REACTION: 9021OMG Episode 9

The first “9021OMG” podcast of 2021 featured a surprise guest: Carol Potter, aka Cindy Walsh.

The topic ostensibly was “Perfect Mom,” the seventh episode of the series and the first where we really see Jennie Garth (Kelly, Beverly Hills, 90210) shine. The plot revolves around a mother-daughter fashion show hosted by Kelly’s mom, Jackie (Ann Gillespie), who is hooked on drugs and alcohol. As the title suggests, everyone — especially Brenda — thinks Kelly has the “perfect mom” until things go off the rails at the event, where Jackie is beyond high. There’s a mother-daughter reckoning for not just Kelly and Jackie, but also Brenda and Cindy, with Brenda getting a newfound appreciation for her own mom after seeing what Kelly is going through with hers.

There are also some nice moments with Andrea stepping into her beauty, some creepiness / sweetness with David wanting to document the fashion show, and downright silliness with Jim getting an electric keyboard. Notably, Donna’s mom in the episode is named Nancy and played by an actress who is definitely not Katherine Cannon. Felice, as we later come to know her, isn’t introduced til more than halfway through season 2. (Though, to be fair, a different actress also played Jackie in the pilot.) This is also the first and only time we see the Taylor family has a dog.

This episode was written by Darren Star, who created “Beverly Hills, 90210,” and directed by Bethany Rooney, who I’ve mentioned before also directed episodes of “Dawson’s Creek,” “One Tree Hill,” and nu90210.

So, what did Jennie and Tori Spelling (Donna, Beverly Hills, 90210) have to say? Well, they didn’t talk about the episode in question that much because they were all over the map with Carol… for better and for worse.

9021OMG Episode 9, “How Sexy is Mrs. Walsh??!!!”

• Tori: “Happy New Year, you hos!” That was some kind of play on “9021-Ho-Ho-Ho.”

• They rejoiced about it being a new year with a clean slate.

• Jennie: “It can’t get much worse. You have no control over anything.”

• Tori asked about new year’s resolutions and she and Jennie revealed they already broke theirs. Tori: “That’s why we’re best friends!”

• Jennie’s resolution was to drink less red wine.

• Sisanie was amused that Tori and Jennie drink during the podcast. She said if she drank while doing it, “I would be horrible and this is considered being ‘on the job’ for me.”

• Jennie said that for her and Tori, it’s their “date night.” Tori: “We moonlight as podcasters.”

• Jennie asked if they watched “Perfect Mom,” as was their homework, and it wasn’t clear whether Sisanie and Tori actually did. Jennie went on to give the airdate and a synopsis.

• Tori: “I can literally remember filming this episode. I remember that runway.” Jennie: “I bet you do! You had to wear a freakin’ bikini in front of all those people and I would like to just say your little butt was so adorable, I just want to pinch those cheeks! So cute!” Tori: “Remember when I had a little butt? Now I have a mama butt.”

• Tori mentioned how she was joined in the episode by “my mom who wasn’t my mom.” Jennie: “I feel like they hired her just because she looked great in a bikini.”

  • Yikes.

• Tori said she was wearing her own bikini and she shared how she and her friends would purposely get suits in smaller sizes so they’d be wearing “tiny” bikinis.

• Jennie: “Really weird to see a different woman as your mom.” Tori: “Different name too.”

• Jennie loved that this episode showed Kelly’s “home turmoil” because “you always think everybody’s got it better than you, everybody’s life is simpler, better, easier. You get to see behind the curtain a little bit.”

• Sisanie said Carol would be joining them and asked Jennie and Tori their memories of her.

• Tori said how they saw her for “BH90210” and it was “so great to be with her.”

• Superfan Sisanie was confused about Carol portraying a therapist on “BH90210” and also being one in real life.

• At that point, Carol joined the call.

  • Makes you wonder: Did they even ask Ann to appear? Or did they go with Carol because they worked with her more recently?

• Carol explained that she went back to school after leaving “Beverly Hills, 90210” and got a master’s degree. She noted how she did “Sunset Beach,” a daytime soap produced by Tori’s dad Aaron, while getting her therapy training hours.

  • She said she liked getting to “leave myself behind” with patients after it was “me, me, me” on set.

