More meal drama! Proving that these ladies just can't agree on food plans, The Real Housewives of New York City dropped right back in the middle of Bethenny Frankel and Ramona Singer's lunch-gate dispute — not to be confused with brunch-gate from a few weeks back.
Last week, the Skinnygirl maven was busy making a home-cooked feast when Ramona suggested they all go out to eat — and Bethenny didn't like that too much. As B proceeded to set the table, she and Ramona took turns accusing each other of being manic.
Dorinda Medley, remaining true to her usual Switzerland-self (for now!), told the camera, "Ramona sometimes comes off a bit unappreciative." It's hard to argue with that.
Miraculously, however, the tornado between Bethenny and Ramona blew over as quickly as it had rolled in. "I can't stay mad at her. It's like being mad at a 5-year-old," Bethenny explained to the camera. In the end, they all opted to stay for lunch.
Battle of the Books
The meal started off well — until Ramona decided to ask for input about the title of a book she was working on. The tome seemed to be about her childhood, and her failed marriage, and… well, it wasn't entirely clearly what it was about, but she seemed excited about it and that's the most important thing.
Ramona suggested Life on the Ramona Coaster and From Hell to Happiness, which all of the other women quickly rejected. Bethenny tossed out Work in Progress and Ramona seemed to like it — but Heather didn't like that Ramona liked it one bit. (It's all so confusing!)
"Shut the f— up Bethenny, please. For once, just shut the f— up!" Heather Thomson shouted to the camera, though she confronted her season rival head-on as well. "I think you're a know-it-all," she barked. For her part, Bethenny didn't deny the title, but took it to mean that she does, in fact, know a lot of things.
In a second miracle of the day, the two got over this kerfuffle quickly too, solving the argument by dragging each other into the ocean and pulling each other's bikini bottoms down to flash their bare butts. Hey, whatever works.
Reflecting later on the argument over the book title, Carole Radziwill (whom, it's probably worth noting, is actually a professional author) had a thought to add. "If you're writing the story of your life and you're still calling it a work in progress at 58, I don't think that's a good idea," she chimed in with a smile.
Heather and Sonja Have a Heart-to-Heart
Seemingly on a quest to mend fences, Heather pulled Sonja Morgan away from the group to (gasp!) apologize for accusing her of having a drinking problem earlier.
"When I told you that I love you and I care about you, I really, really mean it," Thomson told the aspiring lifestyle maven. "Nobody in this group has any right to label or put a claim on anything unless they have a degree and they're professionals. Period. End of story. I don't want you to feel like I'm kicking you when you're down."
"I'm going to accept this apology because I deserve it," Sonja quipped to the camera later, looking pretty pleased. "But let's see if she keeps her word."
Ramona's Single and Ready to Mingle
In one of the weirder moments this season, Heather and Bethenny also managed to make friends with each other (at least for the time being). Laughing off their differences and rocky history, Heather told the mother of one, "I understand you now."
Bethenny seemed to share those sentiments and later admitted to the camera, "I actually kind of like her."
Meanwhile, Ramona was on a mission to meet a man and asked their waiter if John, the restaurant owner, was single. When the waiter told the ladies that John was "more on the single side," that was good enough for the True Faith owner, who pretty much forced the waiter to introduce them.
It would have been perfect — except for one small wrinkle: Carole and Bethenny were already deep in conversation with him. In true Ramona style (though Ramona would certainly argue otherwise), she blocked her two villa-mates out and stole John away all for herself. It goes without saying that Bethenny and Carole were none too pleased.
Also, on an unrelated note, at this point in the evening, LuAnn de Lesseps started crawling around in to pet one of the stray dogs. It was strange, but also pretty amazing.
The Morning After
Naturally, the next morning, the other girls confronted Ramona about her behavior the night before. Kristen Taekman kicked things off and got right to the point. "You seriously shut everybody out. You were very rude," she told Ramona.
"Okay, so I ignored you. What do you want to do, send me to prison for that?" Ramona asked the camera, adding, "They're not used to me being selfish. Okay, I can be selfish too sometimes, can't I?"
But she wasn't the only one with something to say to the camera. Discussing Ramona's actions, Carole explained, "She has no man game and no girlfriend code. But she's still back in the '80s when it was the age of greed and everyone did what they wanted and if you stuck your t–s out you got something."
Carole wasn't shying away from telling Ramona how she felt directly either. As Ramona sat down to lunch, Carole quipped, "Don't get so dramatic about it. You were rude and obnoxious last night to all of us; so just own it. You walked over, Bethenny and I were talking to him, you acted like you didn't even know us."
Ramona snapped back, "I'm sorry. You're f—ing some 28-year-old," which Carole did not appreciate.
"Do not characterize them as f—ing because it's f—ing rude," she replied (more on those f-bombs later).
Ramona went on to argue that she had been "in the zone" the previous night, prompting lots of speculation as to what zone that was. Heather had the best answer, telling the camera, "She was in a zone. She was zoned in on penis!"
Everybody Bonds
After lunch, it was LuAnn's turn to make peace with Sonja for comments she'd made before, and Sonja was reasonably receptive. She even confessed to LuAnn that part of the reason she's dating a 24-year-old is because she feels her ex-husband still hasn't let her go or allowed her to move on with her life and she can't have a serious relationship until her business with him is settled. (Hence, she's dating a much younger man who is anything but serious.)
This brought LuAnn to tears. "You need to be in a good space. I want that for you more than anything," she told her friend. "I want to see you be happy. I want to see you thriving. I want to see you being the hostess girl that you love to be."
Later that day, Dorinda and Carole bonded about being widows and talked a bit about their late husbands. "It's not something I talk about even to my closest friends and it's been a long time for me so it's just a nice memory," Carole explained to the camera later.
F-Bombs All Around
The bonding time soon gave way to a dinner discussion of whether it was appropriate for ladies to drop f-bombs. Heather thought it was fine. Ramona, LuAnn, and Dorinda did not. "You all use it!" Heather argued before telling LuAnn to "lighten up."
"Are you going to tell Ella it's okay to use the f-bomb?" LuAnn asked the Yummie purveyor.
Somehow this devolved into an argument about what makes a good mother and (a possibly very drunk) Dorinda just lost it.
"When you go into a room and you want to be part of a certain society you can't go in and be like, 'F this! F that!'" she yelled, getting more and more upset, and eventually leaving the table to storm out. "I won't be humiliated by anyone! Don't humiliate me!"
"This side of Dorinda, when she drinks too much, I've seen it now a few times and it just scares me a little," Kristen later confessed to the camera.
Heather got up and rushed to Dorinda's side to try to fix whatever was wrong, but the episode ended before we saw whether that plan worked out of backfired — but it definitely seems like it could go either way.
Tell Us: Do you think Heather and Dorinda will make up?
