This week on our favorite show, Rich Women Doing Things, the rich women did things. They didn’t say anything to their second daughters when they thought it was appropriate to go shopping at Doc Martens and Blandi Melville to buy clothes for New York City’s Fashionable Weak. They nodded politely as their mothers-in-law said, “Oh, they won’t remember every detail of what was said,†because obviously these monsters have never even watched one single millisecond of Rich Women Doing Things. But mostly the rich women just shopped in their own stores, getting high on their own stash of $3,000 earrings and shiny gold tops that look like something a teen would charge on her mother’s credit card for her avatar to wear in a fashion game on her iPhone.
The rich women all had a great time at Teddi’s beach house, staying up until 2 a.m. giving each other wedgies, rubbing their boobs in each other’s faces, and marveling that Kyle Richards did not, even once, attempt to do the splits. Since Lisa Vanderpump went to bed first, they put her bra in the freezer and it was a proper slumber party. But Erika wasn’t there, because she was asleep at the DoubleTree suffering through the worst period of her life.
When Erika shows up in the morning smelling of stale croissants from the lobby’s continental breakfast, things are a little bit awkward. No one seems to know just how to deal with her absence or process all the shit they talked about her the night before. Teddi tells everyone that they’re going to work out and a trainer arrives. His name is Alex and what you don’t know is that he is Erika’s creative director Mikey’s straight younger brother. Ha ha, just kidding. I made that up. But there is a resemblance and I would do anything Alex told me to do. If he told me to squat down and touch my elbows to my upper shoulder blades while letting out a fart, I would very gladly do it because that is what I am usually doing while exercising.
Erika is still not feeling well and Dorit is apparently allergic to engaging in any activities that Teddi has planned like working out, getting facials, and generally being civil to people. Dorit decides to tell Erika that Kyle and Teddi were talking trash about her after she left, saying it was “weird†that Erika picked out a bed and announced she was going to stay over before she went over to the Dana Point DoubleTree, the most luxurious accommodations this side of the Van Nuys La Quinta. This ends up turning into a weird and incredibly multi-pronged fight where Alex said, “Um, bye, I guess?†to a room full of sweaty and angry women who give each other their best perfume-commercial stares.
I think this is really a case of everyone behaving badly. Let’s start with Dorit, who has raised behaving badly to an art form. Dorit shouldn’t have been “tattle-taling†on the group, as St. Camille said, still running around the kitchen swinging the bone of Dorit calling her a “cunt†in front of her new boyfriend. If she hadn’t brought it up, Erika wouldn’t have known anything about the incident and life could have gone on as planned.
Erika reacts immediately and calls out Kyle and Teddi, then recoils a bit when Teddi tries to comfort her. This is the lack of vulnerability and coldness that Erika has been accused of in the past. And Teddi, well, she obviously shouldn’t be so sensitive to Erika reacting that way and she surely shouldn’t use the word weird more times than Mariah Carey fires her assistant on any given day. Everyone just handles the situation badly.
But I also have sympathy for everyone in this scenario. Dorit brought it up because last time when she didn’t tell Erika about something, it turned into Pantygate. Surely Dorit realizes how this is different, though, right? No, she doesn’t. But I can see how she would be confused. Erika, obviously, is embarrassed that she was trying to be discreet about not feeling well and having an awful period and it turned into this huge story line where everyone is confronting her and talking about her bodily functions on Rich Women Doing Things. No wonder she was a bit brittle. And Teddi didn’t want these women in her house in the first place because every time she tries to get to know them, they hurl tiny little quinoa salad dumps all over her. This time, it happens again and she just doesn’t know how to please them.
Yes, everyone is horrible and everyone is right all at the same time. Can we just call this one a draw? Can we just take a skip on this fight as it is drawn out for the next 15 episodes?
All of the ladies go home to pack for Gotham City’s Catwalk Calendar because they all have some stupid reason to be there: their daughters are in fashion, there’s a party in a store, or the launch of a cover for a fake magazine. The only thing I really care about through all of this is Kyle’s godson, Matt Sarafa, a twink moppet who is the most amusing thing I have ever seen on television. Matt has a blond topknot, a full face of makeup, a Moschino T-shirt with a harness printed on it, and glitter coming out of his mouth with every exhale. He looks like a cross between RuPaul’s Drag Race star Adore Delano and a butterfly Beanie Baby. He is perfect in every single way.
His faux-fur designs (creatively titled “Fakeâ€) will be featured in the party at Kyle’s store, Kyle by Alene Too. We go to the store and we meet Lizzy, who is apparently Kyle’s business partner even though she is named neither Alene One nor Alene Too. I think the Real Housewives Institute has to open an investigative journalism wing just to track down this Alene and see if her money comes from someplace shady.
Aside from Kyle’s godson, I’m also really into how Lisa Rinna is raising her children. She says that Delilah can move to New York to attend NYU and be a model, but she’s going to have to pay for her own apartment and pay Lisar back for all of the money she sinks into it. I think that’s only fair and really the only way that a rich girl from Beverly Hills is ever going to learn about money in the eight years before she marries the son of another rich person and settles into being a jewelry designer or some other rich people shit like that.
Finally, everyone sits down to dinner and tees up the next big fight we’re going to be talking about and it has something to do with Dorit and Lisa Vanderpump. I’m not sure what Dorit said around that table that was so scandalous. She says that Lisa told her, privately, that she doesn’t like it when Dorit is in the group and ignores her. She also told Dorit to shut the hell up every now and again. I could see how both of those things are true and how Lisa would be annoyed by both. She also says that during the dinner from the last episode, she thinks that Lisa stormed off out of jealousy because she was talking to Kyle. I can see how that is going to be a problem and Lisa is going to be pissed off.
But all of the women treat Lisa Vanderpump like some invincible white whale or a bête noire that carries pink velvet Chanel luggage. Why are they all so afraid of her, but why are they all also trying to take her down? I feel like it’s not just Lisa who is talking shit behind the scenes, but maybe everyone else too. This has shades of palace intrigue that I don’t quite understand. (Or honestly care about all that much.)
While all of the women are getting out of the early September swelter that still envelops the city, our heroine is across the East River in Brooklyn. Somewhere in Gowanus, she walks down the extra wide sidewalks past industrial buildings that smell like rotting fish paste. She looks at the stiff cardboard invitation she’s holding because she can’t believe she has the right address. It’s a square brick building with fading logos of long dead companies painted on the closed industrial door of what used to be a warehouse. There is a blonde woman with a gaunt face standing in the open door holding a clipboard. “Hello,†Alex McCord says, her face cracking as it creaks into a smile. “Welcome to Brooklyn Fashion Weekend.â€
“Thanks so much,†Eileen Davidson says. “Am I the first to arrive?†She ducks her head as she walks into the space, even though there is more than enough clearance for her, and she steps into a large open room that looks like a void as her eyes struggle to adjust to being plunged into the dusky expanse.