Shannen Doherty Elevated Bitchiness to an Art Form
90210’s teen-girl clichés couldn’t compete with the power of Brenda Walsh’s adolescent rage.
On November 18, 1992, Shannen Doherty delivered one of the most brutal lines in Beverly Hills, 90210 history. It happened in an otherwise preposterous season-three episode called “Wild Horses,” in which Luke Perry’s Dylan leaves town after being accused of cheating on the SAT and has an affair with an heiress while David Arquette guest stars as an abusive keytar player named Diesel. More important, Brenda (Doherty) and Kelly (Jennie Garth) are still feuding in the wake of Kelly’s hookup with Dylan, something that occurred while Brenda was in Paris for the summer taking a break from Dylan and pretending to be French so she could impress Dean Cain. Donna (Tori Spelling), desperate for Brenda and Kelly to patch things up, tries to get them to talk. “You do remember Brenda Walsh, here?” she says to Kelly. “Remember she used to be your best friend?”
“Well, we all have our crosses to bear,” Kelly retorts.
“Or our legs to uncross,” Brenda responds.
I watched this episode as it aired in real time with a small group of friends who gathered every Wednesday night for 90210. As soon as Doherty said the line, everyone in that room gasped. Doherty, meanwhile, barely blinked.
If you were Team Brenda Walsh in the Great Brenda Walsh vs. Kelly Taylor War of 1992 and 1993, this was a mic dropped from a height that can be reached only by those who have the moral high ground. It was also a reminder that even though Brenda was technically a nice girl from Minnesota, she was also a beast who would slice you up if you didn’t show some respect. You rooted for Brenda partly because you knew if the moment called for it, she would cut a bitch. The people who didn’t root for Brenda said it was because she was a bitch. What those people didn’t understand was that being a bitch was one of the best things about her.
Doherty could have overplayed the sting of that line by arching an eyebrow or twisting her mouth into a little smirk. Instead she speaks the words softly, looking Kelly up and down as she says “uncross” with a glance that’s judgmental but super-casual, as if Brenda can’t be bothered to put too much effort into her insult. She’s ruthless and all the more so because she doesn’t seem to try that hard to get there. Girls being catty to one another is a cliché — 90210 didn’t just love clichés, it worshipped them — but Doherty elevated the moment with her dryness, something only an actor with good instincts can do.
Fierceness came naturally to Doherty, who died this week at the far too young age of 53 after a lengthy struggle with cancer. She had a toughness and resiliency that came through in her performances and in the way she dealt with her diagnosis and illness, speaking frankly and publicly about it until close to the very end. In the many tributes to Doherty that followed her passing, her friends and colleagues alluded to that strength. “Shannen was no shrinking violet, and she gave as good as she got,” Kevin Smith, who directed her in Mallrats, wrote in an Instagram post. Garth called her one of the “strongest people I have ever known,” and Rose McGowan, who replaced Doherty in the WB series Charmed, described her as “a soft-hearted badass.”
As played by Doherty, Brenda was an innocent, a teenager just starting to understand her independence and sexuality. She could be emotionally vulnerable — watch Doherty’s performance in a season-one episode when Brenda finds a lump in her breast, if you’d like to feel your heart break into pieces — but she was no pushover. Doherty had been a Heather before she became Brenda, and she knew how to unleash the brattiness adolescent girls often wield as evidence of their power. No one was a better protector of Brenda Walsh than Brenda Walsh herself.
When Brenda runs into Kelly and Dylan on a date, also in season three (after Brenda and Dylan broke up but while Kelly and Dylan have been lying to Brenda about their relationship) she doesn’t run away crying. She takes one look at her blonde ex–best friend, her nostrils flaring, her mouth curling into the equivalent of a fist ready to punch, and says, “You know, Kelly, if you’re trying to lose your bimbo image, I honestly don’t think this will help.”
“I am not a bimbo, okay?” Kelly protests. (Bimbo: a harsh word to use on broadcast television in the early ’90s.)
Brenda, through tears, her fury barely contained, scoffs, “Whatever you say, Kelly. But I was always taught that if it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck …”
Doherty does not stammer. She does not break eye contact with Garth except to dismissively scan her entire body as she does during the “legs uncrossed” line. She says “looks like a duck” and “walks like a duck” in an almost singsongy tone, as if explaining Kelly’s bimbo status to a 5-year-old. Her confidence turns the trite line into a power move.
On Jan. 27, 1993, another important date in Beverly Hills, 90210 history, Dylan and Kelly, now officially a couple, tell Brenda they are dating and that they hooked up over the summer. This episode, “Back in the High Life Again,” was the Super Bowl of 90210, a climactic moment fans had been waiting to watch unfold as Kelly and Dylan kept their unsustainable secrets for weeks. When Brenda found out about those secrets, she did not hold back.
Kelly and Dylan patronize Brenda (“I know this is hard for you, Bren. It’s hard for all of us,” Dylan says, which, absolutely not) and she immediately starts playing defense. Her voice breaks. At one point, her face crumples as if she might start crying — “Why are you doing this to me?” — but she swiftly recovers, her eyes narrowing into a furious glare. When Kelly tries to touch her arm, Brenda swats it away as if her friend had just committed a flagrant foul. She takes a long pause before asking a question she is afraid to get an answer to — “Did you sleep together?” — and immediately barks out, “Why should I believe you?” when they say no. Finally, she erupts, shouting maybe the Brenda Walshiest phrase of all time before stomping off in a huff: “I hate you both, never talk to me again.” As I rewatch it now, it’s striking how well this scene is acted, especially by Doherty. She punches right through the corniness of the dialogue to deliver something raw and real. This could easily feel like a moment of humiliation, but Doherty is so righteous in her anger that Brenda comes across as the strong one in this trio.
Doherty didn’t always get along with her castmates during 90210’s run, a fact that only added to her reputation as someone to be reckoned with (or bolstered the unfair opinion that she was a bitch in real life). She left the series in 1994, and though it ran for several more seasons, 90210 was never as fun to watch without Brenda Walsh standing up for herself and always giving more than she got on the page.
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