Back in Yak - RHNY

I think it’s purely brilliant that this season of The Real Housewives of New York City started at a place called Mad46, since all of them seem wild mad and at least 46 years of age. The shameless plug for Ramona-brand wine with plain white labels made me think two things: first of all, that Ramona had been to one of those crap vineyards where they let you have a case of wine with your name on it but no art for the label, and second, that Ramona thought the whole drinky-drinky thing was cute rather than just pitiful. Turtle-time is just not one of those things that ever need to be repeated.


Jill walks into the party just as loud and nasal as usual, but, unlike last year when she appeared almost svelte, she has packed back on the pounds she lost in an effort to be not-the-dumpy-one and perhaps even the thin one in the wake of Bethenny’s pregnancy. The blue dress she wore to Ramona’s Mad46 party, with the huge taffeta Hot Wheels track wrapped over one shoulder, was sadly reminiscent of a wrinkled sausage filled with Smurf meat. All one could think at this moment was that Jill’s stylist was too frightened to tell her that perhaps a size 12 would be more appropriate than a size 4. It doesn’t matter for Jill; her elderly husband still deludes himself with the notion that he has himself a little trophy, a point-of-view one can only attribute to Jill’s keeping him locked in a room full of cigars and discontinued fabrics during moments when the RHNY show is not filming.

There was an awkward moment when Jill and her husband walked into the crowd where Alex was standing. Jill made no move to apologize for her earlier crap behavior. Instead, she worked very hard to nudge Alex out of the conversation until everyone had their backs to the newly self-proclaimed Brooklyn Blondeshell. This ticks Alex off mightily, as it would anyone, and Alex doesn’t take it lying down. Instead, she asks everyone to attend a highly important walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to support gay marriage rights. Everyone should wear their wedding dresses, which people keep snarking about. I have to say that I thought right away, “Good one, Alex! There’s not a broad there who can fit into her wedding dress!” Also, the wedding dress idea does make some good photo opportunities and would allow people to amortize the cost of the frock that may or may not have contributed to a lifetime of happily ever after. I am not quite certain what Jill was honking about when she kept saying, “Cap n gown, cap n gown,” unless she’s hoping to amortize the cost of her daughter’s cap and gown from high school graduation.

Meanwhile, Simon is spelling out the niceties of Australian Berlitz to Jill’s deer-in-the-headlights husband Bobby, teaching him such bon mots as the much-repeated-in-the-1990s “G’day, mate.” This is to help the Zarins navigate the foreign maze that is the Land Down Under, where apparently they will travel on their Big Stupid Seasonal Trip Paid for by Bravo.

Did anyone notice that Jill apparently has stopped wearing lipstick and instead looks like a big uncooked hot dog? Weiner, I think they’re called. When Jill sees Alex coming into the new crowd she’s formed over by the liquor table, she takes a big ol’ swig of rum and Coke and starts tootling about running around the square nekked.

In the next scene, scary Kelly comes into Jill’s bedroom and plops herself on the bed squeaking about how she can’t believe Jill is going to Australia. Now, I don’t know what the amazing part of going to Australia is: the fact that Kelly once got mauled by a koala, the fact that people might think Jill is a feral cat, or the fact that Australian-U.S. relations have been going fairly nicely since early days, and Jill’s arrival with her entourage and her incessant demands for attention could blow the whole thing out of the water. In her talking-head moment, Jill compresses her lips into a very thin bacterial line and insists that even though Kelly had a “rough time” last year, meaning that she lost her mind and her marbles, she, Jill, is a true friend who would never, ever turn her back on someone she called a friend. Which translates roughly into, “Bethenny, you freakin’ bitch, why did you not invite me on your show so we could have a friendly trough of ale and I could show you how cute I also look in a figure skating dress while showing you all my moves from when I was nine years old and a hugely successful ice skater?”

Jill, by the way, is wearing a thick spray tan and a gray T-shirt covered by one of her dog’s hoodies from PetSmart. She is bringing a buttload of luggage, including a giant empty garment bag on wheels with which she will bring home all of her purchases from Down Under. Kelly is puzzled, and in one sentence writes off Australia as a shopping haven. I must ask, does Kelly not remember Koala Blue and the gift shop at Outback Steakhouse, which offers many fine T-shirts as well as sweatshirts? And probably hoodies as well, which we know Jill likes? And maybe the fact that Australia is actually a pretty cool country not necessarily inhabited by millions of Crocodile Dundees walking around showing off their big knives?

Jill brings up the uncomfortable fact that Kelly was not at Ramona’s Mad46 cocktail party. Was she invited? Yes, Kelly was invited, but she doesn’t feel like going to the cocktail party of someone who called her crazy. Not because she has any objections to being called crazy, but because she doesn’t need to be diagnosed.

Umm…yes. You need to be diagnosed. And get on medication. And then perhaps people won’t feel the need to call you crazy.

But in all this time of thinking about that time that Ramona called her crazy, Kelly has thought of a little witty. Her witty is that if Ramona speaks to you, you’ve been Ramona’d. “It’s a verb,’ she says, pointing out that while she believes her remark was witty, it might not make sense to anyone who doesn’t live in Kelly’s special rainbows and Skittles world. So she has a helpful translation at the ready, complete with correct part of speech for those who might wish to use it in a sentence. Kelly is not crazy, she reiterates. She is, however, “put in precarious positions a lot with these women.” And yet, she’s still on the show. These women drove her to behave like a madwoman, a madwoman I repeat, and she still is going to be on the show because in the long run, it really is more important that Kelly be on TV than that Kelly is not put in precarious positions.

Kelly does say that Alex wants Jill to acknowledge her, which looks as if Kelly is trying to smooth the waters. Good for you, Kelly. You win a bonus point. It’s actually not quite right, however; Alex actually wants Jill to acknowledge her wrongdoings. But then Jill starts yammering away about how she’s always been a cheerleader for Alex, which is such a pile of crap that I am super-glad it’s not yet sandal season. Jill does NOT cheerlead for Alex; she talks about how Alex is out of her social depth. As if Jill herself would truly be acknowledged by anybody who was anybody for her social status. It’s laughable. Jill married a guy with some money, and all of a sudden pretends that she’s a member of the Social Register (no, she actually is not, because it is sitting here under my Dr. Pepper for reference).

