The theme of last night’s episode, July 14th, was a pile-on full-fledged attack on Countess LuAnn, in what should have been her moment of triumph.

Is it jealousy? Is has to be. What else would truly explain why this season’s trouble twins — Alex McCord and husband Simon van Kempen and blonde busybody Ramona Singer would get their knives out when the Countess prepared to record her music video for Chic, C’est La Vie.

I can see why the Countess would make Alex, Simon and Ramona feel insecure. She’s tall, she’s stunning, she carries herself with confidence and she has ambitious ideas.

You have to give her kudos for having the gumption to get it together to record a sexy, fun song like Chic, C’est La Vie that celebrates being a strong, sexy woman in the prime of and in control of her life.

That must be why Alex and Simon who’ve spent the season telling off, tattling on and ‘mean tweeting’ other housewives,  took the time to insult the Countess this episode.

Alex refuses to appear in LuAnn‘s video because of the message. Incomprehensibly she explains that if LuAnn was “doing a gangster rap or a ballad about loving or singing showtunes, I would be there.” She doesn’t like LuAnn’s use of the word “class.” Huh?

Alex would rather be in a gangster rap video than one that celebrates being a classy woman in control of her life.

Simon then digs the knife into the Countess even deeper as he launches into an even nastier attack. “LuAnn should remove the ‘O’ from her Countess title,” he shockingly announces. I can only guess that he is green, green, green, with envy that LuAnn has more going on in her life than he does in his losery existence.

As if this cut throat cattiness isn’t enough, LuAnn then has to put up with a missile attack from Ramona Singer who accuses her of being a bad mom.

The Countess has heard that Ramona doesn’t want to appear in her music video and when she meets her for coffee, Ramona goes in for the kill.

“I’m very proud of you doing it (the video) but I have a daughter and I have to be a role model,” Ramona announces.

When LuAnn questions what being a role model has to do with NOT appearing in her video, Ramona shoots back: “As you know, in your last one you were on the bed with all the men. Even your son was upset and my daughter’s like, ‘Oh my God, mommy, you would never do that would you.'”

Then Ramona starts rolling her eyes and wildly gesturing with her hands as she goes in for the even nastier kill” “I’m a mother, I raise my daughter (Avery, 16) differently than you. What can I say?”

Not surprisingly, LuAnn asks: “what’s that supposed to mean?”

Ramona, who now obviously sees herself as Mother of the Year, practically hisses back. “Well, I spend a lot of time with her, you’re here in the city during the week a lot… I spend a lot of time with my daughter, that’s why she is the way she is. And she’s a great girl.”

She’s needling LuAnn by implying that because LuAnn’s son, Noel de Lesseps, 14, and daughter Victoria, 16, go to school in the Hamptons, LuAnn is a bad mom.

LuAnn rolls her eyes right back and responds — “it is amazing how she turned out, I can tell you that.”

The irony is clear to LuAnn and all of us, but not Ramona. After all, last episode, Ramona’s daughter, Avery, complained to her mom that Ramona was never home at night and never texted her to tell her where she was.

“When you spend time with your child, they turn out well,” Ramona insisted, again implying again that LuAnn didn’t put in time with her kids.

“And so you’re saying that I don’t spend time with my child,” LuAnn shot back with an intense eyeroll of her own.

The bottom line is that Ramona used her daughter as her excuse to evade being in LuAnn’s video. But LuAnn got the last laugh by pointing out that Ramona was a hypocrite who behaved in a far more embarrassing way when she partied.

In the end it was Jill Zarin and Kelly Bensimon who happily showed up to sing and star in Chic, C’est La Vie. “I was honored to be in it. I can’t sing, I’m 47-year-old and who the heck would want me,” joked Jill, who got all glammed up and looked pretty damn good sitting next to Kelly and LuAnn toasting their hot lives.

Ramona may have insisted that she was a role model, but as far as I’m concerned she, Alex and Simon only succeeded in setting themselves up as the role models from hell.

Countess LuAnn on the other hand came off as confidence queen — so there!

“Was I sad that the women didn’t show up?” said the Countess. “No.”

“Was it going to ruin my video, NO!”

Well said Countess, and note to Alex, Simon and Ramona — well poo on you!

— Bonnie Fuller