Good morning, class. I’m Molly Fitzpatrick, visiting adjunct teaching assistant at the Real Housewives Institute. As always, it’s an honor and a privilege to contribute to the ongoing longitudinal study of the curious folkways of the Upper East Side, those which the ancients called turtur tempore. And before you ask, yes, this will all be on your final. Next slide, please.
Sonja Tremont Morgan has a stye. At least, that’s according to East 63rd Street’s premiere amateur optometrist, Sonja Tremont Morgan. It looks more to me like a black eye at first, until I realize that pigment is probably just smeared mascara. Come to think of it, I am not convinced Sonja has ever deliberately removed her makeup. On her face are geological strata that tell a rich history. She threatens to pop the stye, then settles for recuperatively smushing a green tea bag on her eyelid instead.
Kelly is assembling — or at least she has recruited a villa staff member to assemble — gift bags for all the women featuring enough fancy toothpaste, skincare, and other products (that I will not mention by name here until such time as their marketing teams slide envelopes of cash under my doormat) to surely exceed the maximum luggage weight on their flights home. Luann, whose beach coverup is giving Sexy Mummy Leg Avenue Halloween costume, is displeased that KKB wants her to open it on camera — and even more so because the gift bags leave no room on the breakfast table for the eggs à la française she just whipped up, at the request of precisely no one. It seems to me, and to literally everyone else on this television program, that this is a spon-con situation. Surely Kelly is being paid for getting these brands airtime? And yet she insists she is receiving no compensation whatsoever. If that’s really true, then hey, Kelly, here’s a free idea: Maybe you should be?
Once Ramona is done driving Luann insane because she needs everyone to wait while she calls the president of her insurance company right now, for some reason, they decamp for Nao Beach Club. Over a lunch of “river octopus†(which, even if it literally is just a straight-up octopus that lives in a river, sounds “rocky mountain oysterâ€-level euphemistic to me) and essentially everything else on the menu (pay up, Peacock), Sonja irritates and surprises Lu — everyone, but especially Lu — by claiming that she talks to her less than she does to her “good friend†Bethenny. What? But they’re her real friends! Why prioritize someone else? Sonja bangs her chopsticks together, repeatedly yells “cut,†and starts crying, as one does. The other women hug and comfort her. In her confessional, she explains that while the other women are off “jet-setting,†she’s “bouncing from couch to couch.†Sonja Tremont Morgan is always an emotional roller coaster.
From the moment I heard Kelly Bensimon was returning to Scary Island, I’ve been dying to hear her side of the story — a frank assessment of exactly what kind of psychological or emotional or pharmacological or demonological situation was going on there. But when the original trip comes up, Kelly doesn’t say much. As she recalls it, Bethenny simply wanted to “take down the socialite†and, in fact, she herself is “so normal,†actually, so. Our gal Friday Sonja does her journalistic duty and keeps prodding — but what triggered her? — until Ramona pulls her aside to tell her to back off because Kelly evidently “doesn’t want to admit she had a meltdown.†I’m deeply sympathetic that one of her worst moments has become the thing she’s best known for (and glad that Kelly seems to be leading a happier, healthier life), but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t craving a little more self-insight here.
Back at the villa, Sonja strips naked and has what I can best describe as an in-pool wrestling match with an inflatable swan. The swan wins. It is not close.
It’s finally time for dinner, or, according to the women’s daily itinerary, “Luann’s Seafood Party†— which sounds like a buffet restaurant I would stop at on a road trip 100 percent knowing I was going to get food poisoning but feeling 100 percent comfortable with my fate because the crawfish look pretty good. Speaking of food poisoning! Ramona unloads on Luann for being late for dinner after having made such a fuss about punctuality that morning; Luann’s excuse is that she, too, was unloading — on “la toilette.†(“G.I. symptoms†are the ultimate all-purpose excuse. No one ever wants more details.)
Anyway, oysters, caviar, and lobsters are served over a lackluster tablescape, that is, I have to say, not remotely on Below Deck’s level. As they continue to process their lunchtime conversation, Sonja offers her second would-be For Your Consideration: Best Supporting Actress monologue of the episode, doing a genuinely heart-wrenching impression of the self-serving way she feels people treat her (which is why she doesn’t leave her house, she says). “Hi! You look so beautiful! Can I have a picture?! Hi! I love you! Can you get me in here?!â€
Then they play a game. Each woman has a question she must answer hidden under her plate. Kelly’s card asks what she wasn’t honest about while on RHONY. She says she was in a bad relationship that she kept to herself. She also broke up with someone when Scary Island aired because she didn’t want people to tell him he was dating a “crazy person.†Luann asks her what her own reaction was when she watched it. Before you get your hopes up, as I did, no, we are not finally heading toward the Scary Island introspection we’ve been waiting for. In fact, Kelly mostly just talks about how, back then, she freaked out when Bethenny gave them gift bags filled with “Bethenny-centered products†because it felt like an “advertorial.†Ah. Yes. That does sound annoying, doesn’t it?
Dorinda’s question: Who has changed the most? She names Kristen. Her kids are older now, and she’s “gone through things.†Sonja helpfully pipes up to clarify: “Her husband was on Dolly Madison!†I nearly spit a mouthful of Black Cherry Vanilla Wegmans seltzer onto my keyboard. (Wait’ll you see the kind of shit they’re getting up to over on Mamie Eisenhower.) Ashley Madison, the dating site for married people seeking an affair, was hacked in 2015, and users’ personal info was released. Other reality-TV casualties included Snooki’s husband, Jionni, and very cool, very normal guy Josh Duggar. Surprisingly, the moment brings Dorinda and Kristen closer together. D reassures her that all marriages “go through shit,†and hey, she didn’t get divorced! Kristen appreciatively remembers that Dorinda was the only one of her castmates who reached out when this was all going down.
Ramona (who has a secret boyfriend, ooOooOoh) has trafficked — I’m sorry, invited — some eligible local men over to the villa tonight. The ten lords-a-leaping appear after dinner. They are all local hospital workers and young. Very, very young. It’s like the cast has collectively become responsible for the ambiguously accented student body of a local preschool.
One man, possibly the oldest of the group — who one of the women (Kristen, by the sound of it?) says looks like Seal, and yet who does not look like Seal, except for the fact that he is the sole Black person in the group and he has a small scar on his cheek — is turning 31 at midnight, and so Lu serenades him with “Happy Birthday†in a voice so deep that even passing whales wonder if they should have brought a gift.
Ramona selects the young man who most resembles the Pirate and dresses him in full pirate costume, hat and all, presenting him to Luann like a willing human sacrifice. She appreciates the gesture, but alas, he’s not the same. Though Lu has otherwise brought her signature Under the Skin–level commitment to sourcing male flesh to St. Barth’s (and for that we salute her), even she isn’t really feeling these guys, who are roughly the same age as her son. No river octopus for her tonight.