Again With This: Beverly Hills, 90210

Just in case Amanda wasn't fully convinced in the last episode that Michael was stalking her at home, Kimberly ALSO shows up in the parking garage at D&D to creep Amanda out by following her to her car, which Kimberly has also tagged with a gigantic "Die, Bitch" on the driver's side. Amanda then gets on board, threatening Michael herself if he doesn't leave her alone, not knowing that Kimberly intends to trash the beach house, claw up her own face, and entrap Michael for having "beaten" her. But...there's more. Eek. While Alison gets her feet under her in Hong Kong, she's also anxious to find out what Billy thought of the heartfelt letter she gave Brooke to deliver to him, which is why it's too bad that (a) Brooke read and then shredded Alison's declaration of love and (b) wrote another one that basically left it to Billy whether he wanted to stay in her life or not. Jake wakes up in the hospital after surgery entirely convinced that Jess was behind the shooting, and is unimpressed by both Jess's and Jo's

Jake is still not okay with Jess and Jo's burgeoning relationship, so much so that he kicks Jess out and fires him from Shooters -- and, when Jo tries importuning him on Jess's behalf, lets her know he's not interested in seeing or talking to her as long as she and Jess are an item. In retaliation, Jess hits up a local pool hall and picks a fight with some toughs, apparently to determine whether they're up for the job of messing with Little Brother (drink!). Brooke is such a good friend to Alison that she arranges for her to interview for a position at Brooke's daddy's company, which comes with a fat salary, and a surprise: it's at his international headquarters in Hong Kong! Billy is all set to talk Alison out of moving so far from her friends, until Brooke urges him not to get in the way of Alison's career progress. What will he do?! Sydney meets with Jim again and gets a surprise of her own: he's an FBI agent who infiltrated Vince's drug ring and is juuuuust about to make a bust. But he likes her, so he ad

Sydney's gotten approached with a business deal from a couple of guys who just want to use the label to import and sell their pantyhose from China, and who know she used to work for Lauren. What could go wrong?! (You can probably guess.) She also happens to be home for the latest installment of Jess's attempt to bone Jo against every wall in Los Angeles, and since she hears everything on the other side of said wall at her place, she decides it's her place to snitch on them to Jake. Brooke does seem to be enjoying sex with Billy on its merits, but it also has fringe benefits, such as when he almost immediately betrays Alison's confidence and tells Brooke that Alison's On Notice with the D&D board: if she screws up one more thing, she's out. Obviously, she's in the process of screwing up one more thing when Brooke passes this intel on to Amanda, so she barely has to put in any effort to undermine Alison with this one. Kimberly gets the honour of an early graduation from Camp No More Victims after violently

Brooke and Amanda's plot to depose Alison gets a convenient boost when a rep for D&D's latest very important client happens to have a connection to Brooke's father: she's able to leverage what she knows about his past to manipulate Alison into pitching a concept that will, shall we say, not land. Meanwhile, Amanda is ALSO being set upon constantly by Michael, trying to talk her into seeing him again with compliments, begging, threats, and pasta. Kimberly has decided to change her situation by enrolling in an intensive program called No More Victims, which aims to teach her and her fellow boot campers how to regain control of their lives and learn to assert themselves. (We're not sure Kimberly's problem is that she was insufficiently assertive, but...sure!) Sydney approaches Jane with an offer to save the design firm with Sydney's ill-gotten insurance-settlement gains, and Jane is so desperate that she accepts, even on extremely unfavorable terms. And the more Jo tries to resist Jess's advances, the closer

Michael's having a perfectly pleasant evening at home waiting for his wife to hurry up and die already when Sydney unexpectedly shows up and foils his plan. He's so distracted pretending to try to revive Kimberly that he doesn't notice Sydney stealing the suicide note for future blackmail purposes! Once Kimberly is conscious again, Sydney tells her about the scene she walked up on, but Kimberly denies she was trying to die by suicide: she says Michael poisoned her, and that if Sydney will help her plant evidence to that effect and also destroy her note, she'll give Sydney half the insurance settlement. When the cops show up and don't find the suicide note in their search of the beach house, Michael figures out who probably has it. Whom will Sydney be loyal to! Oh yeah: in the midst of all this, Michael also proposes to Amanda. It doesn't go great. Speaking of Amanda: she gets Billy to ask Alison to give her a job at D&D, and it works! Amanda returns with a great attitude even in a position MUCH more junio

