Recap: Hey, Paula!: The Comeback
I have a pretty busy Summer of recapping about to commence over at the ‘gasm, but when I saw the pilot episode of this show, I couldn’t resist throwing together a romp through Crazy Town for you.
I found that it was pretty difficult to describe exactly what went down (nailing Paula’s English alone can take hours) in words, but I did my best. I have never felt such joy, pity, jubilation, and grief at one time. If you have any Vicodin, Percoset, or hell, spray paint to ingest, pull it out now, put your hands in the air and HOLLA! All together now! HEY, PAULA!!
Paula’s a busy busy busy busy busy STAR, dammit, and she’s tiiired! What a week she’s about to have! She’s in New York to put her face in this machine to test her new stanky perfume…
…and while she’s there she’s gonna accept a Ginormous Clunky Jewelry Award…
…and when she’s done with that she has to do a ton of press appearances for American Idol, my favorite of which turned into one of her most embarrassing recent memories blackouts.
As she sits in her limo, she shakes her head at the camera and her HUGE jewelry makes that familiar sound of iced tea being stirred on a Summer day. Can you believe how BUSY she is?!? She just got off the plane and already she’ss runnin’ outd thedooor.
Gee golly, life is friggincraazy, guyz!
Paula puts periods in all the wrong places and slurs every other word, and I spend the first five minutes of the episode trying to get a look at her pupils. I don’t care what she tells the press. She’s either wasted or she’s got MS. Either way, it’s kind of endearing. I heard you groan. Shut it. I said KINDA.
She pretends to give her manager an update on her life, like he hasn’t been subjected to her loony bs 24/7 for as long as he can remember. Since she’s gonna be accepting her Ginormous Clunky Jewelry Award in 14 minutes and 58 seconds, he suggests she come up with something to say. Now there’s an idea.
I have a fashion for design. Wait…I have a fashion for passion. Fashionpassion. Passion design. Passionfashionfashionpassion.
She nods proudly, like she just wrote “I Had a Dream”. Manager Guy, familiar with his boss’ loose grasp of language, hands over the speech he wrote for her. As she squints at the words and stumbles all over the page, he explains to us that Paula usually just gets to improvise her lines and isn’t used to, you know, reading stuff. Wait a second, Manager Guy! Are you telling me thoughtful and provocative lines like “you…you…look beautiful, voice stun…azing pretty wow yay shut up Simon trying to say, wow pretty wow fantast…azing” isn’t written by a team of Emmy winning scribes? I’m stunned.
Oooonnn. On. Ooor. Or. D.
I was rooting for her as she tried to figure out the word “honored”, and when she finally sounded through it, I cheered out loud.
The Limo driver turns around and looks at her like he’s trying to figure out if she’s seriously this afflicted or if she’s kidding.
She’s not kidding. Watch the road.
“I want mazmalsoup now!” Paula exclaims out of nowhere. Huh? Manager Guy explains that everyone at the Awards Dinner is already eating. She’s just there to give her speech and get out. What? No food? She’s gotta have food, or the pills in her stomach will start knocking up against each other and fighting out twelve rounds of crazy in front of a few hundred people. She warns us that this speech could wind up being the biggest disaster in her life. You sure about that? Think back.
Mr. Make It Work himself, Tim Gunn, is presenting her award while she’s outside posing for pictures and shaking babies. Poor Tim has to repeat the speech a few times, and by the time she slinks in the back door, he’s made it sound like she’s received 878 MTV Video Awards.
So, ginormous clunky jewelry, huh?
Manager Guy is worried. Paula’s tired, hungry, and she can’t read. He bows his head and prays, and even with a war, testicular cancer, and high gas prices on his roster, God listens! Paula starts off a little shakily, but after a while she’s leaning all over the podium and making people laugh with Simon jokes like, well, Paula Abdul.
After Tim Gunn blows sparkles up her cornhole and Ginormous Chunky Jewelry students fawn over her in the lobby, she demands her award and CONGRATS! It’s more hair!
