The (dilapidated) House of Morgan is toppling down in a spectacular fashion – if “spectacular” means public and embarrassing to one who is capable of feeling such an emotion – but we shall get there in due time because first we have other unplesantries with which to deal.  In the olden days (you know, when Alex and Simon were on the show and Alex tried to convince us that she was an in-demand model and Simon tried to convince us that he was heterosexual), the first ten minutes of conflict within this episode would have been stretched out for an entire program, but those days are now dead and full of decay and the hostility exhibited before the first commercial break was really just a light amuse bouche made out of imitation crabmeat that sat on a countertop for too long.

I don’t know which part of the first ten minutes of this episode of The Real Housewives of New York is most likely to nestle itself deep within the stickiest part of my psyche and forever remain there unless I can figure out how to order a self-lobotomy kit from amazon.com: