The Dispute That Shall Not Be Named rolled forward on last night’s episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, just like we all expected it to. Notably absent from any of the shows’ scenes were Adrienne and Paul, who are said to have immediately stopped filming the show after last week’s blowup. There’s some indication that Adrienne will be back later in the season (With Paul? Sans Paul? Who knows.), but for right now, let’s take a look at what everyone but one of the fight’s main participants had to say about about the spat last night.
For the second week in a row, we started right back at the party we left the episode before. Adrienne and Paul had just gotten finished cursing Brandi out and then retreated to another section of the venue to call Brandi a drug addict (which is likely more defamatory than whatever comments are currently involved in a lawsuit) and then storm out. Back at the party, Taylor was hyperventilating for a little bit of camera time and Mauricio came over the lecture Brandi about her behavior. Whether or not whatever rumors Brandi spread were true or appropriate, Brandi wasn’t the one who started the fight that day, and she wasn’t the one who started with the obscenities and the yelling.
It was Kim, likely out of some 12 Step-motivated desire to be honest and good, who turned that information over to Adrienne and Paul at an inappropriate time, who planted the seed for the entire fight. And then it was Paul and Adrienne who absolutely lost it in public instead of taking a deep breath and deciding how to act like people who know they’re in the right. (If they are indeed in the right, which seems questionable, as we discussed last week.) One of the best things that anybody ever told me is that you can’t control how others act, but you can control how you react, and Adrienne and Paul both reacted like people with a secret to keep instead of a record to set straight.
Once we left the party, our next stop was Lisa’s house, where a whole load of things were happening, including a visit from Martin, installation of new driveway gates and Ken’s endless neediness post-surgery. He appeared to be recuperating well, but don’t the rich always recuperate well? Once again, Lisa positioned herself as affable and relatively normal for such a rich lady. She’s really good at this whole reality TV thing.
We then checked in on Kim, who was at pilates with her daughters to work out a little and discuss her upcoming trip to Las Vegas a lot. She’s taking her son there for his 21st birthday, which has people understandably nervous about her continued sobriety, including her. She said that she planned to have spa treatments and schedule some meetings that she could take in her hotel room, which made me wonder why she didn’t just send her son out there with some friends. That’s not an uncommon thing for rich kids in their early 20s, and why tempt yourself unnecessarily?
At Kyle’s house, she and her husband were discussing an upcoming dinner that they were throwing and whether or not Brandi should come. Mauricio wanted to uninvite Brandi, but Kyle stuck to her guns and her original guest list – Brandi would come and that was that! But let’s be real – Kyle’s Brandi decree was likely made the way it was because uninviting the season’s main storyline would mean that her party would be a blip on the radar instead of the main plot point of an entire episode. At this stage in the game, the cast knows how this stuff works. (In that vein, Alex McCord’s videos on CeleBuzz are very illuminating about how these decisions are made.)
Kyle then moved on to lunch with The Morally Corrupt Faye Resnick (shoutout to season one!), who seemed to hate Brandi for reasons that weren’t entirely clear. (Except that Faye loves camera time, and picking a fight with Brandi is a great way to get camera time. That was entirely clear.) She and Adrienne have a history of friendship, and she may or may not be bucking for a spot in the cast (they interviewed her like a cast member, that’s for sure), so the teams were clearly drawn. One more person on Team Adrienne.
At Yolanda’s house, her trainer was kicking her ass in such a way that I became winded just watching the scene. Yolanda looks like she’s in very good shape, but as it turns out, she’s in very good shape, and so’s her trainer – he’s 57, and I would have pegged him at approximately 40. I have no idea how old Yolanda is, but whatever her age, she looks good. Of course, she also has crazy Dutch model genes that likely help out with that. And the number of a good plastic surgeon, plus the money to pay him well. That never hurts.
Yolanda’s workout session was all well and good, but without much delay we found ourselves back into the meat of the story. Brandi arrived at Lisa’s house to have the conversation that we all saw in the previews, and the upshot of it was that Brandi felt heavily stressed out about the entire confrontation, wished that she had never said what she said and was nervous that Adrienne and Paul’s money and power would win them any fight that ensued. To me, that was an oblique reference to a potential lawsuit, which can be financially disastrous for a person in Brandi’s financial position, even if she didn’t do anything wrong. Just fighting the fight costs a fortune, and it’s a fortune Adrienne and Paul theoretically have to fritter away as they see fit.
