I was totally prepared to quit "90210" this week. Brenda and Kelly are gone (at least for now) and aside from the three adults on the show, I don't give a fig about any of the characters. I went over to my friends' house Tuesday with the plan of tearing through "30 Rock" Season 2 on DVD, eating pizza log, and watching the debate. But at 8 p.m. I got outvoted and somehow ended up watching the newest iteration of kids from America's most stuck-up zipcode.

And I'm glad I did. I don't know what happened, but the show became almost an entirely different animal between last week and this one. Yeah, it's still about pretty white kids (well, mostly white) with problems. But it seems to be losing a bit of saccharine touch and venturing into far more intriguing subplots.

Two of them surprised me Tuesday night. First, the Adrianna drug plot heated up, as Naomi confronted the school's drama queen about her obvious addiction, and then took the wrap when a police raid happened just as Ad was about to take a sniff from her fancy lipstick case/coke box. Things seemed destined to end in After-School Special land when Naomi and her friends convinced Adrianna to come clean to the cops, lawyers, administration, whatever to get Naomi off the hook, but then took a delicious turn when Adrianna stood Naomi up at the lawyers. Naomi, panicked about the very real possibility of a big blemish on her permanent record, juvenile hall, or prison, called Adrianna and left a vicious voicemail message concluding with, "You're dead to me!" What she didn't know is that Adrianna is quite literally dead, from a drug overdose, on the set of her new movie. HA! Of course, Adrianna could be revived (they showed an adrenalin needle going into her chest just as we cut to credits), but I'm hoping that's how it's left, with Naomi totally screwed and Adrianna's arc ending on a shockingly dark note. But we'll see.

The second plot that piqued my interest was Ryan the Teacher's sexual tension with his new student. At first I thought, Oh great, another teacher/student affair, how button pushing. Pacey Whitter was breaking this ground back in 1997. But then came the twist: the smart-ass new girl is NOT actually a student, but an undercover cop working to infiltrate West Bev's drug culture. Now, that has potential, especially since Ryan has no idea she's actually an adult, and if he DOES end up going for it, it could have serious implications for him and his job. I'm intrigued to see where this goes.

That said, Annie (Nu Brenda) and the totally unsexy "hunk" (Ethan) are as boring as could be, and despite Silver doing everything in her power to create some chemistry, her relationship with Dixon is just tepid. So the show still has a lot of work to do, but dammit, I'll be watching next week.