Kathy E-mail Watch: Nothing yet. Don't make me start courting Kathie Lee Gifford's e-mails.
This week's opening stand-up salvo involves a story about Kathy's mom watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians, a show that manages to be too trashy and pathetic even for me. And while it's a funny story, nothing will top my Grandpa watching Sex and the City, so let's move on.
Kathy gathers Team Griffin for a company meeting, at which point she informs them that she signed the three of them up to teach a class at the Learning Annex on how to be a celebrity assistant. The enthusiasm is noticeably absent, even given Tom and Jessica's usual state of catatonia. The Learning Annex people even misspelled Tom as "Tim" on their brochure, and the best reaction he can give is a weary rubbing of his eyes. I guess all that nonstop masturbating can really sap your energy, but what's Jess's excuse? Tiffany, of course, giggles her way through the entire meeting, particularly when Kathy and Jess re-enact the moment they decided Jess needed an assistant. Nobody's laughing when they find out the seminar is three hours long, though. Well, nobody but Kathy. Oh, and it's in two days. Go team!
Kathy interviews that since Team Griffin will be busy teaching others this week, she's going to help people, too, by filming a PSA for guide dogs. Let's hope she can make it a smidge less depressing than those Sarah McLachlan spots for the ASPCA. If I see one more sad-eyed dog begging me to adopt it before it's put down, all set to the Canadian warblings of "Angel," I don't know what I'll do. Kathy meets the dogs and their owners -- a blind woman and an Iraq vet amputee -- and you get to see yet another moment where Kathy lets down the fame-hustling façade for a moment, which you know I like. Unsurprisingly, she strikes up an easy conversation with the vet. Then she brings out her own dogs, hellions that they are, and while the soundtrack is all scary and ominous, all that ends up happening is a lot of butt-sniffing. Kathy displays her disciplinary tactic, which involves a motion I can only describe as pretending your hand is a stun gun and fake-tasering the dog's neck. Like, making a sound and everything. It doesn't really do anything, though the guide dog foundation guy seems to think Kathy's creating a pair of neurotic dogs. Kathy interviews that she plans to invite Cesar Milan, The Dog Whisperer, over to vindicate her technique.
So Kathy preps to tape the PSA, all the while this guide dog foundation guy -- I had to rewind the episode just to learn his name is "Jeff," because he's now inserted himself into the action here -- keeps hammering on her about how she's being too preemptively naggy with the dogs. Whatever, Jeff, mind your own dogs. He even takes a disapproving tone when Kathy hauls out the Emmy as she takes photos with the vet. YOU'RE a shameless self-promoter, Jeff.
After the break, we see the dogs are totally coincidentally disrupting the Team Griffin meeting. Why, just after Kathy talked about bringing in Cesar Milan to whip them into shape? What a lucky turn of events! She tells Jessica to call up Cesar and see if he would consider getting over his tragic Emmy loss to Kathy and come train her dogs. "He trains people, he rehabilitates dogs," she clarifies, and when Jessica starts laughing at the idea of Kathy getting trained, Kathy threatens her with the hand-taser. More poorly-mannered-dogs footage -- Chance starts humping Pom Pom, for instance -- to which Kathy says, "Whisper that, Cesar!"
Kathy pays her mom a visit, where one of Kathy's "best gays," Patrick, has been occasionally keeping her company -- proving once and for all that tough, old broads over 60 are like catnip to the gays. Just ask Hillary. Anyway, that Dorothy Gayle-style blue checkerboard pattern on Maggie's couch is still an endless source of amusement for me, not least because my parents once upholstered one of their couches with that same fabric, I swear to god. Anyway, it seems Maggie and Patrick are having a hell of a time these days: out on the town, home for romantic dinners, acupuncture appointments. It's starting to weird Kathy out. "I'm starting to feel like they're Ashton and Demi," she interviews, "and I'm Bruce Willis." In the interests of driving a wedge, she asks Maggie if she's become acquainted with any of Patrick's homo-gay sex stories, but she says they don't discuss those things. Kathy and her mom are awesome, but I have to say Patrick is bringing nothing to this conversation. Besides a weird dark spot on his upper lip that could not look more like a Hitler mustache.
Anyway, Patrick brought Kathy some literature on Bears to peruse (for what reason, beyond Kathy's all-consuming need to draw anything gay-related into her orbit at all times, we don't know yet), and Kathy starts showing it off to Maggie, explaining the whole deal with Bears. Maggie thinks these guys look like the guys you'd see at the corner bar, drinking beer and eating "big, hearty sandwiches." Holy shit, that's adorable. "Big, hearty sandwiches."
Back at the house, Team Griffin is preparing for their Learning Annex gig, and Kathy has invited Team Woz (i.e., Woz and his "Anal Retentive Assistant" Julie) to come help them out. Well, really, Julie helps them out, while Kathy and Woz head off with a roll of what are either $2 bills that Woz is joking one could use as toilet paper (because: rich) or else it's actual toilet paper made up to look like $2 bills. Either way, I'm kind of freaked out that he and Kathy just took off to a secluded room with it. Upstairs, Julie's brand of "helping" seems to be talking about how much busier and more efficient she is. She seems nice, though Jessica kind of bitchily interviews that she wouldn't have hung out with her in high school. They end up bonding over the respective fickle tendencies of their bosses, however, and now it sounds like Julie is going to be teaching the class with them. Elsewhere, Kathy and Woz share a giggle at the thought of the impending car wreck.
