Midnight Cheese

I admire Edelman's disciplined narrative, and not going into the crazy salacious "they were lovers!" kind of bull. It seems to me that if it wasn't reasonably substantiated (e.g., we now know and read in Nicole's hand that she did have an affair with Marcus Allen), it's not coming in. I like that. I can't stop thinking about each episode. Carl Douglas makes for a great, sharp interview subject. Interesting to get all of the perspectives on Darden, on the rarity of having blood-trail evidence leading from two corpses to the charged party's bedroom, and really fascinating to see a very young Johnnie Cochran in action.

Oh man, I am actually surprised! I wrote a dumb-me post about how nice I thought he was. I never, ever thought he'd be doing this, let alone be stupid enough to be caught now, during her first season. Such a public hurt - I hate that the most for her. Poor Jules. http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/rhonys-jules-wainstein-husband-michael-divorcing-after-alleged-affair-w210223

This. The series is amazing. Seeing Fuhrman talk about a community burning itself down - it is to laugh. To laugh bitterly, at least. I did not know about Latasha Harlins's murder. That footage was so shocking.

My pet theory is that Ramona was very glad to see Sonja fall from her perch as the wife of a seriously wealthy man from a true, old-money New York City family. Ramona has a materialistic, ignorant person's definition of what's worthy of her - she needs gilt and glitz, and you see it in the satin dresses, cheap fucking jewelry, extensions, tits, eye job, resurfaced face, drinking, etc. But she was quick with her fingers to look up home values in the Berkshires, and to brag on air about 'properties and cash' after being humiliated (yay!) by Mario. I have no doubt that it chapped her aerobicized ass that another girl landed private island money, even if only through marriage to a billion years old scion of a billionaire-type family. I don't doubt she wants Avery to be independent. I also don't doubt that her own 'acumen' was padded by serious gifts by her dad and the Singers to start her overstock business. I also think Sonja was probably an unbearable bitch every now and again when she was a Morgan, and that Ramona has been saving those resentments. In terms of her desire for revenge and memory, however faulty, she is quite like Beastenny. Ramona's a terrible person and will always be one, and is gonna be forever alone. Yay!

I noticed the variety of books Dorinda had -- I wonder if Hannah and Richard and John added to her collection. She had a photo-atlas of the Sudan, a giant book on the artist Charley Harper, and a room with lots of cubby shelves, stuffed with books, which looked like older novels and bestsellers - just a ton of variety and interests. Doro got a kosher lasagna and a regular lasagna, or made them! Her mother made it nice with her cake! There was morning bacon until Ramona fucked it up! She bought everyone comfy pajamas! It was really all perfect, but for inviting Carole and Bethenny (<- dis bitch with her saying Dorinda failed in her hostessing. She RUINS everything. The worst.)

Ramona insisted the 'other woman' was Avery. In a thread here, someone said a friend of hers told her that Mario hit on her during, I think, season 2 or 3. TWoP folks felt the earliest Singer scenes, where Ramona accosted a woman that Mario was talking to without his wedding ring, and where he stared past her at sidewalk cafes, showed...something. But to Ramona, her marriage was so enviable that she could be a snatchafrass hosebeast about LuAnn and the Count's extracurriculars. She's a loser and intensely delusional. I don't believe a damned thing about her, her marriage, and what other women 'did' to get Mario. He was slinging it, pretty much on camera. She was desperate to not see that. Also, and do correct me (seriously, do!) if I'm wrong -- I am pretty sure LuAnn's bitchy French translation of the psychic came after or contemporaneously with Ramona's obviously deliberate retweeting of Victoria getting into trouble being a dumb privileged brat and saying the n word. I despise that behavior but Victoria was apparently saying it in an 'I'm cool and urban' idiotic way, not in a racist like Paris Hilton way. Ramona shared that with every follower, and Victoria was ultimately pushed out of her school for that. I will never be able to prove this, but while the season aired, Alex McCord took questions on her "McCordVanKempen'" blog and I posed a question (feeling super stupid and crazy for asking) how she could align with Ramona for certain off-screen, kid-harming behavior, and she replied in an honest and discreet but public way saying she disagreed with that behavior (meaning, she did not recite the incident to give it more air at the time -- but she confirmed and agreed with the assertion that it was deliberate and completely beyond the pale. Alex agreed that Ramona was vicious to LuAnn. LuAnn! Alex hated LuAnn for legit reasons - LuAnn was dismissive and utterly contemptuous of Alex.) My point is that Ramona is lower than her dog's shit dug into Dorinda's parquet floors, and she is a liar -- Ramona tried to delete and backtrack on social media after getting justified criticism. She tries to control the narrative but she is a bona fide, frequent liar and distortion artist. If Ramona did that to my kid? I'd fix my situation, and then I'd run and yank Ramona's crow's feet straight while snatching her bald and telling her to smell Mario once in a while to accept her reality, and to make sure to up her wine intake to 3 bottles/day to deal with the fact that he just wasn't all that into her. IMO she wanted to renew her vows at 17 years because she wasn't sure they'd make it to 20. I trust nothing she says about her marriage and the sex being tossed Mario's way. I think she will never admit reality and will lie to attack other women with her last breath.

