The first days were magical, all seafood on the beach and intimate conversations about widowhood on the bow of the boat (in the shadow of a towel held aloft by a yachtie to protect Ramona’s freshly Fraxeled skin). Then SHE landed. Aviva Drescher arrived with a suitcase of monochromatic bikinis and an emotional support Reid.
Sonja and Ramona, incensed that a woman who once lost a leg to a mechanical thresher might need support to ride a prop plane, started a fight that ended with the epitaph that will one day be etched on Ramona’s mausoleum, “Take a XANEX, calm DOOOOWN!”
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It’s never quite explained why Skinnygirl pre-mixed margaritas was sending Bethenny to Tequila Mexico to taste premium tequilas for a product that had come to market years earlier, but The Skinnygirl was very clear: this was a work trip and Ramona could not be trusted to act with decorum, so she was excluded on work events.
Luann is getting married - can you believe it? Nobody could, actually, because her betrothed had dated both Ramona and Sonja. Recently. Never have two people looked so ill at ease about their own impending marriage as Tom and Luann did at their engagement party aboard a borrowed yacht.
Perhaps the secret to a great Real Housewives trip is jet lag. Who among us, when operating under airport-time, has not arrived at our destination a little crabby, a little too prone to imbibing, a little too ready to accuse one of the friends we are traveling with of planting a story about our anorexia journey in Radar Online?
It’s Christmas in the Berkshires, but there is another, even more important birthday: that of Dorinda Medley. The lady of the house can’t wait to treat all her friends to a relaxing sleepover. Luann takes notice of Bethenny’s chic new bob by joking that she is copying her style, and that was her fatal mistake.
“Be cool. Don’t be all…uncool” about waking up next to some naked man that Ramona discarded last night. The house is enormous but the personalities are bigger. The meltdowns are almost too many to count. Newly single Ramona physically blocks Carole and Bethenny from flirting with a handsome restaurateur.
Poor Kristen Taekman, she was never ready to play hostess to such pampered New Yorkers. The Resort at Paws Up has so much beauty to offer: spacious blue skies to gaze at, roaming cattle to wrangle, knickering horses to ride, sparkling streams to fish in, but no butlers or cabana boys to sexually harass.
In future seasons, Ramona Singer will happily visit the Berkshires every year. That’s different. This time she’s been invited by Heather and she’s determined to not enjoy herself. Upon arriving, she asks if the house is a garage. Then she orders an air conditioner to be delivered.
Heather Thompson is going on morning TV in London and legally she can only say “Yummy Tummi” once. Naturally, she needs all the moral support she can get. Luann, Carole, and Sonja fly in to sip high tea and snipe at each other.
How does the saying go? You can take the Housewife out of the Upper East Side, but you can’t prevent Ramona Singer from haranguing and scandalizing every service worker in Luann’s rented Moroccan mansion so badly that they would rather ride off into the desert on an epileptic camel than ever help her unpack again?
Satchels of gold, satchels of gold. Bethenny Frankel, the first truly famous Housewife, was ascendent this season, her feud with ex-friend Jill Zarin and her pregnancy belly both burgeoning. You might even say that she was “up here” and Kelly Bensimon was “down here.” And thus the scene was set for Scary Island.