Bethenny Ever After: Bottling Plant of Slackers

It looks like Bethenny is getting her mind off the extreme trauma that was her birthday party by giving 100% to her brand new ice skating career.

"No more presents."

We join her with her trainer Napoleon Dynamite at the Union Sports Arena in Union, NJ. She tells us this is no joke. She’s skating two to three hours a day and it’s been going on for four weeks. It’s actually quite impressive. She’s skating around backwards like it’s easy. She reminds us that it would be one thing if she were 25, but she is 40 with a brand new baby and a brand new husband. How many times an episode does she need to remind us that she has a brand new baby (that someone else takes care of a lot of the time) and a brand new husband? I’ve been married not even as long as Bethenny and I don’t think I’ve EVER pointed out to someone, “Well I have a brand new husband,” as if that should make whatever I’m doing more heroic. But now that I think of it, I’m going to start! Anyway, Bethenny tells us that part of signing up for Skating with the Stars is that you have to agree to do a “death spiral” before the competition is over. It looks like this involves kind of falling into a horizontal spin in which Napoleon catches her and twirls her around. It indeed looks very frightening to perform.

The trick on The Cutting Edge was way better.

Luckily Bethenny says that Napoleon is very mellow and doesn’t put up with any of her neurotic antics. He’s always telling her to calm down and just take care of business. It’s nice that she listens to him. The death spiral progresses! Watching them practice intrigues me. I wonder if they’ll show her routine. While they practice, Al, the guy who owns the rink, walks over and holds up a 10 sign. Aw, that’s sweet.

Our next scene is Bethenny taking Jason shopping for new expensive jeans because she can’t stand the sight of his old tattered jeans for one more second. She calls them his Billy Joe Jim Bob at the Red Racoon Lodge jeans. Jason tells us that marriage is a compromise and if he only has to compromise going jean shopping, that’s not bad. Uh Jason? Have you been conscious the last few weeks? You’re also compromising your career for Skinny Girl, time with your parents, which friends you can bring where, who gets to come to the house... the list goes on. You are now a walking compromise. Nice try, though. Straightaway the salesguy tells Jason the old jeans he’s wearing aren’t flattering. Bethenny is encouraged and starts sifting through the jeans on display. Jason starts to realize that the jeans he’s wearing are indeed, quite shabby, but when he gets into the dressing room with a pair of jeans that cost $245 he mumbles that Bethenny is crazy.

"Get back in there and try on the $500 pair!"

While he gets them on Bethenny gossips with the salesguy about what a tightwad Jason is. You know, this issue of expensive jeans is one I’ve never been able to get behind. They’re JEANS. Denim. Why would one pair of jeans need to cost exponentially more than another? Do they have solid gold woven into the fabric that somehow makes you look skinnier? I’m not saying every pair of jeans looks great on every person. Hardly. But I AM saying you can find cute flattering jeans at Kohls for $25. You can, sorry. You don’t have to pay twelve times that much for the exact same fabric with a different label. Wow, this jeans debate with myself is really wearing me out - and I have a brand new husband! At one point Bethenny jumps on Jason, straddling him, and we get a closeup of Bethenny’s plumber crack. And I bet she paid hundreds of dollars for those jeans to slide right off of her butt.

And see how good her butt looks in them?

When they finally leave with one pair of new jeans the salesguy is all put out. He goes, “After all that?” Wow, he’s a little bitch. You should go to work at Kohl's, buddy. People always buy more than one thing there. Also? The paparazzi have their noses and lenses pressed right up against the store window. And Bethenny doesn’t even have a meltdown in the face of all this attention.

It's probably good no one is wishing her a happy birthday.

Back home the Hoppys begin discussing Thanksgiving, and wonder of wonders, Bethenny actually wants to have people over. She does, however, point out that she has a glass table, which will not do now that she has a brand new baby, so it’s time for a new table. But what if the new table can’t fit everyone they have over for Thanksgiving? Jason suggests putting out a folding table. Bethenny immediately scoffs and tells him he’s always going right back to Hazleton (the town where he grew up). Julie comes out wondering what they’re talking about and Jason starts telling her they may not have enough room for everyone to sit and Julie goes, “So we’ll borrow a folding table.” HA! How tacky, Julie.

