Bridges and Tunnels and Underpasses

As the focus sharpens ever so slightly on the fuzzy landscape that was this week’s episode of The Real Housewives of New York City, we notice that Luann is wandering bemusedly around Sonya’s house. Apparently, she has her own key, or she simply changed to a gaseous form, slithered through the mail slot, and re-encrusted herself back into her regular old body, complete with bunching white dress and one of her daughter’s cast-off cardigans from 3rd gade. She wanders up to the boudoir where Sonya, like all old gals trying to pull off the Mrs. Manson Mingott role in The Age of Innocence, except this time with booty calls and plastic surgery, sits muumuufied in red. Her hairdresser pulls out Sonya's limpish grayish-blonde locks and studies them, piling and re-piling them on her head in ever-greater flops of hopelessness.

Being perky, or at least pretending to be perky, Luann sings, “Here Comes the Bride” and tells Sonya, “Look at you!”—which is not at all the same thing as saying, “You look beautiful.” Sonya goes into some song-and-tripped-up-dance about how all the gays of New York believe she is a Gay Icon and therefore she is going to be the Grand Marshal in the Big Gay Parade for Marriage Equality for which Alex has asked them all to skip across the Brooklyn Bridge in wedding dresses. Alex invited everyone to march, because she’s on one of the approximately 94 committees comprised of straight women whose claim to fame is that they got married that was apparently needed to get people over to the bridge on time. Apparently, Jill is on the committee as well, and Sonya is Grand Marshal. Neither Jill nor Sonya thought to mention these facts of their planned participation when they were swigging Ramona Pinot Grigio at Ramona’s Mad46 party last week. Alex invited them, and they pretended this was all some interesting news and why, that might be fun. No, much better to leap out at Alex like ghouls from under the staircase of a haunted house. Boo! Aaayaaaghhargh! Ha!

Now, when Sonya mentions that she’s suddenly and mysteriously the Grand Marshal, there’s that Mean Old Girl twinkle in her eye, because this was planned. At some point, Sonya got in on the action. Now she’s going to stick it to Alex, per Jill.

I am “light and funny and a gay icon,” Sonya tinkles.

Now, Luann doesn’t have a wedding gown because when she got married, it was a casual affair meant to keep secret the fact that the help was marrying the poor effeminate count. This was about titles we want, not about love or pomp or circumstance. It seems that Luann is planning to wear her One Nice Church Dress, but then Sonya reveals a little happy coincidence: a wedding designer that Sonya pretends to know personally very nicely sent her a bunch of gowns. Sonya has one in mind but it doesn’t fit (she says it’s because she has a big ribcage, but really, she just has a big torso), so she makes due with one of Ivana Trump’s old candlelight poly-satin taffeta cocktail dresses from 1982. This is what you call an interesting way to go. Luann wears the predictable sleeveless gown with the black bric-a-brac and Kelly swoops in bearing gifts. In fact, Sonya says, “You always come bearing gifts – cleansing kits and candles.” Kelly mentions that this particular candle is delicious, and I wonder is Sonya meant to eat it after flushing waste with a cleansing kit. Kelly is very happy and even though her spray tan makes her look sticky, so far she’s behaved fairly well.

Sonya chats a bit about the amount of sex she has, and then Alex comes in to make the moment even more awkward. Sonya and Alex cheek-kiss, while Luann stands open-mouthed and picks at a whitehead she just realized popped up around her mouth. Alex thanks everyone for donning wedding dresses and Sonya goes right into this is her big day. There is some competition, obviously, brewing about what a big day this is for Sonya and the work that Alex seems to believe she’s invested. Alex congratulates Sonya for getting to be grand marshal, but Sonya acknowledges in no way that Alex had anything to do with the day.

So you know that Sonya is gearing up for a fight. They primp and get dressed and with all of the wedding finery cascading through the air, nobody thought, oh, a bra might be a great idea.


