Hello friends! I don’t even have to think of an intro this week because the baby Jesus just handed me one out of the ether, and I do not know if it’s real because there’s no way to verify it, but just look what God has done!
A dispatch from (UGH, Elyse) HERSELF!!! I mean I think so. I mean honestly probably not. It’s almost certainly someone fucking around. But still! God is good and He is what? GOOD ALL THE TIME IN JESUS’ NAME!!!
In case you’ve forgotten, she is commenting on this very important recap, where our girl Elyse came correct and just shit drama everywhere in the Berkshires, most of it directly into Ramona’s mouth! Sorry for being gross this is the only metaphor I could think of because I’m a professional writer!
(LOL “1 Like” please kill me with a knife.)
But it’s a fitting metaphor because the Cameo she’s referencing in her comment is that video she made with Leah talking about how Ramona shits during sex which I’ve decided to just go ahead and believe is a fact even though they were obviously trolling?
Anyway! What if this is the real Elyse Slaine?! I mean, I’m sure it’s someone just ‘avin’ a larf, as they say in Her Majesty’s United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but still. I mean IDK what is this email address???
Are Substack “forums” (“fora”?) a thing? WE NEED A FORENSIC ANALYSIS OF THIS IMMEDIATELY SOMEONE CALL MARISKA HARGITAY AND CHRIS MELONI IS THAT WHAT THEY DO I’VE NEVER SEEN AN EPISODE OF LAW & ORDER IN MY LIFE WHAT IS SCRIPTED TELEVISION. I do want Chris Meloni to make me unable to sit down for a week tho. *pats hair like Mae West*
Anyway here is what I responded.
So that is it! The (UGH, Elyse) joke is officially retired wow what a run!!!
I mean honestly, assuming this actually IS Elyse, can you imagine Ramona having this kind of sense of humor about herself? Or anything, for that matter?! Seriously the hell with all these other women I’m pivoting this to an Elyse Slaine stan Substack. Cancel your Patreons now!
MAJOR FUCKING UPDATE IT IS INDEED ELYSE. Since I published this the following things occurred.
First, this:
Ok, but that doesn’t prove anything, right? Right! BUT ELYSE’S FUCKING TWITTER FUCKING DOES SUCK ON THIS.
DON’T! YOU! EVER! TALK! BAD! ABOUT! MY! FRIEND! ELYSE! (UGH! ELYSE!!!) EVER! AGAIN!
So there. Okay, as you were. We will now return to our regularly scheduled recap, already in progress.
But that’s not all, another urgent point of business is this Instagram post of Dorinda’s, which for some reason won’t load because God forbid anything should ever work correctly so here’s a screenshot.
(Peep good ol’ Lisa Rinna up there in the comments clapping away. Bravo Women Supporting Bravo Women we love to see it!)
Anyway Big D and her departed husband Richard were/are big-time DNC donors (DRAIN THE SWAMP GEORGE SOROS DEEP STATE!!11!!) so of course she went to K-Boz’s fundraiser! But when D ORIGINALLY posted this there was a SECOND photo of her RECEIPT for her and Hannah’s $3000 TICKETS to this fundraiser and people were like “LOL this is the tackiest shit I’ve ever seen in my life you are tacky LOL” so she DELETED it and then REPOSTED it WITHOUT the RECEIPT! Which is somehow the funniest shit that has ever happened to me! What a nightmare! As my friend Sam (hey girl!) said when we were shriektexting about this, “ok so yes drunk when she posted” and that really does sum it up I think. God bless Dorinda Medley.
Oh—a thing I keep forgetting to tell you so I’m just going to say it here apropos of nothing is that did you know FUN FACT the character of Susan-Sharon on Sex and the City is based on one Dorinda Medley? True story!
Anyway that seems like a perfect segue into the episode, doesn’t it? Great. So in case you forgot (previous recaps here) we’re in Mexico on vacaysh! We open right where we left off, specifically with Sonja slurscreaming at Leah about how you can’t just show your vagina in mixed company and she shouldn’t have done so at Ramona’s party.