• Carol said she would’ve continued balancing soap opera work with being a therapist, but since so many soaps “died,” “it didn’t work out that way.”

• Jennie said the group therapy session for “BH90210” was “so fun” and asked Carol if she was thinking, “There’s no hope for these people. I can’t help them.”

• Tori said that “die-hard fans” know that Carol’s a therapist but wondered if other people watching “BH90210” didn’t get it. She added, “A lot of people didn’t get the show, which is fine.”

  • Is it? You bring it up a lot.

• Carol pointed out that it’s said in the scene that she’s a licensed therapist.

  • Yeah, sure, but the show also said Gabrielle’s now a lesbian, which she isn’t, along with a slew of other falsehoods. So how was the average viewer supposed to know what was real and what wasn’t?

• Carol said clients recognize her as “the mom on ‘90210.’” She recalled working with a couple and at the last session, the guy admitted he knew who she was the whole time but never said anything.

• Tori called Carol a “legend” and said, “Everyone knows who you are. There’s not anyone who sees you who doesn’t recognize you.” She asked if she discusses this with patients upfront.

• Carol responded, “I leave it to them. At the moment, most of my clients are kind of older than the key demographic.” She argued, “If it was a different role, it would be a problem,” but since Cindy was understanding, welcoming, and heartfelt, it segues easily.

• Tori: “I have a bone to pick with you! You became a therapist, but all those years before that, you never helped us! We had so many issues!”

• Carol: “Every single interview that I did... they always asked, ‘Oh, do the kids come to you for advice?’ I’m going, ‘Are you kidding?’”

• Tori: “Now I wish I had!” Jennie: “Me too.”

• Carol said they were “trying to figure it out on their own” and she “didn’t have much advice to offer anyway.”

• Jennie said how they’re watching season 1 and in every scene, it seems like Cindy was cooking, barbecuing, or gardening.

• Carol reminded them about a proposed storyline in which Cindy wanted to work in landscaping and get a special license. Jim was against it and then relented at the end of the episode. "Then the people at FOX apparently said, ‘No, no, she can’t. She’s not allowed to make money.’”

• Tori and Jennie were flabbergasted. Tori: “It’s my dad’s show. I just felt shame from head to toe. What?! That is infuriating. Sorry.” Carol said she didn’t think it was Aaron’s fault.

• Tori: “But you looked hot in every episode. You were the OG MILF.”

• Jennie: “That was 30 years ago and every time I see you on screen, we always comment about it — how hot Carol Potter is.”

• Sisanie reminded Jennie that she previously called Carol an “HFD” — a hottie for days.

• Carol was “so flattered.” She said, “I was never the hottie in my career. I went from sister to mother within like a year, and the year I became a mom, I had a baby and a 10-year-old. So I passed a threshold and never went back. I was ‘mom’ for the rest of my days.”

• Carol said she was 42 when the show started, making her younger than Jennie and Tori are now. Tori: “We’re still fighting to be like, ‘We’re still sex symbols,’ when we do something.”

• Tori went on to say Carol was like Marianne from “Gilligan’s Island” and that at the end of the day, everyone wanted Marianne, not Ginger.

  • Kind of awkward timing since the actress who played Marianne, Dawn Wells, just died recently. That was not acknowledged.

• Carol: “I did remind everyone of somebody they knew... A lot of people recognize me but they can’t always place me.” They’ll think she was a teacher at their high school. Jennie said people ask her if they went to school together.

• Jennie asked if Carol watched “Perfect Mom” and she said she remembers it very well.

• Carol said she and Ann are still close friends and revealed they grew up near each other.

• Jennie interrupted to point out that Carol mistakenly called her “Kelly,” which amused her. Carol might’ve done that on purpose, though, because she went on to say that she “ruined at least three takes” calling her “Jennie” when they were filming scenes for this episode. “And now I call you Kelly. There’s no rhyme or reason to it.”

• Jennie said she sees the show “so differently now” watching it as a mom. “When I was in it, I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t really understand anything outside my little brain bubble.”

• Cindy’s line in the episode about her being different from Jackie and that they wouldn’t make good friends, which prompted Brenda to accuse Cindy of thinking she was better than Jackie, “resonated” with Jennie.

• Carol thought Cindy felt a “little intimidated” since Jackie had this big modeling career and she was just a stay-at-home mom.