There was a wedding last week, and Alex and Jill got into a fight there while Ramona rubbed her hands in glee. Ramona is so mad at Jill she can barely stomach her, but it’s much easier to sic her Alex on her than it is to actually tell Jill exactly what she thinks. Alex is so desperate to talk through what happened at the wedding, which was that she kept asking Jill over and over again why Jill wasn’t going to the march. When Jill tap danced around the issue, Alex got madder and madder, and ended up getting a little too aggressive. Jill, however, lost her advantage with snotty comments about Alex mingling out of her social depth, which just made her look like an Ugly Stepsister all over again.

Alex explains her well-developed argument about why the Housewives should wear wedding dresses, while Luann took advantage of the anonymity of the Talking Head Moment to say that Alex sounded like an annoying infomercial. Sonya kept discussing about how this was her big day, and she really made herself sound like a horse’s ass. It was bizarre.

They get to the march and find Alex’ husband, Simon, who was wearing a ghastly sequined jacket. You just know that in a past life, Simon was something like a ringleader for a circus or a court jester or something, because he really is All about the Costumes. Simon is verklempt because he had planned a speech for the rally, but apparently Sonya zoomed in and told the march committee that if she was going to speak, she could be the only one from the show to do so. Alex asked about this, because it was a problem for her, and she asked Sonya for permission for Simon to speech. Sonya refused to countenance this idea. The other members of Jill’s Hairy Clump backed Sonya in her determination to block Simon from the moment he had planned lo these many weeks or months or perhaps even all his life.

Sonya kept saying that this was the wrong time to argue about this, but of course it was the only time. If Simon didn’t get the chance to speak then, he would lose the chance to speak. The event only lasted for that day. Once it was gone, it was gone, like the elasticity on Jill's thighs. Alex kept asking, why, why, why? Everybody screamed over Alex. Luann did agree that Sonya should have allowed everyone to speak, though she later skipped over to Jill's bandwagon, where they were, after all, serving Coronas and taquitos.

I see the flabby pickled fingers and bratwurst-laden fingerprints of Jill all over this one. Jill loves to screw up other people's plans in the background and then attack them when they express dismay or surprise. She also likes to create fraudulent identities to sell her book and bash the books of others.

Jill shows up after having said that she couldn’t because she’d be out of town 30 minutes away at a wedding. To protect her celebrity self from horrific Big Gay Crowd, Jill has hired a giant kielbasa wearing a white T-shirt that says Damage Control on it. She comes in and simpers over to Alex that she wanted to come even though it was inconvenient because she’s on the committee and even though everyone knew she’d be out of town she wants Alex to know she’s changed. Okie-dokie. And then Jill starts shrieking to everyone that Alex needs to quit picking on her, proving that the only thing that Jill has changed is the horrible outfit she was wearing the last time we saw her.

Picking on her! How old is she? Picking on her? Picking on her? It’s just strange, like listening to Sybil when the baby voice started coming out.

Sonya gets up and makes what is without a doubt the most ridiculous speech on the face of the planet and in the eons of time. She keeps talking about the fact that marriage should be equal. She talked about people not choosing to be gay and ridiculed. She talked about a lot of stuff but not about the topic of the day, which was that they wanted to make gay marriage legal. Luann and Kelly stood there looking resigned to being there in support of a ridiculous woman with the intellect of a brick.

Then we shoot to Cindy and her brother-partner-best-friend and they are yammering on and on about the wedding and how it broke Ramona’s heart to see Cindy’s brother smoking her best friend’s cigars. The best friend had passed. It made no sense. The dead guy wasn’t going to use them, and it’s good they didn’t get wasted, right? But why they were so offended by Ramona’s Ramona-gaffe also makes no sense.

Meanwhile, the marching troops had all made it over to Alex and Simon’s house in Brooklyn to drink champagne. Both Sonya and Jill state that they are going to Alex’s house because they are able to rise above all the nonsense. Alex does pull Jill aside and ask if they can speak at some later date about their problems. Alex downs champagne in giant gulps because she is so worried that a big fight will happen. Alex asks to hear Simon’s speech. Simon’s speech was not bad, but it wasn’t good. Sonya used the opportunity to make a snide remark behind Simon’s back.

