If you watched last night’s episode of Real Housewives of New York and didn’t want to stab every last one of them in the face, except for Alex and maybe (inexplicably?) Kelly, 15 minutes in to the episode, then you’re a far more patient person than I am. Ladies, I’ve figured out why they hate us. Her name is Ramona Singer.
Not that she was the only problem last night. Not by a long shot. In fact, I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to recap what went on. When the episode was over, Megs and I sat in stunned silence, completely unable to think thoughts or feel feelings. Well, other than overwhelming shame and vicarious embarrassment, of course.
We started on the plane to Morocco with LuAnn trying to teach everyone how to say “darling” in Arabic and Jill wondering if “salaam” was a result of Arabs mis-hearing “shalom.” Jill Zarin: A woman who never took a linguistics class in college. Or maybe any class in college. Before we knew it, the plane had landed and the brunette contingent was off to the house, and despite the fact that the group contained Jill, Kelly and LuAnn, it was the relatively unembarrassing and sane half of the crew. Ladies, when you make Kelly “Satchels of Gold” Bensimon seem rational and even-keeled, it’s time to consider whether or not your continued existence is really doing humanity any great favors.
On the second shift flight came the blondes, although it was never addressed why all the ladies couldn’t have flown on one plane. Did the brunettes refuse to spent 15 hours trapped in the sky with the blondes? Is Alex going to defect at some point and leave Ramona and Sonja to drown in booze on their own? I feel like that has to happen sooner or later, unless the producers instructed her to stand her ground with the other blondes to extend the plot a bit further. For her part, Ramona continued to talk about Marrakech like it was similar to visiting downtown Baghdad, and she expressed fear that there wouldn’t be white sheets and pinot grigio.
Once on the ground and headed to the palatial, very fancy house that LuAnn had “chosen,” (more likely, Bravo chose it and appointed her the trip leader to give her a story line for the season), Ramona had some further complaints. For one, she doesn’t like dust, and it waseverywhere. Like, why couldn’t they just clean up Morocco so it’s not dusty for Ramona? She called ahead and asked them to, why hadn’t it been done? What? Something about a desert? I don’t understand. She called ahead!
Another thing that Ramona didn’t like is that there were, like, poor people. Just out there, being seen, as though that were acceptable. Lord knows that a delicate flower like Ramona “Turtle Time” Singer can’t be exposed to such things. She’s from New York City, after all, where there are absolutely zero poor people. That guy who I saw on the six train last night, dancing a jig in the subway car for quarters? He was on his way back home to a meticulously restored pre-war townhouse on the Upper East Side, of course. He just likes to dance and sometimes people give him quarters for it, do you have a problem with that?
Things didn’t improve once the blondes arrived to the resort, but this time it was Sonja’s turn to make a complete ass of herself. You see, Sonja was sure that those shifty guys outside were going to steal her luggage out of the back of the van. Never mind that one of them was the driver and the other one was a hotel porter and that they had both been asked to stay with the luggage and they were being filmed by a huge camera crew that had taken over the entire property. Sonja was pretty sure that while they were having cocktails inside, her cashmere sweaters were being auctioned off to the highest bidder out in the driveway. When she went to bust up the operation she found…the two guys standing by a closed van, guarding the luggage as they had been asked to do. But still. Gotta keep an eye on The Help.
Back inside, some sort of riot had broken out over hangers. Cindy had some, and then she didn’t have them, and Ramona had lots. Cindy was very offended by the absence of her hangers and apparently didn’t realize that Ramona is a stone-cold crazyperson and you have to pick your battles with her, because she will out-crazy you every time. Instead of asking a member of the staff for additional hangers, Cindy went to retrieve hers from Ramona and later Sonja, who both denied taking them in the first place. Instead of leaving it at that, Cindy wanted to argue about it. All Ramona wanted to do was get back to untangling her jewelry and exasperatedly instructing the maid on how to unpack her suitcase. (That’s right, Ramona cannot be bothered to unpack her own bag of skanky, regionally inappropriate cocktail dresses.)