Jill goes into a little song, one she’s rehearsed often and again, called, “I am so nice.” She is so nice, she tried to share her friends with Alex; she can’t help but be nice because she is just so nice. This is somewhat like listening to Cruella da Ville sing about how she loves puppies without the whole backstory about how she loves puppies as a coat. Even Kelly is not buying it, but she knows that if she talks back, she gets the Jill Zarin Treatment, complete with complimentary backstabbing and name-calling. So instead Kelly just sits there looking prim and mildly sad and disappointed that Jill couldn’t just say, “Sure thing, honey, if it gives you one more friend in your court I will be so happy to clear the air about all of this for you.” No, Jill doesn’t say this because the fact is that Jill wants to believe her own press. And Jill’s own press tells her that she is a Disney princess with a fabric store.

“I am nice! I am nice!”

That fight with Bethenny, Jill adds, “took years from her life” and she’s never gonna let this happen to herself again. The fact that Jill herself started the fight, fueled it, kept it going, and only retreated when she realized that everyone in the television-watching world hated her guts was not mentioned. No, Jill made herself a victim, without noticing once that all of her wounds are self-inflicted and everyone still hates, hates, hates Jill Zarin. Now she’s having a déjà vu with Alex, but really, in Jill’s mind, this is about Bethenny. In Jill’s mind – that sad, cramped little place filled with old swatches and remnants of spray tan and years of absorbed eyeliner – Bethenny used Jill to fill a void until Bethenny built her own family, got her own husband, and engineered a successful business.

What I think is that Bethenny loved Jill but then she got busy and started winning accolades and got a boyfriend, and it made Jill very, very jealous. Bethenny was moving forward and still had room for Jill, but Jill did not want to share her conquest with tawdry things like success, happiness, and fame. Jill is one of those people who like to swoop down from heights and tell people how grand and glorious their lives could be if only they were fabulous enough to be Jill. And when Jill sees someone getting lots of magazine covers and top-selling books and a handsome fiancé and money and her own show, she says, why, I need to have that, too. Of course I should have that, too. So what Jill then does is make up fake names on Amazon and promote her own book and write terrible things about other people’s books and have a skating party so that people on Skating with the Stars will see how talented she is, and if she falls on her face after taking a single step, well, then screw Bethenny. Screw Bethenny to hell.

When Bethenny comes running to see why Jill is mad, Jill teams up with the equally deplorable Countless Luann to be ultra-mean and talks, talks, talks about how bad Bethenny is. Yes, yes, there was that whole thing where Bethenny did not come running to Jill’s side while Bobby was having surgery, but that was the day Jill was at a party that Bethenny wasn’t invited to, anyway. So Bethenny, realizing that Jill is a truly terrible person, opted to cut ties and move on. This is the healthy approach; this is the right approach. But Jill doesn’t get it.

Kelly listens to the mantra of how Jill feels betrayed, and she says, “You got dumped.”

Ramona, for once with no Pinot Grigio coursing through her veins, says that Jill did all of this to herself, and coins the line that Jill had “jill-ousy.” Perhaps this was not a new phrase, but it was the first time I heard it, or at least the first time I remember hearing it. I really like it. It’s smack-on accurate, and the more Jill talks, the more precise it becomes.

Of course, now we know that the reason this scene is in Jill’s bedroom is so that we can see how deeply emotional this heart-to-heart is meant to be. Jill says that she believed that she and Bethenny had the kind of friendship where they fight and make up. But this wasn’t an “I told you I bought a blue dress so why did you show up with a blue dress?” kind of fight. This wasn’t a “You forgot that I asked you to rescue me from Andy Cohen if he monopolized my attention at the cocktail party” tiff. No, this was a Jill Is Going to Try to Demolish Bethenny So That Jill Can Have the Spoils and Teach Bethenny a Lesson about Why She Shouldn’t Try to Be Better Than Jill Zarin issue. For Jill’s information, real friends don’t try to annihilate other people and be mean to them with gangs of petty women in too-short skirts and hooker shoes and fake accents that sound like 1930s elocution lessons gone bad. No, real friends sit back when a friend is busy and wait for them calmly and rationally to have a minute or two in their lives so that everyone can enjoy everyone else’s company. Friendship is not a contest, Jill.

And so she loses.

Back in Brooklyn, dogs dress horribly and Alex needs to update her window boxes. Simon is working in the slate office at the bottom of McCord’s Brooklyn house. Alex is also working here. She is going to become a model and she expects this to be a money-making enterprise. I actually have no problem with Alex being a model. If someone wants to pay her, fine. If she likes what she sees in the mirror, fine. I also like what I see in the mirror, but generally I am considering the amazing new tile in my bathroom, which really shines in the very wonderful new mirrors. I think it’s good, though, for women to appreciate themselves; this whole embracing oneself notion is what feminists have begged us to do for years and years, though maybe not by modeling. But whatever. Be a model. It will make Jill mad, and really, isn’t that as good a reason as any? If Alex could model skating costumes or SkinnyGirl T-shirts, it will send Jill completely over the edge.

Show you the money. Now you’re finally responsible for your own income, and those window-boxes need work.

Kelly gets edited in saying that being a model means that you’re photogenic, not pretty. Is this from when Kelly was introduced to the show as a second-season replacement? Because this sounds like a familiar line from Kelly, who was also a model and is not pretty in the sense of being pretty. Okay. Whatever. If she said it in relation to Alex trying to be a model, it was a bitchy thing to say. If she said it to describe modeling in general, it was an accurate thing to say. Who knows? Kelly has that bonus point from earlier, so I am going to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Next, they end up in some art thing and Sonya is wearing a black diaper, while some lady named Cindy is wearing Joan Jett’s old bridesmaid dress. Cindy is apparently the New One, the one meant to fill part of the massive Bethenny void. Like Bethenny, Cindy is a businesswoman. Like Bethenny’s, Cindy’s business is about making women feel good about themselves. Unlike Bethenny, who focuses on the Whole Woman, Cindy focuses on a very small, private part. She removes the hair and replaces it with Bedazzlement. Which all of the Housewives could use, because they wear really short skirts.

