Again With This: Beverly Hills, 90210

Amanda and Sam's crash site still hasn't been found, and Kyle is DETERMINED to locate it NO MATTER WHAT and REGARDLESS of whose actually experienced toes he steps on!!! (Billy is also there, kind of circling Kyle and yapping like that little dog in the old Looney Tunes cartoon.) Anyway -- spoiler? -- the ladies are located and treated for their injuries, and it turns out Amanda wasn't just whining about her back: it is seriously injured, to the degree that she may be paralyzed. (Or just have to stay in bed for a while because of Heather Locklear's pregnancy.) While Sam is still recovering -- and totally convinced by Billy's version of Connie's snitching about their kiss -- Billy urges Connie to go see her, promising he didn't tell her anything about...you know. GloveCo is thriving, but Coop still wants to get rid of Michael; soft-hearted and/or stupid Megan just wants him to ignore Michael instead. While Peter is occupied by Amanda's treatment, Lexi lavishes her attention onto Bob, in a decision she almost im

The GloveCo lawsuit is behind us...sort of: Michael is so bitter about having been cut out of the business for the obvious reasons that he uses his Chief of Staff position to forbid the glove's use in surgery by ANY hospital personnel. Coop hatches a plan to strip Michael of this authority, but it's going to require that Michael believe a woman who hates him also wants to bone. Hmmm, could it possibly work?! Peter is also an accessory to this plan, but he's got his own problems: Bob is back in town (crutch-free), and since he's looked up Peter and Lexi's address and popped by, Lexi decides to atone for her crime by giving him a job. It's Billy's birthday, and though Sam has planned a huge celebratory extravaganza, it's going to have to wait until next year: Amanda's bringing her on a location scout for a new client's campaign. Left alone with Billy, Connie only needs to wait for him to get slightly tipsy to create the conditions for him to try to make out. But then Charlie shows up and is NOT WHAT WE EXPECTED

Having learned in the last episode that Lexi (a) has a problem with pills and (b) ran a guy over, Jennifer wastes no time putting her intel to use on Michael's behalf: she tells Coop she can get Lexi to release him from his alimony obligation if Coop will drop the lawsuit against Michael and turn over any relevant documents (which she still believes are fake anyway). Evidently, Coop is too focused on winning Megan away from Michael to think through all the implications, and agrees -- so it's too bad that Megan, despite talking big talk about her plans to divorce Michael, seems extremely susceptible to his love bombing via gifts. As Sam gets increasingly distracted by her long hours at work, Connie seems to be taking advantage of her absence by creeping ever closer to Billy (particularly to his lips). And though Kyle's heartbreak over Amanda is making him even worse at business than usual, a well-timed visit by JON SECADA has Taylor hatching plans to save their lease...and also......make a balloon payment on t

We've said a lot of hurtful things about Coop, because he is a bad character and we have assessed him accurately. But one of the smartest things we've ever seen him do is try to get Craig on his side in the glove lawsuit by showing him the hard evidence that proves Coop really did come up with the idea first. When Jennifer is present for Craig's deposition, where he truthfully testifies about it, she confronts Michael about what he may have gotten her into; Michael has her on side, but he's going to have to do some fancy footwork to keep her there, which will be hard now that his attention is split between that and obsessing about Megan and Coop's burgeoning relationship. Peter returns to the scene of Lexi's hit-and-run and finds the victim, an unhoused person named Bob. Though he tries to keep Lexi from finding out what she did, even she is able to put the pieces together when the cops show up and tell her about the person Peter saved after some scofflaw ran him over. Amanda continues to be distressed about

Peter confronts Lexi about the pills he found in her purse, which he went ahead and asked Coop about behind her back, and guess what: she feels betrayed! Fortunately, she's easily distracted by the project of redecorating not just the condo, but the offices of the Mancini Glove Company, too. Décor is the least of Michael's concerns: he's busy trying to convince Megan that she's extremely frail, and also that he was the one who kept a vigil during her coma, both of which require that he keep Coop far away from Megan. Meanwhile, Jennifer's loose lips give Coop yet another front from which to attack Michael. Amanda continues trying to convince Kyle that she wasn't dishonest with him about Eric (even though...lady, come on). But now that Taylor's crept one step closer to reuniting with Kyle for more than a twenty-minute stand, she's got a new project: convincing Kyle to let Amanda sell her share in the jazz club. Amanda's got different hassles at the office, what with Sam and Billy taking off for their honeymoon,

