It’s been a while since I wrote a photocap for Real Housewives of New York City, and I can explain why very easily: I’m lazy. Truth is that I have more in common with Sonja Morgan than I’d like to admit. Basically, we both like to sit in bed and read about our “friends” in the New York Post (and by New York Post, I mean Facebook). Nevertheless, RHoNYC has ratcheted up the crazy the past two episodes, and I think barely one scene has gone by that hasn’t been totally, utterly cringe-inducing.
Take this week’s episode, for example. The show began with Heather and Sonja butting heads repeatedly over a toaster-oven photo shoot that looked about as pleasant as if I had stuffed my head into said toaster oven and turned the machine to broil (that of course assumes Sonja’s hardware actually works, which is not necessarily a given). Poor Heather looked positively frustrated as she stood around, NOT getting paid, waiting for Sonja’s lazy ass to show up. When Sonja did arrive, she had so many requests and demands that even Faye Dunaway was probably “Chill, girl.” It’s no wonder she needs a small army of interns to follow her around like ducklings. The crazy woman has so many needs at any given time that it would take at least five people to tend to her every whim (not the least of which pertains to bloody tampons. Ewwwww).
Heather understandably became annoyed, and in her classic way, she vented her frustrations through a weird mix of passive-aggression and full-on aggression. She can’t be faulted for not speaking her mind, but man, when she does, it’s not very nice. But who does she owe niceties to? Heather should be applauded for not bashing Sonja over the head with one of those Cornish hens lying around.
Amusingly, when all was said and done, Sonja opted for a picture of her awkwardly sprawled out over her toaster oven as if it were some robotic lover suckling at her teat. I can’t say that the marketing plan of a naked torso holding a toaster seemed particularly more savvy, but at least Sonja had better angles (and the eye candy wasn’t bad either). Nevertheless, Sonja chose the bad pic and then acted as if Heather hadn’t made any contributions to the entire process. This roiled Heather to no end, and she even snapped at Sonja that she did in fact deserve credit, but I’m sure Sonja didn’t retain any of this, what with her massive blood loss.
Later, at a launch party for Ramona’s new red wine (which also doubled as a party for her supremely airbrushed cover for J’Adore magazine), Heather and Sonja smoothed things over. Neither of them really apologized, but they agreed to just never speak of this awful photo shoot again and just move on as friends and have a great time in St. Barts. Oh yeah, forgot to mention — at a luncheon hosted by Carole where the main course was a bowl of M&Ms, the women all hatched a plan to go to St. Bart’s. Well, most of the women. Aviva expressed hesitation on account of her fear of small planes… and islands… and air… and water…
Anyway, Heather and Sonja seemed to be in a good place, but then came Ramona who barged into the conversation and happily declared that Sonja said that Heather steamrolled her. Ramona, you see, was miffed that she hadn’t been invited to the photo shoot (oh brudder), and this was her revenge. Well, the whole thing turned into a ridiculous fight, with Ramona accusing Heather of being insincere etc. etc., and as usual, Ramona stormed off before Heather could explain her side of the story. Then for the next ten minutes we had to listen to each one of these women explain to the other women what each one of them had said to each other. The highlight of all this was Ramona actually bitching to LuAnn about Heather, and LuAnn bluntly informing Ramona that she too wouldn’t invite Ramona to a photo shoot because she’s impossible. This of course was punctuated by the signature LuAnn haughty laugh, which was somehow meant to soften the blow. Classic Lu.
You’d think there had been enough bickering to fill a whole episode, but no, it continued. We then moved to our third major setpiece of the episode that had all the women arriving at a party for some socialite. Aviva kindly took this time to confront LuAnn about WineGate, another ridiculous incident that I thought had been buried after last week’s Reindeer-Santa headband confrontation. But no. Aviva suddenly wanted to talk about it; so she pulled LuAnn aside and told her she was being mean to Ramona. This was none of Aviva’s business, even if she was correct, and LuAnn was none too happy about it. With fire in her eyes, LuAnn declared that she and Jacques were merely profiling Ramona’s wine — it was a great honor!! Of course, she also said that these women needed to lighten up and have a sense of humor. So which is it LuAnn? A joke or an earnest tribute?
Nevertheless, Jacques tried to lighten the mood by playing the piano like Michigan J. Frog, and when that failed, he and LuAnn left the party, but not before Aviva told him in French that he was mean. I don’t know why Aviva was on such a warpath, but I assume she was just trying to get uninvited to the St. Bart’s trip.
