Sweet Valley High #73: Regina's Legacy

The hot new thing at Sweet Valley High is that Jim, that guy who only pops up when they mention Shelley, just started a photography club. Even though Liz never expressed interest in taking pictures before, she's one of the first people who joints up. She takes pictures all the time and lets it become her latest obsession.

Jim comes up with an idea to give something back to the school and do a huge mural. They'll all go out and take photos, put the pictures together, and present it to the school. If there's one thing a public high school needs, it's a mural done by a bunch of teenagers who think they are professionals. Thank god there weren't cell phones around back then. They also decide to make it a huge secret, which pisses off a bunch of people, including Shelley.

While hanging out at home, she gets a call from Sky Morrow, Regina's mom. She wants to stop by and talk to Liz for a bit. When she shows up, she has a present for Liz that she found when cleaning out Regina's room. It's an almost brand new camera. Even though Regina was way too busy hating her boyfriend for cheating on her and her friends for lying to her about her boyfriend cheating on her before she died, she somehow had time to get really into photography.

Liz heads to the beach with Prince Albert and the new camera to take some photos and winds up shooting all these random strangers. She sees an older guy with some other people and takes a picture. When he sees her, he comes over and demands the photo back. They have an argument that ends with Prince Albert saving the day before she hops in the car and takes off.

Jessica keeps fighting with Liz over the car because Liz has it all the time. When she finally gets her day, she takes Lila to the beach. A dude in a car starts tailgating them and getting really close until she pulls over. He thinks she's Liz and keeps talking about that day on the beach before asking if she can get him a copy of the picture. Since he's hot, she agrees and gives him her number. She then tells Lila that after one date with her, he'll forget all about the stupid picture.

Liz and Todd see a report on the news about Ron White, some random guy who was helping bring down drug smugglers. He suddenly recanted his story, which left law enforcement with no case. Liz says he's the same guy she saw on the beach, but Todd points out that's crazy talk because the guy was in Washington DC that day. She plans to enlarge her photo and see if she can find any details.

That can't happen though because someone broke into the school and ransacked the photo lab. Most photos are okay, but most of the machinery is toast. Amy's dad is a photographer, I completely forgot about that, and agrees to let Liz use his studio. She and Todd get the photo as big as they can and see the name Rick's Place on a shirt one of the guys wore. They look it up in the phone book and decide to stake the place out.

Chad, the random guy from the road, calls Jessica once to ask her out, but she wasn't home. He calls back and asks again, reminding her to bring the picture with her. She tears apart Elizabeth's room, doesn't find it, and figures that he'll forget all about it when he sees her. Jessica does take the time to grab her cheerleading jacket on her way out the door.

Elizabeth comes home to change, finds her room torn apart, and instantly knows that it was the same guys who hit the school. Todd thinks it was probably just Jessica looking for something to wear. They go to Rick's Place and find that it's just an upscale hamburger place. Both the hostess and the bartender recognize the young guy from the photo but have no info on him.

Chad conveniently takes Jessica to the same restaurant but does not see her identical twin hanging around. He starts pushing her about the picture and eventually gets rough before demanding she get up. When she claims she left it in the photo lab, he tells her that he already looked there. She then claims she put it in her locker, so he drags her outside.

Liz and Todd follow but get distracted by a big party coming in to the restaurant. They manage to catch up to their car, but Chad thinks Todd is just a rich kid with a fancy car and leaves him in the dust. The cops stop them, Liz blurts out the story, and the random cop decides to just believe them. Since Jessica pointed at the SVH logo on her jacket, they know where they're going.

Jessica is so scared that she keeps messing up the locker combination, which makes Chad extremely angry. Just as he's about to hit her, the cops rush him. He runs away and runs straight into Todd who knocks him down. It turns out that he was one of the drug smugglers. They used Rich, Ron's identical twin brother, to recant the story. They then kidnapped Ron, but he escaped one day and made it to the beach, which is when Liz took the photo.

Jim and Shelley keep fighting all the time because he keeps blowing her off for the club's secret project and refuses to talk to her about it. He shows up over an hour late for dinner one night and finds her with douche nozzle Greg, who is somehow still one of her best friends. She refuses to talk to him and hangs out with Greg instead. Jim gets advice from Elizabeth to do something special for Shelley.

Cut to the unveiling of the new mural. He took photos of all the club members for his section but made the center picture the one he took of Shelley. She sees it, realizes she was lame for not trusting him, and they get back together. Liz's section is all about teachers, but Todd likes someone who did one on sweethearts because there was a picture of them. Mr. and Mrs. Morrow then show up and are so moved by seeing a photo Liz included of her and Regina that they agree to pay to fix or replace all the lab equipment.

*Liz is relieved when Jeffrey does not join the club because he's too busy. She though it might make things uncomfortable. You think?

*Liz can't understand why the dude would be so unhappy with her taking photos and thinks he overreacted. I don't know, if some random high school kid started taking pictures of me without my permission, I think I'd be pissed off too.

*Why did it have to be a gift from Regina? Not only does it not make sense because she had no interest in photography, but it's also crappy because Liz acts like they were such best friends when (a) she hasn't mentioned her in months and (b) she totally did not tell her supposed best friend about her boyfriend cheating on her for weeks.

*Why did the guys make such a big deal of the photo? Even if Liz went to the cops, she has no proof that she took the picture on the day when Rich was in Washington DC. They could have just lied and said it was before or after he testified.

*Elizabeth makes a comment about how maybe Regina was with her in spirit and was what convinced her to take a second look at the photo because of the whole drug connection.