The Assassination of Dorinda Medley by the Non-Coward Tinsley Mortimer
And Also of Ramona Singer By Herself: A RHONY S12 Reunion Recap
This header image is the pinnacle of my artistic achievement and I have never felt prouder than I do in this moment please clap.
Anyway. My friends, I am speechless. I am speechless!
Is it because Trump admitted on tape to lying about the coronavirus and then tried to blame Joe Biden for the lack of a national mask mandate and also the entirety of the West Coast has been incinerated into ash, you ask? Sure I guess but friendly reminder that I am a shallow piece of shit! And so I am also rendered speechless by the first intallment of the RHONY reunion, which was… okay, quite honestly pretty boring, hobbled as it was by the social-distanced shooting arrangement. Half the fun of the reunions is watching the women on one couch lean in to each other conspiratorially to talk shit about the women on the other couch who are lying about some shit they seem to have forgotten we all watched happen on television three months ago! But you can’t do that when you’re sitting 10 feet apart in a giant circle.
But the first 5 minutes and the last 5 minutes were SO EXPLOSIVE, I haven’t stopped seething and gasping, respectively, since the moment it ended nearly an entire week ago. My GOODNESS. We got some BIG revelations in this first episode, including but not limited to the full depth and breadth of just HOW MUCH of a garbagebag trashdump pigperson Ramona Singer is AND, perhaps most earth-shattering: The actual literal WHY Dorinda hates Tinsley so much!!! It all gets real weird and real awkward!!!
Ok, let’s get to it.
So the first thing we see is a bunch of women of color disinfecting the set of the Real Housewives of New York Season 12 Reunion to ensure the rich white women under its employ remain free of any traces of a deadly and debilitating disease for which there is neither vaccine, nor treatment, nor cure, nor salvation, nor succor, and if that’s not the most late-capitalist, dystopian shit you’ve ever seen in your entire fucking life I simply do not know what possibly could be. Wasn’t there a scene about this in Children of Men? Fucking bone-chilling. Also what on earth is this set? Why is there a fake tree in a bathtub? I already hate this.
The second thing we see is that one Andrew Cohen, of the St. Louis Cohens, has shaved off his quarantine beard, which is an unfortunate mistake.
The longer, curly salt and pepper hair is working, but I wish he'd kept the beard. Andy’s never done it for me (although as we’ve learned during the more casual, at-home quarantine version of Watch What Happens Live, he do be filling out a polo shirt), but the beard made it so that you could picture him in a harness getting his ass ate on a pool table at The Eagle, an actual thing I actually saw at The actual Eagle once, imagine my surprise! And while that’s definitely not my cup of tea and I’d sooner die than be seen naked in the pitch-black darkness of a walk-in closet, let alone atop the expertly lit pool table of a Manhattan leather bar, I do like a gent with an edge who’s maybe a little mean and has questionable sexual proclivities. Nothing heinous, just a little, you know, “*cocks head, wrinkles up nose* Really?” Beardy rough-trade Andrew was kind of serving us that. I mourn the loss!
I digress. Because of the covid, we must watch the women arrive in the parking lot. The destruction coronavirus has wrought upon our society is truly staggering. Anyway look at Ramona’s stupid fucking facemask.
What on Earth? Why are you wearing one of those see-through plastic chairs from Ikea that everyone has nowadays for some reason on your face? Andy's like, omg I love your mask but you know he's lying because it looks fucking stupid. She says “one of my 50 girlfriends made it” and hahaha shut up.
And look who’s back from her glamorous life above the Cheesecake Factory on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, in a princessy gown as per custom!
Aww, I’ve hated her for years it’s good to have her home🤗
By way of Dorinda’s arrival, we see that each woman is having her temp taken and being asked a battery of questions about her potential exposure to the covid before being allowed into the facility. And we get a bit of foreshadowing of some of tonight’s drama.
I’m seething already. We’ll get there. First, let’s go to the set and watch Ramona try to drink through her fucking lucite mask like a goddamn brain-dead dipshit moron fucking dumbdumb assface dumbfuck.
Idiot. She looks like fucking Brak.
I see no difference, who wore it better, etc. and so on. Sidebar remember Brak’s hot-ass dad and his Antonio Banderas accent?
He can come get this ass.
Anyway, one-by-one, the ladies arrive to the set. Look at Sonja’s fabulous mask, and also how much she also hates a clean-shaven Andrew!
Naturally, Luann’s ass has one of those masks with the bottom half of her face on it.
We need a goddamn vaccine yesterday where the fuck is Fauci.
They all sit down and they’re like oh it’s so nice to see you oh you look so pretty oh Tinsley welcome back and it’s all very warm and fun and then Dorinda, whose dress by the way rules, is like:
LOL it’s fightin’ time! They all jokingly warn Leah what she’s in for, but you know if anyone’s up to this, it’s Leah McSweeney.
Speaking of whompst, guess who is sitting next to Andy?! FRESHMAN LEAH MCSWEENEY! If you don’t watch this shit you won’t know what a coup this is but bitch, The Seat Next To Andy is VIP shit, these women stay fighting about who sits next to Andrew! Imagine how fucking furious Ramona is about this. God is good and He is what? GOOD ALL THE TIME, Amen!
Anyway, Andy’s first question is, Leah, did you wear this dress specifically to piss off Ramona? And Leah’s like LOL no but bitch you know issa yes. YOU KNOW ISSA YES! Andy makes her stand up and show off the fact that she’s essentially in a negligee.
And my thoughts are these: A of all, THIS BITCH IS MY FUCKING QUEEN. I love love love a chick who can pull off tacky and make it stylish. Do you know what I mean? Like I'm trying to think of examples of other women who are tacky-chic, or like elevated tacky, or like if someone else wore it, it’d be tacky, but in their hands, it’s chic. Carrie Bradshaw was defo tacky-chic but fuck that bitch she’s basic. Who else... Idk I can't think of anyone but you know what I mean. So that's A.
