WELL. Last night’s episode of Real Housewives of New York City was really something, wasn’t it? It was almost entirely without plot or narrative, and instead of actually having a story, the housewives simply went from party to party, yelling at each other in various combinations and about various things.

So here’s where we stand: Alex and Bethenny still hate Jill, Jill hates Alex but misses Bethenny, Bethenny resolved her hatred of her father right before he died, Jill hates Ramona for not telling her about his death, and LuAnn desperately wants someone to hate her so that she can have a plot line again. Oh, yeah, and we got a new housewife. Another one.

Remember that charity cocktail party that LuAnn has been crowing about for a month, but that still no one really cares about? Well, that happened last night. It was at Sonja’s house and everyone was invited except Bethenny, which made for some immediate awkwardness between Alex and, well, everyone else. As soon as she got there, LuAnn scolded her for calling Jill out in public on last week’s episode. Somehow, LuAnn thinks all of this is her business and can’t help but act like the arbiter of manners for the group, despite her overwhelming dearth of class and decorum in basically every social interaction we’ve ever seen her undertake.

LuAnn wasn’t the only one to hop on the Alex-shaming bandwagon, however. Ramona, queen of the verbal diarrhea, also told Alex that she stepped over the line, and that was kind of surprising because I didn’t think Ramona was aware that there were lines. Bawbby, in a somewhat uncharacteristic move, also pulled Alex aside later to tell her that she needed to apologize. Sonja, to her credit, is perhaps too rich to even understand any of this drama. She can’t keep up. Whatever. And then she name-dropped Tinsley Mortimer, but she just called her “Tinsley.” First-name basis, you know.

When Jill arrived, LuAnn couldn’t help but tell her how to act about the whole situation, because LuAnn has no story of her own and has to try to make this one hers as much as possible. Which leads me to this question: who is more despicable, LuAnn or Jill? It’s really sort of a toss-up at this point. I mean, Jill is awful, but LuAnn aspires to her awfulness, she wants to be a part of it so very badly, and that might actually surpass Jill. Seeing how Jill acts and wanting to be like her is probably worse than just being Jill.

Eventually, Jill moved from talking strategy with LuAnn to nearly crying over Bethenny with Kelly, and it made me wonder why these people all manage to talk about their problems with everyone except the people that their problems involve. With all the energy Jill has expended talking about Bethenny with people that aren’t Bethenny, she probably could have already resolved this issue and saved her friendship. But then there would be less gossip, and we all know how Jill feels about the importance of having gossip.

The same goes for Jill’s issue with Alex, which I suppose she has every right to have, since Alex admits that she didn’t expect to be “friends” with Jill after dropping that epic Bethenny bomb in front of everyone. But if Jill is done with Alex, as she says she is, then why did an entire parade of Jill-insiders line up to tell Alex to apologize? I think it’s more likely that Jill decided she was done when everyone reported back that Alex did not fling herself to the floor and beg forgiveness for her sins from each of them. Instead, she kept calm, acted like an adult, and insisted she talk to Jill directly instead of having her message run through a bunch of different people with their own agendas. Alex, my friends, is an adult. A smart one! Jill stormed out of the party, per usual.

Anyway, from one party to the next: Gotham magazine threw a party for Kelly’s street style column (which I seriously doubt actually exists) and everyone was invited, including stealthy new cast member Jennifer Gilbert, and also both Jill and Alex. This time, Alex asked Simon to help run interference between her and Jill, which somehow ended up with Simon having his face circa Jill’s pelvis. Don’t ask how that happened, I have no idea, and I’d rather not revisit the scene in my head. This time it was Alex that stormed out – she said that she couldn’t take Jill fakey-fakey niceties, but I think she should have continued to be the bigger person and stuck it out. Not that it really matters.

While all of that was going on, LuAnn was pathetically flirting with some middle-aged guy who had a really embarrassing haircut and an equally terrible wide-lapel shirt. He says he’s interested in “scandalocity” and she told him that she had a “song” coming out, and it was all kind of gross and awkward, since you got the feeling that they probably sort of deserve each other. He asked her out and she said yes, so I guess we get to see that nasty train wreck next week.