Once LuAnn showed up to save the day with additional hangers, it was time for the ladies to have lunch. Except the ladies didn’t want to have lunch. Alex wanted to lie down and recover from the hours of traveling, which seemed reasonable, while Sonja and Ramona wanted to, uh, “go for a drive.” They had apparently rubbed their last two brain cells together and used The Google to find a resort nearby where they could swill cocktails and busboys, but they didn’t want to tell anyone where they were going or invite the others to come along or even vaguely pretend like they were on a trip with a group with whom they were expected to socialize. Because, you know, that’s kind of their job. They’re getting a paycheck to hang out and drink cocktails with these other people, which it seems Sonja could sorely use (the paycheck, not the cocktails), but even then they couldn’t be arsed to actually do it.
While Ramona and Sonja were hitting on the hotel bar busboys elsewhere, the brunette contingent headed to a fabric store for reasons that weren’t clear and somehow, Jill ran into her best gay and acted like it was a surprise. She then mentioned that she actually invited him (I can’t remember his name at the moment…Greg? We’ll call him Greg.) because he has a house in Morocco, so it wasn’t really a surprise, but our housewives can be good actresses if they so choose. Apparently Greg hates Ramona too, which only makes me wonder – are there people who like Ramona? Other than Sonja, of course, who is too booze-addled to really form opinions.
After Sonja and Ramona rejoined the group in the evening, LuAnn introduced Morocco’s foremost designer, who would be making custom kaftans for the ladies. Except Ramona didn’t like that either. Ramona doesn’t like fabric. She wanted the Moroccan designer to make her the kaftan equivalent of an Herve Leger dress and didn’t understand why that was such an odd request, and as if on cue, Sonja interrupted to ask him to measure her boobs. Can’t someone march those two out into the desert and leave them there? And after this debacle, can the US government perhaps consider no longer issuing passports to Real Housewives? They don’t represent us well.
Oh, and I almost forgot – Ramona asked the designer to put a log on the fire. He’s brown, he must be The Help, right? Make a kaftan, maintain the fire, whatever. Maybe he can drive them around in one of those pedicabs too. At this point, I feel like I should go out on the street and start finding random people and apologizing to them. I’m not sure why. It just seems like the right thing to do, even if anyone who didn’t watch Real Housewives last night would be mightily confused. If you can think of another way to remedy the grievous wrongs done to human society by last night’s episode, please let me know.
Somehow, the designer managed to finish taking everyone’s measurements and leave without stabbing anyone, which was kind of a miracle, and the group headed to the souk for Brad’s birthday party. It was at a bed and breakfast instead of his house, which Jill seemed to think was some sort of scandal that we’d all care about, but I was too distracted by how the entire group seemed to think that they were going to be robbed in the middle of the souk by some sort of roving band of thieves. Never mind that there were seven of them and they were surrounded by a large camera and production crew who were filming their every move – they’re American ladies (and I do use the word “ladies” loosely) out after dark in a strange land! Surely some sort of peril would befall them! Sadly, none did.
Once they arrived at the party, things did not improve. Shocker, I know. Sonja was already drunk off her ass and flirting inappropriately with the seemingly terrified staff, and all Ramona could do was sit on the couch and shout for pinot grigio in hopes that someone might wheel her IV over so that she could hook herself up for the night. Someone offered chardonnay, and let me tell you, Ramona Singer does not drink chardonnay, and how dare anyone imply that she might be willing to do such a thing. For most of the party, I tried to focus on Cindy’s pretty patterned maxi dress and forget that anything else was happening. There was something with a snake that was too creepy and traumatic for words, I’m pretty sure. Let’s never speak of it again.
To end the evening, the ladies all consulted a fortune teller who was cloaked in an abaya and niqab, probably to protect her identity so that she wouldn’t be associated with these morons for the rest of her life. And for the most part, she was right on the money; she told Jill she had a big mouth, Sonja that she should stop looking for a man with money, and then dropped The Affair Bomb on Ramona. The fortune teller spoke in French and Kelly had to translate, and when she announced it, Sonja burst into tears. Probably because she was drunk, but also maybe because she knows it’s true? We’ll find out more details later, but when you think about it, it is kind of a miracle that anyone can remain married to Ramona for decades. I’m not sure that I’d be able to do it without a side piece either.
I supposed we have two more weeks of Moroccan Madness left to go, and I’m unsure how I feel about it. On the one hand, that was fairly compelling television. On the other hand, I’m not sure I can take that many weeks of horrific embarrassment. At least we get to see LuAnn fly off a camel next Thursday.
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