Someone needs to check in on Naomie. Seriously, take one of Victoria Denise Gunvalson’s casseroles, go ring her doorbell, shove her gay roommate out of the way, and walk into her room with that casserole and make sure that she is not just a drooling jabbering mess in the corner keening with one of Craig’s misspelled pillow shams. Actually, Naomie is from France, so maybe we should bring her a cassoulet instead. That’s French for casserole, right?
My point is that she is really having a rough time and has moved from the periphery of the group right smack dab into the center of it. She’s like the eye of this hurricane if, instead of the eye being calm, it’s a twitchy, anxious mess that is constantly on the verge of tears, shouting, or shouting through tears.
Just look at her spectacular crash and burn at Cameran’s baby shower at Patricia’s house. Patricia refuses to invite Kathryn because, well, wanton destruction by an invited guest is not covered in her homeowner’s insurance. Naomie decides to pull Pat aside and tell her, nicely, that Kathryn is doing better and maybe she should reconsider. Pat responds by cutting her off, saying someone just walked in, and just exiting the conversation with a lie as brazenly false as Colin Powell testimony before the U.N. about weapons of mass destruction. (Ironically, WMD was also Kathryn’s nickname in rehab.)
Now that she has firmly embarrassed herself in front of the host (though she probably was in the right), she decides to have a nice conversation with her ex Craig. He agrees with her about talking to Pat and is very sweet and supportive in a way that he wasn’t always during their relationship. Thoughts of reconciliation bloom. Until she asks Craig how he’s doing and he says he’s good and getting a lot done. “What do you think is different that you’re getting more done in two months than you did in the three years we were together?” she asks.
Oh no no no no no Naomie. What does she want the answer to be? “I’m doing it to prove you wrong.” “Now that you’re not harping on me all of the time, I can focus on other things.” “It’s really you that were holding me back, Naomie.” Every answer is dangerous, as is the very question. Craig refuses to answer it because he knows the question is loaded and it comes with the supposition that Craig is a loser and his life will amount to nothing.
Then Naomie launches into how Craig is a loser whose life will amount to nothing. “You sit at home and sew and pretend to do things,” she tells him. “What’s wrong with my sewing?” he retorts, heartbroken while in the next room all of the guests of the shower are chortling over a teddy bear he sewed for Cameran’s baby with a misspelling on it and another lifeless husk of an as-yet-finished project that he also shoved in the bag for good measure. When it comes to Craig, the failure isn’t even below the surface. It’s not even the surface. It’s the wreckage of a well-intentioned stuffed animal floating on the surface, like that teddy bear in the second season of Breaking Bad.
Finally JD shows up with his estranged wife Elizabeth, who is apparently Naomie’s bestie, and Naomie freaks out because she just chewed out JD on Elizabeth’s behalf at Shep’s birthday dinner. At the advice of her friends, she greets them warmly but then goes to seethe and let her heart flutter in the other room. She can’t help but scoff and scowl and claims that JD is smirking at her and silently ridiculing her like a seafood fart you leave in your Lyft when the driver listened to Dave Matthews Band the entire ride. When Naomie keeps making a passive aggressive stink, Elizabeth says, “Stop, don’t do that.” Yes, it looks like Bethy-Boo doesn’t want Naomie fighting her battles for her.
I think that is Naomie’s real problem here. She is dealing with the emotional fallout of her breakup with Craig, but instead of taking that on, she’s championing for Kathryn and Elizabeth. Maybe take some time to get your own house in order before launching campaigns of righteousness for the rest of the Break Up Bunch.
As for the party itself, it seems fun and tasteful, even if nearly everyone to a person completely misinterprets the Slim Aarons theme, including Patricia. His photos were always colorful and chic, but everyone interprets that as garish and cartoony. Patricia walks down her staircase wearing a yellow and green printed dress with a pink and purple marabou jacket over it and says, “RuPaul eat your heart out.” Oh honey. Hooooonnnnney. RuPaul would not be caught dead wearing that, honey. She has much better taste and far more glamour that than, honey. Oh honey.
The highlight, of course, is the cake that Whitney gets Cameran that looks like a baby being birthed out of a vagina. It is grotesque and awful, but that is exactly my taste. I think I need one of those for my birthday party, along with pornographic balloons and a giant poppers-bottle piñata. Cameran also invites Whitney to her birthing class where he’ll serve no purpose other than staring at her boobs and looking like the lost Gallagher brother.
Cameran also takes Chelsea to some place called Bond With Baby, which seems like the sort of place that tries to convince women not to have abortions. Instead, Cameran shows off her giant, impossibly red belly that she says she’s been tanning every day, and they get a sonogram to look at her daughter’s face. Why does she need to bond with the baby now? Won’t she bond with the baby, you know, in like two weeks when it comes out? Also, was it just me or did this seem like a setup in a horror movie? As soon as the sonogram screen came up, I expected to see Pennywise holding a balloon swirling about in her amniotic fluid. Okay, maybe it was just me.
Austen wants to get a job in the beer industry, which is the saddest and most obvious thing that I have ever heard in my entire life. He should just turn himself into a boat shoe and be done with it. Craig thinks that his life might be easier if he was gay. Well, on behalf of the entire gay community, I would like to say that if Craig wants to take the D train for a ride, we have more than enough suitable candidates for him to give it a whirl. As for joining full-time, well, membership is currently full. Please apply again in the fall.
Finally, we end with Thomas, who has a way of making absolutely any interaction as creepy as possible. At the very top of the show, he’s in bed with his new girlfriend Ashley and says he’s glad he finally has a good woman with a good heart. Aww, right? Wrong. Then he says, “Let me feel that heart,” and turns that sentimental moment into an attempt to just grab her boob. Then he gets up to make get eggs and jokes about sprinkling Plan B in them just to be safe. Um, how about wearing a condom, Thomas, instead of unknowingly drugging the person you were just intimate with? At Cameran’s party, he tells everyone he likes a “tiny heinie” and makes Ashley spin around so everyone can look. He’s just disgusting.
But nothing is as off-putting as when he brings Ashley her breakfast and says, “Since we’re talking about eggs, what is up with yours because I am the impregnator.” Ugh. Really. We find out she is not on birth control and only using the rhythm method, which was so successful for so many generations of Catholic teens that there are Irish orphanages named after it. She also says that if she were to get pregnant, it “would be a blessing” (which means she’s keeping it) and that she doesn’t want to be an unwed mother. Basically, what she’s saying is that she might use a pregnancy to rope Thomas into marriage. When Kathryn visits Craig, she tells him that Ashley is using Thomas and she doesn’t trust her. I don’t either.
But do not get it twisted: Thomas is using her too. Just like Ashley is using Thomas for fame, money, and status, Thomas is using Ashley to get back at Kathryn. Well, for that and sex. Also probably some free child care. Oh, and to impress his friends with his hot piece. I would like to think that Thomas is an idiot being taken for a ride by this woman, but I know that is not true. He is way too intelligent for that, and these two are using each other, like the plants use bees to fertilize themselves. That’s right, Thomas. Get ready for a baby shower of your own.