The Real Housewives of New York City
“All Bets Are Off”
July 13, 2016
After Sonja’s admission that she has “known” Tom for a decade now, The Countess — who already knew this, of course — begins screaming that WHEN YOU’RE IN LOVE, EVERYONE TRIES TO TEAR YOU DOWN before storming out of the restaurant, pausing to kvetch at Dorinda and Jules about what just happened. She’s in love, she’s in love and EVERYONE HATES HER FOR IT. And with that, The Countess stomps off in a cloud of indignation and hot toddy.
Dorinda and Jules, who had been outside for a smoke break, missed the excitement, so they return to the dining room to create some of their own. While Ramona texts an apology to The Countess, Dorinda gives the other women grief for chasing her out of the restaurant. Princess Carole marvels that Sonja and Tom had hooked up — repeatedly — over many years — only to have Jules lament that this is The Countess’ private life and that they should all just leave her alone and not talk about her. Her Highness laughs that that’s what friends do: they talk about one another’s private lives. Jules is taken aback by this (true thing) and insists that HER friends would never do such a thing.
Jules then, for reasons that are unclear, rears back and begins yelling at Bethenny that SHE DIDN’T EVEN ASK HER ABOUT HER BUSTED WOO. Bethenny, who has her own woo problems to contend with, points out that Jules didn’t really express any interest in hers, either, to which Jules claims she texted Bethenny “100 times.” Or once, according to Bethenny who challenges Jules to pull out her phone and prove it.
Jules changes tacks, and accuses Bethenny of treating her like she’s stupid. “THEN DON’T BAKE FORKS AND KNIVES INTO A CALZONE, YOU CRAZY PERSON,” Bethenny responds. Jules complains that Bethenny’s sense of humor comes at the expense of others and she doesn’t care about other people’s feelings. Jules is a NICE PERSON and is GENUINE WITH EVERYONE and she TRUSTED BETHENNY only to hear she’s been going around talking about Jules’ EATING DISORDER and her FAILING MARRIAGE.
At least on the show Bethenny hasn’t been shown to talk about either of these things (looking at you, Princess Carole), and she demands to know who has been telling Jules that she has. Jules all but points at Dorinda, and “Dorinda Meddler” as Bethenny calls her, tries to claim that, actually, what she meant was, the thing is, she was just trying to warn Jules to not be quite so open with the other ladies about her marriage because they can’t be entirely trusted to not “twist” things. Of course, now that Jules is in the middle of what is turning out to be an amazingly hideous divorce, there wasn’t really anything to twist, but OK, alright.
Jules then begins talking about her eating disorder and how she’s completely open about it and that, in fact, she just threw up her meal three days ago because bulimia is something she will have to live with forever and MAYBE YOU THINK SHE’S TOO SKINNY BUT SHE LOVES HER BODY AND “HUGS [HER] BONES.” (I don’t know what that means, either.)
Bethenny then admits that she might be standoffish with Jules because of her own mother’s eating disorder and the trust issues she has as a result. This somehow makes everyone start yelling some more, and Dorinda calls Princess Carole “mean” and “insensitive,” to which Princess Carole counters that she’ not mean, she just knows a little something about denial. Jules denies being in denial. Never mind the fact that she just admitted to throwing up not three days ago, but whatever.
And then, as if in a completely different scene altogether, Ramona announces that she’s planned a trip for them to go to Mohegan Sun for later that week: they’re going to stay in fancy suites and eat in a Bobby Flay restaurant, hooray!
The next day, I guess, who even knows, Ramona and The Countess meet out on the street, where Ramona attempts to tell The Countess that she was disappointed in her for asking Ramona if she “had [her] back.” If Ramona didn’t have her back, would she be trying so hard to smooth things over between The Countess and Her Highness and Bethenny? She’s been working so hard on that! The Countess grouses at Ramona for “talking smack” about her with Dorinda, and Ramona, with a straight face, tells The Countess that she heard wrong.
The Countess then complains that at the dinner, Ramona and Sonja wouldn’t stop talking about how they both dated Tom. THE COUNTESS IS GETTING MARRIED AGAIN AND ALL RAMONA WANTS TO DO IS AIR DIRTY LAUNDRY. Ramona takes a dangerous position and tells The Countess that she’s merely “in lust” and that it takes a full year of being with someone to truly know if you can be with them. But The Countess counters that she married her previous husband after knowing him for all of two weeks. And look how well that turned out.
Ramona gives The Countess grief about the incident at The Mark Hotel where Tom apparently was on a date with a woman he had been seeing for several months when The Countess approached him, took his hand and then took him home. After denying this for several episodes, The Countess is like, “SO WHAT IF I DID?” before pointing out that a man can not be stolen, he leaves willingly. The Countess declares that the only bright point of the dinner was that Highness Carole was nice to her and that they might have had a conversation if SONJA HADN’T TALKED ABOUT HUMPING HER SOON-TO-BE-FIANCÉ. And with that, we’re done here? I guess we’re done here.
At Princess Carole’s apartment, the Duke of Eggplant makes Bethenny, Dorinda and Princess Carole some sort of monstrosity that he calls “cauliflower pizza.”
Bethenny reveals that her non-treatment for her fibroids is surprisingly not working, go figure. And the three women sort of talk about the previous night’s dinner in a very broad, meaningless way. “How about that dinner, right?” “Boy, you’re not kidding.” And scene.
Elsewhere, Sonja decides to throw a dinner party, and invites Dorinda, Fudgie the Whale, Jules and her husband, and some guy named Rocco that Jules wants to fix Sonja up with. To this end, Sonja has “borrowed” her brother-in-law’s butler, because butlers are a thing that still exists. WHO KNEW?
Sonja has her horde of interns bring the guests in, before making her own entrance into the parlor, all gussied up and …carrying a purse for some reason? Do people carry purses around in their own homes? Is that a thing I was supposed to be doing this whole time?
As for Rocco, it turns out that Sonja knows exactly who he is, he’s in the restaurant business or something, don’t really care, and they are immediately all handsy with each other.
Sonja seats her guests, where they are outfitted with the world’s largest — and oldest — napkins that she claims are a 200-year-old Morgan family heirloom and not, in fact, pillowcases. They then briefly talk about the fight at Dorinda’s dinner, with Sonja and Dorinda congratulating Jules for finding her voice.
Finally, the trip to Mohegan Sun — literally, just the trip there. The ladies — all but The Countess — pile onto the party bus that Ramona has provided because heaven forfend we go one season of a Real Housewives series without renting a party bus. As they drive to Connecticut, Sonja reveals that her teeth are still all kinds of futzed up and she might be super high on painkillers. Fun!
The ladies toast The Countess who did, in fact, get engaged to Tom, and who announced it in the tabloids before telling any of them. And everyone is so happy for her except not at all. They are not happy for her in the least.
Later in the drive, Bethenny plops herself down next to Ramona and complains loudly about how Jules hurt her feelings by saying that Bethenny’s sense of humor comes at the expense of other people — a conversation that Jules can hear as she is RIGHT THERE, SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO THEM. But Jules chooses to ignore the situation unlike The Countess when Bethenny pulled this same move in the Berkshires.
Bethenny then approaches Sonja and apologizes to her for being so harsh about the whole Tipsy Girl foofarah, because Bethenny can really only handle being in one feud at a time.
And now we are all caught up with the Real Housewives of New York City, just in time for me to go on vacation and get myself behind again by two weeks. Ta ta, darlings!
The Real Housewives of New York airs on Bravo on Wednesdays at 8/9 p.m.
This post originally appeared on Heart site Chron.com.