Real Housewives of New York: Jill Fell Down
Hello, friends. Your Gawker Housewives recapper is feeling a little burnt-out by this unending, shriek-filled season. So he enlisted the help of another Gawker staffer to pose some questions that might make it a little easier to tackle today's tale.
Yeah, I had Brian Moylan draw up some questions because without a framework like that, I just don't really know how to talk about these messy broads anymore. Ramona choking on the chicken bone or marble or whatever it was she'd surreptitiously stuffed into her craw was a sort of perfectly fitting metaphor for the terrible denouement of this terrible, angry season. I am choking on the chicken bone of this show and I just needed someone to give me the Heimlich. And since dark, wine-eyed princess and Heimlich specialist Red Sonja is not available (she's currently nude but for a thick fur coat, sitting in a heavy wood throne, drinking from a goblet while a jester boy makes her laugh with lewd sexual antics), Mr. Moylan and his Magical Bag of Questions will have to suffice. So here we go!
Where do you think Kelly Killoren Bensimon really disappeared to in the morning and who was the strange man taking her away in a Jeep?
She was probably going to the Drugs Store For Drugs, to buy drugs. She certainly seemed to do enough of something while on the island to not remember in any clear or honest way what happened there when she told Jill and LuAnn her story. I don't know about you, but do you remember during the St. John's trip when Bethenny told the sKellyton "I have been organizing a smear campaign against you," like Kelly said she said? I mean, it wasn't on the show, but if the cameras caught it, why on Earth wouldn't they put it in the episode? That would be platinum stuff! I'm sure Kelly would argue that the producers have it out for her, so they cut it, but whatever. They rarely miss an opportunity to make the ladies look bad, no matter who they are. So it just doesn't really hold. And then Cokey St. Clair started jabbering her jaw about how everyone needs love and to be loved and all this self-help book hokum and I just wasn't sure what that had to do with anything. That's my problem with watching Kelly on the television. What is she ever saying? Ever? "You're mean and I'm nice and you're a stupid hoebag and everyone needs love and haters are the ecosystem and I'm a hater of haters and wooooo! this shit's like ice in your veins! it's cool! and what was I saying, oh yes, four score and seven hoebags ago, Mama's gonna need some seltzer water 'cause you could fry an egg on her cheekbonez, everybody needs love, Bethenny sucks, how's my hair, I keep running my fingers through it — somebody asked me the other day they said 'Kelly what'd you get on your SATs?' and I said 'Sixteen!' and they said 'Hundred?' and I said 'No! SIXTEEN!' Woo! Listen to me clap." And then you are supposed to glean from that that she was in the right during the island battle royale. I mean she really seems to think she properly told her side of the story. Which she did not. But anyway. Where did Kelly go? Kelly went where she always goes, to Kellytown, where she is the mayor and perpetual Parade Queen, and where everyone has love except for hoebags and haters, which are part of the ecosystem, so what can you do.
What did you think of Jill Zarin's arrival at the Haunted House on Poison Bay?
It was sad. I mean it was sad not just on the ladies' part, but on Bravo's part, too. Obvs magovs Jill didn't just show up of her own volition, right? I mean Bravo had to have steered her hand sort of, yes? If not, then that would imply that Jill has become a megalomaniacal attention-zombie who will stop at nothing in her grim pursuit to get the most airtime of all the girls and to shoehorn her way into every single possible situation and scenario. And there's absolutely no way that's true of Jill this season! Come on guys, don't be ridiculous. It totally must have been Bravo's fault. Everything is Bravo's fault. Kelly hasn't slept for three months? Bravo's fault. Ramona choked on a chicken bone? Bravo's chicken bone. Jill falls down while skating and then tries not to make a big deal about it but clearly it's a huge deal because then she doesn't skate anymore claiming she caught too much of a chill from the three seconds spent lying splat on the ice? Bravo's bad ice. This is just how these things work. So clearly when Jill showed up at the Brownstone Islander house she was compelled by Bravo to do so, not because of anything inside of her that burns fierier than her red hair, a mad desire to win a show that is, by design, completely unwinnable.
Do you think she was treated fairly by the women?
Well I don't know. I mean, what is "fairly" when someone shows up uninvited to a vacation home full of their enemies? I liked the way that Jill played a bad-acting game of "Well aren't you happy to see me?" For fuck's sake, Jill, of course they're not. And you know that. And pretending that you don't know that is strange and creepy. "I thought you'd be happy to see me!" Oh you did? I think you meant, "Oh, I thought I'd be happy to see you see me." But then it was actually kinda sucky, eh Jillzy? I mean Alex had a stroke! She just sat there quietly convulsing, that strange stern face of hers in an eternal grimace. Bethenny clearly didn't want to say any words at all to Jill, and Ramona just sat there with her beady eyes twirling in confusion. I feel like they reacted pretty appropriately considering that a feared enemy had just entered their vacation house completely unannounced and essentially uninvited (or disinvited) and then tried to steal away their precious camera time. If I walked into my sworn enemy Choire Sicha's house on Fire Island and was like "Heyyyyyyy, happy to see meeeee????" I would expect him to act the same way (he'd also probably throw a cigarette and/or cat at me). It's just not a terribly normal thing to do. BLAME BRAVO.
When Kelly arrived at lunch with Jill, LuAnn, and The New One, was she still suffering from whatever ailment she contracted in Poison Bay?
