Last night Carlton hired a harem, Brandi pimped out Yolanda, and someone let Joyce shoot a gun — and that was just the first twenty minutes!
Carlton welcomed friends A.C. and Tara, whose baby-voiced antics make me want to scratch the inside of my skull with a bristle brush. They open-mouth kissed in her huge, echo-filled foyer, said hello to Elizy who hangs around like a cipher, and got down to the business of casting women for Carlton’s pool party after spending way too long baby-voicing which one of them was going to “get nakey.” Why did Carlton need three other people to help her choose half-naked women to prance around her house? She built her own den of inequity! I’m sure she can handle picking out which butt she likes the best from the oiled-up strangers parading through her house.
She auditioned ten women but only wanted to choose four, to which I say: What is the point of these auditions? You have three friends sitting next to you willing to shed their clothes at the first wolf whistle, and you’re friends with Brandi, whose body repels clothing like an Off!-soaked fifth-grade day camper repels mosquitoes. The first set was disappointing — the women only had enough energy to jangle their hips for one or two full rotations, and the one in the black bathing suit was clearly swiped at by a lion across her lower half before showing up. But the next woman really dazzled, immediately becoming horizontal and spinning around like a Gravitron mated with a Scrambler. Carlton sat wide-eyed, babbling about “lyrical beauty” and someone who could “work the pole in a positive way” as this woman spun and twirled and BAM!, spread her legs and then BAM!, it’s vagina central, and then BAM!, somehow her hair is the only thing attached to the pole and she’s still spinning! Carlton hired her on the spot.
Can we all agree that Carlton is a female chauvinist pig? This whole display was done in the name of “celebrating women,” which goes to show you how far afield we are from actual feminism these days. Alice Paul is rolling over in her grave! Our feminist foremothers wouldn’t agree with this celebration at all — they’d tell Carlton to strap on a pair of bloomers, chain herself to the White House, make sure we don’t lose our rights to own land, and wear pants, goddammit!
In order to appease her kids, Brandi got a new dog, Buddy, to replace the surely dead Chica (R.I.P.). The only problem is that Brandi fucking hates this dog, and it made me over-the-top angry to see how she treated and talked to him. She called him stupid, got pissed off that he was following her around, and got angry when he peed on her comforter. She kept saying, “Buddy is not Chica,” but didn’t both of her dogs piss all over the place at the beginning of this season? That’s what all dogs do when you neglect them and treat them like toys. I know she’s distraught, but she’s also still clearly mourning, and getting this new dog was a terrible decision for all involved.
Lisa came over to see if she could snatch the new dog without Brandi seeing, but got caught up in Brandi’s grief cycle. She’s going to Sacramento to see her family and sign some books, but also to make amends with her dad, who is pissed off at her for wearing a revealing dress to the Oscars? But also pissed off at her for telling the world he was a drug dealer because he used to sell marijuana? He’s just angry that this is what sprang forth from his pot-riddled seed, and probably going through the motions of overall regret. Brandi cried, Lisa nagged (“that’s not a good way to pack a suitcase”) and cried, and then went to get tissue for herself and not Brandi. Every fake eyelash for themselves! Lisa got the sads because Brandi looks like a broken bird, and reminds us all that we can “never forget she’s all alone.” THAT IS BECAUSE YOU WON’T LET US FORGET, LISA, you bring it up literally every single time you see her. It’s no wonder she’s choosing YoYo over you for this trip to Sacramento! “Lisa, can you pass the —” “Don’t forget you’re going to die alone, sweetie, darling, sweetie-darling. All alone.” Who needs it? Brandi also said that she saw her hippie dad naked so much as a kid that it scarred her, which explains more about her than I could ever contain in one recap.