After the previous episode's cliffhanger gets resolved, Amanda must do damage control, trying her very best to convince Kyle that she did NOT accept Eric's offer even though, yes, when Kyle kicked his way into Eric's suite, she WAS in bed with him, naked. Then Billy stops by Kyle's to tell him that a bunch of their clients have come back, and whatever Amanda did, it's working. Hey, Billy? STAY OUT OF IT. Taylor keeps hoping unrest between Kyle and Amanda will mean she can slide back in with him. While Megan remains comatose, Coop is (unsurprisingly) drawn to her; at the same time, he and Michael wrangle over who gets to keep the bedside vigil. Lexi has gotten her prescription refilled, yet we're not sure the writers know what effect Valium has on a patient. Finally, the wedding draws ever closer, putting stress on Jennifer to find a date who will make Craig jealous, and causing Connie to get more direct about her feelings. Wake up! We made you a podcast on "My Little Coma Girl"! JOIN THE AWT CLUB

Once again, the doctors are in disarray! When Peter bails Coop out of jail, Michael turns on both of them, convinced that even if Coop didn't physically pull the trigger at the beach house, he's behind the person who did. Michael's so fired up about finding the shooter that even Megan gets curious enough to join in the investigation. Coop himself is pretty shocked when Mrs. Shaw accosts him outside his apartment, and quickly figures out she's the culprit; since his was not his endgame with Michael, he informs her that he's going to send her back to Cleveland and have her check herself into a mental institution. PROBLEM SOLVED. At the same time, Peter -- a medical doctor -- can tell Lexi isn't quite herself, but not that she's pretty obviously going into withdrawal after running through the last of her tranquilizers. Jennifer is inspired by Billy and Sam's engagement to try to corner Craig into committing to dating her, and won't take "my wife was killed in front of me nine episodes ago so I'm not really ready

Sarah will be back next week (yay!) so this week in lieu of a void of nothingness we're unlocking two episodes from the Again With This Club. 060: Let’s Watch Thomas Calabro On Law & Order! Back in the unlamented Greevey era of Law & Order: Mothership, Thomas Calabro played a variation on Robert Chambers named Ned Loomis in Season 1, Episode 4, "Kiss The Girls And Make Them Die." We have some notes. 064: Let’s Watch Josie Bissett, Laura Leighton, And Daphne Zuniga In Their Fantasy Island Episode! We couldn't NOT watch three Melroseans in the Fantasy Island reboot -- especially in an episode that's a meta meditation on aging in Hollywood and societal double standards. Did the show convert Sarah? And what's with the tomato boobs? JOIN THE AWT CLUB

While Amanda keeps the secret of Eric's designs against Kyle's entire hospitality empire, Eric completes his purchase of the KYLE'S/jazz club property, giving Kyle 30 days to exit. And that's not all: he's ALSO planning to sell Amanda's new agency to one of her competitors. However, he doesn't leave Amanda without hope: he will abandon all his plots if she will just do oooooooone little thing. Michael is still being harassed by either Kimberly or someone working very hard to convince him that they're her. Michael accuses virtually everyone in his life of being the culprit -- though not Craig and Jennifer, since his main complaint about them at the moment is that they're not giving him enough adulation at the newly formed medical device company. Peter is happy to use Michael's crazy-sounding stories against him in order to get his Chief of Staff job back, but otherwise his life is going pretty great. He can even openly date Lexi now, and enjoy total honesty in their relationship, because she has nothing to hid

