Well, ain’t that a bitch. Just when this show starts to get good, it begins to wind down. Calm down, Ramona — don’t go looking up Sonja’s poon for the key to your safe. We’re not packing up and saying our good-byes just yet, we’re just savoring our sunset drinks before you slip out and get sloppy while Heather dances to “Rag Doll” in a scene too expensive for the music licensing peeps at Bravo to sign off on showing.
Last night we spent the last of our time with the ladies on the island of St. Barts, where life began with a soothing breakfast of berries and nothing. While Carole’s boyfriend Russ and Aviva’s transitional object Reid picked at the fruit, the two ladies planned on having a double-date dinner that night.
And inside meanwhile, clucked Frick and Frack — Ramonja, who woke up in a two-headed nightgown, joined at the hip and croaking “Good mornings” from its shared neckhole. After cracking their shared scapula, gargling with bidet water, and emitting that first wine queef of the day, Ramona and Sonja collapsed into the kitchen for a good, old-fashioned eavesdropping session. Sonja emptied out a glass of rubbing alcohol into her mouth at Ramona’s command so they could hold it up against the wall, sitcom-style. And that’s how they learned about Aviva and Carole’s dastardly double-date duh-genda! That irksome fact irked the already highly irkable duo, and as the two rehashed the events of the day before, it came to pass that suddenly, they remembered being called white trash by Aviva.
What does white trash even mean? The two-headed beast wondered aloud. “I’ll google it!” Said one of the heads. “Good idea,” said the other, gargling with hairspray, its liver hanging from a rope off a ceiling rafter, after penning the liver-ly equivalent of “Brooks was here” on one of Carole’s nice walls. When Ramonja finally made it to Definitions.biz or wherever one goes to find synonyms these days, they took offense at the suggestion that, based on Aviva’s suggestion, they were poor, uneducated hillbillies. “What are we, the mother from Here Comes Honey Boo Boo?” they asked the air with what was intended to be hypothetical panache. And the air answered, “No — the mom from Honey Boo Boo wouldn’t embarrass her daughters like you guys have this season alone.”
After a few quick refills of Coffeemate and lighter fluid, Ramona and Sonja retired to their bedroom to change into bathing suits and complain. Ramona looked like some kind of failed Disney villain in her black hat and one-piece and Sonja paced back and forth in a man’s shirt, feeling the effects of the aftershave-and–Malibu Rum smoothie she’d whipped herself up in the shower just then. They fumed about how Aviva and Carole’s double-date plans made them feel excluded, and that’s when Cool Carole slipped in, slinkily, to diffuse the room, or try to.
Sonja, to her credit, called bullshit on Carole acting like a peacemonger — foreshadowing her very funny “Ghandi” testimonial — when, in fact, Princess Radziwill’s plans with Russ, Reid, and Aviva undermined whatever sense of camaraderie these batty birds had once intended, then destroyed on contact. And then entered Aviva, in evening makeup and a transparent gown the color of a grand piano, or a mighty turd. She “couldn’t help but have overheard” the latest rehash of the trip’s civil unrest, and decided, since she’d already unleashed her mania on Ramonja the previous day, to keep wailing on the bitch until it gave in. She did not know that could never happen.
This is where we got to see that Aviva’s meltdown the previous day was not at all an isolated, just-off-the-plane incident. I’m not on Ramona’s side when I acknowledge Aviva’s mishegoss — I am on my own in claiming her belfry is riddled with hundreds upon hundreds of bats. Aviva, who seems to be auditioning for The Real Housewives of New Jersey by using her “family” — in this case, her husband — as a trigger to go full-on mental in an extended, antisocial way, had decided, after a good night’s sleep, to make the Ramonja Wars officially Her Thing. Are the Ramonja Wars the new Rock N’ Roller Cola Wars? I’d ask Billy Joel, but “he can’t take it anymore” and you know what? Frankly, good for him.
Aviva, Ramona, and Sonja basically had the same exact fight they’d had in the kitchen last time, but with Carole lying there in a maxi dress made out of J.Lo’s Oscars outfit from that one year, and floss. And then Luann and Heather poked their respective pumpkin and fig noggins in to see whether they were going to the lunch restaurant at their pre-appointed time, and soon they were off. There was also some conversation about Sonja possibly acting like a hooker and Aviva’s logic about whether bringing home a guy made a girls’ trip not a girls’ trip made zero sense. Also, A Few Good Men was quoted. I didn’t see it, but did that movie take place in Vietnam? Because what was going on in this bedroom was unwinnable.
