Previously on Living Lohan: Dina-saur almost let her house burn down, with her children in it, while she was out partying at the Hawaiian Tropic Zone. Long Island's "Mother of the Year," ladies and gentlemen...
Okay, so I just had a beer (which turned out to be much needed when I caught a glimpse of Denise Richards with no makeup, yikes!), so I think I should be good for the 30 minutes or so... but I make no promises. Let's get this meth scratch party started!
We open on a block party in the LoHood. Ali and one of her friends are cavorting around, covered in whipped cream (or something). I wasn't aware that was par for the course during a block party, but we'll suspend reality for the sake of this... ummm... reality show. Ali VOs that she started getting teased by some local hooligans, and it feels like she's a target. The knife cuts to the quick when someone tells her to "stop trying to be like Lindsay" and asks if she's going to rehab. Oh, snap. Taunting sound effects play as Ali stands on her porch, pouting. The music and visual vocabulary is not unlike the start of that terrifying scene in Meet Me in St. Louis where the children decide to run amok and basically set neighborhood a-flame. Credits.
The day, all is normal and placid at LoHouse. Cody dribbles a soccer ball (alone, God bless him). Dina-saur pours milk -- because she's a wholesome, all-American mom. And then Ali storms into the house all teenage wastrel. Dina-saur checks on what's wrong. Ali gives the typical 14-year-old response -- "NOTHING!" Dina-saur responds in turn, all, "I know you are, but what am I?!" You've just received a master class in parenting. I hope you were taking notes.
Later, Alexis picks up the phone. Ali's school is calling to tell them girls were harassing our precious Aliana at school. Dina-saur decides to take Ali out of school for a day or two until the situation is resolved. Because there's no better way to help kids grow up to be strong and self-empowered than to remove them from any and all difficult situations, fight their battles for them and gossip behind their enemies' backs. As Dina and Alexis discuss the situation, Alexis almost trips over something on the floor -- oh wait, that's just Tina Fey's name, which Dina-saur dropped after calling the situation Mean Girls 2.
Dina-saur gives the rundown of all the taunting, prank phone calls, and such that that LoHouse has endured on account of (implicitly) Lindsay's notoriety.
Alexis justifies that Ali's 14 and living the dream. Oh how that is wrong and not even factually accurate on so many levels. Bygones... Dina-saur confirms that there will always be a mean girl, and the camera pans up the poster of said movie --- with everyone else but LiLo blurred out -- just in case we're not totally clear on the root of all this middle school-spawned evil.
Angsty girly emo music plays as Ali sits in her room. She has flashbacks of the horrible, horrible bullies. I bet you $100 that they'll try to play this in court if a one of the "mean girls" ever gets out of hand. And Dina-saur will be all, "See! Emotional distress! It was on TV." Ali says music is her therapy because she can write songs and work through the pain. I'm paraphrasing to give the full extent of the bullshit melodramatic context, of course.
The day, Dina-saur is running errands when she gets a call from the mother of one of the bullies. They discuss, and Dina-saur says Ali has "been through hell" and that the school is looking at suspension. Dina heads back to the car, where that hot bitch Nana Lohan is waiting for her. Nana pragmatically says that Ali will have to learn to deal with rejection and harassment. Dina-saur subtly segues that it could be here... or in Hollywood. And Nana earns her 15 minutes by reminding us that it happened to Lindsay, so Ali has the benefit of seeing that unfold. Because, honestly, I just might have forgotten that the Lohans are long-suffering people, with many hardships behind them, if sweet, old Nana hadn't reiterated it. Dina-saur hammers home the point: "It hurts."
Over at LoHouse, Ali is the repeat recipient of hang-up phone calls and hateful text messages. I the kitchen, Ali finally answers the phone to a friendly voice; of course, she immediately shuts said friend down and tells her she'll call her back later -- because a conversation with an actual friend would do nothing to advance this episode's story arc.
Ali goes back to talking crap about the bullies, calling them losers and saying they should get a life. She goes so far as to suggest home schooling. Dina-saur says she'd like to see Ali graduate on stage. Ali kind of just screams, whines, and grunts back about it all at the same time. Her level of eloquence is second only to that of Nell Kellty. Dina-saur says that these schoolyard foes are "going for the jugular."
Later, Ali and Cody play soccer. She interviews that having friends isn't her priority now, and that she's mainly close to her family. Cody tells her to ignore the mean girls. How did such a levelheaded, articulate person get in this family? Later at the house, Cody and Nana rehash the school drama. Nana agrees with Cody's avoidance theory.
Upstairs, Dina-saur talks on the videophone with Michael, her oldest son. He, too, has felt the pain of Lindsay's "rising star," facing such trials as people putting Lindsay's picture in their lockers and verbal harassment "for an hour and a half." That is some time-sensitive persecution. Probably someone seeking exact retribution for the minutes of his/her life that are lost forever, thanks to Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. Michael Jr., pragmatic like his Nana, says that Ali will learn from this and eventually be able to suss out who are her real friends. Yeah, good friends like Jeremy Greene. Dina-saur can't resist throwing in Lindsay's name one last time before the break.
