90210: Wow! It really sucks to be…well…pretty much everybody on this show right now (My thoughts on episode 5x18 "A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Call Girl")

It’s been a while since I’ve written any reviews for 90210, and that’s partly because I found the past several episodes rather boring, but it’s mainly because I’ve been getting a ton of traffic for my posts related to the show New Girl, so I decided to focus on that show for a while. Plus, I’ve been working on a couple more long-term and elaborate posts for other shows as well as some writing not related to my blog. Anyway, given the fact that there are only a few episodes left of the series, I’ve decided to get back to writing reviews for the show every week; that being said, here are my thoughts on this episode.

I have to say that my thoughts on this episode as well as the past several episodes have been very mixed. They’ve also caused me to once again think a lot about why I like 90210 more than Gossip Girl, but at the same time I’ve also been thinking about some things that I think both the writers and the cast of Gossip Girl did a better job of compared to the cast and crew of 90210.

One thing that I’ve almost never been able to stop doing whenever I’m watching 90210 would be that I’ve constantly found myself comparing the character Naomi to Blair Waldorf on Gossip Girl, and this would definitely be example of something that I liked more about Gossip Girl. Both Naomi and Blair are similar to each other in terms of the type of the character that they are: the “bitch” of the show, who’s rich, ambitious and is constantly seeking to elevate their social status. Don’t get me wrong, I like Naomi and I think that AnnaLynne McCord is one of the stronger actresses from the cast of 90210. However, I definitely like Blair more than Naomi, and I like Leighton Meester more than AnnaLynne when it comes to their acting.

When it comes to why I like Blair more, most of it has to do with the writing. To me, Blair has much more depth as a character than Naomi does. To me, a kiddy pool has more depth than Naomi does as a character, and I think the same can be said of the storylines that Blair had throughout Gossip Girl’s run compared to Naomi’s, which often lacked depth and just came across as a lackluster variation of quite a few of Blair’s storylines. For example, the rivalries that Naomi has had throughout 90210’s run have often felt very reminiscent of not only Blair’s storylines, but sometimes Serena’s as well, but where the storylines that revolved around Naomi dealing with a rival usually suffer is the motivation behind the rivalry, which have often been rather shallow and petty, making it hard for me to care that someone was causing problems for Naomi.

The writers for Gossip Girl on the other hand often gave enough depth and proper motivation and reasons for the viewers to get invested in storylines like that. For example, there were times where Naomi’s rivalry with Holly in season four reminded me a lot of Juliet’s vendetta against Serena throughout the first half of Gossip Girl’s fourth season, which I couldn’t help but get emotionally involved in as I was watching that storyline. Sure, I pretty much spent the whole storyline cheering Juliet on as she did everything in her power to ruin Serena’s life, mainly because I hate the character Serena, but at least the writers made me feel something. When it came to Naomi’s feud with Holly, I couldn’t have cared less about it and thought that their whole rivalry was beyond lame. 

Naomi officially went back to pursuing a career in event planning like she did last season, only this time it was mostly because she wanted to take her mind off of the fact that she and Max are now divorced. The thing that has always bothered me about Naomi wanting to be a party planner is because I just think it’s really stupid that Naomi thinks that just because she has thrown a lot big, extravagant and over-the-top parties for herself that somehow makes her an expert party planner and that everyone should let them work for her. Throughout this whole storyline, the writers have had very few moments where people give Naomi a dose of reality and basically tell her that she shouldn’t expect everything to be handed to her on a silver platter.

On Gossip Girl, there were plenty of people who gave Blair a dose of reality when she was acting rather arrogant and truly needed to be brought back down to earth when she got carried away. The writers also had plenty of moments in season four when she was working for a fashion magazine, as well as the final season where the viewers really saw Blair struggle to successfully run her mother’s company Eleanor Waldorf designs, which I found very refreshing to see that not everything is always going to come easily to Blair like it seems to with Naomi most of the time

One thing that I did really like about Naomi’s storyline in this episode is that it’s nice to see her exhibit a decent amount of maturity (decent for her anyway) when it comes to not wanting to jump into another relationship with a guy since she and Max just got divorced. However, resisting that urge appeared to be easier said than done for Naomi, since the guy that she has feelings for at the moment (Jordan) is the same guy who works for the publisher who’s publishing Annie’s book “Undressed” and he wanted her to plan a party for the launch of Annie’s book.

