Thursday, February 7, 2013

90210

90210
Episode 12: Here Comes Honey Bye Bye
By: Carlos Uribe

90210 is a show about wealthy kids who do business and go to college in the zip. Or something.

Spoilers Ahoy!

This was an episode that covered a lot of material. It's probably best to start with Naomi because the show is shifting directions for her. She got married to Max and has been trying to help him succeed in business. It makes sense that she would want to support him but her efforts have only led to his failures. This has created a rift between the two as she keeps trying push herself into his professional life and he tries to figure out where to go next. The two characters might love each other but they are on completely different pages of where they are as a couple simply because they haven't figured out themselves. Max has been adrift ever since he lost his company but he decides that he wants to go back to coding for fun. He's going to be joining a program at his dream school, MIT, in order to do that. Naomi isn't happy with this decision because she's not really interested in going to Massachusetts with him. A couples therapist brings it to her attention that she's been so focused on her husband that she might have track of what she wants. She's supposed to be an event planner but has been completely ignoring her business. She decides to attend to it by running a toddler beauty pageant but this only brings her in the same orbit as Holly's mom. I've kind of forgotten her name at this point. The mom points out that the person she hired instead of Naomi has found huge success as an event planner and is now opening an office in Tokyo. Naomi has sacrificed a lot for her marriage and her career has been one of them. That and the show isn't very good at multi-tasking with the lives of characters. So it looks like the two will go their separate ways. Naomi is going to concentrate on her career while Max goes back to school. It's not clear if they're getting a divorce or not but I'm still holding out hope that they work it out. I like Max too much as a character to see him leave the show but he has no reason to appear without Naomi. This shift is a good thing as her marriage problems have started to get a little stale and repetitive. What I do like is how the show decided to show this shift by bringing back Holly's mom and using that to allow Naomi to picture how her life could have been like.


The series remembers that Annie was in a relationship with Riley before she got shot. I'm going to be honest, I've kind of forgotten he existed at this point. It took me a minute to remember that they're supposed to be in a relationship. As I said, this show is not good at multi-tasking. Dixon brings up that Riley is getting experimental surgery so Annie decides to try and stop him. She doesn't want him to die so that he can be with her. This is because despite her reservations about his handicap, she is in love with him. She manages to get there after the surgery had been done despite her attempt to stop it by committing some good old medical fraud. First Silver and now Annie? That's quite a trend the show has going on. The surgery seems to have gone fine as the two are able to express their love for each other. The writers decided that the two have gotten serious because they have exchanged “I love you” so they killed him off. We haven't seen his body and this is the kind of drama where Riley would commit some medical fraud (plus the show's really into them this day) to fake his death but he doesn't really have any reason to do so. It's possible he's still alive but for now I'm going to treat him as if he's dead. The way he was killed was a bit off in execution. We have Annie going home, calling the hospital, and being told that there was a blood clot that went into Riley's lungs that killed him. It might have looked good on paper but in execution if felt it was added on last minute. As if the writers remembered they were supposed to kill him off but had to add in a “by the way, this guy is dead now” exchange because they hadn't managed to naturally fit it into a previous scene.


This ties into the whole Dixon plot. When Dixon apologized to Riley for telling Annie about the surgery, Riley was cool with it because the ends justified the means. The message that Dixon gets from this is that love conquers all. When he decides to put it in execution, it completely blows up in his face. How? His current love interest, Megan, can't afford to go to college because of the truck accident. Why it took her this long to realize the financial implications into her own life is a bit puzzling. Since she can't afford to continue to pay for classes, she is now planning to move back to San Diego. Dixon tries his best to help her out by offering her a job but she doesn't want his help. She considers it charity which shows she's not as serious about this relationship as Dixon. Dixon's solution after talking to Riley is to set up an anonymous scholarship for her. Good idea, right? The thing is his label business, which is a real thing now, is in debt and he's been using Adrianna to try and get out of it. It's basically the only reason he continues to control every aspect of her career now that he's supposedly gotten over him. This scholarship only digs the debt deeper and Adrianna finds out that she's now actually paying for Megan's college. She reveals the truth to Megan. Megan's response is to break up with Dixon because gosh forbid somebody who cares about her pay for college. Adrianna announces her intention to try and find a way out of her contract because this was the last straw. This is a plot that has gotten really messy and I'm not sure where it's going to go. Megan hasn't really been fully realized as a character so I wouldn't miss her if this is her last episode but I'm just not sure how Adrianna is planning to fight Dixon. It wouldn't surprise me if her plan is to try and sink her own career once again. This simply wasn't a good week to be a Wilson.

