We have now gotten to the point in this program’s evolution that the only topic on everyone’s minds is poop. Before we can even get the women to relive their boat ride from hell, they had to spend quite a bit of time talking about their bowel movements: which ones of them are having solid shits, which ones of them still have the trots, and what the frequency and consistency of their turds is. There is not a modicum of decorum left. It’s all up for discussion now. I have to admit, I couldn’t be happier about this development.
The best part of all this poop talk is that we discovered that Ramona is the one who dropped the nugget in Cartagena and smeared it across the floor, leaving the offending poop smear. If Ramona ever starts a television-production company, it should be called Poop Smear Productions. We also learned that Sonja Tremont Morgan of the Lisa Rinna’s Depends Salary Morgans wore a diaper not only on the trip home but that she wears one quite frequently, including on her trips out to the Hamptons on the Jitney. Now, I realize some adults need diapers, and that’s cool, but there can’t be anything comfortable about letting it rip in a piece of rubberized cloth and then sitting in your own filth until you finish a journey.
Also thanks to STAM we learned how she deals with dog poop in her backyard. She apparently has to wait until the spring thaw every year to determine just how much dog doody is in the backyard because whenever the snow thaws there are just more turds underneath. Isn’t that just a metaphor for Sonja’s life? Isn’t that just the saddest, most revelatory thing you ever heard? It is. I know it is. Anyway, she won’t reduce the rent on her house even though there is construction going on in the backyard. Why can’t she just lower it a bit while the construction is happening? She can jack the rent back up once it’s done. These people are only signing a year lease. Who else wants an elevator that doesn’t work, a cellar full of Wesson oil, and a toilet that has been clogged with more than one BlackBerry?
We got a tour of Ramona’s new house in the Hamptons, which she furnished entirely herself with things she bought online. She also got a few rugs from Jill Zarin that cost less than $1,000 and she loves them because, you guessed it, the dog poop will just clean right off of them. What if we discovered the secret to Ramona’s ageless appearance is the dog caca around the house? What if that was the active ingredient in her skin-care line? I mean, it would be gross, but if I could look like Ramona at 60, I would totally do it.
Ramona’s redecoration is just white on white on white. There are more shades of white there than at a midrange spa or a Barry Manilow concert. We see some before-and-after pictures and it looks like Ramona just traded the interiors of a Best Western in 1984 for a Best Western in 2004. Everything is just blandly nice and inoffensive. I think, perhaps, the countess said it best, “It’s the coldest place I’ve ever seen. There is no warmth, no charm, no character. Money can’t buy you class.â€
The editors also did Ramona dirty, like dog poop on a cheap rug, by having Bethenny reveal her new apartment in the same episode. It’s like putting a bottle of Drakkar Noir right next to the designer imposter body spray version, Dracula Nuit. Bethenny’s apartment, which probably cost the same as Ramona’s Hamptons house, is well designed, expertly appointed, and, while a bit on the bland side, perfectly encapsulates Bethenny’s personality. You can tell that not only does she have a better design sense than Ramona in general but that she also hired a professional to do the heavy lifting. No matter how good you are at doing something — cutting your own hair, writing your own speeches, fixing your own car — there is no doubt a professional that can do a better job and everyone will know when you’ve spent the money to hire one.
Bethenny’s house is entirely tasteful and looks like it would be featured in a magazine. Not a real interiors magazine like Architectural Digest or Elle Decor but something like, you know, Bella magazine. The one problem is the closet island. Women on these shows love a closet island, and I can see how it is helpful with storage and getting dressed, but Bethenny’s is too high. It makes her look like a Muppet Baby when she stands next to it. How helpful is that going to be if she can’t get all of her purses and accessories on top?
Bethenny and Sonja also took a trip to the denim designer’s house and Bill, the denim designer, totally dressed for the occasion. He wore denim pants, duh, with a plaid shirt and a little fur vest that is exactly the kind of thing that every Real Housewife is issued as soon as she signs her first contract to be on the show. I’m pretty sure Brandi Glanville (if you say her name three times, she shall appear) owns a whole closet full of them.
Bill is teaching them all about denim and Sonja is a very good student because apparently she went to fashion school. Did you know this about our favorite floozy? I didn’t. I thought she went to like Bard or Wesleyan and majored in Caburlesque with a minor in cellular botany. The thing that really made Bethenny freak out though is she found out that the denim designers sand down part of the crotch on guy’s jeans to make their dongs look bigger. They call this BPD or “big package denim.†This is dumb, and if you are a man who wears BPD then there is no way that you have BDE, because we all know that someone who is a shower, a grower, or both would never invest in a pair of pants that would promote his front bulge. As my father always said, “The best don’t brag.â€
This episode also featured two parties and both of them were quite good, if not necessarily eventful. The first was Carole’s party for the launch of Cosmo where she wrote an article about running the marathon. It was athleisure themed and Carole showed up in a lady version of a 1984 Run DMC–tracksuit-and-gold-chain combo which is perhaps the chicest thing she has ever worn on the show. Her ex Adam showed up dressed like 1984 Andre Agassi and has never looked hotter. Tinsley showed up and dropped some real info on us. Not only did she go to Columbia (the university, not the country that gives you the shits) she also played tennis there. But I forgot all about that, because she was dressed exactly like Brittany from Daria.
Ramona, who has done so little this season that she would be fired if she were not an expert of the form, had a prelaunch party for her skin-care line. I am less concerned with this than the posters all around the event that had Ramona’s pearls of wisdom about life and “success†written on them in a font used only for brochures for package vacations. The most concerning one says that Ramona plans to live to be 100. Can you imagine what the planet will look like with four more decades of Ramona Singer terrorizing it with every single cell of her body? You don’t want to.
The only ongoing fight we had to worry about this episode is the feud between the countess and Dorinda. Bethenny brings it up at lunch with Dorinda and Dorinda tells her that she’s expecting Luann to apologize for telling her that she was about to turn. While she might be right about the countess getting all high and mighty after only two months of sobriety, I don’t think she really needs to apologize as much as Dorinda does for totally decimating Luann’s character in front of all of their friends and the cameras.
Do you know who is the kind of person who requires that someone apologize for a small slight when she has a much bigger slight that she doesn’t want to apologize for? Victoria Denise Gunvalson Jr. Do not ever engage in behavior that might be similar to or comparable to Vicki’s. In fact, someone should make a cross-stitched sampler that says, “What Wouldn’t Vicki Do?†because whatever it is that she would not do is what you should go ahead and do.
Thank God they did not have this conversation at Ramona’s house. Somewhere in the Hamptons, there is a redheaded woman sitting in her glass-and-steel home that looks like the hull of a yacht that is meant to show you life under the sea. She has on a pair of headphones plugged into an impressive tower of devices that look like they power the world’s most powerful radio system. She taps on the big headphones that look like two fancy cans, as if she can feel the line that runs between them and the carpet that was just installed in Ramona Singer’s new living room. “Are these things on?†she asks, to no one in particular, as Jill Zarin takes a sip from a straw nestled in a Diet Coke can and waits for the chatter to start.