Rebound is the 18th episode of Season 8 on FOX drama soap Beverly Hills, 90210.
Synopsis
Valerie completes her community service, but not before arranging for Brandon to run into Kelly and Jeff during a date. A woman considers calling off her wedding to one of Steve's old frat brothers, and seeks refuge at the Walsh house. She bonds with Brandon over their fractured relationships, and decides to get married after all. Steve observes the couple's commitment to each other and realizes that he must get over Carly; he would have followed her to Montana if he had truly loved her. The keyboardist for Jasper's Law gets into a car accident while driving drunk. He claims that Noah is negligent for serving him too many drinks. David is aware that Mark had been smoking marijuana before the crash, but keeps quiet after Mark threatens to squash his songwriting deal. He finally shares the truth with the group leader, who fires Mark and replaces him with David. Donna loses her job when she stands up to a temperamental child model, but gets it back by dressing up like a clown. Brandon again shows up on Kelly's doorstep at night. He explains that he cheated on her because he was frightened by the prospect of commitment, and insists that she "owes" him another chance. She slams the door in his face.
Recap
As Steve is devastated because Carly left L.A. for Montana, Brandon tries to distract him by having Steve's KEG frat brother Harry arrange for a Beat interview with Mike Piazza via Harry's fiance Kristi. Unfortunately, Kristi gets a bad case of cold feet and Steve inadverently leads her to run away from her nuptials. When Harry shows himself to be a both a good man and absolutely in love with Kristi, Steve comes to the realization that he didn't truly love Carly because he would have gone to Montana with her if that had been the case. Harry and Kristi have a lovely wedding and Steve sounds more like his old cheerful self.
Donna and David both face a dilemma: is it worth doing the wrong thing to get something really great in your life? For Donna, the issue arises when she's hired as the designer for a major children's clothing house called Child's Play, and she becomes aghast with the way a child model is both a total brat and the tool of her long-since washed-up former model stage mother. For David, he is in a tough spot when Jasper's Law's dickhead keyboardist Mark gets drunk at the PPAD and plans to sue Noah for negligence; David has no love for Noah and likes the idea of him going down for negligence, but he's angry when Mark gives him an ultimatum: he either helps the lawsuit or Jasper's Law will be done with him. David commiserates with Donna when the stage mother has Donna fired from the ad campaign, and Donna says she would have done the same thing if given another chance. Donna then returns to the studio on clown makeup to entertain the child model, to her mom's dismay but the kid's sheer joy, and she ends up getting rehired by the Child's Play boss after he agrees Donna will be setting the hours for all the kids who work for them. David learns Noah's plan to settle is based on his guilt over having gone through hell after he drove drunk, and tells both Noah and Jasper that Mark was responsible for his crash because he smoked pot after drinking. Mark is shocked when Jasper sides with David and gives him the permanent keyboard spot, then tells him he needs to play really good music. Donna and David celebrate the new good fortune, and David and Noah settle their remaining differences.
Valerie finds herself saddled with Kelly's unkind supervision on her remaining community service, but has lots of fun meddling in Kelly's nascent relationship with Dr. Jeff, whether she's hiding Brandon's desperate phone messages, arranging for Brandon to see Kelly and Jeff at a restaurant, or setting up Brandon so it looks like he was sleeping with Kristi (he wasn't). Valerie also notes that Kelly oddly encouraged a teen whose girlfriend cheated on him and gave him an STD to forgive him, since she won't do that for Brandon. At episode's end, Brandon tries to apologize again by saying he panicked because things between Kelly and him were "too perfect". Kelly isn't moved and makes it clear she is not anywhere near forgiving him or returning to a relationship.
Starring
- Jason Priestley as Brandon Walsh
- Jennie Garth as Kelly Taylor
- Ian Ziering as Steve Sanders
- Brian Austin Green as David Silver
- Tori Spelling as Donna Martin
- Tiffani Thiessen as Valerie Malone
- Joe E. Tata as Nat Bussichio
- Vincent Young as Noah Hunter
Recurring cast
- Lindsay Price as Janet Sosna
- Michael Reilly Burkeas Jeff Stockmann
Guest starring
- Paul Popowich as Jasper McQuade
- Christie Lynn Smith as Kristi Koontz
- Robert Curtis Brown as Robert Gwinnet
- Jennifer Hetrick as Kim
- Eddie Ebell as Mark
- Danielle Keaton as Sasha
- David Andriole as Harry
- Ashley Rose Davis as Ellen
- Paul Dimitropoulos as Tim
Music
- 'Hard to Say I'm Sorry' by Backstreet Boys