Naomi was determined to figure out the true of identity of Author X, which is the name Annie was publishing her book under. However, Annie was hell-bent on keeping the fact that she wrote “Undressed” a secret since she didn’t want Dixon to find out how she paid for him to go to rehab last season. Annie even went as far as telling Naomi that a housewife with kids wrote the book and wanted to keep it a secret from her family, but Naomi refused to let up. At one point in the episode Naomi came to the conclusion that a girl named Elizabeth was Author X, and after Naomi ended up making a fool of herself by calling Elizabeth a whore, she discovered that Elizabeth is Jordan’s sister. The whole incident also prompted Annie to come clean to Naomi and reveal that she is Author X, much to the shock and amazement of Naomi.

If the writers view Naomi as the Blair Waldorf of the show, I have to say that they haven’t done a very good job of making Naomi come across as a character that’s a very good attempt at emulating the writing on Gossip Girl. I really like Naomi, and I loved the character Blair, but the thing that bugs me the most is that Naomi is a lot less classy than Blair was in my opinion and she is much more prone to making a complete and total fool of herself than Blair ever was. I just can’t help but think of Naomi as a second rate Blair Waldorf.

If there’s one thing that I do like more about Naomi is that at least she has a lot more respect for herself than I think Blair ever did, especially when it comes to the men they both choose to date. Regardless, of how often Naomi does or says something impulsive, especially when men are involved, I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t let a guy treat her like Chuck treated Blair for most of the series, which was often downright abusive and despicable. If I had to guess, Naomi would most likely kick Chuck to the curb and never give him another chance really fast if they met, started dating each other and Chuck treated her the way he treated Blair, but I digress.

I have to say that I don’t really like Jordan as a character at all, but I did love Robbie Jones on One Tree Hill. Jordan is just beyond boring in my opinion, and I feel like the writers are really forcing the character on the viewers by not only having him be involved in Naomi and Annie’s storylines, they are also introducing several members of his family. In this episode, we met his sister, Elizabeth, and they are apparently going to introduce his mother in the next episode. Given the fact that there are now only four episodes left of the series, did they really need to introduce a new recurring guest-star, plus several members of his family? We’ve barely seen Jordan, so I’m pretty sure that none of the viewers care about the character enough to be interested in being introduced to several members of his family. I definitely don’t care about Jordan and almost everything about the character is a major waste of screen time, if you ask me. Okay, rant over.

A part of me has to wonder if the writers went into planning this season as if they thought it was going to be the last season of 90210, so they decided to finally address the fact that Naomi and Annie have a half-brother, as well as finally give the viewers some closure regarding the whole storyline with Jasper in season two and how the season ended with Liam beating him up after he lit his (Liam’s) boat on fire. I suppose it’s a possibility that the writers weren’t entirely planning on having this be the final season of 90210 and they were planning on doing those storylines regardless of what the chances were that 90210 would get a sixth and final season, but this season has still had a bit of a final season feel to it even when the season first began and a decision about the show’s future still hadn’t been made yet.

Regardless of what the writers’ thinking was as far as what the show’s future was when they first started planning the storylines for the season, I definitely think that 90210 will ultimately be the show that ends up having a better final season when all is said and done. Compared to the horrific snooze fest that was Gossip Girl’s final season, I’ve definitely enjoyed this season of 90210 a million times more. Although, in Gossip Girl’s defense, I did love the series finale, which really surprised me considering how low my expectations for the series finale were going into the final season.

The whole storyline with Annie starting a blog that then got turned into a book, which becomes an instant best seller not only reminds me of Gossip Girl and the whole storyline that they did in season five where Dan published a book where the characters were all rather obviously based on him and all of the other characters on the show, it has also reminded me of The L Word and how the character Jenny essentially did the same thing in the show’s fourth season, but the storyline pretty much continued into the show’s sixth and final season since they ended up making a movie based on Jenny’s book. Despite the fact that Annie’s storyline has had a major been there, done that feel to it and has made even less sense to me so far due to the fact both Dan and Jenny were aspiring writers since their respective TV series began, whereas Annie basically decided to pursue a career in writing about five episodes ago, I’ve still managed to enjoy it a decent amount.