• Tori asked what she thought was the best dish Cindy made and Carol questioned whether they ever tasted them, which prompted Jennie and Tori to say they remember her eating the food. “I didn’t want to waste it,” Carol amusingly exclaimed. She said she never got sick from the spray on the food, but “probably couldn’t do it now.”

• Tori said Carol was “so tiny and had the best body and could eat anything.”

• Carol: “I rarely used a spit bucket too. I just would eat it.” Superfan Sisanie: “Wait, there’s spit buckets?” Carol explained how you have to eat the item over and over in take after take, so you spit it out between takes so you don’t have to actually eat so much food.

• Jennie: “I felt sorry for Cindy in that episode in a different way... I related to you a lot more as a mom. And I felt sad that you felt like [Brenda] didn’t want you at the fashion show.”

• Jennie: “This episode, I literally cried like three times, and it was so embarrassing because I was sitting there watching it with my kid and my husband. Fiona was like, ‘Why are you crying?’ I said I cry when I see me cry on TV. When I’m watching myself cry, it makes me cry, because I feel all the feelings again. Then I look over and my husband’s got a tear. He had a tear too.”

• Carol: “That was one of the things that I think made this show so strong and appealing, was that it did have a very strong emotional tug on the audience. We got people rooting for everybody, even the bad people, the bad characters.”

• Jennie: “Even when the main characters would go through bad things, the audience would kinda ride that wave with them.”

  • …like Kelly’s cocaine addiction…

• Tori brought back up what was said earlier, about parents not needing to be friends or to fit in, and said that’s something Jennie has helped teach her.

  • Tori said to this day, she wants everyone to like her, and recalled being late to “Mystery Girls” once because she took the kids to school and felt she had to say “hi” to everyone, otherwise they’d think she’s a “bitch” and wouldn’t like her. Jennie told her at the time that her kids are most important and it doesn’t matter what other people think and if they like her, and you don’t have to fit in.

• Carol said when her son Christopher, who was 5-8 during the first three years of the show, was in school, the principal told her that some of the older girls wanted to ask her about the show. She said she spoke to them and told them that the school is Christopher’s “place,” where he gets to “shine,” and they “totally got it... they wanted the same thing for themselves.”

• Tori: “Oh my gosh, you are Cindy Walsh.”

• After a break, Sisanie asked Carol if she remembered her “audition story.”

• Carol said she was out of work for a while and every time she had an audition and didn’t hear back right away, “I would dissolve into tears because I was convinced I would never work again.”

• Carol recalled auditioning in front of Aaron and him approaching her and introducing himself with a handshake. “I thought, ‘Wow! Nobody does that.’ He never forgot what it was like to be an actor even though he became a big producer. That just impressed me so much and it put me at ease.” Tori said, “He loved actors so much because he came from it.”

• Tori wondered who was “up against” Carol for the role. She didn’t remember.

• Jennie asked if she remembered her first time on set and Carol reminded them that she had a “different husband” at first, as Jim was originally played by Lyman Ward.

• Carol called Lyman a “wonderful actor” and laughed that he was too tall to have kids of Brenda and Brandon’s height. More seriously, she said, “I think he was too sort of urbane and sophisticated... It didn’t provide enough contrast, maybe. That’s my guess. I don’t know what they decided.”

  • Tori didn’t remember this at all, but Carol said that if you rewatch the pilot, you’ll notice Jim is often standing by himself because they had to reshoot scenes with James Eckhouse in the role.

• Tori pointed out that Lyman went on to do something significant, though she couldn’t remember what, and Carol confirmed he did have success after being let go from the show.

• Carol said she read with a few people for Lyman’s replacement, but she was “rooting” for James.

  • For more on this, see my 2010 interview with James Eckhouse.

• Jennie: “We heard you have a little crush on a couple of the actors.”

• Carol confirmed her crush on Luke, which she’s discussed before. “We used to joke about it all the time.”

• Jennie: “He would flirt with you, I remember that.” Tori: “Remember how he’d go up and just hold you and nuzzle you and get right in your face?”

• Carol said she and Luke used to “talk dirty to each other.” She wouldn’t give any specifics, but Jennie brought up how she herself said last week that Luke would whisper “inappropriate” things.