2, look how much Luann fucking hates Leah's dress I gasped.
And iii is just that you KNOW Ramona's mad. Look how mad she is!
Or she would be, if her face weren’t pulled so tight, because Ramona has had one HELL of a facelift. She looks great! She kind of looks like a different person, or maybe Avery? But she looks great! Like, she belongs on the Venice Beach Boardwalk circa 1985, and I mean that as a compliment! And also an insult!
Anyway next we go to Dorinda and Andy's like how you feeling Big D, and her mouth says “I’m excited!” but her face says, "I feel confident I’m about to get raked the fuck over the coals and I would like to go home please!"
LOL you did this to yourself ma'am! Next is Luann and, God both bless and damn this woman, she’s got a catchphrase.
Then on to Sonja, who looks WAWAWEEWAH!!! Andy’s like, “There’s something different about you,” and she quips, “I lifted the drapes again.”
Bitch mission accomplished!!! Ellen Barkin is fucking hot and listen this dress isn’t great but this surgery and also this haircut—this haircut!!!—are fantastic. Also speaking of Ellen Barkin if you're on the Twitter machine and you're not following Ellen Barkin I cannot recommend it enough. She mostly just retweets news articles and shit but like twice a year or so, she comes in HOT! She'll come in out of nowhere and tweet some messy shit like "Donald Trump is a pig fucker who fingers his asshole while Melania pegs Pence over the Resolute Desk and I don't give a dickshit fuckbitch what anyone thinks about it I’ll kill the bitch my fucking self I was in Sea of Love fuck you" and then all of Gay Twitter is just quote-tweets that say “AN ICON!” for 36 consecutive hours it's fucking great. Also one of the current Hollywood scandals is that she just got fired from Animal Kingdom with no warning and for no discernible reason and she is like actively trolling the producers on Twitter every day it’s wild.
Anyway, last but not least but also lol kind of least Tinsley Mortimer! Who seems EXTREMELY HAPPY.
Which is nice to see because, you know, she used to be "fucking miserable" HER WORDS WHILE DRESSED AS A CLOWN NOT MINE!!
Finally, it’s time to catch up with what the ladies have been up to since filming wrapped. Andy asks where everyone spent the NYC quarantine. Leah gives her perfunctory answer—she chilled out on Long Island for a couple months—and then Andy throws to Ramona, saying, “Your quarantine activities have probably drawn the most attention.” And I'ma let the look Leah gives Andy foreshadow for you that, like, I hope you brought your muckin' boots because we are about to get knee deep in pig shit, by which I mean Ramona shit because she is a pigperson who has shit on the floor twice on national television.
For now though, we just talk about how Ramona quarantined with Mario (and Avery) in Florida. Andy queries as to whether they are getting back together, and it’s a no. Ramona is officially over Mario.
Which, thank God, for Mario's sake. Next we go to Sonja, who spent quar in Palm Springs at a spa just basically shitting non-stop 24 hrs a day.
She says she shit so much in Palm Springs she "blew the poop chute OUT" and honestly I will never, ever forgive the editors for not giving us a close up as she said that so that I'd have a screen cap for you to print out and put under your pillow and cherish always. I am so mad.
Next up is Luann, and Andy, this shady-ass bitch, is like wHaT hAvE yOu BeEn DoInG sInCe YoU cAnT dO CaBaReT??? And Luann's like well I've been working on my songs and my book and I’m still working on my cabaret show…
And Sonja's like lol sounds fake but ok.
And I guess we don't care what Tinsley's been up to because Andy doesn't ask but honestly we know what she's been doing and it's going downstairs to the Cheesecake Factory in the bottom of her building and living my personal fucking dream. Can you imagine how easy quar would be if you could just go downstairs and get Buffalo Blasts like ~*whenev*~? Man fuck Tinsley.
So remember Leah’s glare at Andy and that warning I gave you about pigshit? Well! It’s time for our first viewer question! Annie from Charleston would like to know who Leah was referencing when she made an Instagram video in which she said…
"I am so fucking disgusted by some of my castmates and their families who were out living it up in Florida and then just came back up to New York like nothing happened." And then she flicks the camera off and calls it “despicable” and “déclassé.”
And goodness, I can’t imagine who that could be about can you??? Before Leah can even answer, Ramona tells on herself.
She snidely follows this by imperiously saying, "I took all precautions" and tries to make it sound like Leah's full of shit, but then oops! Sonja blurts out the truth while she's mid-sentence.
Some precautions! As anyone who follows these women on Instagram knows, Ramona was gallivanting around Boca Raton like nothing was fucking happening and, apparently, got fucking covid in the process! Leah doesn’t even hesitate to launch into a shaming monologue about what a festering bag of rotting diapers Ramona is.
While they were digging mass graves in New York, Ramona was down in Florida running around with no mask on and Instagramming workouts and hotel suites. I saw many of these Instagrams. They were wildly tone-deaf. Just a total lack of empathy. Not that Ramona gives a fraction of a fuck.
She just glares at Leah, then spits a melodramatic speech about how she would get up every day at 4am and read all the horrific news.
She talks about how terrified she was and I don’t know about you but I think Ramona’s full of shit and so does one Luann DeLesseps, who is doing a piss-poor job of concealing her contempt.
Ramona then blathers on about how she and her daughter Avery decided they were going to live every day to the fullest by working out and cooking and blah blah blah and that so many people told her they found her inspirational and Leah literally laughs at her…
… and Dorinda is just sitting there with her eyes closed, shaking her head.
