That Eileen seems to be missing in action these days and Eileen 2.0 is full of mental viruses. I get that she was offended when Lisa Vanderpump described the beginning of her relationship with her husband as an affair, but I truly cannot understand the residual bitterness that she has since embraced. Lisa apologized. She hasn’t even said a word that rhymes with “affair” since. She never reacted to Eileen’s annoyance by striking back. And all Eileen has done is bring that awkward moment up again and again as though there will somehow be something new and nefarious to uncover about Lisa’s motives. Here’s a suggestion – and it’s a genuine one: can’t Eileen decide that, for whatever reason, she doesn’t quite care for Lisa and just peacefully coexist beside her on these paid luxury excursions instead of working to achieve some vague resolution she doesn’t even seem to really want? I mean, they’re essentially coworkers, no? I work with a lot of people. Some have become incredibly close friends, some are just friendly acquaintances, and some I just nod at with a small smile and I think that dynamic is nothing but normal. The thought of stopping a meeting I’m in by declaring, “There’s a lot that’s not being said here and we have to resolve everything right now!” would probably lead to instant bloodshed because some things between adults will never be resolved. Eileen needs to either move on or just lynch Lisa over cocktails so we can all finally be put out of our misery.
Speaking of misery, tonight’s show begins back in New York with Yolanda schooling all of us in some statistics: she hasn’t worn makeup in eleven months, gotten Botox in three years, and she’s spent the last three hundred days in a bathrobe. Once again, I find it necessary to reiterate that I really believe this woman is sick, but I’m also finding it necessary to venture forth and express an opinion. I think it’s idiotic that someone who claims to be fighting for her life has chosen to continue to appear on a show like The Real Housewives. I mean, at what point did this series become anything resembling a public service announcement? I fear that I’m sounding callous and I truly don’t mean to, but let’s call this show for what it is, okay? This is not educational programming. This is a series about women who fight over brunch and then discuss that very fight for the next seven months.
She is still on this show, though, and she needs to get ready for the party where she will be honored so Yolanda gets her face painted for the first time in forever. In another hotel room, Erika is getting dolled up, too. Tonight is the event for the Global Lyme Alliance and that means that her diamonds better sparkle! As any human being who is an enigma swathed in diamonds and deep fried in cash understands, the evening simply cannot begin without your makeup artist first photographing you while you crawl atop a table. I hope Erika sends that picture to her father/husband and he’s so impressed by her range that he allows her to go on spring break this year. Is that a snarky sentiment? It sure is, but I’m more than a bit concerned that Erika seems to have bought into the fact that the dominant trope of feminism is wearing a bedazzled pink necklace that spells out “c*nty,” yet she is not permitted to speak freely in her own home. At any rate, into the milieu of Erika crawling across a table walks Kyle, who is covered up like a schoolmarm in comparison, but the white collar and cuffs no longer matter once a Jonas brother wanders onto the scene. He’s there because he was the boy-bander Yolanda’s daughter was banging at the time before she moved on to the ex-One Direction guy my twelve-year-old niece truly believes she’s going to marry. Yes, the event brings out the best and the brightest and Kathryn for one is very impressed that someone she knows is being honored at “a gahhhhhla in New York City” while I’m more impressed that Kathryn has yet to revert back to the monster she showed herself to be only a few episodes back.
As Kyle listens to the speakers, she appears grave. She is hearing about the pain people with Lyme experience on a daily basis and she explains that she’s always felt kind of dirty about listening to Lisa Rinna suggest that Yolanda’s illness is something Munchausen-adjacent instead of something real. Being in that room, Kyle has finally hopped on board with the belief that Yolanda is truly sick and it’s right about then when the most famous of Yolanda’s kids walks onstage. Gigi is the chosen one who gets to introduce her mother and she mentions in her speech that so many were quick to doubt the legitimacy of her mother’s illness and brandish those beliefs all over social media. (Technically, those reactions might have been less frequent had her mother not documented every time she took a pill on social media, but I suppose that’s really neither here nor there.) Yolanda is overwhelmed by her daughter’s speech and she thanks her family, including her husband for always standing by her. Every time she showers that man with affection, I can’t help but cringe. She also mentions that two of her children are suffering from Lyme and her speech is gracious and eloquent and Erika wishes that Lisa Rinna had joined them so she could finally see that Yolanda’s disease is real and not simply an excuse or a pathology.
