90210: Season 1 Liam is back, and he’s banging his professor! (My thoughts on episode 5x05 “Hate 2 Love”)

Let me begin by saying that I absolutely loved this episode. It’s definitely the best episode yet of season five in my personal opinion. Although, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying season five leading up to this episode too, and this episode of 90210 alone is 10X more exciting than the first five episodes of the final season of Gossip Girl combined, at least that’s the case for me. The final season of Gossip Girl has been a major letdown so far in my opinion. Gossip Girl’s final season has been so boring so far that I think watching paint dry for an hour every week for ten weeks would be more exciting. Thankfully, my enjoyment of 90210’s fifth season has more than made up for my virtually nonexistent level of enjoyment of Gossip Girl this season, but I digress.

When it comes to what I liked the most about this episode, that would definitely be Liam, because the way he acted in this episode, especially in his scenes with Lindsey really reminded me of the way Liam acted back in season one when they first introduced the character. Apparently, Liam dropped out of Lindsey’s class so he could keep her on retainer as his lawyer. I have to say that I’m kind of disappointed that Liam dropped out of Lindsey’s class, because I liked the idea of Liam going to college. I know he was only taking one class, but given the fact that they are all supposed to be college age, it would be nice to see them deal with life in college at least a little bit.

Despite my disappointment over Liam dropping out of Lindsey’s class, I really did love Liam’s storyline because the way he acted in this episode really did remind me of the way he acted back in season one. I really do love 90210 despite all of its flaws, and one of those flaws is that I feel like a lot of the characters’ personalities have radically changed throughout the show’s run, especially as they’ve changed showrunners. Liam is definitely one of the characters whose personality has changed radically since he was first introduced in season one. In season one, Liam was introduced as a guy who was secretly working at a bartender at the hotel where Naomi was living at the time and was forced by his mother to enroll at the high school once she found out about his job as a bartender. We soon discovered that he was involved in street racing and that he had done peyote before. He also spent most of his time on the show during season one egging Annie on, saying that he didn’t think she was as good a person as she let on. Starting with season two, Liam really mellowed out in terms of his bad boy ways, and he basically became a good, usually well meaning guy who is frequently getting screwed over by people he thinks he can trust.

The writing for 90210 really is constantly all over the place, so you never know where the storylines and the characters are going to go next. Sometimes that can be a good thing, because it can keep the show exciting and sometimes it can be a bad thing and can lead to some really ridiculous storylines. With that said, I don’t know why but it’s like the writers suddenly up and decided for this episode at least to have Liam go back to acting a lot like he did in season one, which is apparently Liam’s idea of steamrolling people. This would be one time where I enjoyed the randomness of the writing for 90210. I’ve always loved the character Liam, but if you ask me season one is when the character was at his best and was the most interesting. It would be nice to see Liam continue to act the way he did in this episode (witty, sarcastic, rebellious and not afraid to be a bit on the manipulative side) for the rest of the show’s run, because it was a lot of fun to watch, but since this is 90210, I’m not going to hold my breath.

The main difference between the actual season one Liam and Liam acting very reminiscent of the way he acted in season one in this episode is that he showed a lot more maturity in this episode than he did in season one. It was great to see Liam realize that it would probably be a good idea for him and Navid to have a formal business agreement in writing now that they running The Offshore together. Plus, I feel like Liam also showed maturity when he told Silver that he didn’t like the idea of acting like a human bulldozer and he didn’t start acting that way until after Silver suggested that he change how he handles certain situations every once and a while.

As much as I want to see Liam and Annie get back together and stay together, I have to admit that I love the dynamic between Liam and Lindsey and how he wasn’t afraid to call her out on her behavior towards him. Toward the end of the episode Liam and Lindsey ended up having sex with each other in the storage room of The Offshore after she told him that she saw his movie Corporate Invaders with an ex-boyfriend. Navid soon found out about it when he found some guys filming it on their phones, and he didn’t look happy about it. My guess is that he’ll probably accuse Liam of sleeping with Lindsey to get the upper hand in their business arrangement. Besides, Lindsey told Liam that nobody could find out that they had sex with each other since her superiors at CU would probably be against her having a romantic relationship with a former student, and her law firm wouldn’t be happy about it since Liam is their client. I’m definitely excited to see where that goes.

