Last week, Melrose Place was a hooker with a heart of gold. Last night, she turned into that crazy girl who hides in your closet and tries on your clothes. She makes a bad roommate, but great TV!

Unfortunately Ashlee Simpson-Wentz hiding her horrible acting skills in Sydney's closet was the best moment of the episode, and that was 10 minutes in. It was a transformative evening for our dear Violet who got just a little bit closer to getting that N in her name that will turn her violent. First we saw her hiding in her momma Sydney's closet trying on her clothes. Yes, it was contrived, but it managed to achieve the desired level of creepiness. Too bad the dress she picked—the dress Syd wore the first time the the two crossed paths—wasn't even Sydney's. It was so heinous and outdated that we think that Alison left it in the closet when she moved to Atlanta, and Sydney just started wearing it because she was poor and just got out of prison and had nothing else to wear. So, ha, Violet, you're really wearing stupid Allison's dress. We hope you catch temporary blindness from her decade-old cooties.

Doggie Auggie isn't that impressed by the dress either, nor Violet's rather expensive gift of $200 sunglasses. He says they're too expensive and can't take them, she says that he's dreamy and it's no big deal. What she didn't say was that they were knockoffs that she picked up on the street in Venice before going into work at Coal—the restaurant that has an open kitchen so all the diners can see random people wandering in and distracting the chefs while they cook and probably getting hair and nasty shit all up in their food.

But Doggie Auggie wasn't as pissed off when his dog park girlfriend Riley showed up to ask for a simple recipe. He tells her to make some Filet Mignon bullshit, because a girl who can barely muster Mac 'N' Cheeze from a box can just do wonders to an expensive steak. Brilliant. At least he didn't tell her to make a scallop ceviche. That's what he would have done if he was a contestant on Top Chef. Actually, that would be a good place for D.A. At least it would get him out of that stupid red chef's jacked they force him to wear at Coal.

So, Riley the Comic Insult to Our Intelligence Dog, had to make a fancy dinner for the dreamy Jonah because she pissed him off. No, it wasn't for not telling anyone they were engaged. No, it wasn't even for making sweet puppy love (really, just kisses) with Auggie. And it wasn't even for turning on the cold water in the sink while he was in the shower. Hold on, we need to spend a moment on the last point. This joke needs to be eliminated from the Uninventive Writer's Handbook as something that happens in the real world, along with people overhearing messages left on answering machines, characters using typewriters, and a man running alongside a train to try to catch the women while she waves her handkerchief out the window. This source of a million television jokes no longer happens with modern plumbing. And need we remind you that Melrose Place was blown up in the not-too-distant past and rebuilt, so it would certainly be up to code in terms of what is going on with the shower situation. So, please, stop it with this joke. If you're savvy enough to drop Facebook references into an episode, you can do better than this.

So, Jonah was pissed because Riley showed up at the music video he was directing to annoy him with her problems. Apparently, a kindergarten classroom full of kids was running wild, because Riley spent all day dropping by restaurants, getting drunk, making out with the neighbor, and annoying her fiance rather than, you know, teaching. In the end, Jonah came home and they made up, because they are the most boring couple that is about to cheat on each other on all of television. And their plumbing sucks.

Nothing sucked about Taryn Manning, the pop star that Jonah had to deal with when directing her music video. She's a little bit like P!nk crossed with Geri Halliwell but who spent a lot of time in a reform school. She was attacked by a psycho fan and now she's a total psycho too. She pulled a gun on Jonah! OMG! Jonah got the gig because the famous director who was supposed to do the show walked out when she went crazy on him, and Ella has to find a last minute replacement or else her hot gay boss Caleb wouldn't invite her to hang out with all the cool gay kids at Akbar or wherever they congregate in L.A. these days. Of course, Ella got Jonah to do it in her continued plan to make him famous so that he'll bone her. It is working splendidly.

