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Ok, folks, we have a problem. That problem is named Kelly Killoren Bensimon, and she’s screwing up my mojo. Not that Real Housewives of New York City hasn’t been slowly driving me crazy for the last month, because it has. Kelly just makes it worse.

Not only does nothing come out of her mouth that ever make any sense, but I also am so full of seething disdain for her that I can barely see straight when she talks, let alone take notes or organize a recap or think thoughts other than “My god, MAKE IT STOP.” Since this part of the reunion was mostly about Kelly, trying to mold everything that happened into a series of rational paragraphs ought to be interesting. Won’t you join me one last time?

Naturally, things started where the last episode ended – Kelly was offended that Bethenny intimated that she might, you know, be kind of totally crazy, and she tried to leave. She couldn’t find the door (doors are tricky!), so she eventually came back and sat down in order to continue twirling her hair and not paying attention to anything that was going on around her. Even LuAnn had to laugh at Kelly’s walk-off temper tantrum, and when both Jill and LuAnn are breaking ranks and admitting that you’re a moron, things are bad. Not that Kelly would notice, however – she was counting her split ends while this part was happening.

One of the more interesting things we found out during last night’s episode was that Kelly did not leave the island of her own volition, she was sent home by producers instead, which seems to logically contradict the whole “bullying” storyline that she’s selling. After this fact was laid on the table, everyone yelled at each other and it didn’t make any sense, not even to me. From what I could glean, it seemed to be a fight over whether or not Kelly was bullied, which I honestly thought we covered on Monday. Didn’t we? Did I dream that? If I did, it was one of those super realistic dreams, sort of like the ones Kelly had about Bethenny butchering her with a giant knife and making those fantastic knife noises.

After everyone repeatedly said that no one had been bullied, Kelly declared that she thinks they’re all jealous of her and that’s why they bullied her, although she did not go in to detail about what exactly the ladies should be jealous of. Perhaps her large collection of shirts that she pretends are dresses? During this entire exchange, Jill and LuAnn were oddly silent, and I have to assume that if they agreed that Kelly had been mistreated, they would have defended her in some way. They let her fend for herself, and when are those two ever quiet?

Everyone eventually got bored of talking about Kelly, so Jill’s arrival on Shutter Island was up next. Jill’s justification for showing up was that she was invited and encouraged to come back when the trip was planned and that’s why she showed up, and when that didn’t work, she claimed that she showed up to make sure Kelly was ok. Ramona reminded all of us that she had already told Jill that Kelly wouldn’t be on the island when she got there, so, uh…darn. Time to come up with a new justification for showing up, Jill! We all know that she just did it because she can’t stand it when stuff happens without her, so she might as well admit it. I’d like her a lot more if she did.

But she didn’t have time to tell the truth because Ramona got up, stomped her feet, put her finger in Jill’s face and told her exactly what she should have done when she got to the island. Not only was it was fantastic, but it also kind of made sense, which only made it more fantastic when contrasted with Kelly’s sullen, simpering version of non-reality. Apparently it’s possible to be angry and still create full sentences – I had forgotten.

When Jill realized that she could no longer sell her motives as pure, she moved on to talking about how awful the environment was when she arrived on the island and how she understood why Kelly left. In her words, it was like facing a firing squad, except there were no bullets which seems like a pretty key part of a firing squad to me. And, I mean, if there were bullets, her complaint would probably be justified. No one wants to get shot. Although if it means more screen time, I wouldn’t put it past Jill to voluntarily take one in the leg.

Once it was decided that the subject of the vacation had been beaten to death, the group moved on to LuAnn’s love life. Andy asked her about the comment about her ex and Jews that she had made earlier in the season, and she hemmed and hawed and more or less admitted that he doesn’t like Jewish people without actually admitting it. As Kathy Griffin so aptly said on Watch What Happens Live after the show, a Jew-hating ex is not something about which you can successfully hedge – you have to outright deny it, no matter what, because anything less than that is a tacit admission.

LuAnn also more or less admitted having had affairs because she refused to answer a question about her dalliances “out of respect for [her] family.” And, you know, if there hadn’t been affairs, then answering the question wouldn’t be disrespectful…that’s just a conjecture on my part, of course. But much like anti-semitism, I would say that cheating is another subject that you can’t really hedge – it just makes you look guilty. After all, why would correcting untrue rumors of infidelity be disrespectful to your family?

Other than that, LuAnn was pretty contrite – she seemed far more normal and relatable in talking about her divorce and new relationship than she did during this season and the two previous, and hopefully her boyfriend will distract her from meddling in the lives of others in the future. LuAnn strikes me as the type of woman that needs to have a man to feel like her existence is justified, so maybe he’ll stick around and she’ll go back to just being mildly ridiculous instead of totally annoying.

Then it was time to talk to Kelly again and, really, I can’t even take notes when she speaks. I don’t know how to recap that. I don’t think that the English language contains words to describe what it’s like to listen to Kelly explain things, but I’ll give it a shot anyway: Kelly makes my face hurt. She makes me upset for the human race and scared for future generations of children, particularly the two with half of her DNA. I look at her and wonder exactly how much of a douchebag Gilles Bensimon has to be in order to have been married to her for a considerable amount of time. The fact that she continues to breath and sit upright baffles me – you would think that those things would be complicated enough to confuse her and that she would have toppled over and passed out by now.

For her part, Kelly appears to not know what a declarative statement is, and she also admits that she hardly ever listens to what anyone else is saying, apparently because she finds no one but herself at all interesting. Also, her hair. She finds her hair interesting. And the feathers on her bracelet. People talking? Not so much, which is why nothing that she says ever makes any sense. Ever. Well, that’s part of the reason, anyway. The other part is because she’s just kind of dim.

When asked to explain her comments about supporting PETA and wearing fur, Kelly responded but didn’t so much explain her position as just reiterate the completely nonsensical thing that she said about it originally, with the added insight that her opinions change day to day. But of course, she never explains anything, so why should she start now? She just twirls her hair and babbles incoherently until someone interrupts her or she can’t think of any more words to say, at which point she stops and stares blankly back at the person that asked her the question (or, if she can’t remember who actually engaged her in conversation, she just picks the first person or object in her line of sight) until he or she starts talking again. And if it happens to be an inanimate object on which she affixes her attention, well…I guess she just stares at it until she falls asleep or something.

And finally, finally, it was time for the last question of the evening: would they come back to do another season? Bethenny probably wouldn’t, which isn’t surprising since she has her own show now. Ramona actually managed to enjoy this season and would love to do another one, as would Alex. Sonja wants to be besties with everyone because she hasn’t been around long enough to fully abhor Kelly yet. LuAnn joked that she wouldn’t and it was actually deadpan and kind of funny, but she totally would because she’s still trying to find a storyline for herself. Kelly hemmed and hawed but also would love to come back because it made her a better person. Right. Jill said that she doesn’t know, but only because that’s the answer that gets her the most attention.

So, on that note, who would you like to see stay or go for the next season?

Original post by Amanda Mull

Move along, folks. Nothing to see here. Real Housewives of New York City? What? Didn’t that already end? No, no it didn’t, because Andy Cohen is personally trying to suck me into a whirring, spitting vortex of Housewifery that will likely leave me, well, in whatever sort of condition that Kelly Bensimon is currently in. Whatever you call that. That’s what he’s trying to give me.

The topics during this portion of the reunion were slightly less varied and scattered, so this recap is going to be Original Recipe instead of Extra Crispy. After the jump, we’ll try to figure out who the viewers hate more – Jill or Kelly? (Actually, that’s a lie, there’s no way we can figure that out. It would be like finding Jimmy Hoffa’s body or something.)

Part two of the reunion started back at the only place it really could – Jill and her many crimes against Bethenny. As it turns out, everyone has a different theory on why Jill’s apologizing now, and none of them contain the phrase “because she’s truly sorry”: Bethenny thinks that fan and press reaction gave Jill a wakeup call – she wants people to like her and she realized that people don’t when she acts like a total hag. Alex agrees – she thinks Jill’s only apologizing to Bethenny in hopes of redeeming herself to the public. Bethenny also thinks Jill might be apologizing because her storyline has suddenly become sympathetic and Jill doesn’t want to be seen as the girl being mean to the pregnant lady, which Jill more or less admitted. That’s an important lesson, kids: it’s ok to be mean to someone until they get married and have a baby. Then, and only then, it becomes totally inappropriate.

