Real Housewives of New York Channel Harold Pinter

I was all set to do a nice little recap of this episode. It looked so promising. Ramona has been in the throes of a major Renewal this whole season, and she has invited the Housewives on a Caribbean getaway to celebrate it.

At first, it was what you'd expect. The girls get tipsy. They bicker. Alex gently tsk-tsks, her role on the show has been reduced to Den Mother, the token grownup. Ramona proudly displays her bikini collection. Bethenny gives everyone little swag bags of beach-appropriate personal care products. This displeases Kelly, who feels it is impersonal. Actually, Bethenny's very existence appears to displease Kelly more by the minute.

Perhaps seduced by visions of reality show fame on a scale like that enjoyed by Real Housewife of New Jersey Teresa Giudice, Kelly proclaims that Bethenny is a ho-bag.

Bethenny excuses herself and accompanies the Renewing Ramona, liberally fortified with Pinot Grigio, to the neighboring Hooters boat where the two ladies enjoy some Turtle Time.

Sonja announces that she smells cat pee and retires for the evening.

Meanwhile, back in New York, Jill and The Countess, who did not go on the trip, have dinner. Jill announces that she will go down to the Caribbean and surprise Ramona. The Countess declines to join her.

Kelly takes photos of the girls on the beach. Bethenny cooks dinner, and at some point during the dinner, the spirits of Pinter and Ionesco descend and possess them.

They all mount the loa and are subsumed in a whirling vortex of non-sequiturs, the most intelligible of which is Kelly accusing Alex of being a kabuki-dancing vampire and revealing that she threw up because Bethenny is trying to kill her and went after her girls and Gwyneth Paltrow.

I mean, really. It all just goes down hill from there. They all take turns being Stanley.

Alex and Bethenny try to resist, but only succeed in dissolving in a fit of helpless giggles.

In intermittent flashes of lucidity, all agree that Kelly needs help.

"You couldn't write it," declares Sarah Jessica Parker, who is inexplicably this week's guest on the Aftershow. "Not even the finest actor..." she trails off, and Andy shows us a preview of next week, when Jill will arrive on the island to surprise the Renewing Ramona, and no one will be glad to see her.