Dylan's closest friends stage an intervention at Casa Walsh, where they beg him to enter rehab. Valerie and Clare, left out of the intervention, spend the day shopping together. Steve partakes in the intervention, but he is still angry with Dylan over his sexual tryst with Valerie and he still will not listen to Kelly or Jim or anyone else who tell him that Valerie is the really bad seed. Meanwhile, Kelly's modeling career takes an upward turn when she is offered the chance millions of girls only dream about: the opportunity to appear on the cover of the national fashion magazine Seventeen. Dylan runs away from the rehab clinic after one day with a little of Valerie's help, but begins to alienate her too with his self-destructive attitude and his unwillingness to go after the people who betrayed and stole from him, which leads her to finally walk out on him. Dylan's problems increase when he is given heroin by his pool hall dealer. That evening, Ray has dinner with Donna's 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. However, Donna's father, John, sees the video first, but being a good sport, gives it back to Donna and makes her promise to keep her roommates under control. At the end, Dylan gets high while smoking heroin, and ends up crashing his car off a cliff.

The campus erupts in controversy when an anti-Semitic African-American activist is asked to give a speaking engagement at the school. Brandon finds himself caught in the middle of the chaos when his political choices come into direct conflict with his personal ethics. Andrea is opposed to the activist speaker, and openly accuses Brandon of selling out his principles for politics. Meanwhile, Donna plans a birthday surprise for Ray on his 25th birthday, while David ponders his Jewish heritage in relation to the controversy. As Dylan recovers in the hospital, his estranged mother, Iris, keeps him company, but his drug dealer pays an unexpected visit and threatens him not to tell the police about their business.