It’s a strange profession, this being a Real Housewife of Perfect Town, USA. Strange indeed. Nominally, you’re not supposed to have a job at all (sorry, Ann Romney, Housewivery of the traditional sort is an occupation, but it is not a job). Still each of these ladies work, even if it is as a shrieking ghost specter on a reality television show. But then once they’re on the show and working they need to use that platform, they all think, to make even more money. They need jobs and endorsements and careers, yes, careers, because they all know being a bottled scream jester for Andy Cohen’s amusement won’t last forever. They need dance singles and clothing lines and purses and spin-offs and cook books. Then it is those things that feed the action of the show, living off each other into syndicated perpetuity, like a troll feeding off of it’s own s**t.
Yes, that is what it is like when Housewives work. Last night’s episode of the Real Mole People of Mountain Hill was all about working. No, not working like a drag queen shouts, “WERQ!” at something fierce, it was more like working like a hooker on the corner. Work, girls. Work until your little hearts explode in a glitter bomb of pennies.
First we have Alexis worried about work. Well, she was worried about how her hosting segment on Fox 5 went. She had a panel of experts whose names she couldn’t pronounce get together to talk about pre-school orgies or Pamper Parties or some made up Fox News stories about how fetuses are knocking boots. Sexuality begins at conception. Remember that, people. Alexis sits Gretchen down to watch the segment and get her reaction. The basis of Gretchen’s expertise, according to Alexis, is that Gretchen was on the San Antonio morning show to talk about her purse line. Yes, that makes her a master of the genre. The San Antonio morning show has a weekly segment about barbecue. You can probably get as much good advice from a big pile of brisket as you could from Gretchen Brisket-for-Brains Rossi. Gretchen says, “Oh, I”m so glad you’re getting to do this. They asked me to do it and my schedule was just so busy what with my full-time job as a Slade sitter and whatnot, that I just couldn’t do it. I’m glad you can get my cast-offs.” As a yeast infection says to a vagina: Burn!
As much as Alexis insisted that she had her own segment, Gretchen was like, “Yeah, that’s what they told me too. And they keep calling me about it.” Maybe that’s because, as Gretchen pointed out, Alexis shows up with her left nipple showing to do a segment about how babies have too much sex together and Fox 5 really wants to fire her if they can find a replacement Housewife. Oh, Alexis is awful. Yes, Alexis is an awful television host. Period. She’s just bad. So Gretchen tries to tell her nicely, “Um, maybe you should get a hosting coach, like I did. I can give you her number. Look at how helpful she was. I’m hosting all the time now. I’m actually hostessing at the Olive Garden in the mini-mall this weekend. She got me that gig!” Alexis gets all huffy, “I invited her over to get her support and she wouldn’t give it to me.” What, Alexis? You want her to watch you screw up on nation local television and then tell you that you did a good job? That’s crazy. She did the right thing and told you that you needed to work on your television appearances. That is a true friend, right there.
Knowing that she needs some help in the hosting department, Alexis goes to her host (you know as in the lumpy piece of bread that you eat during communion at mass), her husband Jim. Alright, everyone, Jim is the living worst. He just is. The prizes have been handed out for the worst living thing in the whole world, and Jim won. Actually it was a tie between Jim and bedbugs, but Jim took home the trophy, because he is the worst. Anyway, Jim (who Tamra accuses of having a chin implant, which, HA! forever) tells Alexis that she can not take a class on how to be a television hostess. Why? Because it might lead to her having a career then she wouldn’t be at him to care for him and raise his children. She might have to (gasps!) get a nanny. Remember when we first met Alexis and she bragged about having two nannies? Well, apparently Jim has rewritten the Bible and it is now a sin to have a nanny. Settled.
What is Jim spending all his time doing? He’s working on a “trampoline park.” What the himminey-heck is a trampoline park? How is that going to make them money? How is that going to get them out of the rented house? Is the problem with Alexis’ hosting class that it’s going to cost money that they just don’t have? Then why do they have 17 cars? It’s clear that this is something Alexis really wants and, as she says, something that won’t take up too much time. More and more Alexis wants some validation outside of her house and Jim keeps denying her. Doesn’t he see where this is going to lead? It’s going to lead to two rented houses and him never seeing his children because, god forbid, he actually has to spend a minute caring for them. Ugh, Jim is the living worst. He has a Grinch for a heart and an Ebenezer Scrooge for a penis.
Next: Alexis’ downfall brought to you by juxtaposition.The meanest thing this show does to Alexis — who we all know is a stupid, craven airhead — is destroying her by juxtaposition. Earlier in the season they interspersed scenes of Alexis ailing after her nose job and making it sound like she was being stretched out on the rack during the Inquisition, and Brianna, Vicki’s daughter, who had surgery for what possibly could have been cancer and not complaining one bit. That is how this show just grinds Alexis into a pulp with its red-bottomed stiletto, by showing, comparatively, how awful she really is. This time they did it with Heather.
Heather is a woman who has no job and an assistant. I know a lot of unemployed people and Heather, our lady of the granite cave, is the only one I have ever know that needs an assistant. Anyway, Heather, is better known as Heather Paige Kent, who is (or was) an actress. She even has an IMDb page. That means she is a real actress. She started on a show called That’s Life and a Jenny McCarthy vehicle called Jenny. (That wasn’t a show, she and Jenny wore bikinis and just sat on the hood of a car that had “Jenny” airbrushed across it.) She was also on the very popular television movie Untitled Camryn Manheim Pilot about a US Air Force ace who couldn’t remember the name of an Emmy-winning actress. Anyway, Heather wants to start acting again and goes to audition for a show.