The comments about Carole and ambition are interesting. Now, of course she owes Aviva and the rest of we observers nothing, but -- it's so freaking hard to get published, by major houses, and to have notable editors work with you, to land regular columns in print publications. Why in the holy hell would she let her focus seem to dwindle to this degree, when she probably has decades of work and life ahead of her, and isn't (and I am NOT no-kid-shaming) raising a family or doing volunteer work out of her ass or something? It's just a little baffling, especially after Aviva's vicious attacks. I am curious, I guess.

Eh, if there was inappropriateness, I doubt it was from LuAnn to Mario. He probably wouldn't have noticed a Countessy hard-court press, what with his wang having wandered into and out of lots and lots of the UES. If there's real substance to the gossip in the tabloids about Dennis Shields and Bethenny, I hope his wife goes HAM on Frankel. If it's true, I can't think of another franchise where 1 Ho eviscerated another for something but was outed as being guilty of the exact same thing during the exact same time frame.

I'd bet this is true, and not just because I hate her. Neither of the Shields' has filed for divorce, and Bethenny's neck-straining rabid possum passion for going after Lu suggests Bethenny knows she's got a plank in one of her rage-squinted eyes. (It's not proof per se of course, but it's not like this is an unknown phenomenon; it's not an accident that some of our more publicly homophobic representatives wind up getting arrested for bathroom toe-tapping). The hypocrite in that group was the one who tried (failed!) to get her Dominique Deveraux on at Ramonster's party in that ugh of a jacket. All this concern about 'stealing' and karma...Bethenny's setting herself up for forms of herpes and bankruptcy not yet known by medical science or CPAs. She is HEINOUS. Carole and Bethenny and Ramona's group fixation on LuAnn's dating and sex life is just pathetic beyond the boundaries of English. It's pathetic. They are each probably not capable of functional, normal relationships with women who 'threaten' them. When LuAnn threatens you? It's on you, boo. Not her. It's on your man, boo. Not her. Live it, learn it, love it. And get over it, because the person stopping you from finding someone is you. I really give it up to LuAnn (boo to the jumpsuit...not even you, gorgeous.) and am loving the previews where she doesn't let herself get marginalized and screwed out of a luxury trip to Mexico and filming time. Hey, Andy's interns! Hi, Carole! Hey, Bethenny slave #406! All y'all are fucking idiots! Lots of viewers, apparently virtually all of the Twitterverse and virtually all recappers HATE letting one Adderal-fueled titskeleton and her Jello-pudding-faced sidekick and their occasional 'friend' Bill the Cat determine who gets to be on the show, travel for show trips, be filmed. Can we also say LuAnn killed it by suggesting her personalized wine glass say 'ya know, slut, whatever'? Awesome. She said 'sorry' in her quasi-Canadian accent dozens of times. She asked for examples. She smiled in the face of viciousness. The fuck else could be done? And there is Ramona in a TH, saying "Sometimes LuAnn needs to defend herself too much..zip it" -- when the only footage of 'attention-stealing' shows RAMONA trying to get the Turks guy to speak only with her. And there is Carole whining at the speed permitted by her facial injections about 'sincerity' when she herself lacks the ovaries for independent conversations, but tries to thrust in long knives while pretending to be above things. She is in the shit, way down there, and Lu is seemingly effortlessly above her now. Haaaaaaaa. I laughed and almost cheered watching Dorinda and Jules play Twister. Play on, players! That was awesome. Also -- Dorinda is a wonderful hostess, if we look past (as LuAnn did, and this was gracious) her inability and unwillingness to get Bethenny to cram it up her cornhole. Hiring a Santa Claus, giving gifts, planning a breakfast, having such a well-stocked home (tons of food, tons of games, tons of books, everything decorated, lucking into