Brandi again vaguely referred to things Adrienne and Paul had put her through in the past, and although she didn’t elaborate as much as we’re all waiting for her to, she did mention that she was pretty sure Adrienne had planted a story about her at Radar Online immediately after their altercation. In Real Housewives episodes of the past, there have been plenty of story-planting accusations, but this is one of the only times (and perhaps THE only time) that I can remember Bravo both replaying the part of the fight in question and then immediately showing us a screen shot of the supposedly planted story. Sometimes you can tell that the producers are taking someone’s side in how this show is edited, and in that case, it seemed pretty clear.
We then proceded directly to Kyle’s previously mentioned dinner party, apparently celebrating the reopening of her dining room. After some cocktail hour small talk, we all sat down for dinner and Faye went straight in on Brandi for no apparent reason, other than the fact that she seems to be the attack dog that Kyle trots out when she wants to get in a fight but doesn’t want to do the dirty work and look bad. Bravo, again appearing to take Brandi’s side, helpfully played the Season 1 clip of Faye getting ratchet on Camille while that crazy e-cigarette-smoking psychic looked on. Based on how the rest of the conversation went, the drunk psychic may have, in fact, been right about Faye and her relative level of moral turpitude. So it only took two years for her to look slightly less crazy! So there’s that.
Brandi explained some of her issues in a relatively calm way, but as soon as she said anything vaguely snarky (about Adrienne perhaps buying a book deal, which I can’t find any evidence of Adrienne actually having, bought or not), Faye saw her opening and dove straight in and didn’t let up. You see, Adrienne’s brother used to date her stepdaughter, so she is an ADRIENNE EXPERT, and Adrienne would never lie about anything, ever. Except about Lisa selling stories to tabloids, but whatever, right? That was an intentional hit on Lisa’s reputation, so it didn’t have to be true.
Faye rode Brandi relentlessly over any tiny thing she said, pausing only for Lisa and Kyle to get in a fight and for Marissa, the stranger of the group without any previous loyalties to either team, to say that it seemed like Brandi might be right. Faye couldn’t stand that, of course, and she shut Marissa up before she could even complete her thought. Faye’s single-mindedness about the dispute was odd – it objectively had nothing to do with her, and other than Faye’s clear desire to end up in the opening credits one way or another, what’s her motivation for getting into it?
Not only did Faye rant about what a stand-up person Adrienne is and how Brandi’s just so mean and horrible, but then Faye decided to press her about her plans to apologize and her chosen means of doing so. Not only should Brandi call and apologize immediately, according to Faye’s entirely unsolicited advice, but she should send flowers. Or forget the flowers, send an orchid! Faye, apparently, is unaware that an orchid is also a flower. Whatever the object, unless something is sent, Faye will not accept any apology that Brandi gives to Adrienne! So there!
Faye then preemptively accused Brandi of some kind of future smack-talking that she’s sure will take place because she can see the future, so if you ever hear anything bad about Faye Resnick, just remember that it was Brandi who started that rumor. Even the bad stuff about Faye in this recap – that was all Brandi’s work. She personally called me and told me that Faye Resnick is a dim-witted, fame-whoring striver with hair the same color as her bad fake tan. I didn’t figure that out on my own at all.
To be fair, Brandi has never been particularly clear about what exactly it was that Adrienne did to her, other than plant some stories about her after she refused to join her Lisa Hit Squad at the previous reunion. If that’s true, then I can understand Brandi’s frustration with Adrienne, although it seems like the fallout from that stuff has escalated rather quickly and Brandi’s response may have indeed been disproportionate to whatever was done to her. It seems as though Adrienne has reacted disproportionately in turn, though, and then Faye found her way into this entire thing. Kyle looked upset that things had gone badly at the end of last night’s episode, but she had to know exactly what was going to happen.
Real Housewives appears to be taking a break for the holidays, so we’ll see you back in these parts in January!
