We were deeply saddened not to see Freddie Fackelmayer’s greasy, tanned sternum staring back at us on last night’s episode of The City. This show is far less (ahem) interesting without boys. Fortunately, Whitney has a friend in Miami with a magical neck named Nick, with whom Roxy wants to have her way and who almost made up for the absence of one of the top ten tannest men on Long Island. However, his camera time was all too brief. Whitney and Roxy’s catfight and Kelly Cutrone’s crazy kept the momentum going.
Lesson 1: Planning a trip to Miami Swim Fashion Week.
Don’t: Bring the crazy party girl who doesn’t bring pens to meetings. Kelly Cutrone holds a meeting to prep the People’s Revolution team for Miami Swim Fashion Week. Kelly took her crazy pills this morning and opened by going on about how consumers are going back to buying basics in the recession and this is DEATH for the fashion industry. Roxy didn’t bring a pen to the meeting because this isn’t a real job and she wants to be an actress, and asks Whitney for a writing utensil loudly enough so that Kelly can hear. It’s expected for Kelly to be peeved by this, but she looks like she’s about to spit the burning charcoals she ate for breakfast at Roxy and then throw paperweights at her. She reminds the team that despite the recession, she’s not firing people! “In order to keep it that way, we need to bring pens to meetings,” she says. Yet Kelly decides to bring Roxy, who is clearly incompetent, to Miami.
Do: Send her friend alone. Kelly sends Roxy to Miami ostensibly because Whitney can teach her how to do her job. Whitney gets to go because Kelly thinks she can learn a thing or two about designing from Mara Hoffman, a real designer and one of Kelly’s clients who’s showing in Miami. However, if she had just sent Whitney, who is a doormat, she would have been so productive because she wouldn’t have gone out or ordered room service or done any of the things she wasn’t supposed to do. She probably would have eaten at Taco Bell, too, like Kelly sarcastically suggested.
Lesson 2: Taking the new hire down to Miami Fashion Week.
Do: Tell her what to do. Joe sends Olivia down to Miami to do a trend report (yeah, RIGHT). Anyway, Erin has to go down as well to throw a party. Joe tells Erin to guide Olivia on her Miami journey. Erin hates Olivia and doesn’t feel like dealing with her, so she hardly even makes small talk with her, much less gives her work advice.
Don’t: Scheme for her to fuck up. Erin asks Olivia if she’s going to the trade shows. Olivia says no. Erin knows this is a fatal mistake for an “accessories editor.” Yet she doesn’t tell Olivia to go to the trade shows. We understand Erin’s desire to see Olivia fail and get fired, but by not telling her to go to the trade shows, she’s only setting herself up for a talking to from Joe, who told her she’s responsible for Olivia. Besides, even if she had told Olivia what to do, she wouldn’t have listened because pride is more important to her than doing well at her fake reality-TV job. And then Joe would have really had a reason to fire her.
Lesson 3: Runway castings.
Don’t: Berate the girls to their faces. Mara and Kelly hold a casting for the show. It’s a creepy spectacle of 17-year-olds walking around in bathing suits and high heels. “I feel like I need some dollar bills,” Kelly says when a model is within earshot. Okay, if Roxy’s walking in front of you, fine, say that. But spare the fragile tenth-graders.
Don’t: Hire tramp-stamped models. “Can’t help her,” Kelly says of a girl with a tramp stamp and a lousy walk. They shouldn’t have even let her try out with that thing anyway.
Do: Choose voluptuous chicks. Kelly calls one of the curviest girls there “ridiculously hot” and says they need her. Good! Not every model needs hip bones that can cut a bitch.
Lesson 4: Dancing.
Do: Keep your neck in check. Roxy and Whitney go to some club on South Beach to meet Whitney’s nerdy friend Nick. Nick is a true delight and we are only sorry that we didn’t get to see more of him. Mostly because as soon as he meets Roxy he starts “dancing” by moving his head around wildly in circles like his neck has no bones. Kind of like an ostrich on crack.
Don’t: Dance on banquettes. Roxy takes a liking to Nick (Whitney ain’t the only chick who needs to get some) and for some reason he takes a liking to her. “You’re very free,” he tells her. Yeah, well, only because she’s wearing a bat-wing dress that would allow her to go braless. Anyway, as if to prove his point and also because she’s an attention whore, Roxy pulls Nick up onto a banquette and tries to make him dance with her there. At which point they realize maybe they’re not drunk enough for this and decide to leave. (Watch a clip of this scene, below.)
Lesson 5: Partying in South Beach.
Don’t: Ditch your friend at the club. Roxy says she wants to go somewhere else because she can’t be the only drunk chick dancing on an elevated plateau like a stripper. However, Whitney has gone off somewhere; the producers obviously made her exit so Roxy and Nick could grind up on each other and Whitney could walk in on her friends getting it on and freak out. However, Roxy does the very bitchy deed of ditching Whitney at the club alone so she can run off with Nick. There is only one excuse for leaving without telling your friend, and that is getting accidentally and unfortunately drugged.
Don’t: Stay out all night with Neck Man when you have a show the next morning. The next morning at the show, Whitney’s there alone and doesn’t know where Roxy is. At first we thought, “Wait, aren’t they staying together? Did Whitney sneak out while she was sleeping in the morning to get back at her?” Then we realized: Roxy is definitely the kind of girl who would go home with a stranger and sleep with him in a city she doesn’t even live in.
Lesson 6: Fighting with your friend.
Don’t: Have it out at work. Roxy arrives late to the Mara Hoffman show and she and Whitney start bickering backstage. Kelly sees this and comes over and tells them to shut up. Fighting right then and there was a stupid decision on both of their parts.
Don’t: Make stupid excuses for why you ditched her. Roxy tells Whitney she lost her cell phone two days ago and doesn’t know her number by heart. This doesn’t explain why she left the club without Whitney. But Roxy is exactly the kind of girl who would go to a foreign land, lose a phone, and stay out all night drinking and doing God knows what without one.
Do: Tell her the truth. Whitney probably would have been understanding if Roxy was like, “Look, Whitney, friend, sister, I needed to get laid and Nick’s double-jointed neck just gave me butterflies inside. You want me to grow cobwebs down there?” Whitney would have laughed and gotten over it.
Lesson 7: Dealing with a crazy boss.
Don’t: Do what she told you not to do. Kelly explicitly told the team not to try to expense meals while in Miami. However, Roxy and Whitney racked up an extra $200 on their hotel bill. How? They’re both rich — they could have easily charged massages and overpriced French fries on their own cards. Combined with the asinine backstage fight, this makes the girls look ten times more immature than Miley Cyrus fans.
Do: Wait until she’s out of earshot to make comments about her. Back in the New York office, Kelly goes up to Whitney and Roxy and tells them their fight embarrassed her. “She didn’t say one nice thing,” Roxy says to Whitney after Kelly had taken two steps in the other direction. Kelly hears her, of course, and again threatens to fire them. When Kelly’s in her office, Roxy tries again. “Someone’s PMS-ing,” she says. And she and Whitney share a moment as all the crazy in the air around them just absorbs into the walls. Often, the most horrible work situations are just as simple as that.