The baby drama continues this week as Silver and Teddy can't seem to agree on anything. When Teddy reveals his plan to destroy the embryos, Silver seems to just accept this as a done deal. I don't know but I sort of feel like she can fight this. Did she forge a signature? Sure but it's not like Teddy is pressing charges. Silver tries to accept that she's not going to have any kids but she's having a difficult time with it. There's a strong scene in the episode where Silver breaks down and admits that she really wants to have her own kid. This was going to be her only chance to get pregnant. It's a pity that the person she tells this is Navid because he's just a useless character. He does manage to get something done when he tells Teddy that he's ruining Silver's only chance of having a baby. Teddy decides that he won't destroy the embryos but he'll allow them to implanted in a surrogate's body. This shocks and upsets Silver because she wants the baby to come out of her own body. This is going to sound a bit silly but this is honestly a win-win situation for Silver. Not only does she get the baby but she doesn't have to get fat like she's been afraid of. She can keep looking like she's beautiful enough to be on a CW drama. This whole baby situation has gone a lot further than I was expecting when Silver asked Teddy. It's managed to destroy both of their relationships and caused of lot of internal conflict. It seems like the show is planning to extend this conflict because issues of custody aren't going to be resolved until a surrogate signs on. As much as I've been enjoying this drama, I'm not sure how much farther it can really go before it runs out of steam. It's getting dangerous close to not working anymore.

It appears that the actor who portrays Navid, Michael Steger, must have complained that his character has been in the sidelines for a long time now. It's almost as if the show doesn't know what to do with him. As if to prove my point, the writers give Navid the least imaginative story possible. Navid has dropped out of Princeton but now he's enrolled in that California University all the characters attend or frequently visit. The problem is he wants to join the Honors program for some reason but it's too late in the semester to just join. His solution is to join the west coast version of Skull and Bones by using his connection to move star, Liam. Liam allows himself to be used but he directs the lame party thrown by Navid into a gym he was kicked out off for having PTSD issues. So he's a bartender whose also a model who became an actor and now he's an undergound fighter. So not only does Navid get the most basic plot possible but it's all to service Liam? I'm thinking that Navid should find himself back on Princeton as he's basically stopped being an important entity on this show.

This was an episode of 90210 that was an improvement over the dream episode. It was an episode that was barely entertaining-which is consistent with the quality for this season as a whole. There are a lot of elements that could have been improved such as figuring out a way to kill Riley that felt natural rather than forced. It is a good thing that the Adrianna plot is shifting things up by having her desire change from accepting the terms of the contract to fighting them. That might bring that plot to life. The baby drama is on thin ice right now as it's lasted more than enough time. What is good is that the marriage plot seems like it's heading to the backburner to allow Naomi to move on to other things as it's gotten a bit stale.

Other Notes:

The scene where Annie founds out Riley is in some special treatment facility in San Jose has her first calling Riley to get the truth. When he doesn't answer, Annie calls the treatment-but she took no time ot even dial in a number. So Annie basically has some random medical facility in her speed dial.

Adrianna got paid $15,000 to appear at the toddler's beauty pageant. If Megan can get that kind of money then I think Dixon needs to get her back ASAP because that's insane.

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