Now, the thing I notice about men is that they really don’t care about whether an area is sparkly. Granted, you don’t want fringe hanging out down below, but ewwwww. The brother is the business partner. Because people want their brothers to think about how bits can be more attractive with less hair and more rhinestones. Cindy has two really cute kids via IVF and she works out to lose the baby weight. She acts like a minor celebrity.

It was a terrible introduction.

Jill comes in and weighs in on the artist’s pedigree and states that the children could not have come from the belly of Cindy because Cindy is, frankly, old. Jill is followed by Alex and Simon, as well as a rude comment from Kelly about them coming to the opening of an envelope, so an art gallery is of course a no-brainer. The comment was mildly funny but has been done before, so she loses half a point. I am trying to be gentle, so I will allow her to keep that half-point. Simon, as usual, is dressed ridiculously. It’s not a pose, I think, or rampant queensmanship, so much as bad taste similar to that of Doc Brown in the second Back to the Future movie. Or was that the third? It’s hard to tell with all of those commercials on TBS.

Luann and Kelly come in. Ramona is there. The artist takes some photos of Jill, Sonya, and Ramona, conspicuously leaving Alex out of the photo. Simon tries to intervene, but Alex shakes her head, just barely perceptibly. Simon leaps out of the frame while Alex downs a giant glass of champagne. It was very rude of the artist-guy, and the artist-guy is obviously a social nitwit. Then he announces that the art project they will all work on together involves taking off their shoes and foot-painting. Goofiness ensues, with complaints about the cost of shoes and people holding up their dress hems, which are a good four feet away from the paint – because the skirts, once again, are way too short. Mutton, lamb, and that whole thing.

Afterwards, everyone is trying to get the paint off their feet, and Simon is helping. Jill is demented with jealousy-jillousy about Cindy having babies, and she wants to know who the doctor is who conceived what Jill obviously thinks is a weird mad science thingy that results in babies. No daddy? Baby-daddy? Jill knows that, as the person who just met Cindy, she has the complete right to ask very personal questions about the daddy. In fact, Jill knows there is no daddy, but like Jill in all cases, this is a chance to pretend to stand on high moral ground while at the same time not-so-subtly putting someone down for the choices they make in their own lives. Of course, if Jill had known Cindy pre-conception, Jill would have told everyone in the room that those two precious babies were All Her Idea.

Head-shot, suddenly, of Sonya. Wearing, inexplicably, a fuchsia-ish head-bow just like the black one she had at the art-foot-painty-thing. Because when Sonya saw those at the shop, she cried, “I must have one in every color!” So she does. She has one in every color. Because there is nothing as cute as an elderly lady dating lots of guys and wearing hairbows. I liked Sonya last year. I still may. The black hair bow, with the black diaper, was kind of ironic and cool. But the fuchsia bow went one step too far. So Sonya asks a tall, bald guy on a date and Luann takes that moment to announce the fact that she basically has toilet paper stuck to her foot. Way to go, wingman!

At the end of the evening, Alex is clutching a big eraser that looks somewhat like money, everybody is sizing everybody else up to see if they are worthy of air kisses, and Sonya slinks out, but without her champagne, because she doesn’t want to get arrested for drinking in public. This, see, is a funny reference to Sonya’s DUI arrest like year, and is self-deprecating and sort of entertaining. Much like Sonya.

Next, in the guise that all of these women are amazing businessgals, Ramona needs to hire an assistant. She needs her current assistant to be the strong, silent partner, but she needs her new assistant to handle all the crap work. Several young women parade through, but they are too sensitive, too boring, too quiet, not very energetic, badly dressed, and have bad skin. Ramona explains that she needs strong, insensitive, not pretty, but well put-together. In response to a suggestion that perhaps Ramona was rude to offer a girl skin care on a job interview, Ramona announces that she has a skin care line. So that makes it fine. The girl had skin, good or bad, and Ramona cares for it by telling her she really needs it. A job interview for the girl and a marketing opportunity for Ramona. This is what we in the biz call a “win-win.”

On to Orsay, a scary-looking place with a badly-painted sign. It’s a double-date with America’s favorite not-so-young sweethearts, Luann and Sonya. And their dates. Sonya has the tall, bald guy who may or may not untie the ribbon on her halter dress and Luann has one of her favorite types, a strange-featured European guy with bad clothes and ghastly hair and an outrageous AK-sent. If they have a strong chin, Luann dismisses them with a wave and a grunt. She prefers the ones who look as if they might have descended from European royalty, no chins and puffy hair and an affinity for expensive liqueurs. All the time that Luann spent in Europe, that tiny little partydom that it is, she never met Jacques before. While I was always under the impression that Europe was more than 17 Americans and 32 pretenders flitting around Cap-San-Blauberg, apparently I am wrong. Luann knows; she’s part of the hilter koloi. As for Jacques, he’s 12, but only Sonya and Luann will mention this. And so Jacques sits sullenly clutching his wine for fear the waiter will grab it out of his stubby but aristocratic paw; he’s old enough for a little vino, dammit! Sonya orders a hunk o’ steak with a ponkin’ good char, while Luann daintily and pretentiously orders the Orsay Salad, except in French, which translates to “Or-SAY SA-LOD.” The waiter, from Queens, dutifully writes down “cheeseburger.”

Sonya invited her date to hang some paintings, and he did. Luann asks him to make a studio for one of her children, and he asks to see Luann’s gardens. Which, of course, she doesn’t have if she’s taken Cindy up on her offer to give her the pubescent regions of an alopecia patient, except with sparkles. Jacques takes the opportunity to announce that he knows two things: he loves New York, and he loves Luann. If Luann would just marry him, he could stay in New York without those pesky INS agents being so inquisitive about what he’s doing in the country 25 years past the expiration of his student visa. Luann is verklempt and tries to kiss him; he is busy having a moment, however, and would she not interrupt with love and other nonsense, and plus, he’s not sure that he really wants to kiss her. But his speech is there, and he forces it on the audience: when you know where you want to be, and with who you want to be, you choose Allstate. It’s a 1960s commercial that would have made Don Draper cringe, but it’s there hanging like wisteria in the fishy fumes of Orsay and it makes Luann happy. And then Jacques serves it up for Brian, Sonya’s less soundbitey date, by announcing that Brian keeps looking at Sonya every minute. And how does Jacques know this? Why, he is looking at Brian every minute.

