I attended a wedding once where the bride leaned in to kiss her brand new husband during the first dance and he pulled away from her, recoiling. To this day, I can feel the reverberation of the walls in the place as they shook from the collective gasp let out by the guests who were surrounding them and watched it happen.
At another wedding, there was a rain delay. I was a bridesmaid. I arrived at the beautiful location at noon to take pictures with the rest of the wedding party. There was no food set out for us anywhere – no water either – and we baked in the Florida sun for hours until the rain came. Sadly, Reese’s Pieces did not fall from the sky. It was probably going on hour seven of this wildly unnecessary bout with starvation when I began to seriously contemplate stripping some bark off a nearby tree so I’d have something to gnaw. Three hours later, the storm subsided, my friend sauntered down the aisle, and dinner was finally served. The salmon I ordered was brought to the table raw – and not in that good-sushi kind of way, but in a this-chef-sucks kind of way.
Then there were the nuptials I attended for a woman desperate to be married and a man desperate to believe he’s straight. When the priest pronounced her no longer single and him heterosexual, the kiss was long and full of tongue and something I can’t ever again unsee.
I had to miss a friend’s springtime wedding because I’d already planned a vacation with my boyfriend. I felt terribly about missing her big day, but there were nonrefundable plane tickets involved. Turns out, I missed quite a wedding. There was a cake people couldn’t stop raving about (the single most important thing at a wedding besides true love and a pre-nup) and a moment when the bride’s brother went to punch his father and accidentally clocked his mother. I know what you’re thinking and I’m pleased as spiked punch to confirm that, fortunately, the knockout occurred nowhere near the cake because that would have been a total disaster.
I bring all this up because it is my staunch belief that those compromised celebrations will be seen as f*cking perfection in comparison to the engagement party Katie and Schwartz are throwing for themselves. Sure, the weddings I attended were colored by deception and hunger and bloodshed, but Kristen Doute didn’t attend a single one. She must’ve been far too busy winning a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama to show up for cocktail hour. (Just to be clear, I will never – and I mean ever – tire of the ridiculous comment she made that she’s best known for her dramatic roles and I vow to somehow include that line in every single recap from this day forward in much the way I used to comment so frequently on her limp hair or the fact that the woman is a bonafide lunatic.)
We’ll eventually get to the scene where Lisa considers moving rather than allowing Kristen and Stassi to wander the perimeter of her expansive home during Katie’s engagement party, but first there are a few other matters to contend with, including me offering a quick disclaimer that I’ve had a fever of 102 all day and it’s quite possible that half of the observations I’ll make tonight will be born out of a hazy NyQuil hallucination. I’ll do my best to make sense, but I must say I’m finding it mildly comforting to consider the possibility that maybe this entire show is just an illusion. I already fear the sobering disappointment that will surely accompany my fever breaking.
This episode is entitled Just the T.I.P, because this show is really classy. Trust me: even my sweatiness fever dream could not come up with a title like that one. We start at SUR on a night where the entire cast has been slated to work. Jax is pouring drinks, Lala is trying to avoid having flashbacks to that time in middle school when someone made fun of her bangs, and Katie is approaching her boss to see if she can throw her engagement party in her yard. I’m going to take a wild guess here and imagine that this is something Lisa has already agreed to after production promised her they’d cover all costs, including reseeding the entire property, but let’s pretend that she’s hearing this request for the first time because it makes perfect sense that a person who waits tables for you will view your house as her own makeshift catering hall. Lisa agrees to this ridiculous proposition as long as it’s just a teeny barbecue where Kristen and Stassi will be roasted like suckling pigs on a sharp spit. That’s right – Lisa is not comfortable having either woman anywhere near her home and Katie wants her party to have swans frolicking about so she agrees to cut Kristen and Stassi from her guest list, though let’s be honest here and acknowledge that, at this point, Kristen only shows up to events where nobody wants her. It’s sort of a game, you see, except only she is playing and somehow she still comes out of it looking like the loser.
Now it’s time for Sandoval to get glowy for his upcoming music video so he heads to see Gregory, esthetician to the (reality) stars. Ariana gets her glow on first while Sandoval rattles off how much money this video is costing him. He has to pay for equipment and catering and insurance in case his band’s music causes people’s ears to bleed and, being that he’s already about nine grand in, he might as well spend a bit more money on a microdermabrasion before the shoot. Normally I’d say that one might want to avoid potentially irritating skin procedures so close to a time when a camera will be shooting you in close-up, but Gregory is wearing a fedora from 2002 so I totally trust him.
Later that night – or later some other night because continuity is shot to sh*t on this show – Kristen stalks down a street. She is in blue and she walks with a purpose and sure, I thought maybe she was heading to an AA meeting, but it turns out she’s meeting James at a bar. Remember how he used to cheat on her and laugh about it? Remember how hilarious he thought it was to spit on her door and scream into her face that she’s a whore? Well, now he misses her and he’d love for her to just forget all about those incidents in much the way she thinks everybody she’s harmed should forgive her, too. As for Kristen, she tells us that James is blowing up her phone due to his neediness and she is just so grateful to come in second for once in the Most Pathetic contest so she deigns to sit down with the guy. Plus, she heard there will be alcohol there and nothing says fun more than slogging back a bottle of booze in front of the guy who is pretending that he’s embracing sobriety.
Poor James. He misses Kristen because he too is insane and it’s just no fun to be batsh*t crazy on your own. He wishes he could take back all the terrible things he’s said to her and he wants her to know he’s sorry. As for Kristen, she wants James to know that she’s moved on with Carter, a man she claims is smarter than she is. Impossible – screamed nobody.
“How do you not miss me?” whimpers James. “We were the f*cking sh*t, Kristen.”
“I’m a great catch,” Kristen tells him later while she inhales an entire cigarette in one drag as they stand on the street. She is crying because James just admitted to sleeping with one of her friends while they were together. Honestly, there’s not much more I can say about this scene. These are two revolting people who are damaged and damaging and they need to be quarantined lest they infect the rest of us with their awfulness. And random observation? James looks like a Simpsons character.