Real Housewives of New York Recap: Pinot Can’t Buy You Class

Last night’s episode of Real Housewives of New York was a hot mess of faux pas, inappropriate comments, and geriatric sexual harassment. I guess you could call this episode the George & Ramona show, because well that’s what happened. The two of them demonstrated that their concept of social etiquette evaporated sometime around the dinosaur era as they fought to one-up each other in the rude and out-of-control category.

Maybe Aviva Drescher was trying to get her dad some air time to gain relevance, maybe he acted more out of order than usual because he was hoping to stage a fifth wind career revival – who knows, but you and I both know Andy Cohen loves an old sassy so Papaviva will be making an appearance on WWHL very soon.

Before all that happened Carole Radziwill also headed to Miami for a one-day Bravo sponsored trip to visit her friend, jewelry designer Ranjana Khan. Ranjana also does this thing called face yoga as a side-job. Basically it was yet another chance for her to advertise her product – and for Carole to call out LuAnn de Lesseps on “friend jumping.” Is this going to become a thing? I makes me think of Heathers meets Tremors.

Anyway, Aviva calls to inform Carole that things with Ramona Singer are going, well, the way things always go with Ramona – like rancid unchilled pinot drank out of a Tupperware container. That’s a metaphor for BAD. Carole is like ‘Oh tee-hee… I’m not going to make enemies of Ramona – that bish is psycho. I just call her bunny, because she’s got so much energy.’ Aviva, feeling like she just ran a half-marathon with a hang-over, lamely agrees.

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Somewhere at home, Heather Thomson was shrieking ‘I TOLD YOU SO!!!’ at the TV and feeling vindicated that she left Bunny on a Pinot Binge off the guest list to London. Ra-Moan-A was certainly living up to her name on this trip as she bitched, moaned, and micro-managed until everyone wanted to put her on a life raft out to sea and pretend she was shipwrecked.

I’m betting that Ranjana – like Carole – is regretting getting herself wrapped up in this malarkey. You know Andy promised them a classier version of RHONY, which naturally everyone assumed meant no Ramona. Foiled again, suckers! Everyone meets at Ranjana’s insanely beautiful penthouse in the sky. Aviva is afraid of heights, but she’ll do anything to get a break from Pinot-bot so she braves it.

Upon entering Ranjana’s majestic palace overlooking the sea, Ramona offers it a cursory glance, humps Sonja Morgan over a swimsuit cover-up, and cavalierly refers to it as “up and coming.” Seriously. She did this. She espouses about how Ranjana is taking advantage of the real estate market and this area is like on the verge of being decent. Everyone stands there awkwardly as Ramona pinot-splodes projectile verbal vomit rudeness all of the $50,000 floors. I wasn’t aware that she was a real estate mogul…

Ranjana smirked and thought to herself, ‘Well, my husband makes dresses for Michelle Obama and you are hawking schlock on QVC. Sour grapes, m’dear!’ Also, Ranjana and Ramona must be about the same age but Ramona is desperately clinging to her youth while Ranjana and her face yoga have aged gracefully and elegantly. Bet that tastes like Boones Farm going down, ‘mona.

Speaking of youth, Ranjana ushers everyone into the rooftop illusion pool to teach some face yoga. You know you all made blow-job faces and fish lips at the TV – I did – and then I sneered at Ramona’s rudeness which I’m sure does the opposite for aging. Yes, Ramona’s incredibly self-absorbed behavior continued rooftop.

Here’s what happened: Ramona announces Aviva can’t swim because she doesn’t have her “swimming leg” and she can’t get her prosthetic wet. Aviva tries in vain to convince her it’s fine, but Ramona insists over and over again at loud volume. Aviva is embarrassed. Frankly, I’m surprised she didn’t rip the prosthetic off Aviva’s body during her fit of intransigence.

Ramona practically hired a Goodyear blimp to fly around South Beach announcing: “KEEP AVIVA DRESCHER OUT OF THE WATER!”

Finally, someone distracts her and Aviva gets in the pool so face yoga can commence. I interrupt to comment that Aviva looks phenomenal and this woman has a banging body. No pinot bloat there.

During face yoga Sonja and Ramona are giggling, caressing each other and guzzling wine while making snarky comments. Ramona decides she’s over this whole thing and starts announcing swimming is over. She uses Aviva as a scapegoat by AGAIN insisting Aviva needs to get out of the pool – for her leg’s sake. She gets a towel and starts ushering a highly mortified Aviva away from the water.

I’d say that was pretty much the most incredibly insensitive thing I’ve ever seen on Bravo. Thanks for that Andy. I find it extremely pathetic that Sonja, who by many accounts seems educated, delightful, and kind would fall in line with the type of egregious behavior Ramona demonstrated. Perhaps she has Stockholm Syndrome as someone else pointed out.

Anyway, back at Aviva’s Miami apartment, Ramona and Sonja are getting ready with some shower shenanigans. These two middle-aged women decided to get frisky in one of the guest showers and broke the hardware. Sonja is lounging about in Ramona’s bathroom, wearing only a towel in front of Mario and Reid (who was forced to repair the shower hardware).

They are horribly late for the dinner party and don’t care. Aviva asks to join the getting ready party and Ramona refuses to allow her in the bathroom, which she owns and they broke. Mario is practically licking Sonja‘s breasts as he salivates all over her while Ramona, seeking attention, bends over in a mini skirt far past acceptable given her age.

Reid and Aviva are still hovering around trying to act normal and make some sanity out of baby-sitting escapees from the mental asylum for Studio 54 addicts. Ramona leers that Sonja is going to be sleeping in bed with her and Mario, giving us all gross images of a middle-aged menage a trois. Mario manages to prevent himself from gagging by mentally imagining shoving a drunk Ramona and her satin negligee out of the bed whilst he spends quality time with Sonja.

If all of that wasn’t horrific enough, these two yahoos are still not dressed when Carole and the walking Viagra ad, George, arrive. This when things get really dicey. Like Fredrick’s of Hollywood crotchless panties dicey.

So first George is behaving slightly forward, crassly lascivious, but still sort of enjoyably. He was flirting with all the ladies, schmoozing them up, and giving them all some attention. He really knew how to latch onto their desperateness. No one was really taking George – or his sex talk – seriously.

Sonja is initially attracted to George, whom she describes as “moneyed.” I thought it was pretty brazen of her to admit she’s basically gold digging. You could, however, tell that Sonja was in on the game that George was to get airtime and Sonja was to play the part of his saucy accompaniment.

George continues making dinner raunchy by telling Carole he’ll give her a “squirting orgasm,” which causes Mario to spit his drink all over Aviva and Reid. Aviva clearly regrets embroiling herself in this mess. Ramona initially likens herself to George – they are comrades in the tell-it-like-it-is category. It’s tough goings when no one likes your truth. The difference is that George is calculated and saucy; he knows he’s going too far and relishes in the outrageous.

Ramona, well, she is just nuts. Over dinner, realizing she isn’t the center of attention since George is dominating the scene, Ramona starts getting squirly. Not squirty – squirly. Her eyes blink faster and faster in an irrational way while she calculates an attention grab.

First Ramona demands Aviva stop speaking about her ex-husband Harry, whom everyone at the table but Carole knows.

Then Ramona barges into the kitchen and demands everyone is eating too much so salads will be skipped so entrees can be served, like, NOW! She stands there demanding the caterers only serve the protein and vegetable since all her carbs can only come from wine.

The next day the fun fest continues as everyone hits the beach at George’s condo. George’s sexual harassment prowess has amped up considerably overnight as he literally makes this a bad 70’s porno. He’s oozing all over Sonja’s legs and says her butt reminded him of “ice cream.” At first Sonja was flattered but then it all became way too much.

