I’ve been trying to stick to a Monday, Wednesday, Friday posting schedule but I’m late this week because I’ve just returned from a last-minute trip to visit my friend Jaime in Israel.  It was an incredible week and I’m so excited to post more about it in the next few days.  On my first day back in town, I went to yoga, sorted through my email correspondence and then caught up on my stories.

Even when I had, um, a life, I was a pretty avid TV watcher.  But this week was special, because the “Made in Chelsea” season finale was airing as I stepped off the plane, and I just finished watching it.  “Made in Chelsea” is the only home-grown British show that I have gotten into, but since it is British (this country’s equivalent of Laguna Beach or The Hills) it is equal parts voyeuristic and ethnographic, at least for me.

Its all very complicated and interesting.

The advert for the show pretty much gave away the whole story arc: Millie, heiress to a British chocolate empire (another major character is the heir to McVittie’s digestives), discovers that her ex-boyfriend cheated on her with one of her friends. Dressed in full-on Great Gatsby garb, she marches to the front of the 1920s themed birthday party (fact: themes make everything more dramatic) and says, “A toast: to my friend Rosie Fortescue, for sleeping with Hugo Taylor while we were together, and then lying about it.  Here’s to friendship.”

Drama predictably ensued; today, apparently, several of the characters have been ripped apart so vehemently on Twitter that the Daily Mail wrote an article about it.

Elsewhere in the episode, Spencer took Louise out for a drink and apologized for treating her shabbily when they dated earlier in the season.  Cheska, who is horse-faced, self-righteous and hyper defensive, had a show-down with Gabriella over the fact that Cheska is moving in with Ollie (regular readers: remember that photo of the hilariously ugly androgynous guy I posted a few weeks ago? That’s Ollie).  Mark Francis, a flamboyant aspiring jewelry designer, said “Dahling!” a hilarious number of times, followed by such comments as “you look diviiiiine” and “we need trees with gilded leaves and naked women riding tigers at this party” (no joke. he really said that. and he was serious.)

Most of the time, the people on the show are unintentionally hilarious (see above) and, of course, behave so vapidly and selfishly that it strains credulity, even by the standards of “reality” television.  Every once in a while they surprise the viewer, though.  In this episode, Spencer asks Louise for a drink to apologize for treating her shabbily when they dated over the summer.  In an earlier episode, Proudlock (the one who consistently embarrasses himself the least) was able to gently suggest that a Hooter’s-style candy shop was a poor business plan to the McVittie’s heir (a rare combo of unintentional hilarity and genuine sweetness and rational behavior).  And last episode all the cast spent the afternoon at a Pensioner’s Home (retirement home) to raise money to rehab the facility.

The season finale ended with fireworks both literal and metaphorical – the theme party literally included fireworks – and I’ll actually admit to being excited about the next season, whenever it happens.  In the meantime I may start watching “Sorority Girls,” a show where squeaky clean American sorority girls are imported to Leeds to teach slutty, hard-partying Brit university students the meaning of sisterhood.

Stay tuned.