Amy got drunk. Chantal still slouches.  Maggie did not have sex with Eli, yet.

Maggie exercises her mathematical skills

Nothing has changed at Eli Klein Gallery, Maggie is still the gallery bitch. Today she gets to count pebbles in some dead bonsai tree pots. Meanwhile Liz goes out for dinner with Eli. He sleazes on for the entirety of the meal about how smart he was to open a gallery at the height of the art market bubble in 2007 and show exclusively bubble dependent Chinese art. He has obviously got some other form of income. Liz doesn’t care about any of it anyway. She eats her gluten free meal. Later when Liz brings Baby Jane aka Jane Holzer, important collector, to the gallery Eli asks Maggie to tend to the dogbowl outside the gallery. Maggie is mortified that Baby Jane sees her perform such a menial task. EARTH TO MAGGIE, Jane Holzer doesn’t know or care who you are, so it doesn’t matter what she sees you doing. When Maggie is introduced to Jane she doesn’t exactly wow her with charm and charisma, instead she stares at the floor and mumbles.

Claudia is in her element

The slouching monotone nymphets of Williamsburg are installing some blue smudgy paintings at End of Century. Claudia looks deeply concerned and harrowed (this is becoming her signature look) and Chantal has her smart girl hipster glasses on, she means business today. Ethan Cook the artist is hailed by Chantal and Claudia as ‘smart and satirical.’ ‘His work is genius…mind bogelling.’ In fact his blue smudgy paintings are so profound that Chantal just doesn’t ‘get it at all,’ despite her smart girl glasses. To be honest his work looks like one of the drippy drapey dresses one of the EOC girls would wear.  It turns out they haven’t even set prices for the work or discussed with the artist how they will split any of the unlikely profits. Claudia’s parents should have asked for a business plan before lending $15,000. It’s their own fault if they don’t see a penny of that loan ever returned. It’s  gong show there. Later in the episode EOC hosts a trunk show for a jewelry designer. Chantal has the ‘epiphany’ that setting up a sale station might help them make some sales! I hope Claudia’s parents weren’t counting on the $15,000. Kerri shows up with a shirtless man in a kilt and eyeliner. She tries to quote Karl Lagerfeld, something about being able to go uptown and downtown. Kerri is obviously very versatile.

bitches best not step on her drawing

This episode we get to see more of Liz’s personal life. She discusses her reckless past, cocaine and clubbing, like any healthy rich girl would. Liz cooks lobsters at her apartment with her mom (BTW her chihuahua is the same size as the lobsters! I love it!). Liz and her mom talk about Liz’s past and her penchant for escargot as a 3 year old. She also used to play hide and seek on Noguchis and Miros, none of those boring jungle-gyms for this little princess. The art gods never forgot her bratty antics (crawling on sculptures is sacrilege) and someone mysteriously stomps on her collage in class at School of Visual Arts. What goes around comes around Liz, sorry.

Unfortunately Liz’s partying came at the cost of her father’s trust and admiration. They have an awkward dinner. No vacation this year. It’s actually legitimately sad when Liz says that she isn’t her dad’s favorite girl anymore.  Liz seems to be in control of her life and on a good track. But agreeing to be on a reality TV show probably didn’t do her any favors in her father’s opinion. I like her the most out of any of the girls on the show. I must mention that Liz is the only one who seems vaguely interested in art for art’s sake and not for the glamour of it. She actually hangs some of her own paintings in her apartment.

the good, the bad and the Angela

Oh and Angela…Angela, Angela, Angela. She’s been living in Brooklyn for 3 years and still isn’t the IT girl. She waitresses and anyone who knows anything, knows that Angela is not meant to serve burgers. She ain’t going to do that anymore. This episode we discover that Angela has bigger aspirations than just being a hipster, she is going to be freelance party photographer in a sexy Clint Eastwood outfit! Hat and poncho included. She scampers off to an ‘arts and music fair’ in DUMBO to take photos of Chantal and Claudia slouch. Angela gleefully cries ‘ it’s free with cool young beautiful people, and I’m here!’ Later she plays out her long time fantasy of having an affair with a middle aged man having a midlife crisis. She goes on a date with Peter, a middle aged yuppie, who wears non-ironic but rather functional eyeglasses. Angela turns her nose up at him for shooting photos in film. She’s a digital only type of gal. Iphones and Gmail accounts need only apply (may I just ask, how do all of these starving hipsters afford their smartphone bills? I think those data plans are being subsidized). Lucky for Peter he’s not Angela’s type. He’ll survive to live another day, if you can call life without a smartphone any kind of life at all. We also discover Angela’s masterplan for becoming the IT GIRL. She’s going to host a party (I think in Miami) and it is going to make her BUZZ WORTHY. Oh and maybe she’ll show some of her party pics to make it artistically relevant. genius.

scavenger hunt!

Art fair time with Kerri and Amy. Sharon Hurowitz brings her two interns to the fair and quickly dispatches them. She obviously doesn’t want them pestering her when she’s with a client. The girls are sent on a mission to find 1 piece of art that they like which will let Sharon know if they have any taste.  Amy claims to have an edge because she has been to an art fair before. Kerri says she can prove she has ‘an eye’ out of shear determination and hard work.  I love that this segment is treated as a scavenger hunt, as if it’s hard to find art at an art fair. That’s like telling someone to try to find sand at a beach. Art fairs are an assault on the senses, there is so much art it hurts. Kerri and Amy look around. Amy rushes off to Dorian’s, the Upper East Side bastian for preppy alcoholics and frat boys with separation anxiety. At Dorian’s Amy gets wastey faced (finally some one disgraces themselves a bit!) and tells Maggie that she’s rich enough to date a poor guy. I believe she mumbles something about being in the mob. Maggie is just relieved that people from Brooklyn are barred at the door at Dorian’s. Maggie leaves Amy at the bar, sinking her claws into some sweater vest clad boy. The next day Amy and Kerri meet Sharon for art fair show and tell. Amy’s makeup is smeared under her eyes…probably still drunk from Dorian’s.  Amy could only find some Damien Hirst print (an obvious choice, Amy is a label whore) at the fair, Sharon is not impressed. Kerri describes some piece made out of trash bags, (so often art seems to be justified by its story not by its quality or content) Sharon approves.

Stay tuned for next week.

Is Angela willing to forgo pants in the name of fame?

Will Amy get laid?

Will Maggie have a nervous break down at work and poison the gallery’s dogbowl?

so hip it hurts