Last night on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, we learned that:
- You’re not allowed to say “cease and desist letter” on television, apparently — even for points of clarification.
- Yolanda, who is (Sniff! Sob! Puke!) too poor to buy more than one horse for her kid, is actually a good guy, while Camille continues to bet her divorce cash on the WRONG horse. And finally …
- Kim Richards adopted a dog that loves to hit her in the face.
It was a pretty good episode.
We began with a sunset showdown between Lisa and Kyle. Their confrontation was sort of about how much lip gloss a person could wear, but it also veered into the subject of how shitty Kyle is, because she is just so shitty and lousy. Lisa, bless her heart, had no qualms confronting Kyle moments after Richards’s grotesque bell-bottoms brushed Vanderpump’s imported floor tiles. Lisa mentioned Camille’s comment about how she didn’t own Sur, and that Kyle didn’t defend her, even though bitch has been playing Johnnie Cochrane lately to her own cadre of garbage people, especially Adrienne. Kyle did a lot of “sigh-acting,” while Lisa expressed her justifiable disappointment in her fair-weather friend, and even had the balls to TEAR UP when Lisa called her out. “Don’t,” Lisa said to Kyle as her crocodile tears formed, actorly, in her eyeballs. And the two left their rosé-fueled face-to-face with the shaky promise that Kyle would defend Lisa if she, going forward, wouldn’t “hold a grudge” against Kyle? That was insane. Kyle, you’re sinking down to the core of the earth because you have no ground to stand on with this “grudge” malarkey. Lisa doesn’t forget people’s wrong doings and flits about phonily, pretending that she loves everybody. That’s authenticity — it’s different than “grudge-holding.” What is it with Mauricio and Kyle not understanding what the word grudge actually means? At least Mauricio has English as his second language as an excuse. Look no further than Kim to see an example of somebody who cannot move on, even after multiple apologies! Anyway, in this showdown, we also learned that Lisa was going to be holding a tea for Adrienne and the girls, and that she considered Camille a “total bitch” for talking Sur shit. All of your winning points are belong to Lisa.
Then Brandi hung out with Yolanda and her equestrian non-model daughter. After Brandi told Yolanda about Lisa’s tea — which Yolanda, sadly, could not attend, Yolanda gifted us with the line of the episode. “Who is Adrienne Maloof in this world?” the Nederlandress hypothetically wondered aloud when Brandi expressed that she was intimidated by the second coming of Jocelyn Wildenstein. Yolanda got high marks for this episode, even though (or maybe because!) she was barely in it. Also, she managed not to fat-shame her daughter OR her horse during that entire scene! Two lemons for you, Yolanda. Don’t eat them in one sitting.
Soon, we were Chez Vanderpump, where Brandi and Taylor spent the five minutes Taylor would still be sober touring Lisa and Ken’s bedrooms. And as Lisa and her housekeeper prepared the sweets and scones for their soon-to-be-feuding guests, Brandi and Taylor played the time-killing game “Let’s pretend this house is Brandi’s house.” Look: We all have things we have to do to pass the day.
Also: I know you guys hate Taylor, but she didn’t bother me in this episode, and I found her downright charming on Watch What Happens: Live, talking shit about Kyle’s “Japanese Hair Extensions” and calling out Adrienne on her garbage-person behavior. As a disclaimer, I should also mention that I find drunk women IRRESISTIBLE. They smell like Pimm’s and they yell and are funny!
During this time, Kyle the Vile, Bile Beast of the Nile traveled to Lisa’s in a stretch limo with some of nature’s meanest mistakes. That’s right: Kyle, even after her fake-tear-spotted “truce” with Lisa, still figured that it was totally okay to bring THE MORALLY CORRUPT FAYE RESNICK to a tea she knew Brandi would be attending? Without asking the peace-seeking hostess for permission to schlep a guest along? Let alone a C-WORD GUEST? Oh, Kyle. I get that dirty dealings are Adrienne’s domain, but your sins of silence are somehow worse than her initiations. You repeatedly sanction monstrous behavior by remaining mute. You believe in your heart that you are smoothing down conflict like so many flyaway hairs when, in fact, you are merely sailing along your duplicitous friendship path with no connection to anybody. I hate Kyle. I hate her more than anybody I know personally, in real life. Well, maybe not more than that one guy. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, ONE GUY!
While the goblin squad neared, Taylor told Lisa that she never believed Adrienne’s reunion accusations about Vanderpump selling stories to Radar Online (isn’t Adrienne the only person with a Radar reporter’s e-mail, anyway?), and Marisa Zanuck beat her “I hate fucking my husband drum” like she was in a boring parade. And when “the Evil Bunch” finally arrived, Adrienne made her voice weird when she told Taylor “Pretty! Pretty color!” while referring to her dress. She sounded AND LOOKED like a ventriloquist’s dummy in one turn, which is a nice mash-up for H.R. Pufnstuf–meets-Picasso’s Guernica. Mix up your look, Adrienne! Or at least don’t bother to curl that one fried bang, ever. Don’t worry, it won’t drive viewers totally crazy!
