Dylan is sprawled angstily in Neil and Alison’s cabin when Brenda comes in and asks if she can join him. Dylan says that he’s not into psychodramas, and Brenda agrees, adding how awful it would be to fight on your wedding night, but Dylan says it serves them right for getting married in the first place. Brenda snaps that just because Dylan’s parents didn’t make it doesn’t mean that every couple is doomed. She knows he’d having a hard time, but… “But what, what do you know?” Dylan interrupts. He tells Brenda that she’s got a secure family, while his mom is a Looney Tune and his dad is in jail. Brenda tells him that she knows he got a bum deal, but can’t he look at what he has that’s good: Brandon loves him, all the guys think he’s totally cool and every girl she knows would love to go out with him. “Every girl but one,” Dylan says. His forehead is super-wrinkly in this scene. Brenda says that she thought they both decided that it would be better to see other people, and Dylan bitterly says yeah, better for her. She asks if he can’t just accept the fact that she cares about him and wants to help him without twisting it around. Dylan says he forgot: she cares about him but he’s “just too intense.” Honestly, I’m with Brenda on this one at the moment.
Neil and Alison come in, smiling disgustingly, and announce that they’re still married. Neil says that they both feel that even though they didn’t plan on having children, they have nine months for the idea to grow on them, and Alison adds that she’s already getting used to it, and hopefully by then Neil will be too. “What if he isn’t?” demands Dylan, and Neil says that he probably will be, but Dylan viciously says that Neil doesn’t know. Neil looks at Dylan coldly and says that that’ll just be their problem, won’t it? Dylan says no, it’ll be that kid’s problem, who didn’t ask to be born in the first place. Neil points out that nobody asks to be born, and Dylan says that’s right, and that’s why they’d better be sure that they want this baby or else give it to someone who does. Neil yells that he’s making a lot of assumptions for someone who doesn’t even know them, and Dylan says he knows what it’s like to grow up being constantly reminded that you are a mistake, and if they’re not prepared to love that baby or give it up they may as well have an abortion right now. Dylan has a point, but man, he is acting like a dick. Brenda, upset, tells Dylan to stop it. “All right,” says Dylan, “it’s stopped.” He storms out. Again.
Back in Shit Cabin, everyone is making up their beds when Brenda walks in. Kelly asks how the honeymoon suite was, but Brenda says she doesn’t want to talk about it. Brandon asks her where Dylan is, and Brenda she says he stalked off, but Brandon says he’ll be OK. The van’s open, and he can sleep in there.
Dylan’s feet trudge through the mud and he sits on a boulder, doing lots of theatrical cold acting. The Guitar of Angst and Woe wails as he reaches into his jacket pocked and takes out a tiny, tiny bottle of bourbon, looking at it speculatively and then downing it in one, grimacing and making a fist. He totally fails at drinking.
The next morning, Brandon walks out to the van, telling Dylan it’s time to rise and shine, but no one is in there. Doom! He walks, seemingly randomly, into the bush and finds Dylan leaning against his Boulder of Woe, covered in a jacket. Brandon asks if he slept last night, and, when Dylan says he didn’t, Brandon says he guesses Dylan needed to be alone. Dylan melodramatically says he guesses he needed a drink, and holds up two empty, tiny bottles. Seriously, they are like bourbon bottles for pixies, and I have no respect whatsoever for any alcoholic for whom that constitutes a binge. Dylan explains that he found them in the honeymoon cabin….but he got his, though: he puked his guts out. “From these little bottles?” asks Brandon, reading my mind, but Dylan says it wasn’t the alcohol, man, it was everything. I love how, the angstier the scene, the more Dylan and Brandon use the word “man.”
Dylan walks off and rubs his eyes dramatically, as Brandon says that Dylan was clean for so long, and Dylan tells him to chalk it up to the ever-growing list of failures. Brandon asks how he’s feeling now, and Dylan concedes that now he feels…OK. “Just OK?” asks Brandon, telling Dylan that he battled his demons and won. Dylan, determined to be miserable, says he didn’t win, and Brandon says that they’ll call it a tie – but Dylan has to stop beating himself up. Dylan asks who he beats up: his dad, his mom? Brandon says his mom really let him down this weekend, didn’t she? Sighing, Dylan says he should have seen it coming, should never have let his guard down. Dylan says he’s just got to stop expecting anything: it’s better to know where you stand. Brandon says right now Dylan’s standing next to him, and they should go find themselves a trail and take a hike through this righteously beautiful countryside.
Back at the cabin, David films everyone as they get out of bed, bitching and moaning. Steve has a cold, and Brenda and Andrea are fantasising about breakfast. Andrea opens the door and smiles, saying that it’s gorgeous out. She asks where Brandon is, and Brenda joins her at the door, saying that she doesn’t know – and where’s the van? They look at each other, concerned.