gorgeous weather, the world's coolest and least flappable cook on hand) - she was great. I would be thrilled to be invited to an all-girls, no-kids weekend like that, where it seems truly everything was accounted for. And I'm glad Jules and LuAnn were trying to go with it. Lu really deserves a ton of credit - the people whipping shit to and fro were Ramona with her 'help' and poor incontinent dog, Carole and Beastenny. Neither Carole nor Bethenny deserve any credit for saying good bye -- if LuAnn hadn't yelled 'goodbye' I doubt they would've turned around. THAT'S when Carole pretended to have manners, not a second before. I have a crush on Jules' husband. He's just mellow but smart-seeming. And cute, and I'm historically not into shorties but he's one of if not the most perfect Househusband ever on Bravo. Hear me out! He's super comfortable on camera without being all gross and over-eager about it, he's himself, at least it seems, as he's loyal to John, he's genuinely amused with some of the crazy he sees without being sardonic and lame, he's cool and kind to his wife and actually talks to and listens to her without trying to one-up or degrade her to an audience, but he's not milquetoast. And their sleepy kiddo is such a cute girl. Ramona's party...she looked ridiculous. Tottering, fake, shellacked. Sad. She is spectacularly abusive to Sonja, and I'm not into Sexy J. But everything she says is steeped in delusion, and I wish she got tons more flak for it. For instance, Ramona tried to claim Sonja - who correctly assessed the futility of approaching the unreasonable and vicious Bethenny - had 'lost it' for 2 years just as Mario had 'lost it.' Um. Sweetie darling. Sonja was right - without even more conversation, Bethenny is shivving her and forcing her out of the big trip. Mario has apparently not been into her for years, and he obviously insisted in making very, very, very public how not into her he was. That's not 'losing it.' That's 'planning it and grinning for photographers - and keeping on, in private, after the divorce.' It's rational, not irrational. She really brings nothing for me. She's delusional and mean as fuck. This is her treatment of Sonja, a 'friend' for decades, all because Bethenny is incurably angry. Ok.

Is it just me or does LuAnn mostly look gorgeous this season? I've watched this episode 3 times (...yes, problems, I've got 'em) and in the scene where she's trying to figure out Doro's reasoning about the cake, she looks really amazing. Body, face, hair, all of it. I'm sure her voice is permanently weakened by the smoking and the style of her wavy-haired-look-TH, I see it's a little funky. But in the same lighting, Ramona and Dorinda look, and I'm actually sorry to write it, quite a bit older than Lu, and Carole was like WOAH when she got to Dorinda's house. Bethenny has looked dreadful this episode, and it's of course enhanced by her vile behavior and cokey plastic-titted insanity but STILL. Crazy scary in the face. (And honestly - and it hurts to say this because I wish I had way better hair - LuAnn's hair naturally is almost immeasurably better than Bethenny's, who truly did need to go shorter to obscure some patchess and offset the El Greco quality of her eyes. Lu has mega-thick hair which still takes color beautifully - no weird reds, it looks soft and full. It's enviable. It's not Kenya Moore/Joyce Ohoeven crazy good, but it's fantastic nonetheless to me.) I just don't see LuAnn as desperate or looking bad and she is far from my favorite Ho. She was blessed with enduring good looks IMO - she looks great in those flashbacks, and great today, and her build is fabulous. (I am sick and fucking tired of the very tired 'LuMan' isms from Carole and Ramona, neither of whom would be first draw in MANY people's estimations were they actually forced to be compared to her.)

I know this isn't that show but the introduction of Tom and this episode make me wonder if (/crazy speculation ahead) I like poor ol' tragic Mike and the terrifyingly competent or competentish Ben, who can legit sneer at a sad sack drunk that he himself is a highly functional alcoholic. Richard is the best thing that has ever happened!

