Real Housewives Looks Adorable in Its Zac Posen

At this point in a relationship, normal frenemies like Bethenny Frankel and Kelly Killoren Bensimon would have settled into a casual détente. They’d politely ignore one another at parties, quietly align friends against one another — maybe one’s boyfriend would leak a rumor that the other had a sex tape — you know, the usual inanity. Because eventually it becomes boring. But the searing flame of Bethenny and Kelly’s hatred for one another continues to burn bright because it has so much fuel. Kelly’s pulpy facial expressions and brittle interior monologue are like tinder to Bethenny’s incendiary rage and wit. This could literally go on forever — and so long as there are mutual friends around to set up “make-up” sessions, it just may. However, even though they can’t move on, it doesn’t mean we can’t, and it’s time to tally up who won this week’s episode!

Bethenny: Bethenny’s epic round-two battle with Kelly nearly eclipsed her performance in the rest of the episode, but we’d like to call attention to her theory, expressed early on, of why “empirically good-looking” men are better: “I actually want to open your eyes to one thing, though,” she tells Jill. “In the last couple months guys who I’ve met who are good-looking? Much less issues than the guys who aren’t. Because the guys who did not get laid in high school, and now they have money, they mess with your head. They try to mess with your head, they play head games. These are the guys that are sleeping with all kind of women, that cheat on their wives, because they’re insecure.” THIS IS SO TRUE. Bethenny calls these guys Trick Guys, but we think that is actually a word for prostitutes, and in reality what she is describing is the adult version of Dirty Dick Dan Syndrome. Anyway moving on: Bethenny totally wins the Kelly altercation, although, frankly, it’s hard not to win a fight when you’re equipped with a full arsenal and the only heat your opponent is packing is a soggy match. But despite a strong, strong race, Bethenny foils her chances at winning the episode by slipping into the third person not once but several times. And for doing that thing that every fag hag eventually does, which is to make her handsome gay friend promise to marry her and give her a baby if they both are single when they turn 40. And for being like I’M SERIOUS when the gay friend tries to giggle it off, which is like our only defense mechanism in these situations. (Also, we can’t let her win every time.)

Silex : Was it a coincidence that the camera cut from Bethenny harassing Francky L’Official to the sylphlike, groomed Silexes striding around their red sex dungeon of an apartment? Just asking! The place does come together at the last minute for the Big Party, and the Silexes were endearingly proud of their achievement, which made them more forgiving of everyone. Like Kelly, who showed up early. “I think she was making up for her Halloween lateness,” Simon told the camera later. (In fact, Kelly had way overestimated the amount of time it would take to get to Brooklyn, and was clearly mortified at being stuck with them alone.) It was very sweet. But Jessica’s husband laughed out loud when Simon appeared in his pin-striped suit, and later had to actually leave the room when his ginger head appeared above the shoulders of a black sequined blazer. For these absurd and totally distracting wardrobe choices, Silex lost the episode.

Ramona: Ramona visits her “friend,” plastic surgeon Cherie Geise, with a terrible problem: Perspiration. She cannot wear her silk tops and her cashmere with all of this stuff leaking out of her. “Embarrassing,” Dr. Geise concurs. Well, not really. Goiters are embarrassing, and exploding hemorrhoids and incontinence. Everyone sweats. But whatever. Ramona gets hooked up with some pharmaceuticals to treat her problem, which is really all she needed. Well, not all she needed “Ramona needs to have an IV of Pinot Grigio,” Jill says, quite seriously, later on. This revelation — and her offhand recognition that she gets Botox on her face, despite the fact that in the very last episode she credited products — almost won Ramona the episode (although personally we thought she had white Zin running through her veins, but same diff) but then she did that crazy thing with her eyes again and lost.

LuAnn: We love how LuAnn feels like she needs to “GO OUT DOWNTOWN WITH THE GIRLS” whenever her nieces come to town, and thinks that the fireplace on the roof at Plunge is the height of class. She’s only mildly perturbed that Kelly did her hair like a Shih Tzu and couldn’t stop twirling it when talking to the young girls. “Kelly fit right in,” she observed brightly. “I think Kelly thinks she’s 21 in any case.” Her mood soured when Max invaded the “girl’s night out,” and you could tell she wanted to tell Kelly to “stop trying to make Max happen, he’s never going to happen!” But, ever the countess, she refrained. Other than this, she was a non-presence on the episode.

Kelly: Things started out okay for Kelly this time around. She immediately demonstrated that she had learned some new F-words. “Oh, there’s a real fireplace here. I thought you were being facetious,” she says to LuAnn, upon arriving at the Gansevoort. “I’m flattered that you said you wanted to clear the air with me.” She didn’t make it to H, though. “I asked Kelly what it took for her to let her hair down,” LuAnn tells the camera. “And she just didn’t understand the expression at all.” In fact, hearing that expression broke Kelly, and by the time she got to Bethenny, she was in the throes of a full-fledged malfunction. We’ve transcribed the conversation in case enterprising neuroscientists would like to make this a subject of study.

As you can see, it’s true, she didn’t. Spooky. This leads us to believe that maybe the metal that the aliens implanted in Kelly’s head, combined with the electromagnetic forces of the cameras and the flashing lights, all came together and gave her some kind of situational ESP, and during this conversation Kelly actually heard, or at least sensed that sometime in the near future millions of people would simultaneously be thinking, Is this chick fucking high? in individual living rooms all across America.

Either that or she’s paranoid ‘cause of the drugs. They continued.

Zen.

Jill: She listens to Bethenny’s boy problems, with no judgment. She makes a genuine effort to heal the rift between Bethenny and Kelly. She expresses genuine happiness that Silex has managed to get their piece-of-shit apartment together, and even finds nice things to say about it. “Look at your appliances,” she drawls. “It’s GE Monogram,” Simon tells her, endearingly, because somehow his class-consciousness has left him bereft of the knowledge that this is a brand way, way below Bobby Zarin’s pay grade. Jill recognizes this, and reacts gracefully. “I like GE,” she says. “Niiiiice.” For her all-around charity, Jill wins the episode.

Auxiliary Winners
Brad: For recognizing that his brand is loud-ass blazers and running with it.
Francky L’Official: For being Bethenny’s “token” gay friend. Bethenny clearly has dozens of gay friends — but he is the token. (Also, who knew he was so cute? It makes it all the more perplexing that he has the name of a villain from Tin Tin.)
The Awesome Salon Assistant at Francky L’Official: For laughing the entire time.
François and Johan: Because who wouldn’t misbehave if “punishment” was to get swung upside down by your legs over and over?
Plastic Surgeon Cherie Geise: For starting off her meeting with Ramona by saying, “So you’re back for … some fall refreshers?” immediately revealing that Ramona goes to see her a lot, and has been previously “freshed.” Which of course we all knew, but now Geise gets all the credit.