"Kathy Griffin: My Life On The D-List" (4.07) recaplet: Bora Bora, Gaybies, and ... "The Todd"

This episode of My Life on the D List starts with Kathy Griffin talking about trying to lure her mother away from her gay and equip her with "the old person's survival kit", which includes The Hover-round, Life Alert, and my personal favorite, the Jitterbug, which is the "cell phone for seniors", and looks like a pre-school toy cell phone (complete with painted on numbers).

This week, the show is about a working vacation in Bora Bora, which was decided on after assistants Jessica and Tiffany used one of the tricks from that mega-selling phenomenon The Secret (and as such, Tiffany and Jessica are now dead to me).

The gang arrives in Bora Bora, where Kathy has to perform in two shows for what she thinks is an exclusively gay audience. First, they take time out for a little kayaking and snorkeling in the most dazzling blue water I've ever seen (I live next to Lake Ontario, and the only time the water is blue is when some evil corporation dumps barrels of old anti-freeze in it). Unfortunately, this scene also highlights tour manager Tom, who I'm sad to say is almost as pasty as I am.

Before the first show, Kathy decides to get to know the audience better, and that's when she makes a horrifying discovery ... the audience isn't entirely gay, it's actually forty percent ... straight. This sends her into a mild panic, until she realizes that there's more drama with the straight people than the gays.

There's a strange, very tall straight guy who's not sitting with his wife because "they don't get along", a couple who are divorced but still sleeping together, and then there's ... The Todd (who we'll get to later).

Kathy starts her show...and makes a huge faux pas.

Before she starts her stand-up, Kathy's opening act performs. She's a performance artist named India, and it's fairly clear that at one time in her life, she knew all there was to know about the crying game.

Kathy starts her act, and to say it doesn't go well is an understatement. In between sweating buckets, she makes some ill received jokes about the guests, and also tries out new material about "gaybies".

According to Kathy, gaybies are children who are adopted by gay couples, and apparently that's worth mocking. All of her gays, who were "going to circuit parties six months ago, are suddenly adopting kids. They're so full of sh*t ... you can't return them." Well, that garners a chilly reception, as well it should.

I love Kathy more than anyone, but I really think it's time she widens her gay circle, maybe that way it wouldn't come as such a shock to find out that not all gays have "hedonistic for life" bumper stickers.

Fellow comic Mario Cantone shows up, and the two of them bemoan the fact that some gay people actually want things like "marrriage" and "children", and how above all of that they are.

As you can tell, this isn't my favorite "Kathy" moment.

See if Kathy is able to redeem herself for the second performance, and meet "The Todd" after the break.

Kathy decides to do anything she can to get back in the good graces of the guests, so she heads off to an island with them, and after some heavy schmoozing, she learns all about "The Todd".

Todd is a guest who may or may not be gay, may or may not be filthy rich, and may or may not be totally batcrap insane. From the gossip floating around, Todd got kicked out of Kathy's show, and ended up in the kitchen in his underwear, then stripped naked for a female guest. If he also played the bongos, he could be the long lost brother of Matthew Mcconaughey.

He was eventually put in "lockdown", which makes Kathy wonder if she can do the same thing to Tom.

Before she begins the second show, Todd pays a visit with a special gift for Kathy, a necklace that looks like it was made from shells ... or shrunken heads. She starts the show, and using the punchline that is "The Todd", this show goes much better than the last one.

Back at home, it's time for Kathy to deal with her wayward mother, and she enlists the services of her niece Claire and nephew JP to convince her to start hanging around with people her own age. She wants to take her mom to a "retirement community", and the kids are supposed to act like it's Disneyworld.

They head off to Shady Pines Villa Gardens, and Kathy's mom isn't too enthused until she hears two magic words: "wine tasting".

Kathy then presents her mother with the old person's survival kit, which has the aforementioned Life Alert, one of those grabby things to get stuff on the top shelf, and a scooter. Of course she couldn't just present her with a scooter, so there was a lot of subterfuge involving selling Kathy's dad's scooter, and a fake Craigslist sale.

I was a little disappointed with this episode. With the exception of the Todd bits, which was classic D list material, and the stuff with Kathy's mom, It didn't have a lot of appeal for me. Maybe next week's show, which has Kathy campaigning for a Grammy, will bring it back.

I just hope she retires the "gaybies" bit.