Jacob's DVR refused to record the second episode -- and I do not blame it one bit -- so I'll be handling the weecap. And I will be putting the "wee" back into it, too, because holy shitballs is this show boring.
Paula's in L.A., looping dialogue for a guest shot on Family Guy. She voice-overs that she loves the show; we see her slurring through a line parodying her role on American Idol. Creator Seth Macfarlane says she doesn't have to stick to the line as written if she wants to do something "more natural" -- probably because he knows she's going to biff it, so he might as well make it sound like part of the plan instead of an ongoing frustration. She finishes her, like, one line that probably took close to an hour to get right, then complains as she's taking her headphones off that Macfarlane "didn't let [her] say 'it's pitchy.'" Then she claims she doesn't want to say that. Then she says she wants to say something more out of character time, like "you suck." She's really into that phrase.
Then there's some socializing in the halls of the production company. Paula talks about how men she dates are more impressed with her guest shots on Family Guy than they are with AI. She "flirts" with Macfarlane, who responds in the bluff tone you use when you don't want crazy people to think you think they're…you know. Crazy. Paula's dog runs around, unleashed, and she says she hopes it didn't poop anywhere, but dog people + entitlement = total lack of accountability, so she doesn't look around for any poop or worry about whether it'll get cleaned up. She just "hopes" there isn't any.
Paula goes to New York to receive some sort of fashion-icon award. Of course, she's running late. Maybe if it didn't require a retinue of 68 people for her to do the littlest goddamn thing, it might lower the on-time difficulty rating, but whatever, she's poured into a navy-blue one-sleeved mermaidy contraption. It's a serviceable enough dress but she's accessorized it with every gaudy piece of costume jewelry from the dress-ups box. It's just way too much…not even "bling," exactly. The kind of jewelry that you can tell is expensive precisely because it appears so cheap.
Anyway, in the limo, her publicist, Jeff, attempts to get her focused on her acceptance speech, which she hasn't looked at yet. She's missing the dinner part of the event, which is evidently a problem because she gets all spazzy when she hasn't eaten. Sorry: "even more spazzy" is what I meant to say. She's incredibly slurry and "I have a fashion for passion" spoonerisming all over the place. Jeff asks if she wants to have a look at her speech. She vagues that she's not so good with speeches. You can see various iterations of this conversation in every gin blossom on Jeff's nose as he's like, "YEAH NO SHIT LADY!" but swallows it and hands her a piece of paper. She reads it out, has some difficulty with the word "honored," mangles the Catskills joke he's put in there, and then, when he jokes about it, tells him to shut up. You might have missed that, because it came out as "shup, Je'frrr." She is presenting as very very drunk here, right at that point where most other people either pass out or get that "ohshit!" face and then hurl really dramatically. More in this vein before she tosses the speech paper in the air.
At the dinner, Tim Gunn begins the intro for Paula. She's not even in the building yet, so he has to stall endlessly about Paula's many achievements (…I know); this is intercut with Paula wandering around backstage and bumbling into closets and whatnot. When she finally takes the stage, she makes a joke about how short she is, and then there's something about AI, and then she's like, "Why did I just say that?" and the crowd is like, "…Um." Then she finds her way back to the scripted speech and pulls it out.
Backstage, Tim Gunn holds her upri-- er, "chats" with her. She accepts accolades from girls who remember her videos from when they were "little."
Outside. She wants Starbucks. Jeff's like, "You have a sleep disorder and it's the middle of the night," but they end up at Starbucks anyway, and she's ditzing about how the staff should surprise her (the baristas stare at her with "like we've got nothing better to do" faces on) and will someone in her posse split something with her so she's not "being bad." The sequence is incredibly long; the part where Paula announces that she has no money on her is not entertaining so much as irritating -- like these people don't put up with enough working for her, now they have to go out of pocket for whatever non-fat chai hoop-de-hoy she wants made.
She staggers out of the Starbucks, wrapped in Jeff's blazer because it's cold, and some production plants recognize her really loudly and fakely. She inserts herself back into the limo, which the mermaid dress makes difficult, so she's rolling around all Karen in Goodfellas "I'm sorreeeeeee!" but without the hollering.
Her staff tells her she needs to get some sleep. She's a four-year-old: "I'm not tired." She rambles about how she's gotten at most an hour of sleep a night for the past week, which would maybe explain the alcoholic presentation. Jeff foreshadows that "it's really important that she gets her sleep on this trip," making it out like she doesn't make time to sleep because she's so busy and important, like, even Bill Clinton got a few hours a night, good grief.
A few hours later/the morning, Paula meets with the team working on her custom perfume. She's wearing a cute military-esque jacket at the meeting, but she's minutes away from face-planting from exhaustion (…or whatever); she's doing that fidget-to-stay-awake thing as the team gives a little pre-presentation of the scent concepts blah blah. I feel bad for these people, and in fact for anyone who has to work on a celebrity-branded project, because you will get exactly no credit, plus I think people do reach a point in their fame where "real" people cease to exist to them as anything but an idea, so on top of the regular project-based aggravation, you've got the lateness and the imperious behavior and the "hey, what if we put antlers on a cat" eleventh-hour whimsy that has to be addressed as though it's a factor until she gets distracted by something shiny. Anyway, Paula sniffs the scent strips. Her licensing agent sniffs the strips. Everyone sniffs the strips while Paula moans, "Mmm…mmm." Oh my fucking God, does this show have an editor? A staffer says she can tell Paula's exhausted and the New York trip has barely begun. Now Paula is sniffing people's elbows. Now Paula is in a lab coat. The perfumier is trying to give her some insights into the scent recipes and what ingredients cost; Paula is slurring about violet. Now she's crouched on the floor, Rain-Manning "uh oh" over and over again while wiping scent strips on her hand, and fondling the lab techs, and babbling about making people "sexpots," and zzzz.
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In the limo Paula talks about how she's gone nonstop since getting to New York. Tomorrow she has to do radio promotion for AI, so tonight she has to sleep. Uh huh. She's wearing a cute scarf with little skulls on it. She's also rubbing her head all over one of her assistants, non-sequituring that she likes Dunkin Donuts coffee. Finally she gets out of the limo. It takes forever. I timed it. Forever, that's how long it took.
The "" day, although she's wearing the same jacket as "yesterday" with the scarf from "last night," so who fucking knows. Jeff paves the way for what we're about to see with some excuses: Paula hasn't slept, and now she has "the flu" as well. Paula gets made up. She explains why she's all fidgety -- it has something to do with the cameras on her -- but she does sound "nasally" so the flu thing is perhaps true. She goes live, and there's miscommunication re: who she's talking to (the interviewer vs. her earpiece? I don't know, and nobody in the control room seems to either), but it's totally an A/V issue and not Paula's fault at all, so…yeah, Paula being totally rando isn't that interesting to begin with, but if this isn't…that, even? Why is this show even on?
After the break, Jeff talks about how you worry about tech things going wrong, not about Paula. …Okay. I guess you kind of can't worry about it, strictly speaking, because there's nothing you can really do.
Not one minute later, Jeff is talking about how Paula is getting more and more "erratic" and he's never seen her this bad. Jeff: either she's a no-problem pro, or she's a disaster. Decide which it is and get another job, not necessarily in that order. And on top of that? She's not even that bad.
Finally, it's over. She talks a little about how it's "pretty painless," and gets in her limo. Then there's a montage of press coverage of Paula's appearance on these satellite interviews, which you probably remember from earlier this year, and whose side is the show on, anyway, like…I don't get it. It's…not a good show, you guys.
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