So, is George a castmember now? Is that happening? Can it happen? Because Aviva’s dad was, by far, the most amusing part of last night’s episode of RHONYC, though, I maintain, his sharklike leer and inappropriate erection-stabbings do not a series make. In truth, I think George might be this series’ Poochie. You know Poochie, the hip cartoon dog from The Simpsons that network executives introduced at a shark-jumping moment for Itchy and Scratchy? And truly, what telegraphs more desperation than a foul-mouthed senior? I will say that George, at the very least, makes a gangbusters mid-season replacement for Heather, who was mercifully absent for the majority of last night’s show. All in favor of permanently swapping out those two? Holla!
When we left the Real Housewives of New York, about half of them were either in Miami or heading there. And after a sequence with the pace of paint drying or bees fucking, during which Carole packed, then took a car to the airport with Sonja, we were back in Florida, which is where old people go to die, unless they are horny. George is horny. George went to Florida to live. Got it? Good.
In Miami, Carole stayed with Ranjana, who seems nice and has great breasts, and Sonja slept right between Ramona’s ass cheeks, in Aviva’s house. For the first course on the girls’ Florida shenanigan-menu, Ramona, Aviva, Sonja, and Carole convened in Ranjana’s classy apartment for a session of face yoga in her pool. And Ramona was a shit-show throughout this entire episode, but this was where she got the running start on her assholism.
I imagine that Ramona being far from home and away from her routine contributed to her more-batshit-than-usual behavior. Staying with somebody is never really a good idea for Ramona, who needs to control her surroundings completely in order to appear capable of demonstrating empathy or any sense of normalcy in relation to others. But since she’s trying to make nice to Aviva — whose body, let’s agree, makes all those Olympic athletes on Bravo’s sister network look like bags of flabby garbage — Ramona is out of her element. And therefore, I found myself wishing she’d fall off Ranjana’s balcony or choke on the protein-and-vegetable she micromanaged Aviva’s staff into serving her on her schedule, or just completely disappearing, therefore making her God’s problem, not ours. Ramona acted despicably from soup to nuts this episode, and I’m not just talking about the monkeyshines around Aviva and her leg in the pool.
But, sure. That. During a session of Face Yoga, which seems silly but look at the show we are watching, Ramona demonstrated her top-notch education and extremely acceptable social skills by interrupting the task at hand to say things like “You look like a frickin’ fish!” and other such insights. And Sonja fell in line with her bully, Stockholm-ily, and similarly added nothing to the event but blather, the likes of which Sonja would only “shush” later. Then came the issue of Aviva’s leg and whether it was waterproof. It was, but, more importantly, Ramona was sick of hanging out by the pool. So she obsessed out loud about whether Aviva’s prosthesis was getting “too wet” and brought her friend a towel, but really, as Carole pointed out, Ramona was just tired of being near the water and needed to take charge of the situation in order to stave off a psychotic episode for fifteen or so more impulse control-free minutes. And sure, Ramona was acting irrationally and was extremely rude and is insane. But also — isn’t she an awful dresser?
Later that day, Aviva had invited her father, Horny George, over for dinner, so naturally the women all had to get ready and put clothes on. There is a pact we’ve all signed that says, as adults, we’ll do that — right? Wrong! Ramona broke a shower faucet, so that meant Sonja didn’t have to change out of her towel. And while both women minced around in a grotesque display of quasi-Sapphic titillation, Mario snickered and was otherwise useless, foolishly giving both women attention, because that’s all his mule genome was bred to accomplish.
Soon, Carole was at the door and Aviva and her sweater set had simply had it with the fact that Ramona and Sonja were going off somewhere and being mentally ill instead of wearing clothes and showing up to the dinner table on time.
Then, Horny George showed up and acted crazy and we all had a laugh. He called Aviva’s husband a boring dresser and flirted with all of the women he could focus his Transitions lenses on, including his own daughter and Ramona. George is just phoning in reality, and that’s fine. There was talk of setting him up with Sonja, but everybody knew that notion was a funny old jar of silly peanuts and no one really took it seriously, though George’s penis was up for whatever.
At the dinner table, George threatened to give Carole her first squirting orgasm, and that made Ramona hungry for the entrée, so she went into the kitchen and terrorized the caterers in what I’m going to call the most cringe-worthy scene of the season so far. Good lord, can you imagine what it’s like to be plating an endive salad when all of a sudden Ramona Singer, wearing some sort of nightmare tennis dress, sneaks up on you and crows about how she wants her protein and vegetables and she wants them now, and is that lemon? Jesus Christ! Did it occur to anybody that Jill Zarin isn’t gone from this series, she’s just been absorbed by the ever-thirsty “bossy” layer of Ramona’s skin and/or personality? And what was with Ramona defending George’s choice to cheat on his first girlfriend after Aviva’s mom died? Did any listening whatsoever go into her decision to pipe up in favor of something that she could merely intuit everybody else was against? Or was this just like pouring white wine on a robot and watching it gradually speed up, then slow down, then generally misfire erratically before conking out in sparks and sputters? This woman is made of NIGHTMARES.
