90210 – Recap & Review – Environmental Hazards

photo: cw

90210
Environmental Hazards

Original Air Date: Oct 6, 2009

Meg – Reviewer
meg@thetwocentscorp.com

Tonight in everyone’s favorite zip code, things take a more serious turn as Silver learns her estranged mother has cancer. Meanwhile, Sasha gets statutory with Dixon, Adrianna flip flops between Teddy and Navid, and Naomi wears sweatpants (the horror!).

Silver & Jackie
One of my favorite characters from the original series, Jackie Taylor (mother of Silver and Kelly) returns tonight, although not under the best of circumstances. When Silver accompanies Adrianna to her AA meeting to celebrate six months of sobriety, she runs into Jackie (looking impossibly fabulous, by the way) and bolts. Ade later tells Silver that Jackie has been sober for 30 days, has honestly changed, and wants to see her daughter.

When Silver shows up at the next AA meeting, Jackie beams. She addresses the group and tells them how she was a terrible mother and how much she regrets hurting her daughters. She also says that she is grateful Silver is giving her another chance and that she won’t let her down. I expect a tearful mother-daughter hug, but Silver surprises me by telling her mother she doesn’t believe her and that Jackie will slip up as soon as she has a bad day (hey Silver – probably not the best thing to yell out at a crowded AA meeting…). Silver says to stay away from her and that her mother is dead to her. Jackie crumbles.

Later, Adrianna shows up to tell Silver that Jackie called her for advice. Silver is skeptical until Ade reveals that Jackie is dying of cancer.

Adrianna & Navid (& Teddy…)
Navid is ecstatic to have finally cashed in his V card and because he’s classy—it takes him all of two seconds before he’s soliciting congratulatory high-fives and bragging about it to everyone and their grandma (whatever happened to not kissing and telling?!). Teddy is predictably distressed and exercises exceptionally poor judgment by suggesting a double date between Navid, Adrianna, himself and Random Pretty Girl (we’ll call her “RPG”).

The date goes horribly awry when the two couples engage in a PDA-off, with outlandish slobbering and touching that makes me feel really bad for their waitress. Later, Ade and Teddy yell at each other for trying to make each other jealous. Adrianna tells him to go kiss whoever he wants to and Teddy leans in and kisses her (in his defense, she should have been more specific with that instruction).

Silver confronts Ade about kissing Teddy, when Adrianna claims that sobering up has made her mature and stop lying and manipulating. Hmmm… point to Silver. Ade says she’s just going to pretend it never happened (very mature) and storms out in a huff.

Dixon & Sasha
Sasha dons her detective cap and tracks Debbie down at her manicurist. Debbie is not at all creeped out by a random woman interrogating her about her family life (I forget she’s from the Midwest. They’re friendly like that) and shows Sasha pictures of her kids. Sasha (finally!) puts two and two together and realizes Dixon is a lying liar who lies.

Sasha rightly tells Dixon to get lost. Instead of apologizing, his first question is “How did you find out?” Not smooth, Dix. Not smooth.

Dix mopes around like a dejected seal pup while Navid and Liam play good angel and bad angel (well, it’s more like good angel and stupid angel, but I digress) with their advice. Dix decides to follow Liam’s lead and give it another chance. He shows up on Sasha’s doorstep with a conciliatory box of pizza. Dix tells her that while he lied about his age, everything else was the truth (except for, you know, when he lied about his car, job, involvement with porn business, etc…). She tells him to get lost and slams the door in his face. Personally, I would have at least taken the pizza.

Later, when they both end up at the same club, Sasha inexplicably grabs Dixon and starts hooking up with him. I’m confused.

Naomi
Naomi, who never once in the previous 29 episodes of this show has mentioned college aspirations, is freaking out because her college counselor tells her she doesn’t have the grades to get into California University (CU – “it’s just like east coast campuses, except the weather is good and the people are good-looking!”).

Defeated, Naomi dons (gasp!) sweatpants and tells her friends that she is hopeless and might as well dress like the fast food worker she is sure to become. Silver and Adrianna get over their spat in the interests of helping their friend. They take Naomi to CU’s campus to inspire her to fight for her dream. It takes a hot guy throwing a football at her (subtle, buddy) for her to snap out if it. Back on track, she devises a scheme to cozy up to the Dean of Admissions’ son, who is an SAT tutor and a raging environmentalist. At their first lesson, Naomi plays the part of the earthy crunchy granola girl and puts her plan into action. The Dean’s son, Richard, claims he’s surrounded by materialists (Really—you can’t find any pro-environment activists at a California liberal arts college? Really?). She invites him out later, and ends the evening in a gag-inducing smooch.

Wow. 90210 is definitely upping their game with a serious storyline– although I hate that this comes at the cost of Jackie Taylor – can’t she stick around? Those are my two cents – what are your thoughts? Leave some comments and let me know!