“I love you, beautiful. Now go wait at the Chevron.” That’s the sharpest line in this highly entertaining episode of Clipped , uttered by Donald Sterling to V.
at night after she’s dropped him off at his wife Shelly’s place so the two can have an important chat. The subject of the chat is supposed to be Shelly’s lawsuit against V., seeking compensation for the $2.
5 million in “gifts” that Sterling has paid his assistant/“friend”/maybe-maybe-not lover, but it turns into a longer and more emotional affair that Sterling expects and the lawsuit never comes up. Though the show does not cut back to V. at the Chevron, where she’s presumably waiting (and waiting) to chauffeur them back to their love nest across town, it’s easy to imagine the humiliating ordeal of a prideful 31-year-old getting stood up by the 79-year-old ghoul who holds her fate in his capricious hands.
One of the stronger aspects of Clipped is how it registers the fullness of V. as a character — her vanity, materialism, and vindictiveness on one end and her insecurity and vulnerability on the other. Shelly’s hostility toward her is now abundantly clear in the lawsuit, but to some degree, she’s collateral damage in a long-brewing marital crisis between the Sterlings.
Her biggest mistake is violating an unwritten “mistress code” (as Ramona Shelburne calls it on the podcast), where her dalliances with Sterling are supposed to be discreet, not on embarrassing pubic display. But the gift.