On the much-mentioned subject of jealousy, Jill thinks it’s ridiculous that people think she’s angry about Bethenny’s success, which prompted Ramona to remind everyone that Jill specifically asked her not to film so that Bethenny couldn’t “ride their coattails” to increased fame. Jill said that was a lie, but Alex apparently received the same request. Bethenny admits she asked people not to film with Kelly last season, although Bethenny and Kelly have never been friends so that seems a bit different. Not entirely different, but maybe a little. In any case, I totally believe that Jill didn’t want anyone to film with Bethenny. It makes sense, and LuAnn didn’t exactly deny that the same request had been made of her.

Andy finally asked Jill what her blow-up over Bethenny’s father was all about, and after a few moments I couldn’t even follow what was going on. Here’s what I actually DID pick up: Alex said that Jill knew there was a medical issue. Jill said she didn’t. Kelly tried to enter the conversation but eventually got distracted and went back to playing with her bracelet or picking at her nails or something. Even I don’t watch enough Real Housewives to follow what was going on during this part of the reunion.

Most of the first half of the reunion was overtaken by Jill being forced to admit things. Among them, Jill admited that she shouldn’t have kept the infamous Bethenny message and shouldn’t have played it for people. Bethenny says that Jill never contacted her privately to tell her that Bobby had cancer, choosing instead to blindside her on-camera and then blame her for not knowing sooner, and Jill also admitted that’s true. At a certain point, Bethenny actually stood up for Jill and the fact that she had taken enough snarky questions from viewers about her behavior, which was far more mature than I would have been, in that situation – I would have enjoyed watching her squirm. And I did, because I’m mean. During the “admitting” portion of the show Jill tried to escape again, but her skintight dress and sky-high Louboutins made it so hard to walk that she gave up and sat back down.

Then, finally, Jill got some relief and they brought out Sonja! And, I mean, there aren’t even words. I love Sonja, and she might be the best thing that ever happened to this show. They got straight to talking about her sex life and she declined to give her number of weekly encounters but said that she worries that Kelly isn’t having enough. Kelly, for her part, continued to be shocked that one-night stands are common and also continued to conflate no-strings sex with unprotected sex, and at this point, I’m not entirely sure why anyone continues to engage her in that sort of conversation at all. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her string together a sentence that made sense both on its own AND in the context of the conversation, and she did nothing to change that during this portion of the reunion. My hopes are not high for part three.

For her part, Sonja had a great sense of humor about herself (including the nasty comments that Jill made about her during the series) and took the somewhat rude questions from the viewers very well. She admitted being vain, cheap and a little lecherous, and I wouldn’t have guessed that there would be a way for me to love her more, but somehow, I do. For the few minutes where she was the center of attention, she managed to make the other six women look like a pack of braying, bleating donkeys.

Speaking of admissions, LuAnn admitted being a little scared of Bethenny and her “biting” remarks, and Bethenny admitted that she says mean things sometimes but tries to apologize when she should, which seems true enough. Taking a page from Sonja’s book, LuAnn said that she thought it was funny when Bethenny called her a dumb drag queen, which I somehow doubt, but I’ll give her a little credit for at least lying about being upset. I mean, even if you are upset about something trivial like that, at least you shouldn’t cop to it.

Anyway, back to serious things, namely Kelly’s meltdown. The montage of Kelly’s greatest hits was kind of epic – the encounter with the glass door, satchels of gold, cartwheels, zip it, Don King, making out with the tongue, the nasty face she made when Bethenny told her to go to bed…it was all there. Kelly continued to use the term “systematic bullying” to describe what happened to her, which is probably offensive to anyone that has actually been bullied, not to mention also probably not a real term. We’ve all seen that footage a thousand times, and I don’t think that there’s anything in there to support the claim that she was being targeted for any kind of harassment. In fact, her continual badgering of Bethenny over her career was a lot closer to bullying than anything that we saw from any of the other housewives. If I told that to her, I bet her response would be something along the lines of, “That’s not true. Thank you. I appreciate that.” *Insert blank stare here*

Ultimately, Bethenny chimed in to stop the madness and was completely right – it’s futile to talk about Kelly’s meltdown and accusations like they’re eventually going to make any kind of sense, because they’re not. Kelly needs a new therapist or a new agent or SOMETHING, but she just keeps digging a hole for herself that’s got to be getting a little deep at this point. It’s pretty clear that Kelly has managed to coast by for most of her life on her looks and affluence, and now that none of that is helping her, we all get to see that her social skills haven’t progressed beyond the point in her life when she realized she was hot. She apparently felt no need to develop a personality beyond that, which is why even Andy Cohen, of all people, had to call her an outright liar last night.

What Kelly seems to do is simply change her perception of reality when the objective version doesn’t suit her narrative, and she even managed to deny saying something about bullying that she had just finished explaining mere seconds before – even Jill broke ranks for a moment and told her that didn’t make any sense. She eventually got sick of everyone being logical (logic hurts poor Kelly’s empty head) and stormed off, but it appears as though she returns at some point – she’s in the teaser clips for the third segment of the reunion. What’s also in them is Ramona getting in Jill’s face, which I find much more interesting.

Original post by Amanda Mull

And so our long national nightmare is over. The televised lobotomy known as Real Housewives of New York City came to the close of its third season last night, and it was as anticlimactic everyone sort of knew it would be. The episode actually had nice moments, and we know that’s not supposed to happen. There is no room for positivity or sanity in Real Housewives, sort of like there’s no crying in baseball.

A bunch of random stuff happened and none of it was connected. It’s hard to write about stuff that’s mostly non-narrative, but because it’s my job and I’d like for it to continue to be my job, I’m going to give it a the ol’ college try anyway. Why are Housewives finales always so decidedly blah?

We’ll start with the conflict on which this entire season has hinged: Jill and Bethenny. They finally sat down together to have lunch and talk about a peace treaty, and Bethenny did not look at all thrilled from the get-go. Jill apologized and swore that she didn’t want to dredge up the past, but still managed to say she had been ambushed when Bethenny came to talk to her at Ramonas house. That’s the past, right? Or do all of these events happen simultaneously in Jill’s head, making Housewives sort of similar to Lost? That would sort of blow my mind.

Jill kept talking, for some reason, and claimed to have never gossip about Bethenny, which is verifiably not true. Anyone with even a passing interest in this show knows that it’s not true. Bethenny said that Jill had been disloyal (and probably some other stuff too, but I was too busy trying to mentally catalog all of the different times we saw Jill gossip about Bethenny), Jill cried. She seemed a little angry in the confessional interviews that Bethenny didn’t automatically fall at her feet at the offer of forgiveness. Latkes didn’t fix it.

The takeaway from the entire lunch was that Jill has finally figured out that she has screwed up her relationships with everyone but sycophantic LuAnn and certifiable crazyperson Kelly, which seems to be most of her motivation for trying to create a Survivor-style alliance with Bethenny. For her part, Bethenny did not seem thrilled with that prospect, but she accepted the Latkes of Detente anyway.

Next, LuAnn! LuAnn had to wait until the season finale, but she actually got a decent chunk of time dedicated alllllll to her. It’s the debut of her “single” (scarequotes intentional), and not only is she excited about that, but her magic J man that the psychic predicted like eight episodes ago also managed appeared. Alex, Bethenny and Ramona didn’t show because, well, why would they? All of them seem to have some modicum of sense and little allegiance to the Countess.

LuAnn got up and sang and at first, I was a bit impressed that they were autotuning her live performance. Quickly, however, it became clear that LuAnn is the worst lip-syncer this side of Britney Spears and she was merely waving her arms about and holding a microphone while the guy with the mohawk played the song off of his iPod. Everyone danced and pretended to be in to it, Jill was kind enough explain the meaning of the song to Kelly (who now appears to be officially too stupid to continue breathing on her own), everyone was happy! Even that French J person didn’t seem completely horrified. Stealth Housewife Jennifer compared it to early Madonna. Madonna isn’t dead yet, but when she is, she will certainly remember that comment and take a moment to roll in her grave for it.

Naturally, because these women can’t be together in any significant numbers without talking about past drama, conversation turned to the trip to St. John when LuAnn got offstage. Sonja tried to be diplomatic but made the mistake of expressing a negative opinion about Jill’s sudden appearance on the trip, and we all know what happens when you say something negative about Jill. Everyone piled on, including Stealth Housewife Jennifer who very much had no idea what was going on or who might have been right. But! That certainly didn’t stop her from having an opinion. She’ll do well on this show. Sonja, to her credit, managed to quiet down everyone and say what she thought without LuAnn fainting or Jill’s head swiveling around a la The Exorcist. It was kind of amazing. Sonja has totally won this entire season, despite only appearing on half of it.

