Last week, Bravo unleashed a new breed of awful females on the world with the premiere of "Gallery Girls," a reality show about a handful of twenty-somethings languishing in often unpaid art world internships and profitless galleries across New York City. Some say the depiction is totally contrived. Others point out it's still enjoyable. Today, we turn to the Internet's finest TV analysts to figure out what went down on last night's episode.
Over at Crushable, Jenni Maier drops that she knows one of the Girls personally, then hones in on the show's Olsen twin/Burton character hybrid, Chantal:
There’s no reason any 24-year-old should feel this entitled. Or show up to work looking this smug. I’ve never seen someone with such a perfectly smirky smile. One that more successfully says "I’m better than you and yet, I resent you for simply being."
ArtInfo's Chloe Wyma has words for Maggie, "Gallery Girl"s most sectarian Manhattanite, who gets sent to a Brooklyn hotspot where she expects to die:
Episode Two reaches an absurdist high when Eli sends Maggie on an errand, of all places, to the Bedford L Stop! Maggie is terrified: “I thought a zombie apocalypse had come through.” She walks down an innocuous, gentrified street, expecting that someone will jump out from an abandoned warehouse and rob her. This absurd interlude goes on for a while. Who is this show for?
Over at EW, the always perceptive Annie Barrett leads off her damage ranking with some word poetry for the newcomers:
This grotesque reality TV canvas is like a post-surrealist hybrid of The Hills and Girls — priced at $0 for all you art collectors! — that should probably just be called Bitches. It stars six young snots and one hardworking woman from Long Island who live and “work” in NYC and Brooklyn, which the show treats like a separate country.
Glamour's Megan Angelo does a photo essay breakdown of Chantal, who she proposes is "the ghost of Suri [Cruise's] future." She ends on an ambiguous note:
Seeing this laid out is strangely making me appreciate both her and Suri more. It's very confusing. But maybe it'd be fun to have a wicked little elf like this for a friend--what do you think?
Possibly the kindest recapper we've come across is the Miami New Times' Ciara LaVelle, who sees goodness even in orange Liz from Orange County who refuses to do work, and Maggie of Manhattan:
Liz continues to be the queen of observational humor. Angela gave well-deserved douchebags some pasta to wear home. Claudia has a kick-ass work ethic when it comes to End of Century. But this episode's star is Maggie, all the way. And this is why: Even after getting snubbed by the Brooklynites in last week's episode, Maggie makes nice with the girls at the auction -- but in the most spectacular, super-bitchiest way possible. If there were just an ounce more sneer in her smile, or just a tiny bit more saccharine sweetness in her tone of voice, she'd be openly mocking the Brooklyn girls to their faces. Instead, she mocks them for the cameras without anyone else noticing.
In a world of open contempt, this is a small victory, everyone. Tune in Mondays at 10 pm EST on Bravo for the real deal.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misspelled Ciara LaVelle's name.