REACTION: 9021OMG Episode 4

On Monday’s “9021OMG” podcast, there was no mention of the recent name drama. So what was discussed? Read on to find out.

The podcast’s fourth installment centered on the third episode of “Beverly Hills, 90210,” titled, “Every Dream Has Its Price (Tag).” The main plot surrounds Brenda still struggling to fit in with her new friends’ ritzy lifestyle. But things take a rather criminal turn when one of those new pals — who is never seen again after this episode — shoplifts. Arguably more significant, at least in terms of longevity, this hour introduces The Peach Pit, where Brandon gets a job, and its proprietor, Nat. This is the first appearance by Joe E. Tata, who goes on to appear in more than 230 episodes.

Another storyline involves the Walshes hiring a housekeeper, marking the first of several appearances by Luisa Leschin as Anna. Leschin recently appeared on the “Beverly Hills 90210 Show” podcast, reflecting on the series but also opening up about the pretty darn successful career she’s had since then as a writer and producer. Leschin recalled going to the Imagen Awards with executive producer Charles Rosin, as the show was being recognized for episode 1.14, “East Side Story.” Fast-forward to 2019, when Leschin was honored at the Imagen Awards with the Norman Lear Writer’s Award, an incredible recognition. What a full-circle moment!

It should be noted Tori Spelling (Donna, Beverly Hills, 90210) didn’t actually appear in this episode of the show, but she and Jennie Garth (Kelly, Beverly Hills, 90210) still had plenty to say… though not all of it was on topic, as we’ve come to expect.

9021OMG Episode 4, “9021 Oh No, Brenda’s a Shoplifter”

• Jennie kicked things off by saying, “We’re having so much fun. Right, Tor?” Tori replied, “We’re having so much fun! Aren’t we?” That “aren’t we” seemed to be filled with doubt.

• Unlike past installments, they dove into the matter at hand pretty much right away, with Jennie sharing how much she’s enjoying rewatching the series. “Maybe I can’t remember a lot of things, but when I’m watching it, it’s like I’m there again. So it’s triggering me, but in a good way,” she said.

• Jennie then couldn’t remember the episode’s name and had to ask Sisanie.

• Tori admitted, “I don’t know much about this episode because I didn’t experience it firsthand because I wasn’t in it.”

• Lest you think Donna’s absence was a creative decision, Tori gave this explanation: She was getting her nose job.

  • This naturally led to a tangent about her nose job experience, with Tori explaining how she had wanted to undergo the procedure and her mom Candy was “super supportive” but made her wait until she was 16.

  • Now, though, she confessed she wishes she would’ve waited longer — or not done it at all. “At 16, it probably sounded like a good idea... [Now] I look back at my nose and I'm like, ‘I don't see what was wrong with my nose,’” she said.

  • Furthermore, because she thinks her resulting nose is crooked, Tori said she is always showing her profile in photos. Jennie revealed she’s not allowed to stand on Tori’s right side, sacrificing her own best angle, to ensure Tori can angle herself better for the camera.

  • Jennie’s take on Tori and her own alter ego Kelly undergoing plastic surgery as teens: “When you’re young, you do crazy things.”

• This led Jennie to bring up the episode’s storyline with Brenda and Tiffany. She commented that she found it “weird” Donna wasn’t there.

• Sisanie remarked that she appreciates that the episodes always seem to end with a lesson, prompting Tori to say, “It’s like an after-school special… in Beverly Hills.”

• Jennie asked them: “Have either of you ever shoplifted?” Tori said no before copping to taking a lollipop off a teacher’s desk while Sisanie said she once took a candy bar from a store. Jennie said she personally hadn’t but one of her daughters did, “testing the waters.”

• None of them seemed to be a fan of Tiffany, with Tori or Jennie saying how the character “comes out of nowhere” while also acknowledging that since the series had just started, “all the characters came out of nowhere.”

• Tori wondered if there was potential for Tiffany to be a long-term character and if her dad was testing it with this episode. She said she had no inside information, however, because “I was under the knife.”

• Jennie tried to make a comparison, saying it didn’t seem at this point they knew what to do with Dylan and that they were still trying to figure out his character.

• Sisanie, who interviews stars about movies and television (and music) for a living, asked the pair if they filmed an episode from start to finish or if they worked on multiple episodes at once and later pieced it together.

• Tori and Jennie set her straight, though they also brought up “double ups,” when two episodes were filmed simultaneously (with separate crews) due to time constraints.

  • Tori, however, wrongly said their seasons had 34 episodes. The most was 32.

• Sisanie said she cried at the “intensity” of Brenda and Cindy’s fight, while Jennie shared she had “goosebumps because Shannen’s acting in that scene was so good and Carol Potter was so believable as Cindy... it was very moving.”

