S4:E15 “It always goes back to beauty, class and elegance…lies within the soul.” – LuAnn
Last night’s episode was mostly about how LuAnn is shooting a video to go along with her new song, “Chic c’est la vie.” It started out with LuAnn sitting in a meeting with a music producer who went by the name of “Jersey,” who obviously had bleached blonde hair and was wearing a pinstripe blazer with a v-neck and a gold chain. Obviously. Jersey explained to LuAnn that the concept he came up with for her music video would be that she’s getting ready to throw an elaborate and exclusive party that will be attended by “internationally fabulous people” who would be from “around the world” and LuAnn interjected and confirmed that yes, his concept made sense for the video because “beauty, class and elegance lies within the soul.” But that doesn’t really make sense because her argument throughout this whole series has been that excellence can also be learned (in other words, “MONEY CAN’T BUY YOU CLASS, ELEGANCE IS LEARNED MY FRIENDS”). And so the above statement she made about “elegance coming from your soul” suggests that elegance is something you’re born with, which conflicts with everything she’s ever said ever! But what’s interesting is that while she’s profiting from a book she wrote that teaches unclassy people how to be classy by wearing turquoise jewelry with brown wrap dresses when they have a few hours to kill in an airport in St. Louis, it also appears that she’s been giving lectures about the importance of dignified neonatal existence at the American Natural History Museum on weekends! So if LuAnn’s aware that she’s making songs about people with natural grace while also making money off an instruction manual of how people can enter the high society, then applause applause applause. But since I highly doubt that, THIS SHOW WILL BE AROUND FOREVER.
“That’s going to be out there on the internet forever.” – Ramona
Ramona and Sonja went to the Equinox together and as they were walking on the treadmill and talking, Ramona told Sonja that last week her daughter Avery told her that she was her role model, and because of that she doesn’t think she should be in LuAnn’s music video. Ramona said she just didn’t want to be a part of something that would embarrass her daughter and because of how much kids talk about their parents to each other, she decided it wouldn’t be a good idea for her to be filmed in a video with LuAnn and random men with sequined eyebrows because it would be on the internet forever and it would never go away. WHICH AGAIN, MAKES ME LAUGH because every single one of the Housewives episodes can be found online, and it’s highly brilliant that Ramona doesn’t realize that her television show is not immune from internet immortalization, especially by way of Amazon. Then we went over to Alex’s backyard, where Simon’s Australian brothers were over and drinking Aussie beers and roasting hot dogs in a fire pit that they had conveniently located next to the children’s jungle gym. In between Alex telling her children that they can’t drink beer even though they wanted it, she told Simon that she wasn’t planning on doing LuAnn’s video either because she didn’t want to have to explain any more to her mother about the ladies she’s friends with. When did these women all become self-conscious? This is a very new thing! It didn’t used to be this way!
“Bingo! It’s Ramona.” – Jill
Jill went to go have her memory tested and as the doctor appeared to be injecting different colored dyes into her brain, Sonja showed up and told her that she didn’t think she was going to do LuAnn’s video because the producer told her she’d have to be naked in a steam room surrounded by guys, and she had a 10 year old daughter to think about, and that she didn’t want to be away from her daughter, and that she just wasn’t into traveling to Atlantic City in the morning and then coming back at night. Jill tried hard to convince Sonja that it would be a fun thing to do with her friends, but Sonja just kept coming up with excuses as to why she didn’t want to film the music video until she revealed that the real reason she wasn’t going to do it was because Ramona wasn’t going to do it. Then we witnessed a lunch between Ramona and LuAnn, where Ramona said she wasn’t going to be able to do the “Chic c’est la vie” video. LuAnn was the one to bring it up and she told Ramona that she didn’t want to make Ramona do anything she didn’t want to do, but she was curious as to why suddenly she was so opposed to the idea of just fooling around in front of a camera. Ramona said her daughter was disgusted with the “Money Can’t Buy You Class” video and she told her that she never wanted her mother to do anything like that, and then Ramona told LuAnn that she wasn’t going to do the video because she raises her daughter differently than LuAnn raises her daughter…and that set off everything. You see, Ramona tries to convince the other women that LuAnn is what’s called a “weekend mom,” and really only gives a shit about her kids on the weekends when she’s not with Jacques because he spends the weekend making wine and having sex with men. And so when Ramona said that she raises her daughter differently than LuAnn raises her daughter, LuAnn whipped out that long rotating fire whip that Mr. Mario Brother has spent his life jumping over and thrashed it across Ramona’s face. LuAnn was obviously pissed that Ramona insinuated that she didn’t spend enough time with her daughter, and things just got really ugly because Ramona really had no idea that she said anything offensive. But Ramona didn’t stop talking: she then said that the video just didn’t send the right message to her daughter and that’s why she wasn’t going to be in it. LuAnn was confused because she thought the message was perfect for 16-year-old girls, and realized that Ramona was insulting her parenting skills by saying that she couldn’t do the video because she had a daughter who she cared about. Then for some reason, Ramona brought up the fact that LuAnn’s ex-husband cheated on her a whole bunch of times, and LuAnn just got up and left Ramona to think about what kind of message she’s sending her daughter by engaging in Turtle Time at benefits for foundations that fight weird moles.
