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Have you ever met a rich lady with lots of problems? Now you can! You can meet four of them.
Three of them are pretty awesome and one of them is absolutely terrible, but they all have one thing in common: Friendship. Wait, two things: Friendship, and a penchant for making the worst possible choice you can make in any given circumstance.
The best one is Savannah "Savi" Davis, who is a lawyer at a successful firm whose chef husband Harry is kind of obsessing on their fertility issues. When they find out his sperm have like a hundred problems, he sort of loses it and starts treating her really crappy, so after her many attempts to be romantic and darling are brutally rebuffed, she finally gives in to her work-husband Dominic and they do it on a desk. Even still, she is pretty rad. (This is the Alyssa Milano one.)
The second-best one -- but the front-runner by a mile in terms of making ridiculously shitty decisions at all times during her waking life -- is Karen Kim, who is a licensed therapist somehow. Her deal is, she had a therapy patient who figured out some things all at once, six weeks ago. The first one was that he was going to die of lung cancer in six weeks. The second one is that he was in love with his therapist, which is a thing called "transference" that is very normal in the therapist/client relationship.
What is not normal usually is when the therapist says "okay" and then starts fucking the client and then gives the client killer doses of morphine and then lies to the whole family about everything that has happened and then allows herself to be courted by his troubled teenage son. Karen takes this less-traveled path -- despite Savi telling her eleven times that she is going to go to jail forever and will never be a therapist again, due to breaking every single rule of being a therapist -- and in the end, might also be implicated in an insurance lawsuit because of the guy's assisted suicide. (This is the lady from Lost, so you can imagine how even as she's doing these awful, ridiculous things you're still kinda rooting for her.)
The weirdest part of this whole thing -- besides what I am about to tell you, which is that there is a ghost! -- is that Karen Kim only gets emotional about her whirlwind affair with her dead client that she helped kill himself and is probably going to hook up with his child when the wife reveals to her that she was the one who actually gave him the death he was craving. She is pissed, okay, that her boyfriend chose his wife to snuff out his candle, because it makes her feel like a mistress, almost like she is on a TV show about just that.
Number three, who I also like very much, is April Malloy. She is an owner of a West Elm kind of store, and her deal is that she is being haunted by a ghost.
I am not making this up. Her storyline is that she has a ghost that calls her on the phone.
Once again, Savi steps up to point out how we live in reality and reality is all around us, and eventually April realizes that maybe it is not a ghost, and so she should stop worrying about being a widow or about ghosts and start worrying about dating the incredibly charming and adorable Richard, who likes to drop by her little store and talk about throw pillows and be stood up for dates by April Malloy.
Also, everybody talks about throw pillows all the time. Nonstop. It's weird.
Once Savi uses her common sense and a private investigator to prove that ghosts are not calling April Malloy on the phone, her problems just get worse: In fact, her dead husband had a secret family! Not a ghost family, just a regular one. What a rollercoaster for April Malloy! First ghosts, then a date, then a secret family.
They are all friends and they are all very supportive of each other's horrible decision-making procedures, which is a mixed bag if you think about it. That's why I try to be as judgmental as possible with the people that I love, so they will make better choices. I would be friends with those three ladies, for sure. But not number four. Not Joss, who is just sloppy.
Joss, who is Savi's younger sister, who lives in her poolhouse, who is just a bloody car crash of a person: She sleeps with her bosses, she sleeps with her clients. Maybe you, maybe she slept with you, I don't know. Hide your throw pillows! Hide your kids! Hide your wife! Oh yes, because she also sleeps with lesbians' wives. In this case it's understandable because it's Shannyyynnn Sosssahossammon, who brought eyebrows to the party in a big way this time but whose hair is a normal human color of hair, which I have never seen on her. Don't do it, girl! Joss will take us all down with her!
All in all, what a wonderful world these ladies live in, where nothing has to make sense and you can just do whatever horrible self-endangering shit you feel like doing and your friends will still support you and advise you about throw pillows.
