Following a little advice from Gil Meyers, Brandon and the rest of Donna's friends join forces to help her in a major school protest when she is suspended from school and is threatened with not graduating for getting drunk on Senior Prom night.

Strange dreams contemplate Donna to fulfill David's dream to sleep with her on their second anniversary together, until her parents show up for a surprise visit. Meanwhile, Brandon returns from San Francisco where he learns about the Steve's botch break-in, who finds himself left in cold after Mike Ryan and the rest of the frat members reject him. Only John Sears remains sympathetic to Steve and tries to help. But when Brandon learns and relays to Steve that the campus police were anonymously tipped off to Steve's break-in, Steve realizes that Sears had set him up. In the meantime, Brandon plays hardball with the corrupt Professor Randall to drop the break-in charges against Steve by threatening to go public about him rigging test scores for D'Shawn and other basketball stars to they can play basketball for the university. Elsewhere, Andrea falls deeply in love with Jesse. Also, John Sears continued wooing of Kelly only pushes her back to Dylan.

Donna announces to the gang that she has decided to move to Houston to be a débutante. But Kelly eventually learns that Donna still emotionally fragile since her breakup with David and she's hiding behind her mother just to avoid running into him. Dylan also finds out that his entire bank account is cleaned out by Kevin and Suzanne's scam, but alienated with life and embarrassed and ashamed at himself for what happened, Dylan keeps his financial problem to himself. Meanwhile, Brandon decides to tell Dylan about him and Kelly, but chickens out after seeing him drinking again. Later, at a banquet for Donna's, Dylan crashes the party and creates an ugly scene after being inadvertently tipped off by Nat about Brandon and Kelly. Dylan then goes to a nightclub where Jesse is bar-tending and tries to get a drink, but Jesse turns him away, and Dylan also picks up a prostitute at the bar. When Kelly comes over to Dylan's out to talk to him, she finds him with the scantly clad prostitute. When Donna's mother criticizes her behavior by accepting a dance with D'Shawn, she decides to face up to Felice and stay in Beverly Hills. The university's day-care program leaves Andrea wanting to spend more time with her baby. Also, Brandon is reunited with Josh Richland who offers him a chance to run with him for campus office.

Dylan enters a rehab center after all of his friends conduct an intervention. Valerie and Clare, left out of the intervention, spend the day shopping and bonding with each other. But after one day, Dylan runs away from the clinic with a little of Valerie's help. Dylan then alienates Valerie more with his continuing drug use and attitude in which she walks out on him for good. Kelly gets a modeling offer from Seventeen magazine. Meanwhile, Ray has dinner with Donna's wary parents Felice and John. Also, David and Clare's homemade video of their lovemaking disappears and turns up in the home of Donna's parents.

Donna's snobbish mother, Felice, puts Ray's feelings for her daughter to a test by offering him money to stop seeing her, while Ray's alcoholic, chain-smoking, redneck mother, LuAnn, goes Christmas shopping with Donna. Differing family traditions cause tension between the Catholic Jesse and the Jewish Andrea. Clare introduces David to her father during a faculty Christmas party who finds common ground with him over their love of music. Meanwhile, Dylan goes to his old friend, Christine Pettit, from the FBI to help him find his stolen money. Unable to help Dylan, Christine then contacts an alcoholic, former FBI agent-turned-bounty hunter/private investigator, named Jay J. Jones (Jonesy), who contacts Dylan on Christmas Day and offers to track down his money in exchange for getting a full share of it. Brandon is left alone to care for the recovering Kelly when Jim and Cindy leave town to visit Brenda in England and Valerie leaves to visit her mother in Buffalo. Also, Nat hosts a special holiday feed-the-homeless dinner at the Peach Pit.

Brandon returns to Beverly Hills from his summer job in Boston and at Steve's advice, he helps set up a destructive rave party in his parents vacant house. Valerie welcomes Ginger LaMonica, a visiting friend of hers from Buffalo who's as wild and devious as she, and has an eye for Brandon. Meanwhile, Kelly returns to Beverly Hills with a new boyfriend named Colin Robins, a young artist whom she met while modeling in New York City. Donna hosts a party on her parents yacht, while trying to hide her doubts about her future relationship with Ray. Also, Dylan becomes more and more obsessed with avenging his father's death when he visits his family's storage locker and talks with his father's former prison cell mate.

A major earthquake hits L.A. which traps Susan and Brandon in an elevator with a pregnant woman who goes into labor. Meanwhile, his friends are rocked after Dylan's announcement about his and Toni's engagement. While Donna continues to try out for Rose Queen, she finds a picture of her mother taken during a 1969 Rose competition, while at the same time, Ray's therapist warns Donna that he has a history of being abused as a child by his father and he may harm her.

