You may thing that "Beheading St. Valentine" will save you from any further angst in your relationship. Not in the zip! All the established couples start out cozy with a brunch at the Walsh house at which the reunited Durnings are holding forth about their marriage -- until Kelly shows up with a sleeping bag for Steve and makes everyone feel aw ...…

Steve's latest brilliant idea for the Beverly Beat is less about attracting readers and more about attracting gawkers, with "attracting" being the operative word: he wants to copy British tabloids by having cheesecake photos on Page 3 -- though at least he's not prepared for the Beat's models to be topless; bikinis will be just fine! To prepare ...…

A scandalous round of strip poker touches off a prank war among three of the gang's least clever members: Noah, Steve, and Donna. (David also gets swept up in it, briefly, but only incidentally; mainly, he's occupied chasing after a D-girl Peach Pit patron who may be trying to blow him off.) When the battle takes down a health inspector, Donna ...…

Having -- through sheer luck -- not killed Donna, Dylan decides he is ready to accept his friends' help in getting help for his heroin addiction. Unfortunately, he's not actually on Intervention and has to spend a night waiting for his bed in a treatment facility to be ready, which gives him just enough time to wake up in the middle of the nigh ...…

Dylan's junkie logic leads him to decide his roommate's order that he get his illegally purchased gun out of the home they share just means he can wait until dark, put it in his pants, drive it over to the Marchette manse, and threaten its occupant. Unfortunately, Tony doesn't live there anymore -- nor, spoiler, does he live anywhere -- and the ...…

We may not have previously understood how committed Gina is to the project of messing with Donna until this episode, in which she reinvents herself as a personal trainer and starts working out with...Felice. She easily parlays their new intimacy into an invitation to a George luncheon hosted by a not-yet-dead (but still completely offscreen) Jo ...…

The approaching yuletide holidays haven't given Dylan any more concern for either her busy schedule as the co-proprietress of a retail clothing store, nor for her relationship with a dude who isn't him. So with that in mind, of course he has no compunction about getting her on a private plane and flying her to Mexico for huevos rancheros, authe ...…

Kelly spent all of "I'm Back Because" -- well, all except when she was making eyes at Dylan -- getting between her mother and her grandfather, to make sure her grandfather's legally documented wishes with regard to the end of his life were being followed. So naturally, in this episode, all Jackie has to do is call and ask Kelly to put her faili ...…

Since Gina doesn't have a job -- or an agent, even, despite what she's told Donna -- she's got nothing but time to devote to the new project she's pursuing post-Cabaret On Ice: Donna And Noah On The Rocks. When she's alone with Donna, she diligently shit-talks Noah (not that hard, given his many failings) to try to change Donna's mind about mak ...…

With Noah continuing his downward spiral of regret and self-recrimination following his father's suicide, it turns out not to have been a great idea for him to buy a bar: he's drinking a lot, and driving drunk, and maybe hitting someone? Donna's distracted from her usual fussing by the arrival of her cousin Gina -- former Olympic figure skater, ...…

It's time for Leah to have her day in court, and a custody settlement allowing Lenny basically unfettered access to their baby -- and, therefore, to Leah herself -- is obviously not the result she had hoped for. Enter Kelly, who's ready and willing to help Leah get out of the county on an assumed identity. Unfortunately for Leah, Kelly has no i ...…

Sophie's multifarious strategy to take over the entertainment industry leads her to consider working in adult films, despite all the great advice David's giving her about being patient and waiting her turn and paying her dues -- you know, like he did, which is why he's currently having such a successful career scoring movies LOL. Noah continues ...…

We kind of respected Sophie for having some skill as a con artist, but she really loses a lot of her prestige with her latest scheme: getting Steve to let her write for the Beat. Over Janet's objections (which: that'll teach her not to require that Brandon designate her editor when he's out of town/on his way out the show's door), Steve not onl ...…

Noah's father having killed himself, a significant portion of the episode is focused on Noah's grief. This is bad news for Vincent Young, who can't act, and worse news for us, who have to watch him as he gets morbidly obsessed with his late father's weapon, drinks to excess, and pushes away the help of the only person who cares about him. (The ...…

What's worse than surviving childhood sexual abuse from a parent who goes on to kill himself? When the primetime soap you're on is running out of ideas in its ninth season and makes you keep reliving it over and over and over again. Now, Val wants to tell Abby about the last days of Mr. Malone's life, but her attempts to get Abby alone for this ...…

Brandon and Kelly mutually and amicably agreed to leave one another at the altar, and you know what that means. ...Oh, you do? Please tell them, because they're not sure. Kelly decides to invest a round of ex sex with meaning: she forgets all the reasons she and Brandon broke up, gets maudlin and regretful, and suggests to Brandon that they go ...…

It's the week of Brandon and Kelly's wedding, and preparations are underway: Steve is getting excited for Sarah to meet all his friends at the reception, but she might not be ready to keep seeing him because some other friend of hers is breaking up with her boyfriend and splitting up all their books and furniture seems like a big hassle, or som ...…