And Dorinda has fucking had it so she’s like SHE DIDN’T DO THAT YOU STUPID BITCH! And she didn’t! There were hella television cameras because this a television show and so we all saw that it never happened and also that Leah had underpants on her vagina! So Ramona is a lying liar! Which is surely why Leah delivers this instant classic line:
I mean look, ~*cultural appropriation*~ and all, I get it, but this is the best repurposing of a Black slang phrase I have ever fucking seen. Anyway, thankfully, Dorinda puts Sonja to bed like a little baby, and the women resume their investigaysh into what the actual fuck Sonja is on and how we can prove that it’s a mix of veterinary tranquilizers and rubbing alcohol because nothing else can explain her behavior. Luann investigates what you may remember is apparently Sonja’s new signature cocktail, the classic and refreshing rock-bottom elixir Rosé and Coke, and surprise, it’s still revolting and the type of shit a gay hobo would drink in a boxcar coursing through the wide-open West beneath a glittering Wasatch sunset while getting a blowjob from another gay hobo.
Incidentally, “Another Gay Hobo” is the name of my new sitcom pilot. It’s about a typical American family—but very diverse, it’s the 2020s!—whompst, after a chance encounter, lets a gay hobo sleep in their guest room for a couple days and then on the last night, his gay hobo brother shows up, and the family’s like *sigh* “Okay, he can stay too but ONLY FOR TONIGHT” and then the next day coronavirus happens and they all have to quarantine together with (say it with me) ANOTHER Gay Hobo! Tuesdays on CBS also Bob Newhart plays one of the gay hobos.
Anyway with the baby (Sonja) put down for the night, Dorinda goes down to the beach to try to talk some sense into Ramona, who stormed off a bit ago muttering to herself about how gross vaginas are. Ramona tries to make it sound like she's mad not because she’s been trying to character assassinate Leah and neither the facts as documented on multiple television cameras nor her friends who were witnesses are letting her get away with it, but rather because everyone is so drunk and acting unbecoming of a lady. Again with this fucking Princes Grace shit, from a woman with two turkeys surgically implanted in her chest cavity who just a few weeks ago was making jokes about cum. This woman.
Anyway, Dorinda’s basically like you’re a monster stop this. And remember last week when Ramona was on a commenting-about-people’s-mental-health kick, gossipping about Leah having bipolar disorder and suggesting that the reason she’s out here FLASHING HER MEAT FLANGE AT STRANGERS (again, never happened) is because she’s BONKERS FOR BIPOLAR PILLS? Well, she’s still very much on that tip because she goes with this classic of the genre.
Straight-up just tells Dorinda she and Sonja are alcoholics. Which LOL if she’s lyin she’s dyin, but you can’t just say that shit! (I mean I can because reasons but not Ramona.) This isn’t how you help someone if you’re actually trying to help them! However, I forgive her because when Dorinda tries to lay into her, this is what she says.
“Okay, drink some water”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Next time someone gives me (totally deserved) shit I’m walking away while waving over my shoulder and saying “Okay, drink some water.” I mean! Ma’am! You have been disMISSED!!! I am still in cardiac arrest a week later. O K A Y D R I N K S O M E W A T E R. Have you ever in all your days???
Ramona’s still trash though.
Anyway, Dorinda goes back upstairs to the house and reports back to Lu and Leah what Ramona just said to her. And they are, quite rightly, shocked!
As if the bipolar thing wasn't bad enough!
Then Dorinda says what a low blow this is, and how she would never, ever say that to a friend. She uses Luann, who had to go to AA AND Boozejail, as an example—I’d never throw that in your face, she says.
Which is hilarious because SHE LITERALLY JUST DID IT A COUPLE WEEKS AGO IN THE FUCKING BERKSHIRES!!! Aside from the infamous Cartagena confrontation! Dorinda truly lives on another planet. For her part, Luann just sort of lets it go because LOL there’s no winning with Dorinda anyway. She also wisely lets it go when Dorinda’s like, “Luann you’ve known me 20 years, do I look like a drunk to you?” Luann’s just like:
Make a statement without saying a word, as the good people at Ex-Cla-Ma-Tion perfume taught us back in 1987!!!
Anyway, instead of staging an intervention with Dorinda, Luann takes a turn going down to the beach to talk to Ramona, who is still keeping up the song-and-dance about being offended by how drunk everyone is and without irony says she’s come down to the beach to drink a Fiji water because she’s afraid of turning into Dorinda, Sonja and Leah.
Have you ever known such a melodramatic person in your entire fucking life? (If you know me personally and are saying “Yes” in my direction right now you can fucking die in a fire and *extremely Shannen Doherty voice* never talk to me again!) I have been watching this trainwreck for 12 fucking years and this is the first time I’ve ever seen Ramona without a glass of alcohol in her hand girl shut up.
