On last night’s episode of Bethenny Ever After, the Skinnygirl team headed to Aspen for the launch of Skinnygirl White Cranberry Cosmo. Bethenny Frankel and Jason Hoppy continued to wrestle over whether or not Jason should work for Skinnygirl and Bethenny got a reminder of what it was like to be single and twenty-two again.
Things begin, oh I don’t even know where they began? What were they even doing? Oh that’s right… hanging out on the street corner! Which seems as close to Bethenny‘s natural habitat as a cougar in the city can get! Bethenny is buying art for the new apartment and congratulating herself on being such a renegade, so cutting edge. She spends thousands – ON STREET ART! No one rich in the history of the world has ever done that. Well, at least according to Bethenny’s revisionist history.
Bethenny buys a American Flag painting. I’m not sure why. It was hideous and looked like it was a papier-mâché accident. I kept waiting for her to try and commission one with the Skinnygirl logo on it. Which actually would’ve been neat. She could hang it in the office.
CLICK THE CONTINUE READING BUTTON FOR THE REST!
At home Jason is feeding Bryn and Bethenny is wearing some unfortunate eggplant colored tights which make me think of Sesame Street. I know they’re trendy, but that doesn’t make them attractive. She has an early Christmas gift for J. Hoppy. It’s a laptop to help Jason transition onto the Skinnygirl team. It was a cute gesture and very supportive. #heartwarming! Ok, it was also a wee bit passive aggressive and then she starts haranguing him about the future.
In response, Jason is like, ‘Oh… What’s this for? My 1999 Dell still totally works even though it takes 18 minutes to load the Skinnygirl Website. Oh, you think I’m giving up my 401k and putting both my balls in your basket? Yeah, not sure yet. See ya, bye!’ So last week Bethenny wasn’t sure if Jason should join the team, and now in a reversal of crazy – he’s not sure! Oh, I love these storylines. They just grab my interest like velcro grabs lint!
Therapy time comes early this episode because they need to fit in Bethenny‘s ski slope flirt-a-thon. Dr Amador helps Bethenny come to the conclusion that Jason needs to decide for himself when he’s ready to migrate to Skinnygirl and she can’t nag, goad, push, or harass. In essence, she must stop being herself and let Jason be a man. I think Bethenny needs a cookie for her revelation… oh, except – does she eat cookies? How about a celery.
Julie Plake, (“The woman behind the woman.”) is days away from bailing on Bethenny, so she’s not going to Aspen. Who else thinks Julie has been walking around listening to George Michael’s “Freedom” on repeat for weeks, breaking into celebratory song, and grinning with reckless abandon at the thought of blowing this popsicle stand? To commemorate Julie’s tireless service, Bethenny takes her out for their first ever employer-employee lunch.
You know what Jules – lunches are over-rated when you get free vacations and a reality TV salary. Trust me. Over lunch Julie fills up Bethenny‘s ego by telling her what a cutthroat bitch she is and how much she rocks and how money hasn’t changed her bitchery one bit!
These conversations are so forced, which is sad because I believe Julie and Bethenny are really friends and shouldn’t have to stage ‘Why Bethenny Is Awesome’ sessions for the camera. Julie reassures Bethenny that Jackie is a lot more like her in demeanor. Bethenny cries over Julie not being around to pet Muffin Cookie and fetch coffee. They reminisce about the time Bethenny wore no pants to an interview. Huh? I’m a little misty eyed myself. Julie, we love you.
Back home in Skinnygirl Headquarters, Bethenny has a wardrobe crisis, which can only be solved by Nanny/Tibetan Freedom Fighter/Strong-Silent Type/Fashion Guru Dawa. She wears a lot of hats and so does Bethenny as she tries to find her “Day Aspen” ensemble. Girl, it’s called jeans and a puffer coat with boots. The editors are really struggling to fill the time here aren’t they?
The team arrives in Aspen to their temporary home in a luxury ski chalet. Laid out before them is a mountain… of Skinnygirl accessories! Including a Skinnygirl snowsuit for Bryn. Please Lord do not let me have to suffer through seeing poor Bryn stuffed into Skinnygirl costumes for the remainder of her existence. Luckily Bethenny seems to keep Bryn clad in her own adorable and age-appropriate little pink snow get-up. Bryn is the cutest thing on this show.
