explode every time Donna brought D'Shawn home for dinner or the holidays.

According to the article with one of the show's head writers that someone posted here recently, the writers were fully intending to do a Donna-D'Shawn relationship. But old man Spelling had a very racist reaction to the idea of his fantasy daughter, played by his real daughter, dating a black man. So much so that once he saw the episode with Donna and D'Shawn's fake date, Spelling wanted Williams off the show.

[AndySmith]

Quote

other times I think it's because Donna says it in a way that makes it seem like Val should have known that Kelly used to date Dylan

I think it was more a heads up to Val, so she knew why everyone was having an "Oh shit" reaction.

[atlanticslide]

Something that bugs me about the Texas Dip bit is that the way the scene is played goes totally against Kelly and Brandon's words at the end of it - the music that swells gives the feeling of "this is so beautiful and lovely and you should be awww-ing" and everyone watches her with these expressions of awe and wonder, looking impressed, and it feels like the scene is telling us that this is really lovely, but then Kelly and Brandon tell us that this is terrible, "trained seal," etc. Mostly it just feels like the music doesn't match what we're supposed to be getting from this scene at all, which really annoys me.

[StatMom]

43 minutes ago, atlanticslide said:

Something that bugs me about the Texas Dip bit is that the way the scene is played goes totally against Kelly and Brandon's words at the end of it - the music that swells gives the feeling of "this is so beautiful and lovely and you should be awww-ing" and everyone watches her with these expressions of awe and wonder, looking impressed, and it feels like the scene is telling us that this is really lovely, but then Kelly and Brandon tell us that this is terrible, "trained seal," etc. Mostly it just feels like the music doesn't match what we're supposed to be getting from this scene at all, which really annoys me.

Good observation. Also, Felice's rhapsodic narration is interrupted by a chuckle in my head when she gets to the "all of Houston society before her..."  Just not the same ring as New York or Boston. I don't know Texas culture: is Houston where the rich folk congregate?

[CurlyATX]

10 hours ago, Petunia13 said:

Bethenny Frankel has it too and is rich af just like Tori was at the time. All that money and still a flawed 'upgrade'. I think their issues are going too big for their weight and frame and maybe the elasticity of their skin. Not trying to be mean, but it looks painful and really unnatural. 

I'm not a fake boob expert, but I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that Tori is naturally really thin, plus I think she has a bit of an eating problem too.  I wish if women decided to get boob jobs, they wouldn't supersize it.  It seems to be a very American thing (it's all about value! If it cost this much, may as well get a DD vs a full B cup). Val's is amazing.  I think part of it is that she filled out a lot since her early days at Saved by the Bell.  She had more curves and particularly more upper arm (which is always a sign of real vs fakes for me).

[Uncle JUICE]

1 hour ago, atlanticslide said:

Something that bugs me about the Texas Dip bit is that the way the scene is played goes totally against Kelly and Brandon's words at the end of it - the music that swells gives the feeling of "this is so beautiful and lovely and you should be awww-ing" and everyone watches her with these expressions of awe and wonder, looking impressed, and it feels like the scene is telling us that this is really lovely, but then Kelly and Brandon tell us that this is terrible, "trained seal," etc. Mostly it just feels like the music doesn't match what we're supposed to be getting from this scene at all, which really annoys me.

THere's definitely something about this scene / tradition that strikes me as extremely off putting. It's this extreme submissive pose that the entire room observes and the better you do it, the more what, "valuable" you are? The more virginal? The original intent of these gross events was basically to announce your wealthy daughter was ready for plucking by an appropriately moneyed son of another plantation owner. Having her mom be so into it makes me queasy. 

[CurlyATX]

I couldn't watch it again, but just hearing that Texas yahoo talk about it made me cringe.  Not sure why, but "feminine grace" really pushed me over the edge.

Btw, I did an image search on Texas Dip and was happy to see that after a few debutante dips, there was much beloved queso in full force!

Edited September 2, 2016 by CurlyATX
had more to say!

[maxineofarc]

23 minutes ago, StatMom said:

Good observation. Also, Felice's rhapsodic narration is interrupted by a chuckle in my head when she gets to the "all of Houston society before her..."  Just not the same ring as New York or Boston. I don't know Texas culture: is Houston where the rich folk congregate?

Houston is old money, Dallas is new, Austin is hipsters.

This is the beginning of Kelly's horrible baby voice. I swear that sound just grabs right on to my spine.

[marceline]

I just finished listening to Sarah's epic dragging of Jesse's attitude about the baby and I had to pause the podcast to come here and write...

SARAH BUNTING 2016!

Okay, now back to the rest.

[CurlyATX]

Can totally attest to the Austin hipsters! No one cars what purse I have, only where you ate dinner (and if you took a photo of it)

[Princess Sparkle]

12 hours ago, Petunia13 said:

Bethenny Frankel has it too and is rich af just like Tori was at the time. All that money and still a flawed 'upgrade'. I think their issues are going too big for their weight and frame and maybe the elasticity of their skin. Not trying to be mean, but it looks painful and really unnatural. 

It reminds me of some of the bad boob jobs on botched, where the implants were too big for the person's frame and so the skin starts pulling away from the chest because they body can't support them.  

