Which Long Island Princess Was The Worst?

From the start, the titular stars of Princesses Long Island -- the show that filled Bravo's "irredeemable nightmare exemplars of womanhood (unmarried division)" slot this summer -- were a poor substitute for last year's models, the Gallery Girls. Don't get me wrong: the GGs were horrible too. But at least the grounds on which they were horrible revolved around their unrealistic notions of employability, meaning their delusions at least indicated some degree of ambition. By contrast, the driving motivator behind all the Princesses is to get married, like, yesterday, and don't even with your "Drink Hankies" and your "Kiss-a-Mints," because you know I'm right.

Anyway: since Gallery Girls is now confirmed not to be returning, I had no choice but to start hating the Princesses instead, and hate them I did! And since they are clearly a (poor) substitute for the GGs, I feel that the best way to assess the season is that which I used for the GGs: ranking the cast from first to worst.

Chanel

I admit that I wrote Chanel off early, what with her being named Chanel, and her self-pity regarding her YOUNGER sister's wedding, because did you know that Chanel's sister got married and she's YOUNGER than Chanel and Chanel doesn't even have a boyfriend? Then I actually saw the preparations for said wedding, and how much hassle Chanel's older female relatives were giving her and understood her (shitty) position better. I don't know what happened with the Russian skank at Amanda's white party, which Chanel ruined by starting a brawl -- which is very uncouth behaviour, but on the other hand, it was a white party for DRINK HANKIES INC., so who really gives a shit. Finally, in last night's season finale, I'm sure Chanel's suggestion to bring the Princesses together for a tashlich ceremony was producer-instigated, but she seemed sincere about wanting everyone to make up and was pretty much the only one there who didn't turn her testimony into a chance to talk about how great she is.

Casey

The reason I finally had to stop watching The Real Housewives Of New Jersey, back when Danielle was still on it, was that the contortions that had to go on behind the scenes in order to find plausible reasons that any of the show's stars would still spend time with Danielle were getting ridiculous. In real life, if someone was that big an asshole, you would not socialize with her, so when these bitches do on all the Housewives shows, it takes me out of the episode. So I found it refreshing toward the end of the season that, when Erica arranged for all the Princesses to have lunch at a winery and then spend the day on her dad's boat, Casey's response was basically, "Fuck no, I'm not doing that; I hate Erica." Because...seriously. I respect Casey so much for mostly not faking it on camera (other than that first initial reunion with Erica, the bitch who stole Casey's prom date) that I would have put her in the top slot except for how vehemently she takes Ashlee's side in the finale. Because Ashlee is a monster, and Casey wasn't there to see her ridiculous behaviour.

Amanda

Amanda would probably be ranked higher if not for the aggressive, constant PDA with Jeff; her overly close relationship with her "cool mom," Babs; and for her absurd ideas about Drink Hankies up to and including having the idea to produce Drink Hankies. But Jeff is seriously a problem. There's a story that guy isn't telling but I think we all can read it if you know what I am saying. Plus he made her think he was proposing, in a visor, on the Long Island Rail Road, in a visor, and then just ended up giving her a promise ring, and she didn't dump him. I can only forgive so much.

Joey

Joey is coarse and tacky and she treated her dad's request that she take three months to move out of his house already as though it were a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. You're not making enough off Kiss-a-Mint to support yourself? You need to get a job. Your job isn't paying enough to let you live in a nice apartment? Get a roommate. The rest of us figured this out when we were a lot younger than you.

Erica

Frequently drunk, excessively "flirty" Erica has a job at her dad's office when she feels like going in; a boyfriend she is clearly stringing along so that he'll take over from her dad in terms of supporting her; and...really needs to stop saying that she acts the way she does because of how hot she is.

Ashlee

WHERE TO BEGIN. Ashlee has so much learned helplessness that she claims to be physically unable to walk in flats. She thinks it's cute that she doesn't pay for her own thousands of dollars' worth of shoes or know how to read preparation instructions on a bag of broccoli or understand how to open a screw-top bottle of wine. When Joey calls her on her shit at the winery, she immediately starts fighting dirty (viz "Your [estranged] mother was right about you") and then makes a scene in the hopes of peeling off supporters from the group event. She wanders off into the forest (?) and has (?) to hitchhike to a hospital, where she is treated with Benadryl (???) instead of using the phone in her hand to call a car service like any other thirty-year-old would do. When Chanel encourages her to make up with her frenemies at tashlich, Ashlee volunteers to tell those she thinks wronged her how sorry she is that they are so miserable that they think it's okay to treat her the way they have. And she withholds the information from the women who are supposedly her best friends that she had a stroke until the moment she can deploy it for maximum impact.

Ashlee definitely belongs in the Bravo's Asshole Hall Of Fame, and watching her this season was a real education in how horrible a person can be and still walk (or, in her case, teeter) around without getting punched out several times daily. I hope I get to see more of her adventures in shittiness in a second nightmare season.