In tonight’s episode, Beth overshares – in the sense that we’ve been over this before, a lot; in fact I feel like we’re getting scenes from past Bethenny franchises spliced in as filler. And in the sense that she’s doing that annoying thing of explaining information to people who know exactly what she’s referring to without needing the explanation, but of course the audience in theory needs the information all spelled out so as to create a storyline. No more fun at the airport Hilton with Good Times So tonight; it’s a rerun of Bethenny Tells All instead. Let’s get to it, shall we?
We’re still celebrating Mo’s birthday, because it’s all about MO and that’s how she’s going to drag this out: with a “ladies lunch” featuring RAMONA Pinot Grigio, a “Turtle Time” cake, and all her UES “real friends” who, to a one, look like small dogs facing into the wind out the driver’s side window. Also, the ‘Wives are invited. “Hi, Mama!” Holla chirps to Beth, instantly pissing her off. Beth starts muttering loudly about how she doesn’t want to be here and how it’s not her scene, which manages to come off as both “I feel out of place” and “I can’t stand these people” at the same time, as it was no doubt intended.
Beth sizes the women up as looking like they are from the Mos Eisley Cantina, which is altogether true and a surprising observation for a woman who does not have the amassed LEGO Star Wars collection This Little Mama does. So talks tofu-and-poo bullshit with her Swami priest, oddly wearing Chanel, and after making a plan to take some stabilizing medication and light another abundance candle informs Beth that she’s doing what Beth said she oughta. Then they all sit to dine, with the ‘Wives seated at their own table well apart from Mo’s real friends, Mo makes a toast, we all recoil in horror at the gold brocade epauletted fiasco Mo has selected from Barbie’s wardrobe for this occasion, the end.
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Time to move on to Beth’s Troubles, which of course bring her back to poor overtaxed Dr. Amador. Beth, who loves therapy, oddly apparently hasn’t seen Dr. Amador in all the time since she had her last Bethenny spinoff, despite this being the worst time ever in her entire life; which means he’s either (a) her TV-only therapist, or (b) we’re all pretending so as to weave together a more seamless Beth storyline and make it like we really picked up where we left off rather than like she left to do a talk show that sucked and came back with her tail between her legs rather than just move on into a quieter, fame-reduced sunset.
Without mentioning him by name (or including any of the footage from Beth’s Therapeutic Sailing Trip In Which She Was “Lost At Sea” in which Jason actually appears), Beth informs us that she feels “betrayed” by He Who Shall Not Be Named. Betrayal? When did betrayal factor into this? Did he “betray” her by not handing over the baby and disappearing like she wanted him to, or did he actually DO something (which I know none of us can believe he would, and that’s what she hates most about Jason in the first place). She didn’t trust her “gut feelings”, she tells Dr. Amador, who appears to agree with her that there was something not to be trusted about He Who Shall Not Be Named, and how can she ever trust again? Well, maybe she should trust the feelings she didn’t trust in the first place? I am confused. Whatever, he thinks she should go have a visit with her former stepfather and get out of his office because his next patient is waiting.
Radzi, Kristen and Lu go to watch boxing, because Radzi is really into boxing ever since she was on testosterone. Kristen gets hit in the inner thigh by a slobbery mouthguard and gets way into it. Mo shows up. Kristen makes a crack about how if Beth wanted to come she could have gotten a sitter, but she didn’t. Hey, I wouldn’t either. After the match, they go for drinks and Lu and Radzi bicker about Masterchef Junior. Lu tells Radzi she’s happy if Radzi’s happy. Which, of course, she now is not. S-N-O-R-E.
Back to Beth, because this whole season is really All About Beth and Mr. Andy getting his money’s worth. She’s arrived in Miami (like she flew Southwest) and is meeting up for a girls’ weekend with her best friends from high school; while she’s at it, she’s going to connect with the Kountess at Art Basel, and see her former stepdad. Her best friend, whose name I didn’t write down but who we met before at Beth’s wedding, arrives for drinks and to provide fake conversation to serve as background, specifically for the fact that the reason Beth hasn’t talked to her former stepdad since she was 19 is because there was an incident in which he shoved Beth around when she arrived with her mother and mother’s newest husband to collect some of mom’s stuff. So that’s why. But for as bad as Beth’s childhood was, and we know it was ghastly, getting unmarried is “ten times worse”, and it’s like she’s trying to escape prison. LAWD. Remember the movie from the 80’s where the kid tried to divorce her parents? This episode is going to be Exhibit A in Bryn’s emancipation case not long down the road.
Doritos and Mo go to the gym so Mo can show us how hot and healthy she is and make cracks about Fatso. The End.
Back in Miami, first we stop in at Art Basel so we can see Kountess Lu’s unwashed daughter Victoria and her nude self-portrait (which can be yours for the low-low-price of $2,000 in her Etsy store) and watch Beth feed a clown an ice cream sandwich. Lu gets all sniffy about how well Victoria has grown up, endured her parents’ divorce, and become successful (allegedly); I am so proud that I taught Big to sniff Flonase tonight. Lu tells Beth that the other girls feel like she’s not hanging with them and she says she’ll try harder and intimates she’ll hire a sitter to go out in the evenings when she has Bryn, which she totally will not.
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So does burpees in the bathroom of the SoStone while her stylist intern shows her shoes that she is going to take back once the camera leaves. The End.
Radzi is pretending to procrastinate on her next book and takes a call from Masterchef Junior who is going to bring her honey from Nicaragua. The End.
OK, back to business with Beth and her visit with her former stepdad. Beth walks like a duck. It seems the former stepdad was also a horse trainer and was friends with Beth’s biological dad which seems appropriate; by “horse trainer”, do we mean “tiny man”? They visit, it’s all fine, mostly it’s an opportunity for Beth to just accidentally share some more details of her dysfunctional childhood, such as: they moved a lot to avoid the Mafia people who stepdad owed money to from gambling debts; they took Beth to nightclubs; Mom tried to kill herself in front of Beth in the kitchen; they were all drunks who beat each other up; and Mom didn’t really want to be a mom. Basically, what we mostly knew.
Stepdad wants to know why Beth cares at this point, and she says it’s because she associates sex with violence now. Or that she expects sex to get violent. Or something like that, which gets dropped; Stepdad is mad that she never connected with him and thought she was blowing him off because she became a big success. Beth points out she didn’t connect with him until AFTER she became successful, to which Stepdad says “oh, yeah, duh”. The moral of the story: they all did the best they could, and holding resentment inside amounts to “drinking poison hoping the other person dies”. True ‘nuf. THE END. Can we be done with Poor Little Rich Girl now? We all have our shit, and this is not entertainment. I came for entertainment!
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Next time: So puts on her own She by Sheree fashion show; Mo claims Mario wants to come back to her; Beth and Radzi get weepy; and there’s a three-way between Lu, Mo, and Doritos over Fatso.