And so it goes.

But Sonya has a complicated life, with children, and sexy relationships on TV, and the devastation of her divorce, and sexy relationships on TV…it’s all so complicated.

Now to the Hamptons, where Ramona has a house with lotion placed conveniently on the windowsill. Because you could be admiring the view and realize that your hands are all scrapey. Ramona is inexpertly slicing a bagel, and the bagel is not in halves, and Martha Stewart should definitely have Ramona on her show to teach her to slice a bagel. If that idea comes off, by the way, I want 10 percent of her pay. Ramona pretends that the reason the bagel is all skewey is because she is so angry at Alex for not being on time. After all, Ramona has a tennis game. Rather than going off to her game and graciously allowing her guests to sleep in, Ramona throws all of her energy into showing that if only Alex had come down on time, there would have been bagels. But now that Alex is late, the bagels are all screwed up, and whose fault is that? Not Ramona’s, because the bagels are all messed up and Alex is late and Ramona has a tennis game that apparently causes her to cast off all the duties of a decent host.

“It’s my house; play by my freakin’ rules!!!”

Alex comes down with some makeup on, because after all she is trying to jump-start a modeling career, and Ramona lays into her. Ramona also has makeup on, or a lot of blood pooling in her upper eyelids, but she makes a big deal about Alex and her makeup because she does not get, after all, this whole thing about 36-year-old Alex trying to be a model.

Ramona chats a lot of chat about how much she likes Alex and the long-despised Simon, but she quickly launches into a tirade about Jill. Jill will be so surprised when she sees Alex and Ramona together at the wedding of some friend whose wedding is incidental to all the rest of the action, and Ramona can’t wait to see her face. Jill’s, not the bride’s. Meanwhile, Alex is furious that Jill is betraying all gay people everywhere by not marching in the Big Gay March for Marriage Rights in Which We All Wear Wedding Dresses. Not only is Jill not bothering to come back to the city for the march after Alex invited her, but Jill also was on the committee for the march and isn’t even trying to get back to support a cause to which she has obviously donated money so that her name could be on the program!

OMG! Holy Pinot Grigio!

Jill left Alex a message and said that she couldn’t come to the march because she was going to be out of town (30 minutes away) for a wedding (to which she thought Alex wasn’t invited).

This is fodder! Alex is delighted. She has caught Jill yet in another lie. This gives her the excuse to behave inexcusably.

And she does. Though I found Alex to be almost repulsive in her later quest to show Jill up, I understand that when you are done with someone, you are done. Anything they do appears to be a giant sin, even if pointing this out makes us look shrill and insane. So that’s exactly what Alex does.

Cut to the chapel where the lovely bride is fluffing her dress and Jill is hanging on her poor old husband for support in every sense of the word. Jill is yakking about how she can improve on Spanx, a highly popular brand of support and constriction products. Jill has regained her weight and she now wants to hone in on the very competitive market in which people try to introduce an ever-increasing level of fat suck to people who may like to eat a cannoli every once in a while. Spanx won’t do it, she whines. I must do something better so that all of us who battle in the name of small size and too-short skirts can live without fear of bulging thighs and split seams. Jill is wearing a dress that looks like a topography map, while a few seconds later Ramona shows up in a Nancy Sinatra bridal gown and Alex appears, out of the same damned car, dammit, in a dress made of the little tube parts of calamari. Ramona and Alex are matching shades of blonde and cream, and Jill’s heart drops when she realizes that she is no longer the queen bee, but in fact Ramona is the queen bee, flitting and making court while Jill can only complain that her support garments are showing and blowing and not working particularly well.

Jill is so mad that she didn’t know that Alex was coming, and then she tells Alex, in the guise of knowing all, that of course she knew Alex was coming. Alex attacks her. Why aren’t you coming to the march? Jill lent her name, but not her support. There’s some ugly cigar story that Ramona tells with some other guy right behind her and Cindy gets really mad. It’s all bizarre. There is a moment where everybody breaks out and hyperventilates. Ramona doesn’t care if people disapprove of gay life as long as you give them choice. Jill vents to random leathery people about why she can’t go and live up to the activities of the causes she has pledged to support. She calls Alex a bitch and talks about how the party is far beyond the social reach of Alex. Ha-ha, who is the superior one now? Jill is vile and a climber and revolting, and these comments cement that fact. No one will invite Jill to be in the Social Register because not only is she not from the right stock, but she is also a reaching bitch with no manners. One of the sad leathery hangers-on adds tentatively that she herself is very old-fashioned, but she does venture to wonder why are Alex and Ramona wearing cream? Jill is delighted to have this new idea, and she pounces on it gladly like a ball of girl yarn from Cindy’s Amazing Bits Shop. It’s disrespectful to the bride, way more than having some auld bitch corral some of the guests and get them to snark on other guests. Except, no – it’s not.

Both actions are equally disrespectful.

The crux of the issue is that Alex is going back to New York to march later that day, while Jill is staying in the Hamptons (beach) to have fun. This makes Jill anxious that people will realize that she is only a check-writer and not a serious cause-supporter. Jill hisses that she has changed and will always be nice and kind. Unless, of course, she finds herself with two hangers-on under a balcony who give temporary credence to every chunk of word-vomit she spews.

Ramona comes over to speak to Jill and her hangers-on, and they talk about nonsense until Alex can’t stop her own eruption of word-lava. She wants people to know that Jill is not really the queen of accountability, and honey – we all know this. Jill is only the queen of Bobby’s accounts ability. Trying to lighten the TLC-esque heaviness of the moment, Ramona sticks her finger in the wedding cake. The bride, who has not cut the cake, loses seven years of fertility, but Ramona assiduously licks her finger and dumps the remaining icing back onto the cake meant to serve the masses.

