Again With This: Beverly Hills, 90210

As the Beverly Beat's mandate strays further and further from journalism, it seems Steve has stumbled upon a lucrative revenue stream: The Love Fisher, a computer program that matches singles with ruthless efficiency. First Janet gets curious about how much better the Love Fisher is at picking dudes for her than she is at picking them for herself; then it's Steve's turn to find out what kind of lady the computer thinks he should be with. Will Janet decide she's settled for a good enough guy, and will Steve cling to her for dear life? Noah has apparently transitioned into defending his dead father's reputation on a full-time basis, and is still being very snitty about it to Matt. Then Matt produces a fat environmental impact report which, when Noah reads it (lol, sure he does), convinces him that his father was a big scumbag after all. Speaking of scumbags: Donna is growing ever less certain that shacking up with Noah is the right move, so it's probably just as well that he has the lawsuit to occupy his attent

It's April 1999, so Steve has finally gotten around to knowing what the Y2K bug and spectacularly overreacting with his doomsday prepping. Is this a healthy response to a possible technological meltdown or, as Janet suspects, a pretext for putting off planning for their future together? Recovering sex addict Katie decides she wants to take her relationship with David to the next level after fourteen months of celibacy; David is so horny that he goes with it instead of considering the implications of what she's asking of him. An ex-colleague of Matt's dumps a toxic waste cancer cluster case on him, which Matt is able to pursue thanks to Dylan's generous backing -- even after Matt tells him one of the defendants is Hunter Oil & Chemical. Noah's pissed. Then a series of farcical events leads to Dylan and Gina watching a nannycam video of an oblivious Matt and Kelly getting it on. Dylan's pissed. Dylan's attempts to get over his jealousy by staging an over-the-top date for Gina leads her to accuse him of havi

One of the most convoluted plotlines of the season encompasses the following: a legitimate chance encounter between Dylan and Kelly; the idiotic decision by Kelly, on the phone with Matt when Dylan rolls up, not just to say, "Oh hey, I just ran into Dylan!" and instead to say she's on her way to run errands; a tweaker trying to rob a pregnant woman in broad daylight at fucking Bristol Farms by taking her son hostage; Dylan's foiling of said robbery; Steve's decision to try to infiltrate a sex addicts' meeting to mine content for the Beat; Kelly's even more idiotic decision to tell a real reporter that when the mugger showed up, she was having coffee in her car with STEVE, who went on to save this stranger's life; Gina's need for Matt to represent her in contract negotiations over a commentator job at the Skating Channel. Plus: Noah has a half sister. We'll try to untangle the million knots in these plotlines in our podcast on "Local Hero"! JOIN THE AWT CLUB

A routine visit to her parents' house leaves Donna on the receiving end of a shocking announcement that, now that she's firmly in her mid-twenties, they feel certain she is strong enough to hear: they're getting a divorce. Like the rest of us, Donna is pretty sure it's Felice's fault, since she's been a nasty rag the entire time we've known her. But when Donna's attempts to pull a holy Parent Trap on them -- seriously, a priest is involved -- Noah journeys to the golf course to find out what's really behind Dr. Martin's restlessness. The complications of the Gina/Dylan/Kelly/Matt love quadrangle continues to metastasize such that this week it entails pool hustling, Olympic gold medalist housesitting, a chimney sweep, a hypnotist, and a mugger. (One of those is fake; try to guess which!) With Claudia returned to Venezuela, David has more time to spend on rehabilitating the career of a has-been DJ whose name is Sonny Sharp but who looks a lot like Shadoe Stevens. And when the Beat's latest freak-show subject is

Last time, Noah's inability to fill the club was pushing him toward financial ruination, but now everything's fine, and he and Dylan are working together amicably to promote an upcoming show by fictional artist Cole Younger with a raffle to win a date with him -- in his hotel room, creepily? Anyway, Dylan's first act as manager of the Peach Pit After Dark is to fix the raffle and award the date to Kelly, only to be outmaneuvered by Gina, who just poses as Kelly to claim it for herself. This causes a variety of issues: Kelly is pissed to have to give up her prize (which she knows is ill-gotten); Matt is pissed that she keeps talking to Dylan about it (and also that her attempts to change his image for an ambulance-chasing TV ad are secretly about her wanting to change him into her ex); Dylan is pissed that Gina spends the night in Cole's hotel room; and Gina is pissed that Dylan's uninvited trip to said hotel room ends in a physical assault. Are emotions running so high to ratchet up the tension for a record-b

