I’m afraid they’re going to have to change the name of this show to Middle-Aged Women With Ice-Tea Farts in Yoga Pants. Seriously, nothing has happened on this show since Kyle Richards held her staggeringly not-racist White Party in the premiere. Right now the highlight of the season is that St. Camille Grammer came down to Earth and the mortals who gazed upon her did not suffer melting faces like the people in Raiders of the Lost Arc.
The women aren’t even doing nothing together! They’re doing nothing on their own. I don’t want to see Yolanda Bananas Foster have a conversation with her maid or her hairstylist (who makes house calls!) or that daughter who is not a fashion model. I want to see Yolanda Bananas Foster telling one of the Sisters Richards to “Hush up” over some meal no one is eating in a mediocre restaurant. That’s why we tune into this damn show, so give us some of that.
The one thing that did happen was that Brandi called Lisa Vanderpump on the phone. Yes, that is what it has come down to. “Well, they talked on the phone!” This phone conversation was pretty priceless, though. The most egregious part was that Brandi wanted to call Lisa and have a chat, but she didn’t check to see if her phone was charged or not. Then, when it died in the middle of their intense, intimate conversation, she used Kyle’s phone to call Lisa back. Seriously, Brandi? Like that wasn’t going to set off 17 million alarms in Lisa’s head? It’s like she was wearing a crown of Drudge sirens when she heard Brandi’s voice coming out of Kyle’s phone.
I’m sorry, but I have to stay Hashtag Team Lisa on this one. I still am not sure exactly what Lisa did. Apparently it has something to do with Lisa’s friend/employee with an impossible-to-spell name who is also on Bravo’s swarm of locusts known as Vanderpump Rules. Anyway, Brandi calls up all glib and is like, “Let’s get back on track with our friendship,” as if there is nothing to discuss or go over, like they can just sweep whatever fight this was under the rug and start fresh. Sorry, that’s just not going to work.
Also, I love how Brandi – and really, all the Housewives – are always like, “I don’t want to bring up old stuff,” but unless you sort out that old stuff, how are you ever going to heal? How are you ever going to move past that fight in a meaningful way? How are you ever going to get to new stuff? So, by all means, bring up that old stuff, but not just to have the same fight again and again. If Brandi is going to bring up old stuff (I don’t mean Carlton, for a change), then she has to be willing to do something about it. Until then, I’m still Hashtag Team Lisa.
Speaking of new stuff, we finally got to meet Eileen Davidson, a subscription card that fell out of a Time magazine in your dentist’s office waiting room. I don’t know, I could be proven wrong, and maybe Eileen is some sort of woman who is as crazy as her hair looks in her confessional interviews, but I just want to hit the snooze button on her until I am late for work and then can just leave her rummaging around my house looking for a stray Xanax in my bedside table drawer. Ugh, Eileen, the plug to your Motorola Razr that is still in your junk drawer.
What do we know about Eileen, the Playbill to a musical you’ve forgotten you’ve seen? Well, she is a soap-opera actress who just won an Emmy. That’s sort of like just winning the Typewriter Repair of the Year award. Sorry, Eileen, but I just don’t see a lot of future in that industry, so you might want to rethink it before putting all your self-worth into that occupation. It’s sort of like being the world’s foremost Jersey Shore recap writer. That’s honestly all we know about her so far: on soaps, bad hair, likes iced tea. Welcome, Eileen, the hole in a toe where a pinkie nail is supposed to be.
What else happened? Oh, Lisa Vanderpump threw Lisa Rinna a birthday party. Okay, we’re going to get over this Lisa-Lisa (and Cult Jam) confusion right now. Because there are two Lisas, and Lisa Original Recipe and Lisa Rinna are too difficult to keep typing all the time, so henceforth, Lisa Vanderpump will be known as “Lisa” and Lisa Rinna will be known as “Lisar.” Yes, a space and a capital R with a period are also too bothersome to type. And, just so you know, the R in Lisar should be pronounced when you say it out loud so that there’s a phonetic clue about whom you’re discussing with your lady-friends over mimosas.
So Lisa threw Lisar a birthday party at Pump, a restaurant built for gay men from Iowa who go to Los Angeles and hope to run into a reality star but enjoy Hollister and sure-to-be-canceled Cher Farewell Tours just a little too much to be bothered with going to SUR. Lisar’s party was pretty adorable, but probably because we learned that Lisar met Harry Hamlin when she was working at the glasses store at the Galleria and that Nicolette Sheridan had just left him for Michael Bolton. For a minute there, I wasn’t sure if I was typing a sentence about the Real Housewives or writing the TV Guide entry for an episode of Joan Rivers–era Hollywood Squares.
We got see a lot about daughters. YBF’s daughter Gigi came home, and she is now a legit fashion model. She’s not a model like Danielle Staub’s daughter was supposedly a model because she passed out at one mediocre show at New York Fashion Week. She’s a real model, like on the cover of actual magazines that people in the fashion industry read, and in advertising campaigns for brands you’ve heard of. She’s not like a Kelly Bensimon model who only does covers for magazines that are free in hotel lobbies. Congrats, Gigi. One day you’ll find your own creepy husband and he’ll fly you around on a plane that is so big and luxurious that it has rooms, like actual rooms. (I only hate because I’m jealous.)
Both the Sisters Richards took their daughters shopping. Kyle took her youngest daughter Portia to a store where they sell shirts that say, “I left my Louis on the Jet.” Kyle says she doesn’t want her daughter to be a spoiled brat. Well, then how about take her to Old Navy, where the rest of us buy the clothes that are children are going to grow out of in six months? Portia cried because she only got two shirts and a bathing suit, and still Kyle dropped $564. Do you know what you can get for $564 at Old Navy? An entire franchise. Like the building with all the clothes and the actual business. It will probably be in some godforsaken stretch of North Dakota, but you could actually own an Old Navy, embarrassing Amy Poehler commercials and all, for $564.
Kim Richards took her oldest daughter Brooke shopping for a wedding gown, and it was wonderful and sad, and Kathy Hilton, a shadow wraith of Kris Jenner, showed up with her ill-fitting shirt to tell everyone what they should and should not be wearing. Whenever she is onscreen, my hands make this flicking motion like there is a booger stuck on every finger and they won’t budge an inch. What made it so sad is that we learned that Kim’s first husband, Brooke’s father Monty, was dying of lung cancer and was now living with Kim. How hard it is to do the happy thing when something so sad is happening at home?
After the bridal boutique, Kim got into her rented Bentley and drove back to her ranch. She opened the front door and all the blinds were closed, and she could see the dust twinkling in slats of light that burst through the gloom. She took her key out of the door and closed it, dimming the house yet again. “Kimmy?” she heard Monty wheeze from the living room. He coughed a little and said, “Kimmy? Is that you?”
“Yeah, Monty. It’s me,” she said as she walked into the living room and saw him there, pale and thin, sitting up on the couch, barely asserting his body into the foam cushions of the sofa. “Don’t get up,” she said a little too urgently as she walked over.
“I was just taking a nap,” he said, and patted the cushion next to him. She sat down and he put his head in her lap, pulling his legs up toward his chest. She was afraid to touch his hair because it might fall out, and she remembered all the times their positions had been reversed, when she was the one laying on him, trying to get the hang-over to seep out of her pores, where she couldn’t move and couldn’t apologize for last night and couldn’t think about doing it again even though she knew she would. In some sick way, she was happy that she could be here now, strong and healthy, able to make up for everything that happened before. But she wasn’t happy at all. As she looked down at him, seemingly at peace with his head in her lap, a cloud must have traveled over the sun because the room, it got even darker.
