This week on our favorite program, Rich Women Doing Things, the rich women did things. They used the phrase “Winter Wonderland†with such regularity it is now the first thing that pops out of them each morning after a cup of coffee and half a Virginia Slim. They had two party planners cut down a forest of fake Christmas trees to impress a group of 12 and come up with a signature cocktail that is served in a Christmas ornament that is also impossible to drink. They fixed each other’s false eyelashes at the lunch table and did such a bad job of it that Jennifer Jason Lee Curtis had to go over their work and make sure that no one lost a damn eyeball.
But mostly what they did was get COVID and celebrate Christmas with several very odd events. First up is a luncheon at Kyle’s house, where she hosts her Halloween co-star Jamie Lee Curtis. This is the same luncheon that Kyle had fake snow trucked into her front yard for, but the guest list is just the cast of the show and the child of Hollywood royalty who was also in True Lies. How does this thing raise money if none of the women there is cutting checks? Well, Jamie is there to talk about her line, My Hand in Yours, and show all the ladies her trinkets, and then the publicity will get tons of people to buy them. Yes, we are the fundraiser. We are the funds.
Jamie shows the women that she has made a tumbler. She has made a hat. She has made a dog leash and a candle and a keychain. She has made wind chimes that Dorit Kemsley proclaimed the chicest wind chimes she has ever seen, and she has been to both Amangiri and your mom’s porch, so she knows the difference between chic wind chimes and disgusting ones from Lowe’s. What Jamie Lee Curtis has here is, well, it’s merch. It’s merch with her charity logo on it, so the money goes to a good cause, but it is still merch and, to be honest, not even particularly good merch. Good thing everyone got an incredibly flimsy-looking shopping bag to carry this merch home in.
After lunch, the ladies split into two groups. Dorit and Sutton head into the living room with Sheree, and it is time for our second favorite show, Sheree Says Smart Shit. What smart shit did she say this week? She asks Sutton why she’s always in so much trouble, and Sutton tells her it’s because she says what she thinks. “How is that working out for you?†Sheree asks. When Sutton says not that great, Sheree tells her, “Maybe it’s time to rethink.†Yes, Sheree. That is smart.
Sutton has had beef with just about everyone in the group, and it’s because, as Diana says, she’s clumsy with her words. She says stupid and inappropriate things all the time. Dorit and Sheree point this out to her, and Sheree says, “When you are bitchy to me at my lowest moment, that has a different weight.†When Sutton sat down with Diana at Garcelle’s party and mentioned her being on bed rest, it was a bitchy comment, but that is not what Diana was upset about. Diana sat down on that couch choosing violence, and it is violence she gave to Sutton, and I think she would have given that same violence no matter what Sutton said.
Diana is in the other room talking about how Sutton disgusts her or otherwise overreacting. When the groups rejoin, she explains more about her miscarriage and puts it into perspective, and Sutton, like, apologizes or something? I don’t know. I can never decipher exactly what Sutton means, how her words fit her actions, or just about anything. When I look at Sutton, it’s like a vampire looking at a mirror. I know there’s a human-shaped thing that’s supposed to be there, I am just incapable of perceiving it.
While Kyle, Diana, and Crystal are in the other room, they also talk to Crystal about her eating disorder, which she mentioned a bit last season but didn’t get into that much. Kyle saw her post on Instagram about how she’s been struggling with it recently. Her question is “So are you starving or puking? Or starving and then puking? Tell me everything.†Kyle has her own history of eating disorders, but that seems like a weird reaction to me. It’s like hearing someone say they fell off the wagon and asking, “Well, what were you drinking?†Who cares about the method? It’s getting to the root of the problem that will solve it. It’s a mental-health issue as much as an eating issue.
Diana has an equally weird reaction: “I know how much you love food, too.†Um, did you just tell a lady with an eating disorder that she is fat right to her face? I don’t think that’s what Diana means, but the words sometimes get blurry when falling out of her saliva-soaked lips.
The weirdest reaction, though, is the one Erika has when they talk about it at Diana’s Christmas party. This party must have featured a white elephant, and Erika must have been given a whole box of “Yikes!†because she pulled it all out at this party. Crystal says that the holidays trigger her because there is lots of food, and she’s going out every night, and there’s more food to eat. Erika says, “I would just take a laxative and get rid of it all.†Of all the palms in all the world, your face had to go hitting into this one. Going back to the alcoholic metaphor, that’s like telling someone in AA how to sneak booze onto a plane. No, no, no. That is bad.
Erika mentions it again, asking Crystal if she likes to puke it up and saying she also wants to get rid of her food; she just wants to poop it out rather than barf. Okay, I can see that she is trying to sympathize with Crystal, but this is not the way to do it. Neither is Kyle asking about her methods. (Also, isn’t it sad that so many of these women have unresolved issues around food?) I am no psychologist, but I think the healthiest way to approach this is to ask, “What can I do to help you from being triggered?†Or just a simple “How can I support you?†Show that you’re in the struggle together and want to help on her terms. That seems right. Know what doesn’t seem right? Telling her that she doesn’t want to eat the chicken fingers going around the party. That was even worse than Asher’s Leif Garret haircut. (That is a joke for the olds.)
When Erika talks to Crystal about going to therapy, Crystal says she’s afraid of what will come out. Erika says, “Know what’s going to come out? A better Crystal.†I think her heart is in the right place, and she is trying to be encouraging, but the booze got in the way. It is not a good night for my girl Erika. She also talks about the Los Angeles magazine article about her and Tom, saying that it recycles the “same old lawsuits†and there were no new revelations. She says, “It tries to dehumanize me.†What’s funny is that this show, this platform, as everyone likes to call it, is here to humanize her, but she hasn’t used it for that. We still haven’t seen her being sincerely apologetic to the victims. We haven’t seen her express any remorse. Yes, it’s sad that Tom is losing his memory, but what about all the people who lost their settlement money?
To distract from that, instead, we have Kathy Hilton, everyone’s drunk aunt who wants to ensure that the public knows that she knows all the names of the people who are on her staff so that she won’t call them “the Lady†again. She has Kyle over for lunch at her house, where she just serves baked potatoes with caviar. LVP could never.
I don’t know how I can make this funny because it all seemed so intentionally daffy. Is the shtick wearing thin, or am I just jaded? Does Kathy’s casual disregard of reality seem more forced and scripted this time around? I’m not sure. I don’t doubt that she uses her iPad to do everything because she is a white woman of means. The only thing they love more than looking at Instagram on their iPads is using it to take awkward pictures at family functions. It makes sense that she doesn’t know how to use her phone, but is that cute anymore? Maybe I just can’t get too excited because I know the reason we didn’t see her until this late in the season is she was holding out for more money. It seems to go against the character that Kathy has built for the show.
Then she tells Kyle that someone peed on her sofa the other night. “Someone or a dog?†Kyle asks. Kathy says it was someone. How does a person just pee on your couch and you not know about it? Kathy, was that someone you? Are you the one who peed on your own couch? Is that how you know? Oh, Kathy. All is forgiven, at least until next week.