* Photo credit to The Closet *
The first of the photo covers featuring the Daniels twins! Jess is on the left and Liz in her modest daisy number is on the right. This cover has nothing to do with the story.
Sweet Valley High thinks it’s a good idea to take a break from reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmatic and throw its students into the real world by having them all get internships for two weeks. So what, the halls of Sweet Valley are barren of students now? How did every single student manage to finagle an internship? Then again, it’s not like SVH is so big—we keep hearing about the same eight people all the time. Anyway, Liz and Jess will be interning at Flair, a seventeen-esque mag based in L.A. Liz is an editorial assistant and Jess is a photographer’s assistant. These are like, actual jobs. I can’t believe they pulled these legitimate gigs off CareerBuilder and just gave them away to the sixteen-year-old Wakefield twins. Gross.
Liz’s love slave, Todd Wilkins, frets that Liz’s internship will take time away from him, as he should: She zones out when he’s “kissing her passionately” at Miller’s Point, daydreaming about the internship. She’s such a turd, you guys. And then she swears that she’ll have time for him, so you know the opposite is going to be true. Liz turns into a corporate monster over her internship: She brown-noses her boss Leona Pierson, calls her friends fat, gets an expensive new hairstyle and wardrobe, makes those aforementioned friends take multiple buses to meet up with her in L.A. and then blows them off as soon as they get there, completely ignores everyone else and can only speak about herself, and mentally calculates who her competition will be in terms of a promotion. Just when I think I can’t hate Liz more, she always shows me a new way.
Meanwhile, Jess, who’d planned on getting discovered as a model within ten days of her internship, experiences a rude awakening: Photographers and models are douchebags. The photographer, Quentin Berg, is an obnoxious dick who’s dating the equally obnoxious eponymous model Simone, who bitches when her mineral water comes from anywhere other than France. Still, there are some perks to the gig, like Cameron, the total fox who kisses her when she’s napping. Okay, other than that creepy incident, he’s a charmer. Unfortunately, Cameron works in the mail room, and Jess can’t bear to date anyone who won’t help her with her career. And she wants to seduce Quentin just enough so he’ll make her famous. As lame as this is, she’s still fifty billion times more likable than Liz.
Todd, disillusioned by his dull internship at his dad’s company Varitronics and sick of wrestling with the copy machine, goes to L.A. to surprise Liz but she’s like, “I don’t have time for you, I must compile a bibliography!” So he goes down to where Jess is working and enraptures everyone on the set with his good looks, so Quentin puts him in the shot with Simone, who’s all over him. Liz gets all pissy, especially when Todd quits his Varitronics internship in order to model swimwear with Simone. He even cancels their date to do it and then throws it back in her face all that bullshit she’d been feeding him about making sacrifices for a career! And I love how he’s aware that she’s being shitty: “He knew Elizabeth was ticked off at him. And that made him ticked off at her. For some reason it was OK for her to be too wrapped up in a career to spend time with him. But it didn’t seem to work both ways.” Then Liz catches Simone smooching Todd after the shoot and she runs away sobbing. Lick it up, Wakefield.
Jess Frenches Quentin in the darkroom and shows him her portfolio, and he agrees to take her out to dinner and turn her into a model. But she can’t help how she’s feeling about Cameron, who tells her, “Too bad your insides aren’t as attractive as your outsides” and then refuses to kiss her: “Isn’t that just like a model: You all assume that every guy is dying to kiss you, anytime you’re ready. Well, this guy isn’t! I kiss when I choose to. And only when I choose to!” He’s about ready to start reciting “My Short Skirt.” But then he does choose to kiss Jess, and she realizes what a pickle she’s in, trying to date two guys at once. Nothing you can’t handle, Jess; you’ve been down this road before!
Other Notes:
- Enid Rollins and Maria Slater are inexplicably best friends despite that the disappearance of their animosity a mere trilogy ago is never explained. Furthermore, Enid Rollins is an embarrassing kiss ass: “With your [acting] experience[, Maria,] they’d cast you in a minute—in any role” and “You’re the most talented student writer in southern California[, Liz]. By the end of two weeks, you’ll be running the place.” This is all on the first two pages and it’s sick, y’all.
- There’s one scene where Jess steals one of Quentin’s cameras so Lila Fowler could take pics of her in the ocean, and it gets wet and fucked up. (Imagine that!) But someone mysteriously replaces it—presumably Cameron—but it’s never fully explained, especially how Cameron would pull through on conjuring up an expensive camera. Ugh, I’ve already given this far too much thought.
- How is Simone a “supermodel?” Don’t you have to be in a Victoria’s Secret Angels show or something and basically more than just three covers of some Cosmo Girl ripoff? (Is Cosmo Girl even a thing anymore? This post is old.)
- The twins keep calling their jobs “the real world.” Girls, please: I can’t think of a world less real than the fashion industry, so just come off it.
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