Dylan and Kelly decide to keep their romantic liaison a secret when Brenda and Donna return from Paris. During a welcome-back party for Brenda and Donna, Brenda confides in a guilt-ridden Kelly that she sees that something has changed about Dylan while she was away. Meanwhile, Brandon discovers that Brooke is not the girl of his dreams after he sees little amusement in her repeated racist and stereotypical comments. Also, Steve finally lands a gig for David at the end-of-the-summer clambake at the beach club.

After a West Beverly football game is canceled because of the gang violence at the opposing school, Brandon meets with Jordan Bonner, the class president from the rough South-Central school, who together they decide to make a stand by inviting some of the students from the school to a West Beverly High dance, being headed by Brenda and sponsored by Gil Meyers. Meanwhile, Kelly goes to meet with her long-absent father. Also, David gets a DJ gig at the dance and a groupie, who is Sue, much to Donna's jealousy.

Andrea tries to get to the bottom of a sexual assault accusation against Gil Meyers brought forth by Sue's mother. David and Donna join in on the investigation and find out about Sue's real emotional troubles. Meanwhile, Brandon reluctantly agrees to go out dancing with Nikki, despite not knowing how to dance. Also, Dylan develops a bad cough due to surfing in polluted water.

Fate touches Brenda when her Paris beau, Rick, suddenly shows up, causing her to question her relationship with Dylan. Tragedy literally strikes Andrea when she's seriously injured in a hit-and-run accident. Meanwhile, Donna considers becoming more intimate with David, but she feels guilty about thinking about the subject of sex. Nikki also gets tickets for the Rosie O'Donnell show about the topic of AIDS and gets Brandon, Donna and David to come with her. After Steve gets bad news regarding his low SAT score, he decides to take the risk and gets Herbert to help him hack into the school computer to change his grades.

While serving his detention, Steve meets Joe, a trouble-making punk among the rough crowd who takes him and Brandon out that night to bet on hot-rod racing, despite Dylan's cautious warnings. Things take a turn when Brandon suspects the opposing driver as the hit-and-run driver that hit Andrea. Meanwhile, Brenda and Kelly go out on a blind double-date with two kids from Princeton (junior high school), and David gets radio competition from Donna in between his DJ work and relentless studying for early graduation.

Brenda, Kelly, and their mothers Cindy and Jackie, as well as Donna and Andrea enjoy a good life for the weekend at a posh health spa, until Brenda overhears a conversation about Kelly's stepdad's unfaithfulness to Jackie. Meanwhile, Jim questions his mid-life crisis with his secretary Dottie and a best-selling author on the subject. Dylan finds two separate fantasies about a future with Brenda and Kelly not fulfilling. Also, Brandon starts gambling on basketball games with Nat's bookmaker Duke.

Dylan's estranged mother, Iris, returns to Los Angles which resurrects old family hostilities for she doesn't trust Jack with handling Dylan's trust fund, as does Jim. Brandon continues gambling and splurges his winnings on skis and a new car stereo. Meanwhile, David and Steve meet with the eccentric Icon Records Company president Curtis Bray, who tells David that he will give him a recording deal only if he fires his personal manager Steve. Brenda spends the entire weekend in her bedroom moping about her lost relationship with Dylan, while dreaming evil dreams on doing physical harm to Kelly whom she unfairly blames for her and Dylan's breakup. Also, Andrea goes to a luncheon for Yale acceptances where meets her old friend Jordan Bonner.

Voted the most beautiful senior at West Beverly, Kelly fears that no one's looking beneath her good surface, while she becomes hurt over Dylan not wanting to show her his finished editorial whom he shows to Andrea first. Meanwhile, Steve forgets he's dateless when he goes out with Brandon and his parents to a Lakers basketball game and is randomly chosen to win $10,000 for a half-court shot. Also, Brenda reconsiders her college choice of going back to Minnesota.

The Gang plans to go to Magic Mountain for Senior Ditch Day but plans change for Brandon, Dylan, and Steve when a Burt Reynolds fan club eats at The Peach Pit when Nat is sick. Everyone else heads to Magic Mountain.

Brenda and Brandon are dateless for the Senior Prom. A school announcement is made that any student caught at Senior Prom drinking, intoxicated or with illicit drugs will be suspended from school and prevented from graduating. Footballer Tony Miller asks Brenda to prom on the day of the event, and Andrea asks Brandon at the last moment after her date, Jordan Bonner, gets ill. Steve takes Celeste Lundey, while Dylan naturally goes with Kelly. Donna doesn't eat all day so that she will fit into her prom dress. She is hit harder by pre-prom champagne than the rest of the gang, appears to be drunk at prom, and ends up collapsing in front of Mrs Teasley.

Donna tries to make up with David, whose increased drug use turns her away. David also steals $150 from his father to buy more amphetamines for himself. When his drug dealer is arrested later, he finds himself in possession of a huge stash of narcotics and calls on Dylan for help. Meanwhile, Jesse and Andrea meet with her grandmother to get her blessings before their wedding and reception at the Peach Pit. A dangerous affair begins between Brandon and Lucinda, who shows her true colors when she starts teaching her anthropology class of human sexuality and preaches the need for multiple partners, seeing sex as her personal weapon. Brenda gets a surprise visit from a long-absent Stuart on Valentine's Day.

Brandon uses Kelly as his date at a university social event to shield his affair with Lucinda from Josh Richland, a snooping student reporter from the Condor determined to dig up any dirt on Brandon. Meanwhile, Brenda and Stewart travel to Palm Springs where they find big complications from a small mistake Brenda makes which leaves them stranded in the desert, where Stuart fumes over and it resulting in her finally breaking off their engagement for good. David rents a piano as a new hobby while Kelly moves back in with him and Donna. Also, Andrea lets Steve use her dorm room after he can't stand living at the KEG house.