Did anyone else sort of forget that Ramona was going to have a vow renewal and that was the whole reason that they went on the trip to Crazy Island? Am I the only one? Because the renewal was used as the traditional “end of season” party, I’m betting that producers put her up to it, which makes me hate the whole idea a little less. Who would have guessed that Ramona would emerge from this season looking relatively sane and reasonable? And when I say “relative,” I mean relative to the one that appears to actually think that Bethenny is trying to kill her, in a literal sense.

Anyway, Ramona took Avery to Oscar Blandi to have her hair cut for the vow renewal, and then it was back to the Pierre for Ramona to advise Jill on how to no longer act like Jill while she was getting ready. Downstairs, guests were arriving and it seemed like Ramona actually had sort of a nice turnout. Jill even managed to behave herself when both Alex AND Bethenny showed up, which is a miracle major enough that someone should probably be contacting the Vatican. Sonja, in her infinite fabulosity, showed up in a dress slit halfway down her torso, gesturing grandly with a glass surely filled with some sort of alcohol. (Sidenote: I hope that everyone drank pinot grigio for the entire party in honor of Ramona.)

And then Kelly showed up, and the two groups were forced to split off and talk amongst themselves. Also, Kelly didn’t RSVP but showed up anyway, which she somehow thought made her the “bigger person” in the Ramona-Kelly conflict, which I wasn’t actually aware existed. As far as her being the “bigger” anything, well…I just…I can’t. I’m physically unable to conceptualize how Kelly has arrived at any opinion that she has ever held.

Before the ceremony started, there was some dispute over whether Ramona’s dog needed a leash to walk down the aisle, and then there was a dispute over the seating arrangement. Of course. Jill had to make sure that everyone noticed that the two “teams” had been seated separately, which only seems prudent on the part of Ramona’s wedding planner. Finally, everyone had to shut up so that the officiant could talk about Mario’s fondness for Ramona’s butt, after which things got slightly more normal and the ceremony was actually kind of sweet.

Was the whole thing a bit contrived? Of course. But I’m of the personal opinion that almost all wedding-type things are slightly contrived, so that might just be me being cynical (that’s what happens when you’ve worked in the wedding industry!) Both Jill and Bethenny approached Ramona afterward to say nice things to her, and the whole thing was just sort of oddly nice and positive for an episode of Real Housewives. Particularly this season. There weren’t even any shots of Kelly in the corner, trying to directly inject high fructose corn syrup into her bloodstream. I’m pretty sure it happened, however.

At the end of the show, we got the little “what they’re doing now” blurbs for all of the women, which seemed a little silly for a group that’s so regularly in the tabloids. They told us that LuAnn has an apartment and is still seeing Jacques, the French guy who can apparently stand to be around her. Good for those two! Ramona went on a safari without Mario instead of a second honeymoon. Sonja is writing a novel. Kelly continues to love lollipops, rainbows and unicorns (presumably cartwheels as well, although they weren’t mentioned specifically). Alex has a parenting book, as we all know. Jill is doing absolutely nothing. Bethenny got married, had a kid and has her own show. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a Blurb War winner.

Despite a finale that lacked some of the drama and insanity of the show as a whole, this still may be my favorite season of Housewives of all time. As such, I will be recapping their reunion next week, which is sure to be as insane as anything we’ve seen from them this season.

Original post by Amanda Mull

And so, it was over. Not the season, I mean. That’s not over until next week. Just the good part of the season.

In the conclusion of Real Housewives of New York City’s three-episode insanity tour of Shutter Island St. John, things became somewhat less insane, and it was sort of sad (the reduction in insanity, not the episode itself). We knew that this storied period in Housewives history had to end, but that doesn’t mean that any of us wanted to see it go. Except for Kelly Bensimon, of course. And probably Jill.

The episode started in St. John once again, where everyone was (perhaps surprisingly) still alive after Kelly’s disaster the previous evening. They have been all still alive, but they weren’t all still there – Kelly sprouted wings and flew off the island like Puff the Magic Dragon (lived by the sea…or she left in a Jeep. Whatev. Choose your own adventure.) during the night, and the four remaining women sat around and talked about how happy they were that Kelly had left them to cartwheel into the ocean and all the way back to New York.

The remaining housewives proceeded to be massaged, do yoga, snorkel, get mani/pedis and lay in the sun. They talked about lots of soft, fuzzy emotions, like how happy Ramona was that they came and how loved she felt! No one told them that feeling things was very 1979 and they all smiled and looked like they were having fun. But if we know one thing, it’s that this trip (and this show) is not supposed to be fun.

“HIIIIIIIIIIIII.”

Jill! Jill is the only person capable of making that noise. She showed up to make everyone’s vacation better and more special, because a little Jill improves everything! My favorite part of the whole scene was the fact that, for a few moments, everyone refused to acknowledge that she and Bobby even existed. They all just stared off into the middle distance and tried to make her disappear by sheer force of will, but since it’s impossible for anyone except Kelly to liquefy people with thoughts, she continued to exist. For a moment, they all regretted that Kelly had gone home.

Instead of getting the warm reception that Jill expects will greet her wherever she goes, Ramona demanded to know why she was there and then Bethenny and Alex both looked like they were going to cry. Sonja, of course, was too drunk to care. No one was talking so Jill kept babbling about St. Barts and the house and pedicures and HI BETHENNY. She finally put her tail between her legs and left, barely in time to avoid the second nervous breakdown of the weekend, this time from Alex.

Jill clearly seemed to think that her presence was the greatest gift that she could give to any of those women, and when Ramona came outside to apologize and explain why she couldn’t stay, all Jill did was complain about the money she spent getting there and how MEAN everyone else was to her and that SHE WAS A GUEST TOO AND SHE WAS GOING TO DO A TAKESIES BACKSIES ON HER FRIENDSHIP WITH RAMONA. AGAIN. Somehow, it never seemed to occur to Jill that no one wanted her there because she had finally done enough to alienate all of her friends. Except LuAnn. But no one cares about LuAnn.

With Jill gone, the remaining vacationers continued at dinner what they had started that morning – talking about how relaxed and happy they felt without Jill, LuAnn and Kelly. They cooed about Bethenny’s baby bump and sonograms and giving the Heimlich Maneuver to poodles, a subject that came up after Kelly’s ghost tried to come back to St. John and choke Ramona to death. Also, they all picked Sonja’s brain for information about penis size.

And the cuteness continued – Alex and Sonja threw a simultaneous bridal shower for both Ramona AND Bethenny. They gave them lots of skanky-luxe gifts that were actually kind of fun and hilarious, and then they made wedding dresses out of toilet paper, which is a challenge that the Project Runway producers will surely steal for next season (and honestly, I’m surprised that they haven’t already done it.) For a split second, I actually wanted to be on the show. I would like someone to gift me with a set of Swarovski-encrusted light bondage gear. Sure.

That adorable positivity didn’t last long! Back in New York, Jill, LuAnn and stealth housewife Jennifer got together to have lunch and explain to each other why they’re so much more awesome than the other women. And then Kelly showed up, and it would have been so perfect if there had been some sort of tragic accident and the whole place just burned down. Like, straight to the ground, and perhaps Jennifer escapes because we don’t know enough about her to really hate her yet.

Kelly started gossiping about the trip immediately: she complained that they were gossiping (that would be irony, if Kelly knew what irony was), fighting and competing with each other and generally being horrible. Jennifer asked for an example of any of these behaviors, but Kelly said it didn’t matter and plowed right ahead, saying that Bethenny told her to have a one-night stand (it was Sonja, you moron) and that none of her friends had ever hired Bethenny to so much as pop popcorn (of course she didn’t actually say it like that, in a complete sentence with a little joke, she just mumbled some things and rolled her eyes and dug her fingernails into the table and made that face where you can see all 85 of her teeth).

Even Jill said it wasn’t ok for Kelly to call Bethenny a ho bag and Jennifer said that she didn’t want to judge without the other side of the story. When compared to Kelly, all three of them sounded downright circumspect and mature. While all of that was going on, I sort of felt bad about wishing that the restaurant would burn down, and I changed my mind and merely wished that someone would set Kelly on fire. Yes, that.

Thankfully, Kelly wasn’t invited to the show’s next get-together. Sonja threw an art party at her giant house and everyone kissed each others’ cheeks and drank champagne, and they looked utterly horrified when LuAnn continued to ask what happened on Crazy Island. LuAnn was actually sort of diplomatic and seemed to care about knowing what really happened, which is so unlike her. They all got together in a dining-room-turned-conference-room, with LuAnn sitting at the head and playing social arbiter (she was probably like a pig in…well, you know), and she surprisingly decided that Bethenny’s and Alex’s side of the story sounded plausible.