“Sonja asked me to come over for breakfast during a work week. I’m trying to accommodate her.” – Cindy
Cindy’s very busy, you see. She runs a very lucrative business that makes women’s vaginas presentable. Not everyone can be president, you see. Anyway, so the first time Cindy went over to Sonja’s house she got a lecture about how she was at the bottom of the totem pole and she had to respect all the other housewives and do everything for them and expect nothing in return. But Sonja kind of felt bad about that so she decided to invite Cindy over to her house again, and she decided the best time to do it would be at 11:30 AM during the week. Cindy didn’t feel like she could say no, so she went over to her house and sat down and Sonja immediately started telling her about how busy she is and how she took time out of her hectic schedule to specifically meet with Cindy. And as Sonja was opening a bottle of champagne to make bellinis, Cindy’s assistant walked in and handed her a BlackBerry and said that the conference call was starting. Sonja was completely shocked to see that Cindy wasn’t watching her cook eggs in her toaster oven and instead was talking about throwing another event to promote women’s vaginas and so she started making a racket in her kitchen. Cindy eventually yelled at Sonja to shut up because she was on a call about vaginas, and so Sonja kind of gave up and handed Cindy’s assistant a fork so she could eat something too and HILARIOUSLY Cindy said “oh, she doesn’t eat.” Then Sonja got really frustrated again because if Cindy was going to do work then she should go upstairs and do her work and made it impossible for Cindy to talk to ten people about vaginas, and so she sent her non-eating assistant out into the hall to take notes on the call. Cindy eventually apologized for taking a call in Sonja’s kitchen, and said that she thought it was okay because the toaster oven seemed to be allowed to do his own thing too.
“This is so phenomenal.” – Someone
Alex and Simon threw a party to support some New York art foundation and they hung all this weird art around their house and gave people champagne and talked about how you sat down somewhere, the perspective of the art on the walls would change. The art itself was entirely questionable, and one piece was so big and so dark and so severe it looked like the sports cup from the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk. As the art party was happening, we got a glimpse at what things were like in Atlantic City on the set of the music video. Jill and Kelly were the only ones who showed up to support LuAnn, and Jill was completely bossing everyone around and instructing the hairstylists how to do LuAnn’s hair and how the director should turn his shot around so he could incorporate the sunset into the video. When it was time to film the scene where LuAnn and her posse were situated around a craps table and gambling, there weren’t enough people because Kelly left so LuAnn had to have her assistants be in the shot and some random people they roped in from the hotel gift shop to pretend they were in the group. Jill completely ruined the whole thing though, because as she was supposed to be laughing and having fun and enjoying herself and chanting “ce bon, ce bon” over and over again, she would ask the director when he wanted her to do what he was asking her to do and she was constantly asking if they were wrapped yet. In the end, Jill decided she was going to leave the videos to P. Diddy because they were just too difficult and impossible and gnarly and Atlantic City was just not a place for a Zarin.
If you’re interested, here is LuAnn’s video that seemingly consists of none of the footage that was shot in Atlantic City.
