Bethenny Ever After Recap: Feliz Cumpleanos, Bethenny!! (sp?)

Welcome to Bethenny Ever After Hecho en Mexico edition.  There’s bartering, bickering , baby Bryn beaching.  All in all, a lot of fun stuff to look at, but not much substance.  Eh, I feel like every episode since the boat trip has been like that – look!  There’s Gina!  Look!  There’s shapewear!  Look!  Julie’s leaving!  Blah, blah, blah.  I do love me some Bethenny, but I think I might be a little shallow.  I’m not super interested in her or her success unless she’s throwing it in the face of Jill Zarin or Kelly Bensimon.  Eh, live and learn.  Onto the recap!

There needs to be some kind of Celebrity Death Match in order for these two.  I need more!

We open with the family arriving in Mexico at the One&Only resort and spa.  New on my list of things to have when I make it – ability to afford ten days at this place, including a suite with an infinity pool and a private beach.  The Bethenny Package, if you will.  A hilarious theme of this resort – free popsicles!  They bring them to the foyer, they bring them to the beach – free popsicles for all!  Bethenny’s so distracted by Bryn trying to eat the popsicle (me too) that she’s not listening to the dude explaining all the important bits about the resort (hot in the daytime, cool in the nighttime, don’t drink the water, avoid the cartels).  The popsicle eventually drops on the ground, and it’s hilarious.  Not much more to say about that.

The family and Veronica (I refuse to call this bitch Ra Ra because Bryn and I do not share the same vocabulary, but she and Bethenny obviously do) head to the room and start checking things out.  Glammy is there to help with Bryn for the first leg of the trip, and the rest of the SkinnyGirl team is coming out later.  After everything is settled, Bethenny and Jason head to dinner, and the relationshippy stuff begins.  I guess this is what I get instead of Dr. Amador this week.  Eh, I’ll take it.  The couple talks to each other and interviews that it feels great to be on vacation after what Jason calls nine months of bickering and bullshit.  Eeesh.  No wonder they went on the damn boat.  They have a relatively peaceful dinner and talk about how they need to trust each other.  Apparently they’ve only really known each other for two and a half years (whoa), so building trust just on a basic level has been difficult.  Then Jason makes a joke that Bethenny takes too seriously, so she immediately responds with a biting remark, which she SAYS was not defensive but just her making a joke in response to his joke to “show {him} how it feels.”  No, B, that wasn’t defensive at all.  It was totally lighthearted and not an overreaction.

I can see that if Jason made those jokes all the time it would get old and hurtful, but it doesn’t seem like he’s trying to be an asshole.  At some point Bethenny needs to stop getting so damn upset about everything.  And at some point I would like to stop being a relationship analyst and go back to being a recapper.

“What do you think Alex thinks?”  “I don’t know, let’s call her.  That’s what friends do, right?”  Right.

Before the end of dinner, though, the couple talks about the decision they’ve made to complete their wills and award custody of Bryn to Veronica should anything happen to both of them.  They agree that Jason’s parents are too old to handle the care of such a young child, and that Veronica is the best choice because she’s always been particularly loving when it comes to Bryn.  Aww, that’s really sweet.  It reminds of the “Mad About You” episode that covered the same thing with Mabel (Mothers Always Bring Extra Love).  That’s what you get for moving to Pittsburgh, Julie.  Maybe you’ll think about that the next time.

Commercial!

The next day, in the infinity pool (*le sigh*) overlooking a private beach (*LE SIGH*) when Bethenny spots Valentin, a “beach merchant.”  He’s literally standing on the I guess not so private beach holding wall hangings or sarongs or some bullshit that catches Bethenny and Jason’s eyes.  Bethenny heads down to bargain with V, who could not be more over this entire experience.  He doesn’t give a shit about meeting Bethenny, and he doesn’t give a shit about being on TV.  He looks exactly as happy as I would be if I were a “beach merchant” in Mexico selling sarongs to tourists.  Example?  When Bethenny tells him that it was a good business tactic to hold up the sarongs in front of them like he did, he mutters, “Yeah, right.”  Ha!  Exactly.  A better business tactic would be a store of some kind, and Valentin knows it, so he’s not going to be patronized by Bethenny one damn bit.  Luckily, Bethenny likes it when men give her lip, so the two get along just fine.  She works him down to $30 apiece for the sarongs, and the two part friends.  Maybe.

