S01.E05: For Art's Sake

[OnceSane]

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Lisa makes an unexpected departure from the Whitsunday's, leaving the girls wondering if it's a genuine cry for help or a desperate act of attention seeking. Matty's attempt to trial seven dogs at once may backfire and mean her dog days are over before they've even begun. Meanwhile, Melissa interviews a number of nannies, but can they surpass her extremely high standards? Finally, at AthenaX's art exhibition, all hell breaks loose over Melissa's absence and the girls' speculation over Lisa's troubles at home.

[ivanp91]

So I'll be back later to offer better thoughts, but in the meantime all I can do is agree with Melissa's comment about Athena X: "she's f*****g crazy".

[strongoxman]

Okay, so what's the deal with Lisa Oldfield?  Is she actually drunk all the time, or what?  Because I don't feel like I've noticed her behaving that way, but this episode both her husband and Chewbacca made comments about it, and her pantomiming Chewbacca's vagina monologues was not what I would have expected a woman of her stature to display so publicly.  So, is she a big ol' drunk?

Athena X truly is Jatz crackers -- I'm over her, though I do think she's spot-on about Melissa, who just didn't want to hear the truth laid out in front of her.

I'm warming to Matty.  Nicole doesn't bother me, but I don't particularly care for her, either.  Victoria is still awful.  Chewbacca is still Chewbacca.

I think this casting is a failure, as every woman is looking for and seizing the tiniest little thing about the others to turn into an issue and try to annihilate them in front of the others.  It's like gladiators, and while it has its entertaining moments, overall I don't really connect with any of them except for Lisa Oldfield.

[queenjen]

I've been away for a bit, but haven't missed any hos. Lisa Oldfield definitely has no trouble talking about her drug use prior to marrying famewhore David. I think there was something suspicious going on with her on the boat. At first I felt sorry for her when the other were disbelieving, especially the foul drawly Victoria, but the sudden departure and erratic behavior? David, btw, is participating in Hells Kitchen Australia along with Pettifleur from RHOM. Apparently they hate one another already. Lisa frequently hits the news for all sorts of attention seeking crap: like her dog swallowing condoms, calling one of David's old radio announcer colleagues wife a 'c**t''. So, it's a marriage of convenience, if nothing else. Lisa is also a Trump fan which fits David's history in the racist One Nation Party.

Athena X is violently disturbed. I go back and forth on Chrissie Marsh, but she came across as reasonable on this episode (somewhat). Athena is a flagrant narcissist and that becomes tedious viewing. Calling Melissa a potplant is just too easy: low hanging fruit. 

And we get Christa again at Mattie's place for that stupid scene with the dogs. I fast forward through scenes with the cutesy kids and the cutesy dogs and Victoria's boring search for her father. Let's just focus on the women, please? Christa is the wife of the artist (Charles Billich) who was at Gamble's wedding, walked her down the aisle on the beach. I think Christa is 115 years old, her face is fascinating and is probably bobby pinned to her wig. Not surprised she knows Mattie well enough to drop in, she's probably at her place of work on the daily. The gallery owner (well known, Tim Olsen) must have been appalled. At least he's fulfilled his promise to allow Athena to show her crappy 'art' and can happily deny any further showings for the next decade. It was TERRIBLE. I've seen better at high schools. 

Again, Lisa wanders in, right  into the jaws of the fight about Melissa not attending and therefore revealing herself as a potplant. So Lisa starts screaming. She really seemed to have arrived preloaded. I found it interesting that Victoria hardly appeared on this episode at all. She was on early while they were still in the Whitsundays (where there is currently a terrible cyclone, why couldn't they have been there still?!), but no one had their nose out of joint when Victoria didn't show for the opening! She could have hurled Athena into a nearby body of water this time, that would have been appropriate. 

[OnceSane]

I didn't miss Victoria at all last night.  Less is definitely more with her.

IDK what's up with Lisa.  Do I think she's a bit of a drama queen?  Yes, but so are the rest of the ladies.  Something is off with her, but IDK if it's her marriage, her drinking, or something unexplained as yet.