That night at the LoHouse, Dina-saur talks about a group called IMPACT that helps underprivileged kids use the arts to deal with their hard lives. She hopes Ali will see these kids her age, who have many more obstacles to overcome, and realize that other people have real problems, instead of agents and gossip bloggers. Ali, of course, thinks the idea is totally stupid. And with that, I think I've unlocked the key to why this show sucks so bad. I mean, take the basic fallacy -- that we're supposed to relate, in some way, to these people. But they are legitimately bad people. And unabashedly so. I know she's 14 and all, but who in their right mind would go on national television and admit that they don't want to take part in community service. That's like admitting you like to kick puppies. Or flick babies in the face.
On the way to IMPACT, all three LoHos (Nana being the fairest LoHo of them all) squabble about Ali's stinky nail polish, then the conversation turns to the harassment. Dina-saur says the bullies are jealous, but Ali doesn't buy it. Nana says even she was teased as a child because she had to wear homemade clothes. Dina-saur also was teased -- surprisingly for her long legs and great beauty. They show pictures of her as a teen, one of which looks so much like Lindsay (before she adopted her current haggard-old-hooker aesthetic), that it's scary. Dina-saur says Ali is a target for a specific reason (Lindsay) but that all kids get teased. So suck it up, A-hole.
Out front at the IMPACT building, the LoHos get snapped by the paps -- another form of harassment, we're meant to infer -- on their way inside. Inside, the kids and their leaders spell out what IMPACT stands for -- Inspiration, Motivation, Preparation, Activism, Commitment, Teamwork. Ali couldn't look more bored.
They sing that song from August Rush. Ali is pissed to be in the presence of (and outdone by) actual singers who can actually sing. Dina-saur gets chills and hopes that Ali will be motivated by these kids' ability to turn life's lemons into lemonade. One of the leaders pulls Ali into a dance session. Uninvited, I suspect, Dina-saur joins for some "white girl in the club" action. (Did you know she used to be a Rockette? True story.) There is awkward clapping-and-stepping (from Ali), a sequence of chaîné turns (from Dina), and also some spinning from Nana, but in a "Who are these dark people, and why are they surrounding me and clapping?" kind of way. Ali, now outfitted in her IMPACT shirt, parrots the group's philosophy, inspirational words from the leader follow, and... scene.
Back home on Long Island, Ali welcomes her vocal coach Sue, while Dina welcomes her friend Eileen. Eileen tells Dina-saur she should be grateful for her children. It's especially poignant because Eileen recently lost her own daughter to meningitis. Or at least it would be if Ali didn't deliver the most robotic speech about the deep significance of the situation. While Dina-saur gently weeps on the sidelines, Ali decides to exploit Eileen's pain and turn one of Eileen's poems into a shitty song. She sings the poem to music, and I think my ears are bleeding. After singing, Ali covers her face with her notebook to pretend like she's crying. Dina-saur wipes away a tear and summarizes that Ali won't waste any more positive energy on mean girls. She's going to put it all into her art!
Dina-saur talks on the phone with an Access Hollywood producer. She says it's the first time she's let cameras into her home (except the obviously glaring example of RIGHT NOW!), and briefs Ali whether she's okay with this. They decide to stage a tabloid interview boot camp. Dina-saur asks Ali all sorts of questions, and basically every answer is some variation in the key of Lindsay. The LoHos know where their bread is buttered, to be sure. Dina-saur pummels Ali with questions, and she fails miserably at answering them in an eloquent, interesting, or appealing way. I hope that's what really happens because it's awesome to see the train as it crashes into the gate. Break.
Back at tabloid TV boot camp, Dina-saur tells Ali she doesn't have to answer every question and that she has the power of "No comment" on her side. Cody tries to get in by asking a question -- because otherwise he will be deemed irrelevant and disappear from the show... and maybe the universe as a whole. He asks Ali which of her brothers she likes better; she gives a bullshit answer. Dina-saur then asks Cody who's his favorite sister and he says "Mommy." Well if that doesn't say it all...
That night, Stacy London from What Not To Wear is apparently now an Access Hollywood correspondent, specializing in the shit show beat. She lobs a softball at Ali, asking her what she feels about Lindsay's dirty dance with fame. Ali struggles to spit out an intelligible answer, and somehow she manages to take the chance to talk smack about the bullies at school. Take that, suckas! Stacy asks Ali what's the one thing she wants people to know about her. Ali mentions her music (natch) and that she's not stuck-up or spoiled, but is actually down-to-earth. Fancy that! Ali shows Stacy her bedroom. At which time Stacy throws everything Ali has ever worn into a giant trash can and subjects her to the dreaded 360-degree mirror. I wish!
Ali VOs, in summary, that she plans to ignore the mean girls. Good puppet! You can repeat. Here's a cookie. Apropos of nothing, except that it pounds to point of this particular episode home one more time, she reiterates to Stacy that she doesn't want to let anyone get in her way and is going to "keep [her] head up high and keep going." Stacy sycophant-nods, Dina-saur approves, and it's another beautiful day in the LoHouse. Until tomorrow, when Alexis goes about her "morning duties" and finds some story about Lindsay exposing her cho-cha again...
week: Ali wants a dog. Dina-saur doesn't. Ali brings a dog home anyway, and it looks like Dina-saur flips her the Brits' version of "the bird." Class. Also, Michael Jr. returns home with his girlfriend, who can't be in the house for more than 10 minutes before she's practically climbing out the window, trying to escape. Can you blame her?
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