THE CITY SEASON FINALE PHOTOCAP: Is Whitney Hopelessly Devoted To The Pink Ladies?

With The Hills heading off the air for good on Tuesday, not many people were talking about The City, whose latest triumphant season came to an end with quite the cliffhanger. Would Whitney stick with Kelly Cutrone, or would she dip her feet in new waters with pink-clad publicist Alison Brod. The contrast between the two women could not be more stark, and while fans clearly want more Cutrone, methinks Whitney is going to go to the dark side (which is ironically brightly colored) and learn the hard way the value of loyalty.

This, of course, assumes that Whitney and / or The City is coming back. My friends at other publications are buzzing that the show is dunzo, but I can assure you that as of press time, it has not been cancelled and is very much so alive. Don’t ask me how I know this, but I can assure you, my intel is excellent (watch the show get axed tomorrow — not that I’m advocating such a thing. Great. Now I’ve cursed it).

The big season finale started off with Whitney delivering news to Kelly that some lady named Alison Brod wanted to talk to her about getting press for the Whitney Eve line. Kelly tried to play off this news like it wasn’t a big deal, but we could see she was simmering with rage and perhaps jealousy. Whitney was her baby, and she wasn’t about to let some other bitch steal her away. Nevertheless, Kelly did concede that she wasn’t technically representing Whit-Whit, just merely mentoring her, and as such, the young designer was more than welcome to speak to whomever she wanted.

Of course, we knew this would lead to disaster, especially when Kelly disparagingly said of Alison, “She wears a lot of pink.” No more vicious an accusation could be made from Ms. Cutrone’s lips.

Sure enough, Alison lived up to the hype. She was pink, alright. In fact, her whole office seemed to be swathed in pink tones and accents, including an obnoxiously cutesy phalanx of candy bowls whose deliberate attempt at whimsy made me want to barf. Alison was the total opposite of Kelly. Pink instead of black. Ordered instead of chaotic. Warm instead of power bitchy. I hated her.

Off the bat, Alison made Whitney all sorts of promises that may or may not have been empty, but clearly she smelled blood in the water and wanted to catch her some prey. As awful as her office may have been, this Alison woman was no idiot, and she was gonna do whatever it took to win over this new (and rather high profile) client. Whether that meant offering Whitney some candy or merely spreading rumors about town that she was now repping the young designer, Alison was ready to make a move.

Too bad for Whitney that Kelly wasn’t about to let her reputation go down the gutter as the patsy who got a client stolen. When word broke inaccurately that Alison was now representing Whitney Eve, Kelly snapped, saying that she now looked like an idiot, especially since she didn’t represent Whitney in the first place. It all got very tense, and suddenly, Whitney was looking like the dough-eyed Jessica who felt the wrath of Cutrone back in the middle-era of The Hills.

Ultimately, Kelly tossed Whit-Whit out of her office, while a self-satisfied Roxy looked on with “I told you so” eyes. Shut up, ROXY.

The episode eventually ended with Whitney having to decide what to do next: stay with Kelly, who’s been a mentor and loyal and totally awesome, or move to Alison for no discernible reason.

Meanwhile, over at the always catty offices of Elle, Erin and her alabaster cohort Seth were busy rubbing their palms together with glee as they neared what they assumed would be Olivia’s termination. Their mortal enemy was off in Japan, and in her stead, Louise was clearly going to take over. But suddenly, the wheels began to fall off the wagon. First problem: during an Elle.com interview at a photo shoot, the digital editor, Keith, expressed fears that Louise was too “on.” Or some bull crap like that. It didn’t make sense, and Erin shot him a nasty look of confusion, fury, and concern for good measure. Meanwhile, we at home immediately knew that this whole Louise scheme was on the verge of backfiring.

Problem number two for Erin and Seth was that Olivia was knocking it out of the park in Japan. Or at least, that’s what Joe claimed. From what we could see, the Japanese women were merely enamored with Olivia’s tiny face. The socialite-turned-pseudo-editor spent most of her business trip smiling politely and bottling up her disdain for all the perky, smiling ladies around her, which is perhaps why she was such a hit. That and the fact that her translator probably made her sound a bit more erudite than she actually is.

