‘The Real Housewives of New York’ Season 10 Episode 2: The Marathon
Just as Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens, we ran our own 26.2 miles watching this episode, thinking the trail would lead to the promised land, aka the Hamptons. Carole might’ve joked that her New York City finish line felt like a mirage, but for us viewers, the oasis that is eastern Long Island kept creeping away just beyond our fingertips and ultimately onto next week’s episode. Instead, we were left with every two-or-three-woman permutation of on-good-terms Housewives walking, running, talking and drinking wine before noon.
But we can’t move into the future without understanding the past. The past being Dorinda’s Halloween party. Did Sonja fail to channel Lucille Ball? Did Dorinda look fat as Gaga? Was Luann’s costume racist? (Yes.) Who owns the Hamptons more: Ramona or Bethenny? Is Ramona’s event planner gay? Is he off the phone yet? And most of all, why did Bethenny love that crystal cake-stand thing Dorinda gifted her so much? These are questions we will never know the answers to. (Except the Luann one.)
We also might never know the goings-on of Luann’s inner world or why surprising the Count as a “Moroccan princess” didn’t save her marriage. So Tinsley, stop pushing the subject (the former, not the latter—please, actually, ask more about the Moroccan thing), because Lu is barely human. She is an octopus in human skin. She doesn’t have emotions like, say, you or I might. Instead, you should’ve used that energy to question Lu about her braids. While this dinner convo escalated quickly, both Lu and Tinsley are such dense and unmoving icebergs that it’s like watching two walls scream at each other.
What we do know is that Sonja went on a wellness retreat in “Cyosta Reeka” in an abandoned hotel where she could squat for a bit and take a selfie in warrior pose. And it’s probably because of this IRL The Shining experience that Sonja returned to NYC disturbed and ready to start shit: She’s the person behind the Dorinda fat-calling. She’s also starting the rumor that Tinsley’s ex is paying her $10,000-a-month hotel rent. (There are coupons in the cabin, people!)
And yet, how can we ever be upset with Sonja? In an episode where none of the women do anything except eat salad and run, Sonja reveals she’s been hosting her Gay Parties on Wednesdays for the past 12 years and, oops, it’s Wednesday, here come the guests. All gay men. No girlfriends. Why? Well, women bring Sonja down! Gay men are her toys around whom she can make double entendres about her “lips” that really no person, no matter their orientation, wants to listen to unless there’s free Champagne. Also, looks like Sonja hired a grown-ass non-intern who also doesn’t know how to answer the door?
Something else we know for a fact: Luann, for all her faults and atrocities to mankind, is the goddamn Countess. And no, that’s not because there’s a “Countess Luann Pandora station” (which anyone can make, right?), but because we the people helped create the Countess. The Countess Luann is one part European land owner, one part reality TV star and one part complete delusion. That reality TV star part? That’s on us. We are part of this. And no, Tinsley, you can’t take that away from her—or us—no matter how short her marriages are.
And Carole. Sweet Carole. For as much as I loathe the sport of distance running and thinking about nipples chafing from nylon shirts, I wept for you when you crossed the finish line. Not because of your beautiful story about your late husband (OK, I definitely teared up for that) and not because you did something incredible at 54 years old that you never thought you could do, but because you have no idea that your real marathon has yet to begin: the fallout between you and Bethenny.
This Season: ‘The Real Housewives of New York’ Season 10 Episode 1