First of all, I want to thank everyone who took the time to comment or message me about enjoying my recaps even when the subject matter stinks, like this week’s painful RHOC opener. It’s always nice to know you are appreciated, and I love that you are reading! I do it for you, you know!
It’s taken me a while to get caught up this week – I was away with Big for the first half of the week at a hotel with lots of HBO channels but no Bravo – how does that even happen? You pay for extra but don’t get the free stuff? I don’t get it. Since then lots of swim meets and Battlefrog, as Mr. Little Mama’s intern from last summer was competing and won the whole thing. Sometimes in marriage, concessions must be made.
Not so among Housewives, though, as no one is willing to cede the point in the Doritos Dining Room. Beth has gone to her blathery, stuttery place to fend off the attack of the smothers from Holla. “I want to be closed!” she sputters. “I’m always so open and I want to be closed!” So cross your legs, girl!
Mr. Holla decides to break this fiasco up with a toast. “To Doritos!” he cries. Here here’s all around. Doritos thinks Beth just needs to calm down and accept that Holla’s a Helper, but Beth does not want a HollaHug. “I want to get to know you but I’m broken!” Beth chatters. Holla is now slightly freaked out by this whole situation; she just was trying to offer her a damn meatball from her handbag and the woman is unraveling. The Kountess tries to reason with Beth but Beth deflects; “Please don’t.” She wants to “stay behind the glass”. What the fuck is going on here? Lu gives up. “Let Beth not eat, let Holla say what she wants to say.”
More toasts seem to be in order, so Lu stands and offers a backhanded compliment to Mr. Fat about how she doesn’t really know him but he maybe he’s not as bad as he seems after all. Mo then rises and toasts Doritos for being so “genuine”, and Beth for never loving her so much as now that she made the effort to be here. I didn’t think she loved her at all so that’s perplexing. Beth then raises a glass to the party, and shouts that when So Morgan is the sanest person at the table that’s a real party! Woo hoo! After dinner, the factions retreat to their corners. Beth huddles with SoMo and stakes out her position of refusing to talk about her personal issues even though that’s all anyone is interested in about her. Kristen, Holla, and Doritos go build a fire and feel stunned and insulted. Why is Holla wearing a giant witch costume from Wicked?
Back to New York at last, where Avery is home from college for Christmas vacation and rushes her mom outside the train station or whatever it is like she’s winning The Amazing Race. Arriving home, Mo helps her unpack in Avery’s PB Teen Room and they discuss the Daddy situation. Mo tells Avery that Mario wants to reconcile and wants to know what she thinks; now there’s an unhealthy thing, involving your child in your marital issues. Avery, who thankfully came out of this family with some common sense, wants to stay out of it, and tells Mo to do what’s right for her. Mo thinks Mario’s just generally not happy. Oh well, says Avery. That’s his problem. And don’t call my clothes “Ramona Blue”, MOM.
Meanwhile, Beth got on the batphone and summoned her minions for a “branding summit”, which is basically a chance to display all her myriad products and give everyone a chance to bitch. My lands there are a lot of Skinnygirl products, aren’t there? Everything from the cocktails and the stevia (why Skinnygirl stevia is any different from stevia stevia is going to remain a mystery to me) to tampons and adult diapers. Something for everyone! The point is that Beth invited So to this Skinnygirl Showcase to show her how a real Empire of Something is run. So is dazzled. My suspicions that the Skinnygirl thing has jumped the shark are confirmed.
Elsewhere, Kristen is also having a business meeting, you guys, because something called Ricky’s Makeup wants to do a nail polish line with her and she thought Authoress Radzi could help come up with some clever names for the colors. Radzi wasn’t thinking clever, however; she was thinking pervy, with names like “Thrust”, “Slide”, and “Throbbing”. Gross. This nail polish line is meant to be called “Pop of Color”, not “Pop of Cherry”. I’m a person for whom the name of the color definitely matters when I’m buying yet another shade of nail polish that invariably turns out to be basically the same exact shade as another bottle I already have with a slightly less entrancing name, so I am not thinking Radzi’s names are going to sell any nail polish. But anyway: the point of all this is not that Radzi’s got a dirty mind, but that “Pop of Color” is Kristen’s legitimate new business enterprise, so legit that she trademarked “Pop of Color”. Or Josh trademarked it for her; this is apparently something that will matter later.
