Previously: Danielle had lunch and bitched about Caroline. Jacqueline, Caroline and Teresa had lunch and bitched about Danielle. Danielle's daughter Christine became an international supermodel at the reeeeeeally important IMG modeling agency. Teresa's daughter Gia became an international baby supermodel by walking around in someone's office. You are now up to speed.
Jacqueline participates in some arts and crafts with her young son CJ (who is suspiciously likable for a character on this show, even if he is, like, seven), and apologizes for all those traumatizing fights she's always having with Ashley in front of him while he's trying to clean the house. He's clearly irked by the fighting, but being the most mature member of his family, he just puts his personal issues aside and focuses on his work -- t-shirt puff-painting. We're all going to be working for CJ in 10 years. He will be in high school, and we will be his minions, and the world will be a perfect place.
Danielle returns home with her other, non-supermodel daughter to find a bouquet of roses from Jacqueline lying on her doorstep. The roses are to congratulate Christine for her trade cover, but Danielle decides to make it about her and leaves a nasty voicemail for Jacqueline (interrupting the puff painting, I might add), accusing her of not being allowed to make her own decisions or whatever, which, OK: Yes, it is sad and frustrating that Jacqueline is so afraid of Caroline and her own damn husband that she can't even eat lunch with whoever she wants, but also shut the hell up, Danielle. Jacqueline tried to make it right by doing something sweet for Christine that had nothing to do with you, and you freaked out because you're an egomaniacal idiot who craves conflict. Also, who gets mad about roses? They are beautiful!
Dina's house; perfectly groomed cat on the couch. Teresa comes over and Dina remarks on how perfectly pregnant Teresa is (and she's right, actually), and they sit around and worry about the possibility of herbal tea "putting [Teresa] into birth" for a while. They have to carefully select a tea that won't "put" anyone "into birth" because A) Dina assumes the birth would be instantaneous, and that she alone would have to deliver the baby, a procedure in which she is not (yet) trained, but, more importantly, B) delivering Teresa's baby would necessitate seeing her "chuckie," and Dina fears looking at Teresa's vagina (I'm an adult!) would cause some sort of Arc of the Covenant face-melting situation, so Earl Grey it is.
They move into a sitting room to enjoy their tea and bitch about Danielle. Dina wishes Danielle hadn't invited her to her luncheon last episode. Teresa wishes Danielle would die (I'm paraphrasing). The perfectly groomed cat hides behind a plant, playing the voice of the audience.
Caroline arrives at Jacqueline's home for some coffee and for some bitching about Danielle. Jacqueline wishes Danielle hadn't invited her to her luncheon last episode, but she really extra-wishes Danielle hadn't left her that nasty voicemail when all she did was politely decline her invitation and then generously send expensive roses to make Christine feel as special as the Queen of England and The Bachelorette combined. Caroline's like, "That is bad, but, also, did Danielle ever acknowledge the new Lion King, Nicholas, when he was born?" Jacqueline's like, "Oh shit, yeah, you're right. Thanks for bringing up offenses I cared so little about that I literally forgot they occurred so I can be mad at someone for you!" It begins to dawn on Jacqueline that Caroline may be slightly biased against Danielle, but the feeling passes, and now Danielle not acknowledging her baby is Jacqueline's cause in life. Jacqueline is so fucking stupid, you guys.
Danielle's house; her tiny, tackily named dog Fendi tries to claw his way to freedom. Christine is lounging on Danielle's bed, coping with the stresses of her new career as a walking hanger. She will have to wear 8-inch heels at Fashion Week, and she is scared. Christine's sister is not interested, but she does join the conversation briefly to accuse Christine of having freckles. Christine quickly cuts the conversation short, so unbearable is the idea of facing her own freckles.
Teresa takes all 19 of her daughters (plus someone else's kid) to a children's clothing store for some toddler retail therapy. Melania goes nuts and starts destroying the store while Gia models what she tries on for what seems to be nobody, as they've clearly rented out the entire place for this occasion. Teresa buys the girls a mountain of leggings (at first she was going to make Gia pay for it, but then she remembered Gia is eight and has no income, and then she was like "You should get a job, Gia" and Gia's like "I would, of course I would, but as you know I am too pretty to work" and Teresa's like "Oh my God, I'm so sorry for your disability, please allow me to pay") and it amounts to $1,900, which we're either supposed to be impressed or scandalized by. That's a lot of leggings.
Dina's house; time for some earthy shit. She has an "energist" named, I shit you not, "Zen Jen" come over to counsel her regarding Danielle. Dina explains that she wants to stay away from Danielle, but that she feels mean avoiding her. She needs "Zen Jen" to show her the way to do this in a fashion that lines up with the patchouli gods of Gaia or something. "Zen Jen's" advice is to "tell her." Just tell her! Dina is going to tell her. She has no sympathy for Danielle's bad childhood anymore because, and again, I wish I were kidding, "Oprah was abused." She invoked not only Oprah, but Oprah's tragedies! This means war.
Danielle's house; her dog has butt worms. Danielle's realtor comes over to tell her her house is depreciated without costly renovations, and since her ex-husband isn't going to give her the money for said renovations, Danielle will be taking the house off the market. Which sounds very sad until Teresa interviews that Danielle could always get a job to pay for the house herself, as she has not been stricken with being "too pretty to work." We should all be so lucky!