After that mess, the ladies went to lunch at a lovely place where they served live macaws to tourists after they picked out which bird they wanted to dine on. Heather had a mini-monologue about how she didn’t want a “shit-fuck-fest”, which cued a total shit-fuck-fest at the table. Nobody let anything go. Also, Heather called Aviva “Vee-Vee” at some point, which is how one soothingly refers to a little girl’s privates when dealing with an infant who doesn’t understand what happened to his baby sister to make her Pee-Pee gone.
Aviva, to change the subject from herself to herself, talked about how the small plane wasn’t even that bad (Note: ?!?!?!). And the “small plane” talk made Carole remember how JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette died on a small plane, so she began to cry and left the table. I would chart the chair choreography for the rest of the scene, but I do not have time and am not willing to. Heather’s observation that the lunch scene became a nightmare version of musical chairs, with Luann’s melodious “You Googled White Trash?” substituting for actual music, was totally apt.
After Aviva half-heartedly comforted Carole, the two went to get special fish pedicures, where they dipped all three of their tootsies into tanks in which minnows roamed, hungry to eat their callous skin while the ladies giggled. And that’s when, back at the lunch table, Ramona and Sonja recruited Heather into their ranks, at least when it came to the matter of the fishy-footed pair’s double date, and how none of them were invited. That hit a button on Heather’s trigger guts, even they were held in by one of her girdles at the time, and she went off to spew her venom accordingly.
Heather came into the salon to confront Carole and Aviva about the dinner, and Carole was like “Okay, well, you’re invited now.” But Heather stormed off. It was her turn to flip the fuck out! Fair enough. She had the conch shell of cuntiness, I guess.
Carole found Heather at the beach later and the two most reasonable cast members sorted out their differences before swimming in the ocean after agreeing that everyone around them was selfish and crazy, and commiserating in the shock they both felt in learning this. After all, they had joined the cast of a Real Housewives franchise! Why on earth were these peri-menopausal women overeating to matters of insignificance?
Back in the kitchen, Sonja tried unsuccessfully to seduce a kitchen staffer by pronouncing salmon “Sah-MONE,” then got sideswiped by the Aviva-van. Aviva, who was in her Halle Berry James Bond bikini, decided to start the same shit with Sonja she’d been stirring since she landed. She called Sonja a double-dealer and a bad example for her daughter, while Sonja got defensive and arrogant on the first point and entirely lived up to the second. It was horrible. Aviva was mad at Sonja’s lack of contriteness and Sonja would not apologize for her behavior on the island nor her love of partying. Sonja called her mouth “Money,” and Aviva made fun of her for supposedly having yachts. I have no idea how this scene ended — it had the momentum of two fighting, rolling buffalo, somersaulting down a bloody hillside.
I do think Sonja’s downfall is tragic, however. I am nobody to slut-shame, but I only hope that the kind of behavior she’s demonstrated on this season so far, combined with her alliance with Ramona, her telltale bruises, and her constantly, wildly oscillating sense of grandiosity (the yacht thing) and poorhouse woes (the repairs in her home she admits to needing), is a prelude to recovery. I think Sonja has a beautiful heart — I wish she’d break through to be more self-protective. There’s a time and place for debt-fueled butt sex, booze, and bruises, and it’s called college.
Later on, we were treated to intercut footage of the aforementioned big-deal double date with another dinner of just the ladies. Reid said something disgusting and stupid about the women on the trip being “Overweight Girls Gone Wild,” and for that I will deduct him 500 points. Nobody on this show is overweight and he should shut his Sonja’s Mouth-Maker. That shit makes me really angry. Don’t call women who are not fat fat. Like Reid is fit to shine Jon Hamm’s dick’s shoes?
The next day was the ladies’ last on the island, and Carole ordered up some (non-fish) pedicures and pool-side massages for all. Ramonja took that opportunity to reprise the same exact kitchen scene they had in the top of the episode, only this time, Sonja stuck the nozzle of a can of PAM into her Money and depressed it with her tongue until she got another bruise. No rubbing alcohol for her today!
