90210
Episode
11: We're Not Not in Kansas Anymore
By:
Carlos Uribe
90210
is a show about wealthy kids who do business and go to college in the
zip. Or something.
Spoilers
Ahoy!
What
if Annie had never moved to Beverly Hills? That's the question that
this episode seeks to answer as Annie dreams about how the lives of
her friends would be different if she had stayed in Kansas. It's a
slightly biased answer seeing as how it comes from Annie's
sub-conscious but it does make for a “what-if” situation. There
are a few problems with this concept. The first is that the episode
makes the mistake of removing the tension that Annie might not
survive the shooting. If it had been able to transfer that tension
over to the dream then maybe it could have created an episode that
didn't seem so pointless. The stakes were never high because it was a
dream. It had to end sometime so it didn't really what happened
during it. The only plot developments came at the beginning at the
end which means the entire mid-section is pretty skip-able. The final
problem is that there were some flaws in the execution of the dream.
There are scenes that occur outside of Annie's presence. So not only
is she dreaming this entire world in real-time but she's also
dreaming up scenes that occur when she's not there? It's
understandable why the show would want to do these scenes but they
simply were not justified by the excuse for the scenario. In other
words, the dream felt like it wasn't important because it didn't have
any real stakes nor did it really reveal anything new about the
characters. Not only that, but it didn't follow the rules of the
dream.
So
how was the lives different if Annie had stayed in Kansas? She would
have gotten engaged to her boyfriend from Kansas. I had kind of
forgotten that Jason existed but he was never much of an actual
character. He remains bland and forgettable in this episode. What did
Annie ever seen in him? What sets her to go to Los Angeles is when
she discovers that Dixon has moved to the city and become estranged
for her. He's angry at her for holding back his dreams because she
kept getting into drama productions. She chases him and manages to
come in contact with all of the other characters. The only difference
is that they don't know her because they've never met and they're
slightly different for that reason. Let's get back to Dixon before we
go to them. He's managed to become a successful rapper but under a
fake background. He pretends to be from the streets to a tough
family. Annie accidentally destroys his dream when her actions lead
to people finding out Dixon came from a regular old town in Kansas.
This ruins his reputation and sinks an album he needed to sell well.
This dream version of Dixon makes sense as he's been pursuing music
for the last couple of seasons now. Annie's fears that she's been
holding back her brother manifest themselves when she stops the
family from following Dixon to Los Angeles or when she accidentally
reveals the truth about him. Annie hasn't always been supportive of
her brother's career choices so it makes sense she would be scared
about this but it's not anything we didn't already know.
At
least Dixon's life is going better than some of the other characters.
Since Annie never stole the lead role in that play, Adrianna was
noticed and she became a famous actress. At least she was famous as
now she's just infamous. This is because she never got clean. She
can't even stay sober when a movie studio makes it a part of her
contract if she wants another job. She runs into conflict with
Silver. Silver now runs a major gossip blog that shows no mercy to
anyone. Silver wants to post a video of Adrianna being drunk that
would violate her career. This would kill any chance of Adrianna
making a contract. When Adrianna makes a deal with Silver, it seems
to have solved all her problems. Which it doesn't because Silver has
no honor and breaks it. What does this reveal about them? They would
never have had any real character development if Annie hadn't come
into their life. Silver would have remained on the outside bringing
her snark to the celebrity world. Adrianna would have remained a mess
and become famous for it. These are the obvious choices of what
happens to the characters if Annie is removed but it adds revealing
anything new. It also simply avoids having their characters actually
grow in a different direction than in real life based on who they
were in high school. They just stayed their same selves.
The
one character who didn't progress as you would expect is Navid. He
doesn't become a journalist or a studio executive. All he does is
become a member of Dixon's entourage. Which makes sense on some level
but it does mean that he remains as useless as he's been in a long
while. The writers couldn't even write him a scenario that doesn't
depend on someone else. The same can't be said for Teddy. In this
universe, he never comes out of the closet and remains a player. This
makes sense for the character but it just feels like an easy choice
to reset him to factory settings. His wealth does attract Naomi, who
is forced to become a gold digger since Jen had succeeded in draining
her trust fund a few years back. She's so desperate for wealth that
she's willing to be his beard. The final character is Liam who is
still dealing with his step-father and is forced into dealing drugs
due to a large debt. At least his “what-if” scenario wasn't
completely predictable and was actually his own. It still didn't
reveal anything new about him.
The
final complaint I have of this episode is the ending. Annie brings
everyone together at the end of the episode to give them a huge
speech to make better people out of themselves. This is supposed to
be a moment when the characters realize that they could be more than
they are. Silver could be nice and use discretion (or at least not
ruin her reputation by not keeping deals), Teddy could come out of
the closet, Dixon could allow people in, and Naomi can hook up with
Max for money reasons. It's where the dream gets nicely resolved
before the writers allow Annie to wake up. That Annie is forced to
resolve the problems of these characters means that everything is up
to that speech. The problem? Annie might be right but she comes
across as completely judgmental. It seems like she doesn't want them
to improve because she cares about them but because they're terrible
people and she doesn't approve of that. That has always been a
problem that the show has had with Annie. She might do terrible
things but she's constantly deriding others which makes it really
difficult to root for her. Her speech at the end also reminds me of
how Captain Kirk from Star Trek would force his own views of culture
on alien civilizations. He would force them to change even if it
wasn't working for them. Annie is basically forcing an entire world
to shift to one she finds more acceptable.
This
is a pretty bad episode of 90210. It doesn't follow any rules with
it's gimmick, there's a sense that none of if really matters, we
learn nothing new about the characters, and most of the “what-if”
world is as predictable as you would expect. Considering how epic the
cliff-hanger was, this is a pretty disappointing episode of 90210
that brings any viewer back down to Earth on how difficult this show
can be.
Other
Notes:
Annie
goes to sleep in her dream and wakes up. We sadly don't get to see
her dream-in-a-dream and have an Inception moment. I'm disappointed.
I'm also disappointed by the lack of weirdness.
How
crazy would it have been if the show pretended to kill Annie off but
only revealed it was all Annie's dream?
A
funny note: Annie expresses shock that Adrianna is famous in her
dream world. I guess she forgets Adrianna is famous in the real world
as a pop star restarting her career after it became public knowledge
that she stole that guy's songs.
Is
this the first episode to reference Ethan in like forever? Glad to
see the show hasn't forgotten him since he was exiled to Montana.
Liam's
assertion that he doesn't own a bar because he's in college is simply
genius.
Megan's
appearance in the dream was weird. Has Annie even met her? Is she
really that important?
Good
news (I guess): Annie survived her shooting
Bad
News: Teddy and Silver are definably not friends especially when he
discovers Silver forged his signature. How did he discover this?
Silver left a line blank...meaning she messed up in her crime.
Worst
News: Naomi discovers Max never went to Iceland and has been living
with his parents. I don't think their marriage is going to survive.
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