Luann has about as much patience for this shit as I do—for once she puts her peacekeeping bullshit aside and lays into Ramona for the AA comments and is like BITCH YOU GO OUT AND GET DRUNK TILL 4AM EVERY NIGHT WHAT ARE YOU ON ABOUT.
And Ramona—again! without! irony!—actually says this.
She is fucking insane! Anyone who watches this show can recite her drink order on command! The first recap in this series is TITLED AFTER Ramona’s favorite cocktail of the moment! I hate her.
But there’s no getting through to her. She just continues saying that Dorinda, Sonja and Leah would be laying in a gutter clutching a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 if they weren’t in this Mexican McMansion Airbnb.
Then she launches into a diatribe about how OUT OF CONTROL Leah is tonight, and LOL Leah is stone-cold fucking sober and hasn’t so much as raised her voice this evening, so Luann is like “She’s fucking fine you fucking nutbag.”
One thing you can say about Ramona is that she’s wily and agile, like a boxer—the minute one of her attacks fails, she immediately pivots to a classic Ramona tactic: a dramatic monologue in which she informs us 437 consecutive times about how she knows she’s not perfect and she admits that she’s garbage as if to imply that that makes it okay to say horrific shit about other people. It’s a proud Ramona Singer tradition at this point! So that’s what she does.
And Luann, like all of us, has heard this a million fucking times and is just like “This bitch.”
But Ramona will just not shut up! She's bobbleheading on and on and on about how you can't tell Dorinda anything (lol true) and at least Ramona admits when she's wrong, which she literally never does except to third parties! She's fucking insane. And Luann is not buying a word of this. She tells Ramona, look we've all got problems, and Ramona's like no, Luann, you and I are SO normal.
And Luann is like LOLOLOL you are the craziest bitch who’s ever been on this show including both Kelly Killoren-Bensimon AND Aviva Drescher fuck outta here!
Blessedly, Ramona goes to bed, nothing having been accomplished, and Luann comes back up to the house, where Dorinda has been crying because Ramona hurt her feelings so badly. (AKA she has the vodka sadz.) Dorinda asks how Lu’s conversation with Ramona went, and Luann visibly recoils—she knows this is gonna be a disaster because Dorinda’s so goddamn thick-headed and belligerent.
She Reader’s Digests it to, “She’s judging you for how much you drink,” and Dorinda’s like:
Remember how A—Luann is just the messenger here but more importantly 2—Dorinda said literally 15 minutes ago she'd never throw Luann’s drinking issues in her face?! LOLOLOL WELP. And it was actually 15 minutes ago and we know this because the shady editors come in with the assist.
Anyway Dorinda—who is slurring and obviously drunk, by the way—starts going off on Luann! And Luann is like BITCH BACK UP. Even Leah is like “Yooo…”
Eventually Luann explodes and is like “DON’T KILL THE FUCKING MESSENGER” and Dorinda finally calms down and turns her ire on Ramona where it belongs. And thank God, because that gives us a visit from drunk nonsensical Dorinda! She talks about how Ramona has no call to judge her, and says this:
You’re damn right she doesn’t! Whompst among us DOES have a semblance on ANYONE’S compass?! No one! And the reason I know is because what does that even mean! Pretty impossible to have a semblance on someone’s compass when those are words that literally don’t mean anything when put together whatsoever at all! This conversation is over! Game, set, match, Dorinda! Anyway please enjoy Leah all like, lolwat?
And then, because our God is an awesome God who reigns from heaven above with wisdom power and love our God is an awesome God, we get another weird mess of syntactical gobbledygook, this one about how Ramona is out waving her wrecking-ball bosoms in every bar on the Upper East Side till all hours every night.
Fuckin and findin! I don’t know what that means but it is absolutely correct and we’re done here!
The next morning, surprise! Dorinda’s memory of all of this is completely faulty. Leah’s basically like, you need to apologize to Luann, and Dorinda is like nah, she was judging me! And Leah’s like it was Ramona you big dumb dummy!
But Dorinda insists that Luann was too. She tells Leah that Luann said, "God knows in the past you have drank too much too" and Leah's like Dorinda that never happened. Dorinda insists it did and then claims she wasn't even drunk so she remembers perfectly. And the level of crazy here is so high that Leah’s brain just completely melts and drains out of her ears while she stares at Dorinda in disbelief.