The main drama swirls around the doctors this time: Michael's already had a prototype cauterizing glove made and is ready to start making money off it immediately by selling it to a medical company; Craig wants to use it to build a company himself, which will make him and both Mancini siblings money in the long term. When Jennifer sees that Michael's stubbornness is going to drive Craig away (from her), she engages in a little espionage to force Craig and Michael into an arranged marriage, business-wise. Though Coop does find out about some of this eventually, it can't be top of mind: he's found out that Lexi got his real books, he knows he's about to get screwed in their divorce settlement, and he wants to know who's to blame. And she's not the only woman in the episode who's giving him trouble. Kyle, continuing to stew (no pun intended) over the loss of KYLE'S East, asks Amanda why she told Eric about it. She says she didn't, which only makes Kyle more suspicious about how Eric found out, particularly after

Michael is the pivot point for virtually everyone in the A plot. He helps Taylor cover up her non-pregnancy after a fortuitous fall down the jazz club's eponymous stairs. He hassles Megan so much that he drives her into Eric's arms. He takes an idle conversation with Coop about surgical tools and turns it into a proposal to develop a new device AND lets Jennifer pitch him on tricking Craig into backing it with Sydney's insurance money instead of blowing it on a cruise. But Michael's not the only one screwing Coop over: Peter is so fired up with love for Lexi that he takes it upon himself to steal Coop's financial records in order to assist her in her divorce machinations. Billy finally decides to listen to Sam the 400th time she tells him to depart Maryland and leave her alone, but his goodbye convinces her that she doesn't belong there either, and she comes home to (a) reunite with him and (b) interview for the graphic artist job he's trying to fill at Amanda's new agency. Make sure you are safely planted be

Still reeling from Sam’s shock departure at the end of the last episode, Billy takes time off from The AWA at the worst possible time to follow a hunch and locate her in Maryland, working at her mother Kate’s restaurant. Though Kate’s longtime employee Ernie seems kindly disposed toward Billy, he admits that Kate still feels guilty about mistakes she made in Sam’s childhood (edging us ever closer to confirmation that Jim sexually abused Sam), and may be overcompensating in her protectiveness of Sam now. Counterpoint to Ernie: it’s Billy. At the same time, Sydney’s father has come to L.A. to see Craig. He’s about to hand off something too significant to mail when a heedless Jennifer flounces out in her underwear and one of Craig’s shirts and Mr. Andrews decides maybe he never needs to see Craig again, actually. Can Jennifer smooth things over with her former distant in-law? As for everyone else: it’s just one romance crisis after another. Kyle is jealous of Amanda’s relationship with Eric, and only grows more

As we take a little time off for the holidays, we're opening up our voicemail box and playing some of your latest calls. In addition to learning about the Jackie Taylor-esque luxury one listener enjoys in her boudoir/kitchenette and another's suggestion for a New Year's resolution a certain Chris Marchette should make, we're answering your questions. Which 90210 or past Melrose Place character would we import to Season 6? What might happen if anyone in the gang crossed over into Law & Order? If we all agree on Melrose Place's BEST couple (and we do), which is second-best? And more! Pop some champagne and join us! JOIN THE AWT CLUB

There's one special gift that almost every Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place star has loved to give us over the years: appearing in a holiday-themed TV movie! In this special game, Sarah and Dave festively fight to see who is better at guessing those films' titles. Get your silver bell buzzer and play along! JOIN THE AWT CLUB

The organizers of a medical conference in Santa Barbara had NO IDEA their event was going to be a flashpoint for so much drama! First, Coop tries to get Michael to go and gets turned down flat. Then Megan tries to get Michael to agree to more therapy, so he claims he has to go to this conference and absolutely cannot get out of it! Then Coop tells Lexi he's not going to be able to see her when she comes to L.A., because he's going to, guess what, this conference. So when she says she'll just track him down there, he gets Peter to go in his place. Michael is delighted to hear that his wife has come to the hotel to surprise him...until he sees that it's actually Taylor, still looking for him to knock her up -- which is why things get complicated when his actual wife actually ALSO comes to surprise him, but Taylor will not let Megan interrupt their procreative schedule! At the same time, Peter happens to meet a gorgeous redhead who's loitering around the hotel seeming frustrated.... In Los Angeles, Amanda and Bi