The writing for Navid has also been very random so far this season, and I’m still trying to make sense of Navid’s behavior this season, because I seriously don’t know what has gotten into him. It’s like all of the sudden he sick of being a good and nice guy, and now he’s trying to act like he’s a major player. He’s also been kind of an ass this season, especially when it comes to Dixon in the past two episodes and how he didn’t want to hire Dixon to be the D.J. at his event since Dixon is in a leg brace. I’m glad that Liam stood up for Dixon and told Navid that it was still his bar and that he also has a say when it comes to decisions that need to be made for the place. Navid refusing to hire Dixon as his D.J. because he’s in a leg brace is basically illegal since it’s illegal to discriminate against someone for having a disability during the hiring process or after they’ve been hired, but Navid didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with his actions. Navid made it clear in this episode that he was hoping to impress Silver with his work on the Pop Up club at The Offshore. One thing is for sure though; I’m not liking Navid at all this season.

Speaking of the writing for the show being very random at times, Silver is apparently working at a burlesque club now, or she’s at least being mentored by one of the other women at the club who’s being played by Carmen Electra. I’m not sure how Silver dabbling in the world of stripping all fits in with her plans to have a baby and her BRCA gene storyline, but for now we simply know that she doesn’t want the others to know about what she’s doing. I’m still not quite sure I understand why Silver wants to dabble in the world of burlesque clubs, but if I had to guess, I think she simply wants to feel uninhibited and empowered by performing at a burlesque club. It will be interesting to see how everyone reacts to Silver doing this once they find out about what she’s doing though, especially Liam since it looks like he’s the one that she’s trying to impress by working at a burlesque club. I’m not sure why he’s the guy Silver is hoping to impress since they’ve never even really dated, but like I said the writing for this show tends to be rather random.

One character with a storyline that’s actually been fairly well written, as well as interesting this season in my opinion would be Annie’s. Annie is still dating Collin in this episode, but the writers threw out some major hints that Annie and Riley (Dixon’s physical therapist) will be hooking up down the road. Riley crashed Annie’s date with Collin saying that he was supposed to meet Dixon and he quickly started butting heads with Collin, which upset Annie because she thinks he’s such a nice guy. Honestly, Annie dating Collin bores me, but I’m really enjoying Annie’s interactions with Riley, because I think Shenae Grimes and Riley Smith have really good chemistry together.

That being said, I thought the whole conversation between Annie and Riley about what it’s like for him to have sex given the fact that he’s in a wheelchair was both awkward and funny. It was especially funny in my opinion when it came to Annie talking to Adrianna what Riley had told her since Adrianna was actually the one who wanted to know about whether or not Dixon would be able to have sex with her or anyone for that matter given his injuries. Usually it seems like the writers just throw two characters and instantly have them become a couple with little to no buildup to it, but it looks like the writers are trying to create a certain level of buildup and development to Annie and Riley getting together, if that’s where they are indeed headed, and I like that. Although, it’s entirely possible that things won’t go anywhere between Annie and Riley too; you never know what to expect with these writers.

One thing that I feel like the writers did a really good job of in this episode is the way they tied pretty much all the storylines in this episode together for the most part in some way. First off, Silver was the one who initially told Liam that he shouldn’t be afraid to deviate from his usual way of handling problems and that he shouldn’t be afraid to act like a “human bulldozer” as Liam put it, and that’s what prompted him to put Lindsey’s law firm on retainer for the bar with Lindsey being the person he works closest with, as well as his change in attitude. As I mentioned earlier, Silver was apparently the girl that Navid was hoping to impress with his party at The Pop Up while Liam is apparently the guy Silver is hoping to get the attention of by working at burlesque club. The writers also did a pretty good job of tying Annie, Adrianna and Naomi’s storylines together in this episode in my opinion as well. Although, Annie and Adrianna’s storylines were tied together so tightly that Adrianna’s storyline was basically a part of Annie’s.

Adrianna’s storyline with her trying to make her relationship with Dixon work was also pretty interesting, in my opinion. Although, in a lot of ways the problems between Adrianna and Dixon really felt like it wasn’t its own storyline in my opinion, but rather simply a part of Annie’s storyline with Collin and Riley given the conversation between Annie and Riley about his sex life like I mentioned earlier. The only time it felt like its own separate storyline was at the end of the episode when Adrianna came to the conclusion that the problems that they were currently having weren’t because Dixon’s injury, they were the same problems that they had been having before the accident, which led her to once again sleep with Taylor (The guy Adrianna slept with at the beginning of the season as well as the guy that Navid is working with for his Pop Up club).

