Lucinda temporally loses interest in Brandon when she flirts with Dylan to ask him to finance her documentary film. Meanwhile, Kelly and Brandon spend the weekend together at a task force retreat where they meet the university Chancellor, Milton Arnold, Dean Trimble and the Chancellor's teenage daughter Clare, where Brandon and Kelly become more attracted to each other and brush off Josh who's still hounding them. Brenda and Donna befriend a stray dog that escapes from the university's lab, whom they name Rocky. Also, Andrea discovers that Steve is allowing Muntz and his frat buddies to use her dorm room for nooners. Andrea protests, but changes her mind when Steve begins to date her dorm resident advisor, Kathy Fisher.

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.

As the gang returns to college for their junior year, Dylan shadows and befriends Antonia "Toni" Marchette, the daughter of his father's murderer. Meanwhile, Brandon joins the college newspaper and must deal with Susan Keats, the no-nonsense, stubborn editor and hard-core feminist, who's not very eager to have him working there. Valerie meets Colin for the first time and reveals that they have known each other from a past fling between them years ago which bothers Kelly. Steve's sweet class schedule goes sour when he is forced to hire a math tutor in which Clare volunteers to help him. Also, Ray gets a big audition chance while Colin displays his big canvas the After Dark club.

Brandon goes to San Diego for the weekend with Susan to meet her parents, who are still plagued with family problems over the death of Susan's older sister. Back in Beverly Hills, Joe's older brother, Hank, arrives in town for a visit and becomes wary of Joe's planned heart surgery. Meanwhile, Clare doesn't share Steve's joy for his new motorcycle. In rehab, Kelly becomes upset when she learns that Valerie is now seeing Colin, who lives through a high speed police chase to regret doing a favor for his drug dealer.

Brandon and Susan play the lottery and win $5,000, but they lose the winning ticket. Valerie is left hanging when Colin bails out on going to jail. He then visits Kelly for a while before fleeing town. Meanwhile, Steve becomes more friendly with Prince Carl, until a fall down a flight of stairs breaks Steve's jaw, leaving him speechless. David and Donna's fame as video producers spreads in which their video producer Erik, wants them to make another music video. Also, Joe finally returns to football practice.

On Valentine's Day, Donna's former beau, Cliff Yeager, shows up and causes concern for her and David. Meanwhile, Valerie's mother, Abby, whom she can't stand, arrives in town from Buffalo for a visit and asks Val for financial support. Steve commits yet another error with Clare when he decides to take up smoking pot with Dick Harrison. Chloe makes her singing debut and David get to be the MC for Luther Vandross at the Peach Pit After Dark's Valentine's Day party. Kelly continues dating Tom, and an unhappy Valerie tries to halt the union. Also, Tracy gets a big surprise from Brandon when she mistakenly thinks he bought her an engagement ring.

Dylan becomes intrigued with his past after he and Steve see a live news report showing a group of plane crash survivors, one of whom is the dead-splitting image of his long death father Jack McKay. Dylan tries looking into his family storage locker, but finds it broken into and ransacked. Dylan then goes to see Christine Pettie, the FBI agent who was involved in protecting his father many years ago, but she is not very helpful and advises Dylan to leave this alone. Meanwhile, Noah's return to drinking gets worse when he intrudes on Donna's newest date Eli. Kelly compromises her personal feelings for her new profession when her first PR assignment is to cover gay teen groups in schools. Also, David ponders his further relationship with Camille when the issue of how to satisfy her arises during their first night together, while Donna hires Camille to work at the boutique.