So cut to the seminar, and things are going well enough, Jessica says, until "trouble walks through the door" -- "trouble" being Kathy and Woz. COMMERCIAL!
So Kathy starts flipping her assistants off from the back of the room, while Julie tries to maintain some dignity and talk about managing stress levels. Tom, subtitled as always because he mumbles like a psychopath, says he deals with stress by not sleeping and pulling his eyelashes out. Speaking of psychopath! Kathy latches right onto this one, and she asks repeated questions to Tom about it. I don't think he's kidding either.
Someone asks Team Griffin about any nice things they've done for Kathy, which devolves into Kathy calling Jess on the phone and harassing her about never buying her any nice presents. Jess does mention, kind of sheepishly, that she was there for Kathy during the divorce, which I totally thought was gonna bring the mood down, but it didn't. Then Jess tells a story about Kathy losing a panty-liner earlier in the day. What's good for the goose, Kathy! Anyway, everybody seems to have fun, and no one asks for their money back. At least not on camera.
Back at the house, Cesar Milan has come by to train the dogs. Cesar looks way more like Benjamin Bratt's older, dog-whispering cousin than I expected him to. I was picturing someone more frou-frou, I'm not gonna lie. They joke around a bit about Kathy using the training on the people in her life, including her mother, and then about getting the dogs to walk on treadmills (...I don't know). Then Cesar starts eyeing the Emmy, which is course is displayed prominently on a table. Kathy interviews that she will use Cesar's lust for the Emmy to make him do her bidding.
So then there is dog training, mostly focused on getting the dogs to walk on the treadmill. Cesar does his whispering thing and sure enough, Pom Pom (Chance? I kind of forgot which one was which) is walking on the treadmill, calm as can be. Kathy's totally impressed, you can tell, though she completely goes back on her promise to give him the Emmy. You can pry it out of her cold, dead hand, she says.
Kathy and Team Griffin are off to San Francisco for the Bear Convention (sigh), where she is met by the head Bear (it would seem), who introduces Kathy to "[his] cub" (siiiiigh). Kathy, of course, brings Woz, both because he looks like the dictionary definition of a Bear, and because she hopes it will make him uncomfortable. She doesn't say that second one, but come on. Anyway, if you've seen one big, fat, hairy dude, you've seen them all, so I'm not going to describe everyone Kathy encounters. She poses for photos while Jessica flirts with the guys. She wants to be a Cub but settles for "Goldilocks" status, which I think means she's a Bear hag. Kathy pulls Woz -- who is being a hell of a good sport about this -- into a photo.
Of course, since Kathy hasn't fulfilled her goal of freaking Woz out yet, she decides to take him to the "Bear Maul" (because it's a... mall? Siiiiiiiiiiigh) which, you will be shocked to learn, is a Turkish bazaar of Bear-related sex paraphernalia. Woz is still unfazed. Thwarted again, Griffin!
After the break, Kathy's in her limo preparing to host the Bear convention. She's brought Patrick along to help her flesh out (pun not intended) her Bear material, while Tom earns his paycheck by rifling through Kathy's bag of sex toys. Patrick and Woz will be along to help Team Griffin sell merch. Kathy asks what the plan is if Woz gets his ass grabbed. Tom: "Well, we've got bear traps." Okay that earned him his paycheck. Even a mumbling psycho is funny twice a day -- isn't that how that old saying goes?
So it's on to the Bear Convention, where, as you would expect with any event designed to boost the self-esteem for a marginalized community, there is a mascot in a plush bear costume. I feel prouder already! Woz and Jess bicker a bit because she thinks he's planning on giving away a whole bunch of merch. As a means of cutting the tension, Team Griffin gets the bear mascot to dance for them. I'm kind of impressed with the depth of the mascot's dance knowledge -- from the Tootsie Roll to the Cabbage Patch and back again. That thing was one Lindy Hop away from being my new plush boyfriend.
Sure enough, once merch sales start, Woz starts giving away shit left and right, awash in Bear adoration. Jessica, I think, is honestly pissed. She says it's lucky she has access to the Billionaire Bear's credit card number.
Outside, Kathy comes upon our favorite dancing bear mascot, who apparently did a little too much dancing and is now getting some air -- and some vitamin water -- in a back alley. Kathy sits down to him, and he really must be woozy because it takes him a while to notice that it's Kathy Griffin sitting to him. At which point he freaks out. It's adorable.
Kathy and Team Griffin talk about the long line for the men's room and whether or not that means there's fucking going on in there. And whether any of it involves Woz. So Kathy takes the stage and busts out some Oprah/Gayle material, a bit on the Tom Cruise Scientology video, and copious references to the men's room fuck line. Looks like she kills.
After the show, Woz brags to Kathy about all the shirts he sold, while Jessica (who I honestly think is only like 30% kidding at this point) bitches that he just gave 'em away and plunked his own money down for them. Woz crows about all the tips he got, too, while Jess and Tiffany fume, then stage a walk-out...to go get some drinks, no doubt. Kathy forces Tom to join them in solidarity, though he expresses a desire to go work for Woz now. Kathy interviews that she doesn't care if Team Griffin and Team Woz are fighting, so long as the merch is moving. She thanks Woz for "following [his] bliss," since I guess his bliss is selling "Straight To Hell" t-shirts, and gives him a warm and honest hug.
Aw.
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Joe R probably got himself blacklisted from the Bear community after this recap and will likely need Kathy's help to get back in their good graces. Which is yet another reason she should e-mail him.