Despite the juicy promos, the only interesting thing that happened last night on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills was that Dana/Pam reemerged as a huge, steaming mess with Capri-and-mojito breath. That “asshole” moment between Yolanda and Taylor was falsely advertised by Bravo as a moment in which Yolanda confronted Taylor and called her the aforementioned orifice. In fact, Yolanda was using that turn of phrase as an example of how one might refer to her husband before she told Taylor she had no beef with her. And that scene between Kim and Kyle in tears was just a typical Richards-to-Richards emotion-off, without a relapse in question, even. Has this show bled out its drama? Are we in its menopausal phase? Or will Yolanda’s visible extensions get their own spinoff show, Vanderpump Rules–style, and THAT will be the new must-see TV?
Last night’s milquetoast adventure picked up in Paris, where last week’s episode left off. At a beverage-only dinner on a boat, Yolanda presented Brandi with the most expensive stripper shoes I’ve seen in my days on this crazy green-and-blue marble while Kim looked on with a kind of sadness that no amount of injectables could inhibit. The idea was that Brandi was single, so Yolanda wanted to treat her to something overpriced and sexual. Kim is also single, but she only deserves pity. Duh!
Marisa Zanuck paid Kyle a visit to gently rock a French braid half-updo and set another plot point into motion. The idea is that now that Marisa’s father-in-law is deceased, his mansion is up for grabs, and Marisa wanted to co-sell it with “Maurice,” which is what she calls Kyle’s husband. Meanwhile, Marisa’s hot-piece spouse was absent this episode, either mourning or searching for my phone number. Honestly, husband — just use my e-mail. It’s my first name at my full name dot com. Let’s bone our grief away together. I’ll appreciate you, or at least please you sexually. Pinky swear!
Then Lisa was paid a visit from a Gay-sian ghost of weddings past. Kevin Lee, he of Long Duck Dong–from–Sixteen Candles–meets-Johnny-from-Airplane! archetypical subtlety, joined Lisa and Ken to discuss a housewarming/vow-renewal event on their property. “Beverly Hills, darling! Shi-shi-shi-shi-shi!” replied the minstrel, in the form of stock footage. The plans were in motion.
After that, we followed Yolanda to a photo shoot for “An Asian Magazine.” She and her husband would be posing together in formalwear for some reason probably having to do with “Asians” loving nothing more than photos of music producers who (at one time hit Ben Vereen with their cars) are posing alongside their Dutch spouses. That’s what they have over there in their bizarre Asian versions of Tiger Beat and Rolling Stone!
Yolanda said some freshly insane ingratiating things about her creepy husband, like that he was “a natural” in front of the camera, and we also got to see Yolanda fully decked out in Ford Model Vegas elegance, and yowza did bitch look good. We got to see Yolanda’s hair extensions up close for the first time in what would be many instances this episode alone.
Now. Can we talk about Yolanda’s hair for a second, please? When she told the stylist “my husband is going to hate my hair like this” after her hair finally looked polished and glamorous for the first time all season, is that any insight into why her tresses are so lacking compared to the rest of her presentation? I mean, she has as much money as vanity. Can’t Yolanda get herself a Kim Zolciak wig or at least a thicker weave? Curly or straight, I’m just confused about whether David Foster is actually into fried-looking messy platinum randomness on top of his statuesque wifey, and if so, where THAT fetish came from. Hole videos? European porn? Either way, I do buy that Yolanda wears and does whatever David wants her to. They really are a modern couple from equality times, right? Ha-ha! Oh, my feminism hurts so much from watching them.
Around this time, “Maurice” and Marisa toured the home of a famous dead producer and talked about how much they should put it on the market for. Marisa suggested 25 million, and Maurice countered with 23 million. That was that, but we also learned that Mrs. Zanuck flew all her trees in from abroad so she wouldn’t have to wait for them to grow, and that instead of hardbound books, producers keep leatherbound editions of screenplays like Jaws on their mantles.
Then, across town, Kyle went to a fashion showroom manned by a woman wearing a muumuu to stock up on loudly patterned tunic tops for her “Swimsuit Cover-ups only” boutique she would soon unleash upon the citizens of Beverly Hills while her daughter went to school. Kyle chose the ugliest rags I’ve ever seen — shit looked like Donatella Versace’s used maxi pads — and did a Cookie Monster impression that sounded more like Linda Blair channeling Pazuzu to a priest. And by the way, Kyle — Cookie Monster would never say “Would you like a cookie?” Don’t you know anything? Cookie Monster hoards his cookies — he doesn’t offer that shit! Oh, I hate you, Kyle. For a new reason each week.
Then came the main event of the episode. Taylor met her old pal Dana-Pam at an outdoor bar for a postdivorce catch-up talk. As Taylor arrived, Dana-Pam was already twelve mojitos to the wind, had her feet up smoking a Capri, and she wanted to talk in a gravely loud voice RIGHT AWAY about precisely how her disgusting life had unraveled since her husband had the good sense to leave. Dana-Pam complained to Taylor about her Lamborghini being gone, and Taylor said to her friend, “I was always so concerned about how smart he was and how he was gone all the time.” Ha-ha! That’s a fun thing to say to somebody who just split up with her partner. “I was always so worried about you two, because he was so smart”? Taylor throwing professh shade in the direction of the Oogie Boogie woman. Dana-Pam asked Taylor if she was dating yet and added that, boy oh boy, was she dating, and it was “GGGZH-REAT.” That’s a liquor-slurred “great.” Quoth the elegant damsel to her skinny friend, “I drink a lot, and I’m okay with it. And I fuck a lot, and I’m okay with it too.” Poetry from Chaucer couldn’t have expressed a sentiment with more grace! Dana-Pam, thy gift is eloquence! More! More!