Back at the table, Kyle makes sure to make the moment all about herself. Sure, she’s in a room full of sick people, but she’s the one who is really suffering because she just feels so guilty. How guilty does she feel? Guilty enough to allow her good friend Lisa Vanderpump’s name to be subtly dragged through the mud by Kathryn, who claims that it’s not just Lisa Rinna who doubts Yolanda’s claims of illness. As for the woman of the hour, all she claims to want is for all the women to understand her pain and I suppose I get that. As human beings, we crave empathy. Still, why chase a connection with people you don’t particularly care about in the first place?
Back in California, we head over to Lisa Rinna’s house where she’s packing for Dubai while remaining blissfully unaware of the amount of sh*t she’s about to be in for once the Lyme Crew makes sure that she knows that she’s a total assh*le for ever having said one sh*tty thing about Yolanda. Meanwhile, in her dark house, Eileen is sitting on top of her husband to give him a massage (and possibly as a way to prevent him from hopping on the computer to gamble away a portion of her fortune). Yes, it’s the get-ready-for-the-vacation montage where we get to watch our ladies obsess about what to pack, especially for a conservative destination where a woman must cover up, to say nothing about not being able to tell one another to go f*ck themselves. Should they screw up and violate international law, each one has an idea of who they’d want to be their cellmate. A few choose Kathryn because she looks like she swallows steroids like I swallow chocolate on Halloween. Erika chooses Lisa Vanderpump because she’d “spin a web” and get them out of there. Lisa Rinna chooses Erika because her husband is a lawyer (Oh, has that been mentioned yet? Yeah, Tom’s a rich lawyer, but that has nothing to do with why Erika is with him, so stop being judgmental!) and he’d at least get them released on bond. Nobody chooses Kyle because these women might be bitches, but they’re not crazy.
At Erika’s house, she calls in her posse of paid friends to help her pack. She needs options! She needs to get into character! Fashion, fashion, fashion! She’s bringing her entire glam squad with her to Dubai, but shhhh…. it’s a secret! I tell you, I had high hopes for Erika. At first glance, she struck me as deadpan and fun and uber confident and I respond to people who have a little bit of ego. I haven’t written her off just yet, but she’s starting to feel like walking shtick to me. Sure, she says interesting and thoughtful things every now and then and it always makes me reconsider her, but she’d better start talking more frequently about sh*t other than diamonds and webs and patting the puss or she’s gonna lose me completely.
Arriving at the airport, Kyle finds out that the flight is way longer than she expected and then the rest of the ladies show up soon after. Most are in comfy travel attire that makes sense for a flight that seems endless, but not Eileen! No, Eileen is in overalls – full on f*cking overalls – that Erika tells her make her look like “a 70s dream.” That settles it! Erika is either a liar or she has the single most hideous taste on the planet besides Eileen, who actually bought those overalls, stuck them on her body, and left the house in them knowing all the while she’d be photographed. Is this woman just toying with me now for sport? They eventually get on the plane and many hours later they arrive in the glittering land of Dubai. They’re amazed by the glitz they see from the window of the car taking them to the hotel, and that’s when Kyle brings up that it’s time for them to divvy up the rooms. All I know is that I’d slice someone’s throat to snag whatever “the underwater suite” is and I’d probably also gut whomever made it come to pass that I’d end up sharing a room with Kathryn. It’s Erika who draws the sh*tty stick there, but she’s okay with it. After all, Kathryn’s several million missteps are in the past and besides – if her glam squad can extricate their mistress from Pervert Night at a club, they can certainly send down a rope ladder from the starlit sky and get her the f*ck out of a hotel room in Dubai.