Paris and Nicole Face Principles, Skinners

Poor little rich girls. After a season and four episodes of treating everyone around them with little or no respect, Paris and Nicole finally learned what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a condescending remark. Last night’s episode of The Simple Life 2: Road Trip brought our divas to the Skinner home in rural Mississippi where they met yet another family that talked about laying down the law with these girls, but in reality only rolled their eyes and politely ordered them around. Well, that was the case for most of the family. Turns out eldest son James Skinner hasn’t developed the polite sensibilities that dominated most of these innocent bystanders to the Paris and Nicole road trip. And God bless him for that.Paris and Nicole entered the Skinner household politely enough. As the family greeted them in the living room and ran down the list of rules, Paris obliged us with her throaty cute voice, and Nicole only half-sneered for the occassion. It wasn’t long though before these girls – probably at the insistence of Fox producers – turned on their obnoxious charm. The two of them balked at Mr. Skinner’s joy for venison, and while people of good grooming would politely voice their objections to this dish, Paris and Nicole did what any reality star product of the nouveau riche would do: complain and mock.

Responding to the spoiled girls like a shark sniffing out blood, James immediately began the ball-busting. He pelted them with pseudo-naive questions about their waitresses and maids. Paris commented that she lives with her sister (the only Hilton without a reality show, literally) and they often cook for themselves. But judging by the way Paris looks, she eats only about once every few weeks; so her cooking skills are probably not that great (Exhibit A: the microwave incident from earlier this season).

Later, as the girls “helped” disassemble the above ground pool in the backyard, Nicole grew increasingly crabby towards James’ constant mocking. James is by no means a great thinker or even an effective trash talker. But he is sadly on the same wavelength as Nicole, which is why they looked so comfortable adopting their playground roles. As Paris and Nicole faux-languished with a screwdriver, James blithely asked them “How many blondes does it take to unscrew something?” and then later referred to them as “Dumb and Dumber”. Can this guy be a regular? It’s about time one of these country bumpkins piped up.

Wellllll, no one cracks blonde jokes in front of Paris and Nicole. They can deride all the hicks and simple folk as much as they want, but if they have to be held accountable for their spoiled attitudes and cocky ways, well, then that’s just plain wrong! Nicole firmly put her hand on her hip, a finger in the air, and railed on James. She said something to the effect of how she has respect and she has respect for her friend, and if James disrespects them again, she will beat the shit out of him. And I tell you, when Nicole gets on her heroin, she’s pretty powerful.

Anyway, the lesson from this exchange was that Nicole and Paris can dish it, but they sure as hell can’t take it. James was thankfully undeterred though. During a random, unexplained photo shoot with the local firefighters, he doused Nicole with a chemical spurt from a fire extinguisher. Thank you James for fulfilling the wishes of millions of Americans. Was it me, or did the constant bickering between these two feel sort of like cliched flirting from a Nora Ephron movie?

The next morning the girls went off to a sausage factory to earn some cashola so they could leave the Skinners and all the flaws the family forces them to face. Paris and Nicole didn’t really know how to use a machine and got sausage innards all over the kitchen, but aside from that, they actually seemed to be doing the job fairly well. At the end of the day and after thoroughly frustrating their affable boss (what was that thing you were saying about respect, Nicole?), they concocted a sausage filled with doggie food, and gave it to James as a faux sign of good will. The girls cackled their way down the freeway, and the family, apparently not confused as to why the cameras were still around, watched James eat the sausage. I hate to break it to Paris and Nicole, but did they ever look at James? What makes them think he doesn’t eat dog food all the time? It was a lame prank, and I declare James the winner of the episode. The losers? Probably us.