Again With This: Beverly Hills, 90210

You know how David's been having money issues all season? Well, it turns out solutions like closing down the club for a week and trying to make a racist band happen haven't actually helped, and now shit's really dire: he's at immediate risk of eviction, which somehow doesn't induce a bank to give him the loan he's applied for! Noticing the corner he's painted himself into, David gets really desperate, and makes a decision that's really dumb. He also skips a big fundraising ball Kelly's Foundation Foundation has thrown, but it's probably just as well: no one there has much fun -- particularly not Val, when both her beaux show up, and this time she can't wriggle out of their finding out about each other. Donna manages to line up a new client who's less interested in having Donna shop for her and instead sets her to organizing a séance. Also, Kelly and Brandon can't stop boning in public and we are furious about it. JOIN THE AWT CLUB

As Kelly heads out to start her job at the Foundation Foundation instead of taking several more weeks off to think about how she betrayed Brandon by failing to corroborate his pick at the police lineup, Brandon continues riding Detective Woods about the single biggest crime in Los Angeles for which justice has yet to be served: the case of no one making Brandon feel better. And when he's not on the phone, he's having more flashbacks about his failure to prevent Kelly from getting shot. He's a lot of fun! Speaking of fun: Donna still hasn't backed down on her judgment of David's bigoted clients, including when they attract the interest of a record label A&R guy who's ready to sign them to a five-figure contract. What better time for the band to escalate from conversational racism to songs that advocate full-on race war? Donna can't focus entirely on David's problems, though, since she has to deal with the fact that she's lost all her clients...or is it that Val's stolen them? Donna gets revenge the best wa

When Brandon, the august editor of the Beverly Beat, finds out that his developing story on sweatshop labour at a local apparel company implicates the former owner of his publication and its current publisher's father, he reaches out to a colleague at another publication to cover it without being accused of a conflict of interest. Just kidding! He sends Steve, not a journalist, to get the truth out of Rush. Fortunately for everyone, Donna's source is able to stop by the office to speak to someone about her experience, and crying women are Steve's Kryptonite. Elsewhere, David is having a harder and harder time ignoring how racist the band he's managing is; Val and Noah are still being extremely annoying in whatever passes for a relationship between them; and when Kelly fails to identify Brandon's shooter at a police lineup, Brandon is extremely understanding about it, jk lol he's a bitch about it. JOIN THE AWT CLUB

Donna's publicist David will be the first to tell you that Donna graduated at the top of her class at CU with a degree in Fashion Marketing. And yet at no point in her four years of college did it ever come up, in any of her classes, that the fashion industry is built on unethical -- indeed, immoral -- labour practices...or so we must surmise based on her naïve reactions to everything going on at Soho Mix & Match. Did the non-native English speaker protecting her boss from accusations about its apparently underage employees know she's entitled to earn a minimum wage in this country??!!?!? Since Donna doesn't get very far, it's up to the Beverly Beat to break this story -- something everyone who works there is extremely qualified to do. Elsewhere, Val gets possessive about Noah while blowing off a guy she knows to be a millionaire, and Kelly tries to force herself to love Brandon the way everyone keeps telling her she should. We discuss it all! JOIN THE AWT CLUB

As Kelly starts the slow and agonizing process of trying to recover her memory after suddenly developing amnesia, Brandon does his part by being extremely territorial about a woman who remembers zero things about him. Helpful! Elsewhere, Steve seems to think his ill-conceived plan to become a sports agent is going to impress Carly so much she drops her objections and starts dating him; and when Donna starts her job as a fashion executive's personal assistant, said executive's pooch Goliath has no choice but to run away from all her STUFF. JOIN THE AWT CLUB

Kelly got shot, which you think would consume all her very best friends' time, energy, and focus, and yet: when he's not picking Kelly's shooter out of a lineup with extreme (misplaced?) confidence, Brandon's fielding calls about job opportunities; Donna's taking interviews; Val's still hitting on Noah (but then again, it's hardly as if Val cares whether Kelly lives or dies). Don't worry, though: Kelly may say she's sick of talking about herself, but before the episode's done she'll have come up with another way of turning everyone's attention back where it belongs. JOIN THE AWT CLUB

Our remaining characters have all graduated CU. Now what? Well: everyone needs a job except for David (running the Peach Pit After Dark into the ground) and Kelly (somehow: she's going to be working at a Foundation that, let's hope, isn't actually a cult). Naturally, therefore, they all decide to join Donna for her first assignment as a fashion stylist...in Waikiki! Where they run into Brandon's ex-girlfriend Tracy, and have a marine meet-cute with fifteenth-generation Dylan photocopy Noah. Along the way, some models almost drown, Steve gets a terrible sunburn, and David slides into a lagoon and a near-death experience. Will Steve even make it home to continue witlessly hitting on single mom Carly? We discuss it all on the podcast! JOIN THE AWT CLUB

