Previously on The Real Housewives of D.C., Michaele and Tareq sit in a limo. Currently on The Real Housewives of D.C., they’re still sitting in it. Ominous music plays. The phone rings:
Michaele: Hello?
Stacie: Michaele?
Michaele: Oh my God, I’m pretending you just happened to call me! I’m so excited!
Stacie: And I’m pretending I don’t know what you’re about to tell me!
Michaele: We’re going to the State Dinner! Do you know what that means? We’re better than you! We’re better than practically everybody! Aren’t you happy for me?
Stacie: But you’re so trashy! And I try so hard! How did you do it? Why you and not me? It’s not fair! It’s not fair!
Michaele: I don’t understand what you are saying, but I like to smile.
Stacie: I’m insinuating that there’s something fishy about this, but I’m inviting you to dinner anyway. It’s a weird compulsion I have.
Michaele gets off the phone and turns her attention to her husband, who seems more out of sorts than usual.
Tareq: How about we make small talk to try to mask the screaming anxiety in my head now? ‘Cause we’re about to do something epically stupid.
Michaele: Great idea. There’s nothing like idle chitchat to help fill the void. I feel like I’m disassociating from reality already.
Tareq: What’s reality?
Michaele: I love you!
White House southeast gate. Tareq and Michaele:
Tareq: I see a lady with a clipboard
Michaele: There’s a photographer.
Tareq: You know what this means, don’t you?
MIchaele: That soon we will once again come into existence.
Lady with clipboard: I don’t see your names on the list, but I’m intimidated by the cameras and distracted by the tall lady who doesn’t seem to feel the elements … Is she an alien from another planet? Because either you don’t belong here and I lose my job for letting you in, or you do belong here and I lose my job for not letting you in. Either way, thanks! I’m a nihilist now! Go on in!
Luxurious hotel suite. Tareq and Michaele:
Tareq: I can’t believe Joe Biden totally let you feel him up in public!
Michaele: I know! Wasn’t that nice of him?
Tareq: He owes me.
Michaele: I was quite abuzz in the room, by which I mean I was flinging myself at high-ranking strangers, demanding to be photographed with them.
Tareq: Good thing they’re all as fake as you are and were more than happy to oblige. I mean, we’re gross and all, but is there a bigger media whore on this planet than Katie Couric? Just saying. Also, being at the White House was very surreal. We couldn’t sleep for hours after we got back home, because, let’s face it, it’s not very often that your delusions come true thanks to the incompetence of White House security detail. Do I have magical powers?
Michaele: Katie must be feeling so stupid right about now. What do you want to bet she’s taking it out on her underlings?
Tareq: Oh, hey, I just got a message from our friend Rob. I am going to relay its contents to you very calmly, as if this were taking me by surprise. The gossip columnist from the Post is saying we crashed the party.
Michaele: I, too, will remain very, very calm. What can you expect? It’s a gossip columnist. What credibility does a gossip columnist have when impugning a Real Housewife?
Tareq: Exactly. I mean that’s crazy. It’s beyond crazy. It’s an insult to the poor idiot who let us through the gate in the first place.
Stacie and Jason’s house. Next morning:
Stacie: OH MY GOD!
Jason: What? What is it? What catty gossip do you have for me now, wife? By the way, I hope you appreciate how much I act like a teenage girl around you.
Stacie: And yet still you’re not girlfriend-y enough. I’m calling Cat right now.
Cat: Meow?
Stacie: Oh. My. God.
Cat: Meow!
Stacie: I. Know. Can. You.
Jason: BELIEVE.
Cat: I’m going to pretend to be outraged at the sheer shamelessness of this after having kissed Prince Harry, bragged about it to the British tabloids, and joined the cast of a reality show. Man, it’s easy to look good on this show.
Stacie: Yes, my penis-tampering mean-girl husband and I are going to pretend to be outraged, too — not just at the gate crashing, but at your salty and uncomfortably honest assessment of their character. Honesty makes us nervous, okay? We’re from D.C. I’m going to call Lynda and Mary now, for the ritual bitching.
A next-day news montage of the Salahi security breach. Opprobrium from all corners, righteous indignation rules the day.
Stacie’s house. Housewife summit, with Mary, Lynda, and Stacie:
Stacie: I feel so betrayed. I thought Michaele and Tareq were trustworthy, honest people. Oh no, wait. No, I didn’t. I keep forgetting. I was faking that.