As Amanda battles back to consciousness, Michael's got his own fights: Kimberly reveals that she's returned early from Minnesota, she doesn't buy his stories about why Amanda's lingerie is all over the beach house, and he is officially on notice. This just convinces him to accelerate his exit plans, but then Kimberly runs into the city's insurance guy at the hospital before Michael does and takes possession of that big settlement check, forcing Michael to make nice. Meanwhile, Alison continues being a bitch to everyone at D&D except Brooke. And why not -- Brooke is actually useful, offering her dad's palatial estate as a photo shoot location when another one falls through. Having Billy on her literal home turf causes Brooke to escalate her mind games with him, flirting super-hard just before her fiancé shows up. Surprise! Brooke later ends up at the hospital when Billy goes to visit Amanda, and Amanda makes a note. After making peace with Jake, Jess decides to test it by showing up in L.A. unannounced and

The members of D&D's board of directors have taken notice of Amanda's increasing number of absences, and they've decided on a course of action: canning her and installing Alison in her place. It takes less than a day for Alison to learn that part of what made Amanda so surly in the role was the demands of the job. Desperate not to run into Alison, Amanda begs Michael to get her out of the complex, so he sends Kimberly to Minnesota to interview for a job at the Mayo Clinic so that Amanda can stay at the beach house in her absence. At the same time, Michael's also running a scam on the city, claiming the car accident five million episodes ago was caused by dangerous road conditions. He's close to a settlement, but Kimberly knows nothing about the lawsuit and is signing a bunch of papers he hands her without reading them because, apparently, she's forgotten...everything about her husband. Jake gets a call from an old friend in Washington State: Jake's mother has died, and he's stressed about going back and f

Amanda and Michael are back from New York and navigating their new circumstances. Kimberly tells Michael she knows he and Amanda shared a room. Amanda doesn't think their dalliance should get in the way of her treatment. And yet...this guy does enough fancy footwork to get himself and Amanda to a resort in Santa Barbara AND Kimberly's sign-off. Amanda leaves Alison in charge of submitting D&D's paperwork to the Century Advertising Awards, and even okays Alison to "let it slip" that Amanda may be dying, just in case that shifts any votes her way. But when Alison gets there, she meets the charming coordinator, Brooke Armstrong (Kristin Davis!), who easily talks Alison into submitting her own account against Amanda's in the same category. Having tried and failed to talk Jane out of dating Jake, Sydney manufactures a situation at a rough bar from which Jake will be forced to extricate her. But will this succeed in pushing them closer together? You can't lose by listening to our podcast on "And The Winner Is..

Amanda having entrusted her treatment to Michael, the two of them head to New York so that they can doorstop the famous Dr. Steele and convince him to admit Amanda into his cancer study. But it's going to be hard once Kimberly calls Dr. Steele first and defames Michael, claiming his ultimate goal is to undermine Steele's study and get himself set up with one on the same treatment plan instead. And that's just the disaster Amanda knows about: she has no idea that, back in L.A., Alison and Billy are eating shit from a disgruntled client, who demands a brand-new campaign with one day's turnaround. After that pitch also fails to impress him, Alison tries one last gambit: a sob story, and not her own. Things are devolving quickly in Rawlings's police brutality case. Jo knows all too well what happens to civilians who try to challenge police power, and only gets more terrified about what could happen to her after Rawlings's victim dies. Matt volunteers to turn her photos over to the Internal Affairs detective and k

Once Sydney gets to see daylight again, she assesses her options and decides to stay at the compound. Martin takes this as proof that he's broken her, apparently, because he shows her where they keep the Abbot Way arsenal and starts right in on small arms training. What they don't know is that, back in L.A., Jane's been doing some research on Martin, figured out he's bad news, and convinced Jake to come with her to the compound to try to break Sydney out. Amanda has started chemotherapy, but is (of course) a terrible patient who refuses to acknowledge the physical toll it's going to take on her and adjust her working life in any way. As she leans more and more on Michael, Kimberly gets more and more suspicious. When Rawlings stalks Matt to Shooters and corners him into an introduction to Jo, he volunteers to be her chaperone while she shoots some of the seedier L.A. street life for a newspaper. But when he gets a call about a drug dealer, Jo gets a little too curious, and finds out what Kimberly already knew:

Though Amanda has apparently spent the entire time since we saw her last trying to ignore what Michael told her about the lump in her neck, he is refusing to let up, and another doctor at the hospital confirms his findings: Amanda does have Hodgkin's Disease. She resists Michael's forcible attempts to continue necessary testing, bitches out everyone who steps in her path at the office, but finally confides in Billy, swearing him to secrecy. Is this a confidence he can keep -- even from Alison, as Amanda expressly specifies? HMMM. Rikki gets Sydney out to the desert to a "retreat" with the rest of the Abbot followers, which apparently does not at all live up to the picture Rikki had painted of a resort-like experience. Sydney is sketched out when her assignment to perform the "tea service" exposes her to Martin, in bed with two ladies, and even more put off the next day when Martin orders his acolytes to write to their families asking for money. Sydney tells him she wants to leave, and he assures her she may..

Someone puts sugar in Jo's gas tank. Someone slashes all the samples on the rack at Jane's studio. Someone breaks in at Jo's and steals all her cameras and gear. Jane points the finger at Sydney (who did, after all, have access to the motorcycle and the garments), who denies it...but the crime spree isn't over, and all the crimes do seem to target people Sydney considers her enemies. If not her, who?! Billy is concerned that Amanda seems run-down at work and even testier than usual, though she shakes off his concerns about her health. He's about to have his own worries, anyway: Alison's sister Meredith is in town, with a big announcement about her own sexual history, and an even bigger crush on Billy. The bigwigs at Wilshire Memorial can no longer ignore the possible mental health issues going untreated amongst members of their staff, so they order mandatory psych evaluations, to be co-ordinated by Matt. Kimberly tries to wriggle out of it by deploying her charm on Matt (which is probably something her evalua

You thought a standard Season 3 episode of Melrose Place crammed in a lot of drama? STRAP IN, because here comes a for-no-reason midseason double episode, and it is a doozy. Amanda and Peter are still pretending to be a couple while secretly plotting against each other. Peter and Caitlin's plan to pry Amanda out of her contract is to arrange for everyone at the agency to take a drug test for insurance purposes, and for Amanda to fail it because the "antibiotics" Peter's prescribed her are actually THC...and since the only drug study at the hospital involving THC is the one Peter's just put Michael in charge of, Peter's hands will be clean. But Amanda finds one pill, gets Matt to have it analyzed, and confronts Peter with the evidence in order to keep her job. So then Peter has to escalate by arranging to "catch" Amanda and Michael in his office after hours, injecting her with a drug that will imitate the appendicitis cramps, and wheeling her into surgery she will not survive. Will Michael have the stomach to

Amanda suddenly has some competition for Head Bitch In Charge at D&D when she walks into her office and sees JASMINE GUY sitting at her desk. Guy plays Caitlin Mills, an efficiency expert Peter has hired to shore up operations at the agency; Amanda is immediately suspicious -- and, as with every decision Peter makes, she has good reason. Amanda develops a scheme to try to blackmail Peter regarding a pretty obviously fake drug trial he's supposedly running, and maybe Caitlin has her off her game, because once again Amanda tries to leverage Michael, and we all know how that goes. ANYWAY: this is the snake pit Alison is returning to from rehab (and, despite what Amanda told her at Christmas, she also still totally wants to fire Alison), but Billy is really putting himself out to help her ramp back up. Unfortunately for him, the only ramp Alison wants to be on is the one that will get her closer to Terry -- you know, because he's really tall. Now that Jo has her baby back, she also needs a full-time nanny, ev

Already in a rage about Peter's controlling behavior, Amanda adopts a bah humbug attitude she takes out on everyone around her. And we all know the remedy: Bruce's unquiet spirit comes back to warn her about what will happen to her if she doesn't change her ways. Now that Jo has confirmed her maternity of the baby Kimberly's been raising, she apparently has no compunction telling everyone about it, including Peter, who orders Michael to return the baby immediately. Jeffrey is so eager to shower Matt with extravagant gifts that Matt can't help expressing his discomfort -- and how could that possibly backfire on him, in a loving relationship where everyone is definitely totally secure? After seeing Billy and Alison together on the Twin Oaks campus, Terry accelerates his pursuit of her. And Jane tries to broker a holiday peace between Sydney and their father. Wrap up nice and cozy: it's time for our podcast on "Holiday On Ice"! JOIN THE AWT CLUB