AFTER THE SHOW:

Jill and Ramona on the same side of the couch at Andy’s 100th show, and Ramona looks wholly appropriate for mutton dressed as lamb while Jill looks like a two-bit hooker in a Halloween costume she found in her mother’s basement when her mother lost her house to Buffalo Bill. The hair that didn’t work for Madonna in the 1980s doesn’t work for the sallow and elderly Jill Zarin, especially because Jill is also wearing a cheap-looking stripper suit and toting a drugged dog clad in a kimono who was meant to represent a million displaced Japanese. It sounds like an Oscar Wilde moment that even Oscar Wilde would not write about. Andy, certainly, had no clue what to do.

There is a drinking game with the words “Pinot Grigio” as the impetus to swig. There is a question about who is Team Jill or Team Ramona, and Jill goes nuts. She knows how this is going to turn out, and there’s nothing Jill hates as much as a discernible measurement. Tina Fey has appointed Jill the queen bee and Ramona the banker, but Tina is pregnant and didn’t include any information about how the queen bee can be dethroned. Jill says that she herself looks the same as always, but the fact is that Jill is just a carefully made up old wan. There is infighting over who made the bride cry, and I have to say that Jill comes up the loser because she simply can’t cop to the truth.

She has never, she claims, seen Bethenny’s show. No. I can’t believe it. I feel certain, 100 percent certain, that Jill sits with a bottle of any other wine besides Ramona Pinot Grigio and watches the show intently while yelling at Bobby, “Why? Why? Why can’t I have my own show? Why can’t people like me like they like Bethenny? What frickin’ good are you if you can’t give me this one little thing?” So there she sits, in her ill-fitting fake mid-century modern apartment designed by a mere walker, angry and bitter over her bad choices and wondering why people don’t congratulate her on her taste, never wondering if perhaps she has none.

Ramona makes another politically incorrect statement about gays, but she fixes it all by also advocating bestiality. Then there is a counting of Jill’s shameless plugging of her book, and Jill wins by default because Ramona refuses to play. Jill is able to identify random screaming as well as viewers’ wishes to drug her. Jill plugs her Snooki, slut-inspired look by talking about her new shapewear line, because, after all, who wouldn’t want to be shaped like the highly middle-aged Jill Zarin.

Hiccup Girl? Yawn. Fame going to your head messes one up but Ramona wins over Team Jill, yet Jill still can’t deal.

Real Housewives of New York: Gummy Bears and Tequila Shots Needed

The Real Housewives of New York marathon reunion special closed last night with a (lackluster bang). Bethenny was snarky, Sonya was real, LuAnn was fakey-gracious, Alex was taking no prisoners, Ramona was aggressive but not in a mean crappy way, Jill was a self-imagined victim and Kelly was re-writing history faster than several governments after World War II.

The gist of the show was that Kelly is pretending to believe that she was bullied, Jill is pretending to believe that everyone was mean to her, LuAnn is the New Barry White/Madonna/Fergie, and Bethenny is just over it all - enough so that she can afford to be the bigger person in areas that she might normally get ino the fray.

Blow-by-blow: Kelly, who had stomped off the stage in Hour 2, stomped back amid discussion about how she had been sent back to New York from the island with a producer. She heard this and skittered back to the couch so that no real facts about her exodus could be released and started back on her systematic bullying mantra. Her attitude was belligerent - she insinuated that Ramona had not been grateful enough that Kelly had put on her glasses to play photog, she again insisted that Bethenny wasn't a cook ("the chef was cooking, not Bethenny," she says), she again insisted that people must be jealous of her. She also came up with one good, obviously pre-scripted-by-her-media-consultant line about Pinot Grigio being Ramona's blood type. I know it's not a new line, but had I believed that Kelly had actually come up with it at that point in time, I would have had to toss out a kudo. Jill wanted people to know what a good line it was, so she said, "That was a good line," which makes me kinda think Jill fed it to her.

When Sonya tried to tell Kelly that Kelly had, in fact, been aggressive, Kelly accused Sonya of having been too drunk to accurately assess the situation. It was a really low blow, especially because Kelly was certainly throwing back her own shots. And even if Kelly had not been throwing back her own shots, it was a really rude thing to say. "You totally misjudged the situation because you're such a boozaholic."

Nobody could get through to Kelly, so they kind of left it behind. Bethenny's words were, "This isn't even fun."

I have to ask what the heck is Kelly wearing on her hand? Had she taken up falconing and accidentally shoved the poor bird up her cuff? Another PETA moment: I wear fur, I don't like animals to be abused, I have some dead ANIMAL up my sleeve.

Then they moved to the Jill/Island fiasco. I believe there's a lot that Jill is taking for granted in this situation. She has no desire to understand that the hwives were completely terrified of the Kelly situation - that for three days or whatever they'd been on edge, waiting for the next hailstorm of rage and craziness and the next and the next, and then when they got right to the toes-over side of the cliff and Sonya said, wait, there is something really, really wrong here and they were actually afraid that she'd become violent the entire night and they were afraid Kelly would have some sort of complete psychotic break that would be difficult or impossible to come back from and that she'd just left and they were finally able to breathe...

Yeah. Like that.

So to have Jill come in, pretending everything was hunky-dory and life was gummy bears and satchels of gold was just like the last drop of water on the head that puts a torture victim over the edge during water the old Chinese water torture. One drop too far.

I also don't understand why Jill hasn't edited her reasons for going to the island on the first place. "I wanted to talk to Bethenny before the holidays." First, talk about your ambush (remember, she said she felt ambushed when Bethenny showed up at Ramona's apartment to speak to her)! Second, what were the other ladies? Chopped liver? Basically, she wanted to be sure that in her holiday letter to her friends, she could write, "And after a tumultuous year, Bethenny and I have renewed our friendship and we are looking forward to pursuing additional fame and success as BFFs next year."

The problems with what Jill did have been discussed to death (by me as well as everyone else), but now with the finality of seeing exactly how Jill looks at it after months of self-examination, her actions become an even stranger attempt to cull attention and affection. She knew that Kelly had been in crisis, she knew there was drama, she had spoken to Ramona only the night before. So it was, and can only be defined as, TOTAL AMBUSH. There is no such thing as a happy surprise if not everyone in the room is going to like you being there.

Jill also said something that sounded like BS to me. This idea that she thought Kelly was going to be there, on the island, and the idea that she saw Kelly at the airport, didn't jive. If she saw Kelly at the airport, it would go without saying that Kelly was NOT going to be at Ramona's house. Don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out, and Jill also was trying to cover up the fact that she had seen Kelly at the airport. I think her consultants (who were off-camera) motioned to her and said, "don't lie."