Anyway, mere seconds after Jacques and LuAnn were out the door, Aviva, Sonja, and Ramona began gossiping, with Ramona outlandishly suggesting that Jacques wasn’t even French. I mean, that’s as ridiculous as suggesting that Ramona Pinot Grigio is properly pronounced Pinot GREEJO (ahem, LuAnn). Heather, meanwhile, overheard this silly conversation and then turned to Carole and expressed her displeasure with all the women talking behind each other’s backs (note that she was saying this behind the women’s backs). To her credit, Heather did tell Aviva that she thought the questioning of Jacques’ accent was petty and childish, and at this point Ramona literally stuck her ear into the conversation and accused Heather of talking behind people’s backs. Ramona then ran off in typical fashion, leaving a flummoxed Heather to call Ramona crazy to Mario. This gave Aviva the perfect opportunity to turn the tables and accuse Heather of being nasty by calling Mario’s wife crazy, and as this slimy shit began to hit the fan, Bravo gave us a “To Be Continued.”
What sublime ridiculousness. Oh, and Carole got a lizard as a Secret Santa gift. I don’t understand it either.
“For a moment I thought we were about to drink RAMONA’S wine at dinner. What a scare!”
“Does everyone like my hat? It’s actually just a surviving piece of a screen door that was ravaged by Hurricane Irene.”
Sonja: “George, great to see you.”
George: “I just came in my pants thinking about your pussy.”
“Well, that’s charming.”
LuAnn: “Darling, look at these espresso cups. The perfect thing to spit that hideous Ramona Pinot GREEJO into.”
LuAnn: “I mean, does Ramona REALLY think her wine is any good? I told her Jacques was spotlighting it. HAHAHAHAHAHA.”
Sonja: “Where’s my Marie Antoinette costume? Or what about my baseball one? I want to look like a sluttier version of Madonna in A League of Their Own.”
“Hey mama. I’m just so frustrated with Sonja. It’s like she’s dissing me. I’m going to be Outie 5000, ya dig? Holla!”
“Sonja, you look awful. Not even the gays like it. Look at them. It’s like you just declared a love for Crocs.”
Heather: “Okay, so this is setup #2, also known as the one where Sonja voluntarily sticks out her pooch and looks like she’s about to yak up Rumple Minze on her toaster oven.”
“Whoa. I just woke up. What’s going on? Why is my pillow leaving burn marks?”
“Hello ladies. I brought my new toaster oven… IN MY HAT.”
Ramona: “I don’t know how you Downtown girls do it, but I need more than M&Ms for lunch. I need M&Ms and wine.”
Heather: “I’m very concerned about the salad situation.”
LuAnn: “And I’m very concerned about Heather’s sartorial situation.”
“Ramona! You look great in your photo! You look twenty years younger! You can’t even tell it’s you! Looks nothing like you! Also, I’m wearing a pirate shirt; so there’s that.”
“Let’s agree to just have fun from now on. I mean, you were a total bitch during the photo shoot, and you totally didn’t give me credit for my work, but let’s just have fun… or as much fun as a total disaster like you can have. Holla!!!”
Ramona: “Sonja told me you didn’t want me at the shoot.”
Heather: “That’s not true.”
“She said you said ‘I don’t want Ramona to be there.'”
“Well yes, that did happen.”
“So you didn’t want me there.”
“No, I guess not.”
“Why not?”
“BECAUSE YOU’RE F*CKING CRAZY.”
“Oh look, Ramona’s over there being crazy. This will be hilarious. And GOOD GOD WHAT IS THIS AWFUL WINE? Oh. It’s vintage Ramona. I should have known.”
Heather: “I just hate the way Aviva, Ramona, and Sonja talk behind people’s backs.”
Carole: “Yeah… you realize you are LITERALLY talking behind their backs right now, yes?”
What did you think about the episode?
Team Heather!
It would have been so great to see Ramona correct Jaques’ pronunciation of J’Adore and even better to hear her pronunciation of the name of the magazine. But she probably didn’t know it was French.
The bickering got so meta with the talking behind the back about talking behind the back. I was unimpressed with this Mamet on crack (also meta) episode and mildly surprised to learn that Sonja still gets her period.
Which I do not believe for one second….just like last year Ramona pretended to be worried about being pregnant. Look at the picture of George’s hand on Ramona’s arm…is that disgusting or what? Ugggh.