Alison tries to commit to treatment at Twin Oaks, but keeps getting static from Terry, an NFL star in her group who thinks she's being resistant to the process. After she confronts him about his third-grade-calibre attention-seeking, he admits that there's something to it: he's lashing out because he's also sexually compulsive, and he's drawn to her. When Billy doesn't appear at a special meeting for Twin Oaks clients to thank the people who got them to seek treatment (because, unbeknownst to Alison, Susan never gave him her message), Alison sneaks out and gets wasted, but Terry is waiting when she finds her way back, and helps keep her from getting kicked out. Once Billy finds out about Susan, the love triangle loses a side...but maybe Terry would like to replace her? Michael is hung up on Jane after their one-night-stand, and since he won't take "get lost" for an answer, she redirects the roses he sends her to the beach house, complete with card. Kimberly gives Michael an ultimatum, and he chooses their fam

Having canned Amanda for her leaking at the end of the last episode, Bruce is pretty sure he's righted D&D's ship and is ready to set sail with a bigger role for Alison (which...is maybe proof of the bad judgment that got him here). Then he finds out that a consortium of doctors has bought up so much stock that he's no longer majority shareholder. He's all set to prove to the new overlords that he's still fit to run the agency until he finds out the consortium is actually Peter, and that his replacement is Amanda. He does not take this news well! When Amanda takes over, she immediately promotes Billy and orders him to fire Alison -- who, by the way, is now drinking so much that she doesn't even remember all the abuse she's heaping on Billy and Susan. He seeks advice from Matt on how to proceed. Cue the intervention! Chris drives Sydney to Las Vegas, but instead of strong-arming her (or worse), he sets about seducing her, trying to impress her with lush accommodations and expensive clothes and jewellery. E

After being lucky (oof) enough to have found a mother at the hospital who's about to deliver a baby she knows is stillborn, Kimberly tells Jo it's time to set their plan in motion. Jo has concerns right up to the last minute, but since she also kind of has no other options, she goes through with it, and delivers a healthy baby. Kimberly then does her part marking the baby officially dead in the hospital's records and convincing the Carters' lawyer of what happened. From there...things kind of go left. Jane is thrilled to get that fat $500,000 cheque from Chris's company and trusts him to go ahead and deposit it into the account on which he is now a signatory, since she has a new line to design! Except, whoops, the next thing she knows she's getting called down to the bank to talk about the 20 or so cheques she's about to bounce on that account, which is now empty, thanks to Chris. What now?! Alison did not, in fact, kill that cyclist on Thanksgiving, but she blows above the legal limit at the scene and is imm

Zack encourages Alison to worry less about what her friends are saying about her recent behavior -- and her drinking, in particular -- and think more about what she really wants. Like a new car! How's she going to pay for the convertible she ends up with? She'll figure it out! Should she go with him to Santa Barbara when she has an early meeting the next day and the last time she did that she slept through her obligation? She sure shouldn't! Does she do it anyway? You bet! Does she end up in exactly the same predicament? Oh boy, does she ever. Since she's starting to get so sloppy that she's letting down her colleagues, she pretty much forces them to call her on it, but she is not ready to hear their fearless feedback at all. A shadowy underworld figure shows up at Shooters and starts threatening Jake with physical harm if he doesn't start paying into his protection racket. Jake refuses, but Sydney -- who knows these people don't screw around from her time with Lauren -- is more receptive to direct appeals wi

It's finally time for the custody hearing in which Jo will face off against the Carters. Apparently Jo's lawyer has just trusted that the character witnesses she's rounded up from the complex will be forceful and effective as opposed to the bunch of dimwitted tramps we know them to be, and puts them on the stand without, as far as we can tell, any kind of preparation or screening. So things already aren't going tremendously well even before Alison gets way too drunk the night before her testimony and messes up Jo's lawyer's big finish (which...somehow was not Jo herself? Seriously, this guy just may not know what he's doing). The reason Alison's out partying too much and ignoring her responsibilities is that she's picked up a drinking buddy -- Zack Phillips (Brian Bloom!), a cool record company executive. He's such a great distraction from her angst over Susan and Billy that he also distracts her from the power plays Amanda is running at the agency following Bruce's incapacitation from a sudden health crisis.