Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Recap – 2/23/16

We’ll get to Yolanda’s stuff soon, but first it’s time to Soul Cycle for charity. Kyle is raising money for Habitat for Humanity and she makes sure to drop the name of Mauricio’s company in the process, but hey, at least it’s a worthy cause. A bunch of the Housewives show up to peddle away, though Lisa Vanderpump announces early on that she will not straddle anything for forty-five minutes straight. Mauricio is wearing a baseball hat backwards and a Madonna microphone on his head and Kyle is just so proud to be on trend when it comes to charity.

On the bike, Erika is a f*cking pro. She whips her ponytail to and fro and she checks out the instructor’s look so she can incorporate it into her next appearance at Pervert Night and she’s having a grand old time. Kathryn’s kicking ass too, but Lisa is exhausted and all she wants is a shower and to then throw on her pink heels back on and then get the hell out of dodge.

After the class, they all go to lunch where Eileen, Yolanda and Lisa Rinna might join them. Looking positively elated, Kyle tells us that she’s “curious” to know where Lisa Rinna and Yolanda stand after Yolanda congratulated herself to Lisa’s face for not announcing that she harbors the belief that Lisa is bipolar. The joy that spreads over Kyle’s cheeks at the possibility of conflict in her midst is kind of gross, but the verbal bloodshed does not happen immediately. First, Yolanda shows up with flowers for Lisa Vanderpump since its her birthday and then Kathryn pulls out her biceps and reveals that she can beat the sh*t out of anyone at that table.

Yolanda then mentions the dinner party she’s throwing soon, but it will not be at her house, which probably means that lemons she personally cut from her trees will not be given as favors. It’s just too much for her to have to hire people to do all the work so she’s holding her event at a restaurant. The rest of them nod and look like they’re trying to figure out an excuse so they don’t have to show up and then Yolanda asks if Lisa Rinna is coming. She’s not – she’s working – but Yolanda’s question prompts Kyle to immediately ask how things are between them and she does this while squeezing her bladder tightly so she won’t pee in excitement when Yolanda tells everyone that she has decided to hate Lisa. But Yolanda disappoints Kyle! She tells her that everything is fine. “Nonsense!” thinks Kyle. After all, these two just had a humongous fight and now they’re acting like everything is okay? Who does that – wonders the woman who has been a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills cast member since the show’s inception. Is she ready to let someone else’s problem leave the table that quickly? Um, have you met Kyle? No, she makes sure to stage whisper to Lisa Vanderpump that she doesn’t think Lisa Rinna knows that Yolanda said she might be bipolar. Hearing her, Eileen says Lisa knows and that she’s moved on and Erika rolls her eyes at how blatantly transparent this Kyle chick is in her quest to be an assh*le while actively trying to pretend that she’s not an assh*le. As for the woman who might have tossed that bipolar stone, Yolanda tries to minimize what she said by once again stating all the reasons Lisa might in fact be bipolar before again stating that she’d never ever say such a thing.

It almost kills me to say this, but Kyle has a point when she tells the woman who refuses to wear makeup that Lisa never said Yolanda has Munchausen; she just stated that other people said it, and Yolanda talking about Lisa and linking her name to bipolar disorder is very much the same thing. But see, lack of mascara has made Yolanda tense and she refuses to listen to anything that might make sense. Instead she just strikes back. She informs Kyle that the issue has been resolved and she’s just making it worse by bringing it back up and I’d love to just call this one a tie. Speaking of which, how great would it be if the Housewives was an elimination show and both women had to immediately forfeit, get up from that table, walk out the door, and never appear on television again?

Sadly, nobody gets up from that table because it’s in their contract to sit there. “Relax,” Yolanda snarls to Kyle. “Have some wine.” Then she smiles with her lips slammed firmly shut and Kyle simply cannot take another second of being called out so she snipes back, “Yolanda, give me a f*cking break!”

(Also: did a farsighted makeup artist use a shovel to do Kyle’s makeup for her interview scenes? Holy spackle and lashes, Batman.)

Lucky as hell to not be at that lunch is Lisa Rinna. She’s off doing Jenny McCarthy’s radio show. They begin by professing their love for one another and end by discussing the merits of dildos and it’s a lovely afternoon.