While all of these fake issues were being worked out, one of the housewives was actually dealing with real problems: Bethenny. Her ill father called and requested to see her after refusing her visit only weeks before. The whole situation seems irredeemably sad and Bethenny made the ugly cry face while talking on the phone to a surprisingly sympathetic and sincere Ramona. I can relate, I make the ugly cry face as well. I just don’t have to do it on television, something for which last night’s episode made me eternally grateful. It seems as though Bethenny was able to get some closure with her father, though, so I’m sure that making the ugly cry face was worth it.

In slightly less serious news, Ramona insists on going through with the whole vow-renewal thing, despite the fact that her daughter Avery and most of the viewing public are not entirely impressed with the idea. Ramona got to pick out her dress last night, which was actually quite flattering on her until you got to the bottom and it was covered in marabou and sparkles. Avery was also not impressed with the dress, or with the fact that she was going to have a blue dress made for her. She wants a black dress. I feel like I would have been friends with Avery in high school.

But enough with this talk of things that didn’t happen at parties! On to the next party! Secret new housewife Jennifer invited Jill and Kelly over to her fantabulous apartment for a get-together for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. Maybe just to show off her apartment on TV! But she also invited Alex. Oops. And LuAnn, but no one cares about LuAnn.

Ramona was also on the guest list and she game bearing news: Bethenny’s father had died the night before. Sad, right? Well, instead of being appropriately reverent that someone had just lost a parent, Jill somehow managed to make the whole thing about herself and why Ramona hadn’t told her earlier. It’s not like the news had been sitting there for weeks and no one thought to clue Jill in – the man had been gone for well under 24 hours and he was the relative of someone who she has publicly stated, over and over again, that she wants nothing to do with. I’m not sure why she thought that she should know before, say, LuAnn.

But obviously, Jill thinks she’s the most important person in any particular situation, so she threw a histrionic hissy fit and hid in the PANTRY, of all places. While Jill was hiding in the pantry with Kelly, LuAnn decided to fight the battle on Jill’s behalf because I suppose she thought that fighting someone else’s battle was better than no battle at all. Jill eventually reemerged to scream at Ramona some more, telling her that they were no longer friends if this is how she treated her friends, blah blah blah. Jill, sure of her own importance as she is, somehow managed to make everyone stop talking about someone’s death and switch to talking about her hurt feelings. I mean, at this point, that’s sort of a talent. You have to admit.

Thank God Alex arrived to set everyone straight. She had her claws out as soon as she walked in to the party after receiving a text from Jill, who was trying to get the gossip about Bethenny’s dead dad. She seemed surprised and horrified that Jill would do such a thing, which is kind of cute – Alex was actually holding out hope that Jill had any moral standards or manners of which to speak, which she clearly doesn’t. How optimistic of her.

And then, my friends, was the epic rant that we’ve all been waiting for. Jill is a mean girl, she is in high school, and Alex sees through her act! For her part, Jill just made a bunch of weird faces and tried to interrupt a lot, and I can’t really blame her for that. If someone was so thoroughly and epically owning me in front of my friends and a bunch of cameras, I would want to interrupt them as well. It was so great, though – I actually might have cheered a little bit during the scene, because who doesn’t love it when the quiet girl in the corner finally stands up to the bully? I know I do. And Alex is such a nice person that on her way to storm out of the party, she actually went to put her empty wine glass in the kitchen. Now THAT is classy, my friends.

Did anyone else think that this episode went by really, really quickly? With all the fighting, I looked up and it was suddenly 11:00 and I had to catch my breath a little bit. It was as if the producers knew that we had all mentally moved on a bit to the Jersey housewives and wanted to remind us that this season isn’t quite over. There are only a couple of episodes left, and from the looks of next week, they’re not going to let up until the finale.