Photo: Ser Baffo/Disney
Can you believe it took this show seven whole episodes to finally dabble in necrophilia? As we saw last week, Dina Standish’s husband, Doug, has died, and rather than calling the morgue and making arrangements, she simply gets ready for bed and goes to sleep next to the body. What could initially be seen as a relatable, albeit extreme, bit of procrastinating is soon revealed to be a reluctance to part with the body that lasts for days on end. Sure, to be fair, there’s no indication that there’s anything sexual going on, but she refuses to give up the corpse, despite it looking more and more like Albert Nobbs with each passing day.
As the other women divvy up Dina’s cases back at the law firm, Liberty feels left out of the loop when she learns that both Allura and Emerald have been in contact with their grieving boss. Liberty says she feels like she’ll never be a part of their American sisterhood, finally making a brave political statement about the xenophobia British people apparently face throughout Los Angeles. I do love the notion that Allura, Emerald, and Dina all gossip behind Liberty’s back about how the American version of The Office is superior to the original, that they’re glad Madonna went back to using her original accent, and that The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills has gotten much better now that Lisa Vanderpump left. I bet they even all get time off for the Fourth of July but make Liberty work.
Anxious about being on the outside of this patriotic clique, Liberty makes a trip to see Dina and pay her respects but is intercepted by Carrington, who’s there to do the same. After volleying insults (Carrington’s love language), they both manage to push themselves past the housekeeper to deliver their respective casseroles. But naturally, when it’s revealed that Doug’s body is rotting upstairs, Liberty is horrified at this DIY “wake.” Carrington, however, uses it as an opportunity to curry favor with Dina by way of one of the most ridiculous monologues ever to air on television.
“It reminds me of my pussy,” Carr says of Dina’s desire to keep her husband’s body. “My kitty cat who died when I was 5. She had feline AIDS. My pussy was my whole world, and when my pussy died, I kept her in my bed for days, stroking her and talking to her. And of course my mother got so angry. ‘Stop playing with your pussy, Carr,’ she yelled. But I refused to, even when my pussy started smelling really bad and got really crusty, I just stayed locked in my room grieving in private because I just couldn’t let go of my pussy.” I simply had to write it out in full because these are words I think we really have to sit with. Acting students nationwide will soon be performing this monologue at auditions. It’ll be embroidered on throw pillows. Congregations will recite it in unison at memorials, as if it were a prayer. Sarah Paulson delivers these words fully committed, without a glimmer of wavering, which is why she’s one of our finest actresses. But at the same time, this monologue feels like one big prank on the audience. I’m half-expecting someone to break the fourth wall and yell, “Got you!” I can almost picture the creative team laughing in the writers’ room at the thought of me having to recap these words.
In any case, that bizarre comparison — largely an excuse to continue the beautiful tradition of making Paulson say the crassest lines possible — ultimately resonates with Dina, and Carr is invited to stay. This is, of course, a real blow to Liberty, whom Carr at one point refers to as a “Princess Diana wannabe” (a person she of course played in the 2013 film Diana). I hope this show just continues to reference its cast’s former work until they eventually just have Dina Standish boil a rabbit.
And while she doesn’t go full Fatal Attraction just yet, Dina does snap at Emerald at the over-the-top wake Carrington plans at the house, after she’s confronted about hoarding the corpse like she’s Cheryl Blossom on Riverdale. But this wake really just serves as a location for Liberty and Carrington to battle over Dina like they’re Rose Byrne and Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids. Carr throws the event, Liberty shows up with bagpipers, but both ploys fall flat with Dina. She didn’t want all those people there, and she says Doug would have hated the bagpipers because he loathed plaid. Maybe if Liberty weren’t British, she would have known that.
But where is Allura during all of this? Well, she meets up with her now ex-husband, Chase, for dinner, but despite him wearing his finest light-blue suit, this isn’t a date. She’s delivering their divorce papers and also uses this meeting to tell him she forgives him. Not only that, but she encourages him to make amends with all of the other women he scorned. How would he possibly track them all down? he wonders. Lucky for him, Emerald put together a whole list. A tonally bizarre montage ensues, set to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Manchild,” with each attempt going more poorly than the last.
But the toughest of them all will surely be Milan, a meeting that Allura agrees to help broker. Somewhere along the lines, Allura went from the scorned wife intent on destroying Chase to helping him heal by connecting him with all his mistresses. This pipeline is impossible to make sense of, even if they tried, so why bother trying? Oh, and it’s worth noting that this conversation about Milan happens while Chase is dressed like Larry from Three’s Company and Allura is dressed like a business-formal candy striper.
As you can imagine, the meeting with Milan doesn’t go well. Seconds into it, she starts hurling everything within arm’s reach at him like a regular Scott Rudin. “Fuck your money, that shit is nasty! It probably fucking smells like dirty dick and balls,” she yells, a line reading that’s just as worthy of an Academy Award as her performance in One Battle After Another. But two can play the contentious game, and he storms out, telling her that he’s going to sue for custody. So amends aren’t made, but at least Carrington Lane gets another case. Especially one that involves snatching a baby from its mother, a plot that fits in so perfectly with Carr’s whole Mother Gothel vibe.
After the hubbub, Allura arrives at the wake late, where she’s filled in on the body rotting upstairs. They all decide to go up to try to get through to her, and after a come-to-Jesus about how his spirit isn’t in the body anymore, she finally relinquishes it (and hopefully sprays the room with some Febreze).
But Dina isn’t the only one making poor decisions about what to do with the body of a man she was married to — because after they handle that situation, Allura reunites and has sex with Chase. Ironically, sex scenes aren’t Kim Kardashian’s strength. She looks unfazed throughout, but it’s clear that vats of body bronzer went into this endeavor. But what does Allura want from this situation? Chase clearly wants to reignite the relationship, but when she emerges downstairs the next morning dressed like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, his request to give it one more go goes unanswered.
