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Recap: Real Housewives of New York, The Broke, Crazy, Close to Homeless Edition

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Recap: Real Housewives of New York, The Broke, Crazy, Close to Homeless Edition

I have been waiting ALL SEASON for Harry to ditch Sonja for LuAnn on “Real Housewives of New York.” I thought they’d tricked me when he ditched their Hamptons get together with the wanna-be trashy stylist in an early episode, but last night I got that moment I so badly needed. Nice job BravoTV!

Ditched at Carole’s birthday party just an hour after Harry gave her a promise ring? As soon as he finds out LuAnn is single again? Oh Sonja, give it up! You are outclassed in every single way and he doesn’t want you. And since LuAnn didn’t know, you can’t even be mad at her. Sonja sleeps with anybody that will sit still long enough for her to mount him so you’d have to keep it tracked on a website for LuAnn to be updated.

Let’s evaluate Harry’s options – and don’t misunderstand – I think he’s a total sleazeball. But he’s the only man in the Real Housewives series to have had relations (and children) with more of the cast than Slade in Orange County. At least Slade used to be hot. Can’t even see that with Harry. He’s just rich.

Sonja is broke, crazy, close to homeless, and desperate with a teen daughter. LuAnn doesn’t need money, has all her marbles, owns several houses, and her children are pretty much grown up. Oh, and she’s not an internationally-known slut like Sonja. No competition.

The minute Harry found out he had a better option, he was outta there. I wonder if that ring was even real or if he bought it at a sidewalk vendor. I think Sonja might have thought the same thing or she wouldn’t have stuffed it in her purse. She’d have been shoving it in the face of every RHONY there. But she didn’t. She knew that it was f**ked up.

At their age, you don’t give “promise rings.” That’s a high-school or college thing to do when your parents are going to think you’re too young to get engaged. Shame on Harry for stringing Sonja along. I almost felt sorry for her. Almost. Except she was sleeping with a kid earlier this season til Ramona tattled to his mommy and she shut that down. And she sexually harasses every poor straight male that crosses her path. Why should Harry treat her any differently than she’s treated him? I don’t see how she’s been so deeply in love with him all along unless she doesn’t equate fidelity with love. Entirely possible. Still…

The whole episode was about the preparation and execution of Carole’s 50th birthday party. She’s on a book tour in the UK so she’s asked Heather to coordinate the whole thing. Her request list is so damned ridiculous that Heather had to pull together a whole team and an outside party planner to help.

The theme: “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.” Fun! But Carole’s ideas are so weird that they give wedding planners like me nightmares – dear God, don’t let any of my clients start asking for stuff like this one week before their big day.

On a conference call, Carole tells Heather (and her assistants and Heather’s assistant) to handle the food and beverage because she doesn’t really know or care about that stuff. But she is demanding as hell about all the other super-weird details. The theme could be fun – but dumping all of this on a bff to execute a week before the event is a little bit self-absorbed. Heather does have a full-time job.

“I tend to be a perfectionist. I have very strong ideas about how I want the party to look,” Carole explains. Sounds like she should have planned her party before she left. I tried to figure out if she was joking but when she showed up during setup with a whole team to do just her own nails while she watched them work, her narcissistic side was showing big time.

“I don’t want much. I want the headless mannequins. I want the butterflies. I want the man walking the invisible dog,” Carole demands. “Oh, and I’d like a snake handler as well.” Of course, everybody has a snake handler at their 50th birthday party.

“I need a fog machine. I need the harvest moon to be in the trees. I need antique lace around the front door. I need pistols – it’s not much,” Carole says. “It’s what makes a party great are the details.”

This is why she’s not a party planner except for her own events. Carole’s idea of great details are my vision of a Halloween-themed party that requires a couple months of planning and preparation, just to get the permits for all the weird, if nothing else.

She specifically wants:
– Boxes of butterflies as centerpieces
– Headless mannequins
– 1,000 lights in the trees
– Chandeliers taken from her own home (Heather vetoed that, thank God)
– 5,000 roses petals (but not too many so they have to test it)
– Highly-polished red apples as centerpieces to invoke the Garden of Eden concept
– And a psychic

No, nothing unusual about planning this event. Poor Heather. She’s a good friend. She pulls off almost everything except the snake charmer who couldn’t get a health department permit for the restaurant, and Carole gets a little pissed about that. Also, the butterflies are deader than doornails in those airless glass boxes. Bad planning but nice try! I guess dead butterflies still fit the theme though because they left them there. Ew.
The run up to Harry’s big promise ring gift is a shopping trip with Sonja where they purchase a poodle together.

“Harry thinks I’m ready for a dog,” Sonja says.

“We [need a dog],” he corrects her. That’s a clear signal that you’re planning to be together if you get a pet together. Not the brightest move if you don’t even live together.

“I think it would be a good idea for our relationship – something for us to take care of besides each other,” Harry tells Sonja. She’s skeptical because he’s cheated on her before but he promises a future and claims he’ll be standing beside her “like a schmuck” holding the dog.

“Okay, let’s order that dog,” Sonja tells the shop owner. I’ve never heard that phrase before.

In other messed up relationships, Josh and Kristen went to see a therapist as a “mediator.” And he wore his company t-shirt to the session – does he own anything without a logo on it? I mean, great free advertising but he’s overdone it to the point of tacky.

