I have not slept a wink since approximately March 9th, the night I stayed up with my Parisian Airbnb host looking at his collection of Charlie Hebdos blissfully unaware that the world was devolving into a piss-poor remake of Contagion where Gwyneth Paltrow survives (🙄), and this lack of sleep has rendered my brain a chamber of horrors where nothing seems real and everything feels out of body and I became so short-tempered yesterday that I actually yelled out loud at autocorrect as if it were a person standing in the room with me. I am somewhere betwixt and between, like that little girl who gets sucked into the TV in Poltergeist, and I truly have no idea if I will ever return from this alternate astral plane if someone doesn’t come over here and cram my throat full of whatever Marilyn Monroe was on or shoot me with a goddamn tranq dart so I can fall face down onto the pavement and finally take a fucking nap.
How fitting, then, that this episode of Real Housewives of New York was something like a lucid nightmare, where extremely weird shit kept happening and you have to stop a moment and inquire of yourself is this real? Am I dead? Is this hell? Am I in a woefully underfunded university production of No Exit? Why is everybody screaming in poorly chosen wardrobe?
Anyway, if you missed eps 1-5, you can go to here and reacquaint yourselves with the horrors. As for last week: we open with Luann going to the fabled Tavern on the Green to, as often happens in strange dreams, revisit a rando from her past: her French ex-boyfriend Jacques. Ah Jacques! It’s good to see him but… well, there’s no delicate means of saying this: time has been unkind! Jacques was so, so hot back in the day. Okay maybe not hot but like zzexxy as fowk.
I mean this is a bad picture but it was the best I could do with the flashback Andy Cohen gave us, and also I have a weakness for French men because it’s 1987 and I am an Accounts Payable clerk with a hunky fireman calendar in her cubicle, and also until coronavirus erased all dreams and aspirations and made life plans beyond “survive, maybe have fun again someday for like five minutes, die” null and void, my main life goal was to go live in Paris and trick some surly, uncircumcised Frenchman into marrying me and then never coming back to America ever again. Also I have a thing for big noses? I once went on a date with a Czech guy just because he had this really gnarly Slavic nose, and I’ve often mused about how I’d like Adrien Brody to penetrate me anally with his. I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m like this. MY POINT IS, it’s definitely possible I’m grading Jacques here on a curve because I’m broken? But he has a Hot European David Schwimmer thing but without the boner-killing Ross vibes, right? JUST FUCKING GO WITH IT SO WE CAN END THIS PARAGRAPH.
So we all agree that 2012 Jacques was what my friend Jennifer calls a “pussy quaker,” as in he makes your pussy quake, not that he makes you want to ingest oatmeal or go to a prayer circle, vaginally, understand. Do pussies even quake? That’s not rhetorical, I don’t know from pussies, I’m asking. Jennifer might want to take another pass at this one-liner, IDK. In any case, here’s Jacques now…
And I have a few notes? Because it’s all gone a bit Barry Manilow. NO OFFENSE! But like, this is an aging junior-college professor of philosophy or like that one high school friend’s Dad who came over from Bratislava to be an engineer at Chrysler and embarrassed his daughter all the time by wearing weird glasses and not knowing basic American slang despite having lived here for 23 years. (I grew up near Detroit so this is a narrow reference like two people will get but just trust me it’s real.) He’s still handsome but I need him to get a hot oil treatment and invest in some Just For Men Gel. I mean it’s Just Five Minutes with Just For Men Gel, Just Go For It, Jacques! Allez!
Anyway, Luann and Jacques catch up about how now that she’s a hardened ex-con she’s considering re-upping her persona as a boozehound again (what could go wrong?!) and Jacques’s like, I mean I’m French, please have a glass of wine BUT S’IL VOUS PLAÎT HAVE SEULEMENT UNE GLASS BECAUSE YOU ARE A GIANT MESS WHO THREATENED TO KILL A COP PLEASE I BEG OF YOU.
But that’s not the only horrifying—or even the most horrifying bombshell of this lunch. We next receive some terrifying news that constitutes the entire thrust and climax (*moans*) of this entire episode: Jacques is apparently now a stand-up comedian? Or something? And Luann also fancies herself as such now I guess? And she’s hosting a charity comedy show and wants him to perform?
I mean I shouldn't talk bc one of my 2020 "goals" was to finally stop dabbling and properly try stand-up because what the world needs now is more white men talking into microphones I am an actual terrorist, but like this is a nightmare! If you’ve ever done comedy please know that nobody has ever “not been able to make it” to a friend’s comedy show, they just don’t come because it’s a terrifying experience! There is nothing worse than a friend’s comedy show! This truly is a nightmare and I am fucking SWEATING just thinking about it.
