Beverly Hills, 90210 - Season 2, Episode 21

"I hereby propose that condoms
be made available to students,
and that they be ribbed!"

"Everybody's Talkin' 'Bout It"
Original airdate: 2/6/1992

Episode summary: Ahn-drea goes on a crusade to make condoms available at West Beverly High...even though it probably wasn't all that necessary since there are plenty of drug stores in Beverly Hills where the teenagers can easily buy their condoms.

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Recap: The Walshes, plus Dylan and Ahn-drea, are in the living room watching the local news together. The commentator is covering a public rally that recently took place, and there's mention of the government wishing to administer a public health survey (hereafter to be referred to as "the sex survey") to teenagers in Beverly Hills. Ahn-drea squeals excitedly when she sees John Griffin in the news footage. When Papa Walsh asks who that is, she explains that John is the managing editor of The Blaze. That's weird...I thought Ahn-drea was the managing editor, editor-in-chief, and general overlord of The Blaze. The news footage also includes Ahn-drea and Mrs. Teasley, but not Brandon. He was at the event, but somehow all traces of him ended up on the cutting room floor. When the news program ends, Mama and Papa Walsh call it a night and go upstairs to bed. Brenda and Dylan throw all sense of polite etiquette out the window and start dry humping on the couch, leaving Brandon and Ahn-drea to fidget awkwardly and engage in strained, idle chit-chat.


West Beverly High. Ahn-drea runs into Brandon carrying a flyer (or something) and remarks that she didn't realize the next Parent's Association meeting would be held at the Walsh house. Brandon too is surprised and says this is the first he's heard of it. John Griffin appears and taunts Brandon about not being included in last night's local news footage. He tells Ahn-drea he tried calling her last night to remind her to watch the local news, and she breezily informs him that she watched it at Brandon's house. John looks really put off by this, and I'm wondering what the deal is here. Is this guy actually interested in Ahn-drea? Could such a thing be possible?


Donna and David are looking very cozy in the DJ booth. Brenda and Kelly stroll past and notice the two cuddling, and Kelly sarcastically dubs them "the darling duo". Brenda asks what her problem is, and Kelly explains that seeing David reminds her of Mel, which reminds her of the relationship her mother is having with him. Apparently she still doesn't get what Jackie sees in the nerdy dentist.


The Blaze newsroom. Mrs. Teasley enters the newsroom with a weary look on her generally weary looking face. She has some bad news: the faculty has cancelled the sex survey the students were supposed to take that afternoon. In the next scene, Ahn-drea and John are in the outdoor corridor, and Ahn-drea is blathering on and on in her annoying, rambley way about how wrong the faculty is to have made the calamitous decision to cancel the sex survey. Steve strolls by to ask if it's true, and when Ahn-drea confirms it, he's very bummed that he's going to have to go to his English class after all. After he stomps off, John tells Ahn-drea that he's completely at her disposal if she needs any help with her editorial. Sweet Jesus, he really is into her. Brandon, Brenda, and Donna join them and praise Ahn-drea for the gutsy way she "gave it" to Mrs. Teasley. Brenda thinks it's unfair that the school's administration doesn't want to hear what they have to say, while Donna remarks that her mother isn't going to be too upset about squelching the sex survey, given what an uptight, uppity prude she is. Ahn-drea snaps that Felice Martin should know from reading the newspaper that countless teenagers are currently still getting pregnant and contracting STDs...and she's on the verge of another blathery rant, so Brandon tells her to take it down a notch. She barks back that people are dying and will continue to die of AIDS. Mercifully the bell rings, and Donna and Brenda flee. Ahn-drea looks over the survey and reads some of the questions aloud: Have you ever had sexual intercourse before? Have you ever used birth control? Suddenly, she has an idea of how to make the administration take them seriously: show up at tonight's Board of Education meeting and present an outrageous proposal involving condoms! Why, of course! That's just crazy enough to work!


