Sometimes TV shows make you want to do drugs. When Kelly Kapowski is encouraged to “take a hit” on Saved by the Bell at a fancy Hollywood party, I wanted to get passed the marijuana, too. And nothing seemed more glamorous than Kelly Taylor’s coke problem on 90210 (seriously, you have to click on that link). The Avenue, while littered with allusions to alleged drug use, does not make me want to have what Rachel’s having. In episode 7, she’s having a poorly organized Intervention. And Gregory Gorgeous is really proud of himself for it, too. But he shouldn’t be, because he is honestly not Candy Finnigan, and he should not pretend he is. If The Avenue was rull at all, Rachel would be dead from how bad this intervention was. But first:
Before everything goes down, Rachel’s downward spiral really needs to begin. So, she attends the model casting at a teen girl magazine she referenced last week, and surprise, it actually is Verve Girl, where ARTA IS WORKING and CLAIRE IS JOB SHADOWING FOR THE DAY. Unfortunately, Arta must have had bad sex the night before with Patrick, because she is not nice or professional at all. (And Arta has high standards for professionalism!) But instead of doing her job, she laughs at Rachel when she arrives, and she seems visibly upset that Rachel forgets that Verve Girl is a real magazine and that Arta works there. It’s like watching children play “work” during a period of free play. Rachel cries and runs home, likely to do pills. At least, that’s really the only thing I can think, because The Avenue wants me to know she’s doing prescription pills. It’s all the show cares to talk about.
There are some other things that happen in this episode that don’t really need to happen. Some girl named Alba, who is painted as L.A. trash by me because she is trying way too hard to be fierce, shows up to hang with Greggy. She sips some man servant-made cocktail poolside with Greg, because Greg has a man servant? Again, another not-so-subtle hint that Greggy has cash. But what’s more interesting than this Alba person (anything) is Gregory’s conversation with Arta at their emergency lunch, where Arta tells Greg about the model casting. Shocked, Greg decides to talk about how he would never do drugs because of what they might do to his liver. You live in Rosedale and your entire life is modelled after a housewife…if the stereotype of the modern trophy wife in Rosedale is true, you’ll be making regular prescription drug runs in TJ by next year. Gregory’s holier-than-thou attitude is starting to get on my nerves. I almost wish he’d take several chill pills.
Ultimately, Gregory organizes an intervention, and poorly. He pours everyone a glass of wine (of course!), and instructs his friends to move from the staging room because it is one of his favourite places and he doesn’t want to taint the space by holding an intervention there. Priorities! With wine in hand, Gregory tells Rachel he thinks one of his toy dogs is dying, and she rushes over to be ambushed. And then it turns into one of The Avenue’s club scenes, where everyone is screaming but you can’t understand a word anyone is saying. And, oh yeah, that Alba girl is at the intervention, and she gets a significant amount of screen time. I’m guessing she won a walk on-role from a Twitter contest.
Episode takeaway: never hire Gregory to do anything, especially an intervention. Maybe if you need fierce makeup, you can call him. But even then you’d still have to listen to him.
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Kevin Naulls is a Toronto-based writer and former editor of The Goods and The Hype at Torontolife.com. Follow him on Twitter @kevinjn.
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