"See? Julie is in on the mission to bring you down!"

Next they ask Gina and guess what her suggestion is. Get a folding table. Rent one, in fact. Sorry Bethenny, your condo is going to be the height of unsophistication for Thanksgiving!

Someone lives in the building who obviously doesn’t have a newborn who is about to smash a glass table then crawl around in the shards, and that someone would like to purchase Bethenny’s dangerous table from her, so there’s this huge ordeal of everyone lifting the glass table out into the hall and passing it over to the new owner. Bethenny is all nervous and flustered the whole time and Jason keeps teasing her about dropping the table and shattering glass and she gets more and more upset and he gets more and more amused. I like that he can tease her and that he gets a kick out of her neurosis. It’s a good sign in favor of them as a couple.

And at least she can laugh a little.

Well it looks like Jason and Bethenny are actually going to Montreal to visit the Skinny Girl bottling plant. Bryn will be staying behind with Gina and Bethenny is starting to lose it, which comes in the form of her wanting to reorganize the entire kitchen RIGHT NOW. Somehow the topic of Bethenny’s old donated lingerie comes up and Bethenny assures Gina that none of the things she donated had ever been worn. That’s actually good to know, I wondered about that. She says nothing touched her “giney.” Jason asks if they’re going to teach Bryn that she has a “giney” and Bethenny says no, they’ll call it a “woo woo.” What? I can’t tell if she’s kidding, but woo woo?

Ah good, here’s Julie to help Bethenny pack her suitcase for her 2 day trip. While they talk about what Bethenny should wear, Julie brings up some things that Bethenny’s mother has said about her on the internet that aren’t very nice. Bethenny says her mom is crazy and she posted Bethenny’s childhood photos on the internet, and what parent sells out their own child? Uh, pot? Meet kettle. Maybe your mother got weary of the world only ever hearing what a crazy irresponsible mother she was. What a crappy situation. Bethenny concludes that she will never speak to her mother again as long as she lives. I would venture to guess that feeling is mutual.

It’s time for “bathies!” This is where Bethenny gets in the bathtub with Bryn and she says it’s her favorite part of the day. Will Cookie be joining again? I can see that this would be a sweet bonding time for a mom and a new baby. Jason sits on the edge of the tub and sponges Bryn down. That’s nice. Kind of personal, but nice. Bethenny cries telling us how special “bathies” is.

Maybe TMI.

Okay sidebar: Is it just me, or is it weird that Jason and Bethenny call each other mommy and daddy? I can see if they were talking to Bryn and referring to one another, but they just call each other that. I don’t think I’d want my husband calling me mommy. That would creep me out. Maybe I’ll feel differently when we have kids, but I never heard my parents call each other mom and dad. What do you guys think? Discuss. End sidebar.

We’re off to Canada! Bethenny and Jason pull up to the Skinny Girl private plane and Bethenny once again marvels at her own success. I have to admit that flying in a private plane would be freaking sweet! Bethenny says that Jason is wearing his private plane outfit, something everyone has in their repertoire. Ha ha ha! Bethenny is still all agitated about the delays in production and she’s determined to figure out who’s dropping the ball and whip everyone into shape. Then Jason asks if she’d like to join the mile high club. Well, why not? It’s the Skinny Girl private plane! He asks if she’s already a member of the mile high club and she won’t tell him. Pretty soon Jason’s annoyed that no one is bringing them cocktails and that they only have one salad to share between them. Bethenny calls him Daddy Warbucks and threatens to put him right back in coach if he doesn’t simmer down.

"I have to lift my own fork?"

When the plane lands there’s a little red carpet laid out for them - oh brother. Good enough for you there Jason?

Bethenny squirted her perfume in his path so he didn't have to smell jet fuel.

