Beverly Hills, 90210 Re-Watch: The Next Fifty Years (Season 2 Episode 14)

This re-watch wouldn’t be credible without a review of Beverly Hills, 90210 Season 2 Episode 14, “The Next Fifty Years.” It’s the first episode so far to earn a five-star rating, and hopefully, the reasons why make you appreciate the story even more.  

Of course, fans know this is the episode that Scott Scanlon dies playing with a loaded gun in his father’s office during his birthday party. 

But the five stars aren’t earned because the character of Scott matters to me or because he’s dead. They aren’t even a nod to the issues covered on the episode.

Gun control is a serious topic. So is grief. But television mishandles stories about both subjects all of the time in 2019. In 1991, Beverly Hills, 90210 gets both of these stories right. 

It’s important to point out that Scott isn’t depressed. He and David’s relationship, at this point, has deteriorated because Scott is an oddball.

I mean that kindly. He doesn’t fit in with the group and hasn’t even tried to find his way in like David. But, he’s good-natured even if immature and uncool.

He randomly picks up the gun to twirl it for fun or to show off to David. The moral of the story there is: don’t leave your loaded gun in a desk, even if you live alone.

Mr. Scanlon has children younger than Scott. So, his gun’s placement defies logic.

But one of the elements of this episode’s framework that truly makes it work is that Scott’s emotional state isn’t in question here. This is about gun control, period. 

That has everything to do with the year the episode is made. It’s pre-Columbine, pre-9/11, and before thousands of lives were lost because of too many mass shootings to name.  

As the issues become more complex, TV episodes about them must reflect that. 

But Hollywood always has the option to overly-sentimentalize a character and to portray grief inauthentically. 

Characters often die for shock value. If we’re being honest, they probably die to get a hashtag trending more than fans will ever know.

But “The Next Fifty Years” acknowledges that David isn’t exactly grieving a current friend.

This death may have been shocking at the time, but Scott is barely a secondary character on the show at this point in Season 2. 

David is grieving a friend he’s grown apart from. That grief is still valid, it’s just different. 

Most of his emotions throughout the episode are caused by people who expect him to feel more than he is, which causes a lot of his anger. 

He’s going to feel anger toward himself about how he treated Scott, but he’s a teenager. Friendships come and go perhaps most often during this time. 

David doesn’t have to act overly distraught as Scott’s fifth-grade girlfriend does. 

As David says to Brandon (and the whole school) when Brandon tries to force him to give an interview for a special edition of The Blaze dedicated to Scott, 

“I can’t even walk down the hall without someone trying to cheer me up like they’re my new best friend.” 

The entire monologue is about how treating people kindly while they’re alive matters more than what you say after death. 

But, David’s being so hard on himself.

He tries to put the birthday party together for Scott. He stays after the gang leaves. He definitely hurts Scott’s feelings when he’s venting about Mrs. Scanlon to Donna. 

But even before Scott’s death, that woman is completely oblivious to what’s happening in Scott’s life and she’s ridiculously hard on David. 

He tries. And perhaps things would’ve been different in the future. 

Mourning what could’ve been is different grief than mourning what was, and also probably has some trauma from seeing the shooting happen. 

It’s a nuanced process, and while it basically only lasts one episode, other shows glaze over the nuances I see in this portrayal far too often. 

I also genuinely appreciate Dylan and Brandon (or, more accurately Emily’s) perspective. 

I lost classmates I didn’t know well in high school. There’s a sadness and maybe even fear that occurs.

But I don’t begrudge Dylan for admitting that he really never knew Scott, even though Brenda forces him to remember. 

David is the only character who has any history with Scott, so Emily is also totally valid in wanting to make-out with Brandon because she’s still alive, she might not be tomorrow, and that’s what she wants to do. 

No matter how close you are to someone who dies too young, it can open your eyes to how fragile life is, and that can be life-changing. 

When someone dies it’s sad.

That’s a given The layers (like how David lashes out at Donna because she’s who is closest to him) are what’s interesting to watch and I wish more TV shows today understood that. 

Five stars don’t necessarily mean flawless. Brandon and Emily have very little chemistry. That is a very forced relationship. 

Plus, Andrea and Brandon’s fight about their friendship is definitely the odd plot out that deserves to be on the cutting room floor. 

But neither of those annoyances take away from the overall quality of the episode. 

I definitely wonder how the scene where Scott actually shoots himself would’ve been shot today. But I don’t necessarily think that an upgrade of that scene or any other would make the episode better. 

By that logic this episode is timeless, and that’s what makes it so good. 

What did you think of this episode of Beverly Hills, 90210? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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