This week on our favorite show, Rich Women Behaving Badly, the rich women behaved badly. How badly? Well, honey child, how much time do you have? Not enough because there was so much badness. So much.
This episode was kind of crazy because there wasn’t a “previously on…” or a “next on…” it was just all seamlessly woven into the episode and, like Erika Jayne looking at a radioactive cotton candy colored puffer jacket that there is only 20 of in the world, I didn’t even know that is exactly what I wanted until I saw it. The previously on is a rehash of the women talking about Erika freaking out at them about earrings the night before.
Apparently, she was so angry that she went to Kyle’s place, packed up all of her “I’m a Luxury” sweaters, and hightailed it to Liplickia, the hotel room that Diana Jenkins presides over that she has turned into a sovereign nation and will accept anyone who can’t handle their original sleeping arrangements. In the morning, we learn a few things. That Lisa Rinna tells Erika in the car that she could not have done anything wrong and still showed compassion for the victims, something that Kyle tried to tell her the night before and that Diana would tell her again later that day. It’s clear that the cast has told her what she needs to hear, and Erika is just not receiving it.
For her part, she tells Dorit that the things she is being accused of are so gross that she is getting angry and defensive. She says that she expressed sympathy nine months ago (would that have been at the last reunion?) and doesn’t need to do it again. In a case like this, where there are a lot of victims not just of plane crashes and other malfeasance but also their lawyer swindling their money, you really can’t express your sympathy often or deeply enough.
Dorit, who has somehow gone from buying $180,000 worth of Hermes plates to being [choking on my Spindrift] the voice of reason, has a great quote about all this. “Would it be a lot easier for the group if Erika would just express some sympathy? Yes. But Erika has her own reasons. Whatever she says is going to be scrutinized, it’s going to be pulled apart, and it’s going to be thrown in her face.” I think this is true not just for the friend group but for fans of the show. It would be so much easier if Erika could just say that she’s sorry and seem like she means it, but she is choosing not to, so we’re stuck with this burned-out husk of a show trying to drag its way through the desert like it got lost on its way back from Burning Man.
Erika, Dorit, and Diana choose not to hang out with the other women because Erika doesn’t want to be around people who she thinks mistreated her the night before. I think that Garcelle and Crystal were just asking her questions and expressing how they thought they would react in this situation. I think that’s fair. Erika, with her fire and venom, was the one treating people badly. She’s right; no one will defend her and she needs to do it herself, but that doesn’t mean she needs to snarl and call people names as she does it.
Kyle is pissed that Dorit and Erika aren’t with her at her hat event because she wants to terrorize the whole world with her felt monstrosities that she carts in from Aspen like she’s some chapeau drug lord. Like most of the late-stage Housewifery fights, this is a fight about the show. Kyle thinks Erika should have shown up, said she didn’t want to hash out her problems with Kyle there and carried on. That is what Kyle has had to do so many times, what all of the women had to do; why is Erika the exception?
I also get Dorit’s point, sometimes people need their space, and it might have been easier for everyone for Kyle to enjoy the five women she’s with while Erika commiserates with her smaller posse. What gets me is that they didn’t respond to her all day. Couldn’t they have said, “Hey, we’re gonna chill with Erika, have fun without us”? Or couldn’t Dorit have said, “I’m going to be with Erika, but I’ll meet you at the Mad Hattery at four”? That’s not so hard.
The Dorit and Kyle fight was over almost as soon as it started, thanks to Mauricio, who came in and told his wife and his mistress that they had to get along. Well, that’s only if you believe the internet gossip. We don’t believe that at all. Nope. Never. Here at the Housewives Institute, we are notorious for hating gossip of all kinds. Also sarcasm. Big enemy of sarcasm over here.
At the final party in Aspen, Erika arrives after everyone else, and Kyle goes over to talk to her. Once again, Kyle wants Erika to be more sympathetic and says no lawyer would advise her not to be.
