Bethenny Ever After: Bethenny's Blades of Glory

All right, let’s check in with Bethenny and see if she’s recovered from the trauma of having her child participating in not one, but two religious rituals last week.

Looks like she bounced back.

Bethenny has planned a girls night out. She’s invited a bunch of girlfriends (whom I didn’t know existed) to come hang out with her in a completely swank hotel room. Hmm, this hotel must have wanted some advertising because this whole set up seems very random. Why not just invite them over to her condo? Or a bar?

Who ARE all these people?

A girl named Cory arrives in ginormous stilettos and holding a garment bag. Bethenny says she arrived looking like she was ready to get laid and paid. Ha! I just love it when my friends call me a prostitute. Room service arrives and the ladies begin to discuss Bethenny’s upcoming 40th birthday. Bethenny says she has no particular feelings about turning 40, but that she’s very happy with her life - especially over the past year. You know, getting married, having a baby, making millions of dollars (she doesn’t say that last part). She also feels like she’s lived.

After food, Bethenny suggests that the ladies go out to a bar to “find some schlong.” Assistant Julie is completely scandalized. Everyone changes to go to the bar and they all help each other do hair and makeup. I’m kind of surprised Bethenny didn’t bring in a bunch of professional hair and makeup people. How very regular-person of her. Once they’re all done up and glowing, they head for what looks like the hotel bar. It’s funny when they walk in because they’ve clearly already had a few and they’re being really loud. Other patrons of the bar just kind of stare at this spectacle of loud shiny women with a television crew. Right away a guy walks over and sits down next to Bethenny, introducing himself as Jason, the General Manager of the bar. For a second I thought he was going to tell them to simmer down, but of course, he’d just like his bar to get some air time. He gets the girls some champagne and they all none-too-subtly drool over him.

"You ladies are going to have to keep it down... or I'll send over more champagne!"

Lauren climbs over a couple of people to talk to Jason, announcing, “I just had a baby!” Bethnney chimes in that she did too, then they wait for Jason to give them the obligatory “you look good,” compliment. They giggle hysterically and generally act like idiots. Then comes the dancing.

Each woman takes a turn getting up in front of the group and doing some drunk-tastic dance move. The weirdest is Julie, who has a dance called the metro card, where she acts like she’s swiping her metro card at the subway, then slips. It’s very odd and not at all rhythmic.

"Cheers to the metro card!"

Bethenny and Lauren are like, well that’s awkward. Which it was, but no more so than practically sitting on the manager and telling him about your recent birth giving.

Some other day Bethenny and Julie are out drinking coffee and walking Cookie when Bethenny gets a call from Maggie, her publicist. Maggie has an interesting proposition for Bethenny: she wants her to go on Skating with the Stars! This is basically Dancing with the Stars except on ice. So she’ll be paired with a professional ice skater and learn routines and compete on TV. Julie is hearing all this and having a heart attack because Bethenny barely has time for bathroom breaks as it is. And not only will this take up a lot of her time, it will also involve flying back and forth to LA to tape. Bethenny says she’ll talk to Jason about it.

So later at the condo Bethenny presents the idea to Jason. He asks if she even knows how to ice skate, which she does, but just as in skating around the rink. Then Jason wonders if it wouldn’t be a better idea to do Dancing with the Stars, which is huge - his mother loves it. Bethenny says she’d rather do the FIRST season of Skating with the Stars than the TWELFTH season of Dancing with the Stars. Plus, I might add, DWTS didn’t ask her. Then Jason wonders about the time commitment and they call Julie in, who says it will be insane. Eventually Jason says they’ll make it work, so I guess here comes Skating with the Stars! Bethenny starts practicing possible skating moves right there in the living room.

"I can't stop her when she gets an idea in her head."

Now Bethenny has a lunch with Shawn, her former wedding planner and Buster Bluth’s gay doppelganger. Bethenny tells Buster she’s been thinking about her 40th birthday and wonders if that’s something people have parties for. Buster’s like “Hay-ell yes!”

"And I know just the party planner for you, girrrrrl!"

And Bethenny tells us she’s going to toss some business Buster’s way and let him plan her a party. How generous. But Bethenny tells Buster she can’t afford him, so he offers to do it as a gift. Sucker! They get Bryn out of her stroller and coo over her for a bit.

Oooh, Bethenny’s next big thing is that she’s been invited to be a presenter at the GLAAD awards, so she brings Jake along to try to find him a man. And they are SO not subtle about it. Bethenny finds a cute guy and right in front of him says to Jake, “What about this one?” And Jake goes, “Oh you picked a cute one!” The guy is really cute. He’s in a suit with a skinny tie and thick rimmed glasses.

"I don't mind being a piece of meat."

Bethenny is frustrated because after finding this cute guy, Jake doesn’t stop looking. She tells him to focus because he’s already got a fish on the line. She tells us Jake has no gaaaaayyyyyyme. So Jake gets the cute guy’s number, but then another interesting candidate named Barry comes along. Jake also gets his number. I have to point out here that Bethenny fits right in at this event because she’s wearing drag queen makeup.

Keeping up with the "ladies."