I really agree with this and think this is a yooge, yooge part of what's fueling the animus that LuAnn has received over time from Sonja (clothing lines, Harry Dubin), Ramona and Mario (over everything) and Bethenny (over everything). The concept that a woman 'likes herself too much' when she is not constantly being overtly cruel to others is really troubling to me. I think a lot of us are used to being deferential and playing down our strengths - it is inculcated in so many of us as to become second nature. But it's not good. And seeing someone not buy into that can spark a lot of resentment and even rage in others, 'who does she think she is?' type stuff that can snowball. This cast is now almost entirely unmarried, with several members dating casually or truly single. The chyrons showed that LuAnn's most Countessy comments were back in 2009, 2010. The current desire of some of her peers to slag LuAnn is IMO completely tied to her being able to find satisfaction, contentment and achievable happiness in ways that they cannot. And it randomly reminded me of a case - I will admit it's totally facially inapposite - in Delaware, where a teen girl died due to being set on in a way she didn't totally expect in a school bathroom. It's a really haunting case, and in the immediate aftermath, as people asked 'why' some claimed that it wasn't over a boy or some ridiculous teenaged slight, but over the deceased girl carrying herself differently than the girl who brutalized her. Bethenny has a terrible amount of anger inside of her. Not enough to hit I assume, but she spirals, obviously - I do think she was shocked at how awful she was. (I think she lies like she promotes Skinnygirl in claiming it was a rare incident. I think it's semi-frequent and she just can't control herself.) Nothing LuAnn did now or in the past - 'well, a polite plebe who invites a Countess pays for both surf lessons' - warranted how she was.

Woof, I just envisioned Jules stealing Vicki and Tamra** from the OC's likely descriptors of Jews and Asian people to make some very confuzzled, I'm-down type statements.... ** all y'all know it's true.

Calling someone a 'know it all' conveys annoyance, not a bone-deep disgust with purportedly immoral or amoral behavior. 'Slut' as applied to women does, and that sting is equal or greater when a bunch of shit-hearted women do that deliberately in a forum designed to have publicity like a (semi) popular television show. Bethenny lives to humiliate. Hers is not likely to be a happy life if she doesn't knock that off. LuAnn clarified that she had had a sexual relationship with Rey when she didn't at all IMO have to to placate the ping-ponging and often unpredictably irrational Sonja. What's a smoky-voiced broad to do?

Right? Because Sonja may be honest about the form of intercourse she prefers with leftover pirates, but she has lied about her financial state, her businesses, whether water and heat and air conditioning can be accessed in her homes. Sonja isn't honest, it wasn't her business, and in that scene, I didn't see LuAnn duck or hide from anything. What was she supposed to say? "Well, he had had 6 drinks so I had to blow him for an annoyingly long period of time before he could..."? I believe Sonja has judgment and it's increased this season, and it's tangled up in her own insecurities. LuAnn has been divorced for less time by several years, but LuAnn is engaged and had a significant relationship with Jacques. (She's also constantly promoting her actual mass-marketed fashion collection). Sonja wants someone to be equal than or lower to her in this universe, but she seems SOL.

This. Bethenny did a lot of twitchy work to retcon this with Carole and Jules and in a TH, but the most truthful truth was her tone, expression and pace of speech screaming at LuAnn, "I don't care if you're the biggest whore in Macy's window" and LuAnn's stunned and shocked face in response. To come back from that and say, 'hey I like sex too!' is disingenuous as it gets. Bethenny was flat-out and clearly trying to humiliate LuAnn for her sexual behavior. It's pathetic and the act of a starving fucking hater. Or a fucking-hater, who knows.

