VH1 YOU’RE CUT OFF ‘Tiaras and Hookahs’ episode recap & best quotes

VH1’s new show You’re Cut Off is pure genius! Whoever cooked this reality masterpiece added just the right measurements of diamonds, Louis Vuitton, boxed wine, entitlement, tiaras, nakedity, “investment banking,” cigarettes, hookahs, and green carpeting. It’s a delicate mix, and easy to get wrong.

These are nine princesses who drop serious cash on tanning, sunglasses, and outfits that don’t always exactly scream glamour and beauty. They are rich, but unsophisticated — terribly addicted to the fragile rush of the credit card swipe. They appear to not be true connoisseurs of anything, but instead blind devotees to whatever name brand their friend or celebrities are wearing.

At first the girls are told they’re filming a reality show called The Good Life, on which they get to flaunt their fabulous lifestyles. They are let loose at the same shopping plaza, where they all get their cards declined and have to report to a back room where life coach Laura Baron is waiting to tell them Daddy and Mommy are done paying for their blingy shiz with their blood, sweat, and tears.

The resulting chain of events results in some of the most beautiful lines ever uttered in reality television. Below are a few examples with a quick recap:

Erica Rose (pictured above), who has a plastic surgeon for a father and plumped lips to prove it, reportedly costs $500,000-a-year to maintain (we’ll see much more of her later). She responds to Laura Baron’s entrance into her life:

“I didn’t hire her as a life coach. I already have an astrologer.”

Eric offers this bit of info about herself:

“I don’t know how to clean, and I do not know how to make a bed. I know that sounds weird, but I’ve tried and I literally can’t figure it out.”

They pile into vans to drive to their destination, and Jacqueline (who at least has some kind of ambition) asks in a voice-over

“Who drives those? The seats! They’re not leather!”

When they arrive at the house, they have to pack their things into one, rather large, bag, and head into a- normasizedl house full of missed-match kitschy decor. There is green carpeting and orange throw pillow. Gia pulls out her hookah to calm herself down, the first of many interesting items the ladies will pull from their stuff pink bags:

The fridge contains uncooked meat and eggs, and the only spirits they have are two boxes of wine. You can’t have a reality show without booze, so the girls dedicate themselves to opening these boxes, and find . . . a bag inside! Erica muses:

“Is this how wine is made? Do people work in factories and pour these bags into bottles?

Leanne quips:

“I’m used to popping bottles, not boxes.“

Jessica, a smart girl with a charming, thick-Jersey accent who can’t live without tanning and cigarettes, steps up to make dinner. A few of the other girls, including Erica (who dresses up in a French maid Halloween costume), help out, but Jessica is literally the only one who has enough sense to know where the stove is.  Three of the girls: Gia, Leanne, and Chrissy sit outside to snark about cooking.

Gia:

“I promise you, I am not going to cook, clean. That’s just stuff that a diva doesn’t do, because a diva needs her soft hands.“

After dinner, they drink more box wine and Erica shows everyone her party trick, the true highlight of the evening:

Erica then passes out tiaras to everyone, and takes Jessica’s dare to strip off her French maid’s costume and jog around the house naked. Gia quietly seethes in the corner because she believes all these moves are making Erica into the queen bee, and SHE is supposed to be the QUEEN BEE!

They then join Laura Baron again for a little therapy. She goes around the room asking the girls probing quests to illuminate the psychology behind their spending habits.

Leanne reveals that her “belongings mean everything to me. They’re my life.”

Erica reveals that her father would make her feel like her appearance was the most important thing by making liposuction noises at parties.

Gia expresses that she doesn’t have the same issues of the other girls, and then we get to see her introductory footage, which isn’t pretty. She has a baby girl, who she refused to breastfeed because she didn’t want to get up in the middle of the night. She also employs a nanny for other nuisances in child rearing like diaper changes, and, probably, love:

Gia says on camera that she married her husband because of the “Ching-ching,” and says that he “can’t do anything right.”

Then, Pamela, who’s family says on camera that they have to help her financially, claims that she, too isn’t like the rest of the girls. She makes her own money. How?

“I work on Wall Street . . . in finance . . . [doing] investment banking.”

Jessica throws her the side-eye of the century, then asks what we’re all thinking: “Are you a prostitute?”

Pamela denies this, but still won’t reveal where she gets most of her money if she isn’t getting it from her parents.

Later, in the rooms, some of the girls are speculating about what Pamela does while Pamela gossips with Jacqueline about Gia not being a hands-on mother. Gia overhears this, and delivers a line for the ages:

“If you talk about me, it better be behind my back, and I better not hear about it.”

A pillow altercation ensues:

Watch the full, glorious episode below, followed by bonus clips:

At one point, they all put on their bikinis for no reason. How did this not make it onto the show? This show obviously needs to be two hours long. If the Bachelor can be two hours, why not You’re Cut Off?:

And, a very interesting experiment when they try to make wine from grapes in the fridge: