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

But Kyle snapped out of her shock after the spewing of evil to Eileen, and she looked at her sister and she breathed, “What is wrong with you?” And that’s when Kim busted out her classic complaint that Kyle has never been there for her and has never defended her, and I don’t like Kyle at all, but the obvious truth is that Kyle has defended Kim for far too long. Kim knows what she is doing here, though, and she’s not about to let it go; she knows exactly what the effect will be. She tells Kyle that their sister Kathy would have her back and Kyle’s tears start to dribble down her cheeks and brought to Technicolor is exactly what the relationship is between these warped women. One acts out and then blames the other for not protecting her and the one who is blamed suffers from a complex where she cannot stand to have anybody angry with her. Kim knows this and it’s beyond cruel just to watch.

That’s when Lisa V., whom Kyle has never defended, stands up for her friend and tells Kim that Kyle does defend her, which is obvious even to the casual viewer – even one who kind of hates Kyle – but Kim points over at her best friend Brandi and says that Brandi has been there for her more. And maybe Brandi has been there more – in the last six months, which might very well be the only span of time someone with such destroyed brain capacity can remember.

She’s not even close to being out of firing range herself, but Lisa R. looks over at Kyle and at her devastation and she glances back at Kim and tells her that she cannot talk to her sister that way and that her behavior is not okay. To that expressive comment, Kim responds with, “Really?” because Kim has shown over the last many years that she has the very worst verbal comebacks of any human being who has mastered the art of language. She usually responds to something said to her with an eloquent “shut your face” or a “same to you,” – but this time she remembers that she has some gossip up her sleeve, which I’m sure fell from the heavens and not because she was talking about Lisa in much the way that she’s stunned that Lisa would speak about her.

First she tells Lisa to “eat some bread,” which I’m guessing is an reference to an eating disorder, and Eileen immediately looks at Kim with an expression similar to what it might be if she had just eaten a maggot-filled brussel sprout.

“Shame on you,” she says. “You’re disgusting, Kim.”

“Can I interfere one second?” asks Yolanda, who has been sitting completely silently since discussing her daughter’s DUI, and I’m hoping she wasn’t speaking up until then because she was desperately trying to telepathically communicate with her husband so he would send their plane to the roof of the restaurant and have the pilot toss down a rope ladder. Yolanda tries to restore the peace by launching into an explanation of how she sees both sides of the story, and she says something about how Lisa is sensitive to addiction because of what has gone on with her own sister and with her husband’s brothers and that’s when Kim jumps back in and says with pure menace, “Let’s talk about the husband.”

“Excuse me,” says Lisa, her eyes clouding over with a fury I could almost smell. “Did you just say ‘let’s talk about the husband’?”

“Let’s not talk about what you don’t want out,” smiles Kim who then shrugs her bird-like shoulders and is wearing an expression of triumph that everyone is now focused on somebody besides her. “You better watch what you talk about me or everyone will know,” she threatens, and that’s when Lisa R. jumps up and all but grabs Kim by the neck and throws wine into Kim’s face – I hope Kim’s mouth wasn’t open because she’s sober, you guys! – and cracks a glass on the table. And during all of this, Kim keeps repeating the words, “Everybody will know,” in a chant that is so creepy that I’m fully expecting Bloody Mary to jump out of a mirror later on and smack Kim across the face for being the worst person on the planet.

Now listen: I do not condone the smashing of glasses or the grabbing of necks, but I’m willing to take what might be an unpopular opinion and say that I fully understand Lisa’s reaction. She has had her kindness and her compassion dismissed, her apologies have not been accepted, and there is a lunatic chanting threatening words across the table at her. She broke, and I hope I get to sit on her jury.

When the wine was thrown and the glass was shattered, Kyle’s response was to literally run out the side door of the restaurant. I mean, she ran like she was fleeing from a bomb, which she kind of was. And I want to make fun of Kyle for her reaction and I suppose that I can throw out a sarcastic comment about how I was nervous that she went running without wearing her red Chanel fanny pack, but that’s all I’ve got for now, because Kyle is not my focus; my own blood pressure is where I am placing my real focus, because this scene is maybe the grossest thing I have ever watched on television and that includes the time I watched a show called Extreme Parenting and a woman brought out a vagina puppet and a jar filled with liquefied uterine lining during a playdate for two-year-olds.

At some point, Kyle sticks her head halfway back into the door of the restaurant and rightfully berates her sister for acting in a manner beyond reprehensible, telling her that there is no way that she can defend such indefensible behavior and then she turns around to leave once again because there’s nothing in that restaurant anymore but shattered glass and broken promises and repetitive family strife – and Brandi, which means that nobody should eat even a spoonful of anything in that place because the surroundings are pervasive with terror and with disease.

