Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List Reality Check: 'Moving the Merch'

I should've known the one episode of My Life on the D-List that Kathy Griffin devoted to her mother would be the season's dud. In fact, how could it have succeeded? Kathy has reduced Maggie Griffin to a single Franzia joke since day one, allowing her the character breadth of a puppet theater headmistress. She's stern, muumuu'd, and wine-woozy. That's it. Adding cameos from Suze Orman and Lauren Conrad wasn't going to change that, Kathleen.

Time to persevere and engage the task at hand: scavenging last night's episode for its most "real" and "fake" moments. Hopefully, we discover some probing emotional truths in this one-joke medley.

REAL: Maggie Griffin refuses to wear a muumuu for her photo shoot.

Eighty-nine-year-old Maggie Griffin wasn't quite ready to embrace the ease of a muumuu on the national stage, and she made her reservations loud and clear on the set of her book cover photo shoot. The lupine worry in her eyes rang true immediately, and I found myself feeling -- oh, you know -- bad. I suppose Maggie knowingly participates in Kathy's reality world, but that doesn't mean she has to accept a branding based on jokes in her daughter's act. I was happy to see her resist the set-up, even as the pantsuited publisher lady lingered behind the camera and muttered, "She needs to wear the muumuu" like an overlord.

FAKE: Maggie doesn't know what show Lauren Conrad is from.

When Kathy enlists the help of Lauren Conrad to help Maggie with her business dealings (scoff), Maggie's eyes light up and she chirps, "Oh, she's from 90210!" I'm going out on a limb here, but if Kathy keeps her mother compulsively up to date on pop culture, there should be no reason for Maggie to guess that Lauren Conrad is from 90210. Either she knows who L.C. is, or she doesn't. It makes no difference if she's 89, or 8, or 9, or 998. Kathy had to have fed her that line seconds before, perhaps as a glib suggestion.

You'll notice that the "fake" moments on D-List are often given away by the supporting players, who don't possess the minute-to-minute showmanship of Mrs. Kathy. Is it too late to ditch her family and assistants for another Iraq tour with MadTV alum Michael McDonald? I'm holding out for another getaway in one of Saddam's rococo resorts.