Once Jonah got on set, he decided he didn't want to directed Taryn as a tap-dancing tin man, but had her change into a ridiculous outfit and film it with a hand-held camera. Because everyone wants choreographed pop song dance numbers to look just like an episode of Law & Order: SVU. The video was retarded, but the single wasn't horrible. We thought it was quite good for an imaginary pop star until we found out it was a real person. Oops. Just like we didn't know, no one will know that Jonah directed the video, because it was so good that the original director is now taking the credit, and Ella threw Jonah under the tap-dancing tin man to save her job.

Speaking of people we hate, not that we were, but we will now that we're talking about David, the worst thief outside of a Keystone Kops skit. He breaks into Michael's house and totally gets caught. He breaks into Michael's office and totally gets caught again. Um, that means you are less of a cat burglar and more of a fuck up. Anyway, all his ineptitude did lead to some good secrets. We found out that Michael has files on all the former and current Melrose residents and that he may even own the place. Is Kimberly's body buried in the basement or something?

Michael got some major airtime this week, thank God. He's still just as pompous and fantastic as before, but we have a hard time believing that our Michael Mancini would stick with a woman as vapid and annoying as his wife. He needs a schemer like Syd. That must be why he started schtupping her when she got out of prison. Yes, prison! She wound up there because apparently faking your own death is a crime. Along with jaywalking and marijuana regulation, that seems like a really stupid crime. But Syd got put away, and then threatened to expose Michael for helping her in the crime of the century. He would go to jail, but worse, lose his medical license. That seems like an empty threat. Michael doesn't care if he is actually a doctor, he just always did it for the money. Now he's rich from inventing some doohickey that fixes broken hearts (oh the irony!) so he should just kick back, play golf, and have a whole bunch of affairs. Isn't that what Michael wants?

What Lauren wants is to work for Michael, which she does now that he hired her. Lauren did not really impress us this week because she didn't sleep with anyone for money. We only like Lauren when she's being a whore. When she's a too-snoopy medical student she reminds us too much of when gay Matt was trying to be a doctor, and that makes us think about how he never got laid and that makes us unruly. So, start sleeping around. We have a feeling that Michael is going to become her pimp or something, and that leads us to...

The Melrose Place Crystal Ball:
Here are our predictions for what will happen on Melrose Place, based a bit on fact and a bit on our own twisted imagination.

  • Michael will get randy and call up a hooker. Lauren will show up at his door and he'll totally pay her for sex and then blackmail her into spying on David for him. David will be so blissfully oblivious to all of Lauren's attention that he'll think she's in love with him. To get David off her back, she tells him that she slept with his father, but that doesn't work, because David is only more turned on by ladeez his father has already slept with. Lauren will get pregnant, but will miscarry when Violet pushes her down the stairs.
  • We haven't seen the last of fact/fiction amalgamation Taryn Manning. Once Doggie Auggie and Riley finally have a brood of their own, Jonah will start sleeping with the pop star. When he brings her around Melrose, she meets Violet and freaks the fuck out, because she is the crazy stalker fan that attacked her.
  • That will put an end to Violent stalking her aunt Jane, who arrives next week, and whose hair could use a little bit of work, but we're still excited to see her. Let's hope that she can design a new dress for her niece so she can stop wearing Allison's cast offs.
  • Ella's gay boss will threaten to fire her if she doesn't set him up with Jonah. From our personal experience, gay men can not resist his curly-haired charm, and Caleb will be smitten. Ella will arrange it, but will cry inside.
  • Auggie will go on Top Chef and will be ejected after the first round. However, he will know where to score some dope dope, so he'll become fast friends and eventually lovers with Padma Lakshmi. She will then hire Auggie to play a role on her sitcom, and we'll have to watch Auggie on two shows each week. We will be sad, because he's not all that great, but happy because his body is jammin'.
  • We're sure this is crazy, but we have a weird feeling that Amanda will come back. Is it just us?