Dorinda claims she wasn’t drunk at all because she was only drinking wine spritzers which is not how alcohol works and also not how television camera footage in which you are visibly slurring while the chef makes you Tito’s and Pellegrinos works, but listen who are we to judge WE HAVE NO SEMBLANCE ON HER COMPASS.
Anyway the point is, Dorinda and Luann are now embroiled in conflict over a thing Dorinda has completely invented inside her vodka brain. So, that’s fun and cool!
Meanwhile over in Ramona and Sonja's room, Sonja—who, as a reminder, could not even say words last night—is perfectly fine as if last night never even happened! Typical. But she’s been on the Google machine this morning, you see, and has gotten to the bottom of why she was so fucked up the night before on just two glasses of Coke and Rosé over an eight-hour period. The mix of alcohol with her DIURETIC gave her…
“Drunken sailorness walk”! From a diuretic. Sure! Of course! Who among us!
Now, as a dedicated journalist I did my due diligence and Googled "drunken sailorness walk” to find out what in the everloving fuck that could possibly mean and found out it’s an actual thing called drunken sailor syndrome, which is exactly what it sounds like. So can mixing booze with a FUCKING DIURETIC result in drunken sailor syndrome? Well, the only Google results for “diuretic drunken sailor syndrome” are other recaps of this show so I’m gonna go with absolutely not this is total fucking bullshit!!!
Especially since, um…
Oh wow Sonja ALSO had a Xanax??? SuReLy JuSt A cOiNcIdEnCe! What a buffoon.
Here’s how I know Sonja is on some bullshit. As a homosexual I had a period of my life where I regularly mixed alcohol with prescription drugs (a journey of self-discovery upon which all big-city gay men must embark!) and it absolutely makes you act like a Sonja. Remember my friend Branden and our terrible boss from last week? Well in addition to letting us smoke all his desk weed he also used to give us hella pills, and so Branden and I got in a habit of drinking what we called Xanatinies, which is where you wash down Xanax with martinis! Oh what mirth! What revelry! That is a very stupid thing to do! We also used to do this with Vicodin! Which is even stupider!
Here’s how stupid: This one time, me, Branden, our boss and my best friend Timm, who came along to help, were doing this big event in Portland for these weird Jesus-freak pyramid scheme owners (someday I’m gonna write a book or a screenplay about my stint as an event planner for scam artists, what a time what a life!) and it turned out the wife’s brother who did all the flowers for their events was a giant buttsexing homogay! (It’s always the people you least expect.) And so he cornered the four of us in the bathroom and was like “Get in losers, we’re going gaying.”
We met him downtown and he took us to a gay bar that was only playing Madonna’s Confessions on a Dance Floor, because it had just dropped that week and such things were still events in the Bush era. We did a bunch of shots, and we’d already smoked a bowl back in our boss’s hotel room and outside the bar, but look—go big or go home, right?! So when bossman shoved a shot in one of our hands and a bunch of Xanax in the other, well, when in Portland! Flower Gay was like, “Damn you WeHo fags don’t fuck around” and we were like LOLOL I know right? Idiots. He should have bludgeoned us to death with a bottle of Absolut Peppar and dumped us into the Willammette.
Anyway I think our boss was maybe trying to kill us cuz when he ran out of Xanax he just started handing us Vicodins! And we just… kept… doing this? Shot pill shot pill go out to the alley and smoke gayscream to Confessions on a Dance Floor shot pill shot pill and listen parts of that album already make you feel like you’re on drugs anyway let alone when you’re extremely fucked up so it was extremely fun but keep this behavior up and suddenly it’s 5 in the A and you’re in a Western-themed full-monty gay strip club called Silverado so absolutely gone that you black out ON YOUR FEET while some dude is helicoptering his dick in your face to “Fuck the Pain Away” by Peaches and your best friend is nudging you like “LOL wake up girl there’s weiners!” and you’re like “LOL sorry I think I’m OD’ing maybe hahaha” and then you wake up the next morning and immediately burst into tears for absolutely no reason and your bff asks you what’s wrong and you’re like “I DON’T KNOOOOOOW!!!” and your brain is like “LOL YOU MENTALLY ILL BITCH BOOZE *AND* BENZOS *AND* NARCOTICS WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU HUNTER S. THOMPSON FUCK OUTTA HERE WITH YOUR WEEPY-ASS-BITCH-ASS ASS FUCK YOU”!!!