Week: Karen is like, "As a licensed therapist, I think you should not tell your husband you cheated on him with your work-husband lawyer Dominic. As a person on this show, I suggest that you film yourself cheating on him and just leave the tape around wherever. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go sleep with everybody in my dead boyfriend's family real quick." April is like, "As a recently haunted woman whose ghostly husband was a secret polygamist, I feel free to yell at Savi for cheating." And Joss is like, "I haven't slept with Shannyn Sossamon yet? What the hell kind of free spirit does that?" and then she immediately sleeps with Shannyn Sossamon.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!SIX WEEKS AGO
Savannah Davis strides up to a hotel's outside bar and orders a scotch on the rocks. She is beautiful, put-together, the whole thing. She speaks to a blandly handsome man named Harry, who has an accent, and they flirt for a while -- "Where's your wedding ring? Put it on! Mrrrowww!" -- before heading upstairs. It starts out hot and heavy, Santigold playing, the whole thing, but in case you were wondering...
Harry: "Hang on, hang on. Wait wait just wait wait wait wait."
Savi: "Ugh, what."
Harry: "I should probably be on top."
Savi: "This is a metaphor about our marriage?"
Harry: "No. Yes, but no. It's because this way, more of my semen will end up in the ampulla of your uterine tube, where it belongs."
Savi: "Heterosexuality. God, how do we even go through with it?"
They have awkward sad fertility sex, but they both know this time is not it. Savannah is by far the best one out of this parade of dorks, but her husband is by far the worst, so it cancels out.
I have this rule where if you feel the need to pretend I'm not me when we have sex, guess what: We are not having sex, ever again. Problem fuckin' solved.
MEANWHILE
(Josslyn, Savannah's sister, is just having sex this entire time with her boss, but we never see either of their faces, so it's just this weird overlay of random desk sex -- staplers, mousepads, fucking fucking fucking -- that intrudes on the overall narrative while we meet the other three ladies.)
INCLUDING
April Malloy, who is disturbed to hear a man's very deep voice going oh baby over and over in her home furnishings boutique. Eventually she wanders over to a customer who is giving her the boss eye, and asks if he is saying "oh baby" over and over and if so, why.
Customer: "It isn't me -- it's our sex app, Shaggr. It's like Grindr, for straight people who don't understand anything about the world or how it works or why there is Grindr."
April: "Wait, I have this sex app? I thought straight Grindr was just called being a person."
Customer: "It would explain why your pants keep saying oh baby."
April's Pants: "oh baby oh baby oh baby"
April: "Wait, so now what?"
Customer: "Now we have anonymous sex. It's the nineties, after all."
April: "I am a 9/11 widow or something, I can't do that. But I would love to show you to some bedding or other purchases you might make in this store you are in."
April: "Yes, and okay."
Everybody: "Throw pillows throw pillows throw pillows throw pillows throw pillows."
MORE LEGAL THINGS
Dominic: "Based on your hot pink baby stripper costume you're wearing under your clothes, I take it you have after work plans? A date with a nine-year-old boy, perhaps?"
Savi: "I thought I did, but then I remembered that my husband's low motility and worrisome morphology makes me less of a woman and that I don't deserve love."
Dominic: "If you insist on trying to save that shitshow of a marriage, let's make a deal. I will do all of your important legal work if you show me a whole inch of your underwear for ten seconds."
Savi: "Not even the bustier? Just... that bare inch you saw earlier. What is this, primetime on ABC?"
Dominic: "C'mon. It'll be like Fifty Shades but, you know, even less worthwhile."
Savi: "Fine. But only because of time management."
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Savi: "What an exhilarating burst of femininity that made me feel! Now I know why my sister Josslyn has that debilitating sex addiction!"
Dominic: "Women are so fucking dumb."
Savi: "I am in control, sistagirl! Hear me, world? I am a sexual being!"
Dominic: "I could literally have shown no less respect to a coworker if I had actually bent her over the desk and spanked her like a child."
Savi: "I choose what happens to my body! I choose what it means! In my own mind!"
Dominic: "Yep. And so do I. See how that works?"
Savi: "Here I come, Harry! Get ready for my womanhood all up in your face! I am in my prime! This is how our marriage gets saved! One embarrassing mistake after another!"
Dominic: "Cool, I'll just be back here, angling for your job and masturbating about your dumb ass. As if I ever could have seen you as professional competition."
SAVANNAH'S KITCHEN
Hostess: "Welcome to Savannah's Kitchen, the restaurant named after the wife of my boss I'm clearly fucking. And you are?"
Savi: "The owner's wife! This is my kitchen! Where is my husband?"
Hostess: "Who?"
Harry: "I'm right here. Get the fuck out of my restaurant."
Savi: "Can I just show you my tits really quick?"
Harry: "God, you're a whore. Get out. How pathetic are you."