It's time for the gang to graduate from CU, but of course the path out of post-secondary education can't be smooth -- and the fact that half their parents aren't even bothering to attend (we wish we'd thought of that) is just the start. Steve attacks his trust fund-free future by...planning a senior prank and fighting with Clare; Donna once again questions whether she actually should just bone David and this time might actually mean it; and while Val panics about the loss of her life's savings, Kelly spitefully decides to make her life even worse by insisting that Brandon kick her out of his parents' house, like immediately. JOIN THE AWT CLUB

In Season 7's penultimate episode, Donna finally sits her exam for the dreaded Prof. Langely, promptly chokes, and then does a piss-poor job of asking for another chance; Steve is shocked to learn that Rush has no intention of giving him a sweetheart job as a junior partner (of/in what?) since they've never actually discussed it at any point, ever, and learning that Clare's considering moving to Paris with her dad doesn't improve his mood; and while Val continues working Parker Lewis for access to Bill Taylor -- who's now actually touched down in Los Angeles -- Kelly is shocked to learn that her dreams of biological motherhood might never come true, and barren crones Sarah and Tara try their best to empathize with her situation. JOIN THE AWT CLUB

Clare has the dead mom blues when Mother's Day rolls around; Val, David, and Donna love-triangulate again -- this time at the direction of Val's new financial advisor who is definitely totally not trying to steal all her money; and Kelly and Brandon agonize over a pregnancy scare, which is understandable given that one of them already talks like a baby. JOIN THE AWT CLUB

When Samantha and the Chancellor run into relationship trouble, Clare blames Steve, because that's reasonable; Val and Kelly get the Hawaiian flu, a side effect of which is apparently explosive retcon; and when David brings Donna for a whirlwind night in New Orleans, he finds out the hard way that he didn't need to pack condoms. (Hee hee. "The hard way.") JOIN THE AWT CLUB

While Kelly tries to mend fences with her re-boyfriend's roommate, said roommate Val is at the beach reading her journal, and there's also something about a kids' entertainer with a magic wand, and an accidentally stolen electric car, and if this all sounds like a confused mess, that's because it is. JOIN THE AWT CLUB

A KEG/Alpha talent show (yes, really) is the location both for Clare's triumph over stage fright, and for Felice to set herself up for more of Donna's disapproval; and Brandon dumps Tracy to reunite with Kelly -- though it's not going to work out if Val's schemes and an antique form of communication technology have anything to do with it. JOIN THE AWT CLUB

David plays on his history of mental illness to manipulate Donna throw Donna a memorable date on a heretofore nonexistent anniversary; Rob's movie is so bad he's prepared to move to another time zone to get away from it; and Mariah comes to town to push Brandon toward Kelly and then peaces out before she has to face the consequences of her meddling. JOIN THE AWT CLUB

Alan and Val's Cold War escalates when the former hires a starlet to replace the latter as Rob's date for an industry party; Donna battles her mother over the location of Dr. Martin's post-stroke rehab; and Brandon brings Tracy to Hong Kong to see what it's like to be vaguely disappointed by her on a different continent. JOIN THE AWT CLUB

As Val gets closer to Rob, his agent Alan gets territorial; Brandon and Steve both suffer through the hassle of their girlfriends expecting their respect; and while Kelly continues trying to reunite Joey with his family, Donna responds to the crisis of her father's sudden stroke by turning on David and telling him he caused it. JOIN THE AWT CLUB

Steve half-asses a school assignment that at least has the sole benefit of making Tracy horny; Kelly meets and almost immediately betrays a runaway; Val has a meet-VERY-cute with an up-and-coming actor; and Donna hears the tale of her grandparents' brief and tragic marriage, giving both Tori Spelling and Brian Austin Green the chance to play WWII dress-up. JOIN THE AWT CLUB

Kelly and Clare try on bad Slavic accents to mess with a couple of Chads; Donna continues juggling two dudes, to both dudes' controlling dismay; and Dick gets thrown off his Horse...permanently. JOIN THE AWT CLUB

Ryan tests all our patience with a sex story; David and Donna's love quadrangle gets ever pointier; the wrangling over Kelly's engagement ring leads into unexpectedly putty-faced, badly-accented places; and Val and her mother finally clear the air about Val's father's suicide. JOIN THE AWT CLUB

David and Donna might be headed for their 500th breakup; Steve, a college senior, finally hears tell of weed; and as Tracy careens toward a gigantic Valentine's Day disappointment courtesy of Brandon, Valerie's mother comes to town to give Val PTSD. JOIN THE AWT CLUB