Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Recap – 1/13/15

As the last episode skidded to a close, Lisa R. and Eileen huddled closely together to discuss possible escape routes for when they might find themselves sharing the same airspace as Brandi in the future; Kim had nothing to say about anything; Yolanda – wearing a lovely outfit in the color of Smurf Blue – gazed adoringly at her icky husband; Lisa V. subtly checked her diamond-encrusted watch and wondered when she could politely get the hell out of Yolanda’s Malibu hillside paradise and get home to the husband and the dogs who adore her; Brandi sweated her makeup off and proceeded to slur the words “finger-banging” in the presence of people far more sober than she has ever been; and Kyle stroked her too-long mane of hair and felt her ovaries shrivel up in anticipation of the worst thing that could ever happen to a parent in the whole wide world: having a daughter leave for college.

Yes, on tonight’s show, Kyle’s eighteen year old goes to college, but the way this woman reacts, you’d think she was shipping her child off to fight a bloody war in a faraway land for an army that does not permit letters home, phone calls, weaponry, or hair extensions. In my entire life, I don’t think I have ever seen an adult woman fall to pieces in the hysterical manner that Kyle did, though I’m not all that surprised (and you shouldn’t be either) that Kyle effectively made her child’s big day all about herself. Bravo, Kyle! You win the award for Housewife With Offspring Most Likely To End Up In Therapy. Maybe your kids can carpool to therapy with Brandi’s kids. Don’t worry; one of them will have the Uber app.

Here’s the thing about Kyle that kills me: she knows better. She’s not warped by addiction or by poverty or by any real kind of trauma. She clearly has it in her to behave in a manner that is not best defined as selfish and showy, but I think that maybe she is carrying some kind of unfortunate genetic makeup that is tightly coiled within her DNA that yields the result that she can only feel alive when a camera is aimed at her face. And when that lens is within sniffing distance, she can’t focus on anything other than herself. It’s not that she’s a bad mother; she appears involved and loving, but it’s as though she has lived a life where every single day since she was a fetus someone told her that she should be a star and when there was no literal audience watching her, she became lost in some sort of existential crisis that made her wonder things like, “If I cry in private, will those tears be real and salty?” So everything she does now has to be big to get the reaction and attention of others that serves to validate her feelings – and during this episode her need for validation outweighs holding her sh*t together for her daughter.

Turns out that the crux of this episode is all about parents and their children, and while I prefer a theme that involves candy or bondage better, it’s nice that the editors compiled all the common footage together to create a cohesive story. So let’s deal with the storylines that are defined by the parent/child dynamic first.

Yolanda is also bringing her daughter to college, though Bella is going to school in New York City, not Arizona like Kyle’s kid. Bella will be modeling while also taking classes, and the apartment her mother procures for her is seriously stunning. There’s all hardwood floors and poster beds and furniture in a minimalist style and, as Yolanda discussed sofas and console tables with the interior decorator, I flashed back to an image of my own mother helping me set up yaffa blocks in my freshman year dorm room that was maybe the size of Bella’s new kitchen sink. Bella comes off as a sweet and thoughtful girl, but a few episodes ago, she made the mistake of getting a DUI, something Yolanda dealt with pretty effectively. She enforced punishments and illustrated a genuine fear that something terrible could happen to her child and I gained some more respect for Yolanda in the process. Bella appears to be back on the straight and narrow and she wrote a loving card to her mother about her sorrow for her mistakes, and Yolanda appreciated her daughter’s candor while still feeling jittery. But the thing is, as she discussed her anxiety about Bella continuing to make the right choices, she also had the self-awareness to acknowledge, “These are my insecurities, not Bella’s,” and all of the normal women across this great land hopefully clapped their hands for Yolanda and then contemplated whether shock therapy or shaving her head would work better to get Kyle to act less selfish on a daily basis.

