Let’s just acknowledge what is blatantly obvious: this sad run sucked from premiere to finale.  Without a central conflict or sincere connections between the ladies, RHNY suffered from RHOC syndrome this season.  Symptoms include ubiquitous fakery, forced scenes, and contrived melodrama. God bless a snotty gay.  Alex showed up for her first paid editorial for The Block.  After listing a string of third tier shows she walked in during fashion week, James the requisite homo elitist, subtly shamed her by repeating, “Perfect then, Perfect then,” in a bored and disdainful tone.  Who can blame him?  Alex’s total lack of self-awareness, paired with her whiny pageant dad Simon, makes her an unbelievably easy target for criticism.  BTW Simon, revealing your wife was chosen 3^rd on US Weekly’s worst dressed list isn’t something to brag about in a room of fashion folk.  Though she did live up to the title later in the episode by wearing this utterly fug pink double-breasted short suit.Bravo aired teasers for the finale all week that hinted at a change-of-life baby for Ramona.  The preview giveaways meant to build excitement were dubious since everyone is well aware that at 55, the only change of life happening to Ramona is the retirement of her ovaries.  Bravo’s last ditch effort to salvage the season with engineered baby drama smacks of desperation.In another red-herring subplot, LuAnn and Jacques invited the whole crew to a celebration of their one year anniversary.  The fiesta was held on a boat ironically destined to sail around the Statute of Liberty, a monument presented to America by the Count’s ancestors, as Ramona pointedly reminded us in her personal interview segment.Once on board, Ramona pretended to break the potential pregnancy news to Mario.  Then she and Sonja flitted off to the “head” like two leopard-clad sorority sisters with an eightball.  Sonja conveniently supplied the EPT (how much did they pay for that product placement?), and Ramona supplied the urine.Sensible Jill (relatively speaking) immediately called bullshit and didn’t hesitate to introduce the more obvious explanation of menopause to account for Ramona’s cyclical irregularity.For some unbeknownst reason (did Cohen offer her a kidney?), Natalie Cole agreed to make a cameo and sing a duet with LuAnn.  Fake-ass LuAnn wouldn’t know Natalie Cole from Natalie Merchant, but she pretended to fawn all over the singer when initially introduced by her opportunistic producer.Natalie sang decent, LuAnn sounded nervously pitchy, and Simon looked downright bitchy during the performance.While Jill was hoping for the party to culminate in an engagement announcement, the limp-dick gathering just petered out without any big reveals from either LuAnn or Ramona.If you are attached to this group of ladies, don’t miss the reunion next week.  Chances are it will be the last time you see this ensemble on Cohen’s confrontational couches.  This pathetic excuse for a season proved the NYC franchise is begging to be recast.  At this point, any change would serve as a welcomed improvement.

Andy didn’t miss a beat, and we picked up right where we left off on part 1 of the reunion.  I hear this marathon of crazy was taped over an eight hour period. Alex and Bethenny said Jill only wanted to make up with Bethenny because she looked bad on TV.  Jill admitted that she didn’t want to be the one who appeared to antagonize the pregnant engaged girl. In the first segment, Jill just bent over and took it up the ass.  Ramona reiterated that Jill tried to talk the Housewives out of filming with Bethenny in an effort to sabotage her show.  Unsurprisingly, this anti-filming angle is common practice among the cast since a gathering of more than one Housewife exponentially increases the chances the footage will make the cut.  Jill straight up admitted she was wrong, and as a result never looked classier.  The barrage of criticism became so intense that Bethenny stepped in to relieve the poor dead horse of its suffering.Segment two introduced newest Housewife Sonja Morgan and her overactive cougar crotch.  Her oversexed video montage seemed out of place amid all the other catfight videos, but it did provide a little levity in a sea of conflict laden exchanges.  Let’s take this opportunity to praise Sonja for making the decision to keep her daughter entirely off the show.  While she may come off a little vapid, her parenting decision on this point is both thoughtful and responsible. Andy rolled footage of all the malapropisms the Housewives busted out this season.  Since malapropisms fall from these dumb bitches’ lips like leaves off a tree in autumn, the montage was pretty long and included gems like:

I’m not Madonna, but I could be the female Barry White – Countess

I want to be Robin to Batman – Kelly

You are making a mountain out of a hole mill – Ramona

You are making lemons out of lemonade – Kelly

The final segment started the discush of Scary Island (AKA St. John, I’m sure their board of tourism is thrilled).  We learned that Kelly’s breakdown was actually way more severe and major then what aired.  Since Bravo has no soul, their exercise of self-restraint in the editing room speaks to the true intensity of the meltdown. Kelly recounted her totally fictional account of “systematic bullying” while the other ladies wondered what fucking trip she went on.  She claimed there was some sort of island intervention with Bethenny.  I’m intrigued.  More information please. Along this line, the highlight of part 2 of the reunion came when Kelly said in reference to St. John, “I was forced by Bravo to go on the trip.”  Andy responded, “That’s not true, but I appreciate it, but it’s not true.”  Kelly then snapped back “everybody knows that and…” Andy interrupted, this time with some gay sass, “That’s not true.”  Kelly then says “Andy it is true though, but thank you I appreciate that.”  I’m over Bethenny and Jill, this snark between Kelly and Andy was the most unexpected zing of the show.  You gotta love it when the ladies air Bravo’s dirty laundry. The Countess pointed out that Kelly instigated much of the conflict and didn’t follow the program in St. John.  Bethenny followed up unleashing on her saying she has psychological and emotional problems.  With that, Kelly walked off the stage….