The Real Housewives of New York City Weekly Recap; Episode 7: Travel Restrictions

By: OJ&B Contributing Writer Helen Cooper

Hello all! Are you upset about the last couple weeks’ radio silence. I hope not, my precious readers. I wouldn’t want you to get any sadness wrinkles and have to stick your face up with botulism like those sad ladies over in Orange County. That would just be too tragic. Thankfully, we exist in a different zip code. One in which everyone wears black and knows how to tell off a cabbie and never, ever over-peroxides. That’s right, chickadees, we’re safely in NYC.

Natural, California beauty.

Unfortunately, we’re in a post-Sex and the City NYC. This means that women are more daring with mixing and matching patterns (Patty Fields does stripes and florals well. Most people do not), party-goers think it’s chic to bring home a different guy every night (at a certain point, your sexual liberation has veered into hoochiedom), and a girls’ trip to Morocco is like, a thing. I mean, is that what people really do now? Take cues from moderately successful, critically panned movies and live their lives accordingly? If that’s a thing I am going to pack up my bags and move to Las Vegas, where I hope to find work as a Burlesque singer and learn from an old diva named Cher. The best part is that a few months later I can totally get Snooki fat and no one will be able to say anything because I’ll still be totally rich and fabulous and one of the best singers around.

We have to go to Morocco, dahling.

OK, so while I don’t think this is an actual thing, the Real Housewives seem to. The ladies are going to Morocco. LuAnn and Sonja are the vacation planning committee, apparently. I’m a little confused about this pairing. I mean, I suppose that out of all the cast members, these two do have the most society pedigree. They’ve probably been air-kissing for years. And if anyone can afford the trip, it’s these two. But they seem so diametrically opposite (Queen Sonja with her butt-flashing and sexual innuendos and The Countess LuAnn de Lesseps with her manner-mongering and perfectly coiffed bob). I guess that’s why they decided to divide and conquer when it came to asking the other ladies to go on the trip.

I'll call the brunettes, you call the blondes.

Sonja calls Ramona and she gets all Ramotional about the trip. And by that I mean mildly-racist and definitely culturally misrepresentational. See, Ramona is afraid that she is going to be treated poorly in Morocco because she is a woman. After all, it’s a third-world country. They force their women to wear “those things.” And most importantly, Ramona loves her family. She loves Mario and the little brat that came out of her vagina all those years ago with the long blonde hair and the headbands. What would her loving family do without her in the case of extremist Islamic woman attack and/or indefinite burka shrouding. HOW WOULD RAMONA PINOT GRIGIO SURVIVE? THINK OF THE WINE BUSINESS, PEOPLE! Sonja somehow managed to quell her fears, probably because The Countess LuAnn de Lesseps assured her that Morocco was very modern. That it was like being in Paris — except not really like being it Paris. It was like Paris, but with a lot of sand and more camels. She would arrange things with the Minister of Tourism right away. She also probably ought to have been soothed by the information that Morocco is actually an extremely Westernized nation — not third-world at all. Its particular brand of Islam is pretty liberal, as are most Muslims in the world now that I think of it. And perhaps most importantly, Morocco is home to the Fennec Fox, which is widely regarded as the cutest fucking thing that has ever existed. Ever.

No big deal. Just the cutest thing you've ever seen.

After Ramona gives Sonja the OK, she moves on to Alex, who has always wanted to go to Morocco. Always. It’s always been on her list of places to go. I’m not buying it. Somehow, the only thing keeping Alex from checking Morocco off her old bucket list was Simon, who does NOT like couscous. And since that is, literally, the only thing that you could possibly eat in Morocco, Alex just could not go. Thankfully, Sonja (and the Bravo producers) are offering Alex a ticket to the all-you-can-eat cous cous buffet that is Morocco. Sonja doesn’t seem to know what couscous is, as only hippies, vegans and hipsters do. It’s a grain, people. Look it up.

Speaking of bucket lists, Jill says that Morocco is legit on hers. And after consulting with her father Bobby, who signs her permission slip, this Zarin is ready to field trip it up. Cindy’s in, as she only has two small babies and a multi-million dollar business keeping her in NYC, so it’s mad easy for her to just jet off to Morocco. Kelly is a harder nut to crack. See, she’s still emotionally reeling from her time on Scary Island. You might recall it. It was the best thing to ever be on television. Kelly, I think, was off her meds. Not that I’m suggesting that she needs to be medicated — for legal reasons, I AM NOT SUGGESTING THAT. There was just a little batty talk about jellybeans and people wanting to stab her with knives and some wicked paranoia going on. But this season she’s been so sweet and calm and funny and I have been consistently Team Kelly. I can see why she doesn’t want to ruin all that by subjecting herself to Scary Desert. That said, there is another part of me, a large part of me, who cares more about my television viewing experience than I do about Kelly Killoren Bensimon not breaking and having visions of jellybeans. I mean, how epic would it be if all of the women were there? Kelly’s still on the fence.

Remember this? I can't decide if I want this back.

