The Real Housewives of New York
“Things Are Going Southampton”
March 13, 2019
As we begin this episode, everyone has arrived in the Hamptons: Dorinda, Tinsley, and Sonja are staying at Ramona’s house; Bethenny and The Countess in their own respective homes, but hanging out with each other and this Barbara woman, because they CAN NOT with the blondes right now … well, with the exception of Sonja.
At Ramona’s, Tinsley comes bearing caviar that she essentially orders Ramona to crack open because you just know Ramona would hoard it and take it back to New York if it weren’t made PERFECTLY CLEAR that it is not cool. And Dorinda, she came with Party City mermaid costumes that these bats decide they should put on, get in the pool, take pictures of themselves and then share said photos. Like, in public. Where people can see them.
Thank God for Instagram filters.
Once everyone puts their bras and pants back on, they start talking about their dinner plans, which is when The Countess calls Sonja to invite her to eat dinner with the brunettes and celebrate The Countess’ sobriety — which Sonja actually had nothing to do with. During their conversation, Sonja mentions that Ramona is excited about Barbara’s clambake to which Ramona has not exactly been personally invited, causing some raised eyebrows amongst the brunettes.
That night the cast breaks up into two groups, each having dinner across the street from one another: Ramona, Tinsley, and Dorinda go to Topping Rose House where Ramona immediately excuses herself to scope out the man scene at the bar; and The Countess, Bethenny, Sonja, this Barbara person and a bunch of other people we don’t know go to Almond, where, it turns out, you can get a reasonably priced steak frite. Look, I’m as surprised as you are.
Anyhoodles, when Ramona returns from her fishing expedition at the bar, she reveals that the man she was interested in was with his husband and that her gaydar must be malfunctioning. Ramona then tells Tinsley and Dorinda about a recent date, where the gentleman asked if she would be interested in having a child with him, which LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL TIMES INFINITY.
Hey, remember that one season finale of Real Housewives of New York when Ramona thought she was pregnant and she was roughly 54 years old? Yeah, that was amazing.
Anyway, some eight years later, Ramona has come around to thinking that being a mother at 50 (note: she is not 50) would be a Goddamned nightmare.
Tinsley — who wants to be a mom at 50:
Meanwhile, across the street, Barbara greets Sonja by noting that The Countess just can’t be around Dorinda and all her drinking. But Sonja corrects Barbra: Dorinda isn’t drinking.
Barbara says its nice that everyone is taking care of themselves, but the truth is The Countess is in too vulnerable a state to see Dorinda just yet, so Sonja is welcome to bring Tinsley to tomorrow’s clambake at Barbara’s house. And only Tinsley. Sonja is like, “Wait … I get that I can’t bring Dorinda, but Ramona? The woman I am staying with? I can’t bring my hostess?” And Barbara is all, “We just don’t want someone The Countess isn’t comfortable with confronting her when she’s in such a delicate condition.” So Sonja is like, “Got it. I’ll get Dorinda to send the Countess an apology text and then I’ll be clear to bring my band of loons to your clambake. Heard you loud and clear.”
So then they have dinner with The Countess and Bethenny and a bunch of other people we don’t know. Over their steak frites, The Countess fascinatingly reveals that she was fixated on buying this upstate house — the one that nearly ripped her family apart. In fact, she became so obsessed with buying it that she became FURIOUS with her friends — including Bethenny and Dennis — for not loaning her $6 million. She became so unhinged, that her friends eventually broke into her phone to block calls, send emails to people ordering them to disregard her crazy requests, and someone got power of attorney over her affairs.
That’s when they decided an intervention was in order. OH? YOU THINK? WHAT WAS THE FIRST HINT, WHEN SHE WAS CALLING EVERYONE SHE KNEW TO DEMAND THEY GIVE HER $6 MILLION? BECAUSE IF I STARTED CALLING EVERYONE I KNEW AND DEMANDED THEY JUST GIVE ME $6 MILLION, I GUARANTEE YOU IT’S NOT A 14-DAY RESORT MY ASS WOULD BE SHIPPED OFF TO.
They eventually move on to discussing this Dorinda situation, and Sonja and Barbara assure The Countess that Dorinda is going to reach out to her via text to break the ice, but The Countess is NOT HAVING IT. “I WANT A PHONE CALL AND AN APOLOGY AND SHALL STAND FOR NOTHING LESS.”
