The Real Housewives of New York City
“December: Berkshires County”
June 1, 2016
This episode had EVERYTHING! Bethenny calling The Countess a whore! Sonja shoving lasers up her vagina! Board games! Dorinda screaming at everyone that she “MADE IT NICE!” A birthday cake! Pedophile being spelled “pedafile”! Tiny purse dogs pooping everywhere! Princess Carole hiding in a closet! Lesbian fantasies! Accusations of hairstyle theft!
Let’s get Sonja’s weird vagina story out of the way first. So Sonja goes to her plastic surgeon for a little pick-me-up in the form of a laser shoved up her hoo-ha to tighten it? strengthen it? get rid of wrinkles? make it symmetrical? It’s unclear I think even to her. But she opts to have it done even though her doctor has only been performing the procedure for three months because, what, she’s going to turn down the offer to have someone shove a wand up her vaginny on national television? Come on.
And so she strips down and the doctor shoves the wand up inside her and he zaps her lady bits with laser beams and when all is said and done, Sonja seems pretty pleased with herself and her freshly lasered foo-foo for whatever it is worth.
OK, back to the Berkshires. Last we left the ladies, The Countess had implied that she helped create Skinny Girl Margaritas by being at the table this one time when Bethenny ordered her signature cocktail. Bethenny, who we know is fiercely protective of her brand, is not amused.
The Countess then tries to shift the conversation by noting that she hasn’t seen Bethenny in a while, so who is she dating these days? But instead of answering, Bethenny gets up and moves around to The Countess’ side of the table to loudly talk about The Countess trying to take credit for her cocktail to Ramona, who is sitting right next to The Countess and who hears every word.
Eventually, The Countess interrupts her to explain that she’s right there if Bethenny has something to say, and Bethenny is like ALRIGHT, LET’S DO THIS. Bethenny yells at The Countess for trying to take credit for Skinny Girl, to which The Countess counters, “OH YEAH, WELL YOU’RE TRYING TO TAKE CREDIT FOR MY HAIRSTYLE.”
It’s around this point that Princess Carole finally arrives to hear, as she put it, “Bethenny arguing with some man, only to discover it’s Luann — I mean, LuMan.” Get it? Because she has a deep voice and is tall and has a penis?
Anyway, around this point, Bethenny starts yelling at The Countess for dating Ramona’s ex, which The Countess disputes: Ramona and Tom only went out a couple of dates. OH REALLY, Bethenny counters, HOW MANY DATES DID YOU GO ON WITH TOM, RAMONA? Ramona’s answer: seven. Which would be anywhere from a month or two month of dating, which isn’t exactly as casual as getting coffee or going to Ibiza with someone.
As The Countess begins yelling about not needing anyone’s permission to date Tom, Bethenny leaves the room. Ramona then tells The Countess that she heard all about how The Countess approached Tom at a hotel bar and told him she knew he was seeing Ramona, but that she “was next,” and that she took him home that night. The Countess denies this very true-sounding story, and demands to know who Ramona heard this from — which, as it turns out, was one of Bethenny’s friends. This does not exactly help matters. Ramona argues that she just thought The Countess would have the courtesy to check in with her before dating a man SHE KNEW Ramona was seeing — it’s a little something called “The Girl Code.”
youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6QDZIG64ZE
Meanwhile, Dorinda takes Her Highness up to her room to show her the pile of mattresses and pea she will be sleeping on, and there Princess Carole complains that she would not have come had she known The Countess was going to be in attendance. Even though Dorinda totally told her The Countess was most definitely going to be in attendance not three days earlier. We all saw it, Your Highness.
Downstairs, Bethenny overhears The Countess laughing about how Bethenny stole her hairstyle, and Bethenny unloads. THAT’S RIGHT, BETHENNY WANTS TO BE JUST LIKE THE COUNTESS. SHE WANTS TO F#$K FIVE DIFFERENT GUYS AT ONCE AND GO ALL GREY GARDENS WITH HER FRIEND AND LIE TO ALL OF HER OTHER FRIENDS ABOUT EVERYTHING.
