Old cast members coming back!

Well, probably. Well, kind of.

Jason Priestly is coming back – to direct. Which he did both before and after his character left BH90210, so I don’t see why he couldn’t just get in front of the camera and act like Brandon again. I mean really. If you’re going to be on set, what is preventing you from actually being on the show?!

In better news, Shannen Doherty is in talks to appear in a few more episodes. We’re still not talking series regular, but I’ll take any more Brenda that I can get.

Jennie Garth loves the earth

Jennie Garth “designed” a reusable cotton bag to help you save the earth instead of putting your macrobiotic groceries in evil plastic bags. The bag is for sale online, at $3.65 of the $10 cost will be donated to the Sierra Club. Positive, but largely meaningless. Go Jennie!

I miss Val

Don’t you think they should bring Val back? I miss her, and I miss Tiffany (Amber) Thiessen, too. And unlike Jason Priestly, she still looks like an actual person, instead of a person who has opted out of civilization and basic hygiene. She’s awfully sportif these days – here’s photos of her at at Nike 10K race and the Nautica Malibu Triathalon (the one that J.Lo did too.)

Maybe this is why Brandon isn’t the daddy

Have you seen Jason Priestly lately? He looks like he’s been living out in a cabin in the woods with no electricity and heated only by burning moose fat while he writes his manifesto on paper made from tree bark. Come back to civilization and shave your face, Jason.

90210 ep 5: Wide Awake and Dreaming

Full recap within…

Dylan = babydaddy?

Defamer is reporting that a Canadian ad for Tuesday’s episode, which will reveal the identity of the father of Kelly’s child, may have accidentally given away the secret.

The ad showing in Canada contains a shot in which “Brenda yells at Kelly, “You still love Dylan.”" Hardly conclusive proof, but it wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense for the show to bring up Kelly’s love for Dylan and then have the kid be Brandon’s. (I mean, Kelly was an indecisive slut back in the day, but the new show seems invested in showing her as perfect-Kelly from the latter years of BH90210.)

Of course, as Defamer notes, Kelly may cooly reply “”Au contraire, Brenda: I still love Steve Sanders, provided that Ian Ziering is available to shoot a three-episode arc during May sweeps.” So we’ll just have to wait.

Jessica Stroup is a pro

Here’s Jessica on working with the returning 90210 cast:

Jennie Garth: “Coming from where I’m from, I love my privacy and security and my friends, but being in the entertainment industry, I have to understand that I’ve never hit a mark where the press wants to know who I am. I welcome it, and I’m excited about it, and hopefully it means that I’m doing good work. I talked to Jennie about it. On one of our longest days, I was kind of in a daze in the makeup and hair trailer and she came over and said “You know, kid, you’re doing great and I’m proud of you, and I’m excited to work on the show with you.” So she’s kind of like a big sister to in me in real life.”

Shannen Doherty: “Shannen is hilarious. At our launch party, she came in, and people were wondering, “Where’s the drama?” There is no drama; they’re over it. I love hanging out with Shannen; she just cracks me up.”

That’s how you do it, SHENAE.

Let’s talk about Kelly’s babydaddy

Word on the street is that in the upcoming episode, Kelly reveals who the father of her child is. Given what we know already – we’ve seen the child and we know the father is someone with whom she had history in high school – let’s consider the various options.

BH90210 moment #1

Kelly Steals Brenda’s One True Love, That Bitch

So Brenda and Dylan were SO PERFECT TOGETHER and they were totally in love and not at all stupid teenagers by any stretch of the imagination. And they were doing stuff like running to Mexico for a vacation without telling the Walshes and then Brenda thought she might be pregnant and Jim found the pregnancy test and was all “my little girl is all growed up I can’t handle it” and then they started being all mean to Dylan just because his dad was a multiple felon and he had a drinking problem or something (the kind of guy that seemed way appealling back then, all troubled and stuff, but who now i wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole). So Jim couldn’t handle it anymore and told Brenda to stop seeing him and she said she would but then who did they see together at the Beverly Hills Beach Club? That’s right – Brenda and Dylan together and KISSING. That lying bitch. So Jim and Cindy decided there was nothing left to do but to send Brenda off to Paris for the summer so she couldn’t be with Dylan at all. And Kelly was supposed to go too but at the last minute decided to stay home because Jackie had just had Erin and Kelly wanted to help with the baby (perhaps to make sure she didn’t mutate into a brunette psycho-blogger as a teenager?)

So Kelly and Dylan are both stuck in town for the summer and start hanging out all the time and Kelly’s wispy blonde hair and baby voice prove irresistible and suddenly SHE AND DYLAN ARE KISSING IN THE POOL OF THE BEL AGE HOTEL while she’s wearing this one-piece black swimsuit with white blanket stitching on the straps (I did not even have to look that up I totally remember it). OHMIGOD what about Brenda?!? How could they do this to her? This, to me, was as serious a betrayal as I’d even encountered and made me pissy at Kelly for years, especially when she later chose her instead of Dylan. At any rate, Brenda was mostly ok because she had hooked up with Dean Cain of all people while she was in Paris so everyone all broke up but it provided drama for like the next three seasons.

BH90210 moment #2

Dylan’s Dad Gets Blown Up

Dylan’s dad was always mysteriously in jail for some white-collar crime that was supposed to make him criminal enough for Jim Walsh to dislike him but not so bad that we didn’t still love him. He got out of jail and was living in a boat (what is it with 90210 people living on boats? I have lived in LA for 10 years and have yet to meet a single person living on a boat.) and Dylan came to live with him and everything was so fun! And they got to sing take me out to the ballgame together! Which was touching and not at all pedophilic! And then that fateful day Dylan was going to go get the car so they could go somewhere on dry land but at the last second Kelly called and Dylan went back inside and his dad went to go start the car and IT EXPLODED IN A FIREY FIREBALL. So Dylan runs outside and drops to his knees on the asphalt and starts screaming “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” in a not at all over the top or overdramatic way. My friends and I used to have contests to recreate his wailing and see who could get closest to his ridiculousness which now means whenever I see this scene I burst out laughing. (Which is ok because we learned years later that his dad wasn’t blown up but was just taken into FBI protective custody or some crap.) This scene taught me the proper way to respond to emotionally traumatic events with style and grace.