Donna's mother, Felice, confesses a past indiscretion to her about her involvement in the Rose Bowl tryouts of 1969, causing Donna to question her own innocence. Meanwhile, bounty hunter Jay J. Jones returns and asks Valerie for help in a divorce case he has by posing as a prostitute in a sting operation to catch the husband in the act. A revenge-seeking Ray charges Joe with battery over their Halloween encounter, resulting in Joe being suspended from CU's homecoming football game. Also, Steve tries to protect the CU mascot, the Golden Condor Head, from the rival college. Brandon mourns the departure of Dylan from Beverly Hills, and Susan encourages him to write a paper about Dylan's plight.

Joe's assault and battery trial begins where Donna is caught in a lie on the witness stand, and Brandon gets a national byline for his coverage of the trial. Meanwhile, the sociopath Valerie once again puts her manipulative skills in action when she tells Colin and Susan about Brandon and Kelly's romantic liaison at Thanksgiving to break them up, while Kelly sees a different and kinder side to Colin when they spend time with her sister Erin.

Joe's heart condition becomes an issue between Brandon and Susan after they question Donna's father about it, while Donna questions the second opinion Joe received from another doctor. Meanwhile, everyone correctly assumes Kelly is now doing drugs with Colin after Valerie voices suspicions about it. After getting ticketed by the police one too many times for speeding, Steve and Clare are forced to attend traffic school where they meet a TV talk show producer who books them on an episode about bickering couples.

Kelly gets admitted into a rehab center and meets her mysterious new roommate Tara Marks. While Kelly is away, Colin and Valerie keep each other company, while romance grows on their minds. Donna investigates a new cardiac procedure that could help Joe. Meanwhile, the gang goes to Mammoth Mountain for a ski weekend where Brandon and Susan get stranded on the mountain in a blizzard, and David gets introduced to two girls at the ski lodge with the same name of Mary.

Ray Pruit returns to Beverly Hills as Donna and David's first video-production assignment for MZA. Meanwhile, Colin prepares to flee the country while Valerie asks Brandon and a reluctant Kelly to help her in finding him. Joe decides to quit football and choose a new course for his life by moving back to his hometown in Pennsylvania and wants Donna to come with him, but she declines. While Steve is still incapacitated by his broken jaw, Carl takes Clare out on a date who becomes wistful over Carl's memories of her mother.

Steve declares war by trying to find a date for himself just to make Clare jealous when she starts dating another guy, named Dick Harris, whom he can't stand. Meanwhile, Donna's new fireman boyfriend, Cliff Yeager, who saved her life during the brushfire, assists her at her sorority's Halloween Haunted House bash. At the reopening of the Peach Pit After Dark, Kenny does not attend, prompting Valerie to resort to her devious tricks again by asking for $100,000 so she can keep away from him. Also, Brandon tries to get closer to Tracy while Kelly hits on Mark.

Steve pleads guilty to plagiarizing and avoids a hearing in front of Chancelor Arnold and the conduct council, but the corrupt and vindictive Professor Randall pursues a case against an innocent Brandon. At the last moment, Steve, with Clare's help, proves Brandon's innocence when they expose Randall for fabricating evidence against Brandon. Meanwhile, David hedges on investing in Valerie's club while Donna clashes with her uptight mother, Felice, over wanting to renew her relationship with David as part of her effort to help his mental recovery. Also, Kelly throws a surprise birthday party for Mark who becomes increasingly jealous about her and Brandon.

Valerie and Kelly are reluctantly paired in a Christmas gift exchange, where Valerie goes shopping with Tracy to find the certain gift. Kelly gets a big surprise when she meets Joy, a half-sister from her father that she never knew existed. Meanwhile, Steve and Clare find themselves playing holiday matchmakers to his mother and her father during a Christmas faculty party. Also, David tries to get on the good side of Donna's conservative and domineering mother, Felice, who offends everyone again. Elsewhere, Brandon and Tracy share their exchange of gifts.

Valerie is surprised when Tom Miller, another old high school friend from Buffalo, comes for a visit and asks for a job at the After Dark club. Meanwhile, Brandon and Mark learn that they've applied for the same prestigious scholarship, which turns into a competition for both of them. On a job interview, Steve is hit on by the employer, Diane, and hesitates about what to do. Donna proves to be a lifesaver when she fills in as the receptionist at her father's office for the day. At the end, Mark shows off his true angry and arrogant colors to Kelly after losing the scholarship to Brandon, resulting in her breaking up with him.

Brandon, Steve and Dick are partnered together for a three-man basketball team at CU. But that night, Steve and Dick's marijuana habit takes a turn for the worse when Dick suggests heroin and eventually dies from an OD at the After Dark. Meanwhile, Donna wavers between David and Cliff, who try to get on the good side of her parents. Gigi Crane, a magazine writer, starts hanging out with Valerie to get a story about L.A.'s cool people. Kelly and Clare pose as Russians to do some flirting with two other guys during a weekend trip to Palm Springs.