• Tori to Jennie, about Carol: “She’s giggling the way you giggle over Jason Priestley now.” Carol: “My cheeks are very hot.”

• Tori said she didn’t remember this until Carol said it, but now she can picture Luke being handsy with her.

• Tori: “You have to tell us one thing he said that wasn’t too dirty.” Carol tried to imitate Luke telling her that “Mrs. Walsh” should have an affair with Dylan.

• This reminded Carol of Grant Show also once telling her their characters should be the ones having an affair — him as the younger and Cindy as the older, I guess, opposed to Kelly as the younger and Jake as the older (though their relationship wasn’t an “affair”).

• Tori: “What is happening?! The star of ‘90210,’ the star of ‘Melrose Place,’ they were all hitting on you! Carol Potter, a whole side of you is revealed today. I love it so much... We couldn’t see when we were in it. But now rewatching it, we were saying the same thing.”

  • I’m going to be nit-picky: Luke was the star of “Beverly Hills, 90210,” not “90210,” which, unfortunately, is a different show.

• Jennie: “We didn’t really take the time to look at you much because we were so worried about what we looked like, but now rewatching it, you looked amazing and your acting was so great and I felt like I personally just didn’t appreciate your amazing contribution to the show at that time.”

• Carol on “BH90210”: “You ladies really put together something... I thought you did an amazing job. You hit on so many themes of aging, of celebrity, sort of deconstructing the idea of celebrity, the idea of what’s a person really like and what’s their real life versus their screen life. I have to give you props for that because I thought it was really well done and I have to say that was probably my favorite day of shooting in my entire career. You were all so sweet and it was so nice to hang around together now that you’re all adults. It was so much more relaxed and you knew what you were about and you weren’t all stressed.”

• Carol: “I can’t imagine what it was like to find yourself thrust so in the spotlight like you were. It must’ve been incredibly jarring and scary. I just remember the girls were all getting scared.”

• Carol recalled a guy going to Shannen’s house and the girls needing security while the guys were like, “Girls are throwing themselves at me. What could be bad?” But she noted that girls are “vulnerable” and thought it was “much harder” for them.

• Tori said they thought it was harder for the guys, with Jennie adding because they were “chased more,” but Jennie said that “emotionally and mentally, it was more taxing on the women because there was so much more pressure on us to fulfill everyone’s needs, what they wanted us to be. That was a lot and I don’t think the guys really took that on as much as the girls probably did.”

• Carol: “I also think that for a guy to have girls throwing themselves at him, there’s a certain aspect of that he can enjoy, but for a young woman to have strange men throwing themselves at her, it can feel dangerous.”

• Jennie: “And to have people look at you a different way, like objectifying you, looking at you and sort of sizing you up and stereotyping you and thinking that’s all you are. I've been in therapy for years, Carol... It was a lot and I was not equipped to handle all that went with that sort of fame and stardom.”

• Carol: “I think very few people are equipped to handle something like that at the ages you kids were dealing with it. You don’t mind if I call you kids?” Jennie: “No. Keep doing it.” Tori: “I really like it.”

• Superfan Sisanie, who apparently wasn’t listening earlier when Carol said she didn’t give them advice, asked if they would confide in her and come to her dressing room seeking advice. Carol again confirmed no. “Tori Spelling?! If she needs advice from anybody, she’ll go to her dad.”

• Carol noted that Tori’s brother Randy was also on “Sunset Beach,” so she’s “worked with both of the Spelling children.”

  • They were also in a couple of the same “Beverly Hills, 90210” episodes, but their characters didn’t have anything to do with one another.

• Jennie and Tori couldn’t get over Luke whispering dirty things to Carol back in the day and Tori asked if Jason ever flirted with her. That got a quick no. “Even though it was only pretend [that they were mother and son], it still felt a little weird,” she said.

• Carol claimed she never actually had a scene with only Jason in it until she returned for season 6’s Christmas episode.

• Carol asked Tori if she remembered an emotional one-on-one scene they had and Tori didn’t, before speculating it might’ve been when Donna’s mom cheated in season 2 — which it was.

• Sisanie: “That just goes to show they really played on the father-son and then the mother-daughter.” Carol: “And the father-daughter. They did plenty of father-daughter.”