She parties til 2:30 then, shitfaced, stumbles into a Starbucks and panhandles for a latte. Seriously. She begs for money. If the lady behind the counter had any brains at all, she would have offered a trade for the thirty pound golden snake on Blitzo’s wrist. No? Fine. Work the graveyard shift at Starbucks the rest of your life. What do I care?
People scream for Paula and tell her they love her, but where were they when she needed some change? It took way to long to get a chai. Fans can be fickle little pickles. As she tries to get in her limo, she teaches us how to sit down into a car.
First, grab onto the door and hope no one closes it.
Jump backwards.
Fall on the floor.
Paula bounces around the limo. It’s now 5AM. WOAH. It really did take way to long to get that chai. Two and a half hours? What the hell was she doing in the Starbucks for that long? I am glad we weren’t shown, because my face is already frozen in distress.
Paula has a Stank Scent meeting in a few hours, and Manager Guy tells her “we need you to sleep”. She can’t! She has (a coke addiction) insomnia! It started a few (bumps) hours ago and she just can’t (focus) rest!
She makes it to her meeting at the Perfume Lab on time, and hugs a bunch of phony bitches with fake names like she knows them. Come on now, Perfume Ladies! No mother names their child Honorine or Jorgelina. Don’t front.
They dab different scents on blotter papers for Paula to smell, but she can barely sit up. She moans and groans like she’s having a naughty dream and boo bop de doos like Sammy Davis Jr. She tries catching invisible flies for awhile and then at one point, she holds a blotter to her nose, closes her eyes, and freezes for an uncomfortable amount of time.
Honorine (Helen) and Jorgelina (Jane) stare at her awkwardly.
Is she dead?
Nope, she’s back! Time to put on a lab coat and human test some chemicals! She knocks things over and drops blotters on the floor. When she picks them up, she plops right down on the ground and wipes the chemicals all over herself. The Smell Technician tells her she’s mixing violet and rose on her skin, and she starts rocking back and forth repeating “uh-oh” over and over and moving the edge of the paper across her wrist, threatening to commit suicide by paper cuts. Smell Technician coos “It’s okaaaay!” like he’s trying to talk a mentally retarded child down after seeing a clown for the first time. Jesus Christ, this poor woman. Someone, anyone, please help Paula Abdul!
I’ve been a bad girl, mama!
The wind changes and she starts cracking up, still rocking back and forth.
I want this floor smell!
She gets up and bathes herself in floor scent before rubbing up against every male in the lab. She promises that Stank will get every man in the world horny as hell. Worked on this guy.
Stank’s first boner.
That night, she tells her assistants that she’s tiiiiired. Then she tells the cameras she’s tiiiiiired. Then she closes her eyes and swipes at the air murmuring about the coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts. As she gets out of the limo, she bumps her head, screams “OW!” and tells the chauffeur that she’s, EVERYBODY NOW! TIIIIIIRRREEEDDD!!!
Day Three is press junket day, and it’s awesome to see the behind the scenes footage from the interviews that’ve since been blared into every home in America, making sloppy, sad, drunken pop culture history.
Paula’ll be on satellite with Fox affiliates across the US this morning and she’s BUSTED. She’s suffering from exhaustion, the flu, and drug addiction, but she’s a trooper. It’s her job to make us cringe and question this country’s prescription abuse, and she’s gonna follow through.
Reporter: Good morning, Paula!
Paula looks around the room and tries to figure out where that voice is coming from.
Reporter: Good morning, Paula!
She slaps her own head and almost falls off her stool. “Oh! Is that what it is?”
Reporter: (sound of crickets)
Through forty interviews, Paula giggles and waves her arms and slurs out Maya Angelou poems, for all we know. Something about twirling fire, using publicity, and “Imadaancer!!” As her montage of shame rolls on and on and on, Manager Guy tells us that Paula’s tired. Yeah, ass. We know. This guy needs to be fired and replaced with, I don’t know. Me.
Snap your bony ass out of it and straighten up, Missy! You look like an asshole!
