REAL HOUSEWIVES PHOTOCAP: ‘New York’ Ladies Are Back, and Bitchier Than Ever!

After last Thursday’s epic, jaw-dropping season finale of Real Housewives of Orange County, I thought nothing could stun me more that evening. However, the good people at Bravo weren’t done assaulting me with petty arguments and passive-aggressive quips (a.k.a. my favorite types of entertainment). Along came the season premiere of The Real Housewives of New York City, and it was chock full of so many simmering tensions, I thought I might just pass out from over stimulation.
Things are not well between these women. Ramona and LuAnn have a beef. LuAnn and Bethenny have a beef. And Bethenny and Jill have a beef. Yes, there’s a whole lot of beef going on between these women, and none of it seems like it’ll be resolved anytime soon. The big news is that Bethenny and Jill (Bethennill) seem to be officially on the outs, and based on their strong-willed personalities, I don’t see any resolution coming anytime soon. The details on the falling-out are hazy, but according to Jill, Bethenny got a bit too big for her britches, with the final insult being that she told Jill to “get a hobby.” Oh, the words — they hurt! THEY HURT! First of all, I believe Jill has a hobby (selling FAAABRIC with BAAAWWWBY and BRAAAAD). Second of all, it’s so wraaawng that Jill doesn’t have a hobby? So she doesn’t have a hobby. FEH! It’s a free country! May you have your health and your happiness and a few Barbara Streisand CDs to get you through the tough times. L’chaiyim.

Anyway, according to Bethenny, Jill became very needy and domineering, wanting to be invited along to every single thing all the time. This was too much for Bethenny to deal with, and so she ultimately dropped the H-Bomb (a.k.a. the Hobby Bomb), and as we all know, it’s been a Cold War ever since. So who’s at fault? Well, I wouldn’t be shocked if there’s truth to both sides of the story. I have heard rumors from NY insiders that Jill is kind of a monster (but a LOVABLE monster) when it comes to things like getting free stuff and party invites. Nothing is corroborated though; so that info could be highly suspect.
Bethenny, meanwhile, has become a bit obnoxious over the past year. Look, I still think she’s funny, and I still like her, but as someone who follows her on Twitter and is a Facebook “friend,” I can say that she’s pretty much all about self-promotion all the time. That, of course, is her right, and why not use these social networking tools to advance her career? But there’s a line when self-promotion goes from entrepreneurial to all out insufferable (by the way, follow me on Twitter!!!). And if anyone saw any of the pre-show press for this season, they wouldn’t have been able to make it thirty seconds without Bethenny shamelessly shilling her books and margaritas and various enterprises. Hence, I couldn’t help but groan when Bethenny showed up in the Hamptons in a little Skinny Girl bug, and furthermore, I couldn’t help but chuckle when Kelly — KELLY — made a sarcastic remark about how Bethenny created the margarita.
Plus adding insult to injury is that Bethenny never visited BAWWWBY in the hospital when he had CAAAAAANCER (major friendship foul), and when Countess LuAnn was getting divorced, Bethenny merely sent a gift basket and not a much yearned-for hug (a lesser friendship foul, but a foul nonetheless). All this circumstantial evidence seems to suggest that in this Feud of the Century, Bethenny may have been the greater irritant of the two irritants involved. Phew! Glad we settled that.
Anyway, I’m hoping that I can maintain Bethenny as one of my favorite housewives, but I fear that the tables are going to turn on her. I can already sense that Kelly is getting a better edit this time around, and I swear, if I emerge from this season being pro-Kelly and anti-Bethenny (something I’m not promising won’t happen), I might be a bit confused — not just about the show, but perhaps the universe in general.
I’ll tell you, Bethenny isn’t doing herself any favors on the likability front. Watching her banter with her new boyfriend Jason is a bit boring, and her whole fight with LuAnn — well, that was just a mess. Here’s the back story: last season, as you may remember, the girls all went surfing one afternoon. LuAnn never paid, and Bethenny bitched that she was the poorest of the group but always had to pay. Well, this did not please Countess LuAnn, who has a reputation for Classiness to maintain. The two agreed to meet for drinks in the Hamptons near LuAnn’s house, and after stepping out of her aforementioned SkinnyGirlmobile, Bethenny stomped into a local bar with a sourpuss on her face not seen since she first got stuck sitting next to Kelly at Fashion Week. This was gonna go badly.
Seconds later, Bethenny was already making snide remarks about how she’d just driven two frickin’ hours to get there, making this much more inconvenient for her than LuAnn. I could understand her frustration, but seriously, who was the idiot who agreed to such a lopsided plan? Either say no, or don’t bitch.
Well, Bethenny’s attitude set the tone for what turned into a tense, bitter, bitch session, and surely LuAnn didn’t help matters with her indirect, blazingly passive-aggressive grudge-fest. The Countess got the ball rolling by asking if Bethenny would be paying for the drinks since Bethenny had invited her for cocktails. This was already such an awkward and — ALARM! ALARM! — not classy remark that I couldn’t help but cringe. Making matters worse was that on the receiving end of this awfulness was Bethenny, who is already prone to being over-sensitive when she’s in a good mood, not to mention when she’s in RAGING-BITCH-WITH-A-BOOK-TO-SHILL mode.
Turns out the whole reason why LuAnn asked this bizarre question was because she had thought Bethenny had invited her to go surfing and thus would be picking up the bill. It was a bit of an odd assumption (and even if it were the case, wouldn’t the CLASSY thing have been to at least go through the motions of pretending to pay Bethenny so she could say “No, no, it’s on me!”). LuAnn’s true beef, however, was that Bethenny had then gone and made “snarky comments” about her behind her back, which is a valid concern… for a normal person who’s NOT on national television. Let’s be honest — LuAnn talks just as much crap as all the rest of the women. That’s why she’s on TV. If she didn’t want to hear what people said behind her back, she probably should have left the show.
Nevertheless, we can all agree that perhaps the classy way for Countess LuAnn to engage in the dialogue would have been to calmly state, “Listen, Bethenny. When you accused me of stiffing you with surfing, that’s because I was under the impression that you were hosting it. I’m sorry there was a misunderstanding, and in the future, I’d prefer it if you didn’t talk so much shit behind my back.” This would have been much more effective than the convoluted and condescending crap LuAnn spewed out instead. Because of her decidedly uncouth approach, Bethenny went into a tizzy, and soon the women were truly going at it, bickering like two ninnies — something that I’m sure was quite horrifying for anyone nearby. After all, who fights like that in the Hamptons? NEVER IN THE HAMPTONS!
Eventually though, LuAnn clearly had had enough of this; so she raised a glass and declared “TRUCE.” Well, that’s effective. Unsurprisingly, Bethenny balked at this sudden gesture, and after another outburst of bickering and venting, the women did eventually hug it out, even if Bethenny was still harboring some serious misgivings deep down inside.
I wouldn’t say that conflict management has been LuAnn’s strong point thus far this season. Before the Bethenny blow-out, LuAnn had a marvelous tiff with Ramona on a boat. Our favorite crazy blonde had invited a bunch of her gal pals onto a yacht for the afternoon, and while everything seemed fine at first (save for some gauche jewelry advertising — much to Jill’s chagrin), things went south very quickly. LuAnn casually mentioned to Ramona that Mario had called her “COUNTLESS” (or was it “COUNT-LESS”), and even though Ramona said she’d prefer not to talk about it on the boat, LuAnn pressed forth. Probably not a smart idea (a classsssy person knows the proper time and place for all confrontations), but nevertheless Ramona soon freaked out, yelling at LuAnn about being classless and rude. Sadly, Ramona did not use her favorite word, “déclassé!!!”, but she did throw everything back in LuAnn’s face, saying “You’re not following your own rules, LUANN!!” Of course, neither was Ramona, who simply should have said, “I wasn’t aware. I’l talk to Mario about it.”
Ultimately, Ramona fled to another part of the vessel where she cried and bemoaned LuAnn ruining this seafaring adventure. How could she bring that up on the boat? I mean, not on the boat!!! NEVER ON THE BOAT!!!
But since this is Ramona we’re talking about, the swinging pendulum of her emotions soon reversed its course, and she was laughing and happy and doing tequila shots with the best of them. Go figure. Looks like we’re in store for a great season….

