Tinsley Mortimer’s been hanging around The Real Housewives Of New York for thirteen episodes, and all she has to show for it is some brown ice and a failed apartment hunt. But last night, the Bravo gods took pity/revenge on young Tinsley and threw her in the center of the drama. The true highlight, however, was Dorinda Medley putting her gangsta hat back on as she threw down with Sonja Morgan after Sonja accused her of secretly being involved in her doomed Tipsy Girl business venture last year! And I live all day, every day for Dorinda doing her weird-arm-angles-fingers-flying Back that sh*t up! rant in public.
We begin with Bethenny Frankel arriving at an Italian restaurant in the Bronx, where hopefully there’s a revolver duct taped to the toilet just in case. She wants the ladies (sans Ramona Singer) to get out of the city and experience carbs. Luann D’Agostino (are we officially calling her that now?), Carole Radziwill, Sonja, Dorinda, and Tinsley show up to take part in this social experiment. Because she’s always down for the cause, Dorinda even shows up already half in the bag.
Bethenny decides the group should go to Vermont, even Ramona. (!?!?) Dorinda ironically slurs that Ramona was just drunk in the Berkshires! But Bethenny doesn’t care. Ramona is dead to her. Plus, Ramona has ripped on everyone here (um, like Bethenny?), including Sonja about Tipsy Girl, when Ramona was in cahoots with the business first.
Sonja pipes up that Dorinda was interested in Tipsy Girl too – and she has the texts from John to prove it! Before Sonja can provide receipts, Dorinda goes full on Slurinda, ‘splaining that she doesn’t know what John does! She doesn’t live with that man! He’s not the boss of her! He just does her dry cleaning!
“I’m FREE!” shouts Dorinda, but Sonja doesn’t register the fact that this is a woman not to be messed with. Instead she repeats the Tipsy Girl charge and is told in response to “Back that sh*t up!” which at some point, I want to be personally told by Dorinda Medley too. I feel it’s a rite of passage, somehow. Then Dorinda moves to shouting “Clip! Cliiiiiiip!” complete with bizarre hand gestures, which by this morning has surely been turned into Twitter’s new favorite GIF. Even Bethenny wants to steal this strange, new Clip! (TM) burn.
The ladies, including Sonja, are cracking the eff up at Dorinda’s tirade. Because, well, it’s epic. “Is this what you meant by a ‘ganster’ lunch?” asks Carole, who by the way might want to rethink that turtleneck. After Dorinda backs her own sh*t up to the bathroom, she returns to slur-scuss the matter some more, at Sonja’s misguided prodding. Next stop on the drunken ramble train: tearful accusations! “I wash proud of you. I wash happy for you. Even after all the sh*t you shaid about me. I reshpect you!” bemoans Dorinda. But Sonja’s a$$ is just still burned about the Berkshires last year, which has gone way past pathetic and entered the official dead zone.
Also pathetic is the group’s attempt to apologize to the entire restaurant before they leave. As payback, one of the patrons tells Carole she looks just like Melania Trump! Then she goes for that bathroom gun after all. (KIDDING!)
Back in Manhattan, we are treated to a riveting installment of Tinsley Sees Her Therapist. Tinsley has issues with her (deceased) alcoholic father, bad dreams, and men. She feels like she’s been repeating the same pattern with men her whole life; i.e., choosing addicts and drama over stability. Plus, she’s still traumatized by her most recent abusive relationship, which resulted in an arrest for trespassing. She’s also still working at cleaning up her reputation. “I wanna feel like me again,” laments Tinsley. Her therapist wonders if she can work on becoming a new version of herself though, encouraging her to value herself. Because this is the most generic therapist ever, and we just really need this scene to end.
At lunch, Luann, Sonja, and Ramona gather to rehash the Bronx lunch. Luann also tells Ramona that she is reluctantly invited to Bethenny’s Vermont trip but her high ponytail is not. Ramona would rather ski in Aspen because she only likes the best of the best of the best! But Bravo cameras won’t be there, so puh-leez. She’ll bring her crazy eyes to Vermont, and she’ll shut up about it.
Sonja just hopes that she and Dorinda can get along on the trip. She’s considers Dorinda a new friend even though Luann insists they’ve all known her for ten years. Yeah but “It’s not like you had sex with the same guy!” says Sonja, who apparently counts that shared bond the true testament of friendship. Luann takes offense, of course, knowing that her hubby has slept/played board games (wink, wink) with every woman at this here table and demands an immediate apology! But Sonja is sick of apologizing over “just being herself,” so Luann decides to grab her fabulous coat and leave.
In Bethenny’s rented Vermont lodge, someone has ripped off the “NNYGIRL” off the enormous “SKI” sign over the bar, but Bethenny loves the place anyway. Carole and Dorinda arrive first, followed by a car full of clowns, plus their hostage – otherwise known as Ramona, Sonja, and Tinsley. Ramona has also texted Bethenny a rambling diatribe, which Bethenny calls a Tourettes-Apology, and which she has no intention of accepting.
