At this point in a relationship, normal frenemies like Bethenny Frankel and Kelly Killoren Bensimon would have settled into a casual detente. 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 nasty, catty "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!
Photo: Bravotv.com
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.)
Photo: Bravotv.com
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.
Photo: BravoTV.com
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 — 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 the episode.
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.
Photo: BravoTV.com
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, up 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.
Bethenny: Last time, you asked me to meet you, and I sat there and listened to everything you have to say. [Black-and-white flashback to this.] You basically could have given me the finger and it would have like gotten the points across without having that conversation. I was taken aback. So I would like to clear the runway.
Kelly: No, and I'm flattered by that. I think that's really important.
Bethenny: There's an underlying tension that started like way before. I had met you probably like ten different times, and every time it's been like you don't know me, or have met me for the first time, or just don't acknowledge me, and to me that has been very like hurtful or disrespectful and I just —
Kelly: If I see you, I always say "hello" and "how are you" to you. Just because I don't have the time to like talk to you for more than a couple of seconds.
Bethenny: No, you haven't said hello to me.
Kelly: I say hello to you all the time! I'm not going to get into this, because I'm not. I don't really know you and I may have met you before, but I've met thousands of people many times, and it doesn't mean I don't like you.
Bethenny: I wasn't concerned about you liking me, I was concerned about the normal saying hello to a person you've met before —
Kelly: If you're insulted and I haven't said hello to you before, I'm sorry and I have no intentions to make you feel bad. Why would I intentionally hurt somebody?
Bethenny: I don't know; I don't know you either. The last thing you said to me was you were up here [hand gesture] and I was down here [hand gesture] and I thought maybe that was why you didn't say hello to me, because you thought you were better than me.
Kelly: What? ["She was talking about a lot of stuff and I didn't even know what she was talking about," Kelly later told the camera.] Have you ever heard of a mountain and a molehill?
Bethenny: [Pauses, tries a little bit not to make an is-this-actually-happening face] Making a mountain out of a molehill?
Kelly: Okay, that is what you are doing right now. I've never been attacked before and I was really insulted.
Bethenny: You think I didn't feel attacked?
Kelly: No, but you're talking about your boyfriend and you're this, and you're that, and you think I'm high.
Bethenny: What? I never said you were high.
Kelly: You just said that two seconds ago.
Bethenny : I never said you were high.
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 she 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.
Kelly: Stop.
Bethenny : You said to me I'm up here and you're down here.
Kelly: No, look, Bethenny, stop. [Her head is hurting her, you can tell]
Kelly: We're sitting here in Ally's room, she's an adorable girl, you're a beautiful woman.
Bethenny : [Most amazing face ever]
Kelly: You're super smart, you're an intelligent woman, and I will tell you something.
Bethenny : [Makes protesting noise]
Kelly: No, you need to stop. I'm not going to indulge you in this, but I will tell you right now, if you have something to ever ever talk to me about —
Bethenny : No, you're not in charge of me and you do not need to indulge me in anything and you think that you are in charge of this conversation.
Kelly: [Squelches eyes, as if to keep whatever aliens are on the verge of bursting through her skull at bay] BETHENNY. Okay, we're adults. If you have something to talk to me about, you can pull me aside.
Bethenny : This is what we're doing now.
Kelly: This conversation is finished. I love that you wanted to clear the air, and it's clear.
Bethenny : I'm not arguing, I just don't need you to direct me in how —
Kelly: OH MY GOD.
Bethenny : [Suddenly aware that she is Kelly's Kryptonite] I really get you worked up. I don't know what happens to you.
Kelly: You are trying to like poke me.
Bethenny : I'm not trying to poke you.
Kelly: This conversation means nothing to me whatsoever.
Bethenny : It was important enough that you dragged me across town.
Kelly: You know, I'm not going to get into this. We're here, and we're working together and you look adorable in that Zac dress.
Bethenny : Okay, it is what it is.
Photo: BravoTV.com
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."
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.
Previously on NYmag.com's Daily Intel...