Sonya then goes to her boyfriend’s art studio. She has paid him to do a portrait of her, or he is doing it to get a little publicity via the Bravo television network. Brian has seen her from every possible angle, and he shows a portrait that depicts her as an elderly woman. She wants to look 40, but of course she can’t look 40 because she’s at least 50 and perhaps even more. Sonya leaves with an order that he should make her look young; she needs Dorian Gray moments, not gray-skinned moments. Get out the magic wand, boy!

Cut to Luann and Sonya and lunch. They give each other a half-hearted once-over and proclaim themselves beautiful. They order champagne. Sonya, ironically, calls Alex “Bridezilla.” Luann never once states that perhaps Sonya should have gotten over herself and let anyone speak who wanted to. Now Sonya has re-written history and she claims that the reason her speech sucked so much was because Alex was hissing in the background. No, actually her speech sucked because she sucks at giving speeches. Standing there with a smile that might have one time been cute but now just makes one think that a crone is offering an apple while yapping in short Hitler-esque bursts does not a good speechmaker one make. Now Sonya says she feels as if it was a drive-by. Shooting, I presume.

I must point out: Sonya is the one who wanted to exclude everyone else from speaking that day. She was the one who said if it’s going to be me, then it must be only me. She knew there were other Housewives and their satellites who planned to speak. I don’t know if Sonya and Jill got together to do this as a stab at Alex or if Sonya is really such a stupid, narcissistic bitch that she really wanted to be the star of the Marriage Equality March. It could be that all that time I spent liking her last year, she was really just a stupid, mean bitch who was trying to decide which camp she’d pitch her tent in. She’s clearly chosen Jill and her Hairy Clump, and she’s behaving in a bitchy enough manner that even the gay community is disgusted with her.

Luann makes a crack about how Alex has found her voice and now needs to be quiet, adding some random blah about social ladders and implying that Alex doesn’t really belong to the landing to which she has ascended.

Ramona invited Sonya and Alex to a fundraiser for Gucci, and Alex tells Ramona about how Sonya shut her out of the Big Gay Parade. Ramona tries to sidestep the issue. Kelly wrangled an invitation to stop by the event, though apparently she couldn’t get a spot for lunch. Sonya brings Kelly, with the same glint in her eye she had when she snubbed Alex at the march. Ha-ha, we have outsmarted you, ha-ha. Ramona does not automatically think, oh, Sonya brought Kelly even though she knew I hadn't invited her, and maybe Alex is spot-on when she tells me about the tarpit that is Sonya's character.

Ramona hears that Kelly has entered the building, and she scrambles to find a place for her. Kelly only later informs her that she is not staying for dinner, and no thank you, she doesn’t wish to join them. It all smacked of a gotcha moment, which are happening too fast and too often on this show to make it interesting. Instead, it seems as if Jill, Kelly, and Sonya are sitting in the sauna vomiting up “I know! I know what will make them crazy!” scenarios to enact on the show.

Did anyone else think that Sonya looked like an owl?

Ramona asked Sonya about her behavior at the march, and Sonya came up with a lot of gibberish about respect and how Simon was a big, hulking guy and a bunch of other crap that didn’t explain what caused all the hullabaloo –which was in fact comprised of Sonya’s acting like a jackass.

Cut to the park, and Kelly and Luann are picking Cindy’s brains over gallon jugs of Ovaltine or perhaps cleansing tonics. They talk about hair, and Luann says that Kelly’s eyebrows could kill someone with their stabbiness.