Savi: "...Oh my God, you're right! Men are always right. What was I thinking, trying to cheer you up and reconnect with you as if we're both people? Clearly I should have just rubbed dirt all over my disgusting body and eaten some insects in the yard."
Harry: "A real wife wouldn't need this explained to her."
Savi: "Much less a real woman. God, I am fucking loathsome."
Harry: "Now will you kindly get the fuck out of here?"
Savi: "I'm so sorry, honey. I'll try to do better time."
Harry: "And you'll fail."
Savi: "Yeah, probably."
DIAMONDS!
This show is, like, when I was a kid I remember I would ask the girls on the bus about their romance novels and their soap operas because they liked talking about them. I wasn't one of those gay boys that tried to get into soaps in order to have something to talk about, because I've always been a pretentious snot and I don't like that stuff anyway, not even as a pretense, but I did and do love hearing about it. I still ask my friend Karen to give me detailed descriptions of like, every storyline about Lucky or every storyline she can remember that features a lost island kingdom such as Pretoria. Nothing better than watching somebody slip into that state, like Twilight you know, that excited talking: "And THEN he bought her a house but she didn't know for sure if she WANTED to live in the house, but her SISTER needed underwear so they went to the STORE and she couldn't take OFF the sexy underwear but she had to go to WORK..."
That's what this is like. It passes zero sniff tests and -- with a few less thrusts -- would no doubt be the perfect show for a ten-year-old girl who doesn't understand, like, anything about anything. Like one of those Danielle Steele books where the girl raises horses and the man is like "Do you like diamonds?" and it turns out his grandmother is whatever, a Rockefeller, and that's why he was a cowboy so nobody would know and then she ends up with her own perfume company by working hard and it's called "Diamonds" and then everybody gets raped and her husband dies on a luxury cruise and she goes back to her cowboy lover from the first night of the miniseries and at first he doesn't recognize her because he has amnesia, but then he smells her perfume and he's like, "Diamonds! I remember now!"
LESBIANS!
Joss: "And then this is [an architectural style] located in a [neighborhood] where the throw pillows are known for their..."
Sally: "I don't like it. I don't like anything. I am mean and angry! And business minded."
Shannyn Sossamon: "I'm a stay-at-home femme with a mousy personality that belies the fact that I am the gorgeous and amazing Shannyn Sossamon. I am doing the best I can."
Joss: "I too am in a position of maybe being a Kept Person, and it's making me feel weird feelings. Not self-respect per se, but... I see you, Shannyn Sossamon. And I see that you are doing your best."
Shannyn Sossamon: "Whoa, did you just act like a person for a second?"
Joss: "No! I am moving in on you sexually. Get with the program."
THE RECENTLY WIDOWED, LESS RECENTLY CUCKQUEANED ELIZABETH GREY
Karen: "Anyway, your son is going crazy and thought you should know. I haven't dropped a bunch of bullshit in your lap in at least twenty-four hours, so."
Elizabeth: "God, I wish I had some motherfucking friends. Somebody other than my dead husband's therapist that I don't actually know like at all."
Karen: "You can have Joss if you want."
Elizabeth: "Nope, no thanks. Just thinking out loud. Anyway, as a medical professional, what should I do?"
Karen: "Lie to him about everything. Make him feel like he's the one that's crazy. Imply that he is to blame not only for his father's illness but also for everything else bad that may have ever happened."
Elizabeth: "If you say so. Like, starting with what?"
Karen: "Well, if you could make him stop asking about the circumstances of Thomas's death that would really help me out."
Elizabeth: "Yeah, about that..."
Karen: "Oh, now what. FFS."
Elizabeth: "I never should have told him Thomas was alone when he died."
Karen: "I mean, he should know the truth..."
Elizabeth: "Well see, but it isn't. I was there. He told me you gave him that Rx for when it got too awful and it did, and we went for it."
Karen: "Wait, so hold up. You were there when he did it?"
Elizabeth: "Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So I can't tell Sam the truth, because then it'll be all..."
Karen: "I don't care about any of that, bitch. I gotta go."
Elizabeth: "But you're a therapist and I just told you I euthanized my husband, I mean, can you give me a minute to process that with you?"
Karen: "No way, go to hell."
I mean, of course she holds her while she cries, she's not a monster -- after Savi she's the best one -- but her response to this is fucking outlandish either way, as you'll see.