The Countess fires back that it seems Bethenny isn’t “getting laid” at all, to which Bethenny assures her that The Countess is making up for all of them. The Countess asks if that makes her the “Kim Cattrall” of the group, to which Bethenny replies no, because at least “Samantha” was honest about it. The problem Bethenny has with The Countess is that she is one thing but pretends she something else, and that she’s not a “girl’s girl.” No, YOU’RE not the girl’s girl, The Countess cleverly replies. “Put that in your cookie jar,” she says more than once because it was so great the first time, I suppose.
Bethenny begins screaming at The Countess that at least she doesn’t sleep with married men or 25-year-olds and then turn around and give her friends grief about doing the same thing because she’s not a hypocrite. Bethenny, in fact, doesn’t care if The Countess is “the biggest whore in Macy’s window” (wait, are their whores in Macy’s windows???), she is just calling The Countess out on her nonsense because she’s the only one with the balls enough to do it.
And then at the 4:20 time stamp, there’s just inchoate yelling. Something about being Sonja’s mentor, something about being humble and decent, something about getting wasted? Bethenny shrieks at The Countess that she keeps claiming to be “helping” Sonja, but what is she actually doing? Bringing guys home at night, getting just as drunk as Sonja does? The Countess demands to know who is saying she’s bringing guys home every night, and Bethenny replies that SONJA DOES. Which, she totally does, to be fair.
As Bethenny walks away, again, The Countess retorts, “same haircut, biatch.”
Meanwhile, Serene Carole points out to Dorinda that this is why she shouldn’t have invited The Countess, but Dorinda sees it differently: Bethenny is being quite the inconsiderate guest. Bethenny joins the two of them and Ramona upstairs, and admits she’s embarrassed at how she behaved, but, at the same time, felt it needed to be said. Dorinda is just not sure it needed to be said at her slumber party, which is fair.
As for The Countess, she goes outside where she finds Jules on the phone with her father’s doctor, receiving not great news about his prognosis. “IT’S SO HURTFUL, WHAT SHE SAID TO MEEEEEE…” The Countess whines. “Yeah, well, my father is not sounding coherent and … ” “SHE WAS JUST SO UGLY TO ME….” “Well, there are bigger things, like, you know, life and death issues,” Jules tries. “THAT WAS AWFUL WHAT SHE DID TO ME, SHE ATTACKED ME, IT WASN’T RIGHT,” The Countess keens. “I mean, my father is dying and I’m not by his side, so….” “SHE CALLED ME A WHORE AND DORINDA DID NOTHING ABOUT IT. HOSTESS WITH THE MOSTESS, INDEED.”
Dorinda happens to come outside around this time, and The Countess snaps at her for not defending her against Bethenny, as if that’s a thing that is even possible. Dorinda is just, “OK. Sure. Whatever, lady.”
Inside, Bethenny laughs that her hair does look like The Countess’, before lamenting that maybe she just doesn’t get along with Dorinda’s house — or maybe it’s that Dorinda can’t have a normal party, bless her heart. Everyone joins them inside, including The Countess who, after a costume change, pouts that she can’t stay any longer, not if this is how she’s going to be treated.
Ramona drags her downstairs to the kitchen where The Countess laments that she came here for Dorinda’s birthday party, which supposedly isn’t her birthday EVEN THOUGH THERE’S A BIRTHDAY CAKE RIGHT THERE. And that’s IT for Dorinda who comes into the kitchen and demands that The Countess stop it this instant. Her mother bought that cake this weekend, and she thinks everyone is acting VERY POORLY and she put in a BIG EFFORT, a CONSCIOUS CHOICE NOT TO INVITE SONJA so everyone could have a GOOD TIME and it is a DISGRACE of you people, SHE COOKED ALL DAY, SHE DECORATED, SHE DID IT NICE, AND SHE’S ASHAMED THAT NO ONE CAN BEHAVE AND THEY CAN ALL GO HOME. GO HOME EVERYBODY. GO.
Settle in because we are only at the halfway point of this episode.
Jules tries to calm Dorinda down by suggesting they: 1. open the outdoor pool and do a polar bear swim, 2. play charades or 3. play Twister, because a rousing game of Twister will do the trick. Meanwhile, Ramona pulls The Countess aside and tells her to shut it already.
The ladies decide to open presents as a way to diffuse the situation, which for the most part works: Bethenny retreats to the dining room for a cup of “Easy Now” tea; Dorinda admits that maybe she hadn’t thought enough about the group dynamics when planning this “slumber party”; and we return to finding tiny purse dog poop everywhere. Everywhere! It’s just everywhere.
5:20 p.m.: Bethenny begins regretting screaming at The Countess, explaining that she actually likes The Countess — not that you could tell by the way she behaved.
Downstairs, Princess Carole tells Ramona that hilariously, The Countess invited her to her upcoming holiday party, even though she still hasn’t apologized to Her Highness for calling her a pedophile last year. Her Serene Highness notes that if The Countess had just included that in her invite — “Hey, sorry I called you a child molester. Hope you can make it to my party!” — she might have at least thought it was funny.
Dorinda passes through, explaining that she’s going to go watch some Law & Order for an hour, she loves her some Law & Order and Ghost Hunters. (I MEAN, WHO DOESN’T THOUGH, RIGHT?) And then The Countess joins them, flatly asserting that everything is fine now. O RLY? Princess Carole doesn’t say because she’s too polite for that, but she is definitely radiating it. Ramona then apologizes to Dorinda, which the ladies toast to and The Countess pressures Princess Serene to clink glasses with her even though Princess Serene most definitely does not want to clink glasses with her. Princess Carole, having had quite enough, leaves to take a “nap.”
Except she doesn’t. Instead, she and Jules hide in Dorinda’s wallpapered (!) closet to eavesdrop on Ramona and The Countess. There, Ramona informs The Countess that Her Highness Carole is still miffed that The Countess called her a pedophile, which The Countess snorts she probably did BUT PRINCESS CAROLE SAID SOME NASTY THINGS ABOUT HER, TOO. Ramona urges The Countess to take the high road and apologize — which she attempts to do via text. But considering The Countess doesn’t know how to spell the word “pedophile,” it proves difficult:
So The Countess manages to figure out how to spell “pedophile” and sends the text, which Princess Carole then pretends to not receive because everyone is just being an A+ adult right now.
6:40 p.m.: In the kitchen, the Countess begins asking Ramona about who she is currently dating, and Ramona flatly refuses to tell her, referring to “friend ethics.” Ramona then explains very calmly to The Countess that the reason Bethenny is upset with her is because The Countess keeps trying to take credit for creating or helping create Skinny Girl. The Countess protests that she did no such thing, so Ramona explains VERY SLOWLY that ok, well then, Bethenny misunderstood The Countess and thinks that she is trying to take credit. Ramona then urges The Countess to textpologize to Bethenny, which she does.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Bethenny gets Dorinda to admit that she does not in a million years want to marry Fudgie. (THANK THE GOODNESS). Princess Serene joins them as The Countess’ textpology to Bethenny arrives, and the two women compare the messages, finding them completely superficial and untrustworthy.
Bethenny then reasserts that she doesn’t care who or how many people The Countess slept with — she herself probably has the second-highest number in the house — and this somehow leads to Bethenny saying that being with a woman is on her bucket list. The particulars of lesbian sex are discussed, with Bethenny outlining what she would and would not do, and making references to her fish allergy.
7:30 p.m.: Time for another costume change by The Countess — her sparkly shirt is available from her QVC line if you’re interested! In the kitchen, The Countess claims that the other women are just jealous of her relationship with Tom, and the fact that he likes her better than Ramona. And anyway, who is Bethenny to judge her? The Countess doesn’t care who Bethenny is “stooping.”
The Countess gets all riled up, and begins ranting at Dorinda that Bethenny tried to take Fudgie down, and then Sonja and now her — what is she trying to do, RUIN ALL OF HER FRIENDSHIPS? Which is just the moment when Bethenny walks into the room, and asks if this is part of The Countess’ apology.
TO BE CONTINUED! AGAIN, MY LITTLE PEDAFILES!
The Real Housewives of New York airs on Bravo at 8/9 p.m.
This post originally appeared on the Hearst site Chron.com.
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