A pre-game wrap-up of the first episode.

The players:

Alex is about status.
LuAnne is a countess.
Jill is an elitist with only quality friends.
Simon is a metrosexual.
Bethany is an ex-celebutante that is not up to Martha's snuff.
Romona don't need no stinkin man, except her husband.
Kelly is an ex-wife/model, not a housewife.

The Hamptons are great but new to the scene Simon doesn't understand this.
Tennis is cut throat.
Becoming a Countess changes the way you enunciate.
Shopping for clothes is wearable art, and meeting high profile people is the bestest thing in the whole world.
It's always nice to be photographed when you spend 15,000 on the dress and handlers.

The Van Kempens hit Jill by slamming her in a tabloid.  So she hit them back indicating that he drinks too much and that he is an insulting person.

Of course this means Jill has low self-esteem and is still in high school. 
Ramona was lurving this as Jill has been critical of her in the past.
Bethany tells Jill she is socially challenged.
Jill calls Alex to apologise and finds that Alex thinks she is a liar.  The gossip columnist got it all wrong.  It was only one time that he was falling down drunk.

Jill is very sorry that that came out as not nice.

But she has class beause she called them and they had not called her. 

So Alex says that she is just jealous.
This is not high school at all.

Ramona is riding the high horse that she would never say mean things in a paper.  She is the one that raged out of a party because Simon showed up at a girls night out.  It was cramping her style.  So she was critical and rude and told him that he was spoiling her fun.  To his face, on film, for a national audience.  Which is not mean, like saying it in a paper would be.

Ok, so everybody is off to the Hamptons, including the Van K's who said it was just not their thing last season.  But they are there this season, renting a low rent home with tiny bedrooms with their spawn.  They spend all their money on clothes and material goods that show.  But actual wealth, like property int he Hamptons, is still ont he to do list, along with getting the children to speak french, because that is really really important in New York.

There is to be a big benefit for orphans.  They are not looking for a confrontation with Jill, but they are off to shop and a big gala for "Social Life" magazine.  They are not going fo the summer, but just for a party.

Alex has changed her straggly hair of last season for something that is less straggly, but still thin and wispy.  It is an unfortunate hairdo, still.

Jill and Bethany learn from the help that the VK's are coming.  Coming in a bmw with their french speaking spawn.

So they land in their shabby house with their crying children.  Jill is vaguely outraged that they are invading her turf.

Alex doesn't care for tv's in kids rooms.  When they can buy their own, they can have one.  Thanks, Mom!

The Countess just got back from Switzerland.  Jill is ranting again.  The countess thinks that people who think they are better than others are the worst.  Because arbitrary distinctions between one human being and another is just wrong.  So the countess tells Jill to be more careful about what comes out of her mouth, that she will be cordial.

So they all arrive at the party.  Alex snubs Jill and Bethany when they try to go over and be friendly, cause that is how the classy class around in the Hamptons, not high school at all.

They work it out.  Simon is sloshed and slurring his words.  But now he lurves Jill and they are going to be tight.  Alex is still retaining her peg about it all, because Jill hurt Simon's feelings.

But they all hug and slur through a few rounds of kumbaya, since there are 12 episodes to go and it would be awkward if nobody on the show talked for the rest of the show.

Also, Simon is foreign, so he must be extra classy, and classy people do not hold feuds with other people that may know someone you will need to know to achieve further social success.

So, the countess decides to enlist another player.  Kelly, who apparently lives in a wind tunnel in slow motion, agrees to come to the party.  Bethany decides that it is absolutely necessary that she talk about Kelly in the pool before the party.  Bethany is wicked skinny, so skinny that her very large for New York breasts sit on top of her bony rib cage that shows through her papery skin.  I am just saying, if you are that skinny, don't stand with your arms stretched so that your paper thin skin is pulled tight over your showing bones and suddenly there boobs.  The housewives of Orange County are all a little fat.  That makes their giant boobs plausible. Plausible deniability.  That is the idea behind cosmetic surgery.  Of course, she thinks that Kelly is in her late 40's. 

But the gist of the pool confab is that Kelly is a real socialite, unlike the people on the show.  Bethany, of celebutante fame, cooks for the beautiful people.  And so she knows all the details of their parties that she caters.  Just like the servant masseuse that Jill got the dish from.  So they are all excited.

Ramona and her not-gay husband have lunch and dish about how metro and bisexual Simon is.  On national tv.  Not like it is written in a tabloid or anything.  She and her husband are uncomfortably sexual at the restaurant.

The countess and her friend Kelly have Champagne and Tab, relatively, and talk about being equestrians and former models and such.  Kelly rides and writes about bikinis.  The countess is writing a book on ettiquette.  I think she would say that this blog is rude.  But I am ok with that.

The countess did commercial modeling, and Kelly married Gilles Binsimone and does fashion, so Kelly is better than her in the modeling scheme of things.  They are both coming to the party.

At the party, they are all there and there is a bruhaha about the gift bags, that the countess's spawn were supposed to put together.  They did not show to put it together.  So Jill thinks that is rude.  What would the ettiquette expert say?  I would say that you should do things you say you will do, especially when there are 3 hundred gift bags that are not going to fill themselves while the sponsor of the benefit gossips in the pool.

At the benefit, the Van K's are snarky but polite.  Ramona shows but leaves instead of saying good-bye like polite people would.  It is just another snarky week-end in the Hamptons.

But orphans have gift bags, rich kids speak french, the horsey set ride and write, fabulosity is very important, and fake boobs are tastefully small. 

So you are all ready for tonight!

http://open.salon.com/blog/epriddy/2009/02/24/liveblogging_the_real_housewives_of_new_york