First of all, let’s all applaud the producers of “Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo,” who are thoughtful enough to provide gentle reminders each week about how important setting is to this mess by opening with a shot of a sign reading, “Let’s Keep Georgia Peachy Clean!” followed by one showing a discarded toilet and another featuring couches and other furniture/animal pens in a weakly wooded setting.
Anyway, Alana’s pageant, it’s a-comin’, and the money, it’s a-not, so June has taken it upon herself to learn how to do Alana’s fancified hair and makeup all by herself. “Good hair and makeup for pageants are fairly, you know…fairly, you know…very important,” explains June. Painting the beautimous barn, etc. Alana tells us that “Supermodels look like this!” and then we get a children’s treasury of poses and gestures.
So the herd moves to the “Style Salon,” strategically placed in an abandoned gas station, where a nice lady makes up half of Alana’s face and then hands her brushes over to June to finish the job. Except June doesn’t wear makeup herself. Oh, and she can’t see. Oh, and she doesn’t know where your eyebrows are. Dealbreaker! The results are not good. “Mama, what did I do to ever deserve this?” Alana asks on behalf of America.
Continuing with the Boo-Boo Austerity Times, the family heads to the Macon VFW hall to try to make some money playing Bingo. “Bingo and couponing are my sports,” says June. She is so, so wrong. June’s actual sport, the one that requires significant physical exertion, is making her Bingo Face. Imagine a squinting, angry musk ox, and there you have Bingo Face.
Also, the family is terrible at Bingo. No one wins anything, and now they’ve just wasted their money that could otherwise be spent at the convenience store on toilet paper and Andy Capp’s Hot Fries. Alana accuses one lady of cheating but then just decides to be disappointed.
Through “a friend of a friend” of a TLC producer, June has arranged to get Alana some face time at the Chic Boutique (bucket, please) with Miss Georgia 2011, Michaela Lackey, so that she can teach her how to be a real beauty queen. “I LIKE SPARKLY THINGS,” yells Alana for no reason. Michaela tosses her hair when she walks, and she wears peacock feather earrings and dark lipstick.
They decide to go get something to eat, which gives Miss Michaela the opportunity to comment on Alana’s nonexistent table manners. “That’s not cute,” she tells Alana when cake dangles out of her mouth. “If I don’t talk with my mouth full, when’m I gonna talk?” asks Alana, proving again that she is the smartest person on this show.
The lunch goes downhill when Alana has what Miss Michaela describes as, “a little incident when she told us that she farted.” Tee-hee! Miss Feather Dangles over here can’t believe she said “fart” on the tee-vee! Cue Alana’s post-game analysis: “MISS GEORGIA 2011, SHE IS VERY PRETTY, AND I DON’T THINK SHE FARTS.”
The Boo-Boo sisters form a braintrust to decide what to get Alana for her upcoming 7th birthday. It is decided that they will simply take things from the hoarder supply closet, including hot sauce, cereal and soap, and wrap them up with an incredible amount of tape.
All is ready for her party, which features yellow caution tape around the perimeter of the Boo-Boo compound. Although we are in the Austerity Times, June explains that they always throw big parties, which makes sense, because when else are you going to combine wet, dimpled skin and inflatables? June tries to scale the giant blow-up slide but fails, and the kids blame this on “forklift foot and gravity.”
Alana is still the star of the party, though. She thanks everyone for coming and says she loves her sisters’ weak gifts because they “came from the heart.” “IT WAS THE BEST BIRTHDAY EVER,” she shouts, just before she sneezes two long strings of snot out of her nose, just to punctuate that sentiment.