Thankfully we change subjects to Dorinda and speaking of having hair-and-makeup and wardrobe notes, I have TOMES OF THEM about this interview look.
I need all department heads to report to set immediately for a meeting please! Why is this lipstick. Why is this bow. Why is this loud jacket that doesn't go with the lipstick or the bow. Like this is an emergency? Her lips look like she might have burned them on a curling iron? But then they also look kind of porn? Which is fine, we live for a porn aesthetic! But it doesn't go with this outfit? It's just so BAD and we're only six episodes IN and IDK if I can LOOK at this for another 15 EPISODES without self-HARMING. Like help?
Anyway she meets the girls for lunch at Nello, and that fucking Elyse woman shows up again and I’ve had it. I’ve had it with her Brenda Walsh haircut and I’ve had it with her glassy-eyed stare and I’ve had it with the fact that she just SHOWS UP places without us ever having been given an explanation as to who the fuck she is and I’ve especially had it with her outfits. If you’re going to interlope you need to come correct. I mean look at this shit.
MA’AM! MA’AM! You are on national television with a woman in litcheral Chanel and you are dressed like Julia Roberts in that part of My Best Friend’s Wedding where she tells Cam-uh-ron D that she can never be Jell-O! Who do you think you are?! I’m incensed, there is too much incompetence in the world right now without Elyse coming to an elegant Upper East Side lunch in Forever 21 separates! My grandfather didn’t fight Hirohito’s army for me to live like this! I’ve probably already used that joke in these recaps but I’m sorry I can’t think of a better one because I am exhausted!
And then! Sonja and Ramona show up and Sonja’s literally shaking because she hasn’t eaten for five days due to being on a ~*cleanse*~, and this leads to a joke about how little Elyse eats and “that’s why you’re a size zero hahaha!” and oh my God just tie a dry cleaning bag over my head and end this! Aside from this devolving into The Disordered Eating Variety Hour, this hoe Elyse dresses like shit AND doesn’t eat?!
Next we go to Tinsley and her exquisite mother Dale having lunch. They’re talking about how Tinsley just ended her most recent relationship, which flamed out because it was just a ruse to make her old boyfriend jealous. And Dale, speaking for all of us, is like “LOL girl I guess.” The thing about Dale is that like, she might maaaybe be low-key emotionally abusive? But I simply don’t care, I would take a bullet for any mom who would look her daughter in the face on camera and be like, “LOL bitch maybe HE wasn't into YOU because you're FOURTY-FOUR and CHILDLESS ever think of THAT you DESICCATED old CRONE?" OMG YES DALE DRAG HER WITH THAT RETROGRADE SEXIST NONSENSE FROM THE 90S WE LOVE TO SEE IT!!!
Then Dale follows up by saying, “I’d like to croak AFTER you give me a grandchild uhkeh?” and sorry but Dale is messy bitch who lives for drama and she’s the real star of this show. Fire literally everyone else immediately!
After a brief detour to watch Sonja’s business partner break the shocking news that they made literally not one red cent from last week’s disastrous fashion show, we’re finally to the climax of this episode: Luann and this charity comedy show of hers, which just reeks of disaster from the jump. It's for an anti-bullying charity run by some podcaster named Chanel, which, read that again—more stuff of nightmares. Very on theme! We make lots of jokes about there being too many white men with podcasts but I don’t think anybody has ever considered the scourge of a Jesus-complexed Manhattan Becky named Chanel with a podcast. Sounds like domestic terrorism but okay!
Anyway, Jacques shows up with his fiancée Paige and Luann is WAY too effusive while greeting him.
PAIGE GIRL PUNCH THIS BITCH IN THE THROAT OR SHE'S GONNA TAKE YOUR MAN!!!
Sidebar: Look at that schnoz in profile and tell me you don’t want Jacques to poser sa bite dans ton cul. Quit playing. Luann is definitely feeling Jacques too because, I mean, look at this spine-tingling shit.
PAIGE!! PAIGE HONEY NEVERMIND THE THROAT PUNCH BITCH RUN LUANN IS A HARDENED CRIMINAL WITH A CRAVING FOR FRENCH DICK AND MURDER ON THE BRAIN SHOOT TO KILL!!!