Finally, it was time for Jill’s crazypants spin around an iceskating rink, but first she had to take a crazypants spin around her relationship with Bethenny. She sat down with her sister to discuss whether or not she should call Bethenny, and she decided she should because she had already made up her mind before she even asked her sister for advice, obviously. Jill asked to have lunch with her and Bethenny said ok because she was sick of fighting and it was the easiest way to get Jill off the phone. Somehow I think that’s probably similar to the way that she ended up married to Bobby, because there’s really no other explanation.

The upshot was that Jill got to feel like she won, which helped bolster her confidence to put on her embarrassing pink skating dress and get out there and…fall on her face. Right. On. Her. Face. It might have been the best bit of schadenfreude-y goodness to ever come out of an episode of Housewives, but somehow it wasn’t the most embarrassing thing that happened that night. Ramona’s scrunchi’d hairdo was pretty embarrassing, and so was the way that Kelly lost her mind when she saw Ramona (but somehow didn’t manage to rip that scrunchi out of her hair). She ranted and yelled accused Ramona of not having her back, all while Ramona was desperately trying not to make eye contact or get herself eaten. At some point, Kelly decided that they had made up and gave her a hug. Ok, nevermind. Jill’s epic faceplant was way more embarrassing than any of that.

In hindsight, Ramona really shouldn’t have shown up to the Icecapades at all. Next, she had to talk to Jill, which was clearly not what she wanted to be doing, but Ramona told Jill what she did wrong and Jill mostly managed shut up and listen, and then they hugged too. And that was it! Hugs all around, even though no one really learned anything about what had gone wrong, because no one ever does.

Original post by Amanda Mull

And so, it was over. Not the season, I mean. That’s not over until next week. Just the good part of the season.

In the conclusion of Real Housewives of New York City’s three-episode insanity tour of Shutter Island St. John, things became somewhat less insane, and it was sort of sad (the reduction in insanity, not the episode itself). We knew that this storied period in Housewives history had to end, but that doesn’t mean that any of us wanted to see it go. Except for Kelly Bensimon, of course. And probably Jill.

The episode started in St. John once again, where everyone was (perhaps surprisingly) still alive after Kelly’s disaster the previous evening. They have been all still alive, but they weren’t all still there – Kelly sprouted wings and flew off the island like Puff the Magic Dragon (lived by the sea…or she left in a Jeep. Whatev. Choose your own adventure.) during the night, and the four remaining women sat around and talked about how happy they were that Kelly had left them to cartwheel into the ocean and all the way back to New York.

The remaining housewives proceeded to be massaged, do yoga, snorkel, get mani/pedis and lay in the sun. They talked about lots of soft, fuzzy emotions, like how happy Ramona was that they came and how loved she felt! No one told them that feeling things was very 1979 and they all smiled and looked like they were having fun. But if we know one thing, it’s that this trip (and this show) is not supposed to be fun.

“HIIIIIIIIIIIII.”

Jill! Jill is the only person capable of making that noise. She showed up to make everyone’s vacation better and more special, because a little Jill improves everything! My favorite part of the whole scene was the fact that, for a few moments, everyone refused to acknowledge that she and Bobby even existed. They all just stared off into the middle distance and tried to make her disappear by sheer force of will, but since it’s impossible for anyone except Kelly to liquefy people with thoughts, she continued to exist. For a moment, they all regretted that Kelly had gone home.

Instead of getting the warm reception that Jill expects will greet her wherever she goes, Ramona demanded to know why she was there and then Bethenny and Alex both looked like they were going to cry. Sonja, of course, was too drunk to care. No one was talking so Jill kept babbling about St. Barts and the house and pedicures and HI BETHENNY. She finally put her tail between her legs and left, barely in time to avoid the second nervous breakdown of the weekend, this time from Alex.

Jill clearly seemed to think that her presence was the greatest gift that she could give to any of those women, and when Ramona came outside to apologize and explain why she couldn’t stay, all Jill did was complain about the money she spent getting there and how MEAN everyone else was to her and that SHE WAS A GUEST TOO AND SHE WAS GOING TO DO A TAKESIES BACKSIES ON HER FRIENDSHIP WITH RAMONA. AGAIN. Somehow, it never seemed to occur to Jill that no one wanted her there because she had finally done enough to alienate all of her friends. Except LuAnn. But no one cares about LuAnn.

With Jill gone, the remaining vacationers continued at dinner what they had started that morning – talking about how relaxed and happy they felt without Jill, LuAnn and Kelly. They cooed about Bethenny’s baby bump and sonograms and giving the Heimlich Maneuver to poodles, a subject that came up after Kelly’s ghost tried to come back to St. John and choke Ramona to death. Also, they all picked Sonja’s brain for information about penis size.

And the cuteness continued – Alex and Sonja threw a simultaneous bridal shower for both Ramona AND Bethenny. They gave them lots of skanky-luxe gifts that were actually kind of fun and hilarious, and then they made wedding dresses out of toilet paper, which is a challenge that the Project Runway producers will surely steal for next season (and honestly, I’m surprised that they haven’t already done it.) For a split second, I actually wanted to be on the show. I would like someone to gift me with a set of Swarovski-encrusted light bondage gear. Sure.

That adorable positivity didn’t last long! Back in New York, Jill, LuAnn and stealth housewife Jennifer got together to have lunch and explain to each other why they’re so much more awesome than the other women. And then Kelly showed up, and it would have been so perfect if there had been some sort of tragic accident and the whole place just burned down. Like, straight to the ground, and perhaps Jennifer escapes because we don’t know enough about her to really hate her yet.

Kelly started gossiping about the trip immediately: she complained that they were gossiping (that would be irony, if Kelly knew what irony was), fighting and competing with each other and generally being horrible. Jennifer asked for an example of any of these behaviors, but Kelly said it didn’t matter and plowed right ahead, saying that Bethenny told her to have a one-night stand (it was Sonja, you moron) and that none of her friends had ever hired Bethenny to so much as pop popcorn (of course she didn’t actually say it like that, in a complete sentence with a little joke, she just mumbled some things and rolled her eyes and dug her fingernails into the table and made that face where you can see all 85 of her teeth).

Even Jill said it wasn’t ok for Kelly to call Bethenny a ho bag and Jennifer said that she didn’t want to judge without the other side of the story. When compared to Kelly, all three of them sounded downright circumspect and mature. While all of that was going on, I sort of felt bad about wishing that the restaurant would burn down, and I changed my mind and merely wished that someone would set Kelly on fire. Yes, that.

Thankfully, Kelly wasn’t invited to the show’s next get-together. Sonja threw an art party at her giant house and everyone kissed each others’ cheeks and drank champagne, and they looked utterly horrified when LuAnn continued to ask what happened on Crazy Island. LuAnn was actually sort of diplomatic and seemed to care about knowing what really happened, which is so unlike her. They all got together in a dining-room-turned-conference-room, with LuAnn sitting at the head and playing social arbiter (she was probably like a pig in…well, you know), and she surprisingly decided that Bethenny’s and Alex’s side of the story sounded plausible.

Finally, it was time for Jill’s crazypants spin around an iceskating rink, but first she had to take a crazypants spin around her relationship with Bethenny. She sat down with her sister to discuss whether or not she should call Bethenny, and she decided she should because she had already made up her mind before she even asked her sister for advice, obviously. Jill asked to have lunch with her and Bethenny said ok because she was sick of fighting and it was the easiest way to get Jill off the phone. Somehow I think that’s probably similar to the way that she ended up married to Bobby, because there’s really no other explanation.

The upshot was that Jill got to feel like she won, which helped bolster her confidence to put on her embarrassing pink skating dress and get out there and…fall on her face. Right. On. Her. Face. It might have been the best bit of schadenfreude-y goodness to ever come out of an episode of Housewives, but somehow it wasn’t the most embarrassing thing that happened that night. Ramona’s scrunchi’d hairdo was pretty embarrassing, and so was the way that Kelly lost her mind when she saw Ramona (but somehow didn’t manage to rip that scrunchi out of her hair). She ranted and yelled accused Ramona of not having her back, all while Ramona was desperately trying not to make eye contact or get herself eaten. At some point, Kelly decided that they had made up and gave her a hug. Ok, nevermind. Jill’s epic faceplant was way more embarrassing than any of that.