YoYo and Brandi make it to Sacramento, where a limo is waiting to cart them around to all the places Brandi used to get in trouble. YoYo points out that Holland doesn’t have limos or gangs, just horses, because they are a better race of humans, and Brandi points out all of the places she used to listen to her parents fight about money and steal alcohol from the elderly. When they get to the Hyatt, a very tiny bald man in a distractingly broad-shouldered uniform led them to their room, the Presidential suite, and freaked them out by telling them Arnold Schwarzenegger once slept there. They weren’t creeped out by how close he was standing to the bed while telling them, but I certainly was. When Brandi called her parents, her dad picked up and passed the phone to her mom, and Brandi put on her freaked-out face. The size of that room was wasted on them — I’m sure she was hunched over her toilet with a debilitating bout of nervous diarrhea most of the time.
Joyce has a gun! Run, goddammit! She put on her nicest skull-and-crossbones sweater and headed over to the Oaktree Gun Club with Igor, her barely conscious husband. Apparently they had some home invaders walk up their driveway but were saved by their dog, who broke the glass door with her head while barking to scare the dudes away, so now Joyce and Igor are loading that house up like a tea party member who just remembered our president is still black. Machetes, pepper spray, bats, guns — Joyce will be ready to potentially kill herself and everyone in that house accidentally. She learned how to shoot on a movie set once, so the gun instructor spends half of his time telling her to not do any of that fancy, stupid shit with the gun while she flips her hair around, laughs, and points the gun at him the entire time. She is a terrible shot, and the sorrow of being awful at something makes her try extra hard the next time. Igor is very excited when she makes a shot to the neck, clapping his hands like G.O.B. Bluth doing an imitation of a chicken and screaming, “NOW WE ARE TALKING!” and Joyce feels “bad-assy.” I hate them.
Brandi’s father, Guy, makes it to the event after all, with Brandi’s brother, his kids, and her mom. Brandi was actually there to kick off the LGBT celebration, which she weirdly never mentioned at all? She sang “Happy Birthday” to her dad, made sure YoYo knew she was there to “flirt with her dad and make him fall in love with her,” and read a passage from her book about her mom warning her against anal sex. Someone asked about her “early gays,” and she told a story of a kid her family took in after his parents kicked him out for coming out. Why didn’t she tell them about her totally faux-mosexual relationship with Carlton? Maybe because it’s inane and slightly insulting for people to dip in and out of homosexuality like a drinking bird? YoYo did her job and convinced Guy that Brandi is a “good girl” he can be proud of, so she had a fat stack of bills on the dresser that night.
Kyle hired a Jewish chef to do her Sha-BATT, because she just really loves spending time with her family but only if it means she can still spend most of that time thinking about herself. How are we pronouncing this chef’s name, Aine? Eye-in? A-knee? Aye-un? She made a bunch of delicious food while Kyle twirled around in her glitter apron and told the horrifying tale of how she converted to Judaism a mere four months after meeting Mauricio. I’m not saying converting is horrifying, but just think of the stupid shit you were willing to do for the person you were dating for four months in your early twenties — attending dumb sports things for teams you didn’t care about, getting really into drinks with disgusting alcohol contents that made you seem impressive and adventurous, tattoos, pipe or cigar smoking, French-maid outfits, I mean the list goes on and on! What if Kyle and Mauricio flamed out like so many of those relationships do during that time? That was a bold move and she is not a bold woman.
Once everyone huddled around the dinner table, they got down to the business of figuring out what to do for Sophia’s bat mitzvah, which is coming up. Kyle doesn’t want to throw a party that’s too over the top — not our Kyle, who hires a jolly put-upon man every single year to throw a white party with lotus flowers floating in her pool, food trucks lining up at her door, and well-stocked bars in every corner of her yard. Not our down-to-earth Kyle! She won’t be like those other millionaires renting museums. Sophia is fine to have a party at home, and I’m sure it will be a tasteful and subtle affair with only a smattering of bars serving virgin daiquiris. What really freaked me out about this scene was seeing their toddler light the candles — is that normal? I don’t want to be culturally insensitive, but I do want to be Kyle Richards insensitive.