And like, sorry guys, I know I’m supposed to make you laugh but this shit was fucking disgusting and horrifying and vile. Even my roommate, who literally only watches this shit because it makes him furious and that fury is the only thing that makes him feel alive (he’s lived with me too long), was just staring at the TV fucking slack-jawed. We didn’t move or breathe for the entirety of this entire shit.
And it’s pretty bad so far, right? Well, buckle in bitch. Ramona has the audacity to say:
Ummmmmmm YEAH YOU HEARTLESS FUCKING GHOUL THAT'S WTF THE REST OF US WERE DOING. Anyway look at Dorinda.
And Luann looked like she was thisclose to ripping one of her 18-foot-long legs off and bludgeoning Ramona to death with the end of her femur.
And it occurred to me: This is America. This is a microcosm of America right now. There's people who are human beings, and then there are Ramonas, a bunch of disembodied fucking goblins who cannot be bothered to give a flying fuck about anyone but themselves. It was honestly ghoulish. It's ghoulish to talk about it even now. Ramona Singer is an awful, awful human being, and it isn’t fucking funny anymore.
Which is why Leah isn’t about to let this go. She reveals that Ramona lied about donating her post-covid plasma, which you may remember for a while was a promising treatment for the hardest hit victims. She never addresses that accusation, but she does get all incensed and try to “get all the facts straight.”
And reader, it gets so much worse from here.
Her story is this: She got a sinus infection in February, during which she was super weak and so they thought she also had Lyme disease. Or she did have Lyme disease? Honestly it made no sense so IDK. In any case, what she fucking had was fucking Covid, and these women can barely stomach to listen to another word. First, Ramona says she went to fucking Aspen to recover and Leah looks at Andy like, “If you have an ounce of decency in even a corner of your soul you will fire this bitch and order a hit on her. Please.”
Then, having spread Covid around Aspen, Ramona went down to Florida, where she claims she quarantined for 8 weeks, despite the fact that she was running around Instagram like a fucking asshole the entire time and, like, we can see that shit. And now it’s Dorinda’s turn to choke back her rage.
Then in May when the Boca Raton Beach Club opened up she started going to the beach, which, she insists, “you’re ALLOWED to DO!” And now Sonja loses her mind.
I cannot stress enough to you the ~*mood*~ in this room while Ramona is doing this. These women are just visibly sickened by this person, as they ought to be. Thankfully, Sonja gives us a brief moment of levity: Ramona talks about how she got antibody tested and found out that she had had Covid, and her doctor was like “A sinus infection and Lyme disease and Covid? You're a strong chick!” (Which LOL, category is: Things that never happened!) And Sonja's just yells out, “I think you're a walking Petri dish, actually.” Thank God for her.
Also, hi, LYME DISEASE is not something that just GOES AWAY like a fucking cold. You didn’t have Lyme disease or a sinus infection, you lying asshole, you had Covid! I hate this woman so much.
Leah isn’t about to let any of this go. She lays into Ramona about how there’s rules everyone has to follow except Ramona, and that she had no business coming back to New York. And Ramona EXPLODES.
She screams, “I WAS ALLOWED TO COME BACK BITCH!” And Leah’s like, ex-fucking-SCUSE me?
Sonja gasps and almost falls out of her chair, and Tinsley just fucking laughs like lol I never have to see this bitch ever again after today lolololol.
Anyway Ramona defends herself by screaming like a goddamn banshee that Leah's Instagram middle fingers were lowbrow. Look at the elegance, the class, the sophistication:
Extremely high-brow! So anyway, I guess we're doing this thing again, where a piglady who shits on the floor tries to tell a graceful Serengeti gazelle that it's ugly and stinks! I fucking hate this woman and so does Luann.
Whew! Okay. So that was a lot, right? Well, I don’t know how to tell you this. But. It. Gets. So. So. So. SO. Much worse. Still.
I LOVE the way they edited this next bit, by giving us a round-robin of reactions as the question unfolds. Peep this shit:
Ramona fucking Singer. Was at the Mar-a-Lago party. Where Kimberly Guilfoyle got fucking Covid. And every woman up in here is like “LOLOL are you fucking kidding me?”
Just take a moment to absorb the layers of disgusting, worthless, vile trash that Ramona Singer has just been revealed to be. Spreading Covid hither and yon AND partying with the fucking Trumps. Honestly it's been days and I'm still in shock. I don't even have any jokes. I gotta be honest, for a hot second, I was like "Yo I can't watch this show anymore in good conscience." And to be all the way 100, I’m still struggling with it.
Thankfully, I’m an empty vessel without a conscience! Back to the drama! So Andy throws to Dorinda, since this is her beef, and Big D just lays it out: Ramona is just going to sit here and lie about this, she says, so here’s what really happened in Florida. And Ramona—who honestly seems to be taking cues from her buddy Donald Trump at this point—just starts bellowing “I don’t have the virus! I don’t have the virus!” over and over again. And Dorinda’s just gives up and is like, “Fine, you’re unvirusable!”
Then Leah states the obvious:
Then Andy, who had Covid and had to be quarantined for weeks away from his fucking newborn baby, for fuck’s sake, states the other-obvious: you can fucking get it again you stupid fucking Brak-ass troglodyte!
You think Ramona gives a fuck?
Fucking asshole. They all keep insisting she can get it again and then Sonja, ever-ready, blurts out the real truth of the matter.
Ahhhhhh ha! Ramona’s been fucking Harry Dubin again! Perfect! They fucking deserve each other! And since Sonja let the cat out of the bag, Dorinda's like WELL OKAY THEN LET'S GUT THIS BITCH. She reveals what Ramona was up to at night down in Florida when she wasn't Instagramming her workouts.