In hindsight, Ramona really shouldn’t have shown up to the Icecapades at all. Next, she had to talk to Jill, which was clearly not what she wanted to be doing, but Ramona told Jill what she did wrong and Jill mostly managed shut up and listen, and then they hugged too. And that was it! Hugs all around, even though no one really learned anything about what had gone wrong, because no one ever does.

Original post by Amanda Mull

Normally when we talk about the Real Housewives of New York, we say that they went off the rails at some point during the episode. The show usually starts out ok and then ends up not ok, and that means that there was some sort of narrative arc which involved a progression from normalcy to insanity, through some sort of logical (well, usually logical) chain of events.

Well! There was no such thing last night. When the episode started, things were already firmly off the rails and they continued to careen further and further down a metaphorical embankment into a fiery crash at the bottom of Kelly’s life-ravine. It had the sort of wild-eyed, instantaneous chaos that comes with any good explosion, but it also had silly fake photo shoots and dreams of Bethenny butchering Kelly with a butter knife, and that made it even better. If you thought nothing could be more insane than last week’s episode, well, Kelly would like to disabuse you of that notion.

While we were watching last week, did it fail to occur to anyone else that all of that foolishness had managed to occur in a single 24-hour span? For some reason, I didn’t even realize that until we were watching everyone at breakfast on the yacht, discussing the events of the previous evening. The housewives couldn’t even manage to keep things together for the first ten minutes of the show, and less than 10 minutes into the episode Kelly was shouting about whether Bethenny was really a chef and whether or not Bethenny was the one that brought it up (she wasn’t).

As we all know, the best way to stop the fighting is to distract these women with something big and shiny, and soon they were yachting over to a fabulous Moroccan-style mansion where they would stay for the rest of the trip while continuing to yell at each other about things that couldn’t matter any less if they tried. The place was utterly gorgeous (and probably paid for by Bravo – convenient!), yet somehow our ladies (and I use that term loosely) couldn’t manage to behave themselves and enjoy their surroundings for any longer than they do in regular life. Quelle surprise.

On their first evening at the mansion, Bethenny passed out gift bags to all of the other housewives that were, ok, maybe a little heavy on the SkinnyGirl products. But hey, I’d gladly take a free bottle of pre-mixed margaritas if anyone would like to send one my way. Kelly apparently doesn’t get as excited about free booze as I do, because she got her bag, looked through it, and then keeled over like a five-year-old launching into a tantrum and started to cry.

And then she called Jill! Because Jill always makes these situations better. Kelly told her that Bethenny was creepy for going on a trip after her father died and that she had dreams about Bethenny killing her, which she followed up with an insult about Bethenny boobs, which, you know, rocks, glass houses, etc. Even Jill said that Kelly was talking crazy talk, and I guess that she would be familiar with such things.

At breakfast the next morning, Kelly instituted a complaint pad so that if anyone had anything negative to say, they could write it down instead of saying it and causing conflict, but she neglected to acknowledge that she was the only one slinging insults. As a way to demonstrate to all of us exactly how self-aware she’s not, she did not write anything on the pad, and it seemed as though the producers were beginning to mock her silently from behind the cameras.

Sonja didn’t actually manage to witness any of this because she didn’t actually get out of bed on time. Sonja is awesome.

Next, Kelly wanted to have a beach photoshoot, although I’m pretty sure that being previously married to a photographer doesn’t actually make you one. BUT, that didn’t stop her! She put on her enormous Smart Girl Glasses a got out a ginormous camera and took pictures of Sonja acting like a lion, Ramona in a bikini that was made of banana peels and string, and Alex…well, I don’t know what Alex was doing. Bethenny opted to stay home, which was probably the best decision that anyone on this show has made in the past couple of episodes.

Back in colder climates, Jill was barging in on professional figure skating practices in a full costume and chandelier earrings and also planning to barge in on Ramona’s bachelorette trip. But first, she had to consult with LuAnn, because who is Frick without Frack? LuAnn, in an uncharacteristic fit of reasonability, told Jill that “surprising” the everyone in the Caribbean was a bad idea. It didn’t matter, though, because Jill had already convinced herself that everyone would be thrilled to see her, particularly if she brought a gift for Ramona. Because a set of crystal candlesticks makes that kind of insanity acceptable, of course. We get to see the fallout from that flawless decision-making next week.

Again in St. Barts (St. John? Wherever they were), Kelly was freaking out, this time because Ramona asked her to move to another room to talk on her cell phone while they were trying to film a scene, and after she came back and yelled a little bit, she again brought up the fact that she doesn’t think that Bethenny’s a chef right before horking down some of her salsa. And then she made a big deal about having to sit across from Bethenny at dinner and scenes of high school cafeterias flashed in my head.

They all threw back a few drinks and then managed to sit down for dinner, which had been prepared by Bethenny, and Kelly vacillated wildly between being eye-rollingly above it all and trying to make sure that no one could speak without knowing exactly what she thought about whatever they were trying to say, often before they actually managed to say it. And then she once again offered the opinion that the trip was very 1979. And that Bethenny had tried to kill her. Lots of times. And that she wanted everyone to zip it! Zip it! Zip it! Zip it! Zip it! Especially you, Ramona! Zip it! *zip it hand gesture goes here*

And, well, after that I’m not even sure what happened. Ramona moved Bethenny away from the table and Kelly simply moved her attentions one seat to the right and continued to melt down in Alex’s general direction, and then Ramona removed her too, leaving only Sonja and Kelly. Sonja pleaded with the girls to not leave her alone with that crazyperson, but they ran for the hills anyway while Sonja tried to talk sense. She’s still the new girl, so mopping up the crazy is apparently her job.

It didn’t work, though, because Kelly started blubbering about Bethenny attacking her kids in the press (even though she admits that she doesn’t have any idea whether it was Bethenny) and then moved back to her delusions about Bethenny killing her and Alex channeling the devil, and since Sonja’s new to all of this and she still has the ability to feel feelings, she felt bad. For Kelly, because Kelly is clearly insane in a clinical sense, not in a Housewives sense, and it’s mean to make fun of crazy people. I, for one, think she’s probably just a raving moron, and that’s not technically a medical problem.

Here’s my theory: she read a description of bipolar disorder somewhere and thought that acting like that would get her some camera time, but also didn’t bother to note that bipolar mood swings happen over the course of weeks, not second-to-second in the course of a conversation. So: reading comprehension FAIL. Of course, I have no proof of any of that, but it passes the truth sniff test, don’t you think?

Ultimately, Sonja was able to calm everyone down and Bethenny promised Kelly that she wasn’t going to kill her with a prison shiv, although she probably deserves at least a good punch in the face. Next week, everything should get even worse, if that’s at all possible: Jill is going to make a surprise appearance on the island and not a signal person is happy about it.

Original post by Amanda Mull

Everyone was drunk last night. Wastey-face, sorority-girl, spring-break-at-Panama-City-Beach, puke-on-your-own shoes drunk. Well, except Bethenny, because she’s pregnant. And Jill, because Jill wasn’t in the episode (at all!). But all of the other Real Housewives of New York City were tossing drinks back like they had just gotten done with finals.

They drank and ate, ate and drank, and then they yelled at each other and revealed some latent lesbian tendencies. Ramona danced her middle-aged white lady jig during what she called “turtle time,” and then there were some Hooters girls. As intensely alcoholic as the whole thing was, I would have picked their booze cruise over LuAnn’s awkward, slobbery date with a manchild any day. I mean, it looked like he had highlights.

Let’s just go ahead and get this unpleasantness out of the way: LuAnn fancies herself a singer just likes Kim from Atlanta does, and she found herself a producer with a mohawk that would actually go on record as thinking that she’s just great. He also wears his sunglasses inside, and I think that tendency tells you a lot about a person’s ability to make thoughtful, well-reasoned decisions. As for the actual recording, we all know how that part goes because we all watched Kim do it on and off for two season, but LuAnn went in, recorded, hit about a third of the notes and got auto-tuned within an inch of her life. The scenes where she sang were terrible but mercifully short, and I don’t think too much blood leaked out of my ears in the process.

In much more pleasant surroundings, Bethenny, Kelly, Alex and Sonja accompanied Ramona on her bachelorette trip to St. John, which they insisted on referring to as a “bachelorette” despite the fact that Ramona has been married for 17 years. The place looked gorgeous and Ramona rented a ginormous yacht for all of them, and when Kelly saw it, she took of in a dead sprint toward it like if she got to the boat first, she would get to keep it. Incidentally, Kelly doesn’t know what the phrase “eating crow” means or that gummy bears have fake sugar in them. Those are just a few things that we learned while the ladies were in the process of arriving at their vacation destination.