Joey runs away from the homeless shelter and returns to Kelly, who eventually extracts the whole story about Joey's troubles with his mother and stepfather. Meanwhile, Rob asks Valerie's advice on a movie script while a mutual attraction between them develops. Tracy and Brandon quarrel over their spring break plans when Brandon is mailed two airline tickets to visit his parents and Tracy wants to go east to visit hers. David is with Donna at the hospital after her father suffers a stroke. Steve is taken aback by Clare's contract with her "male side" while the gang are preparing to protect his father's beach house from a coming storm.

Brandon and Tracy arrive in Hong Kong for Spring Break to visit Jim Walsh at his apartment, minus Cindy Walsh (who is supposedly visiting Brenda in England). Jim and Tracy get along fine, but he senses something off and questions Brandon about his hidden feelings for Kelly, as well as where Brandon really stands in his relationship with Tracy. Back in Beverly Hills, Donna and her uptight mother argue about what's best for Dr. Martin pending his release from the hospital; David tries to cool down the conflict. Meanwhile, Valerie becomes jealous after Rob's agent, Alan, pairs him with an actress/client for publicity reasons at a party that she throws at the After Dark, where the rock group Barenaked Ladies are performing. A lonely Kelly drowns her sorrows with hard liquor.

On the day before commencement, Kelly becomes determined to oust Valerie from the Walsh house (and town) and pressures Brandon to do so. Meanwhile, Donna decides it's time to move up to a new level of romance with David after getting advice from her grandmother. Steve plans to pull the "best senior prank ever" with some help from his frat brother Muntz, as well as David.

On the day of graduation, a broke and lonely Valerie disrupts Kelly's plans when she takes off on a mindless spree causing Brandon to delay the ceremony to look for her. Kelly's father, Bill, throws a 1920s nostalgic post-graduation party for the class and has the The Cardigans band perform. He also tries to make up with Kelly, who continues to push him away. Steve's stepbrothers, Ryan and Austin, show up for festivities where Ryan is drawn to Kelly's half-sister, Joy. Also, Steve's plans for Clare derail due to her decision to move to Paris with Chancellor Arnold, which leads to Steve and Clare breaking up for good.

Living together begins to take its toll on Kelly and Brandon's relationship. Donna asks David to move back in with her at the beachfront apartment, but with a stipulation that they sleep in separate rooms and that he doesn't tell her parents. Meanwhile, Steve has a couple of run-ins with Carly Reynolds - a young, overprotective, sarcastic, single mother with a six-year-old boy named Zack - who Steve wants to know more about.

Jeff, a new medical intern, and Valerie, who is serving community service for her bookmaking, start working at the Wyatt Free Clinic with Kelly, where she also tries to help a victim of spousal abuse. Meanwhile, news of the sudden illness of Carly's estranged father has her wanting to take Zack and move to Montana to care for him, and away from Steve who's struck with grief, fearing that he will never see his girlfriend again. David hangs out with Jasper's Legend to write a story on them, but the bandmates indulge in David's worst fears, drugs and booze. Valerie turns on her deviousness again, determined not to let Brandon and Kelly get back together by interfering with Brandon's phone messages. Elsewhere, Donna and Noah begin arguing due to differing views about Brandon's fling.

Donna's grandmother is hospitalized after telling Donna that her soulmate is David, who moves out of the Valerie's room at the Walsh house and into Carly's vacant house until he can afford a more inexpensive place. Meanwhile, Kelly alerts Brandon to a potential story about a recently paroled ex-con who explains to Brandon about the mistakes he made that changed his life, which Brandon realizes parallel his own. Steve coaxes Brandon into a double date with two women who he ran into at the Peach Pit, unaware that the women are not who they appear to be. Valerie brings a record executive to the After Dark to hear David and the band, Jasper's Legend, perform their debut. But Valerie is hurt after David tells her that the love song he wrote was about Donna, not her.

Valerie's civil suit against Noah begins with her taking the witness stand and testifying about that night. But Noah's attorney viciously cross-examines her, using Valerie's sordid past to discredit her. Then Brandon, Kelly, David, and Steve individually take the witness stand and testify against Valerie, despite her attorney trying to establish reasonable doubt against them. The final nail in Noah's defense cast a mortal blow when the real culprit, Josh, unexpectedly takes the witness stand and testifies against Noah with details about "his" version of what happened the Valentine's Day night with Valerie at the After Dark. Meanwhile, Donna's addiction to pain pills spins out of control when she begins stealing pills from her father's medicine cabinet at the Wyatt Clinic, while she also combats work pressure by plagiarizing a co-worker's ideas for her newest designs. Record executive, Frank Saunders, wants to sign David to a record deal...but not Jasper.