Apparently these speakeasies are also beach clubs too or something because now Ramona's whole defense is she wasn't wearing a mask because she was in the ocean.
Which lolololol ma’am what?! But she just keeps bellowing “I DON’T wear MASKS in the OCEAN!!!” over and over again. Leah screams back, you're dancing around and people are dying!
Then Dorinda loses HER shit and starts screaming statistics! 30 million people jobless! 158,000 people dead (at the time)!
And Ramona just keeps screaming I DON'T WEAR A MASK IN THE OCEAN, and now literally the ENTIRE ROOM is SCREAMING AT RAMONA, who just keeps screaming about the fucking ocean.
And Leah finally loses here goddamn mind and shrieks IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU WEARING A MASK IN THE OCEAN YOU FUCKING IDIOT.
And then Andy loses HIS cool and screams “SHUT UP!” like Arnold Schwarzenegger in that one part of Ivan Reitman’s seminal 1990 motion picture Kindergarten Cop!
And rightfully so! They finally all stop screaming, rise from their seats, and simply ~*strangle Ramona to death, freeing us from the grasp of her diabolical tyrrany*~
Jkjkjk, we live in hell so none of that happenes. Instead, Dorinda just shakes her head and calls the whole thing heartbreaking.
And Sonja is fucking digusted.
And look, when your best friend who loves you unconditionally can't deal with your shit, you know you are fucked up.
To break the tension Andy makes a joke with Tinsley.
But honestly? The mood is somber. I’m not kidding! And I know that this show is fluff and these recaps are just stupid shit to like blow off steam while the world, both figuratively and literally, burns, but like *Harry Styles voice* sign of the times, amirite? We literally can’t have ANYTHING nice, not even a fucking reality show reunion, and it is because of people like Ramona Singer.
Anyway, Andy, bless his heart, feels like he has to make one last ditch attempt to reach Ramona. He says can I just ask this one last question, and Ramona just bellows “No!”
And like lady that is your BOSS he will put you out of this fucking show and leave you on the side of the road! You better mind Andrew Cohen, he has done more to ruin the brains of gay men than anyone in history RESPECT HIM! He asks his question anyway: Don't you see how what you're putting on social media at least LOOKS like you’re a dumpster full of decaying crawfish baking in the noonday sun??? And Ramona just bellows I WAS IN FLORIDA WHICH OPENED UP 45 DAYS BEFORE New York and Leah’s like:
And all the other women groan in fucking agony and Andy FINALLY releases us from this Guantanamo Bay torture chamber and we go to commercial and I have never been so relieved by an ad for Farxiga, The Diabetes Drug That For Some Reason Rots Out Your Taint™, in my entire fucking life.
Anyway, post-commercial we blessedly put Ramona’s clit-boner for pestilence and fascism to bed and begin our rehash of the antics that DID air on television. We start with a recap of Leah's glorious first season—wing tattoos on her vagina! Drunken antics in the Hamptons! Her relationship with her fucking hot-ass babydaddy Rob FUCK.
I wanna be on a destructive path, Rob, a path that’s DESTRUCTIVE TO THIS ASS. Look how fucking sexy this dude is Jesus Christ. Remember when the whole internet was about Big Dick Energy for a minute? Rob has EXTREME Big Dick Energy. You know his shit’s like a nine-pound port tenderloin and leaves bruises on your face and shit. Break my fucking cheekbones, Robby, shatter my eye orbitals into a fine powder daddy unnnffhhh.
I am so tired of this Substack being hacked every week by some weird horny person like IF YOU ARE READING THIS GET YOUR OWN SUBSTACK THIS ONE IS MINE AND IT’S NOT FOR HORNY SHIT I mean damn.
Anyway, Andy kicks things off by reading some viewer reviews of Leah’s first season, and we quickly find out why she’s sitting next to Andy. Fuck Darlene from Pocatello, Idaho or whatever, Leah’s viewer reviews are from EMMY AWARD-WINNING TELEVISION ICONS SARAH FUCKING PAULSON AND JOHN OLIVER.
Paulson rates Leah a 25 out of 10, and John Oliver said Leah trashing Ramona’s Hamptons house was the funniest thing he’d seen all year. Which, naturally, Ramona loves, with her jealous ass.
EVERYONE HATES YOU RAMONA INCLUDING JOHN OLIVER GO GET COVID AGAIN.
They move on to the extremely dumb controversy over Leah’s t’toos. A viewer asks about the provenance of the angel wings t’tooed over her pussy, and like all good t’toos, it turns out it is the product of hallucinogenics! Leah hallucinated that she had wings, and felt she needed to honor them with a t’too, but her back was too boring so she chose her pussy!
Bless her. Dorinda's like, yeah okay, but what happens when you're with a man? And before she even finishes, Leah's like "Oh they love it" and lololol Dorinda's like “Oh word?”
Look at Dorinda like "Shit does a bitch need some pussy wings?!?!"
Next, we delve into Leah’s return to booze, which leads to a wider discussion of these prominent TV alcoholics and all their drunken antics this season—the corn maze! Sonja falling off her chair! Dorinda and Luann fighting at the Berkshires! We get this lovely moment of Sonja getting embarrassed by her unhinged shitfacery in Mexico.
Also remember when Leah got drunk on halloween and attacked an octopus?
Classic! But honestly, all this reminiscing and laughing and having fun... what the fuck show is this? Now that they’ve destroyed Ramona Singer are they just gonna GET ALONG for an hour and that's it? I mean this is, like, boring! I've been sold a false bill of goods!
Well, have no fear. After reminiscing about booze, Andy reads a question from a viewer, who says he found it hard to watch the season because of the out of control drinking. Leah, Sonja and Luann all agree they went off the rails and worked to rein themselves in by the end of the season. But among the drunks on this show, there is, of course, an elephant still in the room. Andy asks Dorinda if she feels any regrets having watched herself over the course of the season.