• Tori called it “bizarre” that they didn’t “explore” the mother-son relationship more.

  • Well, they did with Steve and Samantha, as well as Dylan and Iris, and later David and Shelia.

• Carol: “They didn’t want to explore that because it reminded them of when they were teenagers and their mother’s in charge of them. When you live in a patriarchal system and you're becoming a young man, the last thing you want to have admit to is the fact that there was this woman who had control over your life. I’m just speculating.”

• Jennie said she “loves this kind of talk” and asked Carol if she thinks a lot men grow up with grudges against their mothers. Carol said yes, but that there are also “a lot of mothers who enable predators.”

  • This got dark, with Carol going on to give an example about a rape to demonstrate how there’s a double standard between how girls and guys are viewed.

• Jennie: “I remember having a really nice, strong connection with Jackie, with Ann, who played my mom on the show. I always loved the days when I’d be working with her. It just felt good. It felt warm and fuzzy somehow.” She asked Carol, “Did you have that same feeling with Brenda or Shannen?”

• Carol: “No. We weren’t warm and fuzzy. I mean, we had some nice scenes together, but I never felt that close to Shannen. I felt really close to James, I mean, ‘cause he and I were constantly [in scenes together].”

• Carol recalled Richard Roundtree’s guest-starring appearance in season 2 and said she and James “glommed onto” him because he was “another adult.”

• Carol: “When Tiffani came, she and I had a blast... She would just shoot the shit back and forth. So she was a lot of fun... We would play, even if we were working on the scene. I could really play with her. My sense of Shannen was she was kind of working, she was doing her thing, and I didn’t feel like there was a lot of space for me. It may have been different when she was working with the rest of you guys. I’m sure it was different with Luke.”

• Tori brought up Katherine Cannon (but blanked on her last name) to say that “even though she was kind of harsh on the show, she was so warm off camera. I felt the same you felt, [Jennie]. The days I got to work with her, I felt so much love. She hugged me and it was literally like having an extension, a mom, on set.”

• Tori, regarding the dynamic with Shannen: “Well, Carol, you’re a great actress, because you couldn’t tell! Would’ve thought you guys were BFFs!”

• Sisanie told Carol she was in 147 out of 297 episodes and asked if she has a favorite.

• Carol: “‘17-Year-Itch,’ my god, you know? I got to flirt with somebody else and have a dilemma.” Jennie: “What season was that in?” They (apart from Carol) were all surprised to discover it was a season 1 episode AND the next one for them to cover.

  • Really would’ve made a lot more sense sense to have Ann on today and Carol on next week. But we know they do a lot of things that don’t make much sense, so...

• Jennie: “Now I’m excited for the next episode!” Tori: “Tell us, Carol, what to look forward to.”

• Carol recalled shooting in Venice with Stan Ivar, who played Glen, and said he “talked so slowly” that they had to cut the scenes down.

• Carol revealed the episode was shot the week before she got married.

  • She explained that after the pilot was picked up and they started shooting episodes, she got a call about a Saturday call time and was confused and was told they were shooting Tuesday through Saturday and exclaimed, “What the F?! Was nobody going to tell me this?!” She then told them how she’s getting married on a Saturday and they promised to “work it out.” She said they “flipped two shows so I would get this one over and then shoot the next show, which I didn’t have much to do in, and then we had a pickup day, so it shoved the whole shooting schedule over one day, which meant I missed my rehearsal dinner. I shot until, I don’t know, 10 or 11 o’clock on Friday night and the next day I got married. That’s so typical.”

  • Jennie: “This is why the business sucks so hard.”

• Jennie didn’t remember whether Cindy cheated on Jim and had an actual affair. Carol said the guy kissed her. Tori: “That’s cheating, Carol Potter.” Jennie: “Technically you cheated on Jim Walsh.” Carol: “I was tempted, but I realized in time that I really loved Jim and I didn’t want to ruin my life, so I made the right decision.”

• Jennie: “I feel like that’s an episode in every series, the husband or the wife gets that temptation to dip the toe.”

• Carol doesn’t find it surprising “when you consider how prevalent affairs are in this country.” Jennie: “I thought you were going to say ‘in this industry.’” Ha.

• Carol said the number of people who have affairs in the U.S. is “mind-blowing.”