The other thing that I’ve liked about Annie’s current storyline is the fact that Ashley Jones is playing the role of Amanda Barnard, the woman from the company that’s publishing Annie’s book. I always loved her on The Bold & The Beautiful, so it’s been really nice to see her on 90210.

If you ask me, Annie is a complete and total idiot if she really thought that she could keep people from figuring out that she was the one who wrote Undressed given the fact that she barely changed the names of the characters in her book to set them apart from the people in her life who the characters are based on. Based on what the other characters have said about the book, it sounds like the book is basically an autobiographical account of Annie’s life in season four. If Annie really wanted to publish her book and not have it be so blatantly obvious that the book was written by her, she should have tried to be more creative when she was writing it. If I had to get Annie a birthday present or a Christmas, whichever came first, I would pay for her to take a fiction writing class. At least that’s what I would do if Annie were still interested in being a writer five minutes from now, because the characters on this show very rarely stick to something for more than two or three episodes.

The thing that I find the most refreshing about this whole storyline with Annie publishing a book that becomes an instant success is unlike The L Word and Gossip Girl’s variation on this storyline, it wasn’t Annie’s intention to hurt her friends by publishing her book, while Jenny Schecter and Dan Humphrey published their books not really caring how they made their friends and family look or who they hurt. Just when things looked like Annie’s life couldn’t suck even more, Patrick showed up at the very end of the episode, saying that they needed to talk about her book. I’m guessing that Patrick is going to cause some trouble for Annie since she wrote about how he hired her as a call girl.

Seriously, Annie, what were you thinking? Annabelle? Leo? Patterson? You seriously couldn’t have fictionalized some of the details in your book just a little bit more? Silver basically figured out that Annie wrote the book after reading it for about five seconds. I guess when God was handing out the ability to be subtle and creative Annie was off getting her nails done or something. Sighs.

Liam’s storyline with him having an affair with Campbell’s step-mother, Sydney, has been a real bore, but I do like that they connected it to Navid’s storyline where he’s dealing with a cheating scandal and trying to prove that he was set up by Campbell and the other guys in the Cronos Society to take the fall for the whole thing. His class was required to retake the test, only this time under much stricter supervision.

Navid was determined to prove his innocence by convincing the guys from the Cronos Society to write the answers on the inside part of the labels on water bottles so they would be able to see the answers once they drank the water. Liam was the one who gave him the idea, and I have to say that I loved Liam’s reaction to Navid telling him that he could kiss him after he gave him the idea. That was priceless. Although, I kind of wish Liam had mentioned Teddy when Navid said that. Perhaps Liam could have said something like, “Resist the urge, Navid. I’m not Teddy.”

Anyway, even after Navid managed to have his professor find out that the guys in the Kronos Society had been trying to cheat on the test by putting the answers to the test on water bottle labels, the professor told Navid that he still wasn’t off the hook for his involvement in the whole thing. It will definitely be interesting to see how this whole storyline works out for Navid, but one thing is for sure, it really sucks to be Navid at the moment.

Liam found out that Sydney was pretty much only sleeping with him in order to get dirt on Campbell that she could use in order to get his inheritance and was devastated that she had been using him. Just when you thought things couldn’t suck even more for Liam, he figured out that Annie was the one who wrote Undressed, and he was furious with her for using his life and their relationship as material for her book, so it looks like Annie and Liam’s relationship is on the rocks given how things were at the end of the episode. I hope to god that Annie and Liam will be able to work things out by the end of the series. Based on all of the spoilers that I’ve read, it sounds like Annie and Liam are going to end up together, so I’m guessing that this is just one final bump in the road for them.