And now, friends, fun time is over. We're about to go back into the abyss.
Dorinda answers the question thusly:
And Sonja LOOKS INTO THE FUCKING CAMERA like, Eugh buoy.
Bitch I hollered.
Then Ramona trots out THIS old chestnut again.
And Dorinda's like....
And look we don't like body shaming. This is a body shaming-free zone! But I am a homosexual from the 90s first and a like, evolved, progressive person second and so I screamed with glee at this shade idc idc idc! If it were anyone besides Ramona, would I be outraged? Yes! But I hate her!
And besides, Ramona is constantly talking about how thin she is and how good her body is, which is obnoxious on its face, but if we're keeping it all the way 100 she has definitely gone a bit Janice Van Meter. (If you don’t get that reference you need to go drown yourself in the toilet you are not welcome here.) Which is fine! She's nearly 64 years old! But if you're gonna brag about it and shit-talk other peoples bodies, which Ramona does ALL THE DAMN TIME, well, then, you open yourself to scrutiny by fellow socialites and sad fat lonely homosexual hermits on the internet alike! That's the law of the jungle beh-beeeee!
I mean, it’s like this kid I grew up with, Mike, who had a big fat mean older brother named Mark, and one time we were playing at their house and Mark called me fatso until I cried (which is basically all I did as a child because LOL I have always been ~*wildly mentally ill*~). Mike’s mom came home from the Farmer Jack™ and saw me crying and was like, “What’s going on?” Mike was like, “Mark called him fatso till he cried,” and Mike’s mom rolled her eyes and said, “Well that fat-ass should talk!” and then got out of the car and grabbed Mark’s gut and was like, “Glass houses, kid, get inside” in that teeth-gritty way that 80s moms did! And fat Mark hung his fat head in shame and loped off fatly into the house!
And was that abusive? Idk probably! Is Mark probably somewhere crying himself to sleep about it right now? I fucking hope so! He punched ME in the stomach once for no reason because MIKE asked if we could watch Yo! MTV Raps! with him! Fuck Mark! Bless his mom! She made really good cheesy scrambled eggs at sleepovers! We stan a vengeful domestic queen!
Anyway, we put a pin in Dorinda telling Ramona she’s a lump of sewer fat to talk about how Leah was constantly shamed for getting drunk by a bunch of women who are drunks. Leah says she was made to feel terrible about herself. And Dorinda, ever savvy, sees another opportunity. She asks Leah who it was that was always shaming her.
And of course, the answer is:
So now Dorinda has cleverly turned the conversation BACK to what garbage Ramona is. Do you see where we’re headed here? Can you see the stars aligning? You can feel it, can’t you: The coming of Judgment Day. “He is coming with the clouds, and every eye shall see him” in Jesus’ name…
Dorinda dives back in. She drags Ramona for loving to judge people (true) and accuses her of calling Leah a whore. When Leah looks at Ramona like she’s going to both cry and rip Ramona’s heart out with her teeth, or maybe cry while ripping Ramona’s heart out with her teeth…
…Ramona explodes, insisting she never said such a thing and, you know, there's no footage so who knows but does it sound like an off-base accusation? Especially because Ramona goes OFF THE RAILS.
And once again, when your best friend can't deal with your nonsense you know you are a baby’s coffin filled with rotting ground round.
Finally, Ramona gets so irate that she spits what has become the catchphrase of the last week.
The way she says it is so deliciously stupid. OH-my-GOD-go-to-CHURCH! It’s like reverse iambic pentameter or something, it had RHYTHM, it had a BEAT, it was STUPID. Truly magical!
Anyway, sure seems like the reaction of someone innocent of calling her friend a whore, right? Look at Dorinda sitting there like the cat that ate the canary!
In any case, Ramona does end up copping to judging Leah too harshly. And in a surprising but not surprising twist, Leah and Luann both reveal that they’ve quit drinking altogether since shooting wrapped, the former because getting drunk alone in quarantine is what scholars sometimes refer to as ~*alcholism*~, and the latter after seeing the way she berated Sonja in the Berkshires. Sonja, of course, revealed her quitting of the sauce earlier when she talked about blowing out her butthole in Palm Springs.
Now, at this point you eagle-eyed readers might notice where we're being led by Andrew and his editing team. Everyone has owned up to and modified their behavior. Except one woman in the room who seems hellbent on evading any kind of responsiblity.
Well! On to the next viewer question, which is: Why does Dorinda get so belligerent whenever people bring up her drinking?
And, if you can believe? Dorinda immediately pivots to Ramona again!!! She makes the whole thing about Ramona bullying her and trying to make her look like an alcoholic. And, like... ma'am I’m sorry what?! Did you not WATCH the season?! You very effciently and effectively did that for yourself!
Ramona's immediately like "Bitch that's not the question" and then Andy's like "Hoe that's not the question" and then all of us at home are like "HEIFER THAT’S NOT THE QUESTION" but she simply won't answer it. Ramona for once in her life has a coherent thought and says that Dorinda is “petrified” of being called a drunk, so she blows up.
And look, I think I've made abundantly clear that I wouldn't piss on Ramona Singer if she were on fire but sorry, I'm on her side here! Dorinda’s big comeback here is “YOU’RE A DRUNK” and like oooh sick burn Dorinda!!! Like come on, this is pathetic. Andy will NOT let her off the hook though. He poses the question again, and *exasperated sigh* here’s Dorinda’s answer.
She basically says, “I don't point out that Ramona's a fucking boozehound and a jizz-oozing WHURE” (I'm paraphrasing) and not even Chief Executive Officer of Ramona Hatred and Strategic Dismantling of Hoes Leah McSweeney can abide this shit.