Since Kelly and Brandon have decided they really are definitely going through with their engagement and will absolutely get married, for sure, they've divided up the list of tasks required to plan their wedding. However, questions about the guest list and wedding registry are interspersed with their interactions with Alex, who meets Kelly when ...…

It's been a while since the show gave David something he could really be stressed out, so: time for him to get robbed at (possible) gunpoint while taking money out at an ATM. Noah's got the perfect solution: he should get a gun, like Noah did: he's got one behind the bar and one on his stupid boat! David starts the process, but he has to wait e ...…

Kelly's notions of feminism have, over the years, perplexed us in their inconsistency; "Skin Deep" compresses all her worst instincts and muddiest thinking in a single episode. Brandon has decided to write about the grand opening (heh) of Beverly Hills's first sex shop, which has already attracted protesters even before its manager has opened t ...…

It's been five years since the gang graduated from West Beverly High, and since someone at the network presumably had the sense to predict that this crew wasn't going to make it to their ten-year reunion, we're made to suffer through their stupid, pointless five-year reunion. No, that doesn't mean we get appearances from Brenda, Dylan, or DeadS ...…

Somehow, a real journalist (named Peter Raitt) has become aware of Brandon's work in the Beverly Beat, and somehow, it's convinced him to partner with Brandon on a story about a proposed football stadium. Brandon is so busy sucking up, he doesn't notice that Kelly is in the midst of a crisis regarding Chris, an intellectually disabled man who w ...…

We all know that Brandon considers his job at the Beverly Beat a waste of his prodigious talents -- so much so that even after publicly reaffirming his commitment to it in the last episode, he's already prepared to edit the Beat on the side while joining the Los Angeles Chronicle as a reporter on the Metro desk. Somehow, despite being a journal ...…

So Kelly was all about getting that confused teen mother, Leanne, to take back the baby she abandoned at the clinic. But when that teen mother, Leanne, let Kelly know that, actually, leaving the baby was the right call, Kelly decided that, actually, Kelly should foster the baby...which is why, when Pam tells her that, actually, her agency has f ...…

Brandon already took a giant dump all over journalistic ethics the last time the Beverly Beatchronicled David's music career, but that was when it was on the rise: perhaps Brandon's now trying to balance the scales by exploring the fallout from David's decision to pursue Jasper's Law's record deal minus...you know, Jasper. It seems as though Ja ...…

In show time, Noah raped Valerie less than a week ago, so of course, now they're in court as Val pursues her civil case against him. Val's lawyer is confident that the facts make Noah a poor defendant -- the poor little rich boy who got drunk and had sex with a woman who wasn't his girlfriend (anymore) -- but Noah's lawyer knows some things abo ...…

When Val makes a charge of rape against Noah, how do her friends react? Well, inasmuch as they are generally terrible friends to her, they're pretty much all awful. Kelly is sure Val's only in it for the payday. Steve ties the incident back to her fake-pregnancy extortion scheme. Brandon's not sure what to think, but believing a woman isn't exa ...…

It's Valentine's Day, and you know what that means: romance-related STUFF! Everyone wants to throw their single friends at Steve and Brandon! In fact, Steve ends up with too many bebs! Brandon's not interested, though, because he's still hung up on Kelly, despite the fact that things are progressing between her and Dr. Jeff -- progressing right ...…

As if there weren't already enough reasons to be appalled by both the American health care system and the American carceral state: "Crimes And Misdemeanors" introduces us to Andrew, a recently released convict (as a teenager, he killed his mother's abusive boyfriend, only for her to testify against him) who can only be treated at the Clinic Cli ...…

The premise of our latest A-plot seems to be that Kelly, Brandon, and Steve are having trouble getting through their current romantic woes because they just can't get any perspective on them. Never-before-seen characters to the rescue! At the clinic, Jeff -- and, for some reason, Kelly -- treat Ellen, a teenager who's gotten chlamydia whilst ch ...…

The spirit of the Minis will live on in the main episodes but, alas, will no longer be released as individual episodes. Here are the last two Minis followed by an archive of all past Mini episodes.By Brother Of Menelaus Inc..