Now back to Sonya’s, full circle as it were, and it is the big unveiling. Alex goes to the house, and Sonya, wearing one of Vicki’s cast-off dresses from Orange County, goes right in for the kill. She states that no way can she live without clearing the air, and so far as she is concerned, the air stinks because Alex and Simon, that’s his name, right?, ruined her Big Day When She Got to Be Grand Marshal. Alex says, well, I wasn’t trying to ruin anything, but my husband planned to speak, wanted to speak, bought a rainbow-sequin jacket for the occasion, and then we were told that you explicitly forbade him to speak but the planners added that if you said it was okay, he could speak. So, as time was of the essence, we approached you then, and you refused, and we were surprised, and we thought and hoped that we could appeal to your sense of reason, but apparently you had packed that up in mothballs and sent it over to a warehouse Jill rents for ill-conceived fabrics that she donates to battered women’s shelters in the guise of they’ll be glad to have it.

Every time Alex tries to express her opinion, Sonya gets louder and louder and then she begins accusing Alex of being rude. Alex is merely trying to explain a viewpoint that is in complete opposition to Sonya’s viewpoint. Sonya can’t stand to be confronted with a viewpoint that does not harmonize with hers perfectly, so she gets louder and louder. Alex keeps saying that Sonya should check the website! Then Sonya throws in the manners card. Because that’s what former waitresses who pretend to be Gay Incons do when confronted with an argument they know they can’t win: they screech manners, manners, manners despite the fact that a mannerly person would never comment on a guest’s manners, not ever, not ever, not ever. Never, in fact. Is that in Luann’s manners book? Disagree with someone and rather than putting it away until a safer time, just screech “manners” and that gives you the highest ground. In other words, you probably are correct in your assessment of my behavior at the Marriage Equality march, but MANNERS!!! SO I WIN.

For the record, both of them had bad manners, but as Sonya brought up the whole thing, she should have been willing to hear Alex out. We have a difference of opinion, but please let’s move forward is what she could have said. Alex should have let it go, too, but Alex had more at stake, as she was the one who got kicked off the program.

Finally, in the Show of Worst Manners Ever, Sonya shrilly orders Alex out of her house and yells, “Everyone, everyone, she has such bad, bad manners that I am making her leave and she has bad manners so she is leaving right now.”

Alex leaves and Luann sniggers and makes fun of Alex’ dress. Let me insert here that because Luann sang that song, she never gets to be the arbiter of taste. She tossed that baseball out and it’s in play now, never to come back to Luann's leathery palms of judgment. Sonya gives Luann and Cindy a revised version of the events and Luann agrees with her, darling, she doesn’t get it. Sonya screams that she was gracious, dammit! Hell, I was freaking gracious! Luann weighs in on it all despite the fact that she has only Sonya's made-up version of events. Even Cindy who did not appear to have a dog in that fight also agrees with Sonya, and all of this without seeing the actual frackas.

Alex calls her husband and says she is on her way home and please get her some champagne and make it cold.

Sonya stands in her Pebbles Flintstone outfit and whines on and on about how she hopes Brian has depicted her in this photo as young and gorgeous, which is to say, not at all realistically. The picture of Sonya is unveiled and it is sad and splay-legged and pathetic. She is sitting in a coal mine with her legs far, far apart. It’s either a very quick job or he’s a not very talented artist. She takes some bows and blames Alex again for her crappy speaking skills.

After the show, Andy Cohen points out that everyone in the world hates Sonya for making the day about her, but Sonya says that the day was only about her within her own group. She flapjaws for a while about Alex and Simon shouting, but really Andy isn’t buying it. David Arquette doesn’t mind Alex’ dress. David Arquette doesn’t mind the painting of Sonya. Sonya hedge-haws around whether she is still dating the artist.

The poll this week is are you on Alex’ side or Sonya’s side? Sonya looks a little grim around the jowls when the question gets asked. Andy smacks Sonya a bit and Sonya makes excuses about how Bravo edited her to make her look bad. She does some more historical rewrites about the way all the events leading up to the march played out, says that she’s a gay icon because she used to live with some gay roommates, and sometimes she let them dress her.

Alex wins the poll by a landslide, 79 percent to 21 percent, and Sonya disses everyone who voted against her by saying they just didn’t know the backstory without once accepting the fact that she is a jackhole. She also looks a little wary about the fact that Alex is on Andy’s show next week.

She should be!