And Ramona has fucking had it.
And now ANDREW has fucking had it to boot.
Honestly, I left this reunion with a newfound appreciation for the level of cat-wrangling this man is forced to do! Dorinda FINALLY relents, and after insulting Ramona's facelift, admits that:
Which is not a fucking answer. No fucking shit it’s stress-related. She elaborates a little further, saying she gets particularly bad when she feels like “I don’t have an outlet to express myself” (which lol no offense SOUNDS LIKE ALCOHOLISM BUT OK), and cops to the fact that she frequently takes it out on others. And BITCH, peep Tinsley Mortimer when Dorinda says THAT.
It’s about to pop off. I screamed. Speaking of whompst, after a brief detour so Sonja can double down on her claim that NINE SEASONS OF FALLING OFF FURNITURE is attributable to her DIURETICS, to which Dorinda’s like, “IDK man I’ve taken the same exact pill every day for years but whatver you say” (I screamed) it is FINALLY time to catch up with Tinsley.
Now hold in your mind here that Dorinda has MANY chinks in her armor at this point on account of having made a fool of herself, and the tide of public opinion, if you will, has begun turning against her in the room. Know also that Tinsley simply like, respiring has seemed to work Dorinda’s nerves all evening. There’s an ~*air*~, an ~*ambiance*~, a ~*spirit*~ about the place that bodes ill.
Ok. So. Tinsley. Now you know I have ~*opinions*~ about Tinsley, but I'm happy for her! It sounds like she and Scott are legitimately happy in Chicago, and that's really wonderful! All the women are happy for her too! LOLOL JKJKJK except for Dorinda who, before Tinsley even says a fucking WORD, is rolling her eyes DURING THE FUCKING MONTAGE CATCHING US UP ON TINSLEY’S LIFE.
Hell, Tinsley hasn’t said a fucking word since she walked in the goddamn building! And Dorinda's already pissed! Through the entire recap of Tinsley’s season, Dorinda is shaking her head, rolling her eyes, huffing and puffing, and fucking glaring into the middle distance. Honestly it was fucking WEIRD, and it made me remember what a low-key relief it was that Tinsley left just so we could get a break from Dorinda being such a rancid asshole.
But that break is over, cuz she’s right back in the saddle. Tinsley announces that she and Scott are engaged, and Dorinda’s barely holding herself together.
Tinsley talks about how she and Scott really hit a groove during quarantine, and Dorinda is just sitting there quietly seething.
Andy asks Tinsley how she felt watching the season, seeing the way the women talked about her and her relationship with Scott.
And look at the way Dorinda glares at Andy like “I wish a motherfucker fucking would.”
Tinsley states plainly that no one supported her except Leah, until Ramona and Luann came around upon realizing they were "under Dorinda's spell." And reader, I winced so hard my jaw detached. The editors, cleverly, build suspense by not showing us Dorinda’s reaction to this, but Luann looks like she's either about to slap Tinsley or like she’s bracing for Dorinda to fucking telekinetically light the room on fire like Carrie, I'm not sure which. Probably both!
Leah jumps in to stir the pot, though she's not wrong when she says that it’s weird that everyone’s sitting here so upbeat about Tinsley’s new life because nobody gave a solitary fuck before. And here’s Dorinda side-eyeing Leah like “Bitch if you don’t shut the entire fuck up you know I’m crazy fuck around and find out.”
Luann points out, in everyone’s defense, that Tinsley and Scott had broken up so many times, so they were all skeptical as to whether this new life was real. Which, okay, fine, but these bitches legit BULLIED HER. They bullied her! Playground shit! And Tinsley was really hurt by it!
You can honestly cut the tension with a knife. One-by-one they all kind of turn on Tinsley. Ramona and Luann are visibly irritated, and now Sonja is pissed off because she says Tinsley was so guarded the whole season, they couldn’t be supportive. Which, sorry, you know I’ll throw myself in front of cross-country train for Sonja Morgan, but that is utter fucking bullshit! Any time she tried to open up they mocked her, and every time Dorinda attacked her they took D’s side! The fuck was Tinsley supposed to do?!
Meanwhile, Dorinda is just sort of lurking in the corner over there sharpening a machete against her teeth or whatever. Shit’s getting fucking WEIRD.
And now, we come to the chunk of the muffin. Andy takes another viewer question, which is: Did Tinsley leave the show because Scott made her. Tinsley states emphatically no, but she knew that Scott was uncomfortable with the show and eventually she’d have to choose, particularly because of the long-distance aspect. So she chose to leave.
And this, for whatever reason, is where Dorinda blows. She spits, “You met him on the show!” And you know shit’s about to get serious because CUT TO SPLIT-SCREEN!
Dorinda’s fucking INDIGNANT that Scott would have a problem with the show because it’s where he and Tinsley met. And like, sorry... SO?!
WTF is she talking about?! Being on ONE episode THREE YEARS AGO in a blind date set up by Carole Radziwill and her hot-ass boyfriend (ugh remember Adam that jawline that big weird hook nose fuck) is different than being engaged to someone who's on a fucking reality show for fucking YEARS in a different city halfway across the country, you absolute fucking obtuse lunatic?! What is the MATTER with this woman! Dorinda is literally INCENSED by this! She starts yelling about how UNGRATEFUL Scott is because without the show he wouldn't know Tinsley! She just starts yelling, “THANK YOU, BRAVO” over and over.
Ma’am what?!?! And on the other side of the split-screen, Tinsley is just like HE LIVES IN CHICAGO YOU STUPID BITCH IS YOUR BRAIN FULL OF ASBESTOS?!
