Adrianna Shakes Up the After-School Special

90210 was in desperate need of a bitch injection, and last night I got my wish. Much of this week's episode revolved around the high school musical and a very PG-rated sex storyline, but all of that was rather dull compared to the Gossip Girl-esque bitch maneuver that Adrianna pulled. Near the end of the episode, Annie went to a hotel room with the intention of sleeping with Tom Welling's clone, aka Ty, only to find Adrianna waiting there in a towel. With the bed freshly mussed, Adrianna told Annie that Ty was in the shower, implying that he was cleaning up after a wild sexual rendezvous. Annie ran off to have an emotional breakdown, and that's when Adrianna revealed that no one was in the shower and the entire story was a lie. She even let out a maniacal laugh as she pulled back the shower curtain! Blair Waldorf would be proud.

"What's an After-School Special?" Silver asked earlier in the episode when Annie name-dropped the ABC tradition of yore. To answer that question, all Silver needs to do is look around at the plot lines 90210 has dealt with in its first few episodes. We've seen an alcoholic mother, a teen turning to drugs to escape parental pressures, a mother-daughter sex talk, and a girl dealing with her father's infidelity. It's all seemed very wholesome and, despite the flashy filmmaking and high production values of the series, kind of dated. I'm sure that tone works for some viewers, but I require a bit more scandal with my teen dramas.

Enter Adrianna, who really didn't make much of an impression on me until last night's episode. I expected her storyline to conclude in predictable 90210 fashion, perhaps with a touching mother-daughter conversation and a vow to never again take drugs. I didn't expect her to concoct a scheme to ruin Annie's life, which is infinitely more interesting. 90210 needs someone like Adrianna. It needs a drugged-out mega-bitch who wants nothing more than to destroy the lives of the nice people from Kansas. Such villains make any soap opera more interesting.

The bad news is that the actress who plays Adrianna, Jessica Lowndes, isn't listed as a series regular. This means that her character will likely be shipped off to rehab in the near future, only to return cleaned up and boring. I can feel the After-School Special preparing to take over once again. Personally, I'd rather see Adrianna hang out with the drunken Tabitha and dream up clever ways to make this zip code more entertaining.