Later on, Carole took everybody out for sunset drinks, then to her boyfriend Russ from Aerosmith’s concert. The Aerosmith concert? The Russ from Aerosmith’s concert. From Aerosmith. Russ.
And between the drinks and the rock show, Ramonja slipped away to go home and lick the cleaner off the tub and tiles, then eat the crusts that form around the inside of Nyquil caps for dinner.
After the show, the majority of the ladies returned for a late night dinner Carole had planned. And by then, Ramona and Sonja were both wrecked. They were sloppy jerks — a couple of fussy babies starring in a fuck-shit-show of their own design. I wanted to flick rubber bands at both of them. But now, Aviva was in a good mood, just in time for Sonja to make braless, charadelike gestures behind the legless one’s head to Ramona. Aviva got her back in her testimonial where she compared Ms. Morgan to Anna Nicole Smith, though. Was that the meanest thing ever said on this show? Please discuss.
While Sonja went back to her room to change into a red frock that Anna Nicole would have loved, Ramona made sure everybody at the table knew that she never got the memo that the whole reason they went to St. Barts was to see Russ play a show. And the producers played a delicious mixtape of moments in which Ramona was told precisely that.
After appetizers were served, Carole went to fetch Ramonja, half of which was blow-drying her nethers and trying to pet Carole, like Kelly liked to be pet. This happened after Carole told Sonja that earlier, when she left the lunch table, she was upset. Oh God, was that scene hard to watch and also wonderful. Like … an episode of The Anna Nicole Smith show on E! before we all knew she was going to die? Sonja’s bruises, Ramona’s puttering in the background — the smell of wine through the screen. Ramona retweeted somebody yesterday who called her and Sonja “the New AbFab,” and I beg to differ — this is Requiem for a Dream Part Deux and these bitches are both Ellen Burstyn.
The episode ended up in the pool, with Sonja stripping down to her birthday suit a little too quickly, and everybody else jumping in with planned abandon. Heather got to push Ramona in the pool, which was satisfying, and Luann took a girlish leap into the water that was so delicate and hilarious, my friends Nate and John emailed me a screenshot of the Countess in Action. I think this JPEG should replace the footage on all Blu-Ray versions of Black Swan currently in stores. It is the epitome of elegance, grace, and acrobatic beauty.
And so we ended the trip, with the ladies in the warm wetness, from which all of us came. We are all the spawn of the water element, you know — the children of the ocean. Soon, these ladies will cross over that which originates all life — the womb where fish — feet-eating pedi fish and majestic, slow-moving whales alike, one day learned to grow legs, so they could leave behind their predecessors in the murk and the dark. So they could one day evolve and become civilized. So that in the future, our children could look back at the cities we built and the books we wrote and the cameras we let inside our lives to record our fleeting beauty so they could one day ask, “Mommy, what were you and Tomas doing in that garden?” And we’ll tell them the truth, too. We’ll just blink twice, lazily and with no visible shame, and say, simply, “Sin.”
Stray observations from this week’s episode:
* The girls saying “Let’s rock!” And “Let’s blues it out, Music Man” before an Aerosmith concert should negate any reparations we’ve ever made as a civilization to the African-American community, from whom we stole rock and roll.
* Sonja admitting she didn’t care why Carole left the table in a fit of drunken honestly should get whatever the opposite of the Mazel of the Week is, but not the Jackhole thing. Let’s call it the Oy Vey of the week.
* Is Luann the only one who kept her shit together on this trip? Maybe her tryst with Captain Crunch humbled her, or at least taught the Countess to keep her lips zipped — both pairs, however after the fact.
* Was Carole’s apology on Ramonja’s behalf really a trigger for Sonja at lunch? In other words, is saying Sonja isn’t truly compassionate the thing she finds particularly objectionable? Or was she just out for blind blood at this point?
* Kudos for Luann and Sonja for being the only Housewives who, at this point, eat on camera?
* How gross was Ramona getting in Heather’s face at the table? Even when she’s not fighting with you, she has the same respect for people’s physical boundaries of a Great Dane puppy around people who smell like ham.
* This St. Barts trip has been great fun to watch. Bravo, Bravo.