Beth and her new bestie Mo Singer go out to dinner. Mo is annoyed that Beth picked a place that has not hot men, just a table full of youngsters in their shirtsleeves who could well have been Mormon missionaries. Doesn’t Mo get it that most NYC establishments are refusing to let filming sully their premises? The options are limited! Doritos and Radzi are coming, too, to further diversify the odd social pairings. Beth and Mo want to talk trash about Holla, but Radzi resists. Radzi feels Holla is just a misunderstood problem solver, healer, and nurturer; Beth finds her oppressive and if she wants therapy, she has therapy. Sigh. The meal devolves into a discussion of men, sports bars, and lesbian sex, and I tuned out to be honest. This whole scene seems a little forced, like they could only get these four folks together at 9:45 am on a Thursday so they pretended to eat dinner. And I wish Mo would stop wearing these Costco camis all the time. The shelf bra is not enough.
Finally, it’s time for Mo’s Sports Bar to open. AOA is a giant space in Tribeca, which is not where I would expect to find a sports bar. Beth shows up first so she can leave first, as usual. She and Mo are really connecting, which is one of those things that make me go Hmmm. Their mutuality appears to be based on their finding of Doritos as Genuine and Holla as Not Genuine. Mo blames it on the fact that Holla “needs to connect intensely immediately”. Usually that’s called a willingness to make the effort to get to know someone, but if there’s one thing Beth and Mo have in common it’s a desire to call all the shots. If they want to be gotten to be known, they will grant permission, thank you. To that end, the area in which the Housewives are going to socialize is apparently roped off from the non-vaginoplasticized masses.
Next the Taekmans arrive, with Josh wearing a rather peculiar pair of high-tops and The Hat Of The Day, a leather fedora. I am always suspicious of an excessively fashionable or over-accessorized man.
Radzi finds Kristen and informs her that Beth was talking crap about the nail polish line and said Kristen was “so dumb” not to get the trademark to “Pop of Color”. Which I thought she did, or at least Josh did? And how would Beth know anyway; what is she, the US Trademark Office? Kristen is livid. Beth doesn’t know her and won’t make the effort to get to know her, or support her entrepreneurial efforts, let alone help her in those efforts to be Just Like Beth?
While Kristen seethes in one corner, Kountess Lu corners Beth in another to talk about the Holla situation. Lu wants to plead Holla’s case as The Nurturer, but Beth wants Lu to be Switzerland NOW, man. What Lu finds to be “nurturing”, Beth finds to be Holla trying to breastfeed or force a pacifier on her. Lu’s eyes narrow and so do mine. Mo butts in and wants to know if anyone wants some chicken.
Kristen tries to get her audience with Beth but Beth shunts her aside in the hunt for Holla. Kristen’s not gonna have it and she’s taller so Beth has to sigh and give in. What does Kristen want? Well, Kristen is SERIOUS about this nail polish line, SERIOUS, and Radzi said Beth said Kristen didn’t have the trademark and what is Beth SAYING? Beth rolls her eyes and stalks off, leaving Kristen with no answers and infuriated. Beth hasn’t got time for this silly little filly. “Get over it!” she barks over her shoulder.
Beth stomps up to Holla and informs her she’s not “at ease” with her, but wants to call a truce. She likes Holla in “many ways”, like, Holla has nice hair. She can’t dive into the pool without checking for water first, see? Wha? And with that, Beth is outta there. Hey, where was So for all this? Isn’t this her very best friend’s big new thing?
Next time: more weird lesbian talk between Radzi and Beth, which I may fast forward through because I think it’s all bullshit; Lu gets a modeling gig; and the season trip is to Turks & Caicos, you guys! I’m depositing Big at summer camp next week so prepare thyselves for another delay. But I do love you too!