Sweet Valley University Thriller Edition: He’s Watching You

Tom’s starting to feel like his girlfriend doesn’t want him or need him and given that he’s dating Liz, this isn’t that much of a long shot. All she cares about is helping Jess get over what happened with James, even though we all know it will be forgotten by the next book. Tom gets a call from Bob Hemphill, a reporter that wants him to join the football team and do a story about how the team copes with a situation like James. He agrees and then Liz flips out on him because he joined the team without telling her.

Winston is such a clown that Denise suggests he try out for the role of Braino, the school mascot that goes to all the games. He tries out, screws up and when Denise rescues him, they both get the job. Alex is now dating Noah, but he’s worrying about how he might be too boring for her.

Todd has coffee with some random guy who lets him borrow his car to get to class. Todd accidentally crashes the car and finds out that it was stolen. The cops arrest him and Alex and Liz combine their tuition money to bail him out. The school suspends him and he gets a job in some bar (foretelling the future perhaps?) that comes with an apartment above the bar.

It turns out that William White set him up, but he’s not done yet! Celine shows up at the mental hospital and blows his cover. He’s been conning some nurse into believing that he’s a government agent, unwillingly imprisoned by terrorists. Considering this is Sweet Valley, that could be true. She catches him with Celine, freaks out and he kills her. Then he poisons Celine, dumps her body in Todd’s apartment and Todd goes on the run when he finds her.

It’s incredibly lame, but apparently Liz is actually in fear of Todd. Supposedly (and this all happens off-screen), he’s been stalking her, like showing up outside her dorm room and shouting up at her window. Because of that, she’s completely willing to believe that he’d kill Celine. He calls her for help and she basically tries to make him turn himself in.

Danny gets a call from Tim Hemphill, who plays on the team with Tom. He says that Tom really wants all his friends to show up at the game and support him so Danny makes plans for everyone to rent a van and drive to the game. Jessica goes to pass a message along to Winston, gets knocked over the head and some mysterious stranger saves her.

So the whole gang gets to the game and Denise notices that Winston is acting weird. They fight and she storms off. Tom hurts his ankle and Danny and Noah go to check on him. He mentions Bob Hemphill and Danny tells him about the call he got. Then Noah drops a bombshell: Hemphill is the name of the doctor who runs the mental institution where William is.

Danny shoves Liz into Winston’s car and they take off, before everyone else climbs in the van and follows them. Liz keeps talking and Winston won’t take off his Braino mask. He freaks out when she starts talking about how great Tom is and she realizes that under the mask, it’s actually William. She tries to grab the wheel, they fight and they end up crashing. Todd pops up and saves Liz, but William gets trapped in the car as it explodes.

They run off to save the rest of the gang, but no one will listen because they think Todd took her hostage. Eventually Danny realizes that Todd is a good guy and follows him to a house where he went to a party earlier in the year. The van loses speed going up the huge hill, but apparently everyone has to jump because the driveway ends on a cliff. What the fuck?

Of course everyone survives and Liz tells Tom all about it in the hospital. Noah is all excited because his life is no longer boring and everyone else is relieved that William died. She tells Tom how much she loves him and some random dude pops up. He’s William White’s lawyer and coming to tell Liz that William left her everything. Duh-dun-dun.