Since Kelly's extremely awkward relationship with Matt isn't taking up much of her time, she can seek fulfillment in other areas of her life -- like the store! Suddenly remembering that she's supposed to be in charge of business affairs, she gets the idea of hiring a publicist. Donna gets upset at the idea, nervous that taking any steps to push the business past "good" or fine" will lead to a level of success they can't rely on? It's confusing. But Kelly overrules her to throw a (re-)launch party to get press coverage and they both put on their dumbest outfits to co-hostess. Matt, for his part, still isn't sure he's ready to take back up with Kelly post-Lauren; will a couple seeking his help with a prenup make him more or less likely to believe in true love? Noah gets an offer from a restaurateur who wants to move into the Peach Pit's location. Though he wants to remain loyal to Nat if for no other reason than that he'd have to hear about it from Donna otherwise, he's also in the middle of his own money troub

Gina having learned that Felice is legally responsible for the theft of all her trust fund money, she takes the completely reasonable next step of pursuing legal action to recover the lost principal -- and Donna, who absolutely thought Gina should sue her trustee back when she thought the trustee was her bank, now takes it personally. (Present yet silent through all of this is Bobbi, the one who actually used all that stolen money for her own benefit, which is weird?) Donna doesn't love being in the middle of these warring family factions, which may be why she decides to get support through her ordeal from Noah and act like there was any ambiguity about the end of their relationship despite her having told him "It's over" in precisely those words. David is pissed that Donna's throwing him over again, but decides to get over it by following her advice and using his radio show to solicit applicants for the job of his girlfriend. Matt returns from New York to a fraught emotional situation with Kelly, who wants h

The Durnings having decided they'd prefer Lauren to be schizophrenia symptom-free in the short term than alive in the long term, they're going to ill-conceived lengths to try to track down clozapine without a prescription. Kelly, veteran of the Clinic Clinic, thinks she can help solve their problem with an illicit trip south of the border, and who better to bankroll the scheme and act as her bodyguard than Dylan? That Dylan's relationship with Gina is undefined at the moment makes him extra-flirty, and Kelly's confusion about where she stands with Matt (and his wife?) makes her guilty after she gives into her throbbing biological urges. Gina's got big plans to open her own gym, and while she's still too young to crack into the trust full of the money she earned figure skating as a minor, she wants to know how much there is so she can use it as collateral for a business loan. Unfortunately, her estimate is way higher than the reality. Has her unethical mother Bobbi been embezzling, or is another trustee to bla

You may thing that "Beheading St. Valentine" will save you from any further angst in your relationship. Not in the zip! All the established couples start out cozy with a brunch at the Walsh house at which the reunited Durnings are holding forth about their marriage -- until Kelly shows up with a sleeping bag for Steve and makes everyone feel awkward because, you know, she obviously wasn't invited. Kelly continues whining about Matt to anyone who will listen, which ends up being Dylan and no one else, though she manages to listen to Dylan long enough to hear his yearning for purpose in his life and tries to buy it for him in the form of a vintage T-Bird like the one he used to work on as a kid with the uncle we've never heard of before. This makes Gina jealous for rightly assuming Dylan and Kelly are sniffing around each other again, even as she manipulates Noah into telling Donna what happened on the infamous Night Of The Photo Booth -- which, after a false start in which he suggests moving in together instea

Steve's latest brilliant idea for the Beverly Beat is less about attracting readers and more about attracting gawkers, with "attracting" being the operative word: he wants to copy British tabloids by having cheesecake photos on Page 3 -- though at least he's not prepared for the Beat's models to be topless; bikinis will be just fine! To prepare for a publicity stunt announcing the initiative, he parks it in front of a sun lamp -- in the office, because why not -- which is when Janet notices an irregular mole on his shoulder. Facing the possibility that it could be melanoma leads Steve to re-evaluate his life and ponder what his legacy will be...for a while. Not long. When Donna finds the photo strip from "You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello," Gina leads her to believe that she and Noah did more that night than mug for the camera, and since Noah was wasted, he's not a credible witness in his own defense. Donna's anger leads her to accept David's request that she beard for him at his boss's party, where it turns out t