Board of Education meeting. Ahn-drea tells John, the only person masochistic enough to accompany her on this fool's errand, she's suddenly worried that coming to this meeting wasn't such a good idea. He tells her it's too late to back out 'cause her name is already on the agenda. From the front of the room, the board chair calls out Ahn-drea's name. She gets up, nervously walks over to the microphone, and then boldly proposes that the school board move to consider adopting a plan to make condoms available on the campus of West Beverly High. The room is suddenly filled with murmuring, oohing and aahing, and there's an undercurrent of oh no she diin't! To everyone's surprise, the motion is swiftly moved, and then seconded by a board member named Sheila Manners. Ahn-drea looks very smug and pleased with herself as she so often does when she gets her own way.


The Peach Pit. John is recapping the events of the board meeting to David, Donna, and Brenda, and gushes about how Ahn-drea stood her ground...and that she's so brilliant, tough, and inspirational. Blech. This fawning kid is starting to nauseate me. Nat sticks his big fat nose into the private conversation and asks Ahn-drea when the condoms will be available at the school. Not really sure why he needs to know that. Ahn-drea tells him that right now it's only a proposal that's still on the table and it needs to be voted on. Also, she knows that not everyone in the Parent's Association will be on board with students having condoms available to them in school. For whatever creepy reason, Nat is fully supportive of Ahn-drea's condom proposal, and tells her that he hopes the board passes it. And then, two seconds later, he blurts out that if it was his daughter, he'd lock her in the closet until she was thirty-five...and then laughs maniacally. Fuck he's weird. As everyone chuckles, Donna grimly tells her friends that being locked in a closet until age thirty-five is exactly what her mother would like to do with her. Brenda suggests to Donna that she not tell her mother about the Parent's Association meeting, but unfortunately Felice Martin never misses a meeting. Plus she wants to meet Mama Walsh. Ahn-drea warns them that these meetings have a way of degenerating into violent chaos, but Brandon confidently tells his friends that nothing fazes Mama Walsh.


The Walsh house. The house is filled with members of the Parent's Association meeting, and Mama Walsh is looking very fazed. She greets Mel and Jackie...and then gets her first introduction to snooty Felice Martin, who tells her how brave she is to host "one of these things". Ahn-drea makes her grand entrance, and Felice clucks at "the infamous Ahn-drea Zuckerman", and the bitchiness of her tone casts an awkward pall over that part of the living room. Mel calls Mama Walsh over, and introduces her to a douchetard named Bill Sloan, who's very irked by the presence of the teenagers. Mama Walsh defensively stammers that the teenagers are just her daughter and some of her friends, and that they'll only be observing.


When the meeting is called to order, Bill Sloan starts ranting that he doesn't want his kids to be able to go to the school nurse and ask for a condom. Mel jumps in and argues that at least the kids would receive some instruction about using condoms. Bill counters that by saying that if he wants his kids to be instructed in the ways of the condom, he'll do it himself. That's right, Bill. I'm sure when your kids start having sex, they'd come straight to you for a supply of condoms, and ask you to give them instruction on how to use them. More than likely they'll just go to a damn drug store, buy a box of condoms, and figure out the rest themselves.


Papa Walsh desperately tries to maintain order, but the meeting is fast deteriorating into a yelling match between Mel and Bill Sloan. When everyone finally quiets down, Felice Martin is given the floor. She snootily sneers at the claims that condoms are the best way to prevent disease, because somehow people continue to contract AIDS. From this she deduces that something isn't working, and suggests that maybe condoms aren't the answer. As the room buzzes, Felice declares that she's tired of kids being confused with all the mixed messages they're getting...and says that the only birth control method that works 100% of the time is abstinence. Everyone claps at Felice's good old fashioned values until Donna gets in the game and sasses her mother by blurting out, "What if they don't listen? Will you just shrug and say 'I told you so'?" (Uh, yeah, that would be my guess.) Donna announces to the group that a lot of kids at West Beverly High are having sex, but that they're just kids...though one can still hope that they have enough sense to make pre-coitus trips to the drug store to stock up on Trojans.


After the meeting adjourns, the Walshes clean up the living room and discuss the meeting. They all agree that Bill Sloan is very uptight, but Mama Walsh explains that it's hard for some people to talk about sex. Kind of like when Mama and Papa Walsh had that really cringeworthy conversation with Brenda about sex when she thought she was pregnant during the Beach Blanket Brandon episode. Now that was awkward.


