Brandon, Kelly, Donna and Steve appear in Clare and David's cinema verity project which ends up revealing truths from their pasts to each other. Valerie moves back in with the Walshes after being evicted from her hotel suite. Meanwhile, Dylan helps Charlie work on a movie screenplay and more help comes from Valerie who repeatedly temps Dylan. After visiting a therapist, Andrea considers telling Jesse about her affair. But she is unprepared when Jesse has a confession of his own for her.

During spring break, Donna visits Ray now living in Portland, Oregon and David tags along to visit his mother only to learn that she has disappeared. So David, along with Donna and his father, Mel, follow a strange trail of the past to find her, while Ray begins to show increasingly signs of jealousy over Donna helping David find his mother. Back in Beverly Hills, Dylan undergoes hypnosis by a therapist in his research to find ideas for a screenplay for Charlie, while Valerie considers and gets a tattoo for herself.

Sagging attendance at the Peach Pit After Dark draws David back to the stage with a talented new partner named Juwan, a young gang member whose performance is threatened by violence from a disgruntled band. Valerie flies to Reno, Nevada to ask Ray to come back to the After Dark when Donna lobbies for his return. Meanwhile, Brandon becomes a guide to Warren, a young and bright, but immature and spoiled genius coveted by Chancellor Arnold to attend the university. Also, Dylan has a disturbing experience with hypnotic regression.

Hypnotic regression leads Dylan to a past life where he is Billy McCoy, a gun-slinging outlaw in the Wild West, until he meets an upper-class woman (in the form of Kelly) to redeem his outlaw ways. Meanwhile in the real world, while Kelly goes to New York with Steve to meet with modeling agencies, Valerie turns her sights on Brandon who is hoping to be re-elected student body president. But Brandon runs into all kinds of problems when news of college tuition for undergraduates will be increased, he is criticized for not looking after the students best interests. As a result, Brandon's political rival, Alex Diaz, enters the race as a new candidate and wins by a landslide.