Ramona bought approximately 8,000 bathing suits and it was kind of adorable how excited she was about the whole thing, but the atmosphere got contentious pretty fast. Bethenny was straight off of a trip to her father’s funeral and understandably in a bit of a mood, and Kelly was…well, she was just Kelly. Bethenny made some joke about needing to crush the grapes in the fridge if the waiter didn’t get the intravenous drip of pinot to Ramona quickly enough, and Kelly got upset because she actually thought that Bethenny was going to mash up the grapes. Yep. I really can’t improve on that, beyond the sort of farcical idiocy that it already is.

Then Ramona and Alex mentioned the issue of the Death Text from last week’s episode and Kelly freaked out, demonstrated her profound misunderstanding of the concept of metaphors, told the group that Alex wasn’t a normal person, denied that she was a sorority girl, said that she was going to go do cartwheels and then almost smashed into a glass door while trying to storm out. Like, literally, all of that took place in the space of about a minute and a half last night. Sometimes I make stuff up because it’s more interesting than what actually happens on this show, but Kelly’s day-to-day life is stranger than any of the stuff that I have swimming around inside of my head. Kelly and Bethenny were not allowed to sit together at the next meal.

Sonja, for her part, just wanted to know when it was time for her pedicure and didn’t care to hear anything about Jill. Later, she refused to go snorkeling because she didn’t want to ruin her good hair day. I like Sonja. I could have drinks with Sonja.

Did someone say drinks? It’s time for our first bout of drunkenness for this episode! That embarrassing guy from a couple of weeks ago, Coerte (I used my journalism school powers and fact-checked that one, that’s actually how you spell his name), took LuAnn to the dingiest corner of Chinatown for dinner and she seemed a tad horrified, but when they sat down and he ordered a drink called the “deal closer” in a really gross attempt to flirt, she seemed kind of charmed, which only made the entire thing even more gross than it already was.

As if that wasn’t enough, in order to up the ante of groan-worthy date faux pas, HE GAVE HER A COPY OF HIS BOOK. He told her that he had a surprise for her…and the surprise was his book. If I had been LuAnn, I would have taken the book and used it to beat him about the face. For some reason, though, she didn’t seem nearly as disappointed by that “gesture” as I would have been. In fact, the book-giving lead to them talking about “playing tennis” on LuAnn’s “court,” but I’m pretty sure that’s not what they were actually talking about at all. Then there was a ball of fire that whipped through the place and it almost managed to burn the image of the two of them awkwardly making out from my retinas. Almost. But not quite. It was sort of like this:

Back on the yacht, the girls were taking shots of Café Patron (such beautiful, delicious booze that stuff is) and things got a little emotional and share-y when Bethenny mentioned her father’s recent death. Kelly took it upon herself to tell Bethenny that her feelings about her father were incorrect and that her situation wasn’t all that terrible, and even if that was true (which, by all accounts, it doesn’t seem to be), that’s still not appropriate to say to someone immediately following the death of their father. Luckily for all involved, Ramona showed up just in the nick of time, slurring her words and waving around a Hooters calendar. Soon after, the conversation moved on to whether or not Kelly fantasizes about women and if she should have a one-night stand (Sonja is voting yes, Kelly is dubious. Kelly’s from the Midwest, you see, where no one has ever had a one-night stand, ever.)

And then it became clear that Ramona wasn’t the only one who was a few sheets to the wind – they were ALL hammered. Sonja went from talking about having sex (which seems to be her default position) to admitting that she was insecure about her body and not entirely over her divorce. Bethenny and Sonja were both having lots of messy emotions and kumbaya-share-time and Kelly got mad at them for feeling things, which she thinks is a very 1979 thing to do. Literally, she said that. And then Kelly told Bethenny that she wasn’t a chef, that she was just a cook (which is somehow creepy), and that no one cared about her, and that she should get over the stuff that went on last year, and again that she was creepy. Oh, and also, she’s a “ho bag.” After laying that one down, Kelly stormed off, managing to not smash her face into a door that time.

Bethenny, for her part, stayed completely calm and then went over to the Hooters boat next door, where Ramona was hammered and flirting with some old man, yet somehow simultaneously talking about how she loves Mario. Ramona may or may not have grabbed Bethenny’s boobs while she was trying to tell Ramona about the spontaneous screaming match that just broke out between her and Kelly, and I’m not sure that the entirety of the story penetrated Ramona’s alcohol haze.

Eventually Kelly showed up on the Hooters boat and Ramona really tried to kick her off, but she was too drunk and got distracted by the idea that they should all go have “turtle time.” Turtle time, as it turns out, is what Ramona calls it when she gets to go do her white lady samba, which has no relationship to the actual beat of the music, at some tourist bar called the Fat Turtle. While Alex, Bethenny and Ramona had turtle time, Sonja and Kelly were having some time of their own that involved wrestling on a bed. Not that I mean to, you know, cast aspersions or anything…

An interesting tidbit to start this afternoon’s discussion: on Watch What Happens Live after the show last night, Andy Cohen said that Kelly hated the way that this episode was edited and felt like it was unfair to her. I say that she shouldn’t blame other people just because she forgot what a jerk she was when she was drunk – what do you say?

Original post by Amanda Mull

WELL. Last night’s episode of Real Housewives of New York City was really something, wasn’t it? It was almost entirely without plot or narrative, and instead of actually having a story, the housewives simply went from party to party, yelling at each other in various combinations and about various things.

So here’s where we stand: Alex and Bethenny still hate Jill, Jill hates Alex but misses Bethenny, Bethenny resolved her hatred of her father right before he died, Jill hates Ramona for not telling her about his death, and LuAnn desperately wants someone to hate her so that she can have a plot line again. Oh, yeah, and we got a new housewife. Another one.

Remember that charity cocktail party that LuAnn has been crowing about for a month, but that still no one really cares about? Well, that happened last night. It was at Sonja’s house and everyone was invited except Bethenny, which made for some immediate awkwardness between Alex and, well, everyone else. As soon as she got there, LuAnn scolded her for calling Jill out in public on last week’s episode. Somehow, LuAnn thinks all of this is her business and can’t help but act like the arbiter of manners for the group, despite her overwhelming dearth of class and decorum in basically every social interaction we’ve ever seen her undertake.

LuAnn wasn’t the only one to hop on the Alex-shaming bandwagon, however. Ramona, queen of the verbal diarrhea, also told Alex that she stepped over the line, and that was kind of surprising because I didn’t think Ramona was aware that there were lines. Bawbby, in a somewhat uncharacteristic move, also pulled Alex aside later to tell her that she needed to apologize. Sonja, to her credit, is perhaps too rich to even understand any of this drama. She can’t keep up. Whatever. And then she name-dropped Tinsley Mortimer, but she just called her “Tinsley.” First-name basis, you know.

When Jill arrived, LuAnn couldn’t help but tell her how to act about the whole situation, because LuAnn has no story of her own and has to try to make this one hers as much as possible. Which leads me to this question: who is more despicable, LuAnn or Jill? It’s really sort of a toss-up at this point. I mean, Jill is awful, but LuAnn aspires to her awfulness, she wants to be a part of it so very badly, and that might actually surpass Jill. Seeing how Jill acts and wanting to be like her is probably worse than just being Jill.

Eventually, Jill moved from talking strategy with LuAnn to nearly crying over Bethenny with Kelly, and it made me wonder why these people all manage to talk about their problems with everyone except the people that their problems involve. With all the energy Jill has expended talking about Bethenny with people that aren’t Bethenny, she probably could have already resolved this issue and saved her friendship. But then there would be less gossip, and we all know how Jill feels about the importance of having gossip.

The same goes for Jill’s issue with Alex, which I suppose she has every right to have, since Alex admits that she didn’t expect to be “friends” with Jill after dropping that epic Bethenny bomb in front of everyone. But if Jill is done with Alex, as she says she is, then why did an entire parade of Jill-insiders line up to tell Alex to apologize? I think it’s more likely that Jill decided she was done when everyone reported back that Alex did not fling herself to the floor and beg forgiveness for her sins from each of them. Instead, she kept calm, acted like an adult, and insisted she talk to Jill directly instead of having her message run through a bunch of different people with their own agendas. Alex, my friends, is an adult. A smart one! Jill stormed out of the party, per usual.

Anyway, from one party to the next: Gotham magazine threw a party for Kelly’s street style column (which I seriously doubt actually exists) and everyone was invited, including stealthy new cast member Jennifer Gilbert, and also both Jill and Alex. This time, Alex asked Simon to help run interference between her and Jill, which somehow ended up with Simon having his face circa Jill’s pelvis. Don’t ask how that happened, I have no idea, and I’d rather not revisit the scene in my head. This time it was Alex that stormed out – she said that she couldn’t take Jill fakey-fakey niceties, but I think she should have continued to be the bigger person and stuck it out. Not that it really matters.