Lynda: I’m just happy that all their dirty little secrets are going to be nationally broadcast. I’m a vampire that feeds on Schadenfreude. It keeps my skin waxy.
Mary: Has anyone noticed how completely irrelevant I am? I mean to the show and to life in general? Also, those Salahis better get out of town! They’re nobody in D.C. now! I should know!
Stacie: Yeah, they should move to New Jersey or California or some other reprehensible place where people are dishonest, shallow, back-stabbing, tacky, catty, self-obsessed, spiritually and morally bankrupt, and completely un-self-aware.
Lynda: Hey, let’s crank-call Michaele and pretend to be her friend!
Stacie: Gimme that phone. [She dials.] Heeey, Michaaaaele, it’s Staaacieee … Just checkin’ in to see if you want to lay bare your desperation and shame so that we may mock you behind your back while pretending to be your friends … Are you still planning on having your holiday party? Just kidding! Call me back!
Mary’s house. Cat comes over for housewife summit follow-up:
Cat: Guess what.
Mary: What.
Cat: Because of the stupid Salahis, I am now uninvited to the White House holiday party. I mean, is it my fault I’m on a tacky reality show with a bunch of psychopaths? How was I supposed to know what kind of people signed up for these things? And why should the president be made to suffer?
Mary: Obama will be so disappointed.
Cat: I know!
Cat’s house. Cat and Charles:
Cat: So, it’s becoming apparent that signing up for this show wasn’t such a great idea after all.
Charles: Oh dear.
Cat: I mean, who knew that putting our life oncamera and hanging around with a bunch of psycho fame whores would cause you problems at work, what with your connection to the White House and all?
Charles: Oh dear.
Cat: And that you having problems at work, at your highly sensitive job requiring gobs and gobs of discretion, would put a strain on our fledgling and already freighted, possibly ill-advised marriage? I mean, who could have foreseen such an outcome?
Charles: Oh dear.
Cat: Whatever. Just get me a drink, would you? While I slave over these potatoes? Who even knew potatoes required all this work?
Charles: Huh. I could have sworn you were out shopping all day at Saks. By which I mean you are a lazy, ungrateful, and entitled parasite, whereas I am deserving of a break after slaving all day over a hot camera.
Cat: Why would the Salahis commit such an atrocious act as to get me barred from the White House holiday party? Me!
Charles: They’re people who will do anything for fame.
Cat: Do people like that really exist?
Charles: Unbelievably, yes.
Cat: I am shocked. I honestly have no idea what you are talking about.
More news footage of Salahis being called before the House Homeland Security Committee for hearings. On TV, Tareq and Michaele are seated before the committee, looking defiant and overdressed.
Lynda’s place. Mary, Lynda, Stacie, and Paul gather to watch the show:
In Lynda’s living room, the ladies kick back with a drink and prepare to watch the proceedings. The Salahis appear onscreen.
All: Burn! Burn!
On TV. Chairman of the Committee: Did you attend the White House State Dinner?
Tareq: Mr. Chairman, on advice of counsel I respectfully assert my right to remain silent and decline to answer the question.
Chairman of the Committee: Did the officer at the first checkpoint verify your names on the security list?
Tareq: Mr. Chairman, on advice of counsel … Do you get that I’m just going to keep repeating this answer?
Member of the Committee No. 1: Okay, you can do that, but then I’m going to take this moment to strike a righteous pose by declaiming about the security threat posed by your actions. Everything I’ll say will be true, but I’ll come off as a grandstanding opportunist anyway.
Member of the Committee No. 2: You asked the White House social secretary for an invitation and she denied and rebuffed it. What part of denied and rebuffed don’t you understand? Denied? Or rebuffed?
Tareq: On advice of counsel, LA LA LA LA LA!
Member of the Committee No. 3: We as a society should pay less attention to the egomaniacal among us … which I guess means we’ll need to focus on another society.
In Lynda’s living room. Lynda: Egomaniacal!
Mary: Good word!
Lynda: Touché!
On TV. Member of the Committee No. 2: Let’s hear from Mrs. Salahi. She’s the reason we hauled these people in not to answer questions at taxpayer expense.
In Lynda’s living room. All: Stone her! Stone her!
Paul: Okay, these ladies are being total bitches.