• Tori said that when watching the show as it aired in real time, she didn’t relate to Cindy and Brenda’s relationship, but now does as a mother with two daughters of her own. She further said she loves the communication between Cindy and Brenda, particularly compared to her own upbringing. “I definitely took a page out of their book when I became a parent. It stayed with me, the Walshes,” she said.

• That led Sisanie to declare, “Everybody wanted to be a Walsh.” Jennie replied, “I did. I wanted to hang out in that kitchen. I did hang out in that kitchen a lot. But I wanted to go back when I watched the episode.”

• Jennie and Tori then explained “prop food” and recalled how Carol was “known” to eat it. “The prop guys would come in and they would just be so annoyed.”

• Candidly, Jennie said about Carol, “I never appreciated her acting abilities. I never appreciated her contribution to the show when I was filming it because I was young and it was all about me and us and the kids in my mind. I just wasn’t developed enough to think outside of my little box and now watching it, I find myself wanting more scenes with Carol and wanting Jim and Cindy to talk to each other about stuff.”

• Tori tried to argue that “times have changed so much that nowadays [Cindy and Jim’s] storylines would be something. They would have dates. It would be a centric storyline, not just the kids.” To her credit, Jennie rightfully pointed out, “In future episodes I do think they delve into the mom and dad world a little bit.” But she speculates that's not what the viewers wanted “so they kind of gradually kept going back to all the kids all the time.”

• Jennie and Tori said James was closer to the cast than Carol, who “did her own thing” while James liked hanging out with Jason and Luke. Jennie admitted she didn’t even know where James and Carol’s dressing rooms were.

• Sisanie asked if James and Carol were the “only adults” around, to which Tori said, “Gabrielle was older than us.” Jennie: “That doesn’t count! She’s one of the kids!” Tori: “She was! But she didn’t really engage in all of the shenanigans on set.” Jennie: “That’s true. She was a little more mature than us.”

  • Tori went on to say that with the cast reuniting for “BH90210” last year, the age difference between them and Gabrielle now seemed insignificant. “Now it feels balanced” and “equal” she said, exclaiming, “She loves her vodka, wow!” I’m sure that’s exactly what Gabrielle, the president of SAG-AFTRA, would want to be shared about her.

• They were all confused about the origins of the Walshes getting a housekeeper and didn’t discuss that plotline beyond that.

• Of Joe they said, “He never stayed with the parents. He was right up there with the kids... He was good fun on a Friday night.”

  • Apparently he would keep a makeshift bar in a briefcase, which supposedly would lead to some fun times on the Peach Pit After Dark set.

• Jennie gushed about the character of Nat, saying that seeing him would make her feel like “everything’s going to be okay.”

• They again discussed The Apple Pan inspiring The Peach Pit, with Jennie explaining how shows would have “a central hub that all the crew, all the cast, can congregate at and be in all the scenes together.” Remarked Tori, “That was our Central Perk. Who knew it would become so iconic?”

  • According to Tori, per Ian, the burgers used in Peach Pit scenes actually came from Fatburger.

• They next repeated a story that’s been shared over the years about Tori using the candy dispenser on The Peach Pit set and maggots coming out of it because the candy had been sitting in there rotting for so long.

• Jennie: “Does anyone out there know what Nat’s last name on the show was?” Tori: “I do, but I don't know how to pronounce it.” This led them to wonder why the character had such a “tough” and “complicated” last name, and they said they only knew it because they’ve been asked in trivia games over the years.

• “Remember Willie?” Jennie or Tori asked. Supposed superfan Sisanie: “Who’s Willie?” Jennie then brought up Nadine. “How did I just remember that?” she marveled.

• A thing Sisanie actually said: “I’m confused. Were they actors or were they actual cooks that were hired?” Tori explained that Willie and Nadine were like The Peach Pit’s Gunther and just always there.

  • This prompted Sisanie to ask if such a role would be a full-time job. Jennie and Tori seemed to think Willie was in every episode. Per IMDb, he was in a whopping 13 out of nearly 300, the first being in season 2 and the last in season 7.

    • To be fair, though, I agree it feels like Willie was in more episodes than that. It’s possible he wasn’t credited in some. And speaking of the actor, Wesley Gullick (who sadly died last year), the video I included for the season 7 Thanksgiving episode seemed to be his family’s personal video that they uploaded to YouTube.

• Sisanie wondered if Jennie and Tori were watching the episodes when they first aired at this point, but they said there were “flying blind” and may not have even seen the pilot.

  • This led to a joke from Tori about how she measures time in her life based on plastic surgery and pregnancies.

• Jennie and Sisanie each shared a line of dialogue they liked from the episode, while Tori said if Donna had been in the episode, her line probably would’ve just been “Hi.”

