If you're a decent person and enjoy Julie Miller's Housewives and Hills recaps every week, you're aware that Movieline's "reality checks" single out the most staged and sincere moments that this genre has to offer. In the case of Bravo's Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, those are harder to sort: Griffin has consciously evolved her show from an unstructured free-for-all to something of a pseudo-staged campfest in the style of The Comeback. Both formats work, but the new one needs Movieline to tell it when it's honest and just phony. Come with us as we pick the realest and fakest moments from Kathy's sixth season premiere.
REAL: Mariska Hargitay can't remember that Kathy used to teach her at the Groundlings
When Kathy Griffin released her bestselling memoir Official Book Club Selection, she included a segment about her early days at L.A.'s Groundlings Theatre, where she taught improv classes to pay the bills. In one scintillating tidbit, she explained how one of her students, a young Mariska Hargitay, fell on her coccyx during a "trust fall" exercise. The episode horrified Kathy, who said it ruined the class's trust, but it apparently didn't faze Mariska, who couldn't remember it at all when Kathy brought it to her attention while filming a Law and Order: SVU guest spot. As Kathy apologized profusely, Mariska looked puzzled. The two hugged it out anyway and reenacted a trust fall exercise to heal Kathy's wound. Touching! Mariska's amnesia is a star.
In a way, it's lucky that she didn't remember. It could've sparked a war of words unseen since Mariska's co-star Ice-T served a hot bowl of d*cks to Aimee Mann.
FAKE: Kathy pleads with a Law & Order: SVU writer to change her character
When it comes to the episode's most staged moment, I could have chosen the acting lesson in Liza Minnelli's penthouse or the stage-y kiss with Christopher Meloni, but I'm settling on this brief exchange. Kathy, who wanted her lesbian character to be a glamorous "Portia" type, approached an SVU scribe and pretended to have some artistic differences. The first thing out of said writer's mouth upon spotting Kathy: "Oh, hey, Kathy!" The way to start off an unscripted conversation is never with, "Oh, hey, Kathy." These two have never met before, right? There should be no familiarity between them?
"Oh, hey, Kathy," sounds like the first line in a backstage sketch from The Muppet Show. I half-expected Scooter to peak out from behind a door and call, "Five minutes to curtain, Miss Griffin."
Still, a hilarious episode. Maybe Kathy doesn't need to be so D-List after all.