Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Recap – 4/14/15

Before I can imagine myself twirling happily beneath a windmill with Yolanda’s very first boyfriend, I am brought back down to the depths of reality with a thud because Kim pops back in to maintain that she is not struggling with her sobriety, she has never struggled with her sobriety, and she has been sober for three straight years. And if that’s the truth, then I am more alarmed than I have ever been because then what the f*ck is wrong with her? If it’s not chemicals wrecking havoc with her brain, is Kim just like this? Is this jittery composure and aversion to honesty just who she is? Because if yes, then holy sh*t.

And now, with her sobriety once again announced to the masses, it’s time to get into the Kim/Kyle thing (again) and explore why it is that these sisters despise one another with such a passion. As Andy Cohen introduces the montage of visual proof of that hatred, Kyle looks miserable, Brandi manages to look both defiant and afraid at the same time, and Kim looks like she maybe sees a pretty bluebird that can speak in the distance.

The clips are horrible. These people are damaged and they continue to air the poison between them to the world. It’s really quite insane when you think about it, but there’s not a whole lot of time for reflecting when Kim has some deflecting to do and she begins by saying, “There are some things that are outside this group that have happened and I have been hurt a lot,” to which Kyle responds that she too has been hurt. And then the dog discussion starts and the entire thing was grosser to watch than when I accidentally walked by a television set showing a face lift and I couldn’t change the channel because I couldn’t find the remote and I just stood there and watched the blood and the veins and the doctors, and I would rather watch that procedure on a loop than ever have to see this terrible interlude again.

Where to start? Well, Kim’s dog bit Kyle’s daughter and the bite was bad enough to keep the kid in the hospital for five days and on an IV drip for three weeks. And what upsets Kim the most out of anything – no, it’s not that her niece was in pain or that her sister was afraid or that it’s not very nice for her dog to maul family members – is that Kyle Instagrammed a picture of her daughter in the hospital and everybody made the connection that Kim’s dog must have been the one to take a chunk out of that hand. Then she goes on to say that all the injury involved was “a bite on her f*cking finger.”

At merely the notion that Kyle is getting stronger and ready to confront some stuff (potentially helped by Lisa Rinna who is mumbling that Kyle needs to stay strong and make Kim own that dog bite), Kim loses whatever is left of her decency – it was just a dusting of decency, but it was there – and she shuts down whatever SECRET was about to come out of Kyle’s mouth with a legitimate threat: “I’ll tell the story and you won’t like it,” she hisses and then a look comes into her eyes so blistering in its frigidness, so predator-like in its retaliation, that if there had been even a single doubt that this kind of attack response has been the way Kim Richards has always lived a life where she guarded her secrets more than her sanity, that doubt can now be put to bed.

“You want to have an honest conversation?” asks Kyle, and the screen becomes split so we can all see how the word “honest” is like kryptonite to Kim. She can’t even look at it, so instead she just stares at her sister and snarls, “What did I tell you? You want to threaten me?” And then, with an evil smile trembling on her lips she trills, “Want me to tell?”

Andy Cohen kind of cuts what I was hoping was about to be a duel to the death short by asking where Kim’s dog is now and when she responds that he is at the trainer’s, Andy looks straight at her and asks, “Is that true?” to which Kim just sits frozen and kind of nods and then tells him to drop it, which is Step 13 of the sobriety program to which she is so committed.

“Certain things are personal,” says Kim.

“So why do a reality show?” asks Lisa Rinna, but there is of course no response to a question composed purely out of logic.

“I’m not going to say anything,” says Kim.

“So you’ll just imply it,” responds Andy Cohen – and Kim doesn’t have the ability to look even slightly chastened by what he has just said to her.

A few more things transpire. Lisa Vanderpump tells Kim and Kyle that they must somehow mend this fractured relationship so they won’t have regrets about being estranged. Lisa Rinna and Eileen both agree with comments they made earlier, that the relationship between the sisters is dark and borderline abusive. Brandi maintains she is not the problem between Kim and Kyle. And then it happened, and it was like a glittering angel from the reality show heavens fluttered down to Earth because as Kyle was saying that she had no recollection of giving her sister the finger, Kim leans over to Eileen and whispers, “It’s like when I called you a beast. I didn’t know I did that. I’m sorry,” and Eileen just stares at Kim with a blank face until it can finally just be over.

“Where do you go from here?” asks Andy, and neither sister knows, but Kim says that she doesn’t see how it can ever be resolved when they “keep throwing sh*t into the fire,” and I’m ashamed to say that it still stuns me that this woman doesn’t understand that when things are this compromised, you have to cover yourself in the simmering ashes of that fire to finally put those flames out for good. This is a relationship that I’m betting will never work, and that’s sad, but how can things be resolved when one person reacts to things that only happened in her time-lapsed imagination and the other person is reacting to what has actually transpired?

As the final segment finally arrives like it’s a stallion ridden by Prince f*cking Charming, we learn that Kyle is sad, that Kim doesn’t know what’s next, that Brandi does not want to break up a family, that neither Lisa Rinna nor Eileen fully realized how insane being on this show would be, and that Lisa Vanderpump would once again like to suggest that the sisters work through the piling heaps of sh*t that has grown into a towering inferno of a raging mess.

The final moment of these Reunions usually involves the ladies clinking champagne glasses together while pretending that the past is behind them, but perhaps out of respect to Kim’s sobriety, the toast and the probably-necessary intake of alcohol does not transpire. But not to worry; Brandi heard that Kyle has a bong in her purse.

I want to thank you all for joining me through the long trek of this season. I have enjoyed every single crazy second of it, and I will be back to recap the next time the women from Beverly Hills go bounding through the streets of an idyllic and faraway village, sullying the name of all Americans in the process. Until then, grab yourself one of somebody else’s painkillers and join me in a quick prayer that maybe Kim Richards and Brandi Glanville do not actually exist and we have collectively imagined the whole thing.

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.