• Jennie said she was shocked by the scene in which Tiffany more or less strips, but was amused by David’s reaction.

• After an ad break, the second of this edition, they were joined by Robyn Lively, half-sister of Blake (Serena, Gossip Girl), who was dating Jason in real life during the first season of the show.

• Jennie knew she and Robyn worked together on something but couldn’t remember what. She pointed out that she (Jennie) was in a Teen Angel movie and that she (Robyn) was also in a Teen Angel movie but she (Jennie) didn’t know if it was the same one. Spoiler alert: It was. But it wasn’t a movie. It was a short-lived TV series, which also starred Jason.

  • Tori assured Robyn, “She does not have a good memory. This is no reflection on you. It’s really great that she even remembered meeting you on that movie. Let’s just say that.”

  • The series was filmed roughly a year before “Beverly Hills, 90210” and Jennie apparently hasn’t seen Robyn since then.

• Robyn said she was 17 while Jason was 19. “He was younger than he told all of us,” Tori said, to which Robyn said, “He was secretive” about his age, and Jennie told the well-known story about Shannen stealing Jason’s license to find out his real age and him getting so mad.

• Robyn said that the massive fame Jason experienced after the show started airing presented “such a drastic shift in everything,” but she gave him credit for staying in the relationship “for as long as he did because that had to be so hard,” she said. “It was life-altering. That fame was crazy, as you guys well know. It was a phenomenon. It was interesting for me to be on the outside of it but looking in and seeing it happen.”

• Robyn denied they lived together but said they had spoken about doing so.

  • This led Tori to interrupt and say she wanted to ask a question based on the show’s unauthorized Lifetime biopic: "Did Jason live with Brad Pitt?" Robyn said not that she was aware of, but they did. Both Jason and Brad have discussed it over the years and Jason wrote about it in his memoir.

    • This tangent led Robyn to relay a story in which she mentioned David Sherill was one of Jason’s roommates. None of them seemed aware that he just appeared on the “Beverly Hills 90210 Show” podcast last week or even mentioned his role on the show.

• Robyn remembered thinking of Jason, “I don’t know if I really like the fact that he’s so much more beautiful than me.”

• Robyn said she auditioned for the show and was offered the role of Andrea before Jason went in for Brandon, but she passed on it because she felt it was too similar to past roles for her.

  • She further said she was interested in the role of Brenda but Shannen was already locked in.

  • “To this day, I feel totally fine with that decision,” Robyn said of her choice to pass on the series, noting that her eventual split from Jason was “hard enough on its own.” Jennie: “Can you imagine if you guys were on set together? That would've been rough.” Robyn: “It would've been so horribly painful and so terrible, I can't imagine.”

    • To illustrate this point, Robyn brought up dating her “Savannah” co-star and said it was a “nightmare.” Who was the guy? David Gail, best known to “Beverly Hills, 90210” fans as Stuart (and Tom the bellhop). “We should save this for off the podcast,” Robyn said before nonetheless going on to reveal that being on the same show “forced us to stay together longer than we ever should have. My dad always said to me, ‘Robyn, don’t ever fish off the company pier,’ and I was like, ‘Too late!’”

• After discussing her own co-star relationship, Robyn said to Tori, “You dated Brian, though. Was it hard?" Tori quietly, seriously: “Uh, we haven't gotten there at this point in the podcast.” She added, “And when we do, it's going to be the girls’ version of what dating was and the boys’ version because the ‘he said, she said’ is always different in each other’s minds.”

• Tori told Robyn that her dad, who also produced “Savannah,” always loved her, and Robyn in turn said, “In this industry, he was in a class of his own. I loved him so much.”

• Tori remarked that fame was “very different for the boys,” especially Luke and Jason, and asserted that Jason “to this day says he still has a hard time going to shopping malls because of his experience” during the show’s early success, as it triggers a PTSD-like situation for him.

• Robyn said of Jason, “He was so wonderful to me. I loved him with my entire being,” but acknowledged the pressure and temptation he must’ve felt as his fame exploded. “We went from having the sweetest and most trusting relationship to a lot of insecurities,” she said, revealing, “I was invited less and less to red carpet events. They wanted him to have the image of a single guy and that was really hurtful for me... Jason handled it the best he could.”

• But the breakup was particularly hard for her to get over, Robyn said, because she had to see Jason “plastered on every magazine cover.” Commented Tori sincerely: “You’re breaking my heart, Robin Lively.”

• Robyn said she and Jason are occasionally in touch but she’s never met his wife, Naomi. Tori insisted, “You would adore her. Literally the nicest human you've ever met.” That led Jennie to say Jason “clearly” has “good taste in women,” and Tori cited Christine Elise as an example of that.