Coop has not only taken Michael up on his invitation to join the medical practice -- he brings in a contractor to start talking about knocking down walls before he's even met Peter! Who by the way isn't thrilled to have this development sprung on him. Michael has MANY problems other than his business partner's rage: Megan gets him to enter couples' therapy, where they are challenged not to lie to each other for 48 whole hours. And: Taylor's plan to get artificially inseminated goes off the rails due to a problem at the sperm bank. Wherever will she find more sperm before she's done ovulating?! Peter also has some other plots cooking: after Amanda mentioned in passing that she might want to start her own new ad agency, Peter's enlisted Billy to come up with a prospectus, and believes that if he can just give Amanda the money to get it off the ground, she'll fall in love with him again for sure. Not thrilled with this plan: Sam, who is worried about what Craig will do if he suffers another huge loss. And she's

For obvious reasons, Amanda is trying to void the lease that Taylor signed with Matt; for equally obvious reasons, she's annoyed that Kyle doesn't seem to care where Taylor lives or what she does. Then Amanda overhears Peter yelling at Taylor about her pregnancy, and tells Kyle about it. And when Kyle asks Taylor about it, she says that not only is it true...but that Kyle must be the father because Peter is sterile. Obviously, Peter is not thrilled that this rumor about him is going around the complex, until Taylor tells him that they can use this lie to break up Kyle and Amanda and reunite with their original partners. Coop has arranged for his extremely offscreen fancy surgeon friend to operate on Michael's hands; Jennifer uses this potentially dangerous moment in Michael's life to manipulate Megan into spending time with him again. It's lucky for Coop that everyone's too self-involved to notice how much attention he is paying to everything anyone says about Michael in his presence. Craig is still raw from

Wilshire Memorial has always been a flashpoint for drama, and that has never been more true than in our Season 6 premiere. Peter is still in Carmel, sorting out his feelings about Taylor's pregnancy and making a huge decision. Michael is entering into a devil's bargain with Jennifer, so that she'll convince her new roomie Megan not to turn against Michael. Matt has decided to do his residency at a teaching hospital in San Francisco, where Michael conveniently has a hookup. And Dr. Brett Cooper relocates from Cleveland to Los Angeles, apparently for the sole purpose of avenging Kimberly's death. Then there's the fallout from the Season 5 finale car crash: a couple of people are dead (one no one will mourn, and one we ALL will), and a lot of feelings are hurt. Kyle and Amanda have managed not to screw things up between them in the 12 hours or so they've spent boning all over her apartment, but now she has to go to New York and turn down that other job in person, because she got the hookup from her old mentor, w

Though being a bitch queen has generally worked out for Amanda, her run may be at an end: Craig and Sydney are conspiring to bring down D&D from within, and her desperate attempt to get back the capital she poured into the jazz club fails when Kyle has to tell her he spent it on tables and bands and napkins and stuff. It's more than she can take -- literally (in a physical sense). And D&D is not the only Melrose Place business going through changes: Jake has sold Shooters to an entirely offscreen buyer, but Alison doesn't seem too excited about starting her new life in Ojai: she picks a fight about putting her dreams on hold for his, races back to L.A., "forgets" she has important real estate papers in her car and asks Colleen to bring them up to Jake. She couldn't push the two former partners closer together if she tried! (...Hmmmm.) Michael and Taylor's scheme against Peter kicks into its final phase, only to risk blowback when this physician seeks a second opinion on his surgeon partner's neurologi

Amanda returns from the DR divorced and in a great mood...until she learns that Sydney's employment was a condition of her settling her lawsuit. Sydney is suspicious about why Amanda is putting so many D&D resources behind the launch of Kyle's stupid club, while Amanda is greedily jealous of Craig's relationship with Sydney even though Amanda didn't even want him when she could have easily had him, and just regular jealous that Kyle hired Jennifer to tend bar at the club without running it by Amanda first. Colleen comes back to town upon the very predictable end of her marriage, bringing David to spend some time with Jake before Colleen and David move out of state; Alison gets just as predictably bent out of shape about it, given that she was already worried that her infertility was denying Jake one of his longest-held life goals. Billy eludes the cops to get Jim his cash, only to learn there's yet another stipulation: Jim isn't leaving town without Sam. This finally leads Sam and Billy to come clean to t