The next day, we got more Horny George Time when Aviva’s dad got a visitor’s pass from the women who steal his change while he is sleeping and welcomed his daughter’s friends into his nursing home. Hey, I’m joking! He seems to live in a condo of some kind. Look, I don’t care. I’m just here for the dick-and-ass talk. And boy oh boy, was there plenty of that on the beach! It was a windy day, you see, which we learned after twenty minutes or so of Ramona complaining to God that she wasn’t crazy about his choice to make it cold. Then she sat down and I was like “Oh, okay. It’s like how before a dog can plop its butt down on the floor, it needs to make a few circles.” I read somewhere that dogs and cats do that because, in the wild, walking in circles is how you make grass into a bed. Similarly, Ramona has to say “I’m cold! It’s cold! I’m cold” before she nests, and man, it’s a good thing that Mario isn’t a little less checked out or a bit smarter — otherwise, he might realize that he is married to this person.
Meanwhile, George recapped how, the night before, he grabbed Sonja’s tush because it reminded him of ice cream. This was fun and funny because he smiled the whole time while he said it and she seemed flattered — and on the same page — when George made sure to tell her she had a fabulous ass. And even Ramona seemed flattered by George’s flirting-via-compliment puking, saying “I go to the gym, it’s nice someone notices!” And it’s true that it’s hard to compliment Ramona. Even the cameraman lingered on her stomach in what seemed to be an intentionally unflattering angle. I can’t say I blame the guy — she can’t possibly tread more softly around cameramen than she does around, say, kitchen staff. But it seemed a little sad how she only brightened when George gave her attention around her body.
Sonja, by now, was clearly not interested in George and indicated as much by saying she “needed somebody boring” like Reid, who was relaxing in those moccasins with the rubber dots on the bottom of them. Reid, by the way, could not give less of a single fuck about any of this stuff. Good for him.
After the beach, we got a reprise of Ramona’s quasi-Aviva-protective nonsense in the hot tub. It was controlling, rude, and psychotic, and everything she said about not wanting to get Aviva’s leg wet had to do with her own personal comfort, not her friend’s. Then, in her testimonial, Aviva dissed Ramona’s swimsuit instead of confronting her on the spot at the time, and ha-ha, that was fun, I guess, because clothes.
Then came a mercifully brief cutaway to a “date night” scene between Heather and her always-nervous-seeming husband, Mr. Schindler. They talked about date night and how they deserve it and how things are always just so crazy and how nice it is to just have date night, just the two of them. The whole thing was horrible. It was basically like Faces of Death with caviar. I hated every second of that scene. It made me want to march against heterosexual marriage.
Back in Florida, the gang was still palling around for one last night. George and Aviva and Reid and Mario and Ramona and Sonja and Doody and Frenchie and Marty and Rizzo and good ol’ Keneckie were about to sing “We go together like wah-ba-baloo-bop-a-wham-bam-whoo!” but first George had to poke his erection into Sonja’s ice-cream tush. Sonja didn’t care for that and spent the rest of her time running away from George like he was a skunk and she was a cat with a stripe of white paint on her back, and George took that well. There was also talk of “wood medicine?” I don’t remember. It was all fine. What happens at the Basel stays there, right, art fans?
Speaking of art, while some of it (art) was going on in the pool area downstairs, some more of it (art) was painted on canvases that Aviva and Sonja ogled upstairs. And while they looked at that art, Aviva asked Sonja how to deal with Ramona being psychotic, but really she was just pointing out that Ramona was psychotic. And Sonja was like “Yeah, she’s a real monster. I just basically let her bully me!” And that was that. Good talk, guys! Let’s remember Miami for always.
Back in New York, Carole managed to get herself up off the floor (“Why is she sitting on the floor, did she fall?” –Ramona) in time to go a’browsin’ with the Countess at a shop I believe is on Spring Street, since I’ve passed it. Yeah, that’s right! I pass stores sometimes! It’s just a thing I do. Whateve-y, no bigs.
During her browsing sesh with Luann, Carole had two things to accomplish: to confront the Countess about the “can I borrow a gown” shit Luann pulled with Ranjana’s husband recently, and to make a face that justified an extremely funny reaction shot for when the Countess mentioned she liked “Jackie O sunglasses.” The reason why that is funny, you see, is because Carole was, at one point, related to the real life Jackie Onassis, and because Luann is kind of a phony version of the woman Carole actually is. Right? Sort of? Exactly? Kind of? Fine.
To her credit, I must say that Carole handled the confrontation with grace, though I don’t think she was very clear about what Luann did that offended her and why. She said in her testimonial later that she didn’t think Luann got what she was trying to tell her at the time, and it’s true that Carole suffers from a disease that causes her to think the people around her are even somewhat self-aware. Maybe those giant D.J. headphones are putting pressure around the area of her brain that gives too much credit to narcissists? I simply do not know.
What did you think of last night’s episode? Was I hard on Ramona or did you want to whack that curler out of her bangs too? Thoughts on George and his pronunciation of the word panties? What did I miss? Please tell me in the comments below and I’ll see you guys next week!