A kind person would have called in advance - or just during the phone call of the previous evening - and said, "It sounds like things are a little anxious - I had been planning to stop by for lunch with my husband and a camera crew, but is this not a good time?"

Actually, I guess the camera crew was already there. I don't know if Jill had her own guy as well as the team already at the island house.

Jill and her four media consultants did a good job prepping Jill on pat, platitudinous apologies delivered in a flat, needs-an-acting-coach spurt. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but let's talk more about why I am sorry and by the way, Bethenny did you get my flowers and you look beautiful, by the way.

With the Sonya line that they "threw a friend out today," Jill said, "I got that message loud and clear." There was no protest, which annoyed her. She wanted to them to say, No, we wanted you, it was just situational.

But how about how mad Ramona was? Flouncing in front of Jill's face, so mad. And Jill throwing back, "and thanks for offering me and Bobby a glass of water." And then Ramona got up and just did the whole giant charismatic preacher act. It was a riot - an undignified riot.

The only person who Jill refused to argue with was Bethenny.

So, then Jill feels on the hot seat. Ramona isn't letting her get away with anything, and she can't argue with Bethenny because she wants everyone to think there's a chance of them making up. She doesn't know what to do with Sonya, and she also knows that Sonya is popular. So she doesn't dare tick the fans off by picking on her. So what does she do? She goes right back to her Regular Punching Bag, Alex.

"I think a lot of this was because of Alex," she said, or something like this. Alex gave short shrift to this line of reasoning, and Jill, who really had nothing concrete to say, backed right down. Alex doesn't care what Jill thinks, she's not going to be her doormat, and she's not going to let Jill paint her as a troublemaker. It's just like Jill not to say something like, "Oh, are you OK?" to Alex.

LuAnn was actually more likable in this episode than she has been all season. I am sure she took into account the fact that she got involved in too many dramas, because she kept saying that she doesn't get involved in too many dramas. I was happy to see the genuine emotion in her discussion about her divorce, and I am glad that your ex-husband doesn't actually hate-hate Jewish people (that was a hard question to sidestep, and it was classy of you not to say, "yes, well, he does" in much the way that Irish used to hate Italians because they thought they were one step up). You got your apologies from Ramona and Bethenny without doing that you have bad manners, darling act, and as a result, they were sincere apologies. Way to not dig in with the manners.

Kelly and her contradictions are disturbing, but Kelly is generally disturbing. Nothing new here. What was new was how Jill couldn't pass up the chance to yell "spread eagle" at Alex in an attempt to shame her about photos that were unearthed some time ago. See how much classier I am than Alex? Love me, love me, love me!

SPREAD EAGLE! SPREAD EAGLE! SPREAD EAGLE!

Totally an unlovable thing to say, and so disappointing. And so, so, so vulgar. Even though everyone is rooting for Jill to have learned something that she can take into the rest of her life to make herself a better, more admirable person, her rage at Alex means no one can get over it. It's Jill, she always needs an enemy, and that's the way it is. It's no holds barred for Jill's enemies, and Jill always crosses the line. And the fans definitely draw the line and don't like to see their boundaries crossed.

At the end, Andy asked all the hwives if they would come back, and nobody closed the door, really, except Bethenny, who really doesn't need it. Of course, she will see how things go with her show (I actually liked the second episode better, now that we are getting to know some things about some of her co-reality-stars). The one who did a kind of weird manipulative thing was Jill, who wants to be cajoled and begged to come back. She just doesn't know - it was the hardest thing of her life.

Lemme tell you - not harder than sitting home having nobody pay attention. She dumped Alex in the grease, and said probably she would not come back, because of Alex. In other words, to get me, you'd have to get rid of Alex. Which would be a stupid mistake. I don't think Alex hates Jill, but Jill saying that made me hate Jill. I was just repulsed. It completely erased any doubt I had about who Jill Zarin is.

The much-discussed hug at the end: no big deal. Bethenny didn't bother to get up, so the movement forward was all on the part of Jill. Bethenny didn't want it, she didn't need it, but her life is good and she wasn't going to be rude and say no, you freak, don't hug me. She just doesn't care. While Jill said, I'm sorry, I miss you, that's not bullshit, I really miss you, Bethenny just said over and over, I know. Not, me too, and it will be fine. Just I know.


Can't wait to see what's in the leftover clips on the floor episode next week.

The Finale of RHONY - Jacques and Jill, PLus Jill's Weird Popeye the Sailor-man Life Mantra

The major thing I took away from last night's episode of The Real Housewives of New York is that I really, really, really dislike Jill Zarin. Did I mention how much I dislike Jill Zarin? By the way, I really dislike Jill Zarin.

Everyone else on the show - Kelly included - seemed to be trying to put their best feet forward.

Jill believed she was also being a grand and gracious lady. However, the thing that will always come to my mind when I think of Jill Zarin and how much I dislike her is that when Alex tried to go say something to Jill at Ramona's Wedding II (because Alex is an honestly good person who blew her stack at Jill for a litany of well-deserved reasons, but Alex is also a decent person who would rather eat a little crow and do the right thing than ignore the fact that she hurt someone - even someone who deserved it as much as Jill), Jill put her hands up and rudely tottered away in her too-tight, too-short dress and too-tight shoes.

I have to say that the gilding has rubbed off this lily. First season, Jill was a tubby little Jewish housewife, the younger and petted spouse of a guy with some money and a business, and she seemed to enjoy the nice things that were in her life but not rely on them as props. She shopped, she bought often bad dresses and occasionally good dresses, she made much of her daughter and tried to embrace people when they were feeling sad or beaten.

Now, of course, Jill's true colors are out and anyone who is sad or beaten is fair game for Jill and her posse of followers, because in Jill's mind she is so important that anyone feeling beaten or sad should feel triply so, because Jill agrees with all the reasons it is so.

