Last night, things got weird on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. That happens from time to time on Real Housewives, but unlike previous episodes of bizarre behavior, last night was actually…fun. It was fun. Everyone played badminton poorly and flung towels at each other and then got drunk and did cartwheels, and it was great. It was almost as if the stress of constantly fighting with each other had finally gotten to everyone, and they all agreed to suspend their arguments for a day to be real human beings again, instead of reality stars.
Before we could get to any of that, though, we started right back at the dinner table. Again, we watched Adrienne obnoxiously announce to the group that Kim was crying and Brandi tell her to shut the f— up about it. Kim got up from the table to go cry in peace in the bathroom and Brandi followed her, sorta to comfort her and sorta to ensure that Kim was on her side. Back out at the table, we had been transported into an episode of Downton Abbey, wherein Kyle, Adrienne and Taylor were having extremely Victorian reactions to someone dropping the f-bomb at dinner.
Inexplicably, Kyle in particular focused on the apparently extreme impropriety of telling someone who was trying to humiliate another person to shut the eff up, while Kim, her fragilely sober sister and the subject of the attempted humiliation, was sobbing in the bathroom. She was being comforted by Brandi, who is the bad guy in all of this, don’t forget. The person who followed the crying woman out of the room to make sure she was okay instead of sticking around to bicker over the use of a four-letter word – that person’s the villain. Adrienne, who was so concerned at Kim’s tears that she felt the need to announce them to 10 people and a whole camera crew, didn’t get up or even inquire about why Kim might have been crying.
Lisa, perhaps predictably (not only because Lisa and Brandi are friends, but because Lisa is a somewhat reasonable human being in general), gently posited that maybe dropping an f-bomb in front of a group of adult women is actually not that big of a deal, even if it was a bit rude, and at least she was doing it out of a desire to defend Kim. Kyle would have absolutely none of that, at all, and never seemed at all concerned that her sister was obviously quite upset. Kyle’s concerns laid mainly with Adrienne, the person who started the entire fight by trying to humiliate Kim (which, in and of itself, is like picking the sick gazelle off of the back of the herd). Apparently being told to shut up when you’re being a huge jerk is a very traumatizing experience.
Because Lisa could make no headway with the rest of the group, she went to the bathroom and told Kim and Brandi, who had been joined by Yolanda, to come on back out. She advised Brandi to apologize for the f-bomb, which is advice that Brandi actually took. Everything was ok for a moment until Brandi took a quick phone call and announced that she had gotten a book deal, at which point she then complained that everyone wasn’t congratulatory enough. That wasn’t a good idea for a few reasons. First, don’t push your luck. Second, Brandi had gotten up in Taylor’s face about her book at the reunion last season, and although there are a few important differences in the timing (six months vs. several years) and circumstances (dead husband vs. Leann Rimes) of their books, bringing it up in that context automatically makes Brandi look like a hypocrite, even to those who are sensitive to her side of things.
It was all worth it, though, to watch dim-witted Adrienne try and make a joke about how she, too, had just gotten a book deal and then watch as absolutely no one laughed. At that point, Adrienne tried to extend the joke (Was it a joke? Does Adrienne have a book deal? It didn’t seem like any of the other cast members had any idea if she was actually kidding.) by raising her glass for a toast, at which point absolutely everyone found something really interesting to look at on the tablecloth and pretended the whole thing wasn’t happening. Whatever happened to Adrienne? Remember how level-headed and mature she seemed in the first season? We should have all known that no one who’s genuinely level-headed and mature gets that much plastic surgery.
Apropos of nothing: Can someone put some lipstick on Yolanda?
The next morning, everyone talked diamonds over coffee and half the group set out for a hike. Lisa and Brandi, as you could probably guess, stayed behind to…not hike, because hiking is terrible (Personal opinion! Can’t be wrong!). Instead, they talked about why it was that Brandi should think about phrasing things differently and why everyone jumped on the f-word so quickly – everyone’s looking for confirmation that Brandi is who they all really hope she is (a crass, nasty villain with no redeeming qualities), and they’ll take that confirmation wherever they can manage to find it, including in something as simple as a swear word.
Because everyone in the group has the short-term memory of a goldfish, though, they were all back to having fun once the hikers returned home. They piled into a few golf carts and raced out into golf courses unknown, Yolanda and Lisa competing off the cart path while everyone else held on for dear life and tried not to puke their egg whites omeletes. At the end of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, they found a badminton net, and to absolutely no one’s surprise, none of them can play badminton and none of them were dressed appropriately to even try. Lisa, in her long, layered white dress and old lady sneakers, was the outfit highlight of the afternoon.
After they got finished butchering the respectable pursuit of badminton, the ladies started their spa treatments. They drank a little berry drink, they tried to rip each others’ towels off, Kim pretended to masturbate in front of everyone. For once, I actually agree with Taylor – Kim seems to have traded in drunk wacky for regular ol’ wacky, which I guess isn’t the worst thing in the world. She certainly spends less time in the bathroom now. On the other hand, some of her wacky seems to have started to rub off on everyone else, at least during this trip. A little bit of poolside grab-ass turned into a full-on towel and water fight in the sauna, and the fact that I don’t see a single nipple pop out tells you a lot about the differences between the Beverly Hills wives and those in Miami.
Later that evening, after they had all cleaned themselves up, the cast had dinner prepared for them by a cutie pie chef, which is the only reason I would ever join a Real Housewives show anyway – they get a lot of free food and booze. While they ate, they talked about childbirth and baby lamb cells and god knows what else, but they all got along the entire time. Even Brandi and Taylor sat next to each other, and they were laughing and clinking glasses like brand new besties. It was…unsettling. I don’t know how to conceptualize happy, functional Housewives.
After dinner, most of the cast kept drinking while Yolanda and Kim both excused themselves to go to bed and avoid the booze. It seemed as though everyone else waved goodbye to them and decided, “Great, more for me,” because eventually the entire group was drunk enough that Taylor and Brandi ended up on the ground, arm-wrestling. But before that, there was a kiss. And then they wrestled, and someone’s mic pack fell out. So basically, the entire thing confirmed every slumber party stereotype that any teenage boy has ever had, except instead of sorority girls, these were MILFs. And honestly, it seemed like a lot of innocent, drunken fun. They did cartwheels and handstands and tried to wake up Yolanda through the floor, and somehow, no one broke any fingers.
The next morning, Yolanda complained that she hates drunk women and thinks they’re not classy, and to that, I say BOO. People who are regularly inappropriately drunk are a problem, but having a night like they had once in a blue moon is perfectly fine. They had a great time! Everyone got along for a solid 24 hours of togetherness! Despite the initial fight, this may have been the most functional, fun-loving trip in Housewives history. I was impressed!
And then, because no one can ever leave well enough alone, Kyle brought up the fight in the limo on the way home. In the limo on the way home! We were so close to a flawless Housewives victory! Kyle tentatively apologized for jumping down her throat, but that just tipped off some bickering between Brandi and Adrienne, who continued to insist that she was just concerned for Kim’s wellbeing and trying to find out what was wrong. The footage tells a different story, of course – Adrienne didn’t make any effort either during or after the fight to find out what was wrong with Kim. So either Adrienne was so completely taken aback by the use of the f-word by an adult woman that she couldn’t continue feeling concerned for her friend, or she was just trying to stir the pot in the first place and never actually cared why the chick at the end of the table was crying. Which seems more likely to you?