But back at the restaurant, Yolanda and Kyle are still fighting and Yolanda asks Kyle once again to just drop it. After all, she says – looking exactly like a Bond villainess who forgot to put on eyeliner – she holds a lot of stuff in the vault. At that – at just the suggestion that a secret could be revealed after her mother once told her to never say a word about the family or the truth even while you’re on a reality show about your life – Kyle flips. Is Yolanda threatening her? “No,” says Yolanda soothingly, coldly. She has far too much integrity for that. (Can I just quickly say how uncomfortable I feel when people feel the need to repeatedly declare themselves full of integrity or really decent or not so violent? That sh*t often ends badly.) With a bemused expression on her face and her hands tucked under the table so she can frantically text her health advocate to come and get her the f*ck out of there by claiming the room is stuffed with asbestos, Yolanda says that sure, there are some unresolved feelings she has for Lisa Rinna, just as there is some residual bitterness she feels for Lisa Vanderpump because she spoke once about her children being disease-free – but it’s not like Yolanda would ever mention such a thing up because, once again, she has astounding levels of integrity. Once again, Lisa Vanderpump explains that she never said a f*cking thing about Yolanda’s kids – she just answered a question posed directly to her – but Yolanda just stares at her in response until Lisa decides she’s had quite enough and she gets up and leaves and that’s kind of why I love her. A normal person would totally leave that table, though a fully normal person would never sit at that table in the first place.

It’s a brand new day, and the two most recently hired Housewives meet up at Erika’s house where they dig into some food and Kathryn tries to dig into her hostess. She wants to know why Erika is so cold. Does she have any friends who are women? There aren’t many, Erika explains. She wants really good friends in her life, people who understand that she’s a lot to handle and understand that she looks a certain way. Basically, she’s sick of being judged in the same way those bitches judged her back in middle school. Me? I just blocked middle school out of my psyche entirely. It was a shockingly easy thing to do and I have a lot of female friends so I recommend Erika try it so she can then begin opening up to the idea of being friends with women since, you know, she just joined a show called The Real Housewives where everyone is a woman and she’s supposed to at least pretend that she did it “to learn about herself” instead of for the real reason, which is to try to make Erika Jayne actually famous. She does have some friends, though. Yolanda is the one she’s closest to and she used to be really tight with her grandmother who passed away from Alzheimer’s. She recounts stories about her with tears in her eyes. Seeing such genuine sentiment, Kathryn decides that she and Erika need to be best friends immediately and Erika is fine with that as long as Kathryn will agree that Lisa Vanderpump is a total twat. It’s not that she’s evil; Erika just thinks Lisa likes to attack people from the side and not leave fingerprints behind while being selectively honest. Sweetheart? That’s just called being stealth.

And speaking of the person I do not think is a twat, Lisa meets up with Ken and Giggy for a drink and tells her husband about the nightmare she endured over lunch with a serene madwoman who refuses to wear foundation anymore.

Meanwhile, Lisa Rinna shows up to Kyle’s house and her head is spinning and it’s all because of The Email. Yes, Yolanda decided to write Kyle an email after their fateful meal where they decided to hate one another forevermore. She cc’d every single Housewife in the bunch and proceeded to scold Kyle for being unsupportive, something Kyle steadfastly denies. The Story According to Yolanda – which is a movie I’d never see and a book I wouldn’t even pretend to read – is that she was so frustrated after that lunch because her muddled brain wouldn’t work at the restaurant and she wasn’t able to fully articulate why it is that she wants Kyle to be tarred and feathered. So with her brain working to capacity in the dead of night, Yolanda typed out an email that explained very clearly that Kyle’s behavior was disgraceful. We then get Christmas come early in an adorable montage in which several of the Housewives read snippets of the email off their phones so we can hear everything they’ll all be fighting about for the next three years. My favorite part was when Lisa Vanderpump read her section while rocking reading glasses. The email was harsh, and Kyle, a woman who desperately wants to be loved by everyone, has decided to focus on the “threat” Yolanda threw her way. Lisa Rinna hops on board by agreeing with Kyle and claims that only projection-hungry p*ssies make threats like that.