I don't see where Ramona gets kadooz and Kristen doesn't -- Kristen can't help being sane, and Ramona is a bunchofwordsIcannottype. Kristen brought the cameras in to couples counseling, and showed in-home Early Intervention services for Kingsley to help her walk. She also hosted a charity event on her own, and correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think Ramona has EVER helmed a legitimate, getting-press charity event, ever, and ho has been filmed since 2008. On the Kingsley point in particular, Kristen showed an openness to filming her reality that is startling even for Housewives, and it was ultimately quite brave. I have a young kiddo in NYC, and trust and believe that mommy wars and the stereotype of mommies fronting is very real and here ain't no exception. Lots and LOTS of people show nothing about struggles, let alone developmental concerns, as it pertains to their kids in playground conversations or at Mommy and Me classes - Kristen's honesty is remarkable. Ramona on the other hand forced a birthday party on Avery months away from her actual birthdate, celebrated a vowel renewal at 17 years, and utterly refused to have her marital implosion even acknowleged at a reunion. Ho is crazy, but she's also a fucking liar. (See also: Tupperware Titsen, which she attributed initially to her kettleball exercise routine.) Kristen was either not invited back or did not re-up with RHONY well after Josh's scandal broke, which luckily for her happened after her second and last reunion. Bethenny's assessment does not surprise me, since she eliminated Michael Cerrutti from her storyline and I will say it - he is very likely a rapist. Colleges don't expel on that accusation lightly - in fact, that tilts the other way. But witch certainly eliminated alllll that from her first season back. She blows.

LOVE!

I couldn't agree more. In fact, I think it's as objectively true as one could ever say on a show like this that the way Sonja went after LuAnn is exactly as you wrote it, and that LuAnn is generally more a victim of this than the others. LuAnn copped to sleeping with him, contacting him after a trip, etc. and I simply don't see where in the hell she owes that to anyone, but that's neither here nor there. Sonja in particular pulls this shit CONSTANTLY and she is absolutely, infuriatingly and insistently dishonest about many if not most things about her past, present and future. But she has probably done this the least to the most abusive and vicious castmembers, Ramona and Bethenny, who are I maintain inarguably more dishonest, more insistent on keeping HUGE things in their lives off-screen than LuAnn. I'm not stanning for Lu at all. But I am also not here for that kind of 'let's get you humiliated on camera!' shit that Beth, Ramonster and Sonja pull, and I do think LuAnn's attitude and seeming happiness fuel a lot of that mess.

This episode was kay-razzi, to quote Ron Swanson. Wow. My thoughts are as discombobulated as Bethenny's ricocheting pinball of an argument! I feel sorry for Dorinda, and for Jules. Dorinda's house I flove, I love the decadent room colors, the wallpapered closets, the kitchen, the thousands of dollars in kitschy decorations. She done fucked up good etiquette-wise in letting Bethenny be a supercooze to LuAnn, but eh. (Oh, and in flipping out over the cake). But I do think she's warmer and nicer most of the time than are the majority of these beasts. Jules seems pretty nice and kind and generous, and it's HARD to break into any group, let alone a group of judgy narcissists. I assume she felt major regret at being at Dorinda's when her dad was suffering. Carole's such a coward. Her soft-voiced, innocent filler-faced protestations about how much LuAnn sucks and smirking about Beth's attack - ugh. I was rooting for her in her first season. She's just...lame. Bethenny v. LuAnn, rounds A-Z. Well. What to say? I actually admire LuAnn for coming back at her in a soft and passive-aggressive way, because to quote Sexy J, Bethenny lost the run of herself and I think it's very telling. No doubt early seasons Lu could be a giant judgy asshole - just like a certain scrappy Bethenny (the van Kempen's 'crawling through air ducts' to get to events, very edgy and harsh comments on Jill's aesthetic and accent when her own is distinctive, blah and on and on and on). But she's just out of fucking control and I'm one of those not down for all her 'whore' and 'slut' talk. Have some dignity, ho. To badly paraphrase lunastartron: all of Lu's haters could maybe memorize the Kama Sutra and up their fuck games and get their good time girl/courtesan on. When you are loved, when you are rubbed up on a la Johnny Gill's song, you don't get that het up over other people 'fucking everyone' so B can miss me with her tales of being okay. LIARFACE. I'm a nerd and conservative and it's still fucking baffling to me that anyone gives a Hot Pocket about who other people sleep with, if they aren't with you, or sleeping with one of your married parents or something connected to you. Bethenny lied her narrow ass off in her 'quest for love' last season when she was fucking her college-expellee-for-rape dirty motherfucker of a long-term boyfriend. For SHAME. See who and what's up in your own canyon before you scream about the parade in someone else's, bitch! I also don't think Lu needed to launch a Meghan PI worthy investigation about whatever dirtbag she was with in T&C about his status. Ramona, LuAnn and Tom: I got a good impression of Tom during the dinner scene last week. I'm sure he thinks Ramona is just fine. But Ramona: I'm guessing he wasn't that into you. Sorry, and ha. Order some biodegradable bags and PICK UP after your dog, crazy bitch! Oh, I wish I knew how to insert images because she is SO Bill the Cat in the gotdamn face. I really think she's a pile of shit, not just a piece of shit but I don't see her beauty and see no need to excuse it.