So here we are in Montreal, which looks exactly like Europe, how fun. Of course the Hoppys are staying in a completely fabulous hotel on this, their trip to crack some skulls. They take a little stroll around the old town and stop into a souvenir shop to by a commemorative Christmas ornament. Bethenny says she’s always wanted to collect high end snow globes and what better time than now to start? Jason gives her no end of torment about wanting to collect snow globes because typically they are junk that you buy at the airport. She ends up spending about $35 on one, which Jason thinks is outrageous, LOL. Bethenny reminds him that lots of women shop at Prada and all she wants is a snow globe. And let’s not forget those $245 jeans you made Jason get, too. Jason reminds us that Bethenny didn’t have a good childhood, so the least he can do is buy her a snow globe. Right, right, the bad childhood again.

"Bethenny's mom yelled at her, so if this $9,000 Birkin bag makes her happy, it's the least I can do."

They stop into a pub for a drink and discuss whether they miss being single. Neither of them does. Bethenny says that being single is a grind. That is so true! I mean, I had lots of fun when I was single, but first dates are miserable. Not to mention that growing gnawing in my stomach with each birthday that was me wondering if I was destined to die alone. Women and their biology. Jason says that for him “after a certain point” he wanted more than just the single life. Bethenny tells him that women go out to get married, whether they’re 18 or 38. See what I mean? It’s built in.

Bright and early the next morning they call Gina so they can say hi to Bryn. This is all interrupted though, by Jason having a farting fest which nearly chokes Bethenny to death. How lovely. They bask for a while in being away from all of the distractions of home and then they have to get ready to go put some heads on the chopping block over at the Skinny Girl Bottling Plant of Slackers.

A lovely girl named Catherine, Head of Quality Assurance and clearly a huge slacker, meets them at the door and begins their tour of the plant. As they walk through on their way to the CEO Slacker’s office, Bethenny is like a kid in a candy store. She is so overwhelmed seeing this enormous operation going, all to crank out this drink she thought up. When they get to CEO David’s office they go over the issues that were holding up production. One of them was getting glass, which has been resolved, another was getting the logos onto the bottles, which has also been resolved. So everything is humming along smoothly and they are producing 30,000 cases of margaritas a week.

"I tried to sabotage the whole operation, but alas we are still producing."

What’s this? They’re not sitting around drinking beer and laughing about how bad they’re going screw Bethenny over? What’s that you say? These people WANT to make money? They WANT the product to succeed? Imagine that! Bethenny mentions to David that she’s invented a new cocktail, by the way. The mojito-rita, which is a mojito made with tequila. Truly groundbreaking. I’m sure NO ONE has EVER thought of that before.

Now Jason and Bethenny get suited up in special green plastic shoes, crossing guard vests, hair nets and goggles to take a tour of the plant floor. They do their whole Laverne and Shirley routine while they’re at it because really, how often do you visit a bottling plant? They take lots of silly pictures and eventually Bethenny cries about what a huge accomplishment this is for her.

Doing it her way.

She says this started as an idea and now it’s so huge they can’t even keep up. Next time I have a really good idea I’ll have to remember to star in a hit reality show so that someone will pay attention. Bethenny tells Jason over dinner that when she thinks about it logically, she knows David isn’t at home sleeping instead of producing the margaritas. Jason’s like, “Duh, that’s what I tried to tell you all along.” She cries again about realizing the American dream. She’s a brand now, you know. They toast to doing whatever you want in life.

Next week! More discussion about moving to LA and Bethenny and Jason seem to be trespassing on someone’s property checking out a new potential neighborhood. Bethenny’s in LA to film Skating with the Stars! Also, Gina may have a medical issue and Julie gets in trouble for something. See you then!

What did you think of this episode, guys? I really appreciate the comments you guys leave because it totally validates all of the time and energy I put into writing these recaps - and it’s not like I’m just a single gal with nothing else to do - I have a brand new husband!

Thanks for reading!
-Honey Gangsta