My point is—well, my real point is DO NOT mix pills and alcohol ever like please don’t do this I really could’ve ended up on that Heath Ledger tip and don’t you DARE judge me none of you has any semblance on my compass!!!, but also: DIURETICS AND ALCOHOL IS NOT A THING THIS BITCH WAS ON SOME XANATINI SHIT LOCK HER UP IN THE PORTLAND JESUS FREAK PYRAMID SCHEMERS’ HOUSE *bangs gavel*
Anyway. Once Sonja’s done LYING ABOUT HER DRUG ABUSE Ramona brings up Leah, and how she’s decided to bury the hatchet and have a one-on-one with her later, which lol I’m sure that will go great. Then we go to the gym, where Leah and Luann are rehashing the night before also, and Luann says she’s going to give Dorinda what for, which, lol, will also go great.
Everyone goes down to breakfast, and Ramona goes in for the kill. Except she’s like, so docile and child-like about it.
The head-tilt on the shoulder thing all like, Pweeeease have a convowsayshun wif meeee, is so fucking weird, but Ramona does this every now and then when confronting people—gets very child-like. And I can never tell if it's manipulation or if it's literally her reliving her abusive childhood. Or maybe it's both! It definitely makes me feel both infuriated and heartbroken for her, so both would track. Ramona is such a complicated character, isn’t she! Virginia Woolf couldn't write a more complicated woman! Sylvia Plath fucking wishes!
Surprisingly, the talk goes well: Ramona cops to the fact that she holds Leah to an unfair standard, which is adult of her for once!
But then she does her Ramona bobbleheading shit like usual and says something weird, like she always does, in this case that she thinks Leah has a lot of potential???
Like sod off mate, what are you her mum??? That’s a line from Notting Hill that just came to my head and I repurposed it here, it’s that part where that guy in the restaurant is talking about what a whure Julia Roberts is and then Hugh Grant gets all mad and is like Oi you’re being a wanker innit and then the dude says that thing I just reused and then gasp Julia Roberts comes around the corner and is like sorry my friend’s so sensitive I bet all your dicks look like peanuts enjoy your dinner the salmon’s really good and everyone’s mouths hang open in shock. Notting Hill is a very good movie! Barry Jenkins, the guy who directed Moonlight, did a Twitter thread where he’d never seen Notting Hill and watched it on a plane and live tweeted his reax over airplane wifi and it’s really good you should go read it. Anyway that is all what inspired the first line of this paragraph isn’t it thrilling to watch an artistic genius work at the very top of his ability every week? I know, thank you so much!
Anyway, Leah is gamely playing along with this weird Ramona conversation but there are moments where she can’t help but let her face betray what she’s really thinking and this “potential” moment is one of them.
Just staring into the abyss of Ramona’s insanity. Wonderful. Ramona then launches into how her feelings were hurt because Leah didn’t act “demure” at her party, and Leah decides she’s had enough and drags Ramona for making fun of her mental health issues, but she does it so kindly and gently that Ramona is totally disarmed and that's why this bitch is unstoppable. In the end, Ramona capitulates and they hug it out, and Ramona and her giant implants celebrate this new beginning hurrah!
So now the fun begins! Today, the ladies are going to the beach to go camel-riding, and Luann is ~*triggered*~
One of the most hilarious scenes of this entire show is from like a hundred years ago when these women went to Marrakesh and Luann got bucked on a camel. But like BUCKED on a camel. Please watch this at full volume so you can hear the wild noises Luann makes it is so fucking funny Jesus Christ.
Also remember awful Alex McCord and dumb boring Cindy Barshop who owned a boutique vagina waxing studio that popularize “vajazzling”? How can the type of asshole who invents something like vajazzling be so boring? Life sure is mysterious isn’t it wow.
Anyway the Countess gamely gets back on the camel! Which is more than we can say for Ramona, who is electing to walk alongside them in her bathing suit and a hideous pair of shorts that Sonja cannot fucking stand.
Terrific.
Speaking of Sonja, she is not about this camel life and instantly begins panicking and yelling at the guide to let her off the camel. Thankfully, she’s with noted camel whisperer, Leah McSweeney.
But then Sonja’s camel legit tries to buck her, and she tells the guide to put the camel down!!!