AthenaX did just as much as I expected her to do.  When did she & Lisa become such close friends?  

Everyone seems desperate to claim as much camera time as possible…are they trying to guarantee a season 2 or just that thirsty?

[tenativelyyours]

Athena is a nasty piece of work; pun intended.  She certainly goes for the mean and crude fast for someone who makes such an effort to pretend she is enlightened and on a higher intellectual level than anyone else. 

Lisa is also a nasty piece of work.  Her social and political views certainly match her personality for me.  Vicious and sneering for no reason other than to put people down to elevate herself.  And that fucking nose of hers!  The rest of the facial work is bad enough and the hair!  But that nose!  I keep expecting it to have a life of its own.  And just start moonwalking across her face as it breaks into a medley of Michael Jackson's greatest hits. 

Nicky seems to have calmed down a bit.  If I had to listen to her brag about this one time, in first class* as her means to establish how wonderful she is and how much everyone else wishes they were her?  I'm still not buying her move back to Australia as she is selling it though.  I know there are some great schools in Australia but as a reason to move your daughters away from their father for huge stretches of time?  Daughters of a woman who out the gate gushes about how elite her life is?  Nope.  Not buying it.  In a world where her husband is presumably some financial mover and shaker the numbers simply don't add up.  London simply due to locale and timezone is a prime place to be investment wise.  It moves in the same circles as most of the US markets and of course the Middle East, Russia and Europe.  It is more friendly to South American markets and African investments.  If you aren't focusing on Asia, it makes sense to place yourself in London.  Everything else though about her and this move screams nothing but going for a much needed family paycheck by going on the show.  Nicky is nowhere as fabulous as she wants that first class mumbo jumbo to make her appear.

Victoria is nasty.  I think she came from a line of upper middle class people who thought they were always better than everyone else and yet also simmered with resentment that they weren't ever as well off as others who they felt didn't deserve.  She comes off as a someone living well but feeling stifled by the limits living off a carefully hedged trust/inheritance because she can't splurge as she sees her social peers do.  She comes off as really bitter and trying to pass herself off as much grander than she is.  What makes her so nasty in a lot of ways I think is that she has been in the "know" in that level of social circles.  There is a strong resentful nose against the glass from the outside vibe to her to me.

Matty.  So fake in so many ways.  Her personal life is not interesting and the boyfriend seems off for some reason.  I wonder if she is his little money pot?  Between the accent and the lip work I find her voice a blade that slices through my soul.  The sound of it produces that skin crawling type discomfort that make me FF her scenes more than not.

The blonde trying to use the show as a comeback vehicle is kind of boring so far.

And I'm going to just take a book and grab that table for one in the corner as I don't actually hate Melissa.  I can find her rather funny at times.  I think she is definitely a bit of the mean girl but I think she also is among nothing but mean girls.  I think she sussed that out from the start.  From her desperate cousin with the white knuckled attempts at pretension to Athena and Lisa who both think they are much cleverer at delivering snide putdowns than they are. By far.  I wouldn't want to spend much time with the woman, if any at all.  But she is the least annoying so far for me and the least offensive.  I also wish she was a bit more clever to point out the whole Chewbacca thing and how it is so ad hominem to what was actually being said.  I think it is funny in the removed viewer sense, but as someone to personally go after another woman like that and then claim the moral, intellectual and spiritual highground is a joke.  But then Athena is one.  Sadly without a punchline. 

 

*I know it was the first episode with Nicky's gushing about first class, but made it sound like she has flown a couple of times on small city express flights and was trying to conflate a couple of experiences as some sort of glamorous and privileged constant lifestyle.   Even most flights from London to Paris have larger seating sections than her "ten other people comment"  Plus her talk of the Airbus superliners was totally anecdotal and had no personal aspects that made me think she ever has flown deluxe class --  I do on Singapore Airways and I actually find it incredibly claustrophobic and would much rather fly Emirates open seating room styled premier class so there, Nicky!  Even her story about the kids seemed like it was something she lifted from a Kevin Kwan novel or a slam article in In Touch Weekly on some wannabe celebrity diva.