It’s been a while since I’ve written thoughts posts for 90210, so I’m going to try and get caught up doing thoughts posts for 90210 before the fourth season starts. Anyway, onto my thoughts on this episode.
All things considered, I really loved this episode for the most part. I love Gossip Girl, but I definitely love 90210 more because none of the characters on the show annoy me or upset me nearly as much as Serena does on Gossip Girl. Serena always brings down my level of enjoyment of an episode of Gossip Girl a little bit. Luckily, none of the characters on 90210 really do that to me, but I digress.
The main highlight of this episode for me was definitely Naomi and her storyline. I thought her happy dance that she did when the lawyer told Jen that he couldn’t change the age that Naomi got her trust fund to twenty-five like Jen wanted and that Naomi was still getting her trust fund now that she’s eighteen was beyond hilarious. It was even funnier when Naomi got on the table and laid on it while she repeatedly kicked her legs into the air.
I’m so glad that the producers decided to shift the focus of the show from Annie and Dixon to Naomi starting with season two. That was definitely the right move on the writers’ part. Don’t get me wrong, I like Dixon and I absolutely love Annie in season 3, I just think that Naomi is a better character to center the show around. Personally, I think Dixon is the least interesting character on the show. I never hated Annie, but in season one I did think she was too peppy and giggly, and just too much of Mary-Sue type of character. I really like the direction that the writers took Annie in throughout season two and made her a bit darker and seeing how that’s carried over into season three.
I thought it was classic Naomi to throw a big party to celebrate her eighteenth birthday party and the fact that she had just gotten her trust fund. I thought the fact that she had water bottles with a picture of her face on the label made and “Naomi” tattoos, both permanent and temporary was just a riot. Naomi also had so many funny lines in this episode I can’t even count. :)
I also like that the writers continued to show the effect that Mr. Cannon raping Naomi had on her. The scene where Naomi almost ran Mr. Cannon over with her car was very intense, and I thought that AnnaLynne McCord did a great job in that scene. I also think she’s doing a great job portraying the whole rape storyline. I felt sorry for Naomi when she tried to warn Silver about Mr. Cannon since Silver was working with him on a school project and she didn’t believe Naomi. I know Naomi kind of brought that on herself by lying about Mr. Cannon raping her, but I still felt sorry for her. I guess Naomi never heard the story the boy who cried wolf.
I really like the character Oscar, and as I go back and watch season three again, I hate that the writers basically had the character Oscar go away with no explanation as to why he wasn’t around later in the season since he said that he would be spending the year in Beverly Hills. I loved the scenes with all of the guys on the show when they were out drinking. Although, I do think it was pretty stupid of Dixon to do a body shot off a girl’s chest in a bar. It was pretty obvious that Ivy was going to find out about that somehow, so I wasn’t the least bit surprised when she ended up seeing a video of the whole thing on YouTube. However, I did think that it was a really cool twist that those girls ended up being some girls that Oscar had paid to set Dixon up and put the video online to drive Dixon and Ivy apart.
That’s definitely one of my main complaints that I have about 90210. I hate the fact that they have characters suddenly disappear with no explanation as to where they went or why we don’t see them anymore. To me, Oscar added an interesting element to season three of 90210 like the character Juliet Sharp did with season four of Gossip Girl. I think that Blair Redford did a great job of playing the role of Oscar. It was pretty sleazy of Oscar to sleep with Laurel though, but I guess it takes two to tango, so I can’t place all of the blame on Oscar for him sleeping with Laurel. I still love the character though.
If there’s one character that annoyed me in this episode, it was definitely Adrianna. I think it’s pretty despicable of her to try and pass of Javier’s songs as his own just to try and keep Laurel’s record label interested in her. Even before watching the rest of season three, I could have said that doing that wouldn’t end well for Adrianna. I think if Adrianna were a truly talented singer, the buzz that surrounded her in the industry would last for more than just a few months. Perhaps Adrianna isn’t really a truly talented singer after all. All that being said, at least I can say that Adrianna has never annoyed me nearly as much as Serena has over the years on Gossip Girl.
