Last night’s season finale of Kell on Earth began with Kelly once again frustrated with her broke clients. “I don’t want to work with these little coolster [we think she means hipster] asshole brands anymore. I’m serious. ‘Ooh, I don’t have any money!’ Go fuck yourself. I’m going to start representing like, Lifesavers,” she says. “At least Lifesavers has money.” And so does DKNY, which hires Kelly to executive-produce a one-and-a-half-minute video about its colorful, “cozy” wrap sweater for Facebook. Going hand in hand with Kell’s rebel nature, the short film is shot “wild style” (meaning no permits) and consists of a gaggle of cozy-clad models, whom Kelly calls her “new power-girl army,” walking in a line in places like Columbus Circle, Washington Square Park, and the New York Stock Exchange.
Back at People’s Revolution’s offices, budget crisis be damned, Skinner and Andrew are planning their biggest event yet — Kelly’s surprise 44th birthday party at the Über-fancy Carlyle Hotel, her favorite place in the city. And while Skinner and Andrew fear they can’t pull it off without Big Brother Kell catching wind of it, she is so focused on DKNY that she is totally surprised. And for once, Kelly is both speechless and tearful.
“To have that kind of party was, like, a really big deal,” says a weepy Kell, who is gifted some shaggy goat-hair heels. “I’m not used to that kind of love and that kind of group sport birthday thing. I was really kind of blown away by it. I’m not married, I’m not in a relationship, so I’m not going to have a guy that’s like, ‘Hey babe, it’s your birthday.’” But really, as all the employees on Kell on Earth have proven, who needs boyfriends when you have People’s Revolution! Then, Kelly signs off the episode with the unexpected, “I think I’m crying and I’ll have to go outside since that’s my rule.”
Of course, it wasn’t all about tender moments, which is why we do a weekly Hierarchy of Personality Traits.
HOOKERS
• Andrew, for paying lip service to the head pimp. “I respect Kelly so much. I respect everything she’s gone through in her life and the person she’s become,” he says. “I’m just getting such a great understanding of what person you have to be to be respected in this industry.” And that’s why we’re placing bets on him going forward with his plans to be a Rick Owens–esque designer instead of continuing to slut it out in PR.
• Skinner praises her abuser (albeit the reason she can afford a $1,550 Manhattan apartment) some more: “There’s a lot to be learned from Kelly. The best thing I’ve actually learned from her is that whatever happens, to just pick yourself back up and keep going.” Even if that means you have permanently sunken eyes, suffer emotional and physical exhaustion, are unable to maintain romantic relationships, and overall become a shell of a person.
• Skinner drinks more of the Kelly Cutrone Kool-Aid: “With the Internet and all of this new media, Kelly is reinventing the wheel of what PR is. I think Kelly executive-producing these films for Donna Karan, I think that’s another step in the new frontier that she’s, like, pioneering.” Yes. Short Internet films — novel indeed.
BITCHES
• Emily and Robyn, for glaring at Andrew and Skinner when the two explain, giggling heavily, that they’ll be out of the office for 30 minutes to go cake-tasting for Kell’s birthday party. Perhaps they could lighten up and let the kids have fun, though even we know that’s too much to ask.
• Kelly, for snapping at Andrew when all he does is tell her she has a 12:45 lunch with a young designer. “I can’t do that tomorrow,” she shrieks at him. “I can’t help one more person for free. It’s really over. I need to focus on the fucking bottom dollar. I’m like really in the middle of this Donna Karan thing and that’s that.”
• Skinner and Robyn, for whispering within earshot of the lowly interns about how they are definitely not going to invite the interns to Kelly’s birthday party. As if they don’t already feel unappreciated enough.
• Kelly, for getting pissed and yelling at passersby in busy Columbus Circle for walking across the street when, in her short film, she only wants the DKNY models walking across the street! She can’t expect these people to really give a shit about her “pioneering” one-and-a-half-minute Facebook film.
EGOMANIACS
• Kelly, for waxing poetic on her pretty cool, but not necessarily revolutionary, DKNY video. After calling it “dope,” she says, “We delivered beauty to the streets of New York City. If a picture paints a thousands words, what does a minute-and-a-half short film do?” Either buy the “cozy” sweater and/or go on a diet.
• Andrew and Skinner, for making Kelly’s birthday about them for a few seconds (how dare they!) by ordering a cake that reads “Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Mukamal,” instead of “Happy Birthday Kelly.” Andrew tries to explain the joke to her, saying “It’s a symbolic message.” But Kelly is not having any of that attention-highjacking bullshit and she quickly cuts up the cake until the lettering is illegible.
• Kelly, for saying the following and believing it: “At the end of the day mediocrity is a word that’s not even allowed to exist in my world. So we have to win. That’s all there is to it.”
DOLTS
• Kelly, for thinking that burning some incense is going to bring People’s Revolution more power and money. “I’m going to burn these Native American soul stones of the seventh powers,” she announces while putting a little burning bowl on the ground and stinking up the entire office. “If they are in my space, I feel like this energy and this thinking is going to permeate the building and make us more successful,” she explains.
• Skinner and Andrew, for daring to think that Emily and Robyn would understand any joke, let alone a cake-tasting prank that requires them to be out of the office for 30 minutes.
• Kelly, for being so contradictory in words and action. “It’s really important as a leader that you’re in a good mood,” she theorizes. “The tone that you’re going to set is the tone that you’re going to trickle down to the rest of the crew.” And just how good of a mood are she and her other team leaders in most of the day? See the BITCHES and EGOMANIACS column if you forgot.
• Andrew, for picking up Kelly’s cake, which comes in a giant box, during the day and not thinking ahead about where the hell he is going to hide it. He settles on using the fridge on the second floor (which People’s Revolution is now renting out) and taping the broken fridge door shut with blue tape and putting a table in front of it to hold it shut. If Kell goes upstairs once, Andrew’s busted. Perhaps stashing it at one of his colleague’s apartments downtown would have been more wise. Although Emily and Robyn probably wouldn’t let him anyway.