• Tori wanted to know if she found it “true” that men more often cheat than women, and Carol said she didn’t know, but she thinks more women are having affairs these days than in the past.

  • She attributed it to the fact that more women work today than in past generations, giving them more opportunities to have affairs than when women were home alone all the time and not meeting anyone.

    • Tori had an epiphany here about the age-old joke that a kid’s father was the milkman — the only other guy around. She finally understood it.

      • I wonder if Tori felt uncomfortable during this at all, given Dean’s infamous cheating — not to mention the fact that they cheated together.

• There was a small tangent about the fashion of the ‘50s and Tori suggested that Carol might deserve credit for the “mom jean” She insisted she never wore “mom jeans,” but Tori felt otherwise.

  • This led to a tangent about the cut and waistline of different jeans and “maybe some pubes popping out.” Jennie saying “pubes” made Tori crack up and Carol was amused watching her have a “hysterical fit.”

• Carol: “I needed a laugh today, too, so thank you. I’m just to here with this crazy world we’re living in right now.”

• Carol shared how she tried to add a new email address inbox to her phone and ended up in tears.

• Tori asked Carol if she’s on Zoom calls all day with clients. She said she does yoga classes on Zoom twice a week, which has “been a life-saver.” She’s also in a meditation group as well that she participates in 3-5 times a week.

  • Jennie thought that sounded so nice. “Can we come?” Carol gave the instructor’s name and said to google her.

• Carol also revealed she wrote a book with a major rewrite last March that lasted toward the end of the summer. “The fact that there was nothing to do and nowhere to go really kind of helped,” she said.

  • The book is called When Your Child Has a Chronic Medical Illness: A Guide for the Parenting Journey. It comes out next month and can be preordered on Amazon. She said they’re already getting “great reviews and great feedback.”

  • Tori: “We’re excited to read it and support you, of course.”

• Tori: “It’s so nice hanging out with you.” As a comparison, Tori brought up Gabrielle and noted how while they’re “super-close” with her now, they weren’t back in the day. “It makes me sad that we missed out on these amazing people for 10 years. We just didn’t know.”

• Carol: “I feel that way about college.”

• Jennie asked Carol if she remembered any of the “love triangles” that happened on set. Carol said she would ask the wardrobe department what was going on because she didn’t have a lot of scenes with the rest of them to get all the gossip.

• Carol asked if they remembered when they sent Cindy to graduate school and Jennie was definitely stunned.

• Tori wanted to know about the “rumors” she heard, though, and Carol said she didn’t remember anything before saying, “Of course, the big thing was the Jennie-Shannen, who’s gonna wear the red dress?!” Jennie then tried to pin the infamous “red dress” fight on Tori.

• Carol brought up Kelly and Brenda actually wearing the same dress for “Spring Dance” in season 1, prompting Jennie to say, “They kind of created that. They pitted Kelly and Brenda against each other and made Kelly steal Brenda’s boyfriend. They didn’t have a chance in their friendship. But they seemed to overcome it. Kelly and Brenda remained friends for the whole show, as far as I remember.”

  • KELLY DID NOT STEAL BRENDA’S BOYFRIEND. DON’T GET ME STARTED.

• Tori asked Jennie if she thinks Brenda and Kelly are still friends today and Jennie said yes.

• Carol asked if Shannen was on nu90210. Jennie said she herself was on it for a “couple of episodes,” prompting Tori to interrupt and insist Jennie was on it for “like 22” while Jennie swore it was “like 3.”

  • Jennie: “We have this argument all the time.” Tori: “Can someone fact-check this?” Superfan Sisanie had to clarify which show they were even talking about.

  • Carol reminded them they could just check IMDb. Indeed. As noted there, Jennie was in 20 episodes.

  • Jennie downplaying her involvement with “90210” actually infuriates me. I detailed it all here.

• Jennie went on to say that Shannen and Tori both appeared too, but Tori said they only did like two episodes compared to Jennie’s supposed 22. “You were basically the spinoff! It was all about you.”

  • For the record, Shannen was in seven episodes, but Tori was in fact only in two.

• Carol pointed out that Kelly was the guidance counselor on nu90210 and she thought it would’ve been funny and interesting if Cindy ended up being the guidance counselor underneath her.