Ramona seemed jealous of LuAnn to me in about 7 different ways. Whatever did or didn't transpire between R. and John, there was no chance, ever, of someone of means, looks and apparent sanity would ever try to and ring up Ramona. We all know this. Ramona knows this too, and I believe she knows the pool for her in particular is nonexistent: she needs someone who wants her and not some PYT, she feels entitled only to a high-earner in good physical shape, and who does not work in a service profession. That man hasn't been invented. And the scenes of poor Coco shitting all over Dorinda's home were straight-up disgusting. That poor, poor dog - Ramona 'cares' enough to have Coco groomed and have bows stuck in her hair, but not enough to care whether Coco is sick or well, trained or untrained. Beyond words, beyond vile. Also...not small voicing this - Ramona's hair, her bug eyes, that crooked fucking set of nostrils and those Janice the Muppet eyelashes! Good lort. She doesn't see herself at all. I know I should feel sorry for Sexy J but I think she probably did a lot of twatty icing out when she was married to Morgan. She puts on airs, she wants to try and run with the big dogs (the lawsuit stuff posted back in the day in her thread here was very illuminating), she has no issue flinging out insults to literally everyone in her soft voice - it doesn't work when you don't have a dong plus too much money to care. With a different crowd, her scheming ass is seen for what it is. So. Bethenny was instantly flaring-nostril rude to LuAnn. God, fuck her. She's a shrill narcissistic goddamned bore. No one besides Crazypants McShrinkingjaw gives an agave-sweetened fuck about that brand origin story. I love that Lu can stay calm and just kind of needle her. I am totally indifferent to LuAnn's dating and sex life. I don't care, and I like that she is relatively honest and open about some things, and think those things should be hers to share or not -- she could've fronted like she didn't know who Rey was, and clarified that they did have sex. I think she's relatively unshady, though I was and am Team Heather 100% on Turks (though that is Ramonster's fault). Bethenny 'Lemme Move in That Rapist' Frankel should shut the fuck up with her 'you fuck everybody!' screaming when she used her pull to excise Michael Cerruti from her storyline. Fucking hypocrite. Don't ride your own controversial wangs and then get all high-horsey, horsey. Thank you so much to the poster upthread who talked about seeing Jacques and LuAnn with their dogs on the west side. I think it's really wonderful that Jacques helped a woman find work and supported her sobriety - super, super cool. It makes me think well of Lu. It's a pointless comparison yes but I have no doubt that Ramona could never date anyone of such character. LuAnn, love her, hate her, or be indifferent to her, is a dude magnet, and she can get quality men who probably couldn't care less about Turks and Caicos and her 'dirty' (wtf) side and all the other bullshit. I don't love LuAnn but I feel at heart THAT is why monsters like Ramona and Bethenny hate her at times. Lu plays a long game, keeps her temper by and large, and knows to at least try to laugh off some of the shit.