His company has an energy drink supplement that’s supposed to compete with 5 Hour Energy. According to online reports, Josh has a net worth of $20 million. But his excuse for never treating Kristen like his number one priority and being absent in his children’s lives is always work.

“I started a business five years ago. I’ve had to raise money. It’s been a hand-to-mouth thing…” I think Josh defines “hand-to-mouth” differently from the rest of the world. Or at least those of us who aren’t Real Housewives.

“Sometimes I feel like he doesn’t love me,” Kristen tells the therapist.

“I think I get extremely frustrated when she can’t understand what I’m going through,” Josh responds. But he isn’t saying “honey, I really do love you.” He’s continuing to spank her for not giving his work first priority all of the time.

“If I express how I feel to him, he gets very aggressive and very angry because I don’t understand,” Kristen says. She hurts her own argument by saying it would be fine with her if he interrupts date night for a business call if he apologizes with an expensive gift. Does she really mean that or is she trying to cover how hurt she is?

The crazy thing is that, as an observer, I’d say they accomplished NOTHING in their first session. I expect the therapist was gentle with Josh because he knows that if he puts him on the defensive in the first session, he’ll never come back. But it was sad to watch.

“God, I feel really good about that… we laughed, we cried,” Kristen says afterwards.

“You cried,” Josh corrects her.

“I’m so hopeful. I think he’s really going to change,” Kristen should start hanging out more with Sonja. They’re both on the River Denial big time. They can sit around and talk about how much Josh and Harry love them.

I won’t waste time on the whole Avery packing for college and leaving home thing because we’ve been watching this in every city with all the housewives this year. Looking at the kid’s shoe closet alone tells me that Ramona has been a ridiculously overindulgent parent. Good luck figuring out where to put all that stuff in your door room sweetheart.

Aviva has a deep scene where she’s helping a survivor of the Boston marathon bombing get a really great prosthesis. Great thing to do because she’s in a place to be really supportive. But we don’t see her again because she’s not even invited to Carole’s birthday party.

“Hell no, I didn’t invite Aviva, thank you. I’ll invite her to my next party ‘Midnight in the Garden of Evil and Evil’ – the sequel,” Carole jokes.

Weird as the party plans were, the party turned out really well. Heather busted her butt.

“If you want s**t done, call Heather. She’ll take something and she follows through. And she’s like a dog with a bone. She doesn’t let up til she gets to her goal,” Carole compliments her.

The party starts out well. Kristen looks unbelievable and so do most of the girls. Carole, rightfully, steals the show in a red dress and mask that are gorgeous and insane looking. I don’t really like Heather’s dress but mostly because she has a great figure and it does not show that off, at all.

LuAnn reveals, when asked by Mario, that she and Jacques are “taking a break.” She’s having a really hard time with it. They all discuss it extensively even though the timing isn’t really appropriate and LuAnn ends up in tears.

“It’s my birthday and you can cry if you want to,” Carole tells her.

Sonja catches Harry looking at LuAnn across the room while she’s talking to him – “Don’t look at Lu – I’m trying to talk to you and Lu’s like ‘Hi… been there done that.”

“I want this to work, please,” Harry tells Sonja and then sets up this huge scene, on camera, where he gives her this “promise ring” and then makes out with her while the other guests watch. It was a little awkward. It became a LOT awkward when he ditches Sonja just a few minutes later to take off with LuAnn. I’d love to see the actual timeline on that.

“This is just a ring to tell you how much I love and care for you,” Harry tells Sonja specifically that it’s not an engagement ring but he implies there is a better ring coming for that purpose.

“He knows me. He gets me. Maybe it’s just meant to be,” Sonja says in interview. Foreshadowing, anyone?

Heather’s birthday toast to Carole was hilarious. Apparently, Carole wanted the toast done a specific way – so Heather just read the instructional email to all of the guests.

“One of the best attributes of Carole is she really knows how to laugh at herself,” Heather says in interview. “Who doesn’t need a roasting on their 50th?”

Ramona tells Sonja that LuAnn and Jacques broke up and Sonja makes it all about herself. She’s mad everybody knows about the breakup except her. LuAnn is actually really funny about it in interview.

“Sonja finds out that I’ve broken up with Jacques and her first concern is about Sonja,” LuAnn says. “I’m so happy she’s found a way to make my breakup about her.”

Sonja is vicious in the way she attacks LuAnn. She says she’s ready for LuAnn to find “forever.”

“I’m not sure Harry’s forever. I don’t know that Harry’s forever,” Sonja concedes.

“I don’t know that Harry is forever either,” LuAnn agrees. Seriously, the editing is killing me. I’d really like to see exactly how this all went down time-wise.

The episode ends with everybody dancing and having fun. And while Sonja is distracted and gossiping and telling Ramona about the ring, Harry goes and hits on LuAnn. Last thing we see, Harry is telling LuAnn how “stellarly beautiful” she is and how he’s not bulls**ting her.

“You know, I’m single now. Let’s get out of here,” LuAnn says to Harry. We see a shot of a taxi and then we see Sonja desperately searching for Harry. I almost felt sorry for her.

Next week, we’ll see Sonja freak out, Josh tell Kristen she needs to do something to look younger (is he joking?), and Aviva losing her leg in some kind of giant smackdown. Maybe she takes it off and throws it at somebody. Sounds like a hell of a party. I’m not going to miss it!

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