Dana-Pam continued to belch the kind of verbal fire from her dragon holes that usually just comes from a garbage can on fire that hobos use to warm their hands under a bridge. She asked if Taylor was still friends with Brandi, because she “hated that bitch,” but now she knew that Brandi was right about how people are bad, not good, because her husband had since left her. And after trying to light a second cigarette for 25 minutes off a votive candle, Dana-Pam warned Taylor that all her friends are out to get her. Great talk, Dana-Pam! Please come back on this show soon, because your particular kind of train wreck is a breath of gross air that adds a delightful variety to the flavors we already have in heavy rotation week to week. Also, who else thinks they should get rid of the graphic anti-smoking commercials featuring people who’ve had tracheotomies and replace them with looped footage of Dana-Pam trying to light that Capri off the candle?
After that gorgeous play-let, we made it to the opening of Kyle’s store. Kyle tried on two shiteous dresses for her husband, who, as commenters have noted, is getting dumber and dumber as the show goes on. “Wow, is that one available in your store?” Mauricio obediently bleated twice in a row, and ultimately Kyle picked the dress that didn’t show off her gunt quite as prominently.
Soon we were at the shop. “I can’t believe I have a store!” Kyle said, and the terrible clothing she’d chosen politely dissented. “Who else but the proprietor of a demented Miami beach resort would have chosen these clothes?” the assorted cover-ups and swim gowns murmured to their queen.
I also want to give a shout-out to Portia, not only for embodying the behavior I would certainly have displayed were I in her position at her mom’s party (antsy, miserable, desperate to go home and watch Yo Gabba Gabba and eat fish sticks), but also for ruining her mom’s big-toothed ribbon-cutting shot with her adorable pout. You show ‘em, Portia! This party is NOT kid-friendly, and why the fuck SHOULD you be happy for your mom’s new store? Didn’t she open it to give herself something to do now that you’re too old to dote on during school hours? Who’s to say that she won’t follow HER parents’ pattern and become less and less enchanted with you as you age, and, in her own case, become less and less marketable as a child star?
The guests arrived. Brandi wore an LBD, Faye Resnick wore some chainmail stolen from the Met’s Egyptian wing, Kim was late because she got a last-minute spray tan, and Yolanda’s hair extensions showed up about half an hour before she did. Taylor wore a blousy tank top, I think.
Taylor and Yolanda finally split off so Taylor could try to apologize for the shit-talking she had done about Yo, which, she realized, had more to do with her problems with her husband than it did with her. Yolanda at first wouldn’t let Taylor say what she needed to say, and when she finally did, Taylor said that David Foster was married to one of her good friends and that when she first met David, she wasn’t thrilled about having to deal with him because she’d only heard negative things about him from his ex. Yolanda disputed the notion that David Foster was anything besides completely angelic and saintlike to all 38 of his ex-wives, and she herself will probably learn firsthand whether or not that’s true when she wakes up one day with curly hair or decides not to care after she burns the chicken, and he leaves her for a woman who can still have his Geico lizard children.
Regardless, Yolanda’s sound bite — “You’re a real asshole” — which we saw in previews directed at Taylor, was actually part of a larger point she was making to Taylor about valuing directness. She basically told Taylor that, if she had come to David directly upon meeting him and said “You hurt my friend, you’re a real asshole” instead of talking trash about the Fosters to mutual friends, that would have made her “a cool girl.” And then Taylor was like, “Anyway, now I know David’s great,” and Yolanda was like, “I don’t need you to tell me that,” and Taylor said she was sorry, and Yolanda accepted. And Portia was napping somewhere under an accessories case, and I was right there with her in spirit.
After that, Camille arrived looking Klonopin-cheerful, and Adrienne showed up with Paul, like she was still a part of the cast or something. Brandi and Adrienne kept each others’ distance, and Adrienne said “Should we drink to that?” about Kim’s sorbriety. Ha-ha! Idiot.
Speaking of Kim’s sobriety, the episode ended with a non-frontation between Kyle and her sister about whether Kim was sober in Paris. Kim told Kyle that, actually, that week she had confused her diuretic with a different pill. A “wacky-maker,” as it’s known in the pharmaceutical community. This made Kyle cry and Kim nod, and also, at one point, Kim told Kyle that her hair made her look like Elvira. Kim told her sister that now she has somebody to call in case she’s tempted to relapse, and Kyle was like, “Call me!” which is probably the worst piece of advice ever offered in the history not only of this show, but possibly in America and, additionally, in the history of humans. “Hmm, I’m thinking about using again. I can either call my sponsor, or my sister, with whom I have a really fucked-up, competitive relationship with, and who I think secretly wants me to remain sick so she can seem even more fabulously successful while she casts her shadow on my sad self in a pattern we’ve established around the time my Disney career crumbled.” Kim-cisions, Kim-cisions!
Next week: We get to see the Mallooves break up, or start to! Faye Resnick says some toxic garbage to Brandi! And we all keep our fingers crossed that Dana-Pam returns to do her hilarious Lisa Vanderpump impression again. Until then, pals!
