The Prudish Miss M

S05E01

Kathy waits outside Bette's dressing room, which has a large, cheerful sign saying "PLEASE DO NOT ENTER OR KNOCK" on it. I guess that's really not all that cheerful. Kathy looks nervous and edgy and starts automatically making fun of things like the combination lock on the door. "There's a fire extinguisher. In case she's so talented, she just explodes." Finally, one minute before the show, Bette bursts out of her room! There's a burst of babbling, and then it turns out that Bette wants Kathy to help out with the show somehow. Does Kathy want to do ten minutes? Shut up! They compare walks, because this whole time Bette is moving quickly toward the stage. I guess. I mean, it's just hallways, but I assume that's where she's going. Then Bette suddenly tells Kathy not to come near her, and Kathy ducks out of her eyeline as Bette ducks through a doorway.

So then Bette's tour manager tells Kathy she's really supposed to be in the show. She's directed to go talk to the choreographer (Toni Basil! Yay!) and get a costume. Somewhere backstage, Toni glares at Kathy: "Okay, what has Bette Midler told you?" I imagine it must be very hard not to call her "Bette Midler" with both names all the time. Toni assures Kathy that this'll be easy. All she has to do is lie face down, say one line and then get off stage. Kathy tells us that Toni Basil is the "Hey, Mickey" girl, but who doesn't know that? I had that album at one point. Toni's cover of "Rock On" was pretty weird.

Toni takes no crap from Kathy, making her lie face down. Do it like that! Not like that, like that! Get off stage in twenty seconds or the flying motel will decapitate you. Like Bret Michaels at the Tony Awards!

Tom, Tiffany, and Kathy are in the wings as showgirls run around past them. Kathy realizes she has to change, and makes a big deal out of doing it right out in the open, saying "I am now officially in show business!" Yes, now you're in show business.

As Kathy lies down on the motel, a mermaid in a wheelchair rolls past. The mermaid is an essential part of Bette's show. She is! Anyway, the motel set gets wheeled on stage while Bette is saying "Girls, we have arrived!" so I guess there's some kind of plot or something. We see Bette as a mermaid in a wheelchair to some other wheelchair-bound mermaids. The joke is that it's not "Cirque du Soleil"; it's "Sunque du So Low". Bette delivers the cue: "Girls, I'm afraid we've sunk as low as the D-List with Kathy Griffin," and Kathy stands up, absorbs some applause and informs Dolores (that's Bette's mermaid character) that she doesn't go to her job and knock the dicks out of her mouth, which is also her line from CNN. I guess it's her signature comeback now. Then she shimmies across the stage and is gone.