I think we should start the section of this episode with a little RIP to Dorinda Mary-Margaret Medley (I have made up her middle name), who will be leaving the franchise after six seasons of speeches. But how will they go to the Berkshires now? And who will take a nap under an all-pink Christmas tree or wear glittery Afghan pants and then make those pants into a glittering Afghan coat for her daughter to wear? I have a lot of love for Dorinda, who in her first several seasons was a hilarious voice of reason, but things just took a turn.
It seems clear that the franchise really needs a little change, and nothing made that clearer than the 15th anniversary celebration for Leah’s clothing line Married to the Mob. Let’s just take a minute to appreciate that this girl – no, Mrs.! – started a clothing line when she was 22. What did I do when I was 22? I do not know, meet guys from Manhunt and work a string of shitty jobs so I could support my nightclub habit. (I was also sympathetically in love with a Blockbuster employee named Jason who gave me DVDs for free, and a person born when I was 22 will not understand a single word of that sentence.)
Leah has this big party in a cool location in the Meatpacking District, which is actually connected to a hip sneaker store upstairs. It all makes sense when they consider that they have a streetwear business and probably know the boys and girls who own it. The party is full of hips downtown that, Dorinda says, look like they need to get out of their loungewear and into their real clothes. Um, I’ve seen the future of everyone and now we only have to wear loungewear and not go to parties, so Leah and her friends are up the curve. Dorinda, she says, looks like Karen from Human Resources, and she’s not wrong.
None of the women really come dressed for a cool party downtown. Luann sits in a furry coat and a white fringe top, which looks great but definitely north of 42nd Street. Ramona has an all-champagne and peach ensemble with a white coat. Sonja has to God knows what, a kind of black ambiguity of transparent material that, like all of Sonja’s outfits, looks like a pair of knickers she left in the bidet and she jumped into a full-length dress. All women do not seem to fit in with Leah’s real friends, and they do not want to mix or match at all.
Everyone except our favorite floozy, Sonja Tremont Morgan of the Poodle Piddle Doggie Pee Pad Table Morgans. This is why Sonja will always be great television. She can just sit at home and talk about what an arrangement of dead flowers looks like alive when you peel them across the room, which is why I love her so much. She walks into Leah’s party and says to a group of young black men, “Hi, boys!” and starts hugging them all so hard that it looks like their Supreme beanies will be popping right off their heads. There’s no way Sonja knows these guys (unless they’re somehow connected to her Nigerian football team), but she’s just down to making friends and having a good time.
As she sat with her new clique and heavily flirted with one of her, she says, “You just look at me and look, like … a grandmother.” He nods and she is, well, cool with that. Good blessings have. One of them also tells her, “I drank Captain Morgan last night.” “Well, you’re celebrating with Lady Morgan now,” is her quick reply. See, even in unfamiliar surroundings, Sonja is ready to mingle.
However, just look at the faces of all the other women when they find out that there is no coat control. Someone tells Luann to just throw her coat on the back of a couch. Can you see her doing that? No way! That’s the thing: We’ve seen enough of the Upper East Side that these women have been bringing us for over a decade, and it’s fun. But we are going through a pandemic and a cultural upheaval. Wouldn’t we much rather see the young, multicultural, exciting downtown center that embraces Leah? Wouldn’t we like to see a little more of a mix of life in New York City instead of just one filigreed chunk of it? I would be that sure, and Dorinda (and Ramona, sure) seem incapable of mixing, or even wanting to.
The one thing that happens at the party is that Leah, who really seems to have a relationship with Elyse, invites this strange transparent ghost in red fur to her party. Ramona tried to tell Leah that she did not “like” it, but Lea did what she wanted. That Elyse runs to Leah, Leah’s mother, Bunny and Ramona, while they are all talking. As she walks up, Ramona kisses Bunny on the cheek and tries to get away. “You will not agree to talk to me?” asks her ex-boyfriend Elyse as Ramona leaves. Elyse tries to grab Ramona’s wrist, but she rubs her arm free and says she does not want to talk to her.
Elyse stands there populated and wonders if the spell that lets her out of her bottle will run off at any moment. Leah just looks at her and shouts, “Go! To go! Pushing her in the direction of Ramona. This, right here, is why Leah is a great addition to the cast. She knows what makes a moment, and she’s not one to shake off confrontation, even if it means ruining her sweatpants party.
Because she always does what she is told, Elyse goes over to Ramona and tells her that she is a terrible double person and blah blah blah. Ramona does what she always does when confronted by someone: She simply ignores it until it no longer exists. Ramona mumbles that Elyse is “evil” and then runs off the sidewalk and asks a random person to get her a car and he is like, “Ma’am, I’m not working here. I’m just enjoying a sneaker party.”
The funny thing about Ramona is that she can just ignore things or people until they leave. We call this the Barbara K. effect. When a “friend of” falls into the woods and Ramona doesn’t like it, it not only makes no noise; it is sucked into a black hole to never come back. She then sets her eyes on John, Dorinda’s ex, at Dorinda’s birthday party. She takes over the Russian Samovar and invites everyone, including mistress John, but Ramona thinks that means she gives him mixed signals.
The party usually goes off without a hitch, except Dorinda gets angry at Luann when Luann tells her not to look at her phone at the table, a behavior that Dorinda had just been to in Mexico days earlier. Dorinda never encountered a hypocrisy or a thick climax that she did not like. But before anyone could say, “She’s starting,” things are going through.
I think now may be the time to mention that Luann has started drinking again. Maybe they hope we would not have noticed this far into the season. At one point, however, she screams at her desk to scream at her ghostwriter (which I am not, which means my agent will be get a call!!) about how alcohol almost ruined her father’s life. The next minute she tries the flight of flavored vodkas at Russian Samovar. The very last five minutes of the episode are dedicated to Luann giving a shaky and vague speech before slurping “Happy Birthday,” as she is the brunette reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe’s understudy.
What no one is pointing out here is that Luann is clearly drunk. Luann was never sloppy. Even when the rest of the women really connected it, she could always keep it together, except to fall into the woods and, you know, get drunk telling a police officer that she was going to kill him, whatever in her prison came and on probation. But now that she’s here, delete her words like someone covering her tongue in Astroglide. Is this not a nuisance to anyone, namely, I do not know, Luann?
This party went down just before Christmas, which means we all know what’s on the horizon. It’s all about ending. There will be more birthdays, but there will be no more parties. There will be jogging pants and sneakers, but there will be no more launch events. There will be exes, but there will be no more hugs in public, at least without masks on. We look in the past like in a magic mirror. Somewhere, in a cafe on the swampy sidewalk of the Upper East Side, a redhead asks her if the eggs in her brunch are literally being fried on the sidewalk. She shakes her forehead and pulls on her mask to wipe the beads of sweat from her upper lip. Autumn may not come here soon enough, as food will be more tolerant. But what if they’re inside again? What if the virus gets worse? And what about the election? And the protests? What about? What about? What about? Jill Zarin thinks as she waits anxiously for her meal, wishing she could be whipped back before it all ends or pulled forward to where it all begins again.
