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Lauren can’t tell David the truth
Doesn’t Lauren know that if she’s going to lie to her boyfriend she shouldn’t keep her cell phone sitting around? After hearing the latest lie, that an ex-boyfriend slipped her some drugs and fueled with revenge, David looks up Lauren’s latest phone calls and locates her last john. Then he pummels the guy and puts him in the hospital. Aw shucks, Lauren is flattered that someone would stick up for her like that and she finally sleeps with David—but still neglects to tell him the truth.

Jonah needs to take a lesson from Lauren and lie a little
They may have been on a break but silly Jonah feels the need to expose his Ella secret to Riley—mainly because Ella insists on it. Then, he was either smart enough or chicken enough not to tell the truth, which infuriates Ella who tells Jonah to grow a pair and figure out what he really wants. What we see is that Ella really wants him to want her.

Party time at Ben Brinkley’s house
For some reason Amanda wants everyone who resides at 4616 Melrose Place to come to her big coming out party at Ben’s (we find out later that she wants to have their apartments searched for a piece of art while they are away—she’s so savvy!). When Amanda cans the caterer last minute, Ella hires hot, sexually frustrated Auggie who starts out okay but then proceeds to get drunk while on the job. Violet discovers the mess and tells him that they aren’t doing themselves any favors by staying in LA and living at Melrose. They’re tortured souls and they need to move on—besides, their contracts have been cancelled.

Amanda’s beau could be perfect—he’s hot and he buys her shoes…and cars!
Amanda’s bearded Ben Brinkley had us at hello. But when he disappoints Amanda with a convertible Bentley (we’d love to be disappointed like that!) instead of a few karats on her finger and then gets caught flirting heavily with Ella, his charm sputters a bit. Okay, not really—we still love him—except for the part of him that speaks fluent Klingon.

Then, when Ella runs after Amanda to tell her that Ben was just getting her opinion on his “backup gift,” we think that the woman might actually show us her soft side. We also wonder why Ella and not Ben went running after Amanda—but we digress. Instead, Amanda really let’s Ella have it, telling her that she was presumptuous to think that she’s be threatened by her. She may be attractive enough to catch Ben’s eye, but in the grand scheme of things she just doesn’t measure up. She’s nobody. It’s clearly not Ella’s day.

Time to get truthy…or not
Jonah and Riley have such a great time at Ben’s party that Riley takes him back into one of the deserted rooms and tries to seduce him. She wants to start over and live for the moment. He chooses that moment to tell her what happened with Ella the night before. She’s devastated and tells him she doesn’t even know him. Then Jonah heads to David’s to get some comfort from his friend, who ironically hasn’t been told the truth by his girlfriend.

At the end of the night Ben tells Amanda that he knows he blew it with the Bentley and Amanda almost let it slip that she was hoping for a marriage proposal. When he asks her if she’d like that she tells him of course not, they’re not ready for that yet. But we all know the truth. For a smart guy, Ben’s pretty dense when it comes to the chicks.

Auggie must have decided that Violet was right about bailing town. In the fastest move we’ve ever seen, Auggie’s entire apartment is cleaned out, leaving just a goodbye note for Riley, and he and Violet speed off into the sunrise.

Doctor Mancini’s positive prognosis for Melrose Place
Even though the ratings for the first half of the Melrose Place season weren’t stellar, Thomas Calabro (our own Doctor Mancini) hasn’t given the show a terminal diagnosis. In fact, the good doctor recently told E! Online that if it’s anything like the MP of the 1990s, it’ll struggling at first and move on to be a huge hit. Besides, things are looking good internationally for the show and expect to see a few more Melrose alums to show up at the famed courtyard.

What will it take to make the new MP a bona fide hit? The return of Jake? More catfights? A haunted pool? Tell us here—in the comments!