After that, it’s time for the ladies to arrive.  Jackie, proving herself every bit the climber I always knew she was, shows up in an “I heart My BF” tank top.  Get it?  Jason jokes that she already got the promotion, and I just roll my eyes.  And holy shit, every pool at this place is an infinity pool.  It’s like the architects were all, “What the fuck, put’em everywhere.  American’s lose their shit over them.”  The gang hangs out by the pool and Bryn makes friends with a nice young man named Houston.  I hate his name, but he seems a good sort, until he toddles his way over to her wheel barrow full of toys and dumps them all out.  Bryn strategically barely acknowledges his actions and plays hard to get, seductively munch on a popsicle (tray passed to the party) and through the powers of her feminine wiles, makes him her own, all set to a soundtrack of her mother making blow job jokes.  It’s awesome.

Then, it’s time for lunch, and things get considerably less awesome.  Before they’re about to leave, something comes up that pushes Jason’s buttons and he loses his temper, which he admits to in so many words.  Veronica and Bethenny head to lunch without him and B’s a wreck.  Veronica tries to talk B down from the ledge by saying all couples argue, but B doesn’t think it should happen this much.  I hate to agree, but I do.  This also reminds me of “Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica,” and how I would watch that show thinking, “I don’t know of a quicker way to sabotage a new marriage than by putting it under a national microscope.”  I think you’ll all remember how that marriage turned out.  I know Bethenny and Jason are not the colossal douchebags Nick and Jessica were, but still.  It’s worrisome.

You’re better than that, Guys!

B tries to call Jason to tell him to come to lunch, and he doesn’t respond to that very well.  He snaps that he “see[s] what [she's] doing,” and hangs up.  It sucks.  Then he comes to lunch, or a spot above the beach where they’re having lunch to talk.  They both agree, angrily, that they need to put the negative behind them and move onto the positive.  I wish it were that easy, Guys.  Jason’s brought Bryn, and Bethenny doesn’t want to fight in front her, so they take Veronica away from her lunch so she can take the baby away, then Jason straight takes her seat and lunch continues.  In case you had any real ideas about whether or not you were an employee in this situation, Veronica, I hope that got rid of those right quick.

There are two bottles of Skinny Girl booze on the table, and if I were Jason that shit would be in the ocean right now replaced by a bottle of Don Julio that would be mine and mine alone.  The couple discusses the fact that they need to stop fighting so much over stuff, and I think it bodes well that they’ both seem so committed to each other and their relationship.  It really is obvious how much they love each other, which is just so nice to watch.  The lunch ends on a semi-good note and then it’s off to a couple’s massage!  Which is more than a little awkward!

The massage might as well be foreplay for as much as the couple looks like they want to bone each other the entire time.  There’s way too much talk of erections and a shot of Bethenny actually motorboating Jason as he’s on the table.  I mean, it’s funny, but it’s also… gross.  Yeah.  Commercial!

Fun outtake?  Paddleboarding!  Not only does paddleboarding take a small amount of skill, but one needs still water to make it work, and the waters, they are not still.  They are very, very rough and we’re treated with shots of Bethenny, Jason and Skinny Girl team eating saltwater every other minute.  Comedy gold.

We get back to the rest of the episode and Bethenny and Jason are relaxing after their massage.  She whispers that it’s the best birthday she’s ever had, but she still thinks about her mother every year.  She can’t help it because they have the same birthday.  Then she starts thinking about how old Bernadette is and how crappy the other woman’s life has been, and it’s just sad.  It’s been decades since Bethenny has gotten a phone call from her mother on her birthday, even though Bethenny’s reached out on the birthday and Mother’s day and whatnot, only to be the recipient of apparent verbal abuse.  She worries that there’ll be one day when Bryn won’t want to talk to her and Jason assures her that that day will never come.  Until Bryn is a teenager, at least.

Finally it’s time for Bethenny’s birthday dinner and she looks like a fucking ROCKSTAR.  Very 70s, very chic – girl knows what she’s doin’.

I’d hit that.

The family sits outside and Jason gives her a really sweet card and the ice shard necklace!  Bethenny is floored, Jason looks blissful and Bryn is in a cookie coma.  It’s so damn sweet.  Then it’s time for dinner with the Skinny Girl team on the beach and the girls give her a memory book full of Bethenny Milestones.  They include the Martha Stewart Apprentice show, marriage, Bryn, Peta and absolutely no mention of her complete and utter defeat of Kelly Bensimon.  Can’t help it, Gasmii – knocking down that crazy has always been my favorite Bethenny moment.  Yup, shallow.

Bethenny bawls her eyes out, and I really want to, but I’m too tired to cry right now.  It is truly a lovely moment, though, and I’m reminded of why I like this woman – she’s sincere and the people she surrounds herself are sincere.  Sometimes sincerely crazy and awful, but also wonderful, and that’s just great.  Birthday and this episode are over, but be prepared, next week is still in Mexico where there is fun to be had with maracas and Jason getting pissy about Bethenny being way more successful than he is.  See you next week!