J.Lo.Hew
The show starts on her crabby husband's birthday. He's mad, because she bought him a leather jacket, even though they are po'. Sir, can you not see that she compensated by only purchasing 50 percent of a shirt for herself?
The first rub
He CAN see. So after they make up, he basically nails her on the dining room table. Never mind that they're at his birthday party. With her mother. And his kids. And his brother. And his sister. Who are all outside. Through a sliding-glass door. Able to turn around at any second. What would they tell him? "Honey, Daddy's just making pork chops, we'll be right out." "Just putting the Jell-o salad in the mold! One second!" "Hang on, kiddo, I need to finish plowing your mother."
Hew
Hew runs into an old co-worker who has a flashy new car, and a Brazilian blowout. 'Do you like it?" she asks. "It's, um... a look!" Hew hedges. The hell? It's straight hair. Has she not seen any of that before? Guess what: It exists in Texas, so don't be a hosebeast. Seems like this character is as much of a jackwad as the one in the other movie was. Also, that girl is wearing a billowy ruched belly shirt (I wish you could see it better) and yet it's her HAIR that is, skeptically, "a look"? Child.
This is the lady who gets Hew into The Rub, by referring her to a salon with "great tips." I love how she didn't even mention that they're all expected to work with flesh tips in order to get the cash tips.
The salon
I love that The Rub is next to a Karate place. Martial arts, carnal arts. Black belt, black garter belt. Wax on, wax off.
Loretta
You are going to love this, though. Loretta runs The Rub, Sugar Land's finest sex factory, and her name? Is Georgia Cummings. I can't improve upon that. I can only release it into the wild.
Hew
I also love that she got HIRED without anyone mentioning that to her, and in like three seconds, based on the fact that she's hot. I thought it was supposed to be hard to get work? No pun intended.
Hew
If I were Hew, I'd want all my non-Rub scenes to be in jeans and flannels, too. Here, she is upset because her douche husband ran out with no explanation. Although we learn in episode two that he was recovering from being hooked on painkillers, and hiding that fact from everyone. So maybe he ran off to get a fix. Or maybe he went to Table Sex In Front Of My Children Rehab.
Hew
So J.Lo.Hew goes back to The Rub and agrees to starting doing Extras. That's all they really say: extras. Everyone seems super happy and cheerful about giving a rub to pay for their grub, and nobody really discusses any of the gory details. Handies? Blow jobs? Actual sex? Just mild spankings and costumes? We don't know. Lifetime kind of wants to have its penis-shaped cake and eat it too. Hew's client here apparently brought her this costume, and he's super hot for her in it: "Nobody else has worn it like that before!" he pants, which I assume means that the other girls all added a bonnet.
Tasty
And LO, once J.Lo.Hew gets into the groove, suddenly all her clients are these pervy beefcakes with lots of disposable income and a surplus of semen. Before, she got guys with full-body hair and pot bellies. The implication here is apparently that male models would never visit The Rub of Sugar Land unless they were getting some sugar in their lands. This is marvelous for montage purposes, but seriously, where's the balance? Anyone not physically perfect, she ends up... talking to about their problems. One of them is the dude from those AWFUL old Chase commercials where he gets all excited to spend their points on a trip but she has already spent them on a dress, because That's What Ladies Do. So whenever J.Lo.Hew is counseling him about his marriage problems, I imagine it's all because of their rewards points.
Hew
She, meanwhile, does a LOT of skulking out from behind shades wearing lingerie. Or in the one case, painting a dude's toes while she wears a hat. I'm sure he was like, "Um, this not the beauty rodeo. WANG ME."
Loretta
And so once Hew gets a fat pile of tips, Loretta is all, "Don't you look like the cat who has a big bowl of cream." No, really. She used the cream analogy. I can't even. I hope they make Georgia Cummings try at least once per episode to put a sexual synonym into otherwise innocuous conversation.
THE WHOREMOBILE
Whoops! SOMEBODY seems to have figured out that The Rub does not refer to something you put on steaks before you grill them.
J.Lo.Hew
Shot through the Ring of Hooooor, J.Lo.Hew seems very upset. It's not HER fault she doesn't need to wear a bra with that tiny dress because her boobs will stand up on their own. Sigh. Lucky.
Mimi Rogers
What is Mimi Rogers DOING? Her soul is totally all, "I was Mrs. Tom Cruise! I DON'T SEE NICOLE KIDMAN ANYWHERE HERE." She showed up to be Chase Man's wife -- perpetrator of the Lipstick HOOOOR Attack of 2012 -- and basically had like three lines, in which she let a massage therapist of questionable hand sanitation habits solve all her marital problems.
Sam Page
In case you were wondering where Sam Page was -- he of Mad Men, Switched at Birth, Up All Night, Greek, Desperate Housewives, Gossip Girl, American Dreams, Popular, All My Children, and about 800 other shows -- then the answer is, STILL successfully paying the mortgage on what I sincerely hope is a REALLY GIANT HOUSE at this point.
J.Lo.Hew
And then this happened. HOWDY indeed.
Hew and Colin Egglesfield
So of course at karaoke night she said HOWDY to way too much booze, and her husband's hot brother Colin Egglesfield (Something Borrowed, and of course, in a piece of ignominy that was not his fault but which will follow him forever, Erica Kane's Unabortion from All My Children) has to carry her home and take off her shirt and then stare at her boobs for a second before tucking her in. MAKE OUT. Come on.
J.Lo.Hew
Really? Her husband left like an hour ago and she's got a LOVE HURTS tank top cued up already? That will probably really help her kids feel better. Maybe she should wear it to work. Or maybe she should just start communicating her inner monologue only through tees. The next one can say, "I secretly gave you a full release and all I got was this lousy t-shirt."
J.Lo.hew
Also, Hew decides that The Rub needs new uniforms. So she buys them all little black dresses, because when your name is The Rub and you want people to think you specialize in the nonsexual kind, CLEARLY you want all your technicians mincing around looking like cocktail waitresses.
Hew
Dressing like a greasy spoon waitress who knows you want a hand-dipped milkshake, some meat on a bun medium rare, and fries extra SEXY, is totally acceptable, but again, only if you prance out from behind something and then pose like this is Rub of Fortune and the answer to the clue is a five-letter word and someone has just guessed "p."
Hewitt
Oh, yeah, the salmon-colored button-down really makes this look above-board. It's longer than the dress, but shorter than a lab coat, so in the end it just kind of makes her look like a member of a Playboy bowling team.
Colin
Also, as she struggles through without the husband, Colin keeps helping. HONEY. HE WANTS YOU. TAKE IT.
Bridget
I have no idea what this character's name is, but she was Bridget - a.k.a. the cop's wife, a.k.a. SPOILER pregnant with the baby fathered by the midget in the cupboard (which was Fug Friend Jen's Halloween costume one year, and it was RESPLENDENT because she ACTUALLY BUILT A CUPBOARD) -- in Trapped In The Closet and I just can't think of her as anything else. I hope they give her something fun to do on this show, beyond trotting around after J.Lo.Hew. The woman mouthed along to R.Kelly lyrics without laughing. She's totally an Emmy winner in the making.