rhnyc season 3 episode 3

per request (and yes, i do take requests) i have decided to blog about this season of real housewives of new york city. i would like to preface this post by saying that i do not ONLY watch trashy reality television. in fact, i watch comparatively little, and i am very selective about the shows i do watch. aside from top model, i stay away from everything on basic cable, mtv, vh1, and e! network, which pretty much leaves bravo, of which i only follow a couple shows... maybe three. thats my story, and im stickin' to it!

although i loved the first two seasons of real housewives, this season is kind of disappointing. the fame seems to have gotten to them, and everything just seems a little contrived. the biggest disappointment is that bethenny, my favorite character and in many ways my only reason for watching the show, has turned into a vacuous stepford wife. even though it seems a little fake that the rest of the cast has decided to team up against her, i cant say i entirely blame them.

ok, getting to this weeks episode. kelly: i dont see what the big conflict is between modeling in playboy and being a mother. it really did not need to be made into such an issue, by kelly or her castmates. the conversation kelly had with her kids only needed to go like this: mommy has a job to model for a magazine that is only for grownups, and you can see it when you're older. end of discussion. this of course, would not be nearly as entertaining as the conversation that actually happened. first of all, i was ecstatic that they have finally decided to show kelly's kids on the show, because i was starting to think maybe she had made them up. and given what a thoughtless blubbering idiot their mother is, they were actually quite articulate and hilarious! so kelly says, "what are you going to say to your friends at school when they ask about your mom in playboy?" response: "that you're a bad parent." then kelly asks if they are "ok with it." response: "when you're wearing a shirt or a dress, then im ok with it." and this from a seven year old!! genius. basically, kelly got told by her 7 and 9 year old kids. you can't write tv like that, folks.

this season is showing a new side of luann. everything we've ever seen from her has been "a countess does this" and "a countess does that." so what does someone who used to be a countess, who, let's face it, is no longer a countess do? its clear that since her divorce she is having an epic identity crisis. her unearned sense of superiority really got to me last season, but now i just feel bad for her. the fact that she is even acknowledging the drama with mario, let alone participating in it, is a sign of how lost she is. because the old luann would have let the chickens fight it out, while she stood back reminding everyone her name is "countess de leseppes" and refusing to drink beer from a bottle.

alex and simon seem to be very smart this season. they know how they have been portrayed in the past, and i think now they are playing their cards right. they've got the parenting book coming out, and they are positioning themselves to be portrayed as the sensible, responsible parents. and i gotta say im kinda buying it. they also seem to be enjoying being the neutral parties in the drama that is transpiring around them, because in a way that gives them all the power. i cant say yet that i like them now, but they do seem to be taking the high road approach to reality television, and i think that's laudable. side note: alex looks good this season. she finally figured out how to pull a brush through her hair, and is actually pulling off a quasi-nicole kidman look. another side note: the "this is my day gay, and simon is my night gay... i mean guy!" slip seemed too true to be funny. bravo watching gays everywhere are shouting at their tvs: "I TOLD YOU SO!"


i know there's a lot of fake fluff on reality television, but i believe the ongoing fight between jill and bethenny is very real. you can call them a lot of things, but they are loud jewish ladies who wear their hearts on their sleeves, and fake they are not. its hard for me to judge who is at fault here, because the whole thing started off camera before they started filming for the show. my guess is that bethenny has a simple case of "new boyfriend-itis" (symptoms include being overly self-indulgent and blowing off your friends), which was followed by jill maybe not handling that so well, which was followed by bethenny blowing off jill and ultimately hurting her feeilngs. of course jill is overreacting, but if bethenny really cared about the friendship, she would have cleared the air a long time ago. i also find it absurd that bethenny expects people to believe she never realized it was "such a big deal," when they haven't spoken for weeks. bethenny needs to swallow her pride, admit she was wrong, and apologize to jill, but im not sure that will happen. bethenny just seems like a different person this season and i cant put my finger on it. thoughts, anyone?

ramona was pretty absent in this episode, and i didn't particularly miss her.

you know who i am missing this season? ally! where the hell is ally. i wanna be friends with ally.

next week: gloria returns!! i can hardly wait!

ill leave you with one of my favorite idiot kelly quotes from this episode:

"PETA isn't saying don't wear fur. they're saying don't abuse animals. so i'm not abusing animals, i'm just wearing fur."