The PurseBlog team took yesterday off for MLK’s birthday, so today’s recap of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is going to be a little different. Instead of our usual blow-by-blow, I’ve assembled a list of interesting (and, to be honest, sometimes not-so-interesting) things from last night’s episode to get the discussion going.
It wasn’t as fascinating or action-packed an evening as we’re perhaps accustomed to from the Beverly Hills wives, but there were blessedly few plugs for Vanderpump Rules and a random Paris Hilton cameo, so I can’t complain too much. That won’t stop me, though.
1. Kyle dropped the F bomb at dinner. For a woman who was recently so scandalized at Brandi’s use of the f-word during a communal meal, Kyle certainly managed to bellow it for all to hear during her own dinner party. This is my unimpressed face.
2. The cast is finally saying what we’ve all been saying – Taylor makes everything about herself. As tedious and casually racist (we’ll get to that in a minute) as I find Yolanda, she’s pretty quick on the uptake when it comes to Taylor’s tendency to bend every narrative to bolster her own. Camille, who is increasingly the group’s voice of reason, also seemed tired of Taylor’s efforts to ensure that all roads lead to her dead grifter husband.
3. Ken’s efforts to be a gentleman only made Mauricio look worse. Mauricio has been on a one-man mission to bulldoze all of his own good press all season, and that campaign continued into last night’s episode. Did he just develop that smug face in the past few months? Did he get some ill-placed Botox that has frozen it like that? The world may never know. What we do know, on the other hand, is that Lisa’s husband’s attempts to stop Mauricio from publicly berating a single mom (whose side of the story he has admittedly never bothered to hear) about how she should live her life only made Mauricio look like more of a jerk. The whole thing doesn’t reflect well on Kyle, either – it’s interesting that all the peripheral characters who seem to hate Brandi so much are the ones brought around by Kyle, isn’t it?
4. Kyle and Mauricio’s dinner with Adrienne and Paul read like a team meeting. Adrienne and Paul aren’t doing themselves any PR favors so far, and their get-together with Mauricio and Kyle to check on the status of their alliances and discuss strategy just made the whole thing, including Kyle’s and Mauricio’s involvement, seem craven and planned. At least when Lisa and Brandi talk strategy, Lisa tries to advise her on how to avoid these conflicts in the future and work toward making peace and not attracting more attention to herself. Even if it’s just for the cameras, it’s a much more savvy face to put forward.
5. Adrienne and Paul went to NYC to “get some fresh air.” As a resident of the city, I’d like them to elaborate on where, exactly, they found fresh air.
6. Yolanda’s casual racism reared its head again. While instructing some movers on where to place furniture in her ex-husband’s latest house, Yolanda jumped on one of them for speaking Spanish to another, despite the fact that he spoke English just fine to her and understood what she was saying. Mind your own business, Yolanda. Two native speakers of any language are allowed to speak that language to each other whenever they’d like, without your or anyone else’s approval.
7. Faye Resnick thinks that Avril Lavigne and Nick Lachey are A-listers. Presented without comment.
8. Speaking people who are not A-listers, Paris Hilton made a cameo. Mostly, the point of Paris’ pop-up seemed to be her desire to remind us that she is still trying to make her singing career happen, including an upcoming concert in Brazil where she’s “closing” for Jennifer Lopez. (Note: “closing” for someone at a concert is not a real thing.)
9. That Marisa person is not super excited about her husband. If you want your marriage to improve, or even to last through the end of the year, it’s probably not wise to tell a bunch of reality TV cameras that you don’t love him as much as he loves you in pursuit of a spot on a Bravo TV show. She seems generally pretty reasonable, but that’s not a good look, honey.
10. Mauricio tried to make peace with Ken with a bottle of gin instead of an apology. Ken and Lisa own bars and restaurants, so throwing them a gratis bottle of booze is not exactly the kind of thing that will make an impression. You know what would make an impression? Actually, you know, actually apologizing! And maybe apologizing to Lisa and Brandi instead of wanting to deal with the only dude involved, who was not actually the harmed party. To his credit, Ken seemed to realize just how ridiculous and lame the whole thing was.
11. Kim has a portal to another dimension in her house, apparently. No word on whether or not her psychic is as committed to sobriety as Kim is.