Teresa is having a dinner party on the eve of Gia's Fashion Week gig. Caroline comes over with one of her sons I can't tell apart, and Gia demonstrates her runway walk for all. Joe soon comes home, but it's not soon enough, as Teresa has had dinner ready since five and the kids are starving. Teresa does this to me all the time where she drones on about some domestic convention from the 1950s that she's embraced and I get very bored and kind of zone out, and then all of a sudden, out of absolute nowhere, she just blurts something like "We have sex every day! Sometimes twice!" And then I'm bored and startled and grossed out, which is a very awkward combination of feelings. She's like a tactless cheetah, pouncing on me with claws made out of her "chuckie." (Ew. Now I'm just as bad as she is.)
Fashion week; Bryant Park. Joe, Teresa and Gia are in the Lincoln Tunnel when Joe does that thing that certain dads do that I cannot stand, where he says really mean things to his child that is supposed to be a hilarious joke? I have never understood this, and I certainly don't understand why Teresa thinks it's OK. Joe just keeps insisting to Gia that she's ugly and disgusting and that the catwalk is going to reject her ugly 8-YEAR-OLD ass until the little girl is crying in the backseat. To which Joe sensitively says "Now you're going to be the ugly duckling onstage. Everybody's going to see you crying." Then he mocks her little child tears and tells her he's going to make her ride on the roof of the car. Fuck that fucking homophobic child-berating asshole ape. That is all.
Same day; Danielle takes Christine to IMG for a runway walk lesson, and drags the younger kid with them. Younger kid should join forces with CJ, for real. We'd all be toast. When they get there, unfortunately, the walking coach is not Miss J. Christine tries walking for a while but eventually gets cranky and tells everyone to shut up because they're annoying. Ehh, she's a dick, but she's 16, and being told you don't know how to walk correctly probably is really annoying.
The weird interstitial involves Dina and "Zen Jen" doing some hippie shit, but I refuse to recap "Zen Jen" anymore.
Gia is backstage at her show trying to explain to her mother why she doesn't appreciate her father telling her she's ugly. Teresa does not see her point. Luckily, Gia is saved by having to run out and do a practice walk. She does a good job walking down a platform and then turning around and walking back the way she came. She is a success in the modeling world.
Christine arrives at her show (Rebecca Minkoff, natch) and decides to take a break for some lunch: two deli-thin slices of honeydew melon. Fat ass!
Caroline and Jacqueline go backstage to congratulate Gia and give her some of the support she's not getting from her father (but that she will get in college from a couple dozen dudes and a couple hundred dozen tequila bottles). Caroline is so overwhelmed with pride she has "a lump in [her] heart." Yikes! There is a lot of talk about Teresa being nine months pregnant at the show, and everyone is worried she's going to go into labor any minute. She doesn't, though, don't worry.
While Gia is getting ready, Teresa spots Christine's cover of The Daily that was totally just there by accident and not at all planted by a Bravo producer and shows it to Gia. Gia is blown away (and totally jealous, c'mon) that Christina landed a cover, and Teresa is just like "Yeah, look how pretty she is!" Cut to Danielle interviewing that if Teresa ever saw Christine's cover she would probably be a giant bitch about it. Oh, Danielle. Teresa stinks, but you are always, always wrong, even when you're just alleging something completely plausible like Teresa acting like a bitch. That is how consistently and unwaveringly wrong you are about every facet of life.
Out in the audience at Gia's show, Joe has his arms crossed and is bitching about how long he's been at his daughter's fashion show, which I can't even fault him for because waiting for fashion shows to start is boring, especially if you had to drive to the city from Jersey to do it (I know because I have done it, oddly enough).
The fashion show starts! It features many disparate looks, from jammies to evening gowns to maternity to children's clothing. This line has everything! Way to multi-task, JC Penney (or whatever this is for). To her credit, Gia is able to recreate the skill she exhibited the last time she walked down a platform, turned around, and walked back, and is still a success in the modeling world. Afterwards, Joe finally tells Gia she is pretty. That is one less dude she's going to have to drunkenly service freshman year, which is a start.
At Christine's show, she is walking in a hot white minidress and some pretty awesome grey suede heels. She is 16, so feel free to be offended. As the models come out, it is clear that Christine's show is a lot more high-end than Gia's (I know Rebecca Minkoff is expensive, but it's not like she's as well known as Marc Jacobs or whatever), and Christine also does a good job moving her legs enough times to get from one place and back in front of an audience.
Unfortunately, at the end of this particular fashion show, the models all stand in a row on the runway as the crowd clears, I'm assuming to give the patrons a longer look at the clothes to see if they want to buy them. As the models stand there, Christine experiences what looks like a severe panic attack. She starts losing it, and it's agonizing to watch. She's sweating and dry-heaving and swaying and there is just sheer terror on her face and it's awful. Someone (one of the other models, it looked like?) finally scoops her up and takes her backstage to safety so she can recuperate and be embarrassed.
Danielle goes backstage and blames it on not eating a proper lunch (which is true, she did not eat a proper lunch, but who gets sweaty and nauseous from skipping lunch? Is that a thing? If I skip lunch I just get inordinately bitchy about CW shows, not barfy). Danielle and the IMG rep reassure Christine that this kind of thing happens and that she can still be the Cindy Crawford, host of House of Style, despite the incident.
week: One of Caroline's sons I can't distinguish from one another finally opens his stripper car wash business. Teresa visits the hospital, takes a phone call and screams "I feel like I have to poop!" (see what I mean???). Dina tells Caroline she does not need her craziness. Danielle is conflicted when she can save someone's tumor by going to The Brownstone. Jacqueline's husband buys a new gun. Danielle hires a biker crank addict named Danny to escort her to The Brownstone. Caroline reacts to this. It will be a bloodbath, and don't worry, LuluBates will be back by then.
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