Taking it to the streets: The ladies walk and talk.

Just when I start liking this show, it turns out the season's practically over. Damn strike! I mean, I love you, WGA members! Glad to have you back!

Anyway.

Wendy gets the scoop on a "Harry Potter" prequel from another mom at Taylor's school who was blabbing about it on her cell. Wendy spills about it to Nico over coffee at Victory's, which is buzzing with new staff and supplies ever since her mysterious investor came in to safe her business. Nico, in turn, spills to the girls about her glowing complexion -- the Hollywood cookie diet! The girls totally buy it.

Can't take theirs eyes off...: Joe and the girls watch Shane rock the house. Albeit in a jazzy sort of way.Apparently Shane has talents outside of the Healy household. When he's not supervising homework or looking after the loft, Shane is quite the piano player. After seeing him play a set with his former band, Wendy gets caught up in the excitement of being married to a musician and submits a demo of his to David, one of her producers, who is looking for a composer. Shane's not pleased that his wife is scaring up jobs for him, though he relents a bit when she says the CD is credited to "Shane McCormick". But it doesn't take Wendy long to confess to David that Shane is Mr. Wendy Healy. Wendy insists that David should choose whoever he thinks is best for the gig -- even if that person isn't her husband. Of course, David picks Shane, so everybody wins, right? Sure -- as long as Shane believes he totally got the job on his own.

Screening Room: Wendy traps Nico and Victory to make them watch one of her movies.I think I liked this week's episode because it's been two weeks since I've last seen this show (thanks, Rohin, for recapping episode 3!), and that's given me some time to forget how much I hated it. Also, Victory's finally grown a pair. A pair of cupcakes, maybe, but she's got some strength this week -- is it Roy and his support? Is it Joe and his whimsical romance? Is it all those luscious fabrics at the sari store? All those green tea lattes she chugged while making a dress for a starlet? But who cares about that when Nico's got a lawsuit on her hands?

Lipstick Jungle
1x03

Previously on this show…rich ladies slept around, had imagined conflicts that didn’t really threaten their cushioned Manhattan existences and found themselves getting into you-go-girl situations of wonky proportions – the likes of which Lifetime would Trim Spa its Bon-Boned existence to attain if it could.

We cut to Wendy giving a talk about nothing at a Women in Media luncheon, which she hopes to use as a “bonding experience” with her daughter Maddie who is like a miniature Blair Waldorf only excessively one-dimensional and boring. She stupidly falls for some pushy pageant mom’s hoo-haing about how Wendy brought her along just for the publicity and makes a statement by leaving a pair of her (extremely cute!) pumps on the table and walking out. Wendy nearly breaks into tears; this role demands more acting than I think possible in Brooke Shields’ range. Then again, I didn’t think she could hack it as that psychotic psychotherapist on Nip/Tuck who was feeding Sean and Christian ancient Greek ideas of love and attraction either and she ended her run by getting Christian’s name branded on her ass cheek. Anything is possible.

Victory means business!: Victory and Joe engage in a cute-off.Wendy may be on the losing end of a war waged by a battle axe with an ax to grind. Janice Slasher -- great name, but hell for people with lisps to pronounce, right? -- at Bainbridge Publishing wants to publish a thinly veiled account of Wendy's home life penned by Mariska, her former nanny. PS: If you're going to make Mariska live in not-so-glamorous Queens, could you at least put her on a nicer-looking block? Not all of Queens is a perpetually overcast street of rowhouses. This isn't "The Wire", for crying out loud, and this Queens girl would be ever so grateful.

Joseph and Victory go at it: Clearly, this is a publicity shot.Is there something in the fact that, three minutes into watching the pilot, I had to get up and go to the bathroom?

Yeah, I thought so, too.

Wendy Healey, Nico Reilly, and Victory Ford are on some New York power list the import of which is merely to create a connection between them. I think. It never comes up again in the episode. Do these lists actually do anything for one's career? I should make up one of my own: "Jasmine's Power 25", and I would be at the top of it every year.