My favorite Housewife, Lisa V., did not have much to do this episode other than meet with her son Max to discuss his work ethic. Lisa is all for her kids working hard and learning about the restaurants her family owns by doing every job there, including washing dishes. She deals with Max with affection and with a little caution and with tough love and I can’t stop myself from wishing this family the best.

Eileen roasted broccoli and ate dinner with her husband and her stepsons and discussed the difficulty of navigating the stepparent relationship, though it strikes me that she’s done pretty well in that area. The rapport between Eileen and those kids looks calm and breezy and everybody at the kitchen table smiled as they ate dinner and the sun set over the shores of Malibu perfectly, as though Mother Nature wanted to acknowledge that Eileen is not a total assh*le.

Speaking of assh*oles, Brandi didn’t do too badly for herself this week, but I also didn’t see her even touch a wine glass and I’m about to go out on a limb and declare that Brandi’s horrific typical behavior is directly tied to her alcohol intake. Earth shattering connections I’m making, huh? But last night, a sober Brandi and her insanely perfect legs met with her lawyer (I can’t help but be suspicious of a lawyer who wants to meet on camera, but perhaps that’s just me) about financial issues with her ex-husband involving things like child support. And it was at that second, as Brandi shared the fiscal relationship she has with her ex with the world, that I had yet another flashback into my own life. I remembered being about seven years old and that my mother once said to me, “Ask you father for the child support check,” and knowing definitively even then that no seven year old should ever hear or ask such a question. And I thought about how all parents make mistakes as they navigate confusing and scary waters, but my mother would have never agreed to make her mistakes on camera, and I almost called and thanked her for not veering into Scary Brandi territory. Later, Brandi and her friends (including Kim, in her only appearance of the episode) walked past a bunch of dogs who barked from inside of a crate (Free the Pups!) and then piled onto her bed and watched the premiere episode of the reality show starring her ex-husband and his wife. I’m frankly shocked that Brandi didn’t need to do a keg stand before witnessing such a thing, but she sat there and allowed her friends to say helpful things like, “They keep saying your name!” And then Brandi did an interview where she called Leann Rimes, her kids’ stepmother, a c*nt-try singer, an insult that I’d admit was pretty clever, but I’ve heard Brandi say it a million times before and at some point, girlfriend has got to let go of a smidgen of her anger. The only downside of doing so is moving forward in life.

As the other women navigated children leaving home and how to properly roast a vegetable, Lisa R drove to a set to briefly act in a film her husband, Harry Hamlin, was in. On the way to the set, Lisa did the kind of vocal exercises I always imagined people like Meryl Streep or Sir Ian McKellen did, but I was kind of shocked to see the former star of Melrose Place engage in any form of an acting craft. On set, she was met my the film’s director, Penn Jillette, a well-known magician who is so good at magic, he has managed to turn himself into a hybrid creature that looks like a combination of Gene Simmons and Wavy Gravy, and I watched his presence onscreen with my fingers shielding my eyes because a sight like that could settle into my psyche forever and I’m already afraid of normal things like mice and unicorns.

On the set, Lisa behaved cheerfully, professionally, and was kind of game for anything, and though I actually laughed out loud when, at the end of her scene, she did the kind of hand gesture and bow that Valerie Cherish did on The Comeback, I’ll still come right out and say that I like this woman and I think she’s a great addition to the show.

This episode was, for me, the most boring one in a long time, but things are looking up! The coming attractions show Brandi tossing Kyle down some stairs and Kim – a woman I find so uninteresting that I couldn’t even get into her during her alcohol-ridden crazy days – lose her sh*t on Lisa R and then continue to behave in a manner that very kind people might call “loopy.” From the brief footage Bravo blessed us with as a parting gift preview, we are meant to infer that next week Kim will either have lost her sobriety or what is left of her mind. Join me next week to find out which one has gone permanently missing!

Nell Kalter teaches Film and Media at a school in New York. She is the author of the books THAT YEAR and STUDENT, both available on amazon. Check out her website at nellkalter.com. Her twitter is @nell_kalter.