West Beverly High. David is pleased to learn from Brandon and Steve that at the Parent's Association meeting, Donna was very vocal about the importance of students having access to condoms. David interprets this as a strong signal that he's about to get laid, and asks Steve when the shipment of condoms will be arriving at West Beverly. Steve irritably tells him to go to a drug store. My sentiments exactly.


A crowd is forming outside the newsroom of The Blaze. John informs Brandon that the condom story has gone national, so Ahn-drea is now being interviewed by the press. Donna happens to stroll by, and David asks her how things between her and her mom are going. She tells him things are fine, but that sometimes a person just has to take a stand for what they believe in. David and his penis can barely restrain their excitement at what is being interpreted as an invitation for imminent sex, and he reminds himself to stop by the drug store on his way home from school. Mrs. Teasley pulls Brandon aside and rants to him about how Ahn-drea didn't clear the interview with any of the faculty members, and she's now proposing publishing the sex survey in the next issue of The Blaze. Egads! Brandon tells her that when Ahn-drea gets fired up about an issue, she becomes far more obnoxious than usual...and that's sayin' something. Mrs. Teasley wants her to tone down some of her passion, since it could jeopardize her position as editor of the school paper, and that would be a damn shame. A damn shame. I find it really strange that Mrs. Teasley, who's the fucking vice principal, is bitching about all this to Brandon instead of speaking to Ahn-drea directly. Nonetheless, Brandon agrees to help "tone down" Ahn-drea...which, much to my delight, ends up being more of a smack-down.


Japanese restaurant. Mel, Jackie, David, and Kelly are out for dinner. Mel remarks how he saw Ahn-drea on the news the other day. Kelly grumbles about how sick she is of Ahn-drea's "condom crusade", and thinks that the issue of birth control is such old news. It so is. Jackie, who's suddenly suffering from suspicious stomach problems and can't finish her dinner, says that most teens aren't even ready to be involved in a sexual relationship. Kelly agrees, and doesn't think that the students at West Beverly need to have access to condoms at school. In fact, she thinks so little of them she predicts that the most moronic of the dimwits would just use them to create condom balloons.


West Beverly High. David finally went to the drug store and bought himself some condoms. He runs into Steve and updates him on his recent purchase, then asks him if he needs any. Steve looks at Kelly in the distance, puts on a sad face, and tells David that presently he has no need of any rubbers.


Kelly strides over to Brandon, who's hanging with Donna and Dylan. She immediately starts ranting to Brandon that she doesn't know what Ahn-drea is trying to accomplish with her stupid Blaze, but she wants to be left alone. It turns out that Ahn-drea asked her to write a personal journal about her sexual experience. Dylan immediately pipes up and tells Brandon he has no interest in doing that either. Donna also doesn't want to write a sex journal, but in her case there'd be no actual content since she has no sexual history...and won't for years and years to come. Like, a lot of years. Kelly snarks that Ahn-drea's latest directive is to get students to pass out condoms. Brandon is shocked.


The Blaze newsroom. It turns out that Ahn-drea isn't actually proposing passing out condoms, but rather information packets about condoms. Well that's lame. Ahn-drea and John are very enthusiastic about this endeavor, but Brandon's pissed off because he wasn't consulted despite being on the editorial board. He pulls Ahn-drea out of the newsroom so he can berate her in private. He asks her why she's so obsessed with the issue of sex and condoms, and she tells him that since there's no guarantee the school board will approve her proposal of making condoms available on campus, she wants something to bargain with. She's positively giddy about how "this thing" has gained so much momentum that it practically has a life of its own - and Brandon snaps that she should try getting a life of her own before it's too late. Oh Brandon...it's way past too late for that now. Ahn-drea gets very indignant as Brandon tries to explain that when she gets so caught up with her stupid causes she ends up alienating people who might not otherwise completely hate the sight of her. He derides the "in your face" tactics she favors because they typically just result in preaching to the choir. Ahn-drea snarls that Brandon is "just jealous" because she and John were included in the footage of the news program and he wasn't. Well that's just dumb, and Brandon ignores the childish, idiotic remark and tries to explain to her that sex isn't just about statistics and surveys. There's a whole other part to it that she's clueless about 'cause she's never gotten laid before, and therefore doesn't understand that love isn't a public health issue. Ahn-drea is stricken with embarrassment and barks a caustic "thank you" to Brandon for bringing that to her attention. She then scurries away like a rat. Awesome!


