Episode 118: Meg Ryan and Megatron

What is it about insanity that sharpens the mind and enables Silver to “red herring” Mr. Matthews into thinking she was AWOL when really she was hiding under his table? It’s just like Transformers: Megatron is infinitely smarter than Optimus Prime. How his masterplans were foiled time and time again is beyond me. But I digress. My next question is, why did she hide under the table in the first place? It’s not like she had unfinished business in the guy’s apartment. I get the sense Silver’s attendance at sleuth school was sporadic at best.

With Silver on the lam, the rest of the cast (once you sleep through the denouement of the Ethan-Annie break-up) is left reciting a Dadaist recap of the story arc. This, I must say, was one of the finer moments of the series to date. It was fast, funny, and effective. The clueless characters are brought into the loop, Navid, Adrianna, and Naomi partake in some Abbott and Costello-esque wordplay — all before the opening credits. Kudos to 90210 alum Jason Priestley, who has already made his mark on the show within minutes of sitting in the director’s chair. Hopefully this invigorated style is more portentous than incidental.

I’m also left wondering how a (wo)manhunt like this would have unfurled before the advent of cell phones. The core group of characters would have been blissfully unaware that one of their own was a raving lunatic. What’s more, we, the audience, would be left to watch Ethan and Annie — those darlings of the small screen — come to blows over how they were destined to be together.

Personally I hope Navid and Adrianna keep the bebby. It is readily apparent none of the students on the show have any schoolwork to do (save for the type that features you and your boyfriend having sex in a stockroom). With all the free time, raising a kid would be a piece of cake — a loud, screaming cake as it were.

Granted, the speech was delivered with that kind of hysteria that Annie should get patented at this point, but her acceptance of the relationship that was never meant to be demonstrated a complexity that was heretofore inconceivable in the series. It reminds me, in an assuredly indirect way, of Sleepless in Seattle (and many Hollywood romances, for that matter). Meg Ryan’s character crosses the continent to stalk a man she doesn’t know, eventually leaving her fiance on the eve of their nuptials to rendez-vous with Tom Hanks, the man who, until the last two minutes of the film, she has never met. Empirically speaking, she is a thoughtless bitch. But we cheered for her because we believed Forrest Gump was the man she was meant to be with.

How does this pertain to Annie? Annie thought her decision to go behind Naomi’s back and date Ethan was ultimately justified because they were meant to be together. Breaking up proved they weren’t, that her actions stemmed from infatuation and she, like Meg Ryan, was simply being a selfish bitch. That the show admitted as much is a brave step, hopefully the first of many in this direction. Moreover, it buries this “frenemies” thing they tried to hatch between Annie and Naomi that I can do without.

One more thing: Who was that guy at the train station? They could’ve tied him in a bit better to the overall sentiment of the plot by revealing that he was just a guy with no agenda, thereby proving to Mama Wilson that there are decent people in Beverly Hills and perhaps it can be a respectable place to raise their God-fearing kids.

Seems like RRKN used this episode to do away with those storylines established in the show’s early days. The parents are no longer keeping one foot in Kansas City, Annie is friends with Naomi but no longer dating Ethan, Adrianna’s drug-induced near-death experience seems a distant memory, and Kelly and Ryan are all chummy once more. By my count this is episode 19, which means there is only a handful of episodes left. The show has gone on a bit of a reversal these last couple of episodes; after a slight pivot let’s hope it’s full steam ahead.