inner city life

Whitney Finally Stands Up for Herself

We are delighted to confirm that in last night’s season finale of The City, Whitney proved to us that not only is she capable of confrontation (albeit with the nudges of the producers), she’s also an independent woman who doesn’t take crap from anyone, least of all her tired-eyed “rocker” boyfriend, Jay. Where’d our doormat go? Whitney finally found herself! But how? It was hard … she’s dealt with so much douchebaggery and deceit, but it was DVF herself who helped Whit out of her quagmire. Even if last night’s finale didn’t exactly leave us with a cliff-hanger, with Olivia “dagger eyes” Palermo clawing her way up the career ladder at Whit’s expense, we are just dying for season two.

Lesson 1: Showing up to someone’s work for a confrontation.
Do: Avoid at all costs. What was Adam thinking showing up to Erin’s work to tell her to stay out of his business? So Erin was being totally nosy in Miami by calling Allie with (true) reports of Adam being surrounded by women, but Allie asked her to.
Wouldn’t a “stay out of my business” text from Adam to Erin have sufficed? Didn’t these people learn anything from The Hills, in which Heidi was regularly reprimanded by boss Bolthouse because Spencer loved to bring the dramz up to her at work? Yeah, not a good idea. At this point we would like to point out that Adam is perhaps being groomed as a Spencer-type character. Doubt it will work.
Don’t: Entertain the argument. Or allow voices to be raised. We know it’s scripted reality, but some people are really working in that office. Way to alienate yourself from your co-workers, who probably already hate you anyway for getting hired in the worst depression since 1892 or whatever.

Lesson 2: Choosing who you divulge details of your personal life to.
Do: Call LC stat. She may be dull as dishwater, but we’ve always felt that Lauren Conrad offered her friends pretty good advice. She reminds us of this friend of ours who uses analogies to articulate everything. As Lauren said, she could totally relate to Whitney wanting to leave New York when things didn’t work out with Jay, because she herself had given up her dream of that summer in Paris for a house in Malibu with Jason Wahler. And we all know how that ended up.
Don’t: Confide in Olivia. She doesn’t care! She didn’t even try to feign interest while Whitney was pouring out her heart, and even audibly cooed over a cute jacket while she was mid-sentence. And the worst part is that this wasn’t even the bitchiest Olivia moment of the episode.

Lesson 3: Confronting a co-worker about taking credit for your work.
Do: Pounce out of the blue. We just adored Whitney’s death stare at Olivia backstage at the show before she sidled up to her to ask why Olivia would take credit for the Elle cover. Olivia was so sickeningly condescending in her ‘Oh Whitney!’ response. And then promised to give her the credit if it came up again. Weirdly, Olivia also seemed to have convinced herself that she pulled the look.
Don’t: Seek credit from your co-worker. We know Whitney’s probably learned this by now, but if she wants credit where it is due, she needs to step it up and make her voice heard. As she said herself, Olivia has “daggers in her eyes,” and you need to fight fire with fire, Whitney. We think she now knows this. Olivia may have somehow landed a position as London liaison last night, but Whitney’s just getting started. We can tell.

Lesson 4: Talking about your problems to an older, wiser lady.
Do: Sit lonesomely by yourself at the after-party. Diane Von Furstenburg couldn’t bear to see Whitney so blue. We saw the real care in her eyes as she gently patted Whitney’s knee and asked her why she wasn’t “playing with the others.” Naturally DVF had the best relationship advice when she said “The most important relationship you have in life is the relationship you have with yourself, because no matter what happens, you will always be with yourself.” So true. We also like what she said about absence, that it is “to love what the wind is to fire. When it’s a small fire, the wind kills it but when it’s a real fire, it intensifies it.” If DVF penned a self-help book, we’d buy it.
Don’t: Let the advice of this woman go over your head. She married a prince, for God’s sake, she totally knows what she’s talking about. Whitney’s expression doesn’t exactly look like she absorbed everything DVF said. Maybe it was too much to handle.

Lesson 5: Deciding if you should take back the boy who ditched you for a tour.
Do: Realize that rat face maybe wasn’t as amazing as you initially thought. He lied, and then he up and left. Apart from all of that, his band totally sucks. Nothing worse than having to cringe your way through a boyfriend’s live set. When Jay showed up outside the DVF party in his “good suit,” he totally had that look on his face, that arrogant smile assuming that she would run into his arms sobbing gratefully. We loved, loved, loved watching that smile fade to worry as he realized that he’d hurt Whit for the last time. Then he turned on the waterworks! Oh please! We will say that when he told her he was in love with her, it seemed genuine.
Don’t: Feel the need to say it back. And she doesn’t. This was one of Whitney’s strongest moments of the entire season. She tells Jay she was falling in love with him till he up and left her for life on the road. “I lost myself in us!” she says sadly. But then she says something we were totally not expecting: “I need to be on my own.” Let’s not forget Whitney was in a long-term relationship throughout The Hills and fell in with Jay the second she moved to New York, so she seemed like a very typical serial monogamist. Looks like DVF’s words rang true after all.

You know what was awesome? The last scene. After hearing that Olivia’s going to London to work with the team there, and then rebuffing Jay’s crawl-back, Whitney simply returns to the party. That. Was. Amazing. In our life, we’d have been so done with the drama we’d have resigned ourselves to a cab and gone home. But Whitney rose like a phoenix from the ashes, dusted herself off, and went right back to work. Season two is already looking twice as good as this one.

Whitney Finally Stands Up for Herself