The conversation then segues into just how much more awesome it would be if Lisa would cry around the clock and tell them all stories that begin and end with her in a ball on the floor weeping into a polyester handkerchief that’s not even pink. Doing such a thing might make her seem “less detached,” as Kathryn puts it, which I suppose is a kinder way to articulate it than how Erika does when she spits out that Lisa’s just “above it all.” Lisa Vanderpump, it seems to me that you have two choices here: Get these women canned toot sweet or get out now before they cross that moat and burn your castle down. Because these women? Several of them might be insane.
Now let’s talk about how Lisa can’t apologize! (I’m just assuming we’re almost at the segment where a high school chum of hers will call in to tell the traumatic story about the time Lisa got period stains all over her jeans in Chemistry class.) Anyway, before the woman can humiliated in that way, Yolanda wants Lisa to know that her inability to utter the words “I’m sorry” is nothing new. God, Yolanda really f*cking hates Lisa. Like, she hates her so much that color is quickly coming back into Yolanda’s cheeks, which means the health advocate on her payroll is starting to be a little concerned about keeping her job. Anyway, Lisa admits that she must have a problem with apologies if everyone seems to feel that she does and the appearance of self-awareness in that room shocked the hell out of me. It doesn’t stay around, though, not when the subject quickly turns to how much it ruffles Eileen that her constant and dogmatic insistence for newer and better crafted apologies have made her look like a bitch. She is not a bitch! She hates conflict! That’s why she’s run from it all season! Oh – wait.
Now it’s on to the Kathryn/Erika fight, the one that was clearly all Kathryn’s fault. Did Erika say snarky things about the other women? She’s on The Real Housewives! Of course she said terrible things! But Kathryn betraying her – after insisting that they should become best girlfriends and maybe take a blood oath after they finish their mimosas – was simply sh*tty. Any chance she’ll manage to fully make amends now? If that’s her intention, she probably shouldn’t start by explaining that the only thing she did wrong in that situation was not that she acted like a c*nt, but that she should’ve lurched across the table to stop Erika from saying insulting and incendiary things about a group of women Kathryn barely knew at the time. Listening to this horsesh*t, Erika looks like her head might blow straight off her body and go skidding down the hallway and into Andy Cohen’s dressing room, the one Yolanda fled to last week. Instead, Erika calmly tells Kathryn that she knows her intentions that day were diabolical. She knows that Kathryn did not have her best interests at heart. No, Kathryn showed up at Erika’s home and she “listened with intent” so she could effectively betray the very woman she begged to become her friend. You see, Erika’s not married to a terrifyingly aged lawyer for nothing. Girlfriend pays attention to his shoptalk! How do you think she got that plane? Bl*wjobs aren’t everything, people – but yeah, they do help.
(By the way, Erika blurts out that Kathryn called Lisa Vanderpump a “harmless old lady” while they were on the phone one day – and she swears on her kid’s life to make her point believable. The joy on Andy Cohen’s face during this exchange is so vibrant that he should either be completely ashamed of himself for being such a prick or promptly give himself a raise for conceptualizing this televised nightmare.)
Maybe in an effort to redeem herself – at least to the viewers – Kathryn decides to use her time on that couch to stand up for Lisa Vanderpump, a woman who has been called “detached,” “above it all,” and “a harmless old lady” in less than twenty minutes of airtime. She wants everyone to know that Lisa never says a bad word about anybody, a statement that makes Yolanda stifle some laughter until it looks like she’s about to choke, but maybe that’s her Lyme disease flaring up.
It must make Yolanda so proud that her true friends are not people like that horrible Vanderpump bitch, but someone classy and intelligent like Brandi Glanville. Yes, the woman I once compared to Lucifer’s sphincter is back for a sequence I’ve decided to call The Tao of Brandi. She waves her hand at the camera while holding a glass of wine, chortling that she’s drinking and there’s not a damn thing anyone can say about it – you know, other than the parents of her kids’ friends and any astute CPS agent out there who is watching. Anyhoo, she’s back to let us in on her amazing insights:
1. Kyle is cool as long as she’s not in the same time zone as Lisa Vanderpump.
2. Kathryn’s husband is young and hot.
3. Eileen should be celebrated for brazenly battling “LVP.”
4. Lisa Rinna is definitely not bipolar; she’s just crazy.
5. Erika is the best! She also hates Lisa Vanderpump! And she knew in one second that Lisa must be the reason ISIS hates us!
6. Lisa Vanderpump is a genius puppeteer and Brandi all but worked for her while being totally blameless because nothing is ever her fault.
7. The fact that Brandi actually very clearly believes she’s making witty comments that will cut these women deeply is terrifying. And the only thing more terrifying is that it’s working on a few of them.
“Really, Andy?” asks Lisa Vanderpump after the segment ends – and while I would have much preferred that Lisa not say a single word in retaliation and instead just picked imaginary lint out of Kyle’s hair after listening to an assh*le yammer away about nothing, I get her annoyance. Andy Cohen should be punished for springing Brandi on those women – and on us, too! He should be forced to spend an entire night listening to Yolanda speak about her strength and her journey while she makes him put her pill bottles into alphabetic order on a shelf that’s bigger than my house.