George, recognizing that Ramona is a loose cannon capable of dangerous things, compliments her body. Ramona, strutting her stuff in a Jersey Shore swimsuit borrowed from Snooki eats up the compliment like it’s ice cream. “I go to the gym,” she gleefully announces as the camera gives us a close-up of her bloated stomach in a royal blue satin-y monokini that does her no favors.

Mario shudders and secretly hopes for a partner swap; George can take Ramona and he’ll go off with Sonja into the sunset.

Again, Ramona demands Aviva stay out of the pool. This persists until Reid and George get involved. Ramona is afraid the leg will float. Ramona is afraid of Aviva’s prosthesis and instead of having a mature conversation in which she discusses the mechanics of it she is obstreperous until the Americans With Disabilities Act sends her a letter and some pamphlets. That didn’t happen, but it should.

Ramona wants to be the star of everything: the boldest, the loudest, the flashiest, the tackiest. Well, she succeeds.

Later they hit up an Art Basel event and this when Sonja has really had her fill of George’s advances. He pokes her in the back with his very old member and she’s pretty much running for the door. Poor Sonja. She did handle it with grace, but I would be giving Aviva a strongly-worded chat if I were her.

Except this is Housewives, so instead Aviva will just complain about Ramona and Sonja will just complain about Aviva for the next sixteen + years while Andy films it and calls it drama.

Sonja is over it and she wants to return to an era where doggy-style is acceptable sexytimes and she doesn’t have to deal with a Viagra addict’s attempt to get an endorsement deal or a spinoff.

In the art gallery, Aviva decides to seek advice from her elders in matters of Ramona. Sonja acting like herself again; acting sweet, endearing, and sane, counsels Aviva that it’s best to treat Ramona like a toddler: distract her and be direct. Aviva is afraid. Sonja is used to typhoon mona, but Aviva is new to the neighborhood. See – I love this Sonja. Ramona is a bad influence and bringing her down.

In other news, away from Miami, Carole demonstrates how the real world works by confronting LuAnn about her “friend jumping.”

The two frienemies go shopping where they browse at a downtown store LuAnn would never set foot in. LuAnn mentions she only likes “Jackie O” sunglasses and Carole frosts up immediately. The whole scene was so awkward as you could tell Carole did not want to be there and was just waiting, waiting – hovering almost – for the right moment to strike.

LuAnn casually mentions Ranjana and an opportunity is had. So Carole begins… ‘I heard you went there,’ she mentions. LuAnn tells the story of how charming and gracious they both were; how enjoyable a time the Countess had sipping tequila and sharing stories of celebrity encounters.

Carole is undeterred and tells her she didn’t like that LuAnn asked to borrow clothes. LuAnn, shocked, says she was merely trying to “help” the designer. Carole reminds LuAnn that he actually dresses A-Listers so he doesn’t need any help in the LuAnn department. Carole is concerned that she wasn’t getting through to LuAnn – which is true, she wasn’t.

Carole speaks like a real person and operates on an intellectual level; she’s also used to dealing with people who can read between the lines and are not totally self-absorbed famewhores. But here’s the thing, Carole couldn’t really convey why she was pissed. She was annoyed because of LuAnn’s flagrant social climbing and because the whole thing left a bad taste in her mouth, because Carole wouldn’t do a thing like that.

I have to applaud Carole for learning a lesson though – last week she mentioned she wished she had confronted LuAnn instead of resorting to immature passive aggressive reactions and this week she confronted her.

Too bad LuAnn came away from the situation thinking Carole was ridiculous without recognizing that using other people’s friends is sort of de classe and the very opposite of what someone with class and taste would do. Are we sure LuAnn wrote a book about social graces?

On the bright side, I adored LuAnn’s red coat.

[Photo Credit: BravoTV.com]

THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE? WAS RAMONA DREADFULLY RUDE OR JUST BEING RAMONA? WAS IT APPROPRIATE OF CAROLE TO CONFRONT LUANN?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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