“Go after your new friend, Kyle,” blabbers Kim, growing even less normal by the second – if that is even possible – and she stays there, accompanied only by Brandi who has to be thinking back longingly to the sun-filled days when Lisa Vanderpump used to confide in her and laugh with her and invite her over for spa treatments in her expansive backyard instead of what her present has become, which is sticking close to Kim, The Frail Blonde Demon. But stuck she is, having bet spectacularly on the wrong horse, and so she picks glass from her hair extensions and discusses how crazy Lisa Rinna was acting and Brandi deserves every single second of that miserable moment.

“Kyle,” mutters Kim to Brandi as they stand amongst the shards of glass. “That just gets me. F*ck that.”

She’s eloquent as always, that Kim.

As she is led away from a dinner where she was served no food while being continually taunted, Lisa R. is still in a state of disbelief.

“What the f*ck does Kim Richards know? What does she know about my husband? She doesn’t even know Harry,” she says, and what that means is that Crazy Kim did her job: she planted doubt in Lisa’s head and got the woman to worry about her own tarnished life instead of Kim’s life, one Kim thinks is glowing – but it’s really just the imaginary spotlight in her own mind that gives off artificial light.

Outside in some alcove where they are hiding, the women who are not Kim or Brandi are comforting one another as though they just survived a genuine disaster. Eileen embraces Lisa R. and then turns to give a hysterical Kyle her support. I thought this was a moment about Lisa Rinna’s pain, but Kyle swoops in to lap up most of the empathy in a way I might normally judge her for, but I think that maybe she is just grateful to have support and witnesses to the emotional violence she has probably experienced for all of her adult life. Since Lisa is not Kyle, she doesn’t turn to her and scream, “It’s not about you, Kyle!” and instead she allows her to vent, but then again, I’m pretty sure that Lisa is still in shock that her well-expressed good intentions turned into an evening of horror.

Yolanda ventures back into the restaurant and tells Kim that how she spoke and behaved is not the correct way, a lesson any kindergarten student would nod along to, but Kim continues to defend what she just put them all through, saying that she has been pushed to the limit.

“You shouldn’t go after her husband or her children,” admonishes Yolanda, who is really wasting her breath by trying to explain correct behavior to a person who has sidestepped it her entire life by placing the blame for her reactions on the normal actions of those unlucky enough to be caught anywhere in her proximity.

“She went after me,” breathes Kim, a pathetic dragon whose breath smells of lost dreams and residual vodka and cigarettes. “My kids have been through hell because of my drinking. The rumor impacts my children,” says the winner of Mother of the Year – if every other mother was buried in a coalmine and couldn’t forage her way to safety to accept the award. And it’s here where we terrified viewers get yet another look into the way this woman rationalizes things. It’s not her questionable behavior to which the women reacted that is the thing that will impact her children; it is someone mentioning it instead of burying it in a closet somewhere that is already stuffed with old Disney scripts and pictures of Kim with Leif Garrett and all of her choices which have led her to this moment of adult dysfunction.

I’m willing to wager that Kim’s kids did not have an easy night watching or hearing about their mother behaving like an unhinged shrew on camera – but that’s probably Lisa Rinna’s fault too.

Back at the hotel, Kyle continues to be comforted because she has a sister who is the worst, and Lisa R. tells her that she is in an abusive relationship with Kim.

“I’m tired of this f*cking abuse,” wails Kyle – and I have never claimed to like Kyle at all, but she should be sick of this abuse. Eileen brings up how insane it is to believe that any rational person who witnesses such destructive behavior would stay silent, and she adds, “Brandi and Kim are both very mean people. They seem very comfortable with crossing a line,” and it’s like Eileen has become a one-woman Greek Chorus, saying what I think (and hope) most viewers are saying to themselves. The night ends with Lisa R. telling Kyle that she will never speak to her sister again.

But then the sunny morning dawns and we find ourselves in Lisa R.’s room where the woman is suffering from post-traumatic stress.

“I’m not all here,” she says. “I’m half here. I am in survival mode.” And what better to deal with on a morning you wake up and consider embracing agoraphobia than having the monster who tried to destroy you (Everyone will know…) knock on the door and ask if you have a minute to talk. To her credit, Lisa lets her in and is probably flooded with waves of relief that a cameraman is there to report what could potential ensue to the local authorities.

“I thought we’d handled it on the plane,” Kim begins, and we get a flashback to Kim screaming at Lisa on the plane ride over and then refusing to listen to anything Lisa said by repeating, “drop it” again and again. So really, what exactly was handled? Is a one-sided badly formed argument how Kim has always handled her problems? If so, that might be yet another teeny clue into the severe mess that she has become. But Kim does acknowledge – to the camera, not to Lisa – that she was acting her most ugly, and I almost felt sorry for her for a second until she added, “It bothered me where I allowed this person to take me.”

Unless Kim is referring to her more evil imaginary twin who took her someplace bad, she is more of a lost soul with a dark and damaged heart than I could have ever have imagined – and I’ve got a pretty vivid imagination.