What's worse than surviving childhood sexual abuse from a parent who goes on to kill himself? When the primetime soap you're on is running out of ideas in its ninth season and makes you keep reliving it over and over and over again. Now, Val wants to tell Abby about the last days of Mr. Malone's life, but her attempts to get Abby alone for this rather serious conversation are immediately foiled when it turns out that Abby's brought her new boyfriend Carl to town with her -- and, it turns out, has told him a whole bunch of bullshit about exactly how she became a widow. Val remains focused on bringing Abby her radical honesty, though why she bothers at this point is anyone's guess. Some old bag on the Wyatt Foundation board has decided she cares more about literacy than she does about poor kids getting vaccinated or whatever, and the Clinic Clinic is at risk of losing its funding. Kelly enlists Brandon to write a laudatory piece about the Clinic Clinic for the Beat, and the rest of their friends to put on a fundraiser. Brandon, naturally, refuses to respect Kelly's boundaries, though in his moderate defense, she plays mind games right back. Noah tries to nail down his father on the details of his IRS problems, failing to pick up on the 5000 hints his father drops about his state of mind and the things he'd like to settle while he still can, hmmmmm. And Sophie continues using Steve while pursuing David because yes, somehow, she's still here. We take you through it all in our podcast on "Budget Cuts"!

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