[Nanna]

I just finished listening to Sarah's epic dragging of Jesse's attitude about the baby and I had to pause the podcast to come here and write...

SARAH BUNTING 2016!

Okay, now back to the rest.

YEAH! I hate Jesse so much that I almost shouted "fuck you, Jesse" out loud on the bus. Thank you, Sarah, for expressing everybody's hatred and disgust for that waste of space and screentime.

[Nanna]

I'm starting to really like Steve. Mostly because everybody else is so horrible.

[bethster]

I hate Kelly.

[Klaw]

Quote

I just finished listening to Sarah's epic dragging of Jesse's attitude about the baby and I had to pause the podcast to come here and write...

SARAH BUNTING 2016!

Okay, now back to the rest.

YEAH! I hate Jesse so much that I almost shouted "fuck you, Jesse" out loud on the bus. Thank you, Sarah, for expressing everybody's hatred and disgust for that waste of space and screentime.

God, I never liked Jesse much, but I cannot believe I missed what a complete sexist POS grade A JERK he was in prior viewings --ah, the wisdom of 2016 eyes. The only time I think I liked him was the "HeBEGONE, HeBEOUTTAhere" when Steve was wallowing in his white boy problems and whining about how he wouldn't be able to throw parties anymore... And where are Jesse's friends? What happened to all his buddies he played softball with?  And P.S. ... you ain't cute; so not buying that women in a Beverly Hills bar were flirting with him. I don't know what they were thinking other than they didn't want to hire a truly Hot Latino/Mexican-American man who would outshine our homely heroes (looking at you Shorty McBigpants and Downward!Spiral!Dylan!)...

Speaking of D!S!Dylan - um, if I were Kelly I would so be like: whew, dodged a bullet. He just looks dirty and grubby... and OLD. I mean, I suppose since he was running around THE SCENE since he was 12 y o he should look a little rough at 19/20 but there is nothing remotely attractive about him. He looks like he stinks and his house smells of takeout, skunked booze, old jizz and farts. Yuck.  To believe Val would be so hot for him proves that TAT could really act.

I have a theory about Tori's Boobs of Doom (TM TWOP poster).... I think not only did Tori want to show them off every chance she got due to her rampant narcissism, I also think the Producers happily agreed to let her because they passively aggressive enjoyed sticking it to the Old Man. There was no way anybody thought that those awful things ("a war crime" LOL) looked good.

I like Josh too, he cracks me up. Except for his worship of Brandon, he's awesome. "rah" indeed.

[Scarlett45]

On September 2, 2016 at 8:10 AM, CurlyATX said:

I'm not a fake boob expert, but I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that Tori is naturally really thin, plus I think she has a bit of an eating problem too.  I wish if women decided to get boob jobs, they wouldn't supersize it.  It seems to be a very American thing (it's all about value! If it cost this much, may as well get a DD vs a full B cup). Val's is amazing.  I think part of it is that she filled out a lot since her early days at Saved by the Bell.  She had more curves and particularly more upper arm (which is always a sign of real vs fakes for me).

Breast enhancements tend to look best when the woman has enough natural breast tissue to cover the implant so it looks like just just "gained 5lbs in the right places". Tiffany was certainly more "curvy" (not a euphemism for overweight or plus sized) than the other actress and "thick" by white Hollywood standards. If a woman is naturally petite and a size 0-2, Ds or DDs just don't look right. Tori would've looked so much better with a full B/small C as she's always been very thin (although not very short). 

[WhosThatGirl]

Jesse really is the damn worst! He forced Andrea to have Hannah and then is all upset when Hannah needs to be taken care of and he doesn't like the options they have. 

Also Dylan is a jerk. Brandon is no better and neither is Kelly but Kelly and Dylan were broken up so she started to date Brandon. And yes you did do the same thing to Brenda when you were still very much her boyfriend. Also Nat is completely right in his telling of Dylan treating Kelly like crap. They both treated each other poorly. Why wouldn't Kelly move on instead of waiting around for someone to fight with? 

Val wins "and on a school night no less!"

[gesundheit]

Oh god, we're into Kelly's Carol Brady hair and the Kelly/Brandon torturous smugfest for years to come. I wish we could fast forward a few years, but of course we need to pay attention to Val.

[gesundheit]

I wanted to high-five Dylan with his "You want a beer? Then you wanna stop staring at mine?" line. Good god, Brandon.

That Texas dip was the scariest shit that this show ever did.

[jjjohnsonauthor]

Oh dear God. I read your caption about "tainting" Kelly's robe as like... rubbing one's taint on Kelly's robe.

[Jmallory]

I think they couldn't have both Brandon and Dylan with facial hair, so they let Luke keep his since he was going for that "I'm too poor to shave" look.

[CurlyATX]

15 hours ago, Jmallory said:

I think they couldn't have both Brandon and Dylan with facial hair, so they let Luke keep his since he was going for that "I'm too poor to shave" look.

This makes sense.  I remember in high school watching the show in summer camp and some guys weren't familiar with it.  They kept getting Brandon and Dylan confused as they both had sideburns.  They kept wondering why Brenda was making out with her brother.