The entire conversation is fucking stupid and makes no sense. WHY DO YOU FUCKING CARE, DORINDA?! In summary, I give you Leah’s reaction to all this:
Tinsley finishes by saying that she chose to leave because she wanted to make her relationship her first priority and didn’t want to drag him into this toxic environment, and one-by-one every one of these women but Dorinda are like “AND I’D HAVE DONE THE SAME EXACT THING.” THE TIDE HAS TURNED ONCE AGAIN. Everyone’s Team Tinsley now.
Dorinda just sits there huffing and puffing and rolling her eyes. Tinsley is finishing explaining her situation with Scott but I guess Sonja has had enough becuase she just starts putting hand sanitizer on her legs?
But honestly thank God, because this entire conversation, which should have been literally a sentence—“I’m engaged and I left the show for love, not for any other reason goodbye!”—took like 4 hours because Dorinda Medley is fucking unhinged. SHUT UP.
But there’s more. We come back from commercial and now it’s time to hold Dorinda to account for repeatedly mocking Tinsley for not getting pregnant. Remember that shit? Remember on Halloween when Tinsley announced her move to Chicago and Dorinda offered her a turkey baster? Check Tinsley’s face as they rewatch the scene and get to the part where everyone laughs along with Dorinda.
We cut out of this rehash and every single woman in the room is embarrassed and uncomfortable—because, you know, mocking women’s pregnancy shit is, like, disgusting?—except Dorinda, who’s LITERALLY STIFLING HER LAUGHTER AT HERSELF.
AND THEN. You guys? Shit got SO much weirder SO fast. Andy asks Tinsley and Dorinda if they’ve spoken since Tinsley left, and they both say no, and then Dorinda says that Tinsley doesn’t talk to anyone but Leah anyway so who cares, and Tinsley’s fucking had it. First she says to Dorinda, “That’s bullshit, you and I WERE friends at one point” and then she’s like why would I be in touch with you anyway after “the vile turkey baster comment.”
And Dorinda has the unmitigated temerity to ask, with fake concern:
I honestly gasped. And the ENTIRE ROOM turns on Dorinda IMMEDIATELY.
You hear a chorus of women yelling "Dorinda ENOUGH!" And then!!! Tinsley!!!--OH BITCH my roommate and I clapped and HOLLERED at the TV!!!--Tinsley says “Turkey baster means IVF and Andy's baby is from IVF, would you say that to him??”
Hoo bitch!!! And Andy’s just sitting there like "Well?"
GIRL!!! And that clearly hits a nerve, because Dorinda relents. She apologizes for what she calls "a bad joke."
But this just makes Tinsley even angrier. She gasps and is like "A joke?!"
And sorry I'm still on Tinsley's side! This is the most gaslighting-ass apology I've ever heard, and you KNOW she’s only offering it because she offended bossman. Don’t shit where you eat, as they say! And Andy isn't here for the fuckshit either!
Ramona starts yelling "but she apologized!!!" And Tinsley doesn't give a FUCK.
Tinsley yells “How dare you?!” and when Dorinda apologizes again—insincerely—Tinsley says “Well you said it and you can never take it back,” and honestly? NORMALIZE NOT ACCEPTING APOLOGIES!!! Forgiveness is ~*earned*~ my darlings! You are not ~*entitled*~ to it dear heart! If you don’t want to not be forgiven you should ~*think more carefully about your actions*~ beloved!
Ok. Whew! So let’s take a moment to take stock of how fucking stomach-turningly awful this all is. I mean this show went from being a laugh-riot about rich boozehounds to being about like IDK man, verbal and emotional abuse I guess?! It’s like when Real Housewives of New Jersey became an exercise in watching an actual family implode on television complete with crying children cowering in corners as brothers beat the shit out of each other while Teresa Giudice screeched from beneath her bizarrely low hairline!!! (Seriously it’s woven into her eyebrows what is that about.) This is just becoming… IDK man! Gross! WHAT THE FUCK YOU GUYS?
Well! Bitch, we’re bout to find the fuck out what the fuck you fucking fucks!! Thanks to someone named Willa from Brooklyn, whose question is simply, "Dorinda, what is your issue with Tinsley?" BITCH I KNOW RIGHT! WILLA!!! THANK YOU!!! GOD’S WORK!!! And Dorinda says this:
Which lol lady PLEASE. Can you PLEASE??? She elaborates to mean that there was a lot of shit behind the scenes that nobody knows about, and that is why she hates Tinsley. AND BITCH LOOK AT RAMONA.
Look at her!!! She’s like “Bitch you better don’t. You better don’t!” Something is afoot!!! And look at the way Dorinda looks back at Ramona!!!
She looks like she's about to puke.
Sure enough, Tinsley pipes up and--hoooooo my sweet blessed babies TINSLEY MORTIMER NEE MERCER OF THE VIRGINA MERCERS CAME TO FIGHT TONIGHT IN JESUS’ NAME!!! Tinsley's basically like okay bitch you wanna talk about shit that didn't air on the show? Cuz we can fucking TALK ABOUT SHIT THAT DIDN'T AIR ON THE SHOW.
GAYGASP!!! SCOTT LOANED JOHN BAHDESSIAN A BUNCH OF MONEY!!! THAT'S WHAT THIS IS ABOUT!!! Which honestly who the FUCK cares but if you know Dorinda you know this is EXACTLY the kind of shit that would make her saw John Bahdessian’s head off with a fucking bread knife. Borrowing money from the boyfriend of one of her friends and not telling her?! The ~*betrayal*~ It all makes sense!
But Dorinda full out denies it. She says, multiple times, “I don't know anything about that,” and muses as to why we’re suddenly talking about John Bahdessian. Tinsley continues by saying Dorinda felt betrayed by John going around behind her back borrowing money from her friends and Dorinda took that anger out on Tinsley.
