I have a confession to make. I am totally, one hundred percent obsessed with Bethenny Getting Married. Moreover, I defy you to tell me you’ve watched ten minutes of it and don’t feel the same. I’m not sure if they managed to slip crack cocaine into the soundwaves or what (see how much I know about how TV works) but that is some highly addictive shit. It should come with a warning.
If you haven’t had the guilty pleasure of tuning in, I’ll break it down for you. In a spin-off of the Real Housewives of New York City, Bethenny Frankel (neither real nor a housewife but definitely from New York City) is affianced to handsome and kind of corny Mid-Westerner who is endowed with as much good-natured appeal as she is with its opposite. She is in her second trimester when he pops the question and then she has to (no choice, just HAS to) plan a huge, over-the-top wedding at the Four Seasons in a month’s time. Highlight of the wedding episode: after getting into the Amsale wedding gown, but before its time to walk down the aisle, Bethenny finds she has to pee. Walking through the crowd before her big bride reveal moment seems like a really shitty option. A better option? Having two assistants help her hoist up her couture gown, and pull down her preggo panties so she can pee in a bucket on national television. A month later, she has to have a baby, and when packing her hospital bag, she thinks it wise to put in THONGS, for postpartum use. She has a deranged, homicidal dog named Cookie and is constantly referring enigmatically to her dark, troubled childhood.
“Stop right there,” I know you’re saying, “you had me at, pee in the bucket.”
It is, I would venture, a near-perfect piece of reality programming: Bridezilla meets A Baby Story meets Real Housewives. I watched two episodes in a row last week and I felt afterwards like I needed to read the whole Wall Street Journal, cover to cover, as an antidote. I didn’t of course, letting the dumbing down influence of shitty TV work on me, unabated.
I got David to watch it with me once and the whole time he was like, “Why is her face in the shape of a figure 8? I’ve never seen a face shape like that before!”
And right there, is both why I love my husband and why I love the show.
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