Nope, yes men it is. This is the saddest part of the whole thing, because even though Paula has lots of people around her, there isn’t one true honest friend. Maybe she should have lunch on the Fox lot every once in awhile, because I know someone who would be her perfect BFF.
Next week, Paula’s completely screwed. And of course, TIIIIIIRRRREEEEEDDDD!!!
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that last clip killed me….
I am laying on my floor…
dead….
this is one freak show I didn’t want to miss and I did….
thanks to my vicodin……
and the doctor just keeps giving it out to me saying……
you have to be careful…. this is addictive……
no shit……….
thanks for the recap….
I know this will rerun and I will catch it….
but your insight gives me hope that this show will be worth my time….
and she would be lucky to get you to haul her around on her junkets
xoxox
she kinda reminds me of what i always wanted in a puppy… cute and crazy.
must watch! Thanks so much for the recap! I was crying when Helen and Jane were wondering “Is she dead” Good to know so much work goes into celebrity scents, I thought they just put the name on the label. All I can tell you is I too want to smell like floor, will she be doing the man’s version too???
I may have to comment again after I actually see–thanks for convincing me to.
I watched the second one….where she goes to the Grammy’s…..even better!!!!!
I wish I was famous…..don’t you?
What a train wreck she is. Great recap, flipit. You got all the best screencaps. Paula has now replaced Anna Nicole Smith as the crazy hoochie. Congrat’s Paula.
Please tell me you’ll give us recaps of this or photo montages or SOMETHING all season! She is so strung out on something I actually started feeling uncomfortable. Not uncomfortable enough to change the channel or anything, or uncomfortable enough to stop laughing at her, but still.
That whole scene in the Starbucks? That’s EXACTLY how I act when I’m sleepy (and I’ve had 10 beers and a few shots of Jack Daniels).
I was watching this mess and thought to myself numerous times: “God I wish flipit would recap this” and voila! It’s like you HEARD me!!
Do you think she sees any of the footage before it airs? I suppose it wouldn’t matter anyway. She probably wouldn’t recognize herself.
I can’t wait to hear the first AI contestant call her out at the auditions. “Oh so I can’t sing?! Well Paula - I seen your show. You Suck Bitch!”
hahahaha
hb
“This guy needs to be fired and replaced with, I don’t know. Me.”
I LOVE IT!!! Forget the draft-Flipit-for-The-View movement. My new goal in life is to get Flipit a job as Paula’s manager. (Yeah, I know it’s a sad goal, shut up!) Even though I only know him from all the delicious snark he doles out here, I have a feeling Flipit would also be good at doling out the suck-up and telling Paula what she wants to hear and convincing her that she is indeed a functional human being. “No Paula, signing up on eharmony isn’t at all shabby for a woman of your stature. This is the way all the kids are hooking up now.” Or better yet, “While I personally don’t want any, that Percocet-Zoloft-Adderall-Ambien-HRT-mango-coconut-pineapple smoothie looks delicious Paula.” It sounds like an awesome job.
Of course, you’d have to do an anonyblog for those of us who have been there with you from the start and give us the lowdown. Like how many times Paula passed out last night, does Randy really talk like that in real life, and of course most importantly, how much money you’re making by selling all the leftover pills Paula has randomly scattered around her house.
Oh, I hope you can get the job. The mere possibility of it is more exciting than tomorrow’s fireworks display.
HAHAHAHAAAAAA you guys. goddamn you killed me
i don’t know if i can do every episode of this show, but i will definitely be keeping up with it. maybe we could have a “dumb shit she did last night” section and just upload a couple vid clips. this woman is PRICELESS. jamp from the gasm pointed out that i was recapping the second episode and Paula’s much nicer in the pilot. i will watch that tomorrow, but if it’s true, who wants to watch that? i’ll take more rolling around the floor and panhandling, thank you.
i love you guys!! happy fourth!
Great recap!
Only thing you missed is pointing out the camera commentary where paula looks like she has had an allergice reaction to a bee sting. What happened did she stop taking Meth????
ooooooooooooo this mess makes the Dragon and Mary Jane veeeeerrrry happy. uncomfortable yet happy.