Lindsay Ep 4: Pole Dancing Is Not Community Service

When we last left Lindsay and Lindsay Lohan, she had been told by the Great and Powerful O, to cut the “bullshit” and don’t “fuck it up.”

Who does O think she is, RuPaul. Because gurrrrrrrl …. Anyway, after her cuss-out of Lohan the younger, O sat down for a chat with Dina who nearly peed herself because Oprah Winfrey was in her house. But O ignores that and instantly questions Dina on her parenting skills and choices … She asked if Dina had any regrets about letting her 19-year-old daughter, who was making about $7 million a movie, head out to LA and live by herself.

Naturally, Dina, her eyes darting hither and yon, deflecting as usual, said no. She was a single mother :::sniff::: she had three other children to pimp out raise :::sniff::: plus Lindsay was sending big checks back to Dina’s Long island manse :::sniff::: And Lindsay was dating a club manager and that’s bad news and she had friends who were bad news and she was appearing all over magazines drunk and panties-less in public, crashing cars, carrying cocaine,, but you know, Dina had other things to worry about.

And as they talked about Lindsay's downward spiral into drug and alcohol addiction, Dina dabbed her eyes, wiping away tears that weren’t really there. But she just knows, she knows, that Lindsay will turn it around this time.

And the Oscar goes to ….

But then O calls Granny Lohan into the room, who can only say that Lindsay is beautiful and should have won an Oscar for The Parent Trap.

Oh, it’s a tie for the Best Actress Oscar, Mama and Granny Lohan!

Luckily, O’s had enough of the Lohan clan and she is hoisted back into her SUV and whisked away; in the very next instant, Lindsay is fleeing Chez Dina, sliding into her SUV and saying, throatily, “Let’s get outta here.

And so we return to the apartment that Oprah is paying for — well, the production company that O hired to shoot this reality show docu-series is paying for — and we find the place littered, LITTERED, with clothes. And we find Assistant Two, Hollie, struggling to put together the clothes racks and hangers that the production company has paid for so Lindsay can have all her things with her.

And while this is going on, actress and celebrity well-being “expert” AJ Johnson has arrived with eight or nine bags of groceries to make a small breakfast for Lindsay because Lindsay cannot hang up her own clothes or cook for herself. It’s 10AM and Lindsay’s sleeping. First Assistant Matt heads in to wake her up because, you know, Lindsay cannot wake herself up. nor can she handle the parking tickets she gets because she leaves her car, possibly paid for by the production company, on the street all night; she's under the assumption that if you leave the first ticket on the car all night, she'll be fine. Matt assures her that is not the case, but he'll pay the tickets so Lindsay can .... can ....

Get out of bed. Finally, La Lohan appears and talks about how she needs a routine because a routine will keep her on the straight, er, sober and narrow, and yet she seems to feed on no routine whatsoever, except that Matt is happily running the show again as Solo Assistant Matt because he’s fired Brit Hollie for drinking wine in front of Lindsay. Of course, we have no footage of that, or of the firing, or of Hollie leaving so …. Yeah.

So, in an effort to get healthy, stay healthy, and sober, and take control of her life, Lindsay takes a pole dancing class. I guess that downward spiral might end at stripper? Which might well happen, because sober coach Michael is winding up his thirty days of “helping” Lindsay use the tools she learned at her seventh rehab stint and have a fabulously sober and non-chaotic life!

And with that Lindsay gets whisked off to do a sketch on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. It appeared to be a cheesy rip-off of some SNL valley girl skit from the 80s, with the au currant Miley Cyrus reference. It was high-larious … I kid.

And then, because Lindsay needs to balance out her fabulous return to the screen, a la Fallon, she next heads to the Duffield Children’s Center  in Brooklyn to complete her thirty days of court-ordered community service. Now, I’ll stop and give her props because she was really fun with the kids, and playful with the kids, but did she have to go dressed as a hooker. Seriously, I think one of the kids asked if Lindsay ever worked her block.

And, naturally, she complained about her other stints at community service — most notably her time at the LA morgue — because it wasn’t fun, and she wasn’t giving back and there were dead people there and it was more of a punishment. 

Hmmm, wonder if that’s why it’s court-ordered community service?

But this day was fun and she was hugged by the kids as she leaves and the director of the center seems genuinely pleased with how Lindsay worked with the kids. However, as soon as her time was done, after Lindsay says she cannot wait to come back, she turns away quickly, runs to her car, while saying, “I’ll keep in touch.”

Um, LiLo? This isn’t a friend you might call later in the week for lunch. Again, this is court-ordered community service, so, yeah, you’ll keep in touch and be there, right? Right? Hello?

Once more at home, Lindsay and AJ create a Life and Career board for Lindsay to set goals, the first of which is being back onset because that’s where she belongs, where she feels most comfortable, and happy, and is not at all a troublemaker; unless you check out her recent appearance on Two Broke Girls or Glee or what Paul Schrader had to say about her antics on The Canyons or the messes she made all over LA — the car crash and the walking out on a hotel bill and the ER rush — during the filming of the craptastic Liz and Dick. Yeah, working is what keeps her sober.

Lindsay says she wanted a role in The Avengers, but her manager didn't push for her and they "went with an unknown" for the part. She says she’s the only one who works to get her roles, and that very few agents and production companies want to see her at all. See last paragraph for the myriad of reasons why, though don’t bother looking for one place where Lindsay says any of it is her fault.

It’s her manager, and her agent, and, apparently, Penelope Cruz who gets in the way.

And it’s right there that AJ suggest that maybe Lindsay might have some responsibility in this, and Lindsay gives her that, “Butch pleased, I’m Lindsay Lohan” look. Still, AJ convinces her that maybe if she finishes this reality show docu-series and shows up and isn’t late and isn’t a total mess, maybe, just maybe, some producer will decide she’s ready for her close-up again.

If not, there’s always the pole.

Or a dental emergency. One of her veneers came off because she got “weirdly hungry” and ate, and she needs it fixed but her LA dentist always sedates her — with Valium and propofol and assorted other drugs — when she has work done and she wants sedation this time, too; even when asked if it might be detrimental to her sobriety, she wants sedation because, you know, it wears off, like an eight-ball wears off.

Which nicely segues into a shot of a newspaper article about Lindsay being out in the clubs, and an explanation that Lindsay likes the night  life, she loves to boogie, on the disco-go-round, and she can do all that and hang out in bars with people who drink and not be tempted at all, well, maybe  a little,.

But, um, wasn’t Hollie just booted for drinking in front of LiLo? Apparently that was different because it wasn’t in a club at 4AM.

And finally, we end, with Lindsay doing yoga while her sober coach, Michael, packs his bags to go back to LA. With cameras on him, Michael is asked if Lindsay is still sober, and he cannot answer; he breathes in and out, and hems and haws, and finishes by saying he won’t discuss Lindsay’s sobriety.

Makes you wonder, though, that if she was sober, he’d very clearly say 'Yes.'

Next week: The rest of Lindsay's "stuff" comes to clutter the apartment ... Dina throws Lindsay under the Chardonnay Bus ... Lindsay cops to drinking. 

Do I hafta get Oprah back out there?