I have to say the way the writers handle writing relationships on this show is just bizarre. The writers basically just throw two characters together and have them instantly become a couple with little to no development. Plus, the characters on the show act like as soon as they start having problems with each other that last for more than five minutes that they should just sleep with some other guy or girl before they even break up with the person that they’re dating. As much as it annoys me to see how poorly the writers for 90210 handle the development of new relationships of couples or couples getting back together, I still prefer how the writers for 90210 handle writing relationships to how the writers for Gossip Girl handle relationships. I just feel like the characters on 90210 are more mature than the characters on Gossip Girls, but that’s not saying much.

If there’s one thing about this episode that I wasn’t crazy about, it would be Naomi’s storyline with her trying to prove that Alec is out to sabotage her marriage to Max despite Naomi and Alec both promising Max that they would try to get along with each other. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t dislike Naomi’s storyline, I simply didn’t love it. Although, I will say that I loved the reveal about Collin at the end of the episode. Collin helped Naomi gain access to Alec’s email account after Naomi discovered that Alec was using the GPS on her phone to track her and Annie had told her that Collin is apparently a genius with technology. Once Naomi had access to Alec’s email account she discovered that he had been emailing Max’s ex-fiancée, Madison, back when she and Max were engaged and had been pressuring Madison to hire Naomi to be their wedding planner.

Naomi confronted Madison about Alec pressuring her to hire her (Naomi), and at first Madison didn’t want to have anything to do with Naomi, which is understandable if you ask me since Max called off their wedding because he realized that he was still in love with Naomi. Despite their history, she agreed to help Naomi and tell Max what Alec did since she apparently isn’t very fond of him either. Naomi brought Madison to Navid’s Pop Up club at The Offshore where the two of them seemed to be having a lot of fun together, but Alec continued to insist that he hadn’t done anything to sabotage Max’s relationship with Madison. Madison really let loose and got drunk. At first Madison seemed to me like she was a good wholesome girl who would never even get drunk, but damn, I was wrong about that. Unfortunately, Naomi’s plan failed when Madison, who was drunk at the time, accidentally got hurt and had to go to the hospital. I have to say I’m finding Alec’s behavior very bizarre. I don’t know if he was interfering with Max and Madison’s relationship because he liked Madison and wanted to be with her, or if Alec did that because he’s secretly gay and in love with Max. Regardless of why Alec is doing the things that he’s doing, I find him very annoying, and I hope that he won’t be around too much longer. Although, in Alec’s defense there have been a lot more annoying characters than him on the show.

As for the reveal at the end of the episode, toward the end of the episode Max and Alec discovered that their company’s secure server had been hacked by someone, which could potentially destroy their business. At the very end of the episode, it was revealed to the viewers that Collin was the guy that had hacked into the server, and that he had hacked into the server when he made it so Naomi could access Alec’s email account. Maybe I was just being stupid as I watching the episode the first time, but I didn’t see that coming. I guess Collin isn’t such a good guy after all like Annie thinks. It’s definitely going to be interesting to see what happens when Annie and everyone else finds out that Collin was the one who hacked into the main secure computer server at Max and Alec’s company.

All things considered, this really was a great episode, and it’s definitely the best episode of season five so far in my personal opinion. Liam was the true standout character in this episode for me personally, and it really was great to see him acting very reminiscent of the way he acted when he was first introduced in season one. It would be great if he continued to act like he did in this episode for the rest of 90210’s run, but given the writers’ track record of not being very consistent, I’m not holding my breath. The scenes between Annie and Riley were also very enjoyable, but it remains to be seen if the writers will really go anywhere with that at this point. Naomi’s storyline was good, but not great. Personally, I would prefer to have the whole storyline with Alec creating trouble for Naomi and Max’s marriage be wrapped up sooner rather than later. Adrianna’s behavior in this episode, especially at the end of the episode was just plain idiotic, but that’s par for the course with 90210 at this point. Despite my frustrations with the show at this point, I’m still thoroughly enjoying season five of 90210, especially when you compare to my virtually nonexistent enjoyment of the snooze fest that is Gossip Girl’s final season, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

That being said, I give this episode a rating of an A-.