'Being Lara Bingle.' Are you still watching?

by EM RUSCIANO

Let us launch straight into episode 3 of Being Lara Bingle.

Lara rings her Mother Shazza to apologise for the unfortunate events that went down at the family dinner last week.

The week just passed had been a tough one for The Bingles. Four years since Lara’s father and Shazza’s husband, Graham passed away of liver and pancreatic cancer.

Shazza reminds Lara that her behaviour affects other people, Lara admits that she tries to laugh stressful events off and put up a brave front.

She concedes that yes, being nude in public doesn’t only affect her.

Being nude in public had a ripple (yes, I wanted to write nipple) effect on her entire family; being nude puts pressure on others, not just her. I expect Lara will be bathing/showering in a full length wetsuit from now on.

Shazza accepts Lara’s apology and suggests they go and visit Nanna Bingle together. I’m not going to lie – this prospect excited me! Then for some inexplicable reason we cut to a completely superfluous ear-candling session with Hermione (Lara’s BFF slash manager) administering the ear candle.

For one thing, I am not sure that either of these girls should be anywhere NEAR an open flame, given the amount of hair product their perfectly disheveled blonde hairdos obviously require. Also, hearing Hermione “joke” that “I’ve always wanted to set you on fire” – unsettled me a tad.

But where is Lara’s Bro, the enchanting Josh? Where indeed…

Are here he is, delicately informing Lara that her ex-fiance (Australian Cricketer Michael “Pup” Clark) is now married.

It transpired roughly like this:

“Oi, guess what I just heard on the radio? Your mate Clarky got hitched.”

Cue Lara jumping on Google to look for wedding photos.

“They’re on a horse, it looks dirty. They could have washed the horse.. Does he look happy?”

Strangely the camera then pans to a photo of Lara on a horse in the background. Perhaps to show us what a clean one looks like?

Josh: “She looks alright, she looks good”.

Lara: “JOSHUA!”

Josh: “Alright I’m outta here”.

Lara: “What? You’re just going to leave me here now”.

Josh: “I don’t care, call your friends or something”.

End Scene. [Post continues below gallery]

Lara conceded that this turn of events did perhaps signal it was time for her to move on. Yep, a wedding will do that to any sort of future hope you may have for a romantic relationship with the groom.

Lara then fronts up to a Swisse vitamins launch party, where we were treated to a brief cameo by OUR DELTA! Lara admits that her eye gets twitchy when she has to talk about something stressful – I SO GET THAT! It seemed she handled the questions about Pup’s wedding with grace and dignity, her eye only noticeably twitching twice.

After the party with our Delta, there was more pouring over photos of Michael’s wedding…

I found myself screaming at the TV: “Stop it Lara, why are you torturing yourself? Whhhhhhy? Move on lady”.

But then I realised that I would totally be doing the same thing in her place.

I would have purchased every magazine available, I would have obsessively scoured the internet devouring any information available on the wedding and the woman. I may have even cut the bride’s head out and put a picture of my own in her place. What? OH DON’T YOU JUDGE LARA OR ME! YOU WOULD TOO! Right guys? Right!

There was a bit of insinuating from Lara to Hermione that Michael just wanted someone in his life – ANYONE. That perhaps he just got married because he hated being alone and wanted a traveling companion. It made Lara seem bitter and dismissive of Michael’s new bride Kyly Boldy. I chose to forgive her for this and put it down to hurt feelings.

What followed was a scintillating exchange between Hermione and Josh over breakfast vis-à-vis their secret relationship that Lara didn’t know about because it was a secret, secret. I struggled to believe that, mainly because Lara isn’t an actress and a producer had plainly asked her to pretend (after she entered the kitchen containing her Bro and Hermione) that she didn’t know her best friend and her brother had hooked up with each other, over and over and over again.

This whole kitchen act hurt my brain.

And it got EVEN worse when Hermione said: “We are like brother and sister now” while Josh was making sexy eyes at her..

Let us away to Nana Bingle’s!

Nana Bingle was lovely, as was Pop. I feel more could have come from this lunch but Nanna seemed a little nervous and Pop not really sure what was going on. They both obviously love Lara very much. Josh revealed he had had his mother immortalised on his wrist with a tattoo. It of course says: SHAZZA.

What came next surprised me – Hermione properly laying down the law. She produced an impressive pile of envelopes and bills and more or less tells Lara to pull her socks up. But in her defence, maybe no one ever showed Lara how to open an envelope. Cut to Lara in a bath while Hermione’s voice echoes off the walls in a weird flash back-sequence that I didn’t think reality TV allowed… In fact I think the time/space continuum could explode over less.

The next day Hermione and Lara go jogging together in matching outfits and Hermione totally breaks up with her as her manager over the whole bill issue. All of this simply because Lara doesn’t know how to open an envelope.

I think the lesson here is kids, if you want to keep your BFF slash manager – open your bloody letters!

Until next time.

Em. x

Em Rusciano appears on Network Ten’s ’The Project’, she also regularly hosts The Circle. You should follow her on Twitter here and take a look at her website here.

Ratings for ‘Being Lara Bingle’ last night were 98,000 down from the week before and down 241,000 from the first episode. Are you still watching ‘Being Lara Bingle’? What did you think of last night’s episode? Is your opinion of Lara changing as the series goes on?

Note: Please remember our dinner party rules and lay off the bitchy comments. Imagine Lara’s reading this post and the comments, and bear that in mind when you choose to say something. Any nasty, rude or offensive comments about Lara will be deleted. Be kind. Thanks.