Before they can begin this trip, Bethenny proposes resurrecting her Mexico trip from last year that was canceled due to health issues. So, that’s happening. What’s not happening is Dorinda changing underwear all weekend because she forgot all of her luggage back in the city! Hey Uber – do you drive clothes across state lines? Because Dorinda would like to make that a thing.
Hey wait – is that Dorinda’s luggage-Uber? No. It’s just Ramona screaming outside the cabin about having to drive FIVE HOURS to get here. As Tinsley walks in with her two crazy aunts, Bethenny escapes to the next room to talk to Bryn on the phone. Despite being distracted, she can still hear Ramona b*tching about only having Skinnygirl booze to drink at this place. LOL! (But why hasn’t Ramona bolted upstairs to snag her room yet? Her trip skills are obviously not on point due to Bethenny-induced anxiety.)
Okay, it was a slow start, but Ramona does finally make her move after five minutes of stalling. She and Sonja do their classic run through the house like bloated Shih-Tzus on crack looking for a puppy pad, finally claiming their shared cave for the weekend. But of course Ramona is still not satisfied because of some double sink/single sink nonsense. Dorinda, for one, doesn’t want to hear her obnoxious complaints. She just wants to spread food on her face in peace. She’s all, somebody get these broads a SANG-wich! CLIP! CLIP!
Luann would just like a nice glass of Cabernet, especially if she’s expected to play ping pong with Ramona. During their match, Ramona complains that Bethenny’s still holding a grudge agains’t her, which is crazy, rigggghhhhhht? Especially because she says, “I don’t have a malicious bone in my body!” (Flashback to Ramona relentlessly ripping Luann about her kids, her marriage, and her very existence for the past 10+ years.) There are not enough eye rolls on the planet for Luann to receive this level of delusion coming straight at her.
In the kitchen, Sonja admires the magical refrigerated beverages (and puts tap water in Ramona’s special bottle) while Tinsley and Bethenny have a chat. Tinsley says she’s boy crazy, while Bethenny is in a lull. She’s not with Dennis Shields anymore, and is ready to date again. Tinsley also wants to make her escape from Sonja’s boarding house, but she doesn’t get very far in her reasoning before dinner is served.
At dinner, Bethenny announces her Mexico trip. Luann doesn’t want to go because she came all the way here and she’s being forced to sleep in the basement! With a bathroom DOWN THE HALL! Bethenny rolls her eyes at the Dowager Countess’s litany of complaints. You can take the title away from the Countess, but you can’t remove the stick from her derriere.
Conversation turns to Tinsley, who everyone thinks should get married. Sonja thinks that dating a guy while shacking up with a friend is not a good look – even though Luann met her hubby doing just that. Hmmm. But Dorinda doesn’t think Sonja needs to be Tinsley’s handler, despite her self-appointed title. Then Luann hypocritically calls Tinsley out for being a “grown woman living in Sonja’s daughter’s room with the stuffed animals!” at which point Tinsley starts to tear up. Gawd. These women (minus Dorinda and Carole in this moment) are simply THE WORST.
Deciding that the pain isn’t ratcheted up enough yet, Sonja piles on that Tinsley should be looking for an apartment because she’s been living at her place rent-free for too long. Now feeling like a five-year old, Tinsley decides to list her complaints. She just came out of a terrible relationship, she’s 41-years old, not married, with no children – and she wants all of that, some day. She wants to be self-sufficient again too, but she’s in limbo right now. And she doesn’t need this table of walking bad decisions to advise her on life goals!
Ramona tries to play supportive friend (watch out, Tins!) by coming over to comfort her while Luann channels that dime store therapist, lamely encouraging her to “love herself.” Unraveling further, Tinsley screams that she’s just not OVER IT yet! So Bethenny decides this is a good time for some tough love. Which, um, it is decidedly not. She thinks Tinsley just needs to stay in Sonja’s house and abide by her tyrannical rules or “be a grown woman” and move out! She’s right, but her emotional intelligence of -100 leaves a lot to be desired in this particular delivery. OUCH.
Tinsley gets it, but the trauma from her abusive relationship haunts her. The women finally calm down, admitting that many of them have been there too – and Bethenny still is. With the fresh smell of a Housewife attack still lingering in the air, Ramona awkwardly jumps in with a toast to their friendship! Because she’s a giver, that one.
TELL US: SHOULD TINSLEY JUST ‘GET OVER IT’ – OR SHOULD THE LADIES BACK OFF? WHAT DID YOU THINK OF DORINDA’S RESTAURANT THROW DOWN? DOES SONJA OWE LUANN AN APOLOGY?
Photo Credit: Bravo