When she gets home, her very lovely husband Terry (who I would also marry, because he is nice and handsome and makes a lot of money) asks her how it went. She says it went well, but she’s not sure if she’s ready for another series, because this one films in Canada. You can tell he’s not pleased about the prospect of her taking off to a foreign country (which, come on, Canada barely counts) to film some TV show. He plays devil’s advocate, but they talk about the possibility like grown ups and both make their side of the argument. However, at the end of the conversation he says that he wants to support her and will help her make any decision she thinks is best for her life. This is what a real actual husband who is a nice person and has a real job and is not working on a trampoline park and isn’t the World’s #1,000,000th Dad says. This is how Alexis is doomed, because her discussion with Jim is put right after Heather’s rather constructive discussion with her husband.
Now we must discuss Gretchen Rossi, a bag of extension hair you bought at Wigs ‘N’ Stuff that has a pair of eyes. Gretchen has been training for a guest spot on Little Kitty Cat’s Dance Hour, a children’s show where she is going to strut around in a cat costume and sing a song about fevers, so that kids will know what is wrong with them when they get ill. She’s worried about having to sing and dance and make kids feel okay all at the same time, especially because her voice is still all messed up from the Bunga Party (which we learned was three weeks before her singing engagement). Sorry, but nothing that happened three weeks ago is going to have that much impact on your voice. Gretchen needs to face the reality that she just can’t sing.
So, Gretchen gets to Vegas and she meets Mikey, a duck that was turned into a human homosexual. You can tell this is true because he still has a bill. He has giant lips and all he says is, “Quack! You suck. Quack! You can’t sing. Quack! You look fat. Quack, Mary, Quack!” Mikey is a monster. Since there is a Duck Man (a Merduck?) Gretchen still thinks she is going to be on Captain Kangaroo and the Kitty Cat Brigade and Mikey says, “Quack! No way, lady. Quack! This is a burlesque show. Quack!”
Great, now Gretchen has to worry about not being able to sing (which she can’t) and trying to be sexy at the same time. Mikey says, “Quack! This will suck if you can’t quack, I mean sing. Quack! So, just stand there and try to sing and don’t think about anything else. The more you think, the more you suck. Quack!” That is the truest thing that anyone has ever told Gretchen Rossi in her whole damn life. “The more you think, the more you suck.” He didn’t really say that, but Gretchen needs to put that on the ass of a pair of velour sweatpants because that needs to be her new mantra. “The more you think, the more you suck.” Get into it!
Next: Clearly, it’s time for a group trip to Vegas!
So, all of the ladies are coming to Vegas with their significant others to watch Gretchen attempt to sing. Even Vicki, who is being nice to Gretchen, but on the inside she’s thinking, “I can’t wait to see what this bitch does.” (Long parenthetical: Oh my god, guys. We have to talk about that crazy hooker that Alexis hired to do her makeup in Vegas. Did she go to the Al Jolson School of Makeup or something? I mean, she made Alexis look like a whore. Usually Alexis is the only person who makes her look like a whore. But really, this crazy strung out bitch just troweled on her makeup and made her look like a bug-eyed mud person. Then Alexis had to take it all off and put on her own makeup. Um, how about you just did that in the first place and save having some stripper who you found roaming the strip with a makeup bag looking for a meth fix come upstairs and mess up your face. You can’t go out one time without a makeup artist? Oh, Alexis. You will never get it right.) Everyone is at dinner and Tamra is there with Eddie and Alexis brought Jim, the human embodiment of a Dutch Oven, and Vicki brought the grifter known as Brooks who told some story about how much he loves Vicki and no one understood it and then he went around the table and stole everyone’s wallets. Heather and Terry were there too, smiling and nodding like they were having dinner at a poor cousin’s house. I love them.
Finally, they go to the Big Kitty Cat Pussy Scratch Club to watch Gretchen. Alexis, in all her wisdom, says that the burlesque club looks like a strip club. Oh, Alexis. That’s like saying, “This pizza parlor looks like a restaurant.” It’s because they’re the same [bleeping] thing! Don’t you know what the hell a burlesque club is? Oh, just go sit down next to your husband Jim, the second coming of the pile of turd from Weird Science, and shut up.
But she doesn’t. She goes backstage to hold Gretchen’s hand. “Break a leg,” Alexis says. “Well, not literally. Let’s pray instead.” Gretchen looks at her like she would look at someone who just had their makeup done by a drunk hooker and says, “Are you sure?” “Yes.” They hold hands and Alexis starts, “Oh heavenly father…” and that’s all Gretchen hears. She closes her eyes and she thinks of the crowd out there, the stage and the back up dancers. She thinks of the lyrics of her song and the marks she has to hit. She thinks of Slade, sitting there in the front row smiling like a cat that just found the bag of cat food and spilled it all over the kitchen and ate so much he’s about to puke. She thinks of everything and she sees God guiding her through every beat, every step, every note. She finally has it. She got it. She can do this. She is going to kill it.
“Amen,” she hears Alexis say as she lets go of the glitterly gloves that are built into her crazy unitard costume. Gretchen takes a deep breath and she feels the Holy Spirit inside of her. She feels it fill her lungs like when she breathes under the mist machines that are constantly flowing outside of the door of Cosmopolitian Hotel, battling back the desert night. She feels empowered, filled with the glow of the strip and ready to let it’s light shine through her.
“What are you doing?” Mikey bursts in to say. “We’re praying,” Alexis answers, swaying back and forth with pride like a four-year-old that just used the big girl potty. “Praying?” Mikey asks. “We don’t need to pray, honey. That is what rehearsal is for.” He pauses for a moment before turning and walking toward the stage in an elaborately exaggerated gesture and then lets it out, so soft the girls can barely hear it. “Quack!”
Follow Brian Moylan on Twitter @BrianJMoylan
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