Over the last two seasons, Jill has worked overtime to try to reinvent herself as a true socialite (rather than just an occasional party-attender and eat-outer) and style-setter. Two problems here: Jill doesn't have the selflessness to do non-self-aggrandizing charity, and she doesn't have particularly good taste. As evidence on the taste part, I point out her circus of an apartment - the worst-ever issue of Traditional Home. Too, too much - no editing eye, no skill at creating (or approving, since I think it was her dog-walker/pal/vague colleague who did the actual design) flow for the eye or little jewels for the eye to light upon in its journey around the room.

Jill also lost a lot of weight and got her arms toned, had her hair done and learned to sit up straight as well. Of course, when you read about how Jill lost weight, she loses points. She ordered a big plate of food, ate half of it, and then spilled her glass of beverage all over the remainder of the food. The waiters and their difficulty in bringing her sloshing plate back to the kitchen be damned! The idea of ordering a half-portion wrapped for later or donating food to people who would be glad to eat it even with her Nehi Orange spilled over the top...

There was some surgery - reduction, maybe? And something in the face - or just some good old-fashioned Botox. One of my favorite moments from the season remains the time that Alex was chairing her Brooklyn fashion party and asked Ramona, Kelly and Luann to walk the runway - but NOT JILL.

Jill said something along the lines, "Oh, what good choices. Kelly and Luann were models, although of course, I am a size 0 (or 2, I can't remember the exact size) and Luann is certainly not that small a size anymore." In other words: pick me, pick me, pick me!

Of course, she didn't get picked, and for this, more than anything else, Jill cannot forgive Alex. Oh, the outburst was uncomfortable, but really, not choosing the beautiful Jill Zarin - stylesetter, tastemaker, size 0 - was the true wedgie in the whole salad of vengeance.

All that shine has lost its luster. At last night's finale, Jill looked heavy and her skin looked sallow and almost dirty (a light mist of spray tan, maybe?). Her lips looked thin, her nose looked long and her hair looked stringy and frizzy at the same time. The black outfit she wore in her talking head segments made her look wide, and the pink outfit she wore to LuAnn's CD party was a) way too young and b) way too tight. Her gut actually looked like maybe there was a life-preserver or a six-foot sub in there for emergencies. The dress she wore to Ramona's renewal ceremony was too tight and too short (yes, I know I've already said this, but here it is again) and looked, frankly, like something she borrowed out of her daughter's closet before getting her Gina Lollobrigida hairdo.

Which I believe means that Jill is a little depressed.

And who wouldn't be depressed? She lost her BFF Bethenny, Alex called her a "mean girl," Ramona kicked her off a whole island, and people are all over the world are telling her what a witch she is.

And then last night, two friends whose opinions she says she values, plus Sonja, a new voice whose opinion should be considered as well (because that's a lot of people saying the same thing) told Jill that she needs to do a lot of changing. And Jill's answer: Well, I can't change. I am who I am.

Gee, thanks, Popeye the Sailor-man.

And so Jill should get ready for a lot of solo nights on her questionable new sofa with a can of Pringles and a good Pinot grigio.

Because the things that people don't like about Jill are things they not only don't like: they are things they will no longer countenance. This includes betrayal, backstabbing, judging, criticizing, and being a good, old-fashioned General Categories Bitch.

Jill's first sad move of the evening was when she tottered into Le Cirque for her very public let's-put-things-to-rest luncheon with Bethenny. After months of skewering Bethenny to all and sundry, Jill realizes that she has backed the wrong horse and no matter how insanely jealous she is about Bethenny's amazing life successes, it would be better to walk alongside that parade float waving to the crowd than be on the sidelines having some toddler throwing popcorn or dripping Popsicles down her back. And perhaps, just perhaps, if she plays this right, Bethenny will allow Jill to ride on the parade float and Jill will take her rightful place in the heavens - perfectly poised to knock Bethenny off that high horse should the opportunity arise or even merely take over briefly if for any reason Bethenny is unable to fulfill her duties...

So Jill sets forth this not-terribly-gracious agenda: 1) asking Bethenny to forgive Jill because Jill felt so hurt by Bethenny's imagined sins and ambushed by Bethenny's attempt to reconcile and 2) understand that while Jill's behavior all along has been beyond reproach, if Bethenny took something out of context and felt hurt, Jill is being the bigger person and rising above it all, and certainly Bethenny can see that for herself, because if she doesn't, Bethenny is just not the thoughtful and considerate person Jill believes she could be if she has Jill in her life.

Despite Jill's constant lifting-of-her-napkin to her watering eyes (and once to her nose), Bethenny remains steadfast. She wells up once or twice, but she is not thinking with loving memory about her erstwhile friendship with Jill Zarin; instead, Bethenny is thinking about the months and months of sheer and utter hell she went through at the hands of this woman, how this betrayal pained her, and how hard it was to put it behind her.

So after laying out her Friendship Renewal Plan to Bethenny, Jill waits with baited breath to see how fast Bethenny is going to hug her, sob, sob, it's all over, thank God, I missed you, giving Jill the chance to say, sob, I missed you, too, can you believe that dope LuAnn is doing a record and she thinks she can sing and can you believe Ramona is renewing her vows at this weird random seventeen years and how strange is that and blah blah blah blah.

Instead, Jill gets her turn to be surprised when Bethenny agreeably calls their separation a divorce and adds that divorce is hard. She looks completely together and not at all broken up when she says this. Because, I reiterate, for Bethenny, the worst pain happened all those months ago when Jill was bad-mouthing Bethenny to all and sundry, assuming that everyone would rush to Team Jill.

So they leave and it's all good for Bethenny, but Jill is hanging onto the simple facts that Bethenny didn't throw cherry tomatoes at her and call her a ho-bag as possible evidence that she and Bethenny will soon be summering in the Hamptons, shopping at Bendels, and jawing for long talky sessions about babies, life, and the other Housewives. Maybe Jill will even get to be Matron of Honor and Godmother!

