Episode 8: The Road to Marriage

Outdoor café. Lauren and Jason are lunching and laughing, but as usual, the good times last about 30 seconds before Jason screws things up.

“I want you to meet my girlfriend,” he non-sequiturs. “Girlfriend? Really?” Lauren asks. “Yeah, we’re gonna move in together,” Jason replies, shooting for casual and missing the mark entirely. Lauren’s eyes widen in true Whitney-esque fashion as she shakes her head in silent disbelief, but Jason presses on, inviting her to the couple’s housewarming party. Lauren recovers in time to spit out an answer: “I would love to meet her,” she lies.

Teen Vogue. Lisa Love informs Whitney that she’ll be overseeing a photo shoot for the band Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. “Bands are notoriously difficult,” she tells Whitney. “If there’s a problem, it’s your problem. It’s no one else’s problem anymore.” Whitney is all smiles. “I can handle it,” she cheerfully replies. “Good. You better handle it!” Lisa Love says.

Heidi and Jen Bunney are wedding-gown shopping. Is Bunney the maid of honour? I hope Spencer and Heidi have some suitable relatives to act as the other attendants, because they don’t seem to have any friends left.  Bunney herself may be on the outs soon enough, after daring to suggest that Heidi might not be ready to tie the knot. “I think at this age, it’s easy to fall out of love,” she says. “I just try not to be naïve about it.” Bunney, sharing an actual (rational) opinion? That’s almost as unbelievable as Whitney doing something irresponsible!

Next, we watch as Whitney does something irresponsible–namely, inviting Red Jumpsuit Apparatus out for drinks the night before their shoot. The band, Whitney, Lauren and Audrina all meet up at a dive bar in West Hollywood and put back various shots, including Whitney’s suggestion of a “redheaded slut.” “Oh, I like redheaded sluts!” Lauren cries, in a soundbite that will hopefully be taken hilariously out of context for years to come.

The next morning, everyone is hung over, the band is late for the photo shoot, and one of its members is extremely reluctant to wear the jeans Teen Vogue has provided. Whitney is annoyed and pessimistic, convinced that Lisa Love will tell her she has no future in the business.

As if an opinionated Bunney and a gloomy Whitney aren’t shocking enough, the next scene treats us to a sensible Spencer! Yes, the guy who commissioned graffiti for his living room wall and filled his apartment with arcade games is arguing with Heidi about their wedding registry. “I just think it’s silly to make people buy us a bunch of stuff that we’re not gonna use,” he says. Clearly Justin Bobby wasn’t the only guy lobotomized last week!

Jason’s party. Lauren handles her introduction to girlfriend Katja and the couple’s public displays of affection fairly well, but when two fellow partygoers announce that Jason and Katja are actually engaged, she has to get some air. Jason follows her outside, but this time Lauren doesn’t hold her tongue–“I think you’re being an idiot,” she says bluntly. “You want me to be happy for you? No.”

Teen Vogue. Lisa Love informs Whitney that going out with bands is not part of her job description. “You don’t do that,” she says. “I just want respect on every shoot that we do, and it’s very hard for them to respect you if you’ve been out the night before.” Whitney starts to apologize, but Lisa Love cuts her off, telling her to simply step it up and learn to be the boss.

Restaurant. Heidi wants to plan a big church wedding, but Spencer would rather elope to Tibet than have their families present at their ceremony; in fact, he hasn’t even told his parents he’s engaged. Phew, there’s the Spencer we all love to hate!

Teen Vogue. Whitney tells Lauren about the “nice little ass-whipping” she got from Lisa Love, but knows better than to focus on herself for too long and quickly turns the conversation to Lauren’s personal life. Lauren is surprisingly optimistic. “I just have an idea in my head of how I’d want my party where I announce my engagement to be, and it doesn’t include a keg or a Bob Marley poster,” she says. “[Last night] it really just hit me all at once; I was like, ‘This could have been me.’ As much as I love Jason, I’m so glad it’s not.” She smiles, and this time I believe her.

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