The next day, Team Ramona has a tennis lesson with Ramona’s tennis pro and backup sexual harassment victim. However, once it’s clear that Tinsley is a far better tennis player than Ramona — both because she was ranked nationally when she was in college and because she’s 30 years Ramona’s junior — Ramona quits in a huff, claiming that she exercised earlier in the morning and that’s why her performance is lacking.
Once inside, Sonja tells the women a little bit about her dinner the night before and how it was celebrating The Countess’ recent sobriety. Ramona points out that the most recent rehab stint only lasted 14 days, which is more of a spa trip than actual treatment, and Dorinda notes that maybe if The Countess was so concerned with her sobriety she not HOST A CABARET ONCE A WEEK.
And that’s when Sonja explains that the consensus among The Countess’ friends is that she is in a “vulnerable state” and can’t be around “emotional triggers” — emotional triggers specifically named Dorinda and Ramona. And that’s why only Tinsley is invited to the clambake. However! Dorinda can fix this if she just calls The Countess and apologizes. Dorinda takes this news about as well as could be expected and announces that she is going to call someone, alright, but it’s going to be Barbara to see if this bitch is actually disinviting her from the clambake SHE JUST INVITED HER TO.
Barbara happens to be with Bethenny at Bethenny’s rental property which she is trying to decide whether she wants to keep or sell (it’s gorgeous and it’s a keeper) when Dorinda calls. Dorinda demands to know if she’s disinvited to the clambake after having been specifically invited by Barbara just because she had “one incident in 13 years.” (That incident being getting trashed in Cartagena, becoming infuriated when The Countess became all judgey about it, and then calling out the fact that at least she wasn’t getting arrested. LIKE SOME PEOPLE.) Dorinda insists that she’s already apologized enough to The Countess after years of being devoted to her and, in fact, she would appreciate if The Countess would reach out to her to reassure her that there won’t be any erratic behavior on her part. When this gains absolutely no traction because it is certifiably insane, Dorinda then announces that she will graciously disinvite herself from the clambake.
Later, Barbara and The Countess do some shopping for this clambake and Barbara tells The Countess that she was blown away by the sheer level of crazy in Dorinda’s phone call. The Countess implies that Dorinda has been hitting the sauce, whaddya gonna do? but Barbara tells her that Sonja insists Dorinda isn’t drinking right now. The Countess is skeptical — after all, she couldn’t stop drinking without professional help (and even when she received that, it didn’t stick) — but if Dorinda can quit without going to rehab, more power to her. In any event, Barbara assures her, Dorinda is not coming to the clambake, she said so herself. The Countess asks if Ramona is going and Barbara insists that she’s not coming either.
Oh! That’s right! Barbara doesn’t really know Ramona.
Because right at that very moment, Ramona is showing off the shoes she intends to wear to said clambake to Dorinda.
Dorinda, for her part, is crafting a text to The Countess that she hopes to open the door to a conversation, and she comes up with this:
I just … This is the greatest gift any Housewife has given me.
The Countess finds Dorinda quoting Tyler Perry at her as FUCKING HILARIOUS as I do, and intended to text back a snide, “HOW DEEP,” until Barbara discouraged her from doing so. And honestly, in terms of clapbacks, “How deep,” is not that great. “YOU WERE AT MY WEDDING DORINDA” would have been better.
But if I were The Countess and had received this text, I would have responded thusly:
or:
OR WAIT, THIS:
But texting back a boring ol’ “How deep,” is just a wasted opportunity.
Finally, the big clambake. The caterers arrive and set up shop in Barbara’s backyard; Ramona worries over how many bottles of wine to bring to the event that she is DEFINITELY not invited to; and Bethenny puts on her shiniest Mrs. Roper mumu and heads to Barbara’s. Barbara gives Bethenny a tour of her house which has some questionable interior decorating choices — but I’m not one to talk, sitting here on my couch next to a basket full of laundry and a stack of mail a month deep.
Finally, the episode ends with Tinsley (invited), Sonja (invited), and Ramona (absolutely not invited) arriving at Barbara’s house, and helplessly wandering around it, searching for the backyard. Blondes get their reputation from somewhere, after all.
The Real Housewives of New York airs on Bravo on Wednesdays at 8/9 p.m.