Nevertheless, Olivia was a big hit (especially with the bureau’s head honcho, a sweet, smiling lady — think the anti-Lisa Love — whose office amusingly came with a sculpture that resembled Harajuku Minnie Mouse). After a rather fluffy Q&A with a room full of women and several cutaway shots of the Shibuya intersection, Olivia returned stateside for what Erin hoped would be her final Elle meeting. Instead, things went dreadfully wrong for Kaplan & Co. Joe announced that thanks to Olivia’s fantastic performance overseas, she would be the new (or rather, continue to be the same old) face of Elle.com. As for Louise, she was off to Los Angeles for some other opportunity doing who knows what. Erin looked like she wanted to puke. As for Seth, his cheeks turned rosier than ever before. This was an Elle-saster.

As the two shuffled out of the conference room, Seth immediately got in Erin’s ear, saying something about how it was time for her to start looking for a new job. Mind you, he said this mere centimeters from Joe Zee’s ear, which seemed unwise, but oddly enough, Joe hardly even reacted. He didn’t even let out a trademark “CAYUUUTE!!!” or “LOVE IT!!!” Clearly he was in Joe land, which, for the record, sounds like a lovely place to be.

And now we must wait indefinitely for this gang of aspirants and mentors (or “youngins” and “legends,” as Oprah might say). I hope MTV greenlights the next season immediately and has new episodes for us in, say, three weeks? Is that too much to ask?

In the meantime, here are pics:

“What do you think about the idea of me being repped by a woman who works in the MOST OBNOXIOUS OFFICE EVER?”

“I mean, really? Alison Brod? She wears pink. PINK. That’s what we call VOMIT COLORS in the POWER BITCH WORLD.”

“But I’m wearing pink.”

“Yeah. Exactly.”

“So it’s okay for me to meet her?”

“Do whatever you want. I don’t have time for this . IT’S FUCKING FASHION WEEK!”

“‘Allo, guv-nah! Who’s your favorite designer? And furthermore, what do you fancy more: Yorkshire puds or bubble & squeak?”

Joe: “Louise looks CAYUUUTE!! LOVE HER interviewing style!”
Keith: “I arbitrarily don’t like her.”
Erin: “Hey Keith, don’t you have business in JAPAN to tend to? Like DYING?”

“Hello, I’m here from America. And I’d like to add that I find it HIGHLY unprofessional that all you people here speak some gibberish language that makes no sense. I mean, I’m a part-time editor at Elle. I can’t be expected to learn nonsense sounds.”

Roxy: “I feel so emo right now.”
“Yeah. We’re awesome. Michael Cera is totally jealous.”

“Wow, Alison! Kelly wasn’t kidding when she said you wear a lot of pink. Your boyfriends must HATE you, huh!”

“Literally, like oh my God. I just want to wrap Whitney up in pink tissue paper, roll her in pink egg yolk, and dip in her in an oversized jar of pink candy. Love her. LOVE HER.”

“Seth, I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to be totally honest with me. Is that okay?”
“Yes. What is it?”
“Were you in a cappella in college?”
“Erin, why would you ask that?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Yes.”
“I KNEW IT!”
“How could you tell?”
“I don’t know. You always have this look on your face like you’re mentally arranging music into four part harmony.”
“Really?”
“And every time ‘Take On Me’ plays, you start making drum machine noises.”
“Can we just talk about Olivia?”
“Fine. She’s a bitch, huh?”
“Totally.”

“Thank you for having me here. To answer your question about my style, I like to wear what appeals to me. Sometimes I dress up; sometimes I dress down. But I guess you’d have known that had you done your research. The fact that you hadn’t is HIGHLY unprofessional.”

“Erin, did you ever notice how huge my desk is? I feel like pushing everything off and singing Liza on it RIGHT NOW.”
“Don’t do that, Joe.”
“Why? LOVE LIZA! Her sequined dresses? CAYUUUTE!”

“Hey shit-for-brains, way to screw this all up. It’s like you went to FUCKING FASHION WEEK and said, ‘Hey everyone! It’s not FUCKING FASHION WEEK anymore!’ Who the FUCK are YOU to say THAT?”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening. What was that?”

“Soooo… I’ve been thinking about the new face of Elle.com, and even though Louise is beautiful and wonderful and totally exceptional, I have to say that Olivia — well, I just have too much fun laughing about her with Robbie and Anne. You’re hired, Palermo!”

“I’m afraid I can’t take the position, Joe. I’ve been recruited to be the Editor-At-Large of Small Face Quarterly.“

“I want to fucking claw your eyes out with my fingers, you stupid whore bitch. I am this close — THIS CLOSE — to going Mel Gibson on your ass.”

Roxy: “Make this quick. I have a flamenco performance to get to.”

“Have I become a bitch? And furthermore, why do tulips smell nice?”

What did you think about the season finale? What should Whitney do?