90210 S2E8: Wild Fire

Brandon and Dylan both make a date with the same girl – wild new student Emily Valentine – and Brenda’s jealousy prompts her to rethink her feelings for Dylan.

We open on Brandon having a fantasy in which he is relaxing on the beach with three girls in swimsuits fawning over him. One of them is giving him a pedicure, and is filing his toenails. Nice fantasy, Brandon.

Anyway, it’s the first day of school. I guess they are seniors now. There is a cute montage of everyone getting dressed and hating what they see in the mirror. At school, Dylan meets new student Emily Valentine when she roars up on her motorcycle. Torn jeans, leather jacket, skeleton earrings, short and spiky blonde hair, guitar slung on her back. If that’s not wild, I don’t know what is.

Dylan asks her out. Minutes later, she meets Brandon, who also asks her out. She goes out with both boys, making no attempt to hide that fact, and they are both cool with it. When Brandon discovers he really likes her, Dylan backs off.

Meanwhile, Emily becomes friends with the girls until they learn that she went on a date with Dylan. Brenda proceeds to completely ostracize Emily from the group, and the girls talk about what a slut she is. Excuse me, but isn’t Kelly calling anyone a slut like the pot calling the kettle black? In a truly fantastic moment, Brenda uses her bitchiest voice to tell Emily to “have fun at the gynecologist.”

Emily is hurt, of course, and when Brenda finally gets around to apologizing, Emily admits she’s a virgin. In one of the Season 2 special features (yes, I watched them first), Christine Elise says her best scenes were with Brenda because she felt strong-armed by Shannen Doherty in real life. Those tears? Those are real.

In the end, Brenda realizes she’s not willing to lose Dylan, and they get back together.

In other news, Scott returns from Oklahoma a cowboy-hat-wearing, country-music-listening dude, and David realizes that they are growing apart.