90210 – Recap & Review – It’s Getting Hot in Here

photo: the cw

90210
It’s Getting Hot in Here

Original Air Date: Jan 31, 2010

Meg – Staff Writer
meg@thetwocentscorp.com

It’s getting hot in West Bev—literally. This week, the girls take a vacation from the drama by going to a yoga retreat. Of course, this means they end up in their skivvies in a sweat lodge both discussing their drama and creating more…

Meanwhile, Annie and Liam learn a valuable lesson—if you cheat on someone with their brother, everything will work out great! I’m not sure I agree with the logic on that one.

Adrianna
Ade is miserable – she’s all over the tabloids, with the paparazzi camped outside her home. She cries over Ashton Kutcher no longer following her on Twitter and calls herself a national joke. Adrianna’s mother, ever the positive influence, advises Ade to pull a “Lindsay Lohan” and sell her story to get money to cover her debts.

Adrianna seems to be wearing less raccoon makeup, so maybe poverty isn’t such a bad thing after all. However, at the end of the episode, Adrianna remembers that she gave her baby up for adoption last year and calls a tabloid editor to tell him that she’s fighting to get her child back and wants to sell her story.

Liam, Charlie, and Annie
Despite having taken every opportunity in the past to beat the pulp out of Charlie, Liam is really embracing this whole fraternal reconciliation thing. He and Charlie play ping-pong and talk about girls. Unfortunately, this ends means that they end up talking about how Annie totally just dumped Charlie. Liam tries to pretend he didn’t just sleep with Annie. Charlie seems a little suspicious. Or maybe that’s just his face. Now that his relationship with Annie is over, Charlie tells Liam that he thinks he’s going to go study in Paris for a semester. Later, Charlie sees a message on Liam’s phone from Annie that says something like “Why can’t we be together?!” He resolves the situation by setting the two of them up to get back together and ditching town for Paris. Wow, Annie and Liam are lucky that he’s such a good sport.

The Sweat Lodge
Silver and Navid have been sneaking around together, but Silver is going a bit crazy with the guilt of betraying Adrianna. She decides to get the heck out of dodge and go to the “Shining Tree” yoga retreat. As an aside, I’ll say that in my notes for this episode, I accidentally wrote down “Shining Path” – let’s just say if they’d gone off to join the Shining Path, this episode would have been entirely different…

Annie’s mom makes her invite her cousin, Emily—who is now dressing like Annie and has died her hair brown (I totally called the Single White Female angle –Liam better watch out for stilettos).

The retreat is directed by Guru Sona, played by Claudia Black (love her!). Emily is in full on manipulation mode, crying to Annie that “I can’t fit in—I’m not as cool as you.” Annie talks about how she felt like an outsider when she moved to West Bev and that she used to think 90210-ers were mean and superficial. You can practically see Emily filing that nugget of information away for later use.

The gals get ready to do a sweat lodge. Naomi complains that she would prefer a light perspiration lodge instead. Have any of you guys ever done a sweat lodge? I did one years ago and it was freaking amazing. I highly recommend it!

The retreat is uber earthy-crunchy. When Guru Sona instructs the gang in a prayer of gratitude, Adrianna is a total snot, “why should I be grateful? I’ve lost everything I worked for all my life—it’s so unfair.” To my delight, Naomi and Silver clarify that Adrianna’s more upset that she got caught and that she did, you know, steal from a dead man. Ade is horrified, yells at them for being jealous of her, and runs away to cry (and/or reapply her mascara).

The girls throw animal skins on the sweat lodge to trap in the heat. While Naomi is a little grossed out, Emily is right at home, explaining that she used to hunt with her family in Kansas and that “we gutted our own kills.” Hmmm… will you be attempting to do this with Annie?

In the sweat lodge, Sona calls on the girls to talk about their pain. Annie is missing because her pain (aka Emily) let her sleep through the alarm. Ade talks about how she lied and stole because she wanted to feel important. She talks about giving up her baby and how if she isn’t a big star, then she gave her up for nothing. Despite bitching her out three minutes ago, her friends rally around her.

Meanwhile, Adrianna’s mom needs Ade’s signature on some financial papers (from the Plot Device Bank?). Navid drives the papers to the yoga retreat, where he runs into Silver, who is taking a breather from the lodge. Silver jumps Navid and they scurry into a nearby tent for some sexy alone time.

Back in the lodge, Naomi talks about surviving her rape. She tells Sona that she’s come into a lot of money and wants to use it to help others. Sona is all, “oh really? Did I mention that you should give it all to me to help you find spiritual fulfillment?”

Emily tells the girls that she’s so honored to be friends with them and that they aren’t terrible or shallow like Annie said. Unfortunately, Annie does nothing to endear herself to the gang by later showing up and yelling at Emily for letting her miss the sweat lodge. The other girls defend Emily and start giving Annie the cold shoulder.

As they get ready to leave, Naomi decides to stay another week. Oh dear… beware the yoga cult, Naomi!

Debbie and Ryan
Debbie is still playing hot for teacher. Convinced the kids are going to be out of the house, Debbie invites Ryan over for a romantic dinner. Unfortunately, Dixon pops home and thinks all the good cooking is for him. Debbie doesn’t want her kids to know that she’s seeing Ryan, so she stuffs him in the pantry while she has dinner with Dixon. I feel bad for him, but clearly being with Evil Jen lowered his standards, because he wants to continue dating Debbie.

This was a fun episode – although I worry that Emily is becoming a little cartoony. What did you think? Leave some comments and let me know your two cents.