* Photo credit to The Closet *
Liz looks like she’s channeling Drew Barrymore here. Are we supposed to believe that she looks anything like the twins hovering over the logo? I’m also annoyed that Liz looks so defiant and unremorseful on the stand. I want her to look hopeless and regretful and scared, dammit! She just killed a guy! I can’t wait to see how she gets out of this one, by the way.
A Plot: Liz stands trial for manslaughter! However, she’s still whining that she doesn’t know what happened the night she killed Sam Woodruff, her twin sister’s beloved boyfriend. (What happened: She drove the Jeep while wasted after two sips of punch, which Jessica herself spiked.) Speaking of Jess, she’s now hooking up with Liz’s true love, Todd Wilkins! Because Liz owes her a boyfriend or something. Why didn’t Todd think of trying to get with both twins before? He’s so unadventurous.
Anyway, as you can safely assume, Jess doesn’t care for the fact that Liz has offed her boyfriend. She demands that Todd take her to the Beach Disco, where they grind up on each other’s biz, and Todd’s all, “My mind’s tellin’ me noooooo…” But Todd still goes to Liz’s trial and thinks that the prosecution is being a big meanie face to her. How protective he is of his ex-girlfriend who is the twin sister of the chick he’s been dry-humping on the dance floor!
Ugh, back to the trial. Liz is like, “I don’t know! I don’t know!” to every question the prosecution asks, and it’s annoying. She’s a moron if she thinks she’s going to win this. But really, I’m the moron for even hoping she won’t, considering what series I’m reading.
Later that day, Jess is irritated because it’s clear Todd’s thinking about Liz and the trial. She coerces him up to Miller’s Point and paws at him, trying to ignore his sobs—literally! It’s so awesomely dumb. The next day, Todd goes over to the twins’ brother Steven’s apartment and actually has the audacity to cry to Steven about how he’s seeing Jess and expects Steven to have calm and unbiased advice. AND STEVEN ACTUALLY DOES. What is wrong with these people?
Todd writes Liz a long, heart-wrenching letter and stupidly leaves it at the house for Jessica to find. Jess, hurt by Todd’s waning interest in her, tells Todd Liz ripped up his letter and he gets sad. It serves him right for being such a dumbass.
While Liz stands at the edge of the ocean and contemplates suicide, a surprise witness with a “chubby face” shows up at court just in the nick of time to confess that—oh, shock!—he was a drunk, hit-and-run driver who’d hit the Jeep the night of the prom. Not only that, he vows under oath that Liz had been driving “just fine.” So Liz gets her outstanding driver record validated and cleared of the charges while the DRUNK FATTY gets life imprisonment or something. And Jessica is furious because even though Liz is off the hook, “Sam is still dead!” So true.
B Plot: Bruce Patman is cranky that his latest ex-girlfriend, Pamela Robertson, is rumored to have made many, many trips to Bone Town prior to having met him. As a result, he wants nothing to do with her. This Puritanical priggishness coming from the same guy trying to untie bikini tops? This proves difficult when Pamela transfers to Sweet Valley from Big Mesa because she “needs a new start.” And who can resist an SVH education?
Pamela is lonely at SVH, though: Everyone ignores her, especially Bruce, who also lets his friends ridicule her. Having learned nothing from bullying Annie Whitman, Jessica makes all sorts of snotty remarks about Pamela being a “tramp.” This is seriously coming from the person who’s practically giving hand jobs to her twin’s boyfriend. Hey, pot; oh, hey, kettle. Despite all this, Bruce continues to pine for Pamela even when he’s shouting derogatory things at her about sleeping with the faculty. (So he’s aware of Mr. Collins’s thrall, too!)
Then Lila Fowler, of all people, is like, “Let’s all just be nice to her!” and everyone’s like, “Okay!” What a far-fetched non-resolution that one is. Pamela joins Project Youth, which always turns everyone’s lives around. Still, it takes Amy Sutton to assure Bruce that it’s okay to date Pamela before he actually does again. Scoff.
C Plot: Steven Wakefield distracts himself from his troubled home life by marveling at the coolness of his roommate, Billie Winkler. She makes them sit-down meals! She decorates the apartment! She keeps stuff clean! She literally brushes his tears away! It’s so awesome living with a chick who can replace your mom, isn’t it? She’s also super hot—what’re the odds?
Steven tries to convince himself that this mother figure paying half the rent is just his buddy, but it just ain’t so. She drives an hour to Sweet Valley to see Steven after the trial just to cheer him up. Didn’t they have lives and friends before each other? On behalf of Steven, I can confirm a great big no.
Anyway, when she visits him, “without warning, a new powerful emotion flickered in Steven’s heart.” Who would’ve guessed, besides anybody? He tells Billie about his home life being in shambles, and when it gets passed around school (because a rumor like that is SO important at fucking university), he yells at Billie for betraying his trust. Then he finds out it was Jessica who’d told everyone about his crappy family life. By the time Steven goes to Billie to apologize, she’s already got a new apartment, which is convenient: Now the ghosties won’t have to write about Steven and Billie living in sin.
D Plot: Like everyone on planet Earth, Murderous Margo is aroused at the prospect of living in Sweet Valley. She’s also become obsessed with a newspaper clipping of Liz’s face, name, and address that she found in a newspaper in Cleveland. I’m so pissed that Liz’s legendary status would travel all the way to Ohio. Margo makes her way across the country to Los Angeles, interacting with people who remind readers how ugly everyone is when they don’t live in Sweet Valley: Teens have pimples, the elderly are gross, and so on.
Margo gets on a train to Sweet Valley, and who should be watching her but Josh Smith, the older brother of the toddler she killed! Josh confronts her, declaring that he’s going to call the police. I can’t stand when heroes triumphantly announce their unhatched master plans to the villains; this happens constantly on Riverdale and it drives me nuts. Margo starts screaming about how Josh is trying to get pervy with her, effectively distracting everyone on the train as she runs away. That was a close one, girl! I’m just disappointed you didn’t off anyone in this story, that’s all.
Other Notes:
- Obviously, Ned Wakefield is his own daughter’s lawyer, but even grosser is that NED CALLS HIS SON STEVEN, AN EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD PRELAW UNDERGRAD, TO GET LAW ADVICE. I’m so embarrassed.
- Meanwhile, Alice mends clothes in the dark. Impending doom really brings out her productivity! And when Liz seeks comfort from her mother the night before her trial, Alice further proves her maternal uselessness by patting Liz on the shoulder and chirping, “You’ll do fine!” as she leaves the room. Nice!
- Billie Winkler is so bland. They try to make her likable but she’s a snooze. Then again, so were Cara Walker and—God, dare I say it?—Tricia Martin. Steven’s clearly into dull chicks.
- Roger Barrett Patman has no life anymore since breaking up with Olivia Davidson. All he does now is show up whenever there’s a storyline concerning his cousin, Bruce, to give advice, which Bruce just shuns (and calls him “Ann Landers,” like high school boys do). Stop being so pointless, Roger!
- The second Liz is back at school, one-note Penny Ayala’s already in Oracle editor-in-chief mode: “I was just about to ask you if you think you’d have time to write an article about the art history field trip this week as well as your usual column.” This young woman really has nothing going for her except the school paper and that’s a bummer.
- The most awesome line in the book is Todd thinking, “Yeah. Maybe a guy should be there for his girlfriend instead of turning around and dating her twin sister.” Making the quote even better is the context of the situation: These thoughts come to him at the very moment Liz is in the midst of her manslaughter trial for killing her sister’s boyfriend after Jess gave them magic punch! I love this series.
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