A scandalous round of strip poker touches off a prank war among three of the gang's least clever members: Noah, Steve, and Donna. (David also gets swept up in it, briefly, but only incidentally; mainly, he's occupied chasing after a D-girl Peach Pit patron who may be trying to blow him off.) When the battle takes down a health inspector, Donna and Steve are forced to figure out at what point STUFF must give way to taking legal responsibility like adults. Dylan embarks upon his community service, where he makes a friend of a hardworking fellow parolee and a foe of their racist jerk boss. He's also on bad terms with Gina, who decides to make a stink about Dylan's attractive Narcotics Anonymous sponsor because how dare he seek advice or counsel from any woman but Gina? Matt departs Los Angeles for New York, where he spends time with Lauren, the mystery woman who called him "sweetheart" at the end of the last episode. Turns out she's his ex, recently sprung from a mental institution, and eager to find out whether

Having -- through sheer luck -- not killed Donna, Dylan decides he is ready to accept his friends' help in getting help for his heroin addiction. Unfortunately, he's not actually on Intervention and has to spend a night waiting for his bed in a treatment facility to be ready, which gives him just enough time to wake up in the middle of the night, pretend to take a shower, and actually slides out the bathroom window instead. During the manhunt, Kelly fights with Matt about whether she's actually in love with Dylan, and also with Gina about how much Gina is to blame for enabling his drug use; in both cases, Kelly is a bitch about it. Will Dylan survive to give his sobriety his best efforts?! Noah makes a match between up-and-coming pop star Clara and Donna, in the hopes that Clara will let Donna dress her for the BLOCKBUSTER ENTERTAINMENT AWARDS. Will Donna ignore her screaming self-doubts and come up with a gown that will get her good press?! Janet reveals not only that she has a dog, but also that her dog is

Dylan's junkie logic leads him to decide his roommate's order that he get his illegally purchased gun out of the home they share just means he can wait until dark, put it in his pants, drive it over to the Marchette manse, and threaten its occupant. Unfortunately, Tony doesn't live there anymore -- nor, spoiler, does he live anywhere -- and the freaked-out victims of his home invasion call his motorcycle license plate in to the cops, who quickly pick him up. Do they find his drugs on him? Of course they do. Kelly and Matt are already having tension around Kelly's very obvious ongoing lust for Dylan, and Gina's demand that Matt represent him doesn't help. Meanwhile, Gina's lust for Dylan makes her a likely mark for Dylan to manipulate her into sneaking him drugs. Dr. Steve's Art Of The Pick-Up students may not be able to get their shit together when it comes to hitting on women, but they are very organized with regard to the law: they all take Steve to small claims court to get their money back since...he offe

We may not have previously understood how committed Gina is to the project of messing with Donna until this episode, in which she reinvents herself as a personal trainer and starts working out with...Felice. She easily parlays their new intimacy into an invitation to a George luncheon hosted by a not-yet-dead (but still completely offscreen) John F. Kennedy Jr., which she makes sure to tell Donna about so that Donna feels good and slighted. It's a good thing Gina has something else to focus on, because she's also just found out that Dylan is using hard drugs and is sort of trying to enforce healthy boundaries with him, but also, not really. Dylan isn't that interested in Gina because he's still focused on his dead wife -- even more so when he tries to go leave a bouquet on her grave, only to find it's not there anymore. The reasonable next step is, of course, to buy a gun through a random drug dealer and make plans to take it to Tony Marchette's house to encourage him to tell Dylan where Toni's bones ended up

The approaching yuletide holidays haven't given Dylan any more concern for either her busy schedule as the co-proprietress of a retail clothing store, nor for her relationship with a dude who isn't him. So with that in mind, of course he has no compunction about getting her on a private plane and flying her to Mexico for huevos rancheros, authentic sombreros, and a Mayan fertility statue into which he can stuff an extremely tiny amount of heroin. Gina takes a break from her suspicions about Sonia -- now working off her debt to Donna at the store (when she's not using the space to bone a dude after hours) -- to be jealous of the attention Dylan's paying Kelly and hang around close enough to swoop in as soon as Kelly tells Dylan she's not interested in taking him back. Gina's so willing to take Kelly's sloppy seconds that she even agrees to take exactly the same trip to Mexico Dylan took Kelly on and receive the gift of exactly the same Mayan sculpture, filled with exactly the same smuggled contraband. It's jus