Bright and early another day, Bethenny has taken off her fake lashes and wiped off the blue eyeshadow, and she, Jake and Lauren are going to check out a possible venue for her birthday party. They walk into the place and the upstairs is all Tuscan country and very charming, then the downstairs is all Studio 54 with metallic couches. Bethenny wisely decides on the upstairs as the more appropriate setting for a 40th birthday celebration. She even calls the downstairs the raunch hole. Bethenny hesitates again about the whole throwing herself a party idea and Jake gives a speech about how much she’s accomplished since she was 35 and insists that she let the people around her celebrate her. I think he’s excited for the open bar. Next they talk about which fish Jake is going to try to date and he picks Barry, the more corporate looking guy from GLAAD night. They decide to have a double dinner date with Jason and Bethenny.

Bethenny goes for a walk with Jason to discuss logistics for the birthday bash. She says that if they’re only going to have cocktails and hors d’oeuvres then they have to have the party after 9 PM. Any earlier and you have to feed everyone dinner. Good to know. Jason points out that no one is going to want to come to a party that late on a weeknight, so Bethenny says that means they have to serve dinner. Next issue: Jason has four or five couples he wants to invite to the party. Since Bethenny wants to keep the total number small, this may mean crossing a few people off of her guest list and she is not happy about that idea. Jason is astonished because he’s positive that his friends would like to celebrate Bethenny’s birthday, but Bethenny is upset because inviting Jason’s friends may mean NOT inviting some of her friends. They go back and forth, with Jason saying they are an entity now, and need to consider THEIR friends, not just one or the other’s friends.

"Jason hush. You're friends are irrelevant at MY party."

Here’s the thing. If Jason were wanting to invite 50 extra people, I can see getting nervous, but is ten people really going to make THAT much difference? If they have 50 people total instead of 40 so that everyone is happy? Seems like not that big of an issue. Bethenny goes, “It’s MY 40th birthday party.” And Jason goes, “My, my, my, my, my.” I agree with Jason that Bethenny thinks a lot with “my,” but to be fair, this IS her birthday. I still say invite everyone. What’s the big deal? Buster’s doing the party for free and the venue is probably happy to get on TV. Jason’s extra friends aren’t going to break the bank. Now Bethenny starts saying this is why she didn’t want to have a party. What a buzzkill.

Dr. Amador! Bethenny breaks the news that she’s going on Skating with the Stars. He asks how she feels about turning 40 and Bethenny says it reminds her that her dad never called her on her birthday, he would just send $500 checks. Excuse me? That is awesome! Well, the money part. It also turns out that Bethenny and her mother have the same birthday and her mother will be turning 60. She was only 20 when she had Bethenny - wow. Dr. Amador asks if Bethenny will give Bryn a party when she turns one and Bethenny says absolutely. Then he asks about Jason’s relationship with Bryn and of course, it’s idyllic. Bethenny goes on some more about how terrible her parents were and are. Again, I’m not sure what the point of all this is. They should be discussing allowing Jason’s friends to come to the party.

Yay! Bethenny is shopping for ice skating gear! The sales guy tells her she has perfect legs for ice skating because she’s slightly bow-legged. When he tells her she has a bone spur in her ankle she gets all weird, saying he’s turning her on. Bethenny, can’t you ever keep it in your pants? The guy’s wife happens to be right there rolling her eyes. Bethenny puts on a sparkly blue ice skating dress and proceeds to try on skates.

"Look out, sales guy's wife! I'm hot to trot and your husband is turning me on!"

There happens to be a ten year old ice skater named Noah in the shop at the same time and he hears Bethenny and kind of rains on her parade by being way better than she is at such a young age. That’s how I feel when I go skiing and five-year-olds whiz past me. Bethenny and Noah talk about a few tricks Bethenny will be learning and eventually Bethenny high fives little Noah in a display of good sportsmanship.

"This old lady's nuts."

And now for some actual skating! Bethenny shows up at a rink to meet her pro partner for the first time. His name is Ethan and he is not gay as Bethenny anticipated. Ethan is totally gung ho about this training and Bethenny starts out by warning him that she’s athletic but not very graceful. He says that back to her, but instead of graceful he says “pretty.” Bethenny doesn’t like this at all. She tells him that he can’t tell his ice wife she’s not pretty. He totally back pedals. Then he tells us he was the stunt double for John Heder in Blades of Glory. That’s actually really cool. He even looks a bit like Napoleon Dynamite. When they get out onto the ice Bethenny tells him he has a nice butt and she even feels it. Good grief, Bethenny, you’re married, remember? Bethenny takes her first tumble and Napoleon tells her that he guarantees she won’t fall when they’re performing. That’s a bold promise.

"Lift your blades of glory!"

Time for Jake’s double date with Bethenny and Jason! They’re going to Sushi Samba. Barry shows up last and when he gets there Jake comments that he thinks they look alike. Frankly, Barry doesn’t seem to thrilled with the comparison.

"I look like who, now?"

Small talk ensues, Barry shows everyone his ankle tattoo, we find out Bethenny doesn’t know what a Prince Albert is. Huh? I even know that! Bethenny has a few drinks and decides that her birthday party might not be so bad after all. Aw, that’s the spirit!

Later Bethenny and Jason discuss the party and Bethenny says she doesn’t want to be fussed over that day and she just wants to celebrate during the party. She talks again about how her birthdays have always been disappointing and Jason is very determined to turn all that around.

Next week! Everyone keeps calling Bethenny “birthday girl” which is exactly what she doesn’t want. She cries getting ready for the party then she cries at the party. Geez, what’s so traumatic that she can’t even hold it together until they get home? I guess we’ll find out!

What did you think about this episode? Skating with the Stars?

Thanks for reading!
-Honey Gangsta