I know they are all nuts but I am on team Heather….I know she can be passive aggressive and all but the fact that she even was nice enough to try to do something for that clueless Sonja was more than enough for me…and she is also right about Ramona….Ramona is a horrible person to have around any type of business dealing..she is embarrassing…a drunk….and I love the fact that she didn’t buckle to the peer pressure and invite her to England.
Aviva? Well ..she needs to be medicated constantly.
I don’t miss Jill or Kelly at all….even though I do find this group of women odd…I prefer them to last year’s horror.
Bside thanks for finally recapping ..miss your snarky comments they are the best!
I find this group oddly fascinating. I watch them but am cringing the entire time. The more I watch SonJa, the nuttier she gets. I admire the way Heather seems to restrain herself from slugging Ramona and SonJa. The egos on this show are out of this world.
Sonja and her period repulse me. How much does her toaster oven retail for? Can I buy 10 @ Costco? Ramona is so bat shit crazy it literally blows my mind. But very fun to ride the Ramonacoaster. Heather is doing God’s work in this episode as I would have lost my shit with all these lunatics several episodes back. She is an accomplished business woman operating on a global level. Ramonster pinot grigio retails for 6.99 at Target stores nationwide. So there’s that. Carol is too cool for school as per the usual. But I enjoy her. She’s smart.
I agree with you about Sonja being so gross about her period. No class. She is waaaaay too old to not know how to deal with her time of the month. Come on!
As cray cray as Ramoaner is, the woman does know how to make a buck. Her various businesses are every bit as successful as Heather’s girdles. In fact, dollar for dollar, I bet Ramona makes more money. Heather, however, does seem about 1000% saner, so she still wins.
Ugh. George. GROSS.
Amen to that. His teeth are blinding me and his behavior is gross. A complete turn-off no matter how much money he has.
I loved it when Carole suggested that she wanted to order pizza for the ladies’ lunch, like that twig has ever eaten a piece of pizza (or food even!) in her life.
Concerning Ramona’s cover shots. One looks like Meg or Jennifer Tilly and the other looks just like Sonja..there is no Ramona there….creepy.
Watching this show with my husband shaking his head the entire time was pretty funny too, I love love these bitches.
Although I could go on for days about Ramona, Sonja, Lu etc as far as ego/crazy goes…..most of that has been covered.
My question is about Aveva and her many phobia’s. As the sister of a multi-phobic women, I get it….to a point. What I don’t understand is the Reid (sp?) as a crutch deal. My sister attended ( and still does, tho not as often anymore as she has dealt with many of her issues) intense therepy for her issues and the one mainstay of dealing with all the different phobia’s was – only you can deal with you. Of course, the support of family and friends is essential but Aveva’s whole “Reid is my best friend” “I can’t do it if Reid is not there with me” “I can only fly with Reid” on and on and ON seems very odd.,,,,,and not even consistant I might add.
Is Reid (or lack of Reid’s presence) another phobia? Or is there more going on here? Aviva and Reid have been together for over 5 years, not a long time if you look at her age and the fact that these phobia’s have plagued her most of her life….what did she do before Reid? Was Harry (the ex) the crutch before that? How did she function before Reid? If she can only handle flying, traveling, breathing etc., if Reid is there, what did she before?Is this possibly rooted in a lack of trust (consider the reputation of her ex, Harry)? Is leaving Reid at home while she takes a girls trip (something any woman would love, some away time with girl friends) actually away to control him? Or is the relationship, from her side, so co-dependent that she really CAN’T be away from him for more than the time it takes to have lunch or run a few errands?
Consider her father. Now. Aviva has told us her parents had a loving, passionate love affair for 40 some odd years until her mother past away….hmmmm. So this man we see on the show that comes off as a pig imho, suddenly became this sex crazed maniac after his wife’s death, but prior to her death and throughout their long marriage was a faithful man? Seems like a stretch.
My point is, is Reid’s presence really a cure all for her myriad of phobia’s, or is this an excuse to keep him under control…or a little of both? Something just doesn’t seem to make sense to me about these phobia’s and Reid’s magical presence being Aviva’s only way to cope with them……….is it possible the real phobia is being away from Reid?
I totally agree….I think Reid is her “xanax” in her own mind. You are exactly right…what did she do before Reid? I think Aviva is a total shit stirrer and hides behind her “fears” so nobody will call her out on it…looks like in coming weeks she loses her cool though calling Ramona and Sonja white trash…I can’t wait.