Back at the soiree, Amy’s still unable to get Liam to promise not to tell Karma, so Amy decides to yell at him and make a scene!
Yup, Amy slaps Liam in the face and tells everybody that they met at a Skorkle protest and that he slept with her best friend, finishing her performance by tossing champagne in his face.
Look, I’d like to see Liam ground into whatever it is that goes inside chicken nuggets and served to hungry schoolchildren in the hinterlands as much as the next guy, but JESUS CHRIST AMY, there’s no excuse for humiliating somebody in front of his family and ruining somebody’s engagement party, even if it is somebody evil! That’s just manners.
Liam’s father wants to see him in the other room and Amy stands there, looking proud of herself for being an awful person. Also, after this scene went down, what motivation will he have to keep her secret now?
Cut back to The Audition, where Shane’s talking about watching Project Runway with his father and Margot is sleeping while sitting upright, which is a quality I really admire in an airplane seatmate.
Margot: Sorry I fell asleep and went back to 2009 when that still felt fresh. Tell me something nobody knows!
Shane says he’s one-quarter Filipino and struggles with it every day and she kicks him off the stage and says it’s difficult to take such trite struggles seriously when Oliver over there — who’s still wiping away his tears — showed us such real raw emotion. Ugh why didn’t we get to see Oliver’s Real Emotions? Now it’s Lauren’s turn.
Margot: You’ve got talent, Ms. Cooper, but I’m worried that you’re just another pretty blonde white girl who’s biggest struggle is whether to have a latte or a cappuchino.
Lauren: Fuck you, I’ve struggled!
She’s about to reveal that she was born intersex when Theo drops a paint can on the ground and the sight of him dazzles her back into deciding not to tell the whole truth, instead claiming she’s a perfectionist who takes vitamins. SNOOZE.
Back at Chez Skorkle Booker, Liam’s getting yelled at by his father about ruining his sister’s engagement party. Liam says “don’t call her that,” re: “your sister,” which I think is a CLUE.
Dad: I have indulged this little defiant phase. Now this company needs this marriage to happen, so go out there and make things right.
Liam: And how am I supposed to do that?
Dad: You’re an artist. Be creative!
That’s like when someone gives me an idea for something we should do to make Autostraddle rich and I’m like “okay, but how could we make money with that?” and they’re like, “you’re the CEO! Be creative!”
Cut back to the theater of broken dreams, where Karma’s whining about the juice truck not making money. Margot’s unimpressed because she lived on graham crackers and slept on throw pillows for two years before getting a job on a Carnival Cruise.
Margot wants to know about her recent breakup.
Karma: You know, people split up! Taylor Swift pretty much said it all —
Margot: KARMA! What kind of empty life will you lead if you don’t know yourself? What can you bring to your characters? Tear off your mask!
Karma: I am heartbroken. But not for the reason everyone thinks.
WELL WELL WELL. What have we here?
Karma: Okay. I know this will probably make everybody hate me, but I’m not really a lesbian.
Margot: Go on…
Karma: Someone mistook my best friend and me as a couple. It got us attention and popularity which were two things that I always wanted. I said we should go with it and Amy agreed. I made you believe that I’m somebody that I’m not and I’m sorry. I can be a really insecure person and I hate that part of who I am. I’m desperate for approval. Like me, like me, like me. ‘Cause if you like me then maybe I’ll like myself.
Margot stands up and gives some big ‘ol claps.
It’s really special that Karma decided to tell these kids about her and Amy without Amy’s permission, what is wrong with everybody this episode!?!?! It’s a good thing Gossip Girl doesn’t go to this school.
Back at the Fancy Lunchtime Soiree, Amy’s offering Liam a peace donut and apologizing, but Liam tells her not to worry about it ’cause things were bad long before tonight.
Liam: A part of me admires what you did. You rocked the boat, something that I’m too chicken to do.
So then Liam decides to make a toast! Where’s Reagan. This shit has gone on long enough! Liam announces that he’s sorry for being a disappointment to his family and pursuing art instead of money and power, expressed with the #sorrynotsorry disposition of a person who’s never lacked access to money or power.
Liam: I guess I’m sorry for even being born.
Robin: Liam, please. Not now.
Liam: Right? MOM?
EVERYBODY GASPS! WE’RE ON MAURY!
Liam: That’s right folks. Robin my sister is really my mother. She got herself knocked up at 16 and those two? My grandparents? They got her shipped off to boarding school in Switzerland and then they raised me as their son. They’ve all been lying about it for so long that they actually now believe it. Oh! L’Chaim!
Even though I wrote “L’Chaim,” because I’m a Jew and I know what Liam was getting at and I have a chai tattooed on my thigh, he actually said “L’Haim.”
So there you have it. Liam embarrassed everybody by pronouncing a word wrong. Amy goes “great party!” and then SCENE.
Back in the auditorium Shane tells Karma that he admired her honesty earlier and wouldn’t be surprised if she wins the crown and becomes the best top princess of the ultimate drama club in the sky. Karma wants to know if they’re friends now, but Shane “wouldn’t go that far.” However, he has empathy for her and “her situation.”
Shane: But if you’re so desperate for people to like you, maybe you shouldn’t be an actress.
Elsewhere in this airy auditorium, Theo tells Lauren he admires her for getting up there and signing and dancing, because he is a terrible singer/dancer.
Margot returns to the set, crosses the room and hangs that one special name on a chalkboard.
Lauren: Who the fuck is Oliver?
Back at the Engagement Party Of Every Momsister’s Dreams, Liam’s riding high on the thrill of having told everybody that his sister is really his mother. I hope he feels proud of himself for ruining her engagement party. Unfortunately I suspect he hasn’t learned the lesson he was supposed to learn, which is that revealing things other people wanna keep a secret at inopportune moments is actually just really selfish and not really something to be proud of.
Liam says it’s a big load off his shoulders, much like the load that lifted off my shoulders when Liam clarified that his mother had been a teen Mom who got shipped off to boarding school rather than what I’d initially assumed regarding the relationship between Liam’s father and his Momsister.
Amy says that now she understands why honesty is so important to him. Liam tells her his sad story about how he found his birth certificate and his whole world turned upside-down. He also says that he doesn’t want Karma to “know something she can’t un-know” because he cares about her too much, which I guess means he’ll keep the secret. Amy says she feels the same way. HOW NICE WHERE’S REAGAN
Unfortunately, the episode ended there. Many questions remain unanswered, like “where’s Regan?” and “what’s up with Oliver?” and “did Amy just miss a whole day of school?”
Next week, Amy is going to pine for Karma and Karma is going to disappoint us all in our hearts:
http://youtu.be/zYHtt71Xnl4