What happens when Jay and Silent Bob crash a car into your grandparents’ kitchen while you’re spending your summer vacation at their house? Leia Forman (Callie Haverda) is about to find out when That ’90s Show returns for Part 3, with 10 new episodes directed by her TV mom, That ’70s Show star (and That ’90s Show guest star) Laura Prepon.

Well, sort of. To start, while Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes are dressed as their famous characters from Clerks, they’re not playing them on the 1996-set series. That would probably cause a tear in the time-space continuum, because Callie rents Clerks in Season 1. Instead, Smith plays Sonny, the son of Tommy Chong’s Leo, and Mewes plays his friend Bunch. 

Want to know more about what happens in Part 3 of That ’90s Show? Read on for more information about this season’s guest stars plus refreshers on what happened in Parts 1 and 2.

What happens in That ’90s Show Part 3?

Part 3, now streaming on Netflix, sees Leia and her crew deal with the fallout from the accident as they try to convince Leia’s mom, Donna (Prepon), and grandparents, Kitty (Debra Jo Rupp) and Red (Kurtwood Smith), to let her stay in Point Place, Wisconsin, for the school year. After all, her close-knit group of friends already makes her feel at home. For Prepon, the entire experience of both filming and directing the new series was a homecoming of sorts. 

“I started crying when I first walked onto the sets,” she tells Tudum. “It was just such a big love.”

The difference this time? Says Prepon, “I’ll never forget one of Red’s lines in [That ’90s Show pilot] where Red turns to my character and says, ‘You’re upstairs people now.’ And I am! I had a scene that I directed myself in with all the kids where I had to go down into the basement and threaten them not to corrupt my daughter.”

How much of the ’90s are in the show?

In case the colorful fashion, the landlines, and the Zima didn’t remind you that the series takes place in the final decade of the 20th century, one of the most notorious ’90s needle drops of all time plays in the opening minutes of the sitcom’s second part: “Macarena.”

“The ‘Macarena,’ we had to hit that one right away,” teases executive producer and showrunner Gregg Mettler. But there’s careful calculation when it comes to how much ’90s nostalgia goes into each episode of the sitcom, and Mettler tells Tudum that “less is more.”

The spin-off of the early aughts classic That ’70s Show follows Leia and the eclectic group of friends she meets while spending the summer in Point Place, Wisconsin, with her grandparents. So not only does the series walk a fine line between honoring nostalgia for the ’90s and keeping the comedy timeless, it also pays tribute to the long-running sitcom and its memorable setting.

Prepon was able to infuse her own experiences into the new series in the form of a few of her own Easter eggs for longtime fans. “What’s great is that, because it’s in the ’90s, [the characters] don’t have [cell] phones yet,” she tells Tudum. “So [there’s] a lot of the same stuff we did in the basement on That ’70s Show, whether it was playing cat’s cradle or building a chain link rope out of bottle-cap tops or playing tennis with a pillow. There were so many little funny, quirky things that we would do in the basement that I was able to [re-create] —  even just where the kids sat. Topher [Grace, Leia’s dad] and I always used to sit up on the back of the couch, so I had Callie and Mace [Coronel, Leia’s boyfriend, Jay] sit up on the back of the couch.”

When it comes to depicting the ’90s, “I like to let the clothes do a lot of it,” says Mettler, who worked on That ’70s Show from Seasons 2 through 8. “I let a few references here and there [i.e. the song “Macarena” and accompanying dance] do a lot of it. The fact that they are not sitting there looking at their phones and they actually have to go over to each other’s houses and hang out makes it the ’90s.”

Who’s in That ’90s Show cast?

That ’90s Show stars Callie Haverda as the bookish Leia, and joining her are:

• Ashley Aufderheide as Leia’s new BFF and next-door neighbor Gwen
• Mace Coronel as Leia’s love interest, Jay
• Reyn Doi as snarky pal Ozzie
• Maxwell Acee Donovan as Gwen’s jock brother, Nate
• Sam Morelos as Nate’s smart-as-hell girlfriend, Nikki

Original star Prepon returns as Donna, along with Don Stark as her dad, Bob. Andrea Anders is back as Sherri, and additional guest stars in Parts 2 and 3 include former That ’70s Show writer Will Forte, Seth Green, Lisa Loeb, Carmen Electra, Wayne Knight, Kevin Smith, Tommy Chong, Jason Mewes, Matt Rife, and Kadeem Hardison.

Says Mettler, “There wasn't anybody who swung by who didn’t have an absolute blast. We always made sure that we made the scene or the thing they were participating in — music video, parody, or a commercial parody, or a fantasy set to a ’90s song — really fun, and at times even included their take on things to get to a point where they were really psyched about doing it.”

That ’90s Show Part 2 Trailer

What happens in That ’90s Show Part 2? 

“We ended Part 1 in the summer of ’95 with a big love triangle cliff-hanger. And we rejoin our characters at the beginning of the summer of 1996,” Mettler explains. Leia reunites with Jay after nine months apart, but the fact that she and Nate almost kissed caused problems in both of their relationships. Nate and Nikki end up breaking up. Red and Kitty decide to take a romantic trip to Paris and reluctantly leave Bob (Stark) in charge, which is when the car crashes into the Forman family kitchen. Oops!

What happens in That ’90s Show Part 1?

The first season takes place in 1995 and features cameos from original cast members Topher Grace, Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher, Prepon, and Wilmer Valderrama as they pass the torch to the new generation. Grace and Prepon return as Leia’s parents, Eric and Donna, while Kutcher and Kunis appear in the series premiere as Jay’s parents, Michael and Jackie. Part 1 ends with Leia perilously close to kissing neighbor Nate before heading back to Chicago for the school year. 

Who’s on the That ’90s Show creative team?

Co-creators of both sitcoms, Bonnie and Terry Turner, are joined by co-creator and executive producer Lindsey Turner — their daughter — and Mettler.

“Going to Point Place last season was a real treat for all of us. We’re thrilled to return,” Lindsey Turner told Tudum at the time of the series’ renewal. Added Bonnie and Terry Turner, “We here in Point Place are thrilled that we’re doing a second season. We’d like to thank all of the fans old and new for tuning in. We’re truly grateful.”

The Grooviest That '70s Show Easter Eggs in That '90s ShowThe more things change in the Forman house, the more they stay the same.