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#89 – Elizabeth Betrayed

89. Elizabeth Betrayed

* Photo credit to The Closet *

Penny Ayala (still wearing her perpetual headband) looks all pissed off, but I can’t imagine why, because she’s not even around for any of the drama that goes down. Elizabeth doesn’t look that upset, considering she’s just been betrayed and all. Olivia Davidson is wearing an outfit that would be better suited on a Unicorn in the SVH Twins series, and her forehead is of RIDIC proportions.

So. Elizabeth’s betrayed. Please try to imagine that I care.

Rod Sullivan is Olivia’s boyfriend, and he’s a fucking dick. All he does is talk about Liz; it’s sick: “Don’t you think Elizabeth has a special talent?” “Don’t you love that piece she did for the LA Times?” Not only that, Rod’s blowing Olivia off and dismissing her baby, the literary magazine called Visions—“It’s just that stories and poetry and stuff like that don’t seem as real to me as news articles.” Then, on a double-date with Liz and Todd Wilkins, he tells Liz, who’s slummin’ it, “You look like Aphrodite just risen from the sea.” Eff off, Rod. Where’s Todd’s jealousy now? Why doesn’t he TODD SMASH something over Rod’s head?

Meanwhile, Penny is going to DC for the high-school-newspaper-editor-in-chiefs-only Washington Correspondent Program to follow a senator around for a week. Liz asks, “You’re the best high school editor in the country. Who else would they pick?” No one, because Sweet Valley is the country. There’s just so much to hate about this story. Penny leaves for a week and Liz is left in charge of editing the paper and Olivia is frustrated that no one asked her, the arts editor, to babysit the damn Oracle. And during that week, everyone in the world gets sick with the flu and Liz fears she won’t make deadline. This is so life or death.

Just when Liz feels all hope is lost, fucking Rod steps up to the plate, having never written anything in his life, and bails Liz out by delivering a feature article that blows everyone’s socks off. Then Rod volunteers to help Liz out with her English essay after baking her chocolate chip cookies—dude, what is your damage?—and holding her hand at the Dairi Burger and Liz all like, “Could it be he likes me? Nahhh!” What guy wouldn’t? No, seriously, I ask that because no dude in these books has ever not popped one over a Wakefield (or both). Anyway, Olivia sees them holding hands and gets the wrong idea (which is actually the right idea) and Rod gives Liz a bunch of ideas for her essay.

But after Liz hands her essay in, Mr. Collins calls her into his office and he practically starts crying because Liz plagiarized her essay based on “Archie Fox, the country’s best-known art critic” (like Mr. Collins would know that without Grammarly). Mr. Collins is so hurt and irreparably damaged by this act, he kicks Liz off The Oracle. The way he’s carrying on, the book should be called Mr. Collins Betrayed. Liz can’t bear to rat Rod out—she’s too good, too kind, and honesty personif—well, you know. Speaking of Rod, he does a 180 and is all “It wasn’t me,” which was just what Shaggy told him to say.

Liz tells Olivia that she thinks Rod should confess to Mr. Collins about what he’s done, but really—what’s he done? So he spouted out some art b.s.—she still took credit for his ideas! Oh, Elizabeth, you douche. Additionally, Rod’s crush on Liz vanishes instantly. What’s going here? But back to Olivia—she reads Rod’s Oracle article and notices how familiar it seems. After some research, she notices he’s “borrowed” from Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Ben Franklin. She takes the paper to Mr. Collins, who calls Rod and Liz into his office and Mr. Collins rips Rod a new one. After all, Rod made Mr. Collins turn against his biggest crush—I mean, best student. All is forgiven as far as Liz is concerned and she’s invited back on the Oracle staff. Oh thank God!

As for Jessica, Annie Whitman accuses her of seeing her boyfriend Tony Esteban out with another chick and not telling her, and then Lila Fowler accuses her of not confessing how awful she looked with purple-dyed hair, so Jess becomes the next George Washington and vows to never again tell a lie. This pisses everyone off—she’s insulting and rude, yet she feels so liberated by the truth! But everyone gets back at her by having a Total Honesty for Jessica Day, where everyone insults Jess. Ha-ha! What friends.

Other Notes:

  • Are we really expected to believe that some dumbass can plop chunks of writing by Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Ben Franklin into a high school newspaper and everyone would typically think, “Yes, a teenager in 1992 surely wrote this using his or her natural voice”?
  • The more I dwell on it, the more I want a band called Elizabeth Betrayed.
  • What’s the deal—Olivia’s Story came right in the middle of this one and Teacher Crush, when she and Rod first got together, and she seemed quite single in that one. Oh, why do I question this total lack of continuity? Haven’t I learned my lesson yet?
  • Ned Wakefield becomes totally, randomly obsessed with meerkats. I’m not even fucking with you. He buys a large glass sculpture of six of them looking in different directions, plops them on the mantle, and tells Liz she should write a poem about them: “They’re wonderful creatures, environmentally speaking. You couldn’t do better than meerkats. And they’re a very neglected species.” He must’ve found and smoked a doob he once rolled in college in the sixties.
  • And after all that, I still have no idea if Olivia and Rod actually broke up.

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