Harry Dubin is a piece of shit. Ramona is a shot-up, tucked-up, miserable piece of shit. LuAnn's stalker is a scary POS. LuAnn is very strong-willed (and yes, the OG of egomania), but having a very intimate part of your preferences outed against your will and deliberately made public is cruel, and it is particularly cruel when done against a woman. /sorrynotsorry. I'm a woman and I think I'm just truth-telling in saying that some women LOVE doing that to other women, 'I heard SHE [this whore I don't like so I call her 'whore' or say I'm 'proud' to 'slut-shame'] does THIS in bed ha ha HA she is DISGUSTING!' If no one was trying to involve Ramona in their sexual repertoire, it shouldn't bother her. If one doesn't get how wrong that it, I can't explain it. I have plenty of people I hate and IDGAF what they do in bed, and find it so disturbing that it's not broadly accepted that privacy really is an important thing. You can't be fully human without some granting of privacy. I loathe Bethenny but damn if she didn't tell Sonja about herself, and I do agree that she had to shut that down as something like a public example, to show she wouldn't be caught up by and caught off guard by people looking to market off of her directly in a manipulative manner. I don't think Bethenny is all that astute, but 'you can't play stupid and smart at the same time' is a very apt summation of Sonja's behavior. There was never, outside of her marriage, a real 'Lady Morgan' element in Sonja's life (inside her marriage too it seems). It's a bit sad, but she really is a con woman who has decided to learn no lessons to grow from that experience. Sonja was guilty of civil fraud and depending on how things were executed there may have been criminal behavior there, but she could have been humble after the fact, and focused on one thing (luxury on a broke-woman's budget, with ironic and funny stories. Whatever.) - she could've put her fantasy days of rich-ancient-man's-wife behind her in terms of her attitude. But she never did that and her behavior with people that lots of viewers for whatever reason disliked was cruel and wrong and very high-handed: she pulled a bunch of classist crap with Cindy Barshop, she publicly commented on the scandal that Kristen Taekman was dragged into by her asshole husband, and she was a liarface about Heather and her staff, and so ungrateful. She feels very entitled to other people's labor, time and reputations. Dorinda's a mess but I was here for her tossing out LuAnn's stalker and Ramona. Ramona was doing everything she could to provoke John into putting hands on her. I'm kind of sorry he has good self-control. She's also, just gonna say it, too plastic-eyed and titted, fake-haired and cowboy-walking for mid-thigh skirts and high heels. It's not an old thing, but a she should just stop trying thing. THANK YOU!!! to the poster who confirmed that Ramona has all the appearance of a functional alcoholic and that Mario was known to run around on her going back at least 5 years. Nothing she says is real. Mario must be so happy without her. It looks like Jules and Michael have a surprisingly good marriage - not just for RH but in life. More respect and relaxed, easy humor there, gauging his reactions, than I often see in day to day life in people around that age in NYC. His impeccable Spanish and easygoing manner make him way cuter than when he was first on! And I like how loyal he seems to John, who is rough and odd and totally undeserving of what he's been dealt.

Thank you! The writers and showrunners have also, for the limited amount that it's worth, said repeatedly, consistently, since the beginning to the current season that they see Paige as a great kid, innocent, in a terrible position - serious, studious, looking for more, aging into seeing her parents more as people, and picking up on the strangeness of their family life. I find the reactions to her predicament completely bizarre and there is a constant 'explain your position' perspective (upvoted, natch) if posters have a decidedly different take on Elizabeth and Paige in particular. We all have our perspectives. By mine, Paige is a relatively sheltered American teen living in the age of the perception of the exact existential threat P&E have - from the diametrically opposed philosophy, and she was lied to constantly her entire life and is now treated as if she must lie to her brother or else also have the fragmentation of her family on her head -- there is so much insanity and unfairness that it blows me away that Paige is at fault, a jerk, a brat for being like, uh, did you kill my friend? What's going on? The slow shots showing Gaad bleeding to death were merciless. What a horror. Nothing's clean here. My favorite character is Arkady and I am worried big-time about him.

That's what I think umbelina - I think you lie like Philip has lied on occasion. You apply your supposed amazing skills to tracking your kid, and you let things slip on your missions. Perceptions of competence aren't an 'outing' scenario IMO. Thanks, and I mean this completely sincerely, for teasing this out with me! It's fun to toss out contrary POVs and not be condescended to by someone erroneously thinking they must know more.

The only option IMO is the best option: you stave off the Center, potentially by making unforced errors with missions to seem less competent and have your child less attractive on some level. You never, and I mean never betray your vulnerable, emotional child and dragnet them into servitude to a cause and secret that is in no way hers, no matter her parentage. There's an argument about romantic betrayal, that those not yet caught cannot unburden themselves by telling, admitting, fully baring their crimes to their partners. Hell, people argue about that all the time: should one share, or carry that stain to the grave? I think inarguably with this kind of secret, it must remain yours until at minimum kids age to adulthood, and then...who can say. But that's me at this moment.