SAVI @ HM
Savi: "Drinking alone while my husband screws bitchy hostesses and my business partner masturbates to my sad, sad underwear. And still I am less of a mess than anybody else on this show."
Dominic text: PS I am masturbating to you right now.
Savi: "LOL. Having a job at my level is a thing that women have been able to do in the mainstream for only about forty years or so. It's so funny and fun to shit on that."
(Ring ring!)
Savi: "If this is a ghost, I'm drunk."
April: "It's me! I need your help getting dressed for my date!"
Savi: "Oh, are you not a... grown-up?"
April: "No! And I already stupidly invited your whore sister over and she's dressing me like a quote glittery whore!"
Savi: "How do you get into this shit, girl?"
April: "Why are any of us friends with her?"
APRIL'S HOUSE
Her invisible daughter Lucy got to be invisible for her birthday. I feel this will be a trend.
Joss: "Get out here, you sexual creature!"
April: "I feel like Latoya."
Savi: "Uh, you look like Latoya."
It's weird because actually she looks great and not at all weird or overdone, but the disconnect between the script as written and the visuals is bizarre for a pilot. Even one that was done like a year ago or whatever. Like they go through her other clothes -- once Joss has been distracted from her whore mission by babysitting the invisible children (or are they even there?) -- and everything is perfectly lovely so they're just blah-blah about nothing. Even her makeup isn't particularly severe, but Savi gets after it like she's Piper Laurie.
(Ring-ring!)
(Ring-ring!)
Savi: "Uh, are you gonna get that?"
April: "No, because it's a ghost."
Savi: "Are you really this stupid?"
April: "I really am."
Savi: "Okay, if simply reminding you that ghosts don't exist isn't doing the trick, I will fully hire the Kalinda at my firm to check this out."
April: "But we already know where the call is coming from..."
Inside the house! A balloon pops! Just kidding, the doorbell rings. It must be Richard! Everybody runs around acting absolutely stupid -- but fairly cute, given what they have to work with -- and but then when the door opens, it's not Hot Dad at all: It's Karen Kim, walking life tornado.
Savi: "Oh my God, why are you making that face?"
Karen: "Because of everything!"
LATER
Joss: "Now we know why you've been incommunicado. And it was because you were getting fucked. You were getting #yolo fucked, that's the most fucked you can get! You lucky slut!"
Savi: "Jesus Christ, Josslyn. Not now. Karen honey, why didn't you tell us you were getting #yolo fucked?"
Karen: "I kinda thought you'd tell me knock it off."
Savi: "Honey, why? I would never say that."
Karen: "Really because I feel like any person on Earth would tell me to..."
Joss: "The important thing is that you don't half-ass it. You must continue to destroy this family in every way you can think of."
Karen: "Oh, that's the worst part! Get this, his bitch wife was the one that killed him. He swore he was gonna do it himself and she has the nerve to tell me she was there. As he took his dying breath!"
Ladies: "What a bitch."
Karen: "I know! What does that make me, some kind of goddamn Mistress on ABC Mondays at 10/9 Central?"
Savi: "There is no worse feeling in the world than losing the person you love."
Joss: "Oh, were we suddenly talking about you? Karen, no offense, but I feel worse for his kid. What a mess."
Karen: "Somebody write down the time. Joss, you just made total sense for a second. I do feel bad about him. I just don't know how to help him, other than by molesting him."
Savi: "No. You have to cut ties with these people immediately."
Karen: "What? Why would I do that?"
Savi: "Because this is a malpractice suit waiting to happen."
Karen: "How so?"
Savi: "Because you fucking committed malpractice?"
Karen: "I don't understand. I don't get what you're saying."
LAWYERS!
Dominic: "Are you being stalked, Savannah?"
Savi: "Not yet, but probably."
Dominic: "Because the Kalinda just gave me this, phone numbers of a stalker. Or a ghost. Or are they obscene phone calls? Do you want obscene phone calls? I can do that. It'll be super degrading."
Savi: "Oh, you. That's sweet."
Joss: "I'm here at your work for no reason!"
Savi: "I was just calling April to tell her I have her stalker's info, but she's not answering her landline."
Joss: "Bet I know why. Hey, since your marriage is going down in flames anyway, could I live in your poolhouse?"
Savi: "Did your boss not just buy you an entire house to fuck you in?"
Joss: "That would represent a positive step forward and thus, I cannot accept. Who is that giant sexy man fondling his genitals while looking at you? I am going to have sexual intercourse with him, hang on."
