Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Recap – 2/3/15

Kyle tells Brandi that she’s sorry for pushing her arm at the Poker Party, but she was attempting to speak with her sister and Brandi refused to give them a moment alone. And Brandi smiles widely and accepts Kyle’s apology and birds begin to chirp words of happiness in the distance! Oh, wait – I hallucinated for a second after taking someone’s else’s meds. Sorry. Actually, what really transpires is that Brandi churns up the past, telling Kyle she wasn’t around for Kim, and she refuses to accept that she can’t possibly – and probably wouldn’t want to – comprehend all the times over the years that Kyle has been there for her sister.

“Kyle is an attention-seeking whore,” Brandi states TO A CAMERA WHILE WEARING A MICROPHONE. Even worse than that hypocrisy is the fact that she tells Kyle that she came there to apologize when she has done nothing in the way of an apology and couldn’t even find the decency to begin the dialogue; she waited until Kyle came to her.

There is a thing that Kyle said during all of this that’s maybe something that should be examined. She asks what gives Brandi the right to get involved in her family, and in the real world, I’d be with Kyle fully on that issue. But see, this is a version of the real world where all of these women get paid to air their lives to the general public and to interact in one another’s lives, so on some level – while it may be wrong – it’s kind of the nature of the beast for Brandi to involve herself in what has become a storyline.

But the real storyline is The Delusionary Nature of Kim, because she doesn’t once try to stop the fight or defend her sister, even after Brandi threatens to knock Kyle’s teeth out. Instead, Kim actually says that Kyle walked over to Brandi – an uninvited guest – just to start something, and when Kyle makes a very vague reference to the past and having been there for Kim, the sicker sister freaks the f*ck out. It’s so clear that Kim is desperate to continue to hide behind all of those secrets of hers, both from the past and the present, and she devotes her miniscule bits of energy to shrouding the fallout and not addressing the actual problem. And simply because Kyle mentions the past, Kim turns away from her and begins to cry and is furious with her sister, whereupon Brandi, in all her infinite assh*leness, smiles and tells Kim that it is time for them to leave. But before Brandi saunters out of the Bottom and Top mixer, dragging Kim with her, Kyle tells her to leave them alone for a second.

“Nobody wants you,” Kyle almost begs Brandi.

“Nobody wants you either – just ask your husband,” Brandi tosses back, and at that I closed my eyes and sighed with the knowledge that Brandi just did the unthinkable: she made me actively support Kyle.

F*ck you, Glanville. I’ll never forgive you for making me root for a woman I have loathed for four seasons. Kyle had both Faye Resnick and someone she calls a “lady-sitter” at her dumb party, and I still feel badly for her.

Brandi is now dead to me.

In spite of what was just said to her, Kyle can’t just let Kim go; she wants to talk to her, to resolve things, and it was at that moment that I think I got some insight into Kyle. My guess – and I could be wrong, but here’s my theory – is that, for so many years, Kyle was legitimately terrified that Kim was going to die from her disease and even today she is still really scared that Kim will die and what if that happens while she and Kyle are in a bad place? I think that Kyle is a sequin-wearing poster child for how viciously addiction can rip a family to ragged shreds and I applaud her for finally telling her sister, who refuses to accept any responsibly or develop any self-awareness, to go fuck herself.

And Kim, who has no idea what day it is and has the kind of eloquent verbal comebacks like “Same to you!” and “So’s your face!” sits at a booth and looks simultaneously angry and miserable and I hope she calls Brandi at three in the morning every single night for the next year just to ask her if it is a Wednesday.

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.