Beverly Hills 90210: Reveal Night!

This week, I caught myself looking forward to this show.

It has been a slow process, but I am obliged to acknowledge that even Shenae Grimes' maddening expression of perpetual Concern is growing on me.

Accepting Gossip Girl as a cartoon show has helped pave the way, I think, and so I have now given myself permission to go ahead and embrace the new BH90210 as a Weekly Afterschool Special that just happens to sport a character or two from the jewel in the teen drama crown of the 90s. (Even though I only saw a couple of episodes in the 90s, and it was not until 2007 or so that I sat down and watched all seven hundred seasons of it in the course of about a week).

Oh, there is still work to be done. I can never remember the name of the pasteurized processed Jim and Cindy substitutes. Or even their last name. Oh! Somebody just said it - Wilson! Keeping that W alive.

This week, it's Reveal Night in the 90210!

Dad Wilson gets things started by revealing the existence of their previously-secret half-brother to the NotTwins, which means he also has to reveal his high school romance with Naomi of the Nostrils' mom. (Dad Wilson, like Kotter, has been welcomed back to his old hood back here where we need ya) They are, predictably, bummed. Annie is gosh-darn-head-shakingly pissed off, and of course, extremely Concerned. Dixon the Brandonesque Icon of All Things Wholesome is pensive, and neither Naomi nor her nostrils could give a shit.

Annie, in a fit of angst, buys expensive boots and sneaks out to go have a slumber party with Naomi and the baby Jackie had that time with David Silver's dad Mel, who used to be Erin, but now goes by Silver because she is a blogger. This new show is so 21st century. The reason Annie had to sneak out is because Dad got really mad at her about the boots, and got even madder when she threw his teen reproductive activity in his face. She is just acting out, says mom, and we see the girls over at Silver's, taking shots.

in a game of I Have Never, Silver reveals that she is a virgin, and Annie reveals that when her parents first adopted Dixon she wanted to mail him to Taiwan because she was afraid that NotJim and NotCindy would love him more.

Annie and Naomi engage in a drunken shirt exchange, echoing the leitmotif of teen girls in bras that look like outerwear, the boys walk in, and Dixon, and is traumatized with disgust at the sight of his sister in a bra, a sight which apparently he has never seen before. The Wilsons must be one modest family.

The producers reveal that they really intend to try to pass Naomi's detention buddy with whom she speaks barely recognizable Spanish as an actual Latin American named Julio, and I realize that the slight tremor I perceive are howls of derisive laughter exploding from a hundred million throats.

Adriana and the porn producer's son who has Loved Her All His Life From Afar make out in one darkened bedroom, until she reveals that since he got his dad to pay for her rehab she intends to pay him back with va-jay-jay time and he reveals that he is Not That Kind of Boy, and stalks off in an offended huff.

While Silver distracts Naomi, who can't stand the idea of her new friend dating her ex-boyfriend, thus obliging them to keep their budding romance "on the DL," until Naomi obtains a new boyfriend for herself and her nostrils, Annie and Ethan make out in another darkened bedroom, until Ethan goes to get Annie some water to help her stay awake because she has never been drunk before, and Naomi escapes from Silver and arrives (oh if she had come in one second sooner!) to bewail her unsuccessful attempt to hook up with Julio, who had bounced, but not before revealing to her that he did not like games.

Plus Annie had declined to hook up with his friend, as she was on her way, unbeknownst, of course, to Naomi, to make out with Ethan.

The Julio-Naomi-nostril scene was actually not that bad. "You're not like the other people at school," Naomi tells him. "I'm like a lot of people at school," replies Julio the Linguistically Impaired. "Just not people you hang out with." Oh snap!

As Annie and Naomi discuss their shared somewhere-out-there half brother, and just as Naomi is saying how she is sick of being lied to, Ethan appears in the doorway.

Annie catches up with him in the yard, and says she just can't sneak around to make out with him, reveals that she is not drunk, and then throws up.

By this time, the slumber party has morphed into a full-fledged raver, with the entire population of Beverly Hills in attendance, which naturally includes Kimberly the undercover narc, rocking earrings too large for her head size, and on the verge of Romance with the bumbling-but-boyish-charm-havin' teacher who almost or just a little bit hooked up with Kelly before she went to Colorado or somewhere to conduct a two-week Talk with Dylan, her putative babydaddy, talks we know will fail, now that Kimberly is on the case, and Kelly will return all Shattered, and Bumbling-But will be Torn, and Kimberly will flash her eyes and take off her earrings.

But tonight she is just floating around the party trying to get her narcage on, and getting hit on by a creepy looking dude who watches with a Sinister Look as she gets into Bumbling-But's car and drives off into the night.

The entire population of Beverly Hills also includes NotJim, who bursts angrily in to rescue his daughter from the Den of Iniquity, but melts with compassion when he finds her collapsed, and she reveals that she is angry that NotJim did not reveal his reproductive history when it was first revealed to him, and that she has vomited on the expensive boots.

The next day dawns and it is revealed that the creepy looking dude who tried to hit on Kimberly the Narc is a dumb jock who wishes to blackmail Bumblin-But with the threat of revealing that he saw him leave with Kimberly, who he believes to be a jailbait student.

NotJim sternly reveals that it is against school rules for teachers to be alone with students outside of school, and although technically Kimberly is not really a student, Bumblin-But used poor judgment and will be punished by exile to a leave of absence.

Adriana apologizes to the porn producer's son and reveals that she doesn't think he is That Kind of Boy and that she does Like Him Like That.

Annie re-reveals to Ethan that she does not like the DL and wants to reveal their love to Naomi and accept the consequences.

Naomi reveals to Julio that she does not want to play games, and he reveals his phone number, but just when she is calling him, her eyes are met by the revelation of Annie and Ethan making out, and she forgets about Julio, as well as the existence of caller ID, leaving him to repeat the word hello until she remembers to hang up.

Next week can't get here soon enough!