• Tori: “Well, when Jen and I produce ‘90210: The Musical,’ we’ll make that happen.”

  • Is she really unaware that’s already happened?

• Sisanie said they’d have to wrap soon, but before Carol left, they wanted to do “Kiss, Marry, Kick to the Curb” with her using “any of the boys from the cast.”

• Tori and Jennie joked that they already knew who she’d want to kiss.

• Carol wanted to know if she had to pick characters or actors, and neither Jennie nor Tori could remember which way they did it a few weeks ago.

• Jennie wondered if they should include Jim in the possibilities, but Tori insisted, “Just boys! Jim’s the obvious choice. He was her soulmate.”

• Carol confirmed the options were Brian, Luke, Jason, and Ian, and quickly realized there’s one she’d have to “ignore.”

• Carol also said she thought the “kiss” component “used to be a word starting with F.” She then said, “That would definitely be Luke.”

• Carol said she would marry Brian and then: “I’d have to ignore Jason. He played my son. It gets too creepy. Kick him to the curb. But they were all hunks.”

• Tori: “Come back and play with us.” Jennie: “Tori and I sometimes get into arguments. We’re going to need our therapist.”

• Jennie urged “everybody to go pick up her book or preorder Carol’s book and support her. That’d be nice."

• Tori: “You'll have to tell us off the show what Luke whispered, because we know you remember.” Carol: “Yeah, I’ll tell you that off the show.” Tori: “We’ll start a group chat.”

• Carol: “I’m so glad our relationships got to the place where we can really enjoy each other.”

• Carol hopped off the call.

• Jennie: “That was so fun, you guys. I feel like I just had a therapy session kind of.” Tori: “My heart’s so full right now.” Jennie: “She’s so easy to talk to and just like chill.”

• Tori: “I mean that — we missed 10 years with a great woman and we didn’t even know. I don’t want to ever do that again. We judge people because of their age. ‘Oh, she wasn’t in our teen group.’ We could’ve learned so much.”

• Jennie: “In our defense, as a teen, you’re just not wired that way. You can’t see outside yourself. That’s not a negative thing or we’re talking badly about teenagers. Their brains aren’t developed in a way that they can appreciate the landscape.”

• Sisanie brought up how Linda Thompson was also in this episode as Jackie's friend Nina and how Linda was married to Caitlyn Jenner (though she dead-named Caitlyn, ugh), and how they had Brandon and Brody Jenner before she went on to marry David Foster.

  • Naturally, Jennie’s mind was blown (and she used the wrong name for Caitlyn too).

• Tori then brought up the Kardashian connection and Jennie somehow remembered correctly that Linda was also involved with Elvis. She recalled filming with Linda at the pool and the crew talking about her past with Elvis. Tori: “That hands-down trumps the Kardashians.” Jennie: “Yeah, dating Elvis is pretty cool.”

• They took a break at 55 minutes in, only the second break in this installment, but it was, like, minutes before the whole thing ended. Weird choice.

• After the break, they turned to the topic of the episode’s fashion, which they had touched on earlier with Donna’s bikini. Now Tori said, “That was a bikini before my boob job.”

• Sisanie pointed out how Kelly didn’t even get to walk the runway with everything that happened. Jennie: “Poor Kelly. Kelly was all dressed up with nowhere to go.”

• Sisanie thought “Carol looked so good in that red dress” and that it “fit her like perfection.”

• Jennie brought up the ripped jeans Brenda was wearing with her butt cheeks showing. Tori said, “I feel like Shannen always wore her own jeans. I think so. That was her jam. Shannen has great taste, she has great style, and she wore a lot of her own stuff, definitely her own jeans.”

• If her daughter wore jeans like that, Jennie said she’d tell her, “No, please go put on some jeans that cover your ass, please.”

• Tori said she feels weird when she goes over to Jennie’s and thinks her daughter Lola looks “hot,” but it’s different with her own children. She brought up her eldest daughter Stella and how she points to TikTok for proof of what girls her age are wearing.

• Tori said she wasn’t able to express herself through her appearance much while growing up. She said Candy would buy her clothes and it wasn’t until she was older that she got to decide things for herself, which is why she gives her kids a lot of leeway with their appearance, even though she doesn’t agree with their choices.