Brandi decides to have dinner with her family to keep their love train moving. YoYo commandeers Guy, and then drops a pile of CDs/DVDs on him, surely all littered with the strained voices of David’s latest protégés. One of Brandi’s friends asks her what shot would best represent Sacramento; instead of saying the obvious “a GUNSHOT,” Brandi said, “a kami-fuckin’-kaze bitch!” prompting her brother to have an aneurysm and quickly shuffle his little girls out of the restaurant and into a McDonald’s without saying a word. The friends talked about underage drinking, and then Brandi made a comment about pot that almost demolished the tiny steps she had taken with her dad that day. YoYo was on it, though, and reminded him that while Brandi is stubborn, she is also successful, so hey, maybe give her a chance to be your daughter again! When they all stomped back up to the room, they had a nice little moment looking out at the capitol building, hugged, and seemed to make up when her dad said, “We’ll go forward, and your outfit looks pretty.” Just in case we didn’t catch the full meaning of this daddy-daughter drama, Bravo was sure to sign off with a clip of Brandi’s niece walking around in her heels and literal fireworks going off in the background to up the maudlin factor to eleven.
Fully committed to self-defense now, Joyce signed the group up for a self-defense class with Jillian Michael’s Lite and Jean Claude Van Dummy. Joyce wore a shirt that said “I ❤ Life,” because she excels at pointing out our more base emotions. Brandi showed up first, so it was weird when Van Dummy asked if they were friends and Joyce said yes. What a difference a week makes! Brandi is still standoffish, and not willing to tell any of her “deep dark dad secrets,” which just makes me wonder what the fuck kind of dad secrets are you hiding, girl? YoYo showed up ready to murder while Joyce flailed around in one boxing glove like a lobster with one claw, and told her own story of home invasion shortly after Gigi was born. Being rich sounds like a real pain in the taint, but YoYo handled her intruder like a person who comes from a land with no limos or gangs by putting on a shirt and chasing after them, promising to kill anyone who came near her kids. I believe you, YoYo! Even during the commercial break she said, “I choke, you whip.” Lisa showed up wearing two bras but her tits were still out, and Kyle immediately slut-shamed her by asking if she was trying to get attacked. Way to be a sister, Kyle!
Van Dummy offered everyone the chance to choke him which was a little too autoerotic asphyxiat-ish for me. YoYo got up there, made his head turn purple, and thought that his tap outs meant for her to keep going, so she literally almost killed this man. I love that she said, “He should have tried to pull my hand away,” like, Hey, if this guy didn’t want to get murdered, he should have fought back. When his color came back, he taught them all how to box, instructed them to always squeeze, and never kick the nuts if you are attacked, and was so mesmerized by Lisa’s free-swinging boobs he got punched in the face. Kyle and Kim fought each other — she’s a biter, Kim’s a scratcher — and Carlton admitted that she once fought a woman in the gym for bumping into her before Brandi cracked her hand by punching Van Dummy in the dome. Everyone left feeling great now that they had a new way to channel their energy, proving that they are all Regina George from Mean Girls at heart.
Lisa, Kyle, and Brandi went out for thank-god-we-didn’t-let-YoYo-kill-anyone-today drinks, and Kyle gave Brandi a card to “let her know she’s really a friend.” Way to keep your enemies closer, Kyle — I see you, Richards. I see you. Lisa wanted to leave from the moment her ass hit the chair, but she stayed long enough to play mother hen to Brandi about her potentially broken hand while Brandi shot daggers at her, resenting that Lisa finds her “weakness to remind me that she’s stronger than me.” I don’t know — Brandi seems to resist this mothering that she so clearly needs from time to time, and used to actually revel in — remember all the time she spent with Lisa and Ken last season, asking to be adopted? I feel like she can’t really call them out now for parenting her.
Next week, Carlton’s pool party looks like a trip to a Hedonism resort, the gang meets a demon dog baby toy, and Carlton puts a spell on Joyce.
What did I miss? What were your favorite parts? Let me know in the comments, and I’ll see you next week!
