Amanza is doing too much. For whatever reason, she decides that it’s up to her and Chelsea to “fix this a little.†“This†being that people are mean to Nicole. While I agree that none of us dislike Nicole enough to want to watch her get chewed out for two full seasons, Chelsea and Amanza are not at all the people to whom this task should fall. Chelsea is too interested in creating moments for herself, and Amanza is a single mother of two who constantly seems on the verge of tears — she doesn’t need this!
And yet, someone must do something. Folks, if you ever find yourself on a reality-TV show having to do a scene where you relay the drama of the previous night to your husband, you’re in trouble. Husband chats are a telltale sign of having no other friends on the show, and I actually hate to see a woman in full glam reduced to confiding in a guy in a baseball cap. Thank goodness for Marie-Lou. Like a septic tank in an $8.5 million Malibu listing, she’s ready to cause some unforeseen hassles. She suddenly announces at dinner with Amanza, Mary, Brett, and Jason that Chrishell isn’t very friendly to her. Or, should we say, isn’t friendly enough. As we’ve seen no onscreen evidence of any unfriendliness, it just ends up seeming like Marie-Lou is jealous that Jason still follows Chrishell around like a puppy, and now she’s acting out.
This is a nice, new, completely crazy problem for Chrishell to have. Because, at the end of the day, she does not have to be friends with Marie-Lou. At all. There is no law that says you have to hang out with your ex, but there should actually be a law against being forced to befriend your ex’s much younger new girlfriend. So, unfortunately, Marie-Lou doesn’t have much of a case. Even Jason, whom they call on the phone in the middle of a contentious lunch to act as a mediator of sorts, actively begs to be left out of it. Never mind that, once again, he’s the only reason this dynamic exists in the first place. Never mind that he purports to care about these two people more than almost anyone else.
Chrishell is actually being incredibly patient with all this, considering she has a cyst the size of an orange on her ovary. This is — and I seldom use this word anymore — iconic. As a person whose tummy constantly hurts, I celebrate women who ask if they can just sit here and wait for everyone to get back. When she storms out of a house tour because she “can’t deal†with being confronted about her behavior toward Nicole, it’s not her best moment. But when it comes to abdominal pain, you really can’t expect a very long fuse. Besides, I could see Chrishell being incredibly defensive of Emma … because how can you not be? She’s like a golden retriever who won’t stop staring at the sun.
After Amanza fails to make any headway on the Nicole situation, she pivots to the issue between Chelsea and Bre, and at this she also fails spectacularly. She tells Bre that Chelsea believes she’s just a “messenger†and is being unfairly targeted for simply saying things to Bre’s face that others were saying behind her back. Because if you’ve ever been hurt by someone saying something mean about you to your face, you can imagine how much better it would feel to be told other people are also saying those same things behind your back. Amanza even allows Bre to deduce, via a process of elimination, that the offending shit-talkers are Emma and Chrishell. If I thought Amanza had it in her, I’d think this was a setup designed to draw the group heat off Nicole, but as we see later, that backfires too.
Brett and Jason have graciously been invited to host the Oppenheim Group’s tenth-anniversary party at the house of one James Goldstein, a man who is very, very rich. He got this way, according to various reports, by buying mobile homes and raising the rents on them, suing any city that tries to stop him with the silly laws they’ve passed to protect their citizens from exploitation. His tenants include retired postal workers and firefighters who refer to him as “an asshole†and “that dirty motherfucker.†But, you know what they say: Behind every great fortune, there is a great crime. Luckily for Mr. Goldstein, I believe the only hell that exists is the one we’ve created here on earth. Specifically, it’s an 11,000-square-foot nightclub attached to this man’s house, in which you just know so much horror has been inflicted on the young and vulnerable (in aHollywood Reporter profile, Goldstein admits to secretly weighing models when he gives them tours of the house, and also dating teenagers). I never want to hear about this man and his demonic house ever again! May the wildfires take it! May it fall into the sea! Anyway, I digress.
Everyone is at this tenth-anniversary dinner except Chrishell. They even bring in a few folks from the OC office in another ridiculous attempt to get me to watch that show. I don’t watch that show for the same reason I don’t drink Diet Coke: I already drink too much soda! My tummy hurts! I am allowed one Coke a week, and it will be a full one, thank you very much! Of course, even without Chrishell’s presence, she manages to be the focus, with Jason wondering why she wouldn’t jump at the chance to drag that big ol’ cyst up a mountain to celebrate his achievements. He announces the opening of a new location for their main office anyway, and everything is hunky-dory until Amanza gets mean.
I feel for Amanza; I really do. This woman has been through it, and I want to give her all the grace in the world. But also, she has no idea where to direct her anger. Jason tries to suggest the OC office works harder than the Sunset office, which might be true, but the OC office exists because of the Sunset office. He’s devaluing his most valuable employees to their faces for no reason, and this negative energy just sets the tone for more confrontation. And there’s simply no overcoming toxic leadership, no matter how much Amanza tries to force it.
Unlisted ObservationsÂ
• “Chrishell’s so fucking hot,†says Chelsea in a moment of true clarity.
• Jason remembers that “ten years ago, I was living in a one-bedroom apartment, switching off between the couch and the bedroom with my buddy,†but then says, “We put a desk in the second bedroom, and we started the Oppenheim Group.†So, it was a two-bedroom apartment? They couldn’t put a desk in the living room? I’m confused.
• I love Amanza’s constant gloves; I’m honestly jealous of how well she pulls them off.
• Why can’t nice houses have comfortable chairs? Every chair I see in these listings looks like a medieval torture device.
• Emma’s Death Wish: Did you see her run right into that koi pond? This is also the second time she’s walked along the edge of a cliff/infinity pool as her co-workers plead with her to stop.
• Last season, I noticed a lot of bi-curious energy radiating from Emma, who now admits she’s “open†to going on a date with a woman. Baby steps.
• Heather, why are you still here??