I have to say that I do feel like Liam is at least somewhat justified in being mad at Annie for using his life as material for her book, especially considering the fact that he was fresh off of finding out that Sydney had been using him. Liam definitely has radically changed as a character since he was first introduced in season one. Liam went from being major bad boy who lied to his parents about going to school when he was actually working as a bartender at a hotel, participated in drag racing and apparently had a history of doing peyote. However, once season two started the writers really watered Liam down as a character, and he basically became a guy who typically had good intentions, but unfortunately had a tendency to have trouble follow him wherever he goes and constantly get screwed over by people he thinks he can trust, so it has basically always kind of sucked to be Liam and not just at the moment like most of the other characters on the show.

One thing that 90210 still has going for it in my opinion is the fact that at least Navid is still going to college and has storylines regarding his schoolwork. This is something that Gossip Girl pretty much quickly abandoned after the show’s third season, and that always bugged me. 90210 may have numerous flaws, but at least the characters still act their age, for better or worse, while the characters on Gossip Girl pretty much always acted like they were at the very least in their twenties, even when they were still in high school for the show’s first two seasons.

The whole storyline with Dixon and Michaela was rather forgettable in my opinion. I constantly found myself getting bored watching their scenes together. Honestly, I remember next to nothing about this storyline.

I have to say that I absolutely love Mark. I can’t help but wonder if the character Mark is the writers’ way of acknowledging the ridiculousness of the writing for 90210, especially when it comes the exhaustingly schizophrenic nature of all the romantic entanglements on the show. I love how he mocked Dixon’s behavior when he came to his place in order to ask him for advice about Michaela, and I also thought the whole scene with Mark trying to seduce Adrianna was unintentionally funny.

Silver spent most of the episode freaking out about whether or not Adrianna was going to do something to hurt her now that she knows that Silver and Mark slept with each other, and she was definitely right to be worried given the fact that Adrianna switched out her bipolar medication for placebos after she found out that Silver and Navid were romantically involved in season three. Adrianna is definitely very capable of going off the rails and doing something crazy, and she kind of looked like she was going to at the end of the previous episode after Silver told her that she had broken their pact and slept with Mark.

I’m guessing that Mark only thinks with his penis most of the time since he thought that Silver should just ignore Adrianna, because he thinks that they share a connection and should be together. I don’t know why Mark wants to be with Silver so badly. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved the character Silver; it’s just that knowing Silver, she’ll probably be bouncing up and down on some other guy’s pogo stick in two episodes anyway, so why Mark is so invested in convincing Silver to be with him is beyond me.

I have to say that I kind of laughed when Adrianna said that the whole thing with her switching Silver’s medication happened so long ago that she barely remembers doing that. That pretty much sums up a lot of the writing on this show too. It constantly seems like the writers don’t remember a lot of the storylines from previous seasons, which is why I’m always shocked if they do reference something that happened a season or two ago. There have also been a few times where I’ve been surprised that they mentioned something that I had actually forgotten, but I digress.

Towards the end of the episode, Adrianna told Silver that she doesn’t want to be friends with her anymore, and I can kind of understand why. Silver isn’t always very loyal to her friends, and she has been with pretty much every guy that Annie, Naomi and Adrianna have been with throughout the show’s run, not to mention several guest-star love interests as well. Silver sure comes across like a slut sometimes. How Silver has managed to sleep with all of those guys and not get pregnant by one of them is beyond me.

All things considered, my feelings regarding this episode are definitely mixed, mainly because there were several things that I didn’t really like all that much about this episode, namely Naomi’s storyline, the whole Dixon and Michaela storyline, as well as the fact that the writers are blatantly trying to force the character Jordan on the viewers. However, there are definitely a decent amount of things that I also liked about it, such as Annie’s storyline despite how stupid and random it has been at times. The whole Silver, Mark and Adrianna storyline has also been pretty interesting, regardless of how slutty it makes Silver look, and I also enjoyed Liam and Navid’s storylines, especially given the fact that the two storylines have been connected to each other. Regardless of how the producers chose to approach planning the storylines for this season, unless the rest of the episodes for the series are beyond pure and utter crap, I truly believe that 90210 will ultimately end up having a much better final season than Gossip Girl did.

That being said, I give this episode a rating of a B.