On TV. Michaele: On advice of counsel, I respectfully assert my right to remain silent and decline to answer the question. I can’t believe this works. But, hey, if it was good enough for Ronald Reagan …
Member of the Committee No. 2: All right then, I guess there’s nothing more we can do, having done our jobs to the best of our ability.
In Lynda’s living room. Cat: Look, Tareq’s wearing a tight, ill-fitting suit for his televised hearings! These people are so shallow!
Lynda: Michaele should remove her extensions, take off her makeup, rub dirt on her face, shred her garments, roll in dung, mortify her flesh by flogging herself and donning horsehair, give up sweets, become celibate, retreat into a cave for seven years, and get a job as a waitress who services people. Just temporarily, I mean.
Paul: Please, all you bitches did was marry well and divorce even better. I’d like to see you get jobs — all due respect to your D.C. modeling agency, of course.
The TV feeding frenzy continues as Lynda hosts phase two of her Salahi hate-fest. The four ladies meet to discuss their future Salahi dealings:
Lynda: Okaya, first order of business, let’s get drunk.
Mary: Finally, I was starting to get the shakes!
Lynda: I couldn’t sleep last night. There was no blood at all at the hearing! I was expecting something a little more medieval.
Stacie: I want explanations! The world owes me, business, fun, and every other Stacie, an explanation.
Cat: They’re celebrity terrorists!
Stacie: Oh, snap! Would you say that to their faces? I’m too two-faced to pull off a confrontation, but we need to do something to boost these ratings.
Cat: Sure, I’ll do it. I love picking fights.
Stacie: Okay. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to invite them over under false pretenses and sic you on them. Sound like a plan?
The Stacie hearings. Cat, Jason, and Stacie:
Jason: So, I what I’d like to do is lull them into feeling comfortable, then go in for the kill.
Stacie: While pretending not to.
Jason: Mind meld!
Cat: I can feel my rage swelling already.
The Salahis arrive and are greeted with hugs and kisses by Stacie and Jason while Cat seethes.
Jason: I’m kissing your asses and I don’t know why. I can’t stop myself.
Michaele: I’m still smiling and I don’t know why!
Cat: When does the pouncing begin? One hippopotamus, two hippopotamus … No? Okay, I’m out of here.
Jason: Really? You good? Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry? Drive safe now!
Cat: Not so fast, pantywaist. Before I go, I just want to say exactly what we’ve all been saying behind your backs all season to your face. Meow!
Exit Cat.
Jason: Wow, can you believe her? So rude! Please excuse her rudeness and come back in and sit down so we can have at you in a more back-handed way. Give me your coat.
Michaele and Tareq: Oh, we don’t know … Oh, okay, here.
Stacie: We don’t want to prosecute you like everyone else, we just want the dirt.
Michaele: We can’t talk about that stuff.
Stacie: I’m a gossip hound, but I’ll cloak my prurient interest in your fucked-up lives any way I can. That’s why I pretend to care deeply about issues of White House security when I’m around the other girls, and I pretend to be your friend when I’m around you. That’s Shameless Hypocrite Stacie.
Michaele: Bye!
Jason: No, wait, please, you can tell us! What were you thinking? Why did you do it? Spill the beans already! Think of the show!
Tareq: We’re under strict orders not to talk. We’re confused about what part is real and what part is reality.
Jason: You’re living in the bubble, man! You’ve got the scarlet letter on your chest!
Tareq: Thanks for having us!
Exit Tareq and Michelle, through the back door.
Stacie: My gossip lust is inflamed! I need to satisfy it somehow! Let’s get Cat back in here.
Enter Cat.
Stacie and Jason: We totally confronted them! You missed it! And they refused to answer our direct, straightforward questions!
Cat: Woo-hoo! Pour me a drink, let’s rip them to shreds!
Stacie and Jason: Cat, we’ll leave the predation to you. We’re more of the scavenger types. Give us a good carcass, we’ll clean it in no time!
Cat: Thanks for a wonderful evening!
The End.
Postscript:
Still trying to get back to the high-school years she tragically cut short with an untimely pregnancy, Mary moved back to D.C. to try to get hairstylists to pay more attention to her.
Lynda was pissed that she’s now stuck in McLean by herself.
Stacie found her Nigerian father and spoke to him on the phone. He was not on the next flight out to D.C.
Cat and Charles divorced.
The Salahis avoided prosecution somehow, and Michaele got a Barbie.