After the product demo, including a custom-designed (by Bethenny) Skinnygirl snowboard, Bethenny starts “day drinking.” She tells us she can drink whenever she wants! At 8am! At noon! At 3:30 in the mornin’! Hell, her flagrant drinking got her knocked up, famous, and rich! Let the cocktails commence. Alright then B – don’t quit your day job! Literally.
Bethenny heads into the Skinnygirl launch wearing… Oh sheesh, I don’t know – a satin blazer and a bra? What was that? She claims she has to sex it up for business or something. She mingles and meets a Beam employee who wrote her boss an endearing letter and as a reward got to come to Aspen. Bethenny grills Jackie on what she would say in a letter about her awesomeness. Jackie replies that she would thank Bethenny for the privilege of drinking on the job and for the free vaycays. HA! I love it.
The next day, Bethenny and Jackie prepare to go snowboarding. Jackie’s never been before, but Bethenny has! See, long before when she was so broke she could barely afford luxury ski vacations in Aspen… Right, it’s a hard knocks life. Having to stay with OTHER PEOPLE on your vacation to Aspen. Moving on…
At the snowboard shop, Bethenny practically descends into an orgasmic meltdown when the twenty-something male shop attendant can identify Skinnygirl as that Sangria stuff after seeing the logo on her snowboard. So, how much did the producers pay him for that utterance? Apparently they promised him copious camera time as we were forced to endure him and his pornstache for the remainder of the episode.
Bethenny and the shop kid proceed to flirt, or rather he uses the age old trick of buttering someone up. Bethenny worries about being old and if she can even remember how to do this. He plays to her insecurities like a champ. This kid has a future in sales if I’ve ever seen someone.
Bethenny muses that in her heyday, before her looks faded and she entered the garish forties, these guys wouldn’t have even been her type, but now they’re latching onto her like… well, a money tree! I have to give Bethenny props – she can snowboard like a champ.
On the slopes Bethenny screams an unfortunate joke about always grabbing the tip – ugh – TWICE. Yes, she repeats it in order to cement her coolness level to the “boys.” I was embarrassed for her.
At the bottom of the slope Jason surprises her as she is shamelessly flirting with the gaggle of twelve-year-olds hanging out with her at the Skinnygirl Nutrition station. Bethenny announces, mortifyingly, “I’ve been here one day and I’ve already got a posse. Top that, young bitches.” Le sigh. Le sigh. They’re all clustering around waiting for he to whip out that AmEx and head to the bar. And luckily for them…
Bethenny decides they all go for an apres ski cocktail in the lodge. Said libations provided by Skinnygirl, of course. And who should show up but the ski shop boys who apparently were hired to follow her around and make her feel important for the day. Bethenny is bragging about her flirtation skills, claiming the boys can’t get enough of her money or camera crew, and Jason calls her out on being a cougar. Bethenny – who has temporarily forgotten that she isn’t 22 but, instead 41 – is shocked and looks miffed.
Painfully reminding her that they are well aware of her age, marital status, and vanity the pornstache snowboarder tells Bethenny she looks in her “fortiezzzzz.” Yeah, not something someone IN their forties who wishes to reclaim their lost youth wants to hear! Bethenny is taken-a-back and dissects the comment in her interview segment. Hey, it was harsh. Really harsh. She is forty-one and a Mrs., but at least she’s rich! Poor Bethenny. Is she having a mid-life crisis? Jason practically blows a gasket snickering.
You know, you gotta love these two for their passive aggressiveness. Jason knows how to get her goat and he doesn’t let her get away with her shit. And vice versa. I think Bethenny secretly loves it.
The next day Bethenny and Jason, sans high school posse, hit the slopes together. They have difficulty communicating on the way to the bottom. He is on skis and she on a snowboard, but in the end they make it. They hug each other and it’s a happy moment. Call me crazy, nutty, and as wacky as Bethenny herself, but I still am rooting for these two and I hope they’ll make it!
And in honor of Julie, here’s a little clip of the theme song I’ve anointed her with. To the woman behind the woman… this one’s for you!
Next Week: Jason and Bethenny are still deciding about his career direction, Jason wants another baby, and Bethenny and Jason get together with her father’s old friend – and it doesn’t look like things go well! Also, two weeks away from the season finale!
THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE? IS BETHENNY HAVING A MID-LIFE CRISIS? WILL JASON JOIN SKINNYGIRL? DO WE CARE?