On campus the next day, Brenda admonishes Brandon for going off on Ahn-drea about her lack of sexual experience. She explains that the fear of staying a virgin forever is probably a sore subject for Ahn-drea, and that when Brandon brought it up, it must have unleashed a monsoon of her many insecurities. Brandon now feels like shit and assures Brenda that he'll clean up his mess.


Donna and David are in the hallway playing kissy face. Ahn-drea walks past them, awkwardly averting her eyes in order to avoid witnessing anything that resembles foreplay. She runs into John, who's worried about the school board meeting that evening because Felice Martin is on the agenda. Ahn-drea half-heartedly calms his fears and assures him that the facts and the votes are on their side. He then gives her the update that a personal journal was submitted to The Blaze...and it's from a virgin! Unfortunately for John, the word virgin is a sore spot with Ahn-drea at the moment, and she flees. She spots Brandon in the hallway, and in an effort to avoid him, she quickly ducks into the girls' washroom...where she runs into Kelly and Brenda. Kelly tells her there's no way in hell she's writing a personal journal about her sex life for the school paper, and then flounces off. Brenda, for whatever reason, is still committed to writing a piece about her fake pregnancy scare from the Beach Blanket Brandon episode.


Ahn-drea emerges from the washroom, looking far more stressed coming out than she did going in. She encounters Brandon, who's standing outside the washroom door, waiting for her so he can needlessly apologize. He tells her that he respects her for being obnoxiously outspoken, and that he didn't mean to hurt her feelings by pointing out that she hasn't been doinked yet. Ahn-drea sullenly retorts that while it was hard for her to hear him point out her sexual inexperience yesterday, hearing him now apologize for saying it is much worse. Huh? I don't follow her logic. If Ahn-drea were a normal person, she'd simply accept his apology and move on with her sexless life.


Board of education meeting. The school board is voting on Ahn-drea's condom proposal. It's a nail-biter (not really), but in the end it doesn't pass because Sheila Manners, the board member who had seconded the motion at the previous meeting, gives it a nay. Felice Martin mouths "thank you" to Sheila, and later we learn that the two women are best friends. I'm surprised to hear that Felice has a best friend...or any friend for that matter since she always seems so uptight and judgey. Ahn-drea is crushed that her condom proposal was denied, and Brenda also seems really bummed by the meeting's outcome and vows that their voices will still be heard. John, who's still fired up, wants to take some kind of action and suggests setting up a picket line in front of the board of education...while Donna wants to roam the streets handing out condom information packets. Ahn-drea, however, has had all the enthusiasm sucked out of her for one day, and she no longer cares if sexually active teenagers at West Beverly High have easy access to condoms. Of course, they never didn't have easy access to condoms since I'm sure there's a ton of drug stores in Beverly Hills.


The Peach Pit. David is seated at the counter, contemplating the best way to seduce Donna. Ew. He asks Dylan what kind of ID one needs in order to book a hotel room. Dylan, however, gets all pissed off when he learns that David is asking him 'cause he's considered to be an expert on the subject because of the hotel room he got so he and Brenda could doink during the Spring Dance episode. Not liking anyone being up in his bidness, he walks away and leaves David's hotel/ID question unanswered. [David: generally speaking, a hotel reservation in the U.S. requires a major credit card, or cash up front.]


The Walsh house. Dylan comes by to pick up Brenda for an evening out. He finds her in her bedroom and plants a big smooch on her. As she's flitting around her room getting ready, he pokes around her desk and discovers the personal journal she's in the middle of writing for The Blaze. He freaks out and admonishes her for "kissing and telling", crumples up her journal page, and stalks off. Brenda chases him all the way to the front door and asks him why he's so upset. He tells her he's annoyed that she didn't bother asking him how he felt about her writing something so personal for everyone to read. And since Brenda's only been with one guy at West Beverly, everyone's going to know that the journal is about him. Brenda easily capitulates, tells him she won't submit anything to The Blaze, and steers him back inside the house. 