Camille arrived bearing gifts, and Lisa seemed to accept them as an apology for her wretched behavior in Vegas. And then, when Kim failed to show, we were treated to an early Christmas in the form of a speakerphone conversation between Lisa and the ailing Richards. Kim spoke like she was imitating the voice mail message of a dying lunatic. “Lisa, it’s Kim. I can’t come because I have been hit in the face.” “What?” Lisa asked. “Who hit you?” “My dog.” Kim responded. See, I would have led with that fact. No matter. This revelation led to chatter about whether Kim’s new nose would be affected by her puppy’s punch, and having seen the final product on her Watch What Happens: Live appearance, I can honestly say that a blow from a pit bull pup right in the schnozz would have been the best thing to derail that dreadful, too-small factory job, second only to a better doctor.
Soon, all the ladies sat down for tea and toasted their rosé glasses to the fact that not one of them was drinking tea. And there were enough gifts for everybody because Faye showed up and Kim didn’t. I still wanted to flush Faye’s gift robe down the terlet and make her chase it. SHE IS A TOILET PERSON! Lisa made Brandi and Adrienne clink glasses, and soon Taylor got hammered.
Which is to say, Taylor tipsily made a joke about how she was going to sue Lisa if she broke her neck slipping and sliding around inebriated on her property, and after that awkward moment, Kyle changed the subject to how much she was looking forward to her annual White Party. And Taylor, TO HER CREDIT, called out Kyle on ejecting her and her now late husband from that very party last year. We saw a clip of that very thing happening and remembered that Kyle and Mauricio told Taylor and Russell they couldn’t come in because Camille was there, and Camille had recently received a threatening letter from the Armstrongs. “It hurt me to turn you away,” Kyle said to Taylor, lamely, while Camille remained mute and perhaps oblivious to her hypocrisy supporting Adrienne’s legal dick-slinging in Brandi’s direction? “Oh, I know. It must have killed you. You are one of my closest friends,” Taylor sarcastically said, TO MY GREAT ENJOYMENT.
At this point, Lisa took Taylor and Brandi into her kitchen and told them to play nice. Taylor was too drunk to listen, and, in their absence, Adrienne told the table that Brandi was mistaken — she had not sued or threatened to sue Brandi based on what she said.
And this is where I would have loved (1) a copy of the letter Brandi had received and (2) for somebody to differentiate between a cease and desist letter and a summons. WHY ISN’T PHAEDRA INVITED TO THESE FUNCTIONS? She loves tea! Anyway, after the kitchen gang returned to the table, there was some back-and-forth between Adrienne and Brandi about whether or not the Malooves had indeed sued her, or even served her with a legal notice. Clearly Adrienne was lying, but there could be a middle ground to what they were both claiming. I believe Brandi was sent a cease and desist letter, which insisted that she say nothing negative about Adrienne and Paul going forward. If I were Brandi and I’d received that letter, I would have hired a lawyer, too — you can’t NOT SAY anything that Adrienne and Paul might find defamatory or offensive if you have a mouth like Brandi’s AND ARE ON A REALITY SHOW THAT CONTRACTUALLY OBLIGATES YOU TO TALK ABOUT OTHER CAST MEMBERS! So I do think that Brandi’s in more of a pickle than she would be having received a standard cease and desist. That said, Adrienne not owning up to the fact that she and Paul clearly sent that very notice (or something similar) through their lawyers — whether or not you want to call it technically suing her — is despicable. And she’s a terrible liar on top of that. It’s kind of compliment, Adrienne! It means you’re not a psychopath! But when Kyle Richards is a better actor than you, you’re fucked.
There was also talk around a tweet that Brandi had sent, accusing the Malooves’ chef Bernie of talking to tabloids about how Glanville was a shitty, drunk mom, and Adrienne denied that too. We were even treated to a Twitter screenshot, which was a cool change of pace for this show! Maybe next week we can get some animation — or puppets? Just kidding. (I’m not kidding.) And Taylor spoke up in her testimonial about the nerve of Camille defending Adrienne when she had been in Brandi’s exact position in the past. And even though bitch has a point, it’s also important to remember that Taylor has been in Adrienne’s position, too! Oh, well. We can always blame past misdeeds on the dead.
The tea escalated into a back-and-forth “Shame on you!” “Shame on me? SHAME ON YOU!” sort of musical round, and Adrienne talked to grown women like they were children, saying things like “That’s not nice” and “That was mean.” Perhaps it trained her for her relationship to Rod Stewart’s son?
I left the show with one demand: SHOW ME THE LETTER, BRAVO! Forget what I said before about animations and puppetry (don’t ever forget it); if next week’s episode is just a screenshot of the letter Brandi received, and we zoom in on it for an hour so we can all read it from top to bottom a few times, I’ll be thrilled. Score it with some of David Foster’s worst sap songs! It will be a post–Valentine’s Day treat!
Until then, my Yolanda Lemons.