Round 2: Sonja tells Jill and LuAnn to zip it about the Island thing. This is at LuAnn's CD party, to which she has brought not the cheesy blond Court but rather the sloppy brown Jacques, who was lucky enough to steal a tweed jacket circa 1978 from a passing hobo on his way into the big do. LuAnn is beside herself, kissing this guy over and over and over and over and over again, with a big smile on her face that is at times giddy, at times maternal. Jill is in her too-tight pink tube dress, and she starts to moan about getting kicked off the island, and LuAnn - who has just kissed a guy so many times on national television that it is possible she was trying to suck chicken out of his teeth - starts in with the manners of the situation. Sonja starts to intervene in defense of Ramona, and LuAnn talks louder and faster. Sonja tries again, and LuAnn again tries to out talk Sonja. So Sonja says, "Please let me talk and quit talking over me and by the way, you weren't there," and LuAnn realizes she's being rude which won't look good for book sales and lets Sonja point out that Jill had declined the invitation, that Jill knew there was tension and drama on the trip from her constant iPhoning of Kelly, and that Ramona had spoken to Jill just the night before Jill made her big entrance on St. Johns and that if Jill had planned to come, she should have broached the idea then rather than springing it on everybody as a big fait accompli.

Basically, Sonja told Jill to quit belly-aching and acting like a victim, because she wasn't a victim.

Amazingly, Kelly stayed quiet throughout this scene, even when Sonja somewhat tactlessly - but not maliciously - said that the St. Johns party had just started to get good after Kelly left and things got back to normal. Good for Kelly. She was trying to think what to say, and wisely stayed silent. She looked far smarter and much less crazy this way.

Round 3: Just before Ramona's Wedding II, Jill surprises Ramona in her palatial suite of rooms at the Pierre. Surprise! she says, cattily. Ramona says, oh, I like this surprise and hugs Jill. Jill lets Ramona know how hurt she was by the whole island thing (Jill and Kelly persist in calling it Poison Island, which is really not very nice for tourism and really is about themselves - frankly, New York could be considered poison island with them on it) but that they've been friends for 15 years and she would never miss Ramona's big day (even if she has been making fun or Ramona's big day non-stop since first she heard the news). Ramona says she loves Jill, but she says that Jill needs to start thinking about things from the point-of-view of other people sometimes, and Jill basically doesn't want to hear this, so she slinks out of the room in disgrace, her Big Moment of Forgiveness toward Ramona having been upstaged by advice about Jill's Own Behavior.

Down to the ballroom where the guests are being served champagne and NO APPETIZERS. Jill, LuAnn and the new one who is super-boring but runs some sort of eventy business are appalled at the lack of appetizers and the fact that guests are being plied with beverages before the ceremony, which will make the other guests drunk. Then they get an eyeful of the woman who is the party planner (who has been standing there having to listen to these joy-sucks denigrate the whole party) and the Party Planning Housewife says, "Would you let her plan your event?"

Meaning, I guess, that she's a little on the chubby and bottle-blonde side, I guess, and maybe her pantsuit was not super-super. But still - how unprofessional for one member of an industry to say that about another member of the same industry, especially standing just two feet from the recipient of your insult. I especially love the extra-classy touch when Eventy Housewife (her name isn't even on the Web site) says that everybody has an opinion and everybody has an "asshole" (thanks for the heads-up and crassness, and thanks even more for demonstrating what an asshole actually looks like with your forefinger and thumb - super helpful and way elegant!).

Gotta add that the hot-chocolate-skating party didn't look all that hot at all to me. I've done lots of kids' parties - because I have kids - and lots of big parties and events, and to my very experienced eyes, you really ought not to have been dissing any party planner. Because it was unprofessional, it was rude, and you don't look that swell, either, babe.

The ceremony starts after Avery gets her way about not carrying the flowers and the dog, and everything is a little hallmarky but obviously very precious to all concerned and everybody looked beautiful. Just prior to the arrival of the guests of honor/wedding party, Jill notes that the chairs placed on either side of the aisle make it look like the two "teams" are separated, which is a particularly un-lovely and divisive remark to make (also, Sonja looked annoyed to have been put in the position of being on any team). Way to keep it classy, Jill! Passing out T-shirts just before the ceremony to let everyone know exactly how popular you are would have been just slightly less icky. Maybe they could say Team Jill on the front and Zarin Fabrics on the back, and you could write them off as marketing materials!

After the ceremony, everybody sort of wraps up their feelings about stuff with each other. Bethenny, obviously in the final stages of any regret over the loss of Jill Zarin in her life, breaks down and tells Ramona and Alex, somewhat awkwardly but with obviously a full heart and the best wishes, that she never knew how very wonderful they are (because Jill told her they weren't all that great) and she is so grateful for them and their support during the last few difficult months.

Jill finishes with LuAnn, the Party Wench, Sonja, Ramona, and then moves to Bethenny. I hope we'll be besties, she says to the Golden Girl with the World Dangling from a Smart Hermes Strap on her Wrist. "You'd have to change a lot," replies Bethenny, to which Jill gets a look on her face like she's just licked moldy bread because this was not in her mind-script and says, "I'm not perfect, I am human, I am who I am."

Really? Again? Getting life advice from Popeye the Sailor-man???

As an aside, I don't know what Simon meant when he called his kilty ensemble half-man/half-skirt, but people say stupid stuff at parties, especially when there are no appetizers before the ceremony. Right, Jill? Almost as bad an an e-vite! I like Simon and think he is a kind person who certainly makes things interesting. Also, his blog is hi-lar-i-ous!

So the party is in full swing and everyone is having a grand time and Alex decides to try to put the Crow Suit on and tell Jill she is sorry. Jill, however, always needs someone to have as an enemy. Did you notice that as soon as Alex unleashed her full fury on Jill, Jill backed off of Bethenny? It's so tiring to have to hate two whole people at one time! So she puts her chubby little hands up, backs away as if Alex had tried to actually touch her back and says, "I'm not doing this."

Jill! That is not how a lady behaves. What you do is you smile at Alex, say I'm glad we could both be here for Ramona tonight, what a lovely ceremony, and if Alex wants to discuss anything more and you don't want to, say, "I'd be so interested in hearing what you have to say, but my head is swimming from all the excitement tonight. Let's plan to do it another time." And then hug, peck, walk away. Take that manners lesson, Countess! 

Because cutting Alex dead at your friend's party is simply rude and makes you look - again - like a spoiled brat. You are not a victim! You are a manipulator! Take some responsibility for your childish antics and start using your feeble powers to help someone with better powers do good.

Can't wait for next week's reunion, whilst dreading it as well.