• Tori was thrilled to get all of these details about Jason and Robyn’s relationship, saying she never knew what happened between them when their relationship ended and she loved getting the “girl’s perspective” now.

• Robyn admitted she stopped watching the show for a time due to the breakup, and Jennie assured her she had a “really good excuse” for that.

• Robyn said she didn’t know Jason would be writing about her in his 2014 memoir and was shocked and surprised when she found out, “but it couldn’t have been kinder.”

• After Robyn got off the call, Tori brought up that Blake is her sister and is married to Ryan Reynolds, but no one acknowledged that Blake starred on a teen drama of her own.

• Sisanie tried to connect their chat with Robyn to the series by pointing out the next episode deals with Brandon’s Minnesota girlfriend coming to visit. That connection is a bit of a streeeeeetch.

• Tori was still fixated on all that Robyn shared, saying, “Now I want to hear Jason’s side.” I’m sure he’s desperate to discuss it.

• Tori again argued that the guys had it worse than them because they “became these instant heartthrobs” as the show took off.

• Jennie recalled going to a zoo with Luke and having to be snuck out in a rush “because people were going nuts and it was scary.”

• Jennie and Tori then referenced the infamous story about Luke getting snuck out of an appearance in a laundry cart. Said supposed superfan Sisanie, “I don't know this story.”

• Jennie shared, “That first season was insane. I have so many vivid memories of being at appearances, being like on display and trying to do what I was supposed to do and being scared for my life and just looking out at a sea of people and they were all so excited. The energy was just so frenzied. It was really scary. That happened a lot in the beginning.”

  • This probably explains why Jennie seemed put off by my enthusiasm when we met in 2008 and looked at me like I had five heads.

• Jennie went on to say she became agoraphobic to an extent as a result. “I couldn't leave the house. I was not interested in leaving the safety of my home. I would go to work and go home and that was it,” she confessed.

• “And that’s how we had our first ‘life wife’ date,” Tori declared. She and Jennie went on to explain how their first hangout outside of work revolved around them going to Michael’s (the first time Tori ever did) and hooking rugs at Jennie’s home. “We hooked,” Jennie cracked.

• Reflecting on that time, Tori said, “We were seeing our future as old women in rocking chairs.” Jennie said wistfully, “Those were the days.”

• Tori then insisted, “We did go out and have times at clubs and stuff, but it’s that memory of being with you in your house and learning how to hook a rug and just becoming friends with you that I cherish the most rather than going to any club or restaurant at that age.”

• Sisanie wondered if Tori and Jennie were able to get into restaurants and clubs easily, saying, “That’s the dream at that age.” They confirmed it was, in fact, easy for them.

• Tori then brought up how they once went to a Lenny Kravitz concert, noting that Jennie’s first husband was a drummer and they (Jennie and her then-husband) were really into music. Tori further asserted that when they went out, they were “always with guys,” meaning their respective significant others.

• In the final minutes, Sisanie pointed out they hadn’t discussed the fashion of the episode, prompting Tori to say, “Brian’s blazers were like out of control the first few episodes.”

  • Jennie countered, “He’s got a cool look, though... He looked really cute... but there was a broad spectrum of different looks for different types of people on the show.” She said she liked Shannen’s outfits in this episode.

• It all culminated in Tori forbidding Jennie to cut her hair short and Sisanie pointed out that both had short hair at various points in the series. (Look — Sisanie knew something!) Tori said, “Mine was an accident. Hers was on purpose.” Apparently it’ll be discussed when they get to that point (assuming, you know, they actually do get to those seasons).

So, this edition of the podcast had far less tangents and random goofiness than the three prior installments. But what did Robyn Lively dating Jason Priestley have to do with this episode of “Beverly Hills, 90210” and a purported rewatch podcast? Absolutely nothing. The podcast was a little over an hour long, but barely 30 minutes had to do with the actual episode. Yet Jennie still told listeners at the end, “That’s your homework, guys. Watch the next episode so we can chat about it.”

I do wonder if they got Jason’s okay before speaking with Robyn all about their romance. Yes, Christine has been on the “Beverly Hills 90210 Show” podcast more than once (including when Jason himself was on), but she had an actual role on the series as a recurring cast member and also wrote three episodes. In contrast, Robyn’s only connection was her relationship with Jason and passing on an offer to join the series before it even started. And it’s one thing for Jason to discuss his relationship with Robyn in his memoir, a book literally about his life, but another for her to go on a podcast specifically to rehash it all… even if she had only nice things to say.

All that said, this was arguably the best “9021OMG” yet since it was calmer, more focused, and they discussed the episode pretty much right off the bat. Still... that’s not saying much.

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