BH90210 2.14, The Next 50 Years: Out With a Bang

November 5, 2011

BH90210 2.14, The Next 50 Years: Out With a Bang

RIP, guy who never got to do anything

Summary: As West Beverly’s choir sings, David films a time-capsule-unearthing ceremony at West Beverly, getting footage of all of his sort-of friends. Andrea invites Brandon to see Citizen Kane that weekend, but he has plans with Emily. David films some of the gang for the video yearbook; they talk about what they would have done back in the 1940s. Scott bugs David about something they filmed earlier in the day, but he wants to hang out with the cool kids.

Scott’s mother pulls David aside to remind him about Scott’s birthday that weekend. She wants to throw Scott a surprise party, but David is supposed to MC at a dance. She chastises him for trying to back out when he’s Scott’s oldest friend. She also enlists him to invite people to the party, but he’s not very successful. Scott invites David to dinner on his birthday, but David tells him he’s busy. He does give him a birthday present by allowing him to help with his radio show.

David tries to invite Brenda, Dylan, Steve, Kelly, and Donna to Scott’s party. Kelly notes that they don’t even know Scott. Donna sort of agrees to stop by, but Kelly wants to know who else will be there. The others won’t give in. Donna asks David why he agreed to help with a birthday party the same weekend as a big game. David says Mrs. Scanlon guilted him into it. He feels bad because he hasn’t been talking to Scott much. He’s sure the party will be horrible. Donna promises to try to help him fix things.

No one shows up for Scott’s party other than his family and David. Some kid helps Mr. Scanlon foreshadow things by talking about guns and how they’re weapons, not toys. Everyone hides, thinking David’s coming, but it’s actually Brenda, Kelly, Donna, and Steve. Steve freaks out because balloons are popping and he’s jumpy. Brandon and Emily arrive a few minutes later and realize the surprise hasn’t happened yet, since the house is still dark. They try to leave, but Scott shows up and they have to pretend they were just in the neighborhood.

Scott’s thrilled to learn that all the cool kids came to his party. Mrs. Scanlon chastises David for inviting people who ruined the surprise and didn’t bring presents. He complains to Donna that Mrs. Scanlon is clueless – he made the party happen, since no one wouldn’t have shown up without the two of them getting them there. Scott, of course, overhears this.

The party’s really boring, since no one wants to be there. Mrs. Scanlon tries to get everyone to limbo, which is the last straw for Steve. David makes everyone line up so he can give Scott his present: dance lessons. This means David also dances, which is really a present for all of us. This loosens everyone up, and also gives Emily and Brandon cover while they sneak off alone. Mrs. Scanlon interrupts by announcing that it’s time for cake. Then she finds Emily and Brandon making out in one of her kids’ rooms.

Brandon and Emily get kicked out, and Steve decides it’s time for all of them to leave. They make plans to go to the Peach Pit together. Scott’s obviously sad to be left out, especially when Donna invites David along (but not him). David is nice enough to stay at the party. Scott goes to his father’s office to a lighter for the candles, then snoops around and finds a gun in the desk. Mr. Scanlon finds matches and sends David to get Scott. When David walks in, Scott twirls the gun. David yells for him to put it down, but Scott drops it and it goes off.

The choir sings again, this time at a school memorial service for Scott. Brenda can’t believe she was just at his house two days earlier. Dylan admits to not knowing who Scott is, despite having seen him with David and having a class with him. Kelly thinks she’s getting the flu, and Steve notes that she’s doing better than Scott. Scott’s fifth-grade girlfriend is really shaken and looking for David, who isn’t in school.

Andrea and Brandon discuss the special insert they’re doing in Scott’s memory. Brandon thinks her idea to do a rant about gun control is a bad one. He also wants to cover the funeral, but Emily says he shouldn’t since he got kicked out of Scott’s party. Andrea says she’ll do it, but Brandon wants to. She snarks that he should take Emily along to really shove it in Mrs. Scanlon’s face.

