The Pioneer Woman Show

The tweetchat Saturday was awesome and here’s a huge thank you to Marlboro Woman for putting it together!

Ree stopped by Paula Deen’s place with Ladd and the boys last Spring to cook up some enchiladas but the show didn’t air until this past Saturday.  I’m pleased to say that the two of them managed to get through the entire episode without eating butter straight out of the dish.  Shocking.

"You love butter too? Really?"

After the enchiladas are in the oven, Paula tells Ree that she’s got a great dessert planned and Ree tries to look curious but since her forehead doesn’t move and her cheeks are permanently scrunched, it falls flat.

"This is my curious look. Is it working? Do I look curious?"

Even though Ree had told Paula within the first 45 seconds of filming that Ladd and the boys were stopping by later, as they were eating their enchiladas, Paula seemed surprised.

Ree points to the door and says, "Look who's coming." Paula scans the horizon. Ree ignores her and continues eating.

The most painful part of this episode was not only Paula continually saying, “Toot!  Toot!” to describe just about everything, but at one point she even got Ree to do it as well.  In what can only be describe as a PR agents worse nightmare, they did double fist pumps and squats while screaming it.

It was bad.  Real real bad.

Ree & Paula doing their "Toot! Toot!" dance. Anthony Bourdain will have a field day with this one.

Second best moment was when Paula innocently asked Ladd, “How many acres?” He responded curtly, “Pretty good sized.”  Vodka went flying on that one!

As if 30 minutes of offering Ree to the public on Paula’s show wasn’t enough, Food Network premiered The Pioneer Woman immediately afterwards.

Right off the bat, we get to see BLM mustangs running on the ranch (wonder if they have an agent since they’re used as props in Ree’s multi-million dollar media career?).  Following that we get to witness more horrible riding by the Drummonds and cowboys, including the kids.

Elbows flying! Hands at the chest! Pull those reins, it's just a damn horse's mouth who cares about his comfort!

I suppose we should just be thankful she didn’t do an episode about this incident.  Do you know there are people out there who honestly think she just put the kid in the saddle to sit for a quick second and pose for a picture?  I swear if Ree Drummond committed murder, it would be instantly forgiven.

Anyway, back to the show.

You know how your mother always told you not to cross your eyes or they’ll stay like that?  Ree’s mother never told her not to scrunch her cheeks and smirk.

I watched a solid hour of her cheeks scrunched up like this. How she manages to talk through that smirk is one of life's mysteries.

Seriously, it never stopped!

The cheek scrunching began to look painful.

Ree took time to tell the audience how confused some people are when they hear chicken fried steak because they want to know where the chicken is.  She also said, “Shhh.  Listen!” while scraping the bits up into the gravy because, “that’s the sound of all the bits on the bottom of the pan being incorporated into the gravy.”

At this point in the show, I reached for another bottle.  The next 20 minutes were clearly going to be painful. 

The lighting was very grey and mostly horrid throughout the show.

I can’t imagine how they managed to get the lighting so grey but it was definitely kinder {ahem} to Ree than the lighting on Paula’s set.

The fake scripting after Ree said there wasn’t any, the “you have to have your hat to eat dinner Bryce,” but most of all, Ladd inviting Josh to dinner……. it was seriously just BAD.

"Here's your fat and cream! Come to dinner kids!"

Flowy tops with the-camera-adds-10-pounds is not good.

Ladd and Josh arrived at the Lodge for dinner and completely ignored the kids when they said, “Hi daddy!”  He rushed to grab a plate from Ree saying, “Is this our food?”  Ladd declined the tah-may-tuhs covered in oil, sticking with the mashed potatoes and steak which he covered (and by “covered” I mean you could barely see the potatoes and steak) with what appeared to be AT LEAST a full cup of gravy.

The men and kids head out to the deck with 20 mph winds and begin eating before Ree makes it to the table.  Then in a totally spontaneous and UN-scripted moment, Ladd announced something they weren’t expecting — they have to get the horses in.  Ree surprises everyone by insisting that she be the one to get the horses.

We’re treated to scenes of Ree chasing horses around in the gator.  Yippee.  By this time, I was daring the horses to kick her.

Next thing you know, it’s morning and “dark-thirty” as Ree explains.  Everyone except Ree heads out in the saddle to gather cattle while Ree follows in the gator taking pictures.

If this blogging thing doesn't work out, she can always become a paparazzi.

When she’s finished with her work she heads back to whip up breakfast.

"Nah, you all go on and keep working. I'm exhausted from holding this damn thing."

Ree then drives the gator back out to the pens where everyone’s arrived and starving.  After handing out her goodies Ree and Ladd have yet another totally UN-scripted moment where he tells her she is “too clean”.

Always a turn on for women.

The next scene has got to be one of the most bizarre things ever put on Food Network.  Someone has roped a calf and one of the boys has the calf by the back feet.  What happens next is that the boy put his knees onto the back end of the calf, held on with his hands, and rode the calf like a surfboard while they were both dragged.

No.  I am not lying.

One of the Drummond boys is riding (surfing) on this calf as it's dragged through the corral.

As if that wasn’t enough for the calves to endure, Ree decides to “get on one” as Ladd instructs — whatever that means.

"Jesus Ree, just grab his leg so we can get this filming over with and move on with work."

Ree looks into the camera and explains how it was all going well until “the calf rebelled.”  Gee, you’d have to wonder why.

Finally, in a scene that will win Most Awkward Ending Of A “Cooking” Show award this year, we see Ree sitting at the Lodge table with her camera and laptop.  She explains that she’s just uploaded the pictures from that morning and is now editing them for a blog post.  ”There’s just so much to share.  The cows, the kids………”

Then she looks back at the computer and that’s it.  That’s the end.  There’s no, “Thanks for stopping by!”  or  ”See you next week!”  It’s just ……… done.

The end. "Hey film crew worker guys, my cheeks are stuck again. Can I get some help?"

Tagged as: drummond kids, drummond ranch, food network, ladd drummond, pioneer woman show, ree drummond, ree drummond cooking show, the pioneer woman