Donna is rushed to the hospital after falling in a coma from an overdose of painkillers where she comes clean with her father about her addiction to pain pills. When Donna admits to her boss, Robert, that she plagiarized someone else's sketches, she is immediately fired. Meanwhile, Kelly cares for a newborn baby left at the clinic by a teenage mother, named Leanne, which makes Kelly wonder if she can take in the baby to care for it herself. Steve falls for Jill, a woman that he has never met, when he starts reading her love letters which are actually addressed to someone else named Ted. Also, Brandon investigates David's sudden success with his new songs where Jasper suggests to him that David's gains for the record deal are ill-gotten. Elsewhere, Valerie struggles to get past her incident with Noah.

Kelly accompanies Valerie's mother, Abby, to her and Carl's wedding in Las Vegas, where maid of honor Valerie decides to make the moves on Carl to upset her mother's plans. Back in Los Angeles, Noah's and Donna's relationship is on the rocks as he continues to mourn over his father's recent suicide over his failed business, and the fact when IRS agents show up to confiscate everything of Mr. Hunter's for income tax fraud. Meanwhile, Donna is done in by another back-stabbing designer, Carrie, who gets a job after taking credit for Donna's clothing designs. Brandon learns something about Noah's father when he goes for an interview for a job at the L.A. Bureau of The New York Times. Also, Steve invents a date to make Sophie jealous while she continues to make the moves on David after he gets a job on a radio show.

Donna becomes a nervous wreck after her parents announce their decision to separate, and Noah tries to help Donna find out why her parents would want to end their marriage. Matt and Dylan team up as pool sharks and end up in a bar fight with some disgruntled losers. Meanwhile, David befriends Sonny Sharp, a former top radio DJ, whom he tries to help make a comeback. Janet and Steve baby-sit Peter, an 11-year-old child prodigy with big college plans. Gina lies about her relationship with a movie celebrity while house-sitting for the person. Also, Kelly finds a truth about her feelings for Dylan after admitting her feelings for him on a live stage while under hypnosis which prompts a cold response from both Matt and Gina.

Janet goes into premature labor near the end of the honeymoon and gives birth to a baby girl, while Steve maintains a vigil through the week as he worries about the safety of Janet and their newborn. Meanwhile, Dylan asks Kelly and Nat to volunteer in a feed-the-homeless Thanksgiving dinner at the community center. Kelly, seeking a way to boost Jackie's mood, asks her to help out with the dinner, while little Erin continues to mope about her parents' separation. Donna learns of a past indiscretion by her father with Gina's mother, which brings out revelations that could threaten to tear Donna's family apart. Also, David becomes uncertain about where Gina stands with him over her breakup with Dylan.

As Christmas approaches, Gina's meeting with Dr. Martin as her biological father is awkward and unsatisfying, similar to Janet and her parents when they accidentally run into each other at a Christmas tree lot. Steve eventually confronts Janet's parents and tells them to stop acting cold towards her and him. Donna's mother, Felice, offers to help Gina financially, but she refuses. Meanwhile, Donna can't let go of Noah's accident years ago resulting in the death of his girlfriend which leads to her and him considering breaking up. Also, Dylan loses control in front of kids during a Christmas gathering at the community center when he punches a belligerent neighbor complaining about the center's residents hanging around his house. Matt takes advantage of a client's latest fee to buy Kelly an engagement ring and proposes marriage which she accepts. But Dylan confides in David about him still having strong feelings for Kelly.

A revenge-seeking Shane and his friend Carl, kidnap Noah and then send a ransom e-mail to Dylan for his release. Dylan agrees to deliver the ransom money without notifying the police, but confides in Steve about the situation. Then Dylan is waylaid by Josie and Shane who plan to kill him and Noah anyway. Meanwhile, Kelly and Matt prepare to go on a couples Valentine's Day game show with Donna and Janet as their coaches. But when Kelly has an attack of nerves, Donna goes on the show with Matt in her place. Donna's father tries to bond with Gina who continues to be uncertain about what to do. Also, David continues his growing relationship with Camille, until the arrival of an ex-boyfriend which puts a form of jealousy and fear in David.

After Dr. Martin dies from a sudden and massive stroke, unspoken accusations regarding his death haunt Gina. But Felice, as always, speaks her mind accusing Gina of bringing on her husband's fatal stroke while Donna gets consul David and the rest of the gang. Meanwhile, Kelly considers taking a job in public relations while Matt's financial situation gets worse. Dylan decides to explore greener pastures when he decides to leave town and Gina decides on the same. Also, Noah has trouble getting over his kidnapping and brush with death which leads to him drinking again. With everyone against her and conflicted by her past, Gina says goodbye to Donna after Dr. Martin's funeral to return to New York, but Dylan decides to stay to be near Kelly.