Donna goes to the funeral, telling David that Kelly’s not coming because she’s not feeling well. He confides that he doesn’t feel comfortable being asked to speak at the service since he barely spent time with Scott this year. He dreamed of sneaking onto campus with the gang in the 1940s to bury the time capsule, only they were burying a coffin, and he was inside. When he woke up, he was relieved that Scott was dead instead of him. Mrs. Scanlon greets Donna and Brandon, telling her that David was Scott’s best friend. She wants him to sit with the family.

At the Walshes’, Brandon tells Dylan that he’s had his own experiences when he could have died: when he was five and almost drowned, when he totaled his car, and when he almost fell off the mountain. He says someone up there must like him. Dylan asks if that means “someone up there didn’t like Scott.”

At school, David acts like everything’s normal. Steve, for some reason, wants the details about Scott’s death. On the plus side, now all of David’s sort-of friends want to talk to him. On the minus side, he’s sick of everyone asking him how he is, and he takes it out on Donna. Andrea works on her anti-gun story with Brandon, who’s too busy staring at Emily to be of much help. That night, he admits to Emily that he feels guilty since he’s not mourning Scott. She tells him they need to make the most of their lives. Apparently she’s talking about sex.

David’s dad drives him to school, glad to see that David’s feeling all right. Mrs. Scanlon tracks David down and asks him to come by the house to get some things Scott would want him to have. Everyone at school is again really nice to David, and a teacher tries to get someone else to do his video project about the time capsule so he can take it easy. David again takes out his frustrations on Donna. Andrea’s still grossed out by Brandon and Emily’s PDAs. She’s also upset that Brandon hasn’t finished his interview with David for their insert. He thinks she’s mad that she didn’t go to the movies with him. She’s really just jealous of Emily.

At the Scanlons’, David goes through a box of Scott’s things with his mother, trying not to accept anything from her. “Why are you acting like we’re still best friends?” he asks. Mrs. Scanlon says that people as close as the two of them are friends forever. She just wants to keep her son’s memory alive. Mrs. Scanlon continues that they’re grieving in their own ways, and David shouldn’t be mad at Scott for what happened. He’s not – Scott accidentally shot himself and it has nothing to do with David. She’s upset by this.

Donna finds David editing the time-capsule video and gets yelled at again. This time she tells him she’s not a doormat. She notes that whenever David talks to her, it’s about Kelly. Donna continues that she helped with Scott’s party, went to the funeral so David wouldn’t be alone, and talked to him when no one else would. David apologizes but says he wants to move on. After Donna leaves, David comes across footage of himself and Scott in which they seem like their friendship is fine. Brandon tells Andrea that he feels bad about how she feels about his relationship with Emily. He asks what he can do, and she tells him to just be his friend. Oh, and his editor.

Brandon meets up with David for his interview, but David’s short with him, saying he doesn’t want what he says to offend anyone. He asks why the paper is doing a tribute to Scott, since no one cared about him. David accidentally turns on the microphone as he rants about Scott being a jerk for the way he died. No one cared about him, including David. Brandon notes that everyone’s looking at them, but David doesn’t care, since everyone’s been looking at him recently. He doesn’t care about his new best friends because his old best friend is gone. It doesn’t matter what you say about someone who’s gone – it just matters how you treat people while they’re alive.

Andrea tells David that what he said took a lot of courage. Kelly and Dylan encourage him to tell the truth when people ask how he is. David’s sorry that it’s too late to say goodbye, but Donna doesn’t agree. David takes a copy of the video to Mrs. Scanlon, promising to back another time to see Scott’s siblings. She gives him something he told her he wanted, saying Scott would be happy that David wanted to have it.

The gang sneaks onto campus to bury their own time capsule in Scott’s memory. Andrea includes a copy of the insert, predicting that the floppy disk it’s on will be obsolete in the future. (Good call, Andrea.) David buries what he got from Mrs. Scanlon: Scott’s cowboy hat. Then the gang lights sparklers.

Thoughts: West Beverly’s choir is really good. Yeah, yeah, they were probably professional singers, but still.

I want a picture of David in a tiny green cowboy hat to frame and put on my wall.

Don’t worry, Steve – I don’t like balloons either.

Who leaves a party before the cake? Idiots.

Am I crazy (always a possibility) or does Dylan call Emily “Anna” when he’s talking to Brandon?

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