I mean animal rights and all and this camel definitely did not ask to be born let alone carry around middle-aged TV ladies in the hot sun of Mexico’s Quintana Roo state, but nonetheless relatable!!! End him! Or her, I don’t want to assume the camel’s gender it’s 2020. Anyway, Sonja’s camel anxiety must be contagious because Leah changes her tune and straight-up jumps off hers.
She’s like, “Fuck all this, this is some Dubai shit.”
Also I just want to make a pre-emptive strike that Leah is perfect and we will not be clowning her for this polyester attached-gloves gown. We will not! Leah is a no-clowning zone
Anyway I’m sorry to sidebar again, but Leah talking about Dubai took me back to when Real Housewives of Melbourne, which was a show about a drag queen named Gina Liano fighting with a Sri Lankan asshole named Pettifleur that the entire cast hated (Andy Cohen if you’re reading PLEASE bring this show back), and during a vacation to Dubai Gina finally snaps on Pettifleur and screams the funniest shit I’ve ever heard in my fucking life please do yourself a favor it’s literally 5 seconds long but will sustain you for all your days.
“YOU NEED TO SNEP THE FOCK OWT OF UT!!” My God… Every few months I just pull the full clip up on the Bravo site and just lose my mind. Anyway here it is with a Snapchat filter over it.
OMG there’s also this classic.
“With her pointy finger and her camel teeth,” I mean just an absolute masterpiece. Okay one more because the comedy rule of three.
Just a treasure. She’s followed me on Twitter for five years and that, my friends, is power.
ANYWAY. Back to New York, or Mexico, as it were. Having all survived the camels, the ladies go to a fancy cabana lunch, and Luann decides to confront Dorinda. And right from the jump it goes sideways.
Dorinda goes into the same shit she said to Leah that absolutely DID NOT HAPPEN, and she won't listen to a word Luann says. She also won't cop to throwing Luann's arrest in her face. In the end, Luann ends up doing what they always do with Dorinda--giving up and calling it a truce.
Having abandoned all hope of ever reaching Dorinda, Luann decides to go for a walk with Ramona because there’s a group of men playing volleyball.
And, like, not to be mean but… here is… the “guy playing volleyball” in question…
Not so much a weapons-grade hottie in a bathing suit on a beach but, like, your literal dad. She calls over that he needs her on his team cuz she's really good and the dude's like boinnnnnnnnng because, I mean, he's an East Coast 5 but a West Coast 3 and Luann is A LITERAL MODEL and an 11 on all coasts, including the Mediterranean, Amalfi and Barbary. Like what is happening. I mean look at her!
Anyway Luann is flirting with these dudes and bragging about how good she is at volleyball and then proceeds to miss every single shot she takes.
Seriously all of them.
I mean I’m not kidding every single one of them, including one to the face.
You guys she sucks at volleyball. EYE am better at volleyball and I almost failed gym class. Twice. I'm not even kidding! These two girls who hated everyone in our gym class like I did even asked me to be on their team, and they played on the actual school varsity team! We even won sometimes! I was, like, just this side of incompetent enough to occasionally be of use. And so I feel confident adjudicating Luann’s volleyball as extremely bad. She does, however, eventually get a point by being so bad that the dude on the other side doesn't expect the ball to go anywhere but in the net and when it goes over he's not ready.
Point Luann!
Anyway, now we reach the final act: the ladies' big night on the town, which is a surprise party for Sonja's birthday!! Aww!! Dorinda talks about how Sonja always fades into Ramona's shadow but tonight is all about her!
And Sonja is so touched and thrilled by the ladies' efforts and it’s very sweet and fun and happy!
This TINY waiter comes to serve them and of course he wants to dance with Luann, who's 9 feet tall. (And wearing some bell-bottomed travesty from a TJ Maxx in Cincinnati, as per uszhe. Bless.)
Leah is hysterically laughing and says this:
I shrieked. And then Sonja calls Luann King Kong, and I shrieked again.
They’re having so much fun! And Sonja is legit touched by this party as the girls wish her success, happiness and freedom in 2020. Which LOLOLOLOLOL looked how 2020 turned out but still!
Even Leah and Ramona bond over having disastrous dating lives because they're too good for everyone!
(Which is true of Leah she's perfect. Ramona on the other hand should consider revising her standards downward because she’s trash I AM JUST TRYING TO HELP.)
