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

When I was in middle school, I got a miniature poodle. He was white and furry and remarkably snuggly. He would meet me at the front door every day when I arrived home from school and he would watch me as I did my homework and then recline beside me as I watched old episodes of What’s Happening.

I think he liked Rerun.

Unfortunately, this puppy would also run in concentric circles around the coffee table in the living room when I needed to pick him up to take him outside. You have never seen any living thing book around a table faster than this nine-pound dog. He’d skid to a stop when I tried to trap him and pivot like he was f*cking Baryshnikov and then start running in the other direction. He was twelve steps ahead of me – physically and strategically – and it was rather disconcerting to be outsmarted daily by one of the smallest members in all of the animal kingdom.

Eventually, my mother suggested that I take my devious doggie to obedience school because, cuddly though he was, he wasn’t a very good listener. So twice a week my mother drove me to a local obedience school where I’d stand in a line with the other owners and their pets, waiting for our turn to practice heeling, fetching, and sitting.

Here’s what I learned:

1. There is a drastic difference between the poo size of a miniature poodle and that of a Newfoundland.

2. The legend that states that people look like their dogs is completely accurate. Seriously – if you lined up the dogs on one side of the room and the humans on the other, I could immediately tell you who was the owner of the German Shepherd and who lived in a house with the Labradoodle and I literally couldn’t stop staring at the lady who owned the Weimaraner, because she looked so much like her dog that it was mildly terrifying.

My dog failed the course. She wasn’t into learning good behavior and – at twelve – I wasn’t all that adept at enforcing good behavior. We were supposed to practice the drills at home, but I was lazy then and there were boys from Social Studies class to talk to over the phone and I’d go into the bathroom for privacy and shut the door and the phone cord would be stretched to the limit and I’d look at myself in the mirror as I’d talk and I’d wish for my hair to grow longer. And it’s not like my dog insisted on being trained. He was very happy to run in dizzying circles.

My mother – never one to accept a failure that could have been avoided, especially if she had paid for it – re-enrolled me and the dog in the course and insisted that I do the required work at home. To pass, both of us – the dog and me – had to do the work, and I’d learned my lesson, which means so did my poodle. That ball of fluff learned to sit and to stay and to heel and to trot over to me when beckoned. And on Graduation Day, he earned the distinction of Most Improved Puppy.

I’m willing to go out on a limb and guess that Kim Richards has never won the following awards from any Alcoholics Anonymous group: Most Improved Addict; Addict Least Likely to Relapse; Highest Level of Self-Awareness of An Addict; Addict Most Able to Forgive People for Reacting to Problems She Caused In the First Place; and Addict Who Is Not the Biggest Fucking Assh*le on the Planet. And the reason I am certain that she never won any of those awards is because I don’t believe she has ever completed a full sobriety program and because she in fact is the biggest fucking assh*le on the planet.

I’m also willing to go out on a sober limb and guess that her pitbull Kingsley, who has bitten several people right down to the tendons, will never win the distinction of Most Improved Puppy, but that’s not his fault. It’s the fault of his assh*le, damaged, piece of sh*t owner who destroyed the last fraying thread of compassion for her that existed somewhere inside of me while I watched the first ten minutes of this episode.

I’m very aware that there is a vocal population of viewers – who certainly have far more rational thought than the woman they are kindly defending – who say that Kim is sick and that she is being exploited by Bravo. That’s a complicated charge, and I’m not quite sure how I feel about it. See, it would be one thing if this happened to be the first season of the show and Kim had no idea how invasive participation on reality television could be or that she had no idea how the editing on shows like this work by trimming out anything that doesn’t fit into a compelling storyline. But this is not Kim’s first ride on the roller coaster. In fact, she has signed up for this show both as an active addict and one in recovery – and as whatever category she fits into now, which I’ll call one of delusionary desperation. And I think it’s clear to all of us who watch this show that Kim is desperate for both money and for a camera to be aimed at her, and she has made the choice to appear. She knows the downfall of this kind of media exposure; her f*cking niece is Paris Hilton! And there had to be at least one person in her rehabilitation clinic who posed the question about whether or not being on a reality show would be healthy during recovery, but I’m pretty certain that Kim smacked away that concern just as she does with every other concern verbalized to her by people who might know better but have the audacity to disagree with a choice she has already made. She very well might have answered that person’s trepidation with something well-expressed like the “blah, blah, blah” response she gave to Lisa Vanderpump a few episodes back when Lisa told her that they were all there for her.

Bravo producers are, without question, willing to exploit people on their shows. But these people are not forced to appear; they make their own decisions and Kim has made the decision to keep coming back for years and years. And watching her behavior, I do not feel sorry for her in the least.