Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Recap – 1/19/16

January 20th, 2016 | No Comments | Posted in Uncategorized

Over a lovely lobster dinner, the women discuss Yolanda and how she’s doing now that about a gallon of silicone has been sucked out of her chest cavity. Erika’s off to pick her up tomorrow and Lisa Rinna would really like to know if this latest surgery will be the cure for whatever it is that’s been destroying her friend from be inside out. Will the removal of that horrible implant cure her Lyme disease? Does Yolanda even have Lyme disease? And while we’re on the subject of things that might or might not exist, Kyle wants to know if Lisa Vanderpump actually has any feelings because she never seems to want to dig deep and share important facets of her life with an audience of millions and that’s an interesting comment for someone to make after constantly going into convulsions when anything less than flattering about herself is even spoken about in a quiet hush.

Someone who does have something real and painful to share is Eileen. She reveals that she was once in a deeply violent physical relationship that finally ended when the guy broke her nose and she summoned the strength to get out. It’s a story that is heartbreaking and deeply personal and Kyle celebrates such bravery by changing the subject to how much she appreciates that everyone showed up to her store.

Back on her private plane, Erika is faced with a legitimate problem. The teabag her personal stewardess delivers to her with a curtsey is not steeping to its full potential. Fortunately, Yolanda boards and her make-up free appearance takes Erika’s mind off her own major problems. While she looks pale, Yolanda also looks pretty good and I’m happy for her that she feels that she has maybe turned a corner in her health crisis. That said, my goodwill was almost shot to hell when she showed Erika pictures of that f*cking bloody implant, the one that none of us should have even had to look at once, let alone twice. While she’s flying home, Yolanda gets emotional. She feels like people maybe think she’s crazy and that she’s not genuinely sick and I’d love to say that she is blabbering some kooky-talk here, but I know quite a few folks who absolutely harbor this belief.

With the Hamptons just a hazy memory now, the women return home and that’s when Faye Resnick oozes her way onscreen. She’s here to gallop to the rescue like a show pony who should have been shot long ago to help Kyle overhaul her closet into a space that’s feminine and romantic and she’s more than qualified because she’s already designed Paris’ house and Paris’ New York apartment and if anybody knows how to remove clothing, it’s Kyle’s very demure niece.

In a way happier space that doesn’t make me want to contemplate how to best fashion a noose from hangers, an ugly hair extension, and a diuretic, Lisa Vanderpump is hosting an event for dogs who are able to detect cancer. The women all show up to support both Lisa and the charity. Even Camille is there and I suppose it’s nice to see her but now I’m afraid that Taylor is hiding in a bathroom stall trying to time her entrance perfectly and that maybe Carlton is chanting some incantation in the kitchen that will cause Kyle’s left t*t to spontaneously fall off and, good God, what if Adrienne Maloof suddenly appears on the arm of an eighteen year old? The Ghosts of Housewives Past terrify me way more than global warming.

Lisa Rinna doesn’t share my concerns or my terror. She is far too preoccupied to worry about having a lip-off with Taylor because she’s just run into Kathryn, an old acquaintance of hers and our newest Housewife. A former model, Kathryn used to be married to Marcus Allen, the guy who used to be O.J. Simpson’s best friend. He also was rumored to have had an affair with Nicole Brown Simpson before O.J. didn’t murder her. Oh, and who perpetuated the rumors of the affair? Faye f*cking Resnick, the assh*le who branded herself the murder victim’s best friend in the whole wide world and then illustrated her steadfast loyalty by writing a tell-all book as fast as a ghostwriter could make it happen and then posing for Playboy because nothing says devotion like spreading it wide.

Kathryn is married to someone else now – some other football player – and she tells Lisa Vanderpump that she’s there to support the charity because I guess it goes against the Official Housewife Oath to be completely honest and say, “I received a call sheet that instructed me to show up here so I could pretend to be randomly meeting all of you.” The new girl’s presence kind of startles Kyle because Kyle is very defensive of Faye because Kyle has the single worst taste in friends ever seen outside of the movie Heathers. She attempts to explain the origin of the Kathryn-Faye-O.J. connection before she throws her hands up in alarm (and in a decent approximation of the jazz hands her mother used to have her practice at night after brushing her hair one hundred times so it would gleam like the f*cking Chrysler Building) and finally says that she doesn’t really want to talk about any of it. Just so we’re clear, this season Kyle wants to discuss nothing besides the fact that she’s not a stage mother and that her husband is growing wealthier by the day. (Jazz hands again!)

After sweating their asses off on the terrace of Pump, the women head off to a place that’s air conditioned so they can down some vodka and lay the seeds of future conflict. Kathryn arrives and we learn that she knows Yolanda from their modeling days and that her husband is nine years younger than she is and she’s never even once considered getting breast implants. Way more interesting though is when Kyle – who hates conflict – asks Kathryn if she knows her BFF, the renowned author who attempted to destroy some lives for profit. “Never met her,” Kathryn responds blithely before telling us that her opinion of the woman is not at all favorable and I believe I have just found the newest Vice President of the We Hate Faye club! Who wants to join? The secret handshake is giving Faye the finger. Shhh…pass it on.

Now sure – I can bemoan the fact that Faye Resnick is about to become a major presence on this show when just a brief glimpse of her face or her tail usually results in my requiring some medication, but I won’t. No, I have decided to see The Faye Thing as a gift because her appearance alone single-handedly made me realize that people are not in fact all good at heart and some individuals suck so badly that even an exposure to them via television can kill the optimism that’s tingling inside of your soul. That’s right, everyone – Faye Resnick has personally slaughtered my soul. And I hope she’ll commemorate that death with a new pictorial in Playboy.

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.

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