Inviting the ladies to ride camels isn’t the only thing that The Countess LuAnn de Lesseps does in this episode. She finally decides to put Ramona in her place for all of the wrongs that she’s committed. This all seems so un-Countess like. Look, I get it. Ramona is a crazy booze horse who goes around talking ish under the guise of airing her feelings and being respectably honest, when all she’s really doing is being a judgmental cow and not allowing David Meister to share his craft with the rest of the Housewife community. And to not say anything, to let her Pinot Grigio swilling continue would just make you look like a doormat. But something about your delivery, Countess, belies some actual anger. As my sister tells my nephews, “Sit down. Count to ten. And think about it.” The most pathetic/best part of this whole sit-down with The Countess and Ramona, is when The Countess tries to make Ramona feel bad for being mean to Jill by giving her the stuffed koala she bought her in Australia. What is a Real Housewife supposed to do with a cheap ass stuffed koala?! Alex’s little monsters will eat it for sure, and Cindy can yell at her baby daddy for allowing the infants to play with it, but what is Ramona going to do with that thing. Come on.

Alice's Tea Cup is no place for this nonsense.

And now for something completely different: Sonja is having a photo shoot for her as-yet-unwritten toaster oven cookbook. At first, it sort of makes sense. Sonja is looking sexy and sophisticated in her kitchen, pulling toast out of the toaster oven. OK, I get that. But then she’s just sitting on her dining room table, showing off her va-jay-jay to the whole world. Kelly, who has come to assist (as she is a model — hey! Why didn’t anyone ask Alex to come?), is flabbergasted by the crotch shot. As Sonja says, it’s not in the pictures. Yeah, but it is on camera. On this moving camera that follows you around everywhere. Maybe just try not to let people who are not that painter guy see your vagina. Cool? OK, cool.

Oh, you know. Just sexily taking some toast out of my toaster oven.

Meanwhile, in Brunette Land, Cindy has cliqued up with Jill, The Countess LuAnn de Lesseps and Kelly, and invited them to a girls’ trip before the big Moroccan girls’ trip. It’s just a weekend full of embroidered robes and drum circles. Said drum circle was pretty awkward. The poor teacher kept trying to begin, stuttering half-words and putting one eyebrow up and clenching his jaw toward Kelly. If this were a movie about an inner-city teacher impacting the lives of a pack of wayward teens, that drum teacher would have just thrown his books on the drum and said, “Listen up!” And then all those girls would have listened. This is not one of those movies. The scene just continued to be awkward.

Drum circle! Drum circle! Satchels of gold!

Oops, you remember all of that Botox talk in the first paragraph of this recap. Looks like these broads like to put the stuff in their faces, too. Ramona takes Alex and Sonja to her face doctor because “let’s face it, they could use a few touchups.” You know what, hooker? You could use an eyeball transplant, but no one says anything about that mess. Alex may look like the bastard child of a horse and a foot, but her hair is WAY prettier than yours. And Sonja has the most impeccable bone structure and lip purse on this show. Chica is caliente and she DOES NOT need any touchups. But alas, all of Ramona’s mean girl comments have gotten to Alex, who feels that, as a model, she needs to take better care of her face. So she gets an old shave-down and promises to wash every night. I hope so. She goes through a bottle of makeup every week. Every week. Let those pores breathe every once in a while, ginger.

Oops. Doctors can't make you pretty on the inside, Ramona.

And the last event that Bravo forced their poor editors to sandwich into this episode-before-the-Moroccan-episodes is Jill’s daughter’s anti-bullying charity event. Or is it Jill’s? I just don’t know. At any rate, it’s a charity event. There are so many of them in NYC, as The Countess says. So many worthy causes to help the little people — and we do extend our pocketbooks, we really do. But we wish that we could attend everything, don’t we? Gosh, this seems like a worthy cause. Bullying around the nation this year has proven to be a HUGE problem. So I’m glad that Jill’s trying to do something. But these swag bags are just the worst. I would rather just get nothing. I would rather take home a nice buzz from an open bar and not have to clutter up my trash with a lame swag bag that includes Secrets of a Jewish Mother pens and The Countess LuAnn de Lesseps’ single. (Besides, I already got that jam off of iTunes!)

You are STILL really searching, darling.

The charity event, as it turns out, is the fork in the road for Ramona’s story line. It’s when Ramona goes from fun-loving Turtle Time enthusiast to full-on alcoholic. After the disaster that was Cindy’s party in Quogue, Ramona came armed with her own Pinot Grigio. She’s not taking any chances this time! But somewhere along the line there must have been a miscommunication. See, Jill thought that she was getting the crate of wine for her fabulous swag bags (god, they would have been so much better with some wine in them!) but Ramona thought that they were just for the bar, as if caterers don’t provide their own booze. And because this isn’t enough of a slight, she proceeds to get totally hammered during the anti-bullying charity event. At one point her glass goes dry and she starts scouring for a refill, asking the help (oops! That was the designer’s daughter!) where more wine is, desperately looking for another fix. She even takes time out to let Jill know what she thought of her brave “deformed” step-daughter. And just like that, she’s turned from sort of crazy-eyed insane, yet fun to watch, to someone I would side-eye if I saw her in real life. I’m not even mad about The Countess is slipping further into un-Countess-like behavior and telling Ramona that no one even wants to go on this trip because you’re going, you big doody head. I just want Ramona to stop her reign of terror.

Plus, here is a collection of screnbgrabs of Ramona looking insane at the charity event:


Sigh. So that was it. A whole ton of storm-brewing before a 3 WEEK MOROCCAN EXTRAVAGANZA. I’m sure the ladies (Kelly included! She’s coming! Hooray!) will just leisurely sip tea while they diffuse tension in an adult-like manner and not fight at all. I’m sure that will happen.

Episode Rating:

Drama: 9
Snootiness: 7
Turtle Time: 10--Turtle Time isn't fun when it happens all the time
Sonja Being Fabulous: 9