Dorinda denies any of this happened.
AND TINSLEY KEEPS GOING. She says Dorinda called John and screamed at him, and that she was so irate at Tinsley that night that!!!!
First of all, your reminder that TALKING ABOUT PRODUCTION IS NOT FUCKING ALLOWED ON THESE SHOWS, so you know this shit is fucking SERIOUS! And Andy had to be in on this! That’s A!
Two!!! Dorinda got so fucking crazy at Tinsley they wanted to take Tinsley to a goddamn hotel!!! BITCH LOOK AT LEAH GLARING AT DORINDA LIKE “I fistfought the NYPD and fucking won both on the street AND in court and I sincerely, with all my heart, wish a bitch would.”
I cannot tell you how fucking weird the energy in this room is!!! Everyone is just looking at their laps!!! And Dorinda continues denying everything. She says she didn't even KNOW about the money!
And Andrew is like EXSQUEEZE ME LIARSAYSWHAT???
Dorinda denies it AGAIN. Denies having any idea what anyone is talking about.
And then. Bitch. BITCH!!! AND THEN!!!
Remember what I just said about talking about production? And how if Tinsley was being allowed to say all this Andy clearly had to be in on it?
BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITCH!!!! BITCH! BITCH BITCH BITCH!!!! BITCH ANDY ROLLS THE ***UNAIRED*** FOOTAGE OF EVERYTHING DORINDA IS CLAIMING NOT TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT AND IS LIKE ROLL THE TAPE!!!
Oh my fucking JESUS I gasped so hard it propelled me through the back wall of my goddamn apartment and out into the street where I was immediately run over by an oil tanker! And in case the depth and breadth of this ragestroke of Dorinda’s isn’t translating, here’s a glimpse of Sonja, looking on the verge of tears.
We come back into the room and Tinsley is still fucking GUNS. BLAZING. She yells “I have done NOTHING TO YOU to make you hate me the way you do!” But in a stroke of cinematic genius worthy of an Oscar, an Emmy, a Golden Globe, a Pulitzer, a PEN Faulkner, a Newberry Medal, a Pushcart Prize, a James Beard Award—hell a fucking Society for Human Resource Management Human Capital Leadership Award!!! I don’t fucking care!!! All of it!!!—the editors, instead of showing Tinsley, elect to show us Dorinda who--my God in heaven—goes through an entire PLOT ARC as Tinsley is screaming at her. She stares mortified at the ground, where her rubble lies.
Then she starts to look at her only ally in the room, Leah, but remembers Leah and Tinsley are best friends, so then she looks at Andy, probably expecting him to help her or cut the cameras.
And I can only guess Andy was like "Sorry you did this to yourself" because she just immediately looks away from him like "Fuck."
It was... shocking. But of course, Dorinda won’t just sit here and take the L. When Tinsley gets to the end of her speech…
…Dorinda goes into childish mode. Apropos of nothing, she’s like “You have no financial security, I’d hate your life.”
And like lolololololol friendly reminder that SCOTT IS A LITERAL BILLIONAIRE. Like literally HHHHHHHWHAT????
Anyway let’s check in with Leah, because HOOOOOO!!! While Dorinda’s doing her ham-fisted “lol you’re poor” to A BILLIONAIRE’S FIANCE, we cut to Leah and she's looking at Dorinda just quietly stunned.
And then she glances over at Tinsley and just smiles like, "You got her, bitch."
Are you clapping in your home right now?! Because if this were a movie in a movie theather on a packed Beforetimes Friday night, everyone would be clapping!!!
Tinsley gets the last fucking word, which is basically Regina George yelling, “WHY ARE YOU SO OBSESSED WITH ME.”
And Dorinda is just....... low-key broken?
And THAT, my friends, is Reunion episode 1!
Can you fucking believe this shit?! And now we know why Dorinda isn't coming back! Hoe would you?! Because look, real talk I'd be willing to bet the entire reason none of this fight about money aired in the first place is because Dorinda asked Andy et. al. not to air it. Which is understandable, because aside from how embarrassed she probably was by herself, if I was John Bahdessian? I'd be like, “Put that on TV and watch the smoke come off my heels from how fast I ditch your ass CALL YOUR BOY ANDY AND FIX IT.” I mean! There's no other reasonable explanation for why they wouldn’t air that! You KNOW Andy & co. went to in-house counsel and were like "Yo can we fuck this shit up" and the lawyers were like "OH BITCH YOU CAN FUCK THIS SHIT UP *bangs gavel*" and so they fucked this shit up!
I was absolutely astounded. I still am! The coordinated precision with which this bitch WHO’S NOT EVEN ON THE SHOW ANYMORE AND HAS NEVER DONE A GODDAMN THING IN FOUR SEASONS JUST STRAIGHT UP ASSASSINATED THE QUEEN BEE!!! Just straight-up murk’d her!!!
LEE HARVEY OSWALD COULD NEVER!!! Charles Guiteau? More like CHARLES GUIT-EAUT OF HERE I DON’T THINK SEAU!!! That is a joke about Charles Guiteau, whompst assassinated James Garfield in 1881! Here’s another one John Wilkes Boothe? More like John WISHES Boothe amirite?!!!!! Or amirite?! OH SHIT!!! OH SHIT!!! Give me Patreon money!!!
In any case, there you have it. Honestly, I’m somewhat in mourning for my beloved Dorinda but look—it brings me no joy to say this. It brings me no joy to say this! But she deserved it.
Anyway next week’s reunion ep looks to be all about assassinating Ramona, so that should also be satisfying! Maybe she’ll quit the show too!
Until then please hold it together and sacrifice a newborn to Satan or whatever so that it rains on the West Coast. Ok thank you bye bye!