• Jennie: “We are slowly becoming our parents, I think. But I’m okay with that.” Tori: “Oh, man. Yeah, me too.”

• Jennie asked for favorite lines and Sisanie said one of Cindy’s lines — “It’s the law of nature: No girl can ever appreciate their own mom.”

  • Sisanie said that resonated with her because of her relationship with her own mom and her fears about her future relationship with her daughter when she reaches the teen age.

• Jennie said she has “so many emotions” when her kids’ teen friends come over: “It’s so hard being a mom.” Tori: “But once again, you will always have a leg up but because you will always be Kelly Taylor... Now the kids will always be like, ‘Wow, cool mom, Kelly Taylor.’” Jennie was skeptical.

• Jennie’s favorite line was Jackie saying, “I can’t be everything to everybody” and Kelly saying in response, “When you’re drinking, mom, you’re nothing to nobody.”

  • Jennie: “I’m going to tear up right now! I felt all the feelings Kelly was feeling... and then I also felt the other side, Jackie’s part. Her life is falling apart and she doesn’t have anybody but Kelly. She needs help to kind of get her life back on track. I just felt for both of them so much more than I realized I would.”

• Sisanie to Jennie: “This was like your episode.” BINGO.

• Tori called Kelly’s room “iconic,” but Jennie pointed out that you don’t see it in this episode.

  • It’s unclear if Tori was even referring to Kelly’s bedroom from the early seasons or her bedroom at the beach apartment.

    • I remain mad at my mom for not letting me paint my room the same color as Kelly’s bedroom walls in the apartment. I loved that room so much.

• Jennie told them where the actual house was located, which excited Sisanie, and called it “seriously ‘80s... Jackie and Kelly were like artsy, I guess. Very modern ladies.”

• They all laughed about the remote panel Jackie had in her bedroom and Jennie said that was a real thing in the house that they rented out to film the interiors for this episode.

• Sisanie again marveled over how real people live in these houses that are used on TV shows and Jennie noted that the homeowners are paid a lot of money, but the homes often get damaged.

  • Jennie also joked about going through people’s drawers and Tori said she would always look in the fridge and pantry.

• Jennie: “So Carol’s favorite episode is next week, right? Tori: “17-Year-Itch.” Jennie: “That’s everybody’s homework!” Tori: “Can’t wait.”

• Jennie: “We’ll talk more about Carol Potter’s steamy performance... She’s a saucy lady — you can tell. Carol’s got it goin’ on.” Tori: “I want to go out for drinks with her now.”

• Jennie, as they wrapped up: “Keep up the great work. First week of January down.”

So this was a great “Carol Potter” installment of the podcast. It was an okay “Perfect Mom” installment. I wish they weren’t combined. Even though I was thrown off the other week when they spent the entire time talking with Gabrielle and skipped over the episode they were supposed to discuss, the decision made sense. Of course, spending almost all of this hour talking to Carol made sense too. But as a result, “Perfect Mom” got the short shrift.

It should’ve been one or the other or at least better balanced, because there was so much more that could’ve been discussed or discussed more deeply about this episode, which is one of the series’ early standouts. Both the Kelly storyline and the Brenda storyline (and their intersection) were worthy of deep dives, and Andrea’s and David’s storylines weren’t addressed at all. It wasn’t even mentioned that Kelly gave David a kiss! Tori’s David! I think it also should be noted that while they highlighted favorite lines, they didn’t even connect the fact that this mother-daughter episode was written by a male writer who happened to be the creator of the entire series. That would’ve been something to unpack for sure.

And while it was definitely worth talking to Carol for her insight on this episode, as I said above, it would’ve made a lot more sense to talk with Ann about this one and then Carol for the next episode. That said, I did enjoy hearing all Carol had to say, especially about working with Shannen and Tiffani. (And I wonder how Jennie was feeling during those comments.) I don’t know what to make of the Luke stuff. Carol has mentioned their flirtation before and how she always had the hots for him. I guess it just strikes me as weird (or weirder) now because Luke isn’t here to give his side of the story, so to speak.

I’ll conclude with two shameless plugs: Carol has already been on the “Beverly Hills 90210 Show” podcast a few times (including just two weeks ago) and I interviewed her for the original TeenDramaWhore back in 2009. Be sure to check those out!

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