Bravo/Andrew EcclesThe time has come. The finale of Real Housewives of New York City is tonight, and if any of you haven't been tuning in, it's a must. Real Emmy material here, folks.
We caught up with housewife Jill Zarin, who, this season, was most famously known for feuding with new mom Bethenny Frankel. Luckily for Jill though, costar Kelly Bensimon had one too many crazy jelly beans and has taken the heat off the girl-on-girl battle.
So what does Jill have to say about Bethenny and Kelly? And what can we expect about tonight's episode? Do read on...
"This season has been like a roller coaster; it has definitely had its highs and lows," Jill tells E! about her hit Bravo show. Among other things, Jill ‘fesses she is disappointed about the way the show has gone this season, but admits "drama sells."
"I would like the show to be more like Sex and the City, where the girls celebrate each other and have fun and share wonderful experiences, and unfortunately it didn't go that way," she adds.
Sorry, babe, but we viewers couldn't be happier about that. Enter housewife Kelly Bensimon.
"Everything with Kelly was fine...until the island," Zarin warns us.
The island is not a reference to Lost—more like when a few of the girls took a trip to St. John. To quote Bethenny, that's when "Kelly came out of the gate like kook-a-doodle-doo."
There, Kelly offered up some awesome one-liners, like how the girls were making "lemonade out of lemons," that she thought Bethenny was going to stab her and how she was ready to go back to "La-La Land" where "everything was rainbows and cartwheels"...among the rambling nonsense.
"[Kelly] is a normal and nice person who comes from a good place with a good heart," says Jill, defending one of her closer friends on the show. "I think it was just they were filming them almost 24 hours a day for four days, and they weren't used to that, and there was alcohol involved. A lot of pressure, a lot of stress and influence."
Uh-huh. As for the latest with Jill and Bethenny?
"I think that we are definitely in a better place than when the show was being filmed," Zarin informs us.
Tonight on the show J.Z. says we can expect to see the "old Jill" again when she sits down with Bethenny to patch things up.
"Hopefully you'll see tonight that I step it up and say let's make up and forgive and forget and all of that stuff," she says. "Whether she forgives you'll have to watch and see, but for me, I think I did the right thing. I am not hypocrite. I am not perfect, and I make mistakes, but hopefully this will help people not make the same mistakes. I know that after this I have learned, and it has made me a better friend. I am much more conscious."
Jill will be blogging on Jillzarin.com after it airs.
What about the reunion show we're already hearing about (which will air in two parts on Bravo on June 10 and June 17)? Zarin says we can expect 44 minutes of "dramatic flare-ups" that came from eight or nine hours of filming. "For me it was very emotional. It was the first time I saw Bethenny since December and it was very emotional for me, and I think for her too."
Because of the tone this season, Zarin isn't sure that she'll return for another season, but says, "I am open to anything. I hope that the show goes back to where it came from next year."
Here that Bravo? Time to start dishing out more moola!
—Additional Reporting by Taryn Ryder