While all of that was going on, LuAnn was pathetically flirting with some middle-aged guy who had a really embarrassing haircut and an equally terrible wide-lapel shirt. He says he’s interested in “scandalocity” and she told him that she had a “song” coming out, and it was all kind of gross and awkward, since you got the feeling that they probably sort of deserve each other. He asked her out and she said yes, so I guess we get to see that nasty train wreck next week.

While all of these fake issues were being worked out, one of the housewives was actually dealing with real problems: Bethenny. Her ill father called and requested to see her after refusing her visit only weeks before. The whole situation seems irredeemably sad and Bethenny made the ugly cry face while talking on the phone to a surprisingly sympathetic and sincere Ramona. I can relate, I make the ugly cry face as well. I just don’t have to do it on television, something for which last night’s episode made me eternally grateful. It seems as thought Bethenny was able to get some closure with her father, though, so I’m sure that making the ugly cry face was worth it.

In slightly less serious news, Ramona insists on going through with the whole vow-renewal thing, despite the fact that her daughter Avery and most of the viewing public are not entirely impressed with the idea. Ramona got to pick out her dress last night, which was actually quite flattering on her until you got to the bottom and it was covered in marabou and sparkles. Avery was also not impressed with the dress, or with the fact that she was going to have a blue dress made for her. She wants a black dress. I feel like I would have been friends with Avery in high school.

But enough with this talk of things that didn’t happen at parties! On to the next party! Secret new housewife Jennifer invited Jill and Kelly over to her fantabulous apartment for a get-together for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. Maybe just to show off her apartment on TV! But she also invited Alex. Oops. And LuAnn, but no one cares about LuAnn.

Ramona was also on the guest list and she game bearing news: Bethenny’s father had died the night before. Sad, right? Well, instead of being appropriately reverent that someone had just lost a parent, Jill somehow managed to make the whole thing about herself and why Ramona hadn’t told her earlier. It’s not like the news had been sitting there for weeks and no one thought to clue Jill in – the man had been gone for well under 24 hours and he was the relative of someone who she has publicly stated, over and over again, that she wants nothing to do with. I’m not sure why she thought that she should know before, say, LuAnn.

But obviously, Jill thinks she’s the most important person in any particular situation, so she threw a histrionic hissy fit and hid in the PANTRY, of all places. While Jill was hiding in the pantry with Kelly, LuAnn decided to fight the battle on Jill’s behalf because I suppose she thought that fighting someone else’s battle was better than no battle at all. Jill eventually reemerged to scream at Ramona some more, telling her that they were no longer friends if this is how she treated her friends, blah blah blah. Jill, sure of her own importance as she is, somehow managed to make everyone stop talking about someone’s death and switch to talking about her hurt feelings. I mean, at this point, that’s sort of a talent. You have to admit.

Thank God Alex arrived to set everyone straight. She had her claws out as soon as she walked in to the party after receiving a text from Jill, who was trying to get the gossip about Bethenny’s dead dad. She seemed surprised and horrified that Jill would do such a thing, which is kind of cute – Alex was actually holding out hope that Jill had any moral standards or manners of which to speak, which she clearly doesn’t. How optimistic of her.

And then, my friends, was the epic rant that we’ve all been waiting for. Jill is a mean girl, she is in high school, and Alex sees through her act! For her part, Jill just made a bunch of weird faces and tried to interrupt a lot, and I can’t really blame her for that. If someone was so thoroughly and epically owning me in front of my friends and a bunch of cameras, I would want to interrupt them as well. It was so great, though – I actually might have cheered a little bit during the scene, because who doesn’t love it when the quiet girl in the corner finally stands up to the bully? I know I do. And Alex is such a nice person that on her way to storm out of the party, she actually went to put her empty wine glass in the kitchen. Now THAT is classy, my friends.

Did anyone else think that this episode went by really, really quickly? With all the fighting, I looked up and it was suddenly 11:00 and I had to catch my breath a little bit. It was as if the producers knew that we had all mentally moved on a bit to the Jersey housewives and wanted to remind us that this season isn’t quite over. There are only a couple of episodes left, and from the looks of next week, they’re not going to let up until the finale.

Original post by Amanda Mull

The Real Housewives of New York City just aren’t much for subtlety or tact, are they? Last night’s episode was all about messages delivered badly, and when these women screw something up, they go whole-hog, so to speak.

Whether those messages came from soulless gossip bloggers, toothless psychics or Alex, blinded by rage and on a kamikaze mission to humiliate Jill publicly, they were all delivered with a lack of finesse that would have been more startling if only we didn’t already know these awful people so intimately. And, for once, none of the verbal diarrhea came from Ramona. In that regard, last night’s episode probably counts as a minor miracle. Someone get the Pope on the phone.

There was no stupid dog poop scene to start this episode, so the drama began immediately. Bethenny’s pregnancy, which had been a secret so far, was outed well before the end of her first trimester by soulless, sniveling gossip merchant Perez Hilton. One could make a very convincing case that he is among the worst people on the face of the planet and you wouldn’t find much in the way of disagreement from me, so suffice it to say that I was suitably horrified (but not at all surprised) that he would do something like that.

Bethenny isn’t exactly 25 anymore, and any pregnancy is at risk before the end of the first trimester. That risk only increases as the mother gets older, and it’s positively cruel to announce a woman’s pregnancy before she’s even comfortable letting the baby’s father tell his parents. Not only does it violate her privacy, but it sets her up to have a public miscarriage. If there’s an afterlife, he will rot and he will deserve it.

I’m not sure how he (I don’t even like typing his name, we’re going to try to stick to pronouns) found out, but my completely random, unsubstantiated, speculative theory is this: we know that members of Bravo’s production crew knew about Bethenny’s pregnancy because they filmed her taking a pregnancy test, and from there, it’s not unfathomable that one of them either might have tipped him off or mentioned it to someone that did. Like maybe someone else that they were filming. And who do we know that’s buddy-buddy with Perez? Well, all you have to do is think back a few episodes to answer that question. And also, who broke the news to the other girls by getting a Google alert that somehow no one else happened to get?

Speaking of Jill, she wants to have a party. A holiday party! With ice-skating. I can’t wait until this party actually happens because I already have the best picture EVER to use for the recap, but until then, I guess I just have to tell you what’s going to happen at said party: Iceskating. Pigs in a blanket. Lamb chops, but only so that she can feed the extras to her dog. Chicken fingers. Cupcakes that she’ll strong-arm someone into giving her for free. Jill is so classy. In order to prove that fact even further, Jill later went to a talk that LuAnn was giving about manners and heckled her from the audience.

Also exuding class is Sonja, of course. Her on-camera visit to a plastic surgeon to remove an objectively tiny “pooch” made me think that there must be some sort of contractual obligation that requires all new housewives to appear at a plastic surgeon’s office early in their first season on the show. We saw Alexis getting Botox in her second episode as an OC housewife, and Tamra got her boobs re-done in her first season as well. I guess until they have established personalities, the new women are required to perform stunts for the cameras in order to get camera time.

Among Sonja’s stunts was a visit with a psychic named Roberta. Roberta may or may not have had all her teeth, and, uh, I’m going to err on the side of “may not.” Sonja loves her because she feels like Roberta doesn’t take advantage of her in the same way that, like, plumbers and lawyers do, because psychics are always on the up-and-up and it’s totally safe it give your money to one. In fact, Sonja offered to get her a deal with her surgeon for a boob lift, but did not do the obvious and offer her, you know, some false teeth. Also, if she’s psychic, why didn’t she know that her teeth were going to fall out? That is only one of the many questions that I’d like to ask of the toothless psychic.

Wait, wait, we’ve gotten away from the point of this episode (to be fair, however, the episode got away from the point of the episode for a while. Not my fault!). Bethenny’s baby is the point. Given the opportunity to share a bit of the glory, Jill apparently commented to the press about the rumors and Bethenny found out about it, which pissed her off since they’re not even friends anymore. She called Alex to let her in on the “secret” and vent her frustrations with Jill’s media-whoring, and also to ask Alex to give her a message. The message, unsurprisingly, was that she’s done with Jill forever.

I’m not sure exactly why Bethenny felt the need to reiterate that message, particularly since Jill’s idea of mending their friendship involved making sure Bethenny isn’t invited to an upcoming charity event that LuAnn is throwing, but whatever. Sshe asked Alex to do the honors of delivering it at an upcoming event, and from that moment on, Alex was like a woman possessed. She would do her duty and she would do it well! And publicly! And it would sting.

Alex delivered Bethenny’s message in the most horrific and awkward way possible: in front of all the other housewives (and half of Kelly’s butt, since it was hanging out of the bright orange underwear that she was wearing as shorts) at the launch party of Ramona’s skincare line. Alex delivered the line so loudly and with such build-up and fanfare that I thought she as going to require Jill to play charades to figure it out. Knowing what was coming, I started to feel bad for Jill for like a second and a half, but then I didn’t, because it’s physically impossible for me to feel bad for Jill anymore.

If you’ve been following along at home, however, you know that Alex’s delivery of Bethenny’s message had a lot more to do with Alex than it did with Bethenny. Instead of the aside that Bethenny intended, it turned into a public evisceration because Alex hates Jill and her fake-niceness and passive-aggressiveness and behind-your-backness as much as all of us do. Not only that, but Jill has insulted her children, so a little bit of rage is probably merited. It didn’t make Alex look great, but I get the idea that Jill has pushed more than a few people as far as they need to be pushed, and she’s one of them. I’m glad she grew a backbone, even if she grew it in an way that was probably a little unfortunate.

Come to think of it, that’s probably the best word for this entire episode: unfortunate.

Original post by Amanda Mull

Last night’s episode of Real Housewives of New York City was so scattered and unfocused that I’m having a hard time figuring out exactly what happened. Well, other than Bethenny getting engaged. We know that that happened and thankfully, the cameras weren’t there to witness and record it for posterity. That made me oddly happy – she may have taken a pregnancy test on camera, but at least she got proposed to behind closed doors.

Other than that, there was the usual sniping, gossiping, back-biting and lunching. Various sets of housewives ate and/or drank together in various settings, and then they all met up with different housewives in order to eat and/or drink more and discuss what had been said in their previous conversations. These people talk so much about what they say to each other that I’m beginning to question whether or not they actually do anything. They just talk, and then they talk about talking.

We know who DOES do things, however: Jill’s dog. That’s right, Ginger is a woman of action, even if that action consists only of taking a gigantic dump in Jill’s living room. A dump which launched an episode, around which a the producers tried to build a ministory. That’s what we’ve come to, folks – are we happy to be there? I have to admit, I kind of enjoyed watching Jill clean up poop, even if she had to fit in an insult about some random bystander’s shoes while she did it. Maybe this is her new hobby?

Afterward, in stark contrast to the stark minutiae of Jill’s scene, Bethenny trekked all the way to Brooklyn to have lunch with Alex, her only real friend on the show, and tell her that she had recently gotten engaged. Alex was so incredibly excited about the information and touched that Bethenny had chosen to tell her first that I think she might have gotten a little teary, and thus continued perhaps the greatest image-rehabilitation campaign in Housewives history. She continues to win the season (and you know that they’re all keeping score.)

In other, unrelated lunch meetings, Sonja and Ramona got together and were apparently seated at a table that just wasn’t good enough for them, but they didn’t ask for a different one because they both secretly knew that that’s the best table they were going to get. They chattered about this and that, but the only interesting tidbit to come out of the lunch was that Sonja had met Kelly in passing many times before, but when she saw her at the last episode’s Kodak party, Kelly acted like she had no idea who she was. Ramona mentioned, accurately, that she was sure that Kelly knew exactly who Sonja’s ex-husband was. Funny, didn’t Bethenny have that exact same problem with Kelly last season? And Kelly got distracted by a shiny object and never really explained why she always acted like that?

The next meeting/meal happened between Kelly and her kids in their Hamptons house. She attempted to undertake the relatively simple act of making pancakes from pre-mixed powder and ended up failing at it so horrifically that it compelled one child to wrest control of the stove from her hands and managed to render the other one completely mute, communicating only in sad, small notes that said things like “uh-oh” and “huh?” and “someone please save me from my simpering idiot of a mother.” Ok, maybe I made that last one up. She didn’t actually write that down, but she said it with her eyes.

Speaking of children horrified by their mothers, Ramona announced her impending vow renewal to her daughter Avery over lunch (there’s another one of those conversation lunches!), and it didn’t exactly go well. Avery thought it was silly that she wouldn’t wait a few more years until her 20th anniversary to do a renewal, which is actually a pretty good point. She also wouldn’t accept the job of Maid of Honor without knowing exactly what it entailed. Smart one, that girl. She agreed to participate, although she appeared to be approximately as enthusiastic about the whole thing as Mario. It must be hard to be the spawn of the Ramonacoaster.

In one of the few meetings that didn’t involve lunch or booze, LuAnn went apartment hunting downtown and “accidentally” ran in to Kelly, who then proceeded to help her look at apartments. I’m not sure why anyone thought it would be a good idea to show The Countess modern apartments downtown, but she didn’t like the space or the rent (she’s apparently unaware that New York City is obnoxiously expensive) and immediately went out to flag down her favorite rickshaw driver to take her back uptown. I mean, how could anyone expect her to live in an apartment without a doorman? Who would parent her children while she’s out drinking and looking for their next daddy?

Next on the meeting schedule was a three-way between LuAnn, Kelly and Sonja. Sonja and Kelly don’t actually like each other (at all), so I don’t know why they insist on socializing anyway, but it was about as awkward as you could imagine. Sonja set the tone when she announced that she was considering abusing Adderall in order to lose weight, and with every word, Kelly became more and more embarrassed that they banged the same dude at some point in the past. In fact, Kelly won’t even admit she ever did it. (Come on Kelly, we know better.)

In a bid to be the prude of the evening, Kelly said that all she wanted to do was find a dude to marry her so that they could drink beer and have babies together, and LuAnn and Sonja looked at her like she had four heads. Both of them are just looking for someone to split the rent and watch their kids, and in that context, I’m sure that Kelly did sound insane. Actually, Kelly sounds insane in most contexts.

Kelly’s relative purdery just made Sonja redouble her efforts to make everyone uncomfortable, and in doing so she brought up the issue of cheating. She implied that her husband had cheated and then denied it when asked, only to throw the question back at Kelly. Kelly thought that it was rude of her to ask, ignoring the fact that she had asked Sonja the same question approximately four seconds earlier. And then the universe folded in on itself and I passed out for a few minutes.

The furious din of Ramona yelling at her assistants woke me up after the commercial break, bringing me back to consciousness only to feel terrible for Ramona’s poor, abused employees. She appeared to flip out merely for her own entertainment, and they were too terrified to even look her in the face. I think she actually threw things at one point, and then she may have growled. I’m not making that up. I make a lot of things up, but not that.

Then, finally, everyone showed up at some party thrown by Kelly (for what reason, I don’t know) and no one was wearing enough clothes. Kelly’s dress was up around her vijayjay, Bethenny’s breasts were in constant danger of popping out to meet everyone, it was the sort of scene that you’d expect for a Housewives get-together. Mario and LuAnn argued in Italian, Ramona and Kelly pretended like they didn’t hate each other, Jill ran away as soon as she saw Bethenny because Jill is such an adult. Again, typical.

Bethenny finally managed to tell a few people that she was engaged and no one seemed to really care except Ramona, who was improbably excited for her. LuAnn, alternately, took the opportunity to shift the attention to herself and force Bethenny to apologize for calling her a snake (despite the fact that she was totally, completely, irrefutably correct), and Sonja didn’t care because Sonja doesn’t know who Bethenny is.

When Jill, on the other side of the room, was presented with the news of Bethenny’s engagement, she didn’t seem to care at all – she said nothing more than half-hearted “I’m happy for her.” Given the opportunity to turn the news over in her head, however, Jill came to the realization that there was an opportunity to be seized. If she were to pick that moment to make nice with Bethenny, then she could perhaps share in the reflected glow of the good news and maybe even somehow find a way to take partial credit for it. Yes, that is what she would do.

Bethenny was trying to leave, however, so Jill did her best to lunge at her as she walked by on the sidewalk, crowing about her huge diamond (really, it’s big) and trying to awkwardly hug Bethenny, who wasn’t having any of it. And that’s exactly what made Jill the saddest: the realization that her former friend wasn’t going to beg her forgiveness forever. Pretty soon, Bethenny would have a wedding to plan and a life to have and things to think about other than how much she wants to be friends with Jill, and there’s nothing that people like Jill hate more than being yesterday’s news. That’s right: it’s time to stage a comeback. But that’s reserved for next week.

Original post by Amanda Mull