West Beverly High. David runs into Dylan and starts rambling incoherently about how Dylan's non-answer to him about reserving a hotel room was just the right thing to not say because he's still waiting for just the right moment to bone Donna. And speaking of Donna, she comes over to tell him that her parents left for Aspen. This means they'll have the whole house to themselves to watch some MTV special together. David and his penis both perk up at this news.


The Blaze newsroom. John is coordinating Operation Hand Out Condom Information Packets when Brenda comes in to tell Ahn-drea that she won't be submitting her personal journal after all. She apologizes and explains that Dylan is uncomfortable with the entire school learning all about her fake pregnancy scare. Ahn-drea, who looks like she's still smarting from Brandon's smack-down, is understanding about Brenda's change of heart. Kelly, meanwhile, decides that handing out condom information packets to total strangers is stupid and that she'd rather go shopping. Ahn-drea isn't into it anymore either and tells John she's not feeling well. John looks concerned and suggests taking her to the nurse, but she barks back that she's fine, and that he should go hand out condom information packets with the others. I wonder if she sees the parallel dynamic here and realizes that she's like Brandon, and John is like her: clingy and annoying. After the group leaves, Brandon approaches Ahn-drea to make another unnecessary apology. He tells her that he's tired of feeling guilty, but she points out that her feelings were the ones that got hurt. She really should consider getting over herself and realize that Brandon just put her in her place...which was totally necessary and needs to be done periodically. After spending the last couple of days feeling burned out from all of her condom crusading, Ahn-drea finally cracks a smile and looks as though she's considering accepting Brandon's apology. That accomplished, he heads out with the rest of the condom information packet distributors.


Kelly rushes back into the newsroom to retrieve some books she left there by mistake. She's surprised that Ahn-drea didn't go along with the group. Ahn-drea tells her she no longer feels qualified to help educate people about safer sex when she herself has never had any kind of sex. Kelly, who has had sex, and not always under the best of circumstances, tells Ahn-drea that she's much better off being a virgin than being a suspected 'ho...the way she assumes guys often perceive her. She tells Ahn-drea how much it sucks for her to bear the burden of never knowing if a guy likes her because she's easy or because he genuinely likes her personality. Ahn-drea, of course, doesn't have this problem...though it's hard to imagine any guy liking Ahn-drea for her personality. During this conversation, Kelly also dispels the myth that she can get any guy she wants. She admits to Ahn-drea that Brandon shot her down when she propositioned him during the Spring Dance episode. Ahn-drea chuckles with relief and admits that she's still pretty stuck on him. No fucking duh.


Ahn-drea leaves the newsroom and finds John in the hallway. He decided not to go with the others, since without Ahn-drea there, he doesn't feel like one of the gang. Well...no, he's not one of the gang. He's not even a recurring character. He reveals to Ahn-drea that the personal journal that was submitted by a virgin was, in fact, written by him. Ahn-drea perks up at this admission and invites him to join her in handing out condom information packets. He says yes, and so she takes it a step further and invites him to the movies afterwards...and John happily accepts. He's actually nice and not that bad looking; it's too bad this budding romance never really took hold, if only to keep her out of Brandon's hair.


Donna's house. Donna brings a pizza into the living room for her and David to share. David whips out his wallet to pay for it, and one of his condoms falls out. She picks it up and asks him what it is, and he gets flustered and stammers that he has other flavors - if, by chance, she doesn't like lubricated pink cherry. She calls him a kidder, and he then leans over and somehow misdirects his lips and ends up kissing her cheekbone. After a much more intense kiss that does reach her lips, Donna finally realizes that he's not kidding about wanting to have sex. She then drops the bomb on him, making it clear that he's not going to be getting any. In fact, she's not doing that with anybody. Ever. Well, except her husband, of course - which funnily enough ends up being David in Season 10 anyway. She tells him that her life is complicated enough without being involved in a sexual relationship. This conversation is the genesis of what eventually becomes an endless slog for David until the two finally hit the sheets in Season 7. For the moment, though, the two are happy to remain virgins...and dig into their pizza.


Kelly's house. Jackie walks into Kelly's bedroom with a dazed look on her face. She urgently makes Kelly promise that she won't ever have unprotected sex. Kelly looks at her confusedly, mostly 'cause she's not currently having sex with anyone. Jackie looks panicked as she blurts out that she's pregnant. With Mel's baby. Eww! 

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