Then, Luann and Dorinda give Sonja her big finale and it’s an absolutely beautiful disaster. First, Luann rigs herself up to a boombox and sings to Sonja in front of the whole restaurant.
And Sonja’s not so sure about all this…
But I’ll tell you who IS sure is the other people in the restaurant and please enjoy their reactions.
Disgust:
Hatred:
And peep this one just straight-up plugging her ears against Luann’s *checks notes* I believe in some cultures it is called “singing.”
And then, the REAL coup de grace: Dorinda comes out... like this...
Look at the woman in the background who’s straight-up fucking had it.
Then Sonja motorboats Dorinda because this is the greatest show on television.
And this violinist looks on as he pines for the grave.
Not his bandmate though. He’s tryna tap Leah’s ass.
Okay but that lady from before is truly done. She’s about to catch a murder charge.
But fuck all that, Leah’s getting her life!
Have you ever seen such unbridled joy?! Wonderful! So, naturally, Ramona must ruin it.
Leah makes a joke about Ramona's pussy being tight and Ramona gets all grossed out and loses her shit and storms off to torture the musicians.
Leah goes after her and is like bitch will you chill, and Ramona says she doesn’t like to talk about body parts because—she ACTUALLY SAYS THIS—“I’m a good Catholic girl.” Since fucking when?! And then in the next breath she says "I'm wild in bed but I don't talk about that stuff"!!! What?! Leah, though, has apparently been doing her RHONY homework, because she calls bullshit and says this:
“Turtle Time” is Ramona’s old catch-phrase from bygone seasons for boozing and waving her pussy around every bar on the Upper East Side. I don’t remember its provenance but she said it every episode while doing this weird dance.
She is gross and disgusting and stupid and fake and I hate her! Leah goes back to the table and is like, “Ramona’s mad at me for talking about sex again” or whatever, and Hulu’s captions fucked up so I only have the image, but Dorinda erupts and is like “BULLSHIT SHE TALKS ABOUT SEX ALL THE TIME” while making this face like your cranky Jewish bubbe in Boca Raton.
Anyway Ramona and Leah are fighting again now and I’m tired. Thankfully, Ramona comes back and makes nice.
There’s still tension though. Ramona tries a piece of food and the women are like "be careful it's really spicy" and Leah, who's drunk now, pokes the bear and is like “I like spicy DICK!” just to piss Ramona off.
And, in a beautiful moment, Ramona lightens up.
And the tension breaks…
And everyone has a giant bellylaugh cackleguffaw!
And they lived happily ever after!
Honestly this ending was really great—good job editors! I actually got a little misty! It was like that scene in Fried Green Tomatoes where they have the food fight and you’re like Awwwww! *sniff* Female friendship! I mean granted, those women were DEFINITELY dyking out (read the book it’s hella about lesbians) so it’s not a direct comparison, but it just made me very happy to see these women drunk and laughing and loving each other and living their best lives! Sometimes it’s nice to get a break from all the fighting!
And see, this show really is an important piece of culture, because it examines the importance of female friendship and mutual support in marginalized communities and the ways in which they interplay with the nexus of privilege, access and misogyny, both internal and external. THANKS I’LL TAKE MY PhD NOW.
Anyway, there’s your episode! We are nearing the end of the line—only two more eps!—which is exciting but also bittersweet. But the good news is, the REUNION, which is typically three episodes, is NOT being done on Zoom! They figured out how to do it for real but socially distanced and with masks and please look at what Leah wore to this function.
EXFUCKINGSCUSE ME???? PESTILENCE APOCALYPSE ICON SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok enough screaming. I love you, you’re great, you’re doing a good job at everything, please stop being assholes about voting for Biden and Kamala Harris, they’re fine, they’re not who I wanted either but the other guy is a literal Nazi and we shouldn’t even be having this conversation, please prioritize! Did you ask for your mail-in ballot yet? Have you made a plan for submitting it that takes into account the fact that the Postal Service is being dismantled for the specific purpose of invalidating your vote? WHY NOT??????? WE ALREADY WENT OVER THIS LAST WEEK WHAT IS THE POINT OF READING ALL OF THIS IF YOU’RE NOT GOING TO DO WHAT I SAY.
You all make me sick.
I kid I kid! Oh! Also! If you have HBO, watch I May Destroy You, it’s the most brilliant thing to ever happen.
Ok bye bye now!