Erika says, in a stream of consciousness that was so fast it’s like listening to a podcast at 1.5x. “When you say that, you lump me into responsibility,” she says. “I’m not responsible for all of those people. I feel bad for those people, and those who have been legitimately wronged have to be taken care, and that is not going to happen for a while. And right now, everything else is coming at me, and I have a lot to deal with. Am I the most cuddly person right now? No … I’m trying to get through it, and I make mistakes.” This is what we all wanted to hear from Erika last season. We wanted her to say she feels bad for those people, that they will be taken care of, and that she is making mistakes because of all her stress. Finally, we got it but sadly, I think it’s too late.
When the conversation moves to the larger group, Crystal Kung Minkoff once again clocks in and tells Erika she does not like how she talked to her the night before. Even if you disagree with Crystal’s position about returning the earrings, you must admit that Erika could have been kinder to her during their discussion. I also get Crystal, Sutton, and Garcelle’s frustration with the group in general. Crystal had to endure weeks of them parsing “violated” and “dark” as if they were the new Lucy Lucy Apple Juice. Meanwhile, when the Get Along Gang yells and screams at each other, it’s over faster than Kathy Hilton can try to do amateur dental work. The message that the core group keeps giving these three is that if they want to stay in the group, they have to accept that they are going to have to choke down moldy Fluffernutter sandwiches with the veterans and have their vodka with club soda in a short glass with three lemons, carcasses out.
Now that we got all of the Erika drama out of the way, we get to whet our whistles for what happens next week with Kathy Hilton, Mistress of the Night. We saw a brief flash of it last episode when Kathy wanted to stand in front of the group and hawk her tequila while everyone around her totally ignored what was happening. Many fans afterward expressed how mad they were at the other women. We had to sit through two (2) Rinna Beauty launch parties with no attendees. We had to stay at the table while Jamie Lee Curtis showed us the chicest of windchimes. We have been to more Beverly Beach parties than most Orthodox churches would allow. Can’t these women stare at Kathy and nod while she flogs her one brand of tequila?
I agreed until I watched this episode. Here we get a montage of Kathy bringing up her tequila at Diana’s Christmas party, the Homeless Not Toothless Still Homeless party, and Rinna in private conversation. Rinna even accuses Kathy of putting it behind the bar at Kemo Sabe, Kyle’s favorite place on Earth because it delivers her hats fresh out of its fire-starting womb. For the record, Kemo Sabe is definitely not racist because a Canadian court ruled that it’s not in 2004. Case definitively closed!
Because she is Lisa Rinna, she goes up to the bar and asks for a shot of 818 tequila to taste it because it is her “friend” Kendall Jenner’s tequila brand. I get it; I would be pissed too. I mean, don’t you even tell me that you’re reading the recaps at Reality Blurb!, Bravo’s go-to site for on-screen quotations, or else I will show up at your house and close all of the browser tabs you have open and not even save one of them — so there!
But all of these fights are actually fights about the show. I think what the women are upset about is that Kathy Hilton (allegedly) wouldn’t film while she was holding out for more money. Then she shows up halfway through the season with a fat bag in her clutches and starts hawking her tequila like she’s Lisa Rinna on QVC with a mortgage payment due. They’re mad that she is the fan favorite but doesn’t have to expose any of the real shit that’s in her closet because people just want to laugh at her saying, “Who’s Hunky Dory?” — a question that has never, at least in my mind, been sufficiently answered.
Was Rinna doing this to take Kathy down a peg? Hell yes! She is as cold and calculating as we all think she is, and she might have done this to get a petty dig in at Kathy. It sure worked. Kathy, pissed that Kyle didn’t do more to protect her from Lisa, storms out because she’s not getting the reception she thought she would. You have to hand it to Rinna; she’s good at her job. Even that night, when they go to the bar, Lisa orders a Don Julio. Seriously? Can’t you throw Kathy the smallest of bones? Not even one as big as a mouse’s pinky? Seriously, Rinna? (Also, a round of applause because there is nothing in life I love more than pettiness.)
This is all leading up to the big Aspen reveal next week when Kathy goes on some tirade, and Lisa tells us she’s not who she says she is. Get ready for Rinna’s star turn in Oof, You’re So Angry 2: The Quickening. I just can’t wait to have a week where we don’t have to talk about Erika and can instead focus on Kathy howling at the blood moon.