Brandon and Dylan skid down a slope to a waterfall, and Brandon asks if Dylan’s feeling any better. Dylan says he doesn’t know what it is, but sometimes he loses faith in himself. They stumble across the stream to close-ups of Brandon’s Tennis Shoes of Hiking Doom. And yes, he slips on a rock and turns his ankle, but insists he’s OK. Foreshadowing! They climb up a hill as Brandon foreshadows further and says he wishes he had his hiking boots. He points at an outcropping and suggests they climb up there, and the two of them head onwards and upwards.
From the top of the hill the two of them admire a view that is clearly the Hollywood Hills, and Dylan says that sometimes he tries to imagine his future but just can’t see anything. You and the rest of the world, buddy. Brandon says he tries not to look too far ahead, and the future is now. He advances to the edge of the cliff and suddenly loses his balance, slipping and sliding over the edge of the cliff. There is a sound like a melon exploding as Brandon’s weedy body shatters on the rocks below, and Dylan looks sadly down at his broken corpse before shrugging his shoulders and heading back to the cabin.
…What? Oh, I’m sorry, I must have drifted into a reverie there for a moment. Where was I? Ah, yes, Brandon slips over the edge of the cliff, but – shame – manages to grab hold of the rocks and dangles over the chasm from one hand. There is much struggling, and small stones cascade from the cliff. Dylan yells and crawls towards the edge, asking Brandon where he is, and the “man” rating of this scene is off the scale. They are calling each other man in every other sentence. Brandon flails about and tells Dylan to get back from the edge, but Dylan reaches towards him and tells him to grab his hand. Brandon cannot reach. A shoe falls off his flailing leg. Dylan exhorts him to try, tells him not to look down. “Look into my eyes!” he bellows, helpfully pointing towards them. Finally, Brandon reaches up in a way that is physiologically impossible, and the camera angle makes it look like he has a giant yeti hand. Dylan pulls him back onto the ledge, and they sit down next to each other, panting. Dylan asks Brandon if he’s all right, and Brandon says yeah, solid as a rock, holding up his shaking hand. He says he thought his number was up. “Apparently not,” says Dylan, “thank god.” “Thank you,” says Brandon. Dylan tells him he’s filthy, and Brandon says he knows. “Can’t take me anywhere,” he says. It’s true; he can’t even fall off a cliff properly.
Back at the camp, everyone sits anxiously round a picnic table. Andrea comes back form the office and says there’s no message, but they said there have been some rockslides in the area because of the rain. David bitches that if they don’t get there soon he’s probably going to die of malnutrition. The van suddenly appears on the road. Brandon hops out of it on his shoed foot, and everyone clusters round, barraging them with questions: did they get in an accident? Did they get mugged? Did they get any food? Brenda demands to know what happened, and Brandon says they were just hanging out. She points out that he lost a shoe, and Brandon breezily says that at least he still has his foot. “Two feet,” comments Dylan cheerfully, because there’s nothing like your best friend nearly dying to cheer you up, “and two arms.” “And a head,” they both say in unison, as Brenda rolls her eyes, and Brandon says he’ll explain it to her later. He suggests they all get out of there, and everyone heads off to get their bags, leaving Brenda and Dylan by the van.
Brenda starts to say something but Dylan interrupts, saying that he knows, and about last night…. Brenda tells him to forget it, though he did have her scared for a little while there. “Me too, babe, me too,” Dylan says. Brenda says she knew he’d be OK if Brandon was with him, and Dylan smiles and agrees. As Brenda walks off, Neil and Alison come out to pack their car, and Dylan approaches, saying he’s sorry if he freaked them out. Alison tells him not to apologise, and Neil adds that he gave them a lot to think about. Dylan wishes them good luck with their baby, and suggests that if it’s a boy, they could name it Dylan. Yeah, because that would be easy to explain to the poor kid: we named you after a teenage lunatic who harangued us on our honeymoon and suggested that we abort you. But Neil and Alison just laugh, and they all shake hands.
Everyone loads the van: “Yosemite, here we come!” they shout. Kelly says that this is finally starting to feel like a vacation, and Steve says it started off rocky there at first, but whenever you leave LA it takes a few days to unwind. “Not for me,” says Dylan. Andrea goes over to where Brandon is leaning against a tree. She asks if he’s OK, and he says, actually, he’s incredibly OK. He hugs her tightly, lifting her up, and she grins like a kid at Christmas. Oh, Andrea, give it up. Dylan tells them to come on, and everyone piles into the van whooping. And that’s the end! I love the way this show saved on location costs by never actually having them get to Yosemite. Pah, cheap-asses.
Next week: back to school, and the introduction of the mysterious (and crazy) Emily Valentine.
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