Alex: “Ramona, do you mind? This is the first time in three seasons that my hair hasn’t looked stringy and unkempt. You’re kiiiind of ruining it.”

“I don’t know why people are so mean to me. They’re just mean. They’re MEAN girls! And I’ll tell you what else it is. It’s DÉCLASSÉ!!! It’s not right! I’m going through renewal DAMMIT!”

“Now where the hell is LuAnn? I LOVE HER!!!”

“LuAnn, LuAnn, LuAnn… Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. STOP. You’re Robin, and I’m Batman. Which is my way of saying, you’re here, and I’m HERE.”
LuAnn: “I don’t understand a word that you’re saying. But you’re paying for lunch, right?”

“Cheers. To being boring.”

“Are you inviting me to have this tequila? Or must I pay for it?”

“There’s a tightrope / between me and the Hamptons.”

“Damn, you got crazy, Bethenny.”

LuAnn: “Truce?”
Bethenny: “Sure (fuckin’ bitch).”

Ramona: “Jill, you look wonderful!”
Jill: “Thank you. I wanted a dress with the feel of the Hamptons and the look of a Ben & Jerry’s container.”

“No, I’ve had enough. This isn’t right. I’m trying to be renewed, and you’re not being classy, LuAnn. And you know what they say about people who aren’t classy? They’re called DÉCLASSÉ!!! And that’s what you are! Déclassé! I’m not putting up with it. RENEWAL!!!”

Bethenny: “I hope you realize I just drove two hours in my Skinny Girl car, which is meant to promote my Skinny Girl line of products, which you may have heard about as the Skinny Girl products are now some of the most popular on the market. Furthermore: Skinny Girl, Skinny Girl, Skinny Girl. Me me me.”
“Are you buying me a drink or what?”

LuAnn: “All I’m saying is that I think you should buy me dinner now.”
Bethenny: “I am literally counting the seconds before I can get out of here.”
“Counting? COUNTING? How DARE you conjugate ‘count’ like that. Not at this time of my life; not with all I’m going through; and certainly NOT within a hundred mile radius of the Cancer Society. NEVER WITHIN A HUNDRED MILE RADIUS OF THE CANCER SOCIETY!”

What did you think about the premiere? Do you feel things are shifting? And who would you blame — based on the evidence — for the Jill/Bethenny falling out?