This week's 90210 [1] feels like two different shows happening in the same hour. On the one hand, there is wholesome, run-of-the-mill high school stuff like the tried and true "take care of a fake baby and pretend to be married to someone to learn about life" lesson, along with kissy boyfriend/girlfriend moments. On the other hand, there are narcotics divisions and overdoses and snorting and undercover cops infiltrating West Beverly High School!

Yesterday I made some proposals on how to improve the show [2], and at least one of them — releasing Naomi from her family drama and getting her back to intermingling with the kids —actually happens in this episode, so that's a good sign. Also grandma was back and said some awesome stuff, and everyone else did a decent job distracting me from the fact that Brenda and Kelly are gone. So let's chat about it — .

• I've been wondering what the heck Ryan teaches. This episode he mentions Orwell and "Big Brother" several times, so he's probably an English teacher, or maybe social studies.
• Ryan also spars (flirts?) with a new transfer student from Las Vegas named Kim (played by Jessica Lucas, who recently starred in Cloverfield [3]). He promptly throws her into detention and in my opinion is kind of mean to her. Do you think he's an inappropriate teacher?
• Silver is inviting everyone to her half-birthday party at a cemetery and even extends an invite to Ryan. Granted, I've been out of high school for a while now, but teachers were not ever invited to parties and get-togethers with my friends. But maybe that's just me?
• Yay for grandma Tabitha being back! She's up to all sorts of random stuff like flashing the gardener (she argues she was simply swimming naked because she "likes the feel of water when it glides off my ass").
• I loved when Dixon sneaks into the house past curfew and bumps into Tabitha and says, "Grandma, you don’t see me, you just forgot to take your blue pill."
• Naomi is back to mingling with the other teens, but this time she's mostly focused on her drugged-up best friend Adrianna, who's keeping a lipstick case of cocaine in her backpack. We learn that Naomi dabbled in coke back when she was part of the "C & C Club," aka the cocaine and champagne club. Yeah.



• Annie doesn't get the part in the movie because Adrianna's audition is better — thanks to snorting coke in the bathroom. I find it hard to believe that anyone would want to hire a teen who's that washed-out, red-eyed, and sweaty.
• Meanwhile, Harry and Naomi's mom have decided they want to find their long-lost son. And Debbie's cool with this, until of course Naomi's mom makes a move on Harry. Then Debbie gets sad and misses Kansas. I would have been much angrier if someone kissed my husband.
• Speaking of Debbie, "Nobody puts baby in the corner"? Really? Even her kids were embarrassed at how flat that fell.
• Once again Annie and Ethan have this weird flirtation going on where she really likes him but is afraid he's still hung up on Naomi. But he tries to kiss in her the end anyway, which is good. Hopefully Naomi hears about it and goes on a rampage. That is if she doesn't go to jail.
• Navid is cute this episode and handles his same-sex partnership very well, I thought.

I think we can all agree it was not a smart move for Naomi to take the fall for Adrianna's drugs during the random school raid orchestrated by Harry. How'd you like that scene with Naomi running to the toilet to flush the drugs? The editing was weird to me. By the way — where did Harry's sudden authoritarian urge to crack down on drugs come from? Also, does Ryan strike you as totally inappropriate? Is he going to fall for the undercover cop before or after he knows she's of age? She's laying the flirting on pretty thick herself, which is confusing. And ew! Needle in the chest! Did Adrianna's dramatic overdose scene do anything for you? Or was it just kind of cheesy?

Photos courtesy of The CW [4]