Kelly spent all of "I'm Back Because" -- well, all except when she was making eyes at Dylan -- getting between her mother and her grandfather, to make sure her grandfather's legally documented wishes with regard to the end of his life were being followed. So naturally, in this episode, all Jackie has to do is call and ask Kelly to put her failing grandfather on a ventilator for Kelly to utterly disregard her legal responsibility. It seems to be mostly so that she has something to do this week -- specifically, feel real bad. And also guilt Matt about his smoking. Gina decides there's no point continuing to try to break up Donna's relationship so she can snatch Noah up for herself as long as Dylan's around, kissing up to him with pizza and beer and trying to get details on why things between him and Kelly fell apart. Dylan barely has time to bother negging her given his busy schedule of mooning over the car his late wife was killed in. Steve continues struggling with the challenge of behaving appropriately in r

Since Gina doesn't have a job -- or an agent, even, despite what she's told Donna -- she's got nothing but time to devote to the new project she's pursuing post-Cabaret On Ice: Donna And Noah On The Rocks. When she's alone with Donna, she diligently shit-talks Noah (not that hard, given his many failings) to try to change Donna's mind about making their relationship work. And when she's alone with Noah, she suggests reasons it's not worth his trying to get back into Donna's good graces, what with how demanding and spoiled Donna is. The antique tech known as an answering machine plays a supporting role in Gina's scheming, but will Donna and Noah's beautiful love story survive Gina's assaults?! Speaking of assault, David's still facing charges for statutory rape, though Matt can't quite devote all his attention to it while also dealing with his shaky finances. Stepping into the breach is Dylan, freelance investigator, who feels free to cast aspersions on Denise's sincerity and the elder O'Lares' parenting while

With Noah continuing his downward spiral of regret and self-recrimination following his father's suicide, it turns out not to have been a great idea for him to buy a bar: he's drinking a lot, and driving drunk, and maybe hitting someone? Donna's distracted from her usual fussing by the arrival of her cousin Gina -- former Olympic figure skater, current Ice Capade star, and [touches earpiece] I'm being told she impulsively quits the Capades in the cold open and sets to her task of running game on the gangsters. Yes, you'd think that Sophie's departure (http://previously.tv/beverly-hills-90210/beverly-hills-90210-lets-kelly-plot-to-steal-another-baby/) would mean that's Val's fault, but Val seems to be cycling nice: she's even planning to throw this year's Thanksgiving dinner at the Walsh house! Then Kelly finds a letter from Val, among Brandon's things, in which she counsels him not to marry Kelly. In retaliation, Kelly plans her own competing Thanksgiving dinner, and is only dissuaded from this bitchy reactio

It's time for Leah to have her day in court, and a custody settlement allowing Lenny basically unfettered access to their baby -- and, therefore, to Leah herself -- is obviously not the result she had hoped for. Enter Kelly, who's ready and willing to help Leah get out of the county on an assumed identity. Unfortunately for Leah, Kelly has no idea how to do any of that. On top of that, Noah's ongoing grief-induced self-destruction has Donna looking for comfort elsewhere, and since Matt is the guy she has her eye on, it's really cramping her style to have to cover for Kelly and Leah's shady plans with, you know, Lenny's lawyer. Speaking of Noah: he's still drunk and ridiculous, and now involving Val in his ill-conceived efforts at self-medication, including...illegal street racing? And despite all the time he spends with her, Noah fails to notice that Val's going through her own shit -- specifically, that she's determined to get closure about her father's death by turning herself in to the cops. A bad experien

Sophie's multifarious strategy to take over the entertainment industry leads her to consider working in adult films, despite all the great advice David's giving her about being patient and waiting her turn and paying her dues -- you know, like he did, which is why he's currently having such a successful career scoring movies LOL. Noah continues grieving his father in extremely drunken ways, and continues rebuffing all Donna's efforts to get him to talk to her about it, instead opening up to the only person in his orbit who might understand how he feels: Val, whose father also killed himself...as far as Noah knows. About that: Abby still hasn't decided whether she really is going to follow through on her threat to turn Valerie in for her father's murder, and when Val asks Matt about it, his advice is pretty much "Hope she doesn't, idk." Matt is also dealing with a lot of judgment from Kelly for continuing to represent Lenny in his custody battle with Leah -- but never mind all that: Brandon's received a job of