‘Very Cavallari’ recap: Jay Cutler ditches a tense dinner, calls out the baloney

“Jay has been great, yes, like from the outside things are so perfect and things are so great, but actually like, they’re not, and that sucks, and it sucks.” – Kristin Cavallari, painting a picture describing the ups and downs of her marriage to Jay Cutler.

First there was Smokin’ Jay — the wildly popular viral sensation featuring NFL quarterback Jay Cutler in various “Don’t Care! poses, with a photo-shopped cigarette dangling from his mouth.

Then, courtesy of “Very Cavallari,” we met Farmin’ Jay — an amiable, wisecracking, camo-wearing goof spending his post-football days hunting and cooking meat and raising chickens.

Now, in the sixth episode of season two, we meet …

Drunken Jay.

Oh boy.

“Guess what?” Kristin says to Jay at the outset of this episode. “All my friends are coming to town! You’re so excited.”

Jay: “Eh.”

So here’s the deal. Some of Kristin’s L.A. friends, including Biegs and Pip and Justin, are coming to visit. They’ll be staying at Kristin’s old house in Nashville, which is on the market for more than $7 million but hasn’t sold.

“Nobody in L.A. has a house like this!” exclaims Kristin’s friend Justin.

Well. I’m gonna guess maybe just a FEW folks in L.A. have multi-million-dollar mansions.

Kristin hosts a dinner party at the old house — but of course there has to be a promotional tie-in, so the guests will be dining on fare created by “Chef Mike, Friend, Cookbook Author” for Kristin’s next cookbook.

“We’re actually recipe testing,” explains Kristin.

The tension between Kristin and Jay is obvious from the moment they sit down for the dinner party. It appears Jay has been well-lubricated before he joined the group.

When the conversation turns to relationships and the dynamic involving who’s the breadwinner, Jay points to Kristin and says:

“She’s the ‘bread spender.’ If Kristin wants to buy something, she buys it.”

And then, putting air quotes around the word ‘we,’ Jay says, “If there’s something we pay for, we pay for it.”

With that, Jay takes a goblet of wine and his phone, and leaves the dinner table.

Per the usual “Very Cav” structure, we cut back and forth between three or four running storylines.

Brittainy, the head of operations for Kristin’s Uncommon James brand, is still butting heads with Matt, who has been moved from shipping to customer service but is still a problem employee.

At one point, the ever-woe-is-me Matt asks Brittainy if she doesn’t like him because he’s a “boy.”

Dear Matt: I’m sure you’re a nice person and a more than competent worker in real life. In terms of the narrative of this show, you need to go away.

Another subplot involves Brittainy and her boyfriend Stone, a self-involved musician who is one of my least favorite characters on “Very Cavallari.” I keep hoping Brittainy will tell Stone to take a hike and go write an album about how he screwed up his relationship with Brittainy.

Hmmmm. I’m starting to sense a pattern here. Whether Brittainy is involved in a work confrontation with a whiny colleague or a personal crisis with her inattentive boyfriend, I think I’m Team Brittainy!

One of my favorite all-time moments in “Very Cavallari” occurs when Kristin and Jay essentially break the fourth wall and acknowledge this whole thing is equal parts reality and manufactured drama.

After a poignant moment in which Kristin calls out Jay for being a jerk and Jay apologizes, Kristin says to Jay, “I’m going to put the kids’ laundry away” — but she can’t hold her dramatic expression.

“What a f—ing lie!” says Jay. “You can’t even keep a straight face.”

“I do that sometimes,” protests Kristin.

“You don’t even know where that s— goes,” says Jay.

“F— off, that is not true…” says Kristin. “All right. I’m going to go eat.”

“I believe that,” says Jay.

Me too.