One other minor complaint that I have about this episode is Silver’s reaction to the fact that Teddy had been drinking alcohol as a way of coping with his tennis career ending. In the season premiere, she didn’t make nearly as big of a deal about it; she simply told him that he might want to slow down on his drinking. Now all of the sudden she’s absolutely pissed off with Teddy because he’s drinking since it reminds her of her mother and all of the bad memories she has of her mom’s own drinking problem. Perhaps it was the fact that she had caught Teddy and Naomi kissing in the season premiere, but in Teddy’s defense, Naomi was drunk at the time and she initiated the kiss even though he told her to stop fooling around. At least Silver didn’t direct all of her anger at Teddy, and she was mad at Naomi too. That would have been really unfair to Teddy if she had done that. Naomi was definitely mostly to blame, if not entirely to blame for the fact that she and Teddy kissed.
I also found the whole subplot with Ryan and Jen very interesting. I thought it was wrong of Jen to not want to acknowledge Ryan as being the father of her baby simply because he’s a public school teacher. I’ve always liked the character Jen for the most part for a lot the same reasons why I like Naomi. They both have a lot of funny lines whenever they are in an episode. I have to say that I felt pretty bad for all of the people who Jen had hired to be her personal assistant. I don’t blame them for all quitting and therefore leading Jen to basically be blacklisted amongst the people looking for jobs as someone’s personal assistant. At least it forced Jen to acknowledge Ryan as the father of her baby and accept his help when her doctor put her on bed rest for the rest of her pregnancy.
The biggest highlight of the episode for me was definitely the whole storyline with Annie and Liam. They are definitely one of my favorite pairings on 90210. I was never a very big fan of the Naomi and Liam pairing. I just don’t think their relationship had a lot of substance to it. Naomi was always too wrapped up in herself and her own problems to care about Liam when he was going through a difficult time with his dad last season. They also didn’t seem to have a lot in common with each other. When it comes to Annie and Liam being a couple however, they definitely seem to care about each other. Annie actually cares about Liam when he’s going through a hard time, and Liam is willing to do things with Annie even if they aren’t things he’s usually interested in.
I just wish they hadn’t brought Charlie in so quickly to cause problems for Annie and Liam. After all, Annie and Liam were just kind of starting to get together at the end of season three and this is only the second episode of the third season. I think they should have let Annie and Liam be relatively happy for several more episodes before they brought Charlie in. I do think it was a good twist making Charlie Liam’s half-brother. I didn’t see that coming at all when I watched the episode the first time it aired.
I do think it was pretty irresponsible of Liam to lie to Annie and say that he was taking care of someone’s boat while they were out of town when he was actually living on someone’s boat without their knowledge of it or permission. After all, he knows she’s on probation until she’s twenty-five, and if they had both been arrested for trespassing on that boat she would have gotten into a lot of trouble. All that being said, I do like that the writers revisited Liam’s bad boy side that was heavily emphasized when he was first introduced at the end of season one by having Liam lie about living on the boat. I felt like they kind of just dropped that in season two, which made Liam somewhat boring last season. I also thought that Liam and Naomi were a pretty boring couple in season two since their relationship was based mostly on sex. To make yet another reference and comparison to Gossip Girl, I would say that Liam and Naomi were like a non-abusive and less unhealthy version of the Chuck and Blair relationship, whereas Annie and Liam are more like Dan and Blair are when they are interacting with each other.
Given all of the tension between Annie and Naomi that was created in season one when Annie started dating Ethan, I’m glad that Annie and Liam asked Naomi for her blessing since they are a couple now.
I have to say that Mr. Cannon is a very creepy guy, but Hal Ozsan plays the role very well. The scene where Mr. Cannon keeps rewinding his practice interview with Silver as he’s watching it at the end of the episode creeps the hell out of me just thinking about it.
All that being said, I absolutely loved this episode for the most part, so I give a rating of an A+.
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