I’m not at all surprised that Yolanda does not attend Lisa Vanderpump’s birthday luncheon, but most of the rest of them are there to admire the swans and the dogs and the goat and the pink sparkly unicorn who I’m guessing lives in the solarium. They retire to a gazebo in the country-inspired section of the estate’s grounds and they’re sitting down for a grand total of a nanosecond before Kyle decides that it’s time to get her troops lined up. She brings up The Email. Eileen quickly tries to diffuse things by telling her that Yolanda is struggling, which I think might be Eileen’s attempt to say that Yolanda is not behaving rationally. Still, if Eileen ever mentioned to Yolanda her irrational tendencies of late, Yolanda might arrange to have Eileen shot because that’s what people with integrity do. Kyle’s not about hearing that excuse – not after she’s been so cruelly threatened – and she appears furious when the ponies all of a sudden saunter out and take the attention momentarily off of her and her problems and her shiny hair. Once everyone gets a quick gander at the ponies, Kyle all but says, “Back to me!” Actually, she says, “But about that email,” ignoring that everyone around her would rather hold pony sh*t in their hands while they eat than discuss this nonsense again.

“No one doubts she’s sick,” says Kyle about Yolanda, but that doesn’t mean she’s okay with being called out for attacking someone she never attacked. Not only that, Kyle says, but Lisa Vanderpump never said anything about Yolanda’s children! Upon hearing Kyle actually stand up for her after refusing to do so for years, Lisa all but falls out of her throne and then graciously thanks Kyle for finally being a good friend. Now sure, the only reason Kyle is defending Lisa now is because 1) she needs allies and 2) they are both annoyed with the same person, but let’s give her the pretend benefit of the doubt and pretend that she’s grown.

(Also: I like the way Lisa Vanderpump says “tomato.”)

Kathryn tells the others that she and Erika had lunch the other day and then took a boxing class. She also informs them that Erika shed six whole tears and, finally cleansed, tore into Lisa Vanderpump. “Don’t get caught in her web,” is what Kathryn tells everyone Erika said about Lisa in what’s maybe the most perfect example of why Erika doesn’t trust people. Could Kathryn be a spy? Who is this woman working for? I’d say maybe the kingpin is Brandi, but we all know Brandi can’t afford to hire an espionage squad. She spends her money on booze and college-age moving men! It could be Kim who is working with Kathryn, but Kim doesn’t know how to dial a phone. I guess it’ll all just stay a mystery and in the meantime, I’ll pray Kathryn’s not aligned with Taylor and also that Kathryn is not just Taylor in a full body costume because that’s the sh*t night terrors are made of.

As one would imagine, Lisa is totally befuddled by Erika’s comment. Eileen is confused, too. She has no idea why Kathryn would plop this information down before the dessert is even served, but she does have a theory about why Erika might not trust Lisa. Yes, Eileen believes it must all trace back to that time in the Hamptons when Lisa quizzed Eileen about how her marriage started through infidelity and then apologized for it later. Seems Eileen still believes that Lisa’s apology was lukewarm and that must be the reason Erika hates Lisa. Now listen: not a bit of this makes any sort, but it does allow Eileen to pretend to be a conspiracy theorist for a little while and that’s always fun, though not as much fun as it is when she pretends to be Erika Jayne. She’s landed back in this conversation simply because she was the one who brought it up again, and Eileen tells Lisa that she should stop minimizing her apologies and instead burst into tears to show that she’s truly sorry for that thing she said two months ago. In response, Lisa apologizes seven more times and Eileen tells her that they’re good now, but Lisa doesn’t believe her anymore.

Would you?

I came out of this episode realizing a few things:

1. Housewives only use circular logic to argue because they never bother to understand the actual root of an issue.
2. Any time someone on this franchise says, “It’s all in the past,” you can bet your home on the fact that the person’s entire future will be f*cking defined by the event she has pretended to have moved beyond.
3. While I might never succeed in teaching her how to sit, I will make it my mission to make sure Tallulah never ends up on a reality show because, like Lisa Vanderpump, my puppy is just not all that crazy about bitches.

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.com in paperback and for your Kindle. Also be sure to check out her website at nellkalter.com. Her twitter is @nell_kalter.