Savi: "No, Dominic's my co-worker! That would be weird."
Savi spots Mrs. Grey having a meeting with some other lawyers, and immediately remembers how her friend Karen Kim is going to jail forever for being the stupidest person who has ever lived.
SPEAKING OF
Sam: "Why are we on this baseball field? Did we build it and he will come?"
Karen: "No, it is for even worse reasons than a ghost."
Sam: "Are we doing some Freudian thing where you whip out a ball, ask me to play catch, repair my inner child?"
Karen: "Literally none of that has anything to do with Freudian analysis."
Sam: "Are you sure? Because I went to Brown."
Karen: "Long story short, your dad used to come here a lot towards the end because of some boring story."
Sam: "Related to me?"
Karen: "Yeah. It is super boring. Anyway, he loved you."
Sam: "I am healed!"
Sam: "Hey, just out of curiosity, are you the woman he was having an affair with?"
Karen: "There are two answers to that. One of them would get me out of this fucking jam and not make you into a crazy person. I'm going to say no, though."
Sam: "Great, because I am going to date you and it would be weird if he already did."
Karen: "Cool. Wait, what?"
SOME MOTEL OR SOMETHING
April: "A ghost? Lives here? How does a ghost pay rent?"
Savi: "April it's not a ghost, it's a person. Come on. You'll figure it out eventually."
White Lady: "Me? No, I'm not calling you over and over pretending to be a ghost. It's my son. He has autism I guess. He just really likes phones?"
April: "Oh, okay."
April has herself a sit down-and-cry right there on the steps, I guess because her dead husband is not using the phone? They both cry together and it is so stupid and fake. The most irritating part is that Savannah indulges it, like, has she just been doing this the whole time, like for three years just parking her ass and weeping wherever she is? If so, that's sad and you're a good friend. But if this is about a ghost, stand the fuck up and let's go get drunk. Give me a break.
SAVANNAH'S (ACTUAL) KITCHEN
Joss: "All my glittery dumb crap is everywhere! Sorry. I'll clean it all up."
Harry: "No problem. Happy to have you."
Harry: "Savannah, you ignorant bitch. How dare you move your homeless sister into our poolhouse without getting my written approval a month in advance?"
Savi: "I know, right? I guess I did it because I hate you. Not because she's my sister."
Harry: "Well, as long as you understand that I hate you twice as much."
Savi: "Can we not talk about this? Right as you're heading out to work?"
Harry: "Talk about what? I'm only going to get meaner and shittier."
Savi: "I know. Maybe that's what I'm into."
Harry: "You want to talk about the future of our relationship? Fine. No more taking your stupid temperature or caring about your dumb ovulating, for starters. And you can stop deforming my sperms with your ambivalence."
Savi: "Your what with my what?"
Harry: "You and I both know you never wanted this child! You just want to succeed in your career! Like a total cunt!"
Savi: "Maybe it's true. Maybe I couldn't handle thinking such awful things about myself, until you told me them. But I think I'm done talking about this for now."
Harry: "Really? Because I'M JUST GETTING STARTED! YOU'RE THE ONE THAT WANTED TO TALK ABOUT IT, BITCH. YOU'RE THE ONE WHO WANTED TO TALK ABOUT IT."
Finally he throws the refrigerator through the French doors and out into the pool and kicks the kitchen table over and crushes all the Danishes in his fists and whatever pathetic man bullshit, and then instead of packing up her shit and her sister's shit and leaving his horrible ass forever, Savi just cries and cries and cries. I don't blame her, she's in a very particular situation I have no business judging, but it's just awful to watch. And knowing what she's going to do instead, which is majorly toxic by itself, I can't help but think that whether or not she should have this opinion of herself -- which she shouldn't -- there is no reason whatsoever for her life to be this way. I wish a ghost or somebody's estranged son or husband would come and murder his dumb worthless ass; like, not since Teddy from Nashville has a person so worthless been so mysteriously married to somebody this cool.
LESBIANS
Shannyn Sossamon shows up alone, because "Sally" had an emotional freakout about not wanting to buy a house near the water, so now -- after several jokes about lesbians that aren't that funny, but sure are easy to make from the cheap seats -- it's just Joss and Shannyn Sossamon and some morning mimosas and whatever the future shall bring. (The show is called Mistresses and Joss is the worst, so I'm pretty sure we know.)