Melrose Place, S01 E02: Friends and Lovers
Last week, we met the whole gang of Melrose Place, who are currently pretending to be in some cheesy 20-something drama rather than the greatest soap of all time. Alison and Billy became roommates, and Kelly Taylor wandered over from 90210 in order to stalk Jake. This week, Billy gets a girlfriend and we get to meet the many faces of Angry Jake.
This episode kicks off, again, with a radio DJ announcing how fabulous the LA summer weather is. We get it, okay? LA is the land of milk and honey where the sun shines gloriously every day, while those of us currently living in Scotland must take vitamin D supplements to ward off rickets.
In Alison and Billy’s apartment, Alison enters the kitchen, complaining that the coffee is too strong. As someone who prefers coffee strong enough to bench-press a tractor, I can only say: shut up, Alison. I fear I will be saying that an awful lot. Horribly, Billy agrees with me on the issue of strong coffee, saying that it gets his motor running. If only he’d head out on the highway, looking for adventure. Sadly, he chooses to remain on this show for years to come. She also asks that he not read her paper before she does, but he assures her he just needs the classifieds, since he’d like a new job.
Alison wonders why she’s in such a hurry to get to work, considering that she’ll just be fired once she arrives, now that she’s rejected her boss’s drunk advances. Billy points out that she can claim sexual harassment if that happens. As obvious at that is now, this episode came out just a year after the whole Clarence Thomas scandal, when people were still learning that bosses actually couldn’t grab employees’ asses with impunity. She concedes that he might be right, and wishes there was someone she could talk to. Billy wonders why he’s not that someone.
In his shower, a shirtless Jake (drink!) curses as the water suddenly changes. Clad in just a towel, he rushes across the courtyard to bang on Michael’s door. “I’ve had it with the plumbing, man! Every time someone turns on the hot, I get cold!” he complains. Michael tells the angry shirtless man that he can’t deal with it now and Jake will have to get someone else to fix it. Michael isn’t a very good apartment manager.
Neighbors gather to watch the escalating fight with concern. Michael says he’s too tired to get into it with someone who’s looking for a fight and, besides, Jake’s unemployed these days – why doesn’t he fix it? Matt intervenes before Jake, quite rightly, punches Michael’s smug face, and Jane assures him that they’ll take care of it. Jake walks off, but not after pointing the finger of righteousness at Michael and telling him, “You’ve got a bad attitude, man.”
Everyone heads back inside, leaving Sandy to swan about in her white baby doll nightgown. She asks Jake what’s up, and he replies that he must have the unemployment blues. She thought he loved being out of work, having all that freedom. I’m sure the varied diet of top ramen and potatoes is thrilling, as well. He can’t believe he ever said that, and thinks he must be growing up. Sandy assures him that people like them always land on their feet. The writers are obviously pushing to establish a bond between them, which might be more effective if we could ever understand a word Sandy said in that terrible, terrible accent. It’s hard to build sexual chemistry when Jake needs an interpreter to flirt. She tells him she’ll buy him a beer at Shooters later.
Michael makes a sandwich, complaining the whole time about being asked to do his job. He may not want to use tools, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be one! Jane tells him about a dream she had, which was actually more of a memory, of the time they met. It involved a party and broken shoes and a silly grin. She tells him that she knew, right then, that she was in love with him. She’s very dreamy and lovestruck in her retelling. He asks her to call in sick, but she’d rather hear when he first knew that he was in love with her. Michael can’t remember, or maybe he just doesn’t want to admit that it was the first time he saw her naked.
Jane is not pleased with Michael’s sudden amnesia. He protests that he’s tired, but she insists that she’s talking about their whole relationship. Damn, Jane. He fails one quiz and now he’s going to get an F for the semester? That seems a bit harsh.
At D&D Advertising, Alison runs into Beemer Prick at her desk. She takes a deep breath and tells him that what happened the other night was sexual harassment. He finds her attitude amusing at first, but when she refuses to back down, tells her to do what she has to do. After he walks off, a random employee asks Alison if she’s heard the news: Libby in payroll filed charges against Beemer Prick already. Alison is relieved that she won’t actually have to do anything. Well, that was anti-climactic. The random then mentions that her cab is here. “My cab?” repeats Alison, confused.
Outside her office, Billy waits for her in his very own yellow cab. He claims that this new job is perfect. It pays twice as much as Arthur Murray, and he is his own boss, able to “roam the streets, check out the real world from his perch behind the wheel.” He asks if they can celebrate his new job this weekend, but she was planning on painting the apartment. I think that’s about one step up from needing to wash her hair, but Billy happily says that they can paint together. He runs off to pick up a fare.
At Shooters, Sandy asks her boss which photograph she should use for her headshot. It would be easier to make fun of the whole waitress/actress cliché if it wasn’t so true. Try finding an ugly server in LA. I dare you.
Kelly suddenly appears at the bar, looking for Jake. She wants to tell him that Jackie, her mom, had a baby girl. Aw, Erin Silver even got mentioned on Melrose Place before she finally tottered on her freakishly skinny legs over to the new 90210. Sandy, clearly jealous that this damned baby is going to have a better career than she is, snarks that now Jackie will have to pay the sitter extra. Kelly ignores her to say that she was supposed to have lunch with Jake today, and Sandy informs her that he’s at the unemployment office and probably won’t make it.
Cut to the unemployment office, which looks to rival the DMV for the position of fifth ring of hell. A balding man with long hair (never a good look, unless you’re a Klingon, and even then it requires a certain panache) calls Jake to the window. When Jake hands the man his form, he is told that he needed to fill out both sides and should go to window C when he’s done. Through a frozen smile and gritted teeth, Jake says he started at window C. Instead of responding, Klingon calls the next name.
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