Monday, September 21, 2009

Rachel Zoe Recap: The press are like, so mean.

The world is a harsh, cold, spiteful place. People just want to build you up so they can tear you down. Where is the decency?! Where is the love?! All questions are asked this week.

The episode starts off on a good note as the Zoe Camp bask in the post-Oscar praise for Anne Hathaway. All the mags gave her A+ ratings, and Rachel is feeling good until she discovers a negative blurb from the New York Post wherein she is called “pin thin” and it is claimed that she freaked out at an Oscar party.

Blowing this tiny, slightly-mean blurb astronomically out of proportion, Rachel goes into a tirade about how unfair the press is to her, and how she hates all of them, and why don’t they just LEAVE RACHEL ALONE! To me this seems like a subtle brag, like “ughh, people are so obsessed with me, it’s TERRIBLE,” even though you know she secretly loves that her name is on everybody’s lips.

Rachel somehow manages to pull herself together enough to plan the party she is hosting for her friends Byron and Tracy’s eponymous salon. They go over the gigantic guest list, and Rachel takes another opportunity to complain about her difficult life when the topic of the media is raised. She says that she may not talk to some media outlets, since most are not too kind to her. Boo hoo cry me a river.

Over at the Zoe studio, Brad and Taylor are making cute banter about what they’ll wear to the salon opening. Taylor says Brad should wear something slutty, since they’ll be going out. Brad says he doesn’t do slutty, which is unfortunate, because I would love to see what Brad’s version of slutty is. I’m picturing knee socks, short shorts, and an oversized lollipop. Taylor says that they’ll be going out and getting sloppy afterwards, and Brad asks whether this means he’ll have to pick up all the things she drops and carry her around like last time, which I would have loved to see.

Later, Rachel gets a call from her publicist or somebody telling her that Marie Claire wants her to do a recession-appropriate “style on a budget” feature for them. Rachel is tres enthusiastic until she learns that they want her to be the model. Letting loose another brag-disguised-as-complaint, Rachel whines that she simply haaaates modeling and doesn’t know how she’ll EVER manage to do this shoot. Whatever, you know when she’s all alone she smizes and model-hunches in front of the mirror for hours. She apparently even tried her hand at modeling when she was young, but sucked at it, so she became a stylist. Anyway, she “reluctantly” agrees to do the shoot.

The next morning, Rachel is still complaining about her negative press. Rodger tells her she looks purdy before nearly burning down the house making breakfast. Despite this, his mongoloid grunts are somehow comforting to her, and she feels a little better.

After politely eating the surely horrible breakfast Rodger prepared for her, Rachel heads over to the Marie Claire shoot with team of gays in tow, since she craves sycophantic validation. Upon arriving, they all have a pow wow about Rachel’s look. Hairgay says that Rachel should wear her hair up in one of the shots, but Rachel doesn’t want to, since big billowy hair gives her power. Brad asks whether she’ll let him style her or not for the shoot to which she replies “unclear.” Apparently she’s turned into a Magic 8 Ball. Brad also tries his best to style her, but she keeps ignoring his picks in favor of slouchy sequined vests and oversized floral muumuus. When will they ever give Brad a chance to SHINE?

Back at the studio, Taylor complains about something or other as usual. This time she’s upset that she’s stuck doing all the post-Oscar dress returning and stuff while Fancypants Brad gets to go off and play with Rachel at the Marie Claire shoot. Basically, Taylor complains about some sort of permutation of “my work is boring and Brad is incompetent” in every episode. Homegirl needs to find herself a new job!

Across town, Rodger meets with a web consultant at Toast to discuss bringing the Zoe brand to the web. He says that the best way to combat Rachel’s bad press is to create an online presence where she can respond. Then he spits up on himself a little bit before passing out in the chair while the consultant softly burps him.

Things are going full force at the shoot. Rachel poses awkwardly in a series of outfits while her mob of gay monkeys hoot and holler at her from the sidelines. Rachel, echoing the sentiment of every chubby Midwestern girl who watched Will and Grace and once knew one gay person in high school, interviews that there’s nothing like a team of gay men to make a woman feel great.

Later, Brad does his one millionth Taylor impression, which Makeup Gay takes a picture of and sends to her, causing Taylor's head to fly off with a cartoon “boi-oi-oi-oi-oing” sound effect.

Anyway, the shoot wraps up, and everyone fellates Rachel’s ego and tells her how good she did and blah blah yadda yadda. Also, she totes wound up wearing the muumuu.

After a useless interlude where some retarded model comes to the studio and puts on a pretty dress, Taylor tells Brad that she will not be attending the party because she’s too tiiiiired. Brad interviews that this is all kinds of lame, since going to the events is part of their job description. He tells Taylor that it’s things like this that make everyone call her “Bailer,” which she says is “so fucking rude!” before storming out.

Meanwhile, Rachel and Makeup Gay are getting ready for the event. She is still complaining about her bad press, and it becomes clear that girl’s obviously very damaged and can’t handle any sort of criticism. One of them mentions how her “heart is too big,” and I barf all over myself. They move on to talk about how lame it is that Taylor is bailing. Drama!

At the studio, Taylor gives an oddly humanizing interview where she says that the reason she isn’t going to the party is because she’s socially awkward and doesn’t like being around strangers. In a brilliant piece of editing, the camera cuts to her wistfully zipping up her going out dress in a garment bag. Then a sad clown playing a violin walks out, a single tear falling from his expressive eye.

Back at Rachel’s house, everyone is freaking out over what she’ll wear. Since she’s been getting so much flack for being too skinny, it’s decided that Rachel shouldn’t wear anything too ribcagey or spine revealing. Trouble is, everything she owns is ribcagey or spine revealing. After much drama and complaining she settles on a hideous purple sequined nightmare and they all head to the party.

Rachel soon forgets her rib-n-spine woes and everyone has a great time. Brad hams it up for the cameras and he and Rachel talk about how Taylor should have come. Later, Rachel runs into old rival Nicole Richie. She claims that the two have made up and were chatting like two schoolgirls but from the looks of things it seemed like Rachel mainly talked at Nicole while she looked annoyed. The two did pose for paparazzi pics though, so I guess that's something.

The episode ends on a happy little button as Rachel and Rodger look at her shoot in the new issue of Marie Claire. Rachel says she’s happy about how the shoot turned out and Rodger says “Pretty lady!” before whacking her over the head with a club and dragging her off into the bedroom. Ah, love…

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