Finally! The Melrose Place hiatus is over and we can all breathe easy again. Onto the recap...
We open on the morning after Mancini's wife was outed as Sydney's murderer. Ashlet killed said murderer in the pool, Jonah got the big movie deal and almost eloped with Riley until she dumped him so he slept with Ella and Dr. Dirty had a client who drugged her and sent her to the emergency room. Got it?
Jonah and Riley Will Forever Be.... Annoying
Jonah and Ella wake up in bed and congratulate themselves on a job well done the night before. Ella wants Jonah to tell Riley what happened but Jonah isn't so sure that's a good idea. He tells Ella, "It's complicated" and Ella is like: no it's not, we're not in some old-people rom-com, we are hot young things who need to express our hot young hotness out in the open.
When Jonah gets home, Riley apologizes and asks Jonah if they can go back to the way they were before they got engaged but Jonah, per usual, is "not so sure." Jonah confides in David who tells him to keep the Ella encounter a secret and save his relationship with Riley. "So what I'm supposed to carry around this massive secret for the rest of my life?" Jonah asks. David says "exactly," which is ironic because he doesn't know that his girlfriend is secretly moonlighting as a prostitute.
At the requisite party (more on that later) Ella gets upset with Jonah for not telling Riley about them. He told her it wasn't a one night stand before they had what was clearly a one night stand and now he wants Riley back? How dare he!
Meanwhile, Riley is trying to patch things up with Jonah by reminding him of some wacky college memory. From afar, Auggie looks longingly at Riley; Ashlet looks longingly at Auggie. When Riley tries to initiate a booty call ("It's the perfect way to reboot our relationship"), Jonah tells her he slept with Ella and Riley storms off.
Back at Melrose, Jonah whines about Riley to Ella and Ella invites him back to her apartment to "talk." He shuts her down when he sees Riley crying on the steps and then Ella walks away crying. Thus ends Jonah's day: 2 girls are in love with him and he made them both of them cry. Way to go Jonah. Let this be a lesson to everyone who hooks up with a friend who is no-so-secretly in love with them on the night they're supposed to elope.
The Battle of the Blondes Continues
Amanda has a new boyfriend named Ben (played by actor Billy Campbell, not to be confused with character Billy Campbell played by Andrew Shue in the good 'ol days). She's having a party that night and Ben plans to give her a special present that Amanda thinks will be a wedding proposal.
At the party, Boyfriend Ben walks in on Ella bitching about Amanda, but when Amanda walks in, Ben covers for Ella and even winks at her. (Oh -- and Boyfriend Ben also brings fancy wine that Auggie seems a little too interested in -- but more on that later.)
Later, Ben makes a toast to Ella and gives her a small jewelry box... with the keys to a Bentley in it. Poor Amanda. To add insult to injury, she walks in on Ben putting a necklace on Ella. Ella assures Amanda that nothing inappropriate happened with Ben (even though he was totally flirting with her) -- he just wanted to see the necklace would look on Amanda!
Amanda lashes out at Ella and calls her a "nobody" who can't keep a man. Eventually Ben realizes Amanda thought he was going to propose but she just blows it off and says she's happy. Then she turns so he can put the necklace on her and we see her sad face.
Later, we find out Amanda invited all the Melrose residents to her party so she could send a PI to search their apartments for her painting. The PI tells her he didn't find the painting, but he couldn't get into David's apartment. Amanda replies, "I guess I'm gonna have to get closer them than I originally thought." Um. Okay. Scary. Ish.
David and Dr. Dirty: Deception!
When Dr. D wakes up in the hospital, she lies to David about what she was doing the night before. She says she met up with an ex-boyfriend and he drugged her drink. David gets super angry and secretly steals her phone to get the dude's number.
He later storms in the dude's studio and punches him. When the dude (Rick, I believe) calls Lauren a whore, David thinks he's being metaphorical and not literal and starts beat the crap out of dude. Dude ends up in the hospital and Dr. D (who is of course up and running hours after being so close to death) sees him, pushes on his bruised kidneys and sasses him out for being evil.
Later, she goes to oblivious David's apartment. He says nice things, they kiss and then have sex for the first time that is all smiley and slow-mo.
A Farewell to Ashlet and Auggie
Halfway through the episode, Ashlet finally appears. She's pissed off because she saw Riley and Auggie kiss the night before (and not because she killed someone with her bare hands). She confronts Riley, who tells her that Auggie initiated the kiss and she broke up with Jonah.
Ashlet's like: I'm sorry you and Jonah broke up. Riley's like: I'm sorry you murdered your mom's murderer. Ashlet says she's fine, and everything will be better if they just go to a party... and conveniently Amanda is having one that night!
Auggie fares a little better with screen time because Ella conveniently needs a last minute caterer for the party and hires him. When Ella sees booze in his house, Auggie assures her he was just using it to try out a new "recipe." At the party, he again assures a concerned Ella that he is not--and will not--be back on the hooch. Fast forward about 12 minutes and one lingering look with Riley and Auggie chugs a bottle of the fancy wine.
Ashlet finds drunk Auggie in the kitchen and tells him that he has to leave Melrose Place with her. As long as he's living in the same building as Riley he will apparently keep drinking and die. Auggie tells Ashlet, "You can't blame your problems on where we live." (But I swear the subtext was "You can't blame your ratings on the actors you hire".) In any event, the two of them ride off together on his motorcycle to star in their own spin-off. In their minds.
So long Auggie. So long Ashlet. I am looking broodingly/ confusedly into the distance in memory of you both.