Kelly having FINALLY been forced to confront the extremely obvious truth about Brandon and Emma's "affair" and dumped him hard, the parting of Mr. and Mrs. The Gang has ripple effects on their friends (and poor Janet, who probably thought she'd accepted a job at a professional workplace where people keep their personal shit at home instead of s ...…

After Emma lets it be known that she has tape-recorded evidence implicating Brandon in...her pants, Brandon finds himself in a quandary about how to proceed. Will he follow his own counsel and confess everything to Kelly in a sincere and searching WordPerfect doc? Will he heed Steve's advice not to say anything? Will he fail to correct Kelly's ...…

After the Christmas party massacre, Kelly continues dealing with Dr. Monahan's retaliation against her -- which is lucky for Brandon, because now that he's finally had sex with Emma, she's decided it's her turn to get up his ass, constantly dropping obvious references to their illicit coitus which Brandon makes all the more obvious by tensing u ...…

Marvel at the fidelity of Brandon Walsh: it's taken him two and a half episodes of flirting with Emma to lower his defenses...and pants: yes, Emma finally succeeds in seducing Brandon -- although, really, is "succeed" the right word here? Brandon is consumed with guilt, but Kelly still has no idea, perhaps because Kelly's still dealing with Dr. ...…

Kelly has so much going on, you guys! She's still 50% of the workforce at the Clinic Clinic, still fending off advances and innuendoes from Dr. Creep -- and now, on top of all that, she's also coming out of retirement to model for Donna! She's just so busy that she doesn't notice how much Brandon and Emma are flirting with each other, and how l ...…

David having stomped out of the club in a fit of pique and left Noah to deal with it, Noah gives himself a one-night trial run and decides that he sucks and hates it and that despite his differences with Val, he should take her up on her offer to return as manager. This complicates things for him and Donna, since Donna's not trying to get into ...…

David's mood dramatically improves as soon as he decides that his mysterious loan shark angel must be Donna...and predictably darkens when Val returns from her low-cut sweater-clad recon mission to tell David that the person he actually owes his fingers to is Noah. Then he tosses one of his hobo rags onto a space heater in his office and starts ...…

Donna having kicked his ass out of the beach apartment over his cheque fraud, David decides he might as well also confess his financial idiocy to his father. Or, rather, to confess most of it: while Mel swiftly recommends filing bankruptcy for the sake of David's creditors and even gives David the money to replace what he stole from Donna, ther ...…

The show that not only can't get back the opening-credits cast members for very occasional cameos but can barely even remember the characters they played ever existed is, in its eighth season, reallyimposing on the viewer's patience by bringing back Dylan............'s sister Eric for the first time since Season 5. And she's gone through some c ...…

You know how David's been having money issues all season? Well, it turns out solutions like closing down the club for a week and trying to make a racist band happen haven't actually helped, and now shit's really dire: he's at immediate risk of eviction, which somehow doesn't induce a bank to give him the loan he's applied for! Noticing the corn ...…

As Kelly heads out to start her job at the Foundation Foundation instead of taking several more weeks off to think about how she betrayed Brandon by failing to corroborate his pick at the police lineup, Brandon continues riding Detective Woods about the single biggest crime in Los Angeles for which justice has yet to be served: the case of no o ...…

When Brandon, the august editor of the Beverly Beat, finds out that his developing story on sweatshop labour at a local apparel company implicates the former owner of his publication and its current publisher's father, he reaches out to a colleague at another publication to cover it without being accused of a conflict of interest. Just kidding! ...…

Donna's publicist David will be the first to tell you that Donna graduated at the top of her class at CU with a degree in Fashion Marketing. And yet at no point in her four years of college did it ever come up, in any of her classes, that the fashion industry is built on unethical -- indeed, immoral -- labour practices...or so we must surmise b ...…

As Kelly starts the slow and agonizing process of trying to recover her memory after suddenly developing amnesia, Brandon does his part by being extremely territorial about a woman who remembers zero things about him. Helpful! Elsewhere, Steve seems to think his ill-conceived plan to become a sports agent is going to impress Carly so much she d ...…

Kelly got shot, which you think would consume all her very best friends' time, energy, and focus, and yet: when he's not picking Kelly's shooter out of a lineup with extreme (misplaced?) confidence, Brandon's fielding calls about job opportunities; Donna's taking interviews; Val's still hitting on Noah (but then again, it's hardly as if Val car ...…

Our remaining characters have all graduated CU. Now what? Well: everyone needs a job except for David (running the Peach Pit After Dark into the ground) and Kelly (somehow: she's going to be working at a Foundation that, let's hope, isn't actually a cult). Naturally, therefore, they all decide to join Donna for her first assignment as a fashion ...…

It's time for the gang to graduate from CU, but of course the path out of post-secondary education can't be smooth -- and the fact that half their parents aren't even bothering to attend (we wish we'd thought of that) is just the start. Steve attacks his trust fund-free future by...planning a senior prank and fighting with Clare; Donna once aga ...…

In Season 7's penultimate episode, Donna finally sits her exam for the dreaded Prof. Langely, promptly chokes, and then does a piss-poor job of asking for another chance; Steve is shocked to learn that Rush has no intention of giving him a sweetheart job as a junior partner (of/in what?) since they've never actually discussed it at any point, e ...…

Clare has the dead mom blues when Mother's Day rolls around; Val, David, and Donna love-triangulate again -- this time at the direction of Val's new financial advisor who is definitely totally not trying to steal all her money; and Kelly and Brandon agonize over a pregnancy scare, which is understandable given that one of them already talks lik ...…