I feel as though I've already answered the Kelly issue, but yes, I think the standard infection time for Spiderbrain, the disease Kelly has, is at least six months long. So she clearly was still afflicted when she had the pizza party with the girls.
Why does the New One insist on wearing those gigantic bows that make her face look like a present from your grandmother that you don't really want?
The New One reminds me of one of those weird baby women who you see sometimes who always look like their mom still dresses them — bows, high-collared dresses, prissy little haircuts — and whose husbands are often weird or controlling or both. You know those women? They just always seem a little childish and addled? The New One is sort of like that, sort of like Charlotte from SATC. She'd probably see that as a compliment. It's not. It's weird infantilism mistaken for charming proper-lady-ness. Y'know?
Do you want Sonja to be your best friend?
When Alex had her stroke, it was funny how Sonja stared at her like "The fuck is this broad up to?" It's actually kind of fun watching Sonja figure everyone out and become increasingly terrified by all of their insanities, isn't it? I mean, I feel terrible for her — "Oh Sonja, I thought you'd be happy to see them..." — but it's good, subtle little moments of TV. I also liked that at Sonja's rentboy's party, the artist, that she said the thing to the goils about them not being the only people at the party or something? I think she thinks these women are ridiculous. I mean she herself is ridiculous ("These are really more St. Tropez beach shoes, but oh well..."), but at least it's a new and refreshing ridiculousness. All these other ladies are tired and old and farty and I'm sick of 'em. But Sonja I'm just getting to know. I can dig her, for now. So yes, I suppose that, in the context of this show and only in the context of this show, I do want Sonja to be my best friend.
If you were to design a skating outfit for yourself, what would it look like?
Like Johnny Weir's beautiful swan costume, it would depict a creature. Specifically it would depict Weir's best friend and skating partner Jill Zarin, falling. I'm not sure how it would work exactly, but I'd definitely have a red wig resting on one hand and then maybe I'd just stumble around a lot. What does it say about this season that Jill falling down is the best thing that's happened the entire time? Not that I wish physical harm on Jill or anyone else, but people falling down is never not good.
Countess Crackerjacks heard the story from Kelly about her breakdown and then heard the story from Ramona, Bethenny, Alex, and Sonja. We know who she believed, but what story from her life did she share with the group after she heard about Kelly's breakdown?
"I ever tell you about Kiki Loman, girl I knew when we were doin' Foxy Demo Derby out'n Zuni? Aw man, best gal you ever want rammin' into at 20 miles an hour, y'know? We were sharin' a room at the Foxy Cabins, which was a kinda 'alternative' motel they had goin' near the track for a while 'til the vice squad showed up and saw what was goin' on in cabin 12. She seemed real normal at first — was from one'a the preacher families in Oklahoma like they had in that Footloose picture (I gotta few stories about little Kevy Bacon that'd knock your box off, lemme tell ya. Let's just say that associatin' the number six with dear old Bacoms is a bit generous, if you catch me). Anyway, sure, she seemed like a regular gal, liked to get a little fritzed on Seven and Tab after the derbies, but man who didn't, nerves all rattled like that, 'specially after Lorna Monk lost half her face that one time. Other'n her bein' a party gal, she was just a regular chick, y'know? Well, was a regular chick until this one night we're all hangin' in cabin 11 — me, Kiki, Frisco, Nate-Nate, Ziggy — doin' what you did in cabin 11, and alls of a sudden, I don't know if she'd gone skiin' in the bathroom or what, but she starts doin' this real weirdo dance kinda lurch thing. And she's yellin' too, just yellin' at the top'a her lungs about devils and vampires and all manner'a crazy. Frisco tried to calm her down (they'd been playin' private demo in cabin 9 all summer) but she kinda just threw him off and kept doin' her weirdo dance. We're all "Kiki, Kiki. Take it easy sugar," but she won't listen. She's talkin' about "good girls" and "bad girls," sayin' "I'm a good girl, I'm a good girl," over'n over to herself. It started to get real freaky, y'know? So we all kinda just got the hell outta there, let Kiki alone to do her dance and say her weirdo words to herself, figured she'd come down by morning and everything'd be five-by-five, y'know? But man I am not kiddin' you when I tell you this, we go to cabin 11 that next morning and open the door and there's just a hole in the floor and then in the dirt. Like Kiki had just danced her way through it, down and down so far you couldn't see the bottom. I know that sounds like some ghostie shit, but I swear on a stack of Playgirls that that's what we saw that morning. And we never did see her again. Well, Nate-Nate said he saw someone looked like her doing the roller strip shows over'n in Alamogordo, but I don't know. Kicky was always afraid'a rollerskates 'cause of an accident or somethin' when she was little, so I don't think it was her. Naw, I think Kiki just crazy danced her way all the way to China. Some people just get like that sometimes, y'know? Some folks just snap and there's nothin' you can do. That there sounds like Kelly to me. Sounds like she'n Kicky oughta be sittin' in some padded room together, just yellin' at the walls. But whaddo I know. I'm no doctor. Pretended to be one once when I was tryin' to get some late-night scrips at an Eckerd's, but that was just once, and that was when I was in Okeechobee and I don't much like talkin' about those days. No, there are some things just aren't worth talkin' about."
OK, that's it. Next week we'll be back to the normal format. I just needed a break this week. I mean for god's sake, the episode was called "Shunburn." Which... sigh.
And anyway, we're closing the office early (not that I'm in the office) and I need to wrap things up. Happy Memorial Day! May it stand as memorial to America's greatest loss, Jill's skating career.