Thankfully the other women arrive and Luann is distracted just in time for Paige to disappear and never be heard from again. Apropos of the anti-bullying theme of the event, Jacques asks the women if they’ve ever bullied anyone, and we’re treated to shots of them all saying “no” intercut with a montage of them… bullying each other.
These editors! God’s work!
Then discussion shifts to Luann’s drinking again, the narrative on which has now shifted to some bullshit about Luann not actually being an alcoholic, but rather having been driven to drink by her horrid ex-husband of like 45 minutes, Tom. And look, I’ve never been addicted to anything besides pizza rolls and attention so what do I know, but something tells me that if drinking has led you to go to actual jail you might actually have an actual drinking problem! I mean IDK, I am just spitballing!
But whatever, it doesn’t matter because…
Alcoholic or no, we in this bitch now!
Yeah I bet it does, lady, you are LITERALLY IN GOVERNMENT-MANDATED AA BECAUSE YOU’RE FRESH OFF VODKA PROBATION! I mean what on EARTH! And listen, Elyse still sucks and we hate her and tonight’s outfit is another fucking classic spandex bodysuit from a 1996 Delia’s catalog, but at least she had the sense to be like, “Bitch ain’t your shit in AA?!?!” and then shade Dorinda and Ramona for egging Luann on.
Now it’s finally time for the actual comedy show and honestly, THANK GOD, who knew that we’d actually be gagging to watch a bunch of dumbdumbs faceplant on a comedy stage because we’ve just watched an addict relapse on television! Wow, life comes at you fast! Maybe I’m just too soft for this shit, and everyone’s addiction journey is their own business, but YIKES.
Anyway, the show begins with Luann forcing Jacques to introduce her with this inside Housewives joke about her cheating on her husband in St. John with a dude who looked like a pirate, which Jacques doesn’t want to do because literally nobody in the audience is going to get it because despite the alternative narrative of which they’ve all convinced themselves *yelling emoji* NOBODY KNOWS WHO THESE WOMEN ARE EXCEPT SAD GAYS AND THE WOMEN WHO LOVE THEM. He does it anyway though because he has no choice, and then Luann does an opening *checks notes* thing that I’m sure at least in some cultures would classify as a “joke”? But in our culture?… Well, I’ll just defer to Dorinda’s review of Luann’s performance:
Which is rich coming from a woman in frosted pink lipstick and a bow and jacket that neither match nor go, but we will overlook that in this instance.
Next Jacques gets up and does his set and it’s mostly about how his Texan fiancee’s family can’t understand a word he says, and it’s funny not because it’s funny but rather because nobody in the audience can understand a word he says either?
I mean I can, because I am fluent in French? (Thank you so much.) So. (Non, vraiment, merci bien.) But all this other monolingual trash has no idea.
So the women get bored and go back to arguing so loudly that Jacques has to yell at Sonja to be quiet and we get this beautiful moment I froze in time.
Anyway, Jacques finishes his set and cedes the stage to this firecracker of a comedian.
Note all the laughter in the audience. Seems like a real barnstormer of a set! And if that isn’t a fitting coda to this nightmare, I just don’t know what is.
Anyway, a few other plot points we should address because they’ll probably come up again in later episodes: On the way to the “comedy show,” Leah and Ramona discuss Leah’s ongoing drama with her mama, and Ramona gives her some really good and touching advice and is able to give Leah a mother-of-an-adult-child perspective that is actually very astute and empathetic. Which is refreshing! We only ever get to see Ramona be a full-tilt garbage queen of garbage island, but she’s actually very wise!
Also, Dorinda suggests that she, Tinsley and Leah have lunch together so that she and Tinsley can fight while Leah referees. Tinsley's not into it for obvious reasons but Leah, speaking the desires of my heart, is like YES PLS GIMME THE DRAMA.
The episode concludes with Tinsley and Dorinda picking up this conversation and getting into a fight AGAIN, which concludes with Dorinda storming off while Tinsley making this wonderful face.
And then we get a preview of tonight’s ep, where these women go get drunk at an apple orchard and Sonja pees bare-assed in a field! So that should be fun and cool!
So okay! there’s your episode six! If you enjoyed yourself, you can
or you can
this with people you love. Or hate! Either way! And then you can also
because society has collapsed and we live in hell! And if you like to read the things that I create for your eyeballs and wish not to wait until I get my shit together to make another newletter, you can also
that I very infrequently remember exists and also does not contain Housewives content. Variety, spice of life and all that. Okay thank you, bye bye now!!