September 23, 2008

The Hills: In The Land Of The Clowns, Lauren Conrad Is Queen

thumbnail icon: The Hills: In The Land Of The Clowns, Lauren Conrad Is Queen

This week's The Hills poses a very serious problem. Lauren goes on vacation to Italy (vacation from what, exactly?), at which point drama ensues! Can you believe all this drama that's ensuing while Lauren is in Italy? Except that all of the drama is centered on how Lauren's going to react when she comes home and finds out. And for as fake as this show may or may not be, I'm simply not convinced that anyone in Lauren's circle actually cares what she thinks beyond its potential for having them removed from the payrolls of The Hills. If this week's episode were a drinking game, you'd have to take a shot every time someone said "Lauren's in Italy and she doesn't have her phone," and if this week's episode were a drinking game you'd be in the hospital with alcohol poisoning.

Probably the same day that Lauren leaves for Italy (without her phone, mind you), Stephanie Pratt shows up at the house and tells Audrina that Doug has asked her out on a date and she doesn't know what to do. Audrina tells her that she should probably wait until Lauren gets back, because I'm not sure if you knew this, but she's in Italy without her phone. You can tell from her face that Stephanie is ~~an attention seeking fame whore who will stoop to the basest of crimes for just one more second of air time~~ not going to wait for Lauren to get back. Thus opens this week's major drama: Stephanie and Doug may or may not be going to dinner together while Lauren is in Italy without her phone. It's a little bit of a non-starter for me, because in my mind being jealous of someone dating Doug Reinhardt is like being jealous of someone for dating an empty bag of chips floating carelessly down an independently wealthy rain gutter. Especially considering how their dinner is quite obviously a mutually devised scheme to remain relevant on the show. That's just me, though.

That is psycho to Heidi, you guys. "There's a hundred million guys in this city" says the girl who's dating Spencer Pratt. IRONY!

Audrina and Lo have been having bonding time while Lauren is in Italy (without her phone, or as Lauren would probably say, "sans phone"). Their bonding involves cooking a lot, according to Audrina, although one suspects that "cooking a lot" means "driving three blocks to Starbucks and staring at the poppyseed lemoncake in the glass case while waiting for your latte to be ready," and going to Goa. Heidi and Spencer are also at Goa, and Heidi invites Audrina to some Bolthouse event the next night where, we are told constantly throughout the show, there will be a skate ramp. That's going to be such an awesome party. Just good friends, a skate ramp, and 1992. Anyway, Heidi and Audrina hanging out is the second scandal of the week that I just don't even know how Lauren is going to react when she gets back from Italy and turns her phone on!

At one point, Audrina has a cigarette break with the actress who plays her co-worker at Epic Records and basically recaps the entire episode for her, which sounds normal if you've just watched the episode, but is actually intensely complicated and involves eight people, and is not how you talk to people.

Lauren returns from Italy two days early, and when Lo and Audrina ask her why she cut her trip early she says that she had seen "everything Italy had to offer." Gross. That is the grossest. I generally try not to wish people actual physical harm because I know it's a tough world we live in and everyone's just doing their best to make it through the day, but I hope Lauren Conrad chokes on a panino. That night, or whenever, who knows, she goes to dinner with Brody Jenner and they talk about all the drama that happened while she was in Italy without her phone. Lauren makes many gas faces.

But the highlight is when Brody Jenner had to go into a sound booth and re-record his voice over.

"I think guys'll be guys. At the same time, we need to call an emergency meeting in editing bay four tonight to re-write the third act of this plotline, because that's what happens when a show's emotional core is made out of Ketel One vodka and diet pills."

As far as the totalitarian gas-faced regime of Lauren Conrad is concerned, I believe Karl Marx said it best when he said "Idiots of The Hills Unite! You have nothing to lose but your spin-off shows!"