I knew that last night’s episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills was going to be a gem when, 10 minutes in, party invites were already well underway and our cast members were starting to get ready for the event. Bravo has the annoying habit of teasing us with clips of a fight that only actually takes up the final seven minutes of an episode, and as a result, I’m always fearful when they make big promises. You’ve burned me before, Bravo.
But last night, the network delivered. Not only did we get to see our housewives go at each other, but they were aided and abetted by a crude drunk psychic and her insane fake cigarette and a woman tangentially involved with the OJ Simpson murder case. Oh, and I’m guessing that the fish tank-sized cocktails everyone was drinking also had something to do with it.
Lisa began the episode by demonstrating her exemplary driving skills, and by that I mean we saw her cutting people off and making faces. If I drove a Bentley, I’d do the exact same thing, since I’m pretty sure that no one wants the insurance hassle of hitting a Bentley. Her husband looked slightly terrified, but mostly resigned to Lisa’s antics. I bet that’s what it’s like to be around Lisa all the time, which just makes me want to be her new BFF even more.
In a slightly less fun pairing, Camille and Taylor got together to discuss the impending cast dinner party. The menu was going to be pizza prepared by a private chef (Is that the same thing as ordering delivery from Pizza Hut? Because it sort of sounds the same.) and Camille was going to invite all of the ladies, plus two friends, one of whom was the inspiration for the television show Medium. That only brings about one question, in my mind: has Camille ever seen Medium? Because I have, mostly against my will, and there is no way in hell that it’s based on anything that has ever occurred in objective reality. Of course, Camille also used the word “we” when describing the people who produce Medium, so she’s clearly not living in objective reality at all. Not that I ever suspected she was.
Over at Adrienne’s house, Paul had broken his nose. Well, more accurately, their four-year-old son had broken Paul’s nose, which required splints and bandages. Paul said he was in a lot of pain, Adrienne called him a baby, they both seemed perfectly happy. It takes a special man to love a ball-busting, name-keeping, separate-bank-account-having woman, and Paul has my unending respect and admiration for being man enough to be called a baby by his wife without creating a bunch of macho drama about it. Can you imagine, say, Tamra Barney’s husband in this situation? I can, and it involves a second broken nose, if you catch my meaning.
Back at Camille’s house, Mrs. Grammer (for now) was calling around to invite everyone to her house for the pizza party. Lisa’s answering machine totally faked Camille out, so notch another point in Lisa’s column. At this point, the approximate score is Lisa: 48,498, Word: 4. And I only give the world four because anyone who has to be in Camille Grammer’s presence on a regular basis clearly isn’t winning at everything.
We spent a little time with the ladies getting ready (including catching a glimpse of a pair of Lisa’s lovely signed Louboutins), but other than that, it was straight to the party. The psychic was already there, boozing it up and preparing to tell everyone bad things about their futures, when everyone else arrived. The limo with Lisa, Adrienne and Taylor arrived first to cheek-kisses and information about Medium that, as far as I could tell, none of them really wanted to hear. Lisa and Adrienne, being sensible people, didn’t seem overly impressed. Kim, Kyle and Kyle’s friend Faye (who was somehow involved in the OJ Simpson case?) arrived next and everyone got to drinking enormous pink cocktails out of overly ornate glasses, because alcohol among people who don’t really like each other is always such a good idea. There was a bar in my college town that served a cocktail that size, and it was called The Panty Dropper. Even as a college student, I knew that was a bad idea.
They finally sat down to dinner and Camille started questioning who this Faye person was. Camille finally declared that she had seen Faye naked in Playboy after the OJ trial, and after receiving confirmation that Faye had indeed posed naked, Camille threw some passive-aggressive nonsense her way about the timing of Faye’s pictorial, despite the fact that she had posed as well. Because what better way to welcome a stranger into your home than to bring up a murder of one of her close friends in the 90s and some naked pictures you saw of her a few years later?
The focus then shifted to the psychic, who loved to talk about her psychic abilities and all the things she does, but then refused to answer any questions related to her supposed psychic abilities, because it’s rude of anyone to even ask her, despite the fact that being a psychic is apparently the only topic of conversation that she’s even remotely interested in discussing. Miss Cleo just sat there and puffed on her fake cigarette, swilled cocktails and looked superior. Faye, all the way at the other end of the table, finally stepped forward to convince her to make some predictions, which you know is precisely what the psychic was waiting for someone to do, since all she could talk about was being a psychic. PSYCHIIIIIIIIC. Let’s see how many times I can say that word before this recap is over.
I don’t even know the broad’s name. I just know she talks to dead people, or she thinks she does, and Camille apparently thinks so too. As soon as the Miss Cleo got talking, she went straight for Kyle to tell her that her husband will never emotionally fulfill her once the kids are grown, and then blamed Kyle because she had been pushing for her to give her a reading. Does she think that Faye and Kyle are the same person? Even after a few cocktails, they don’t look the same. Camille seemed abundantly pleased, although she continued to insist that she didn’t want any of this to happen.
Speaking of Camille, I have to bring up the obvious question. If this psychic friend of hers is so talented, particularly when it comes to husbands and philandering, why didn’t she warn Camille about Kelsey? In order to muddy the situation and further deflect attention from her own horrible behavior and that of Miss Cleo and her cigarette of insanity, Camille jumped in to tell Kyle that she was offended that she brought Faye to set her up, although I’m not sure what kind of setup Camille meant. Faye didn’t have any insider knowledge or particular skills, and the rest of the ladies were defending Kyle as well, so how was Faye’s presence any more of a “setup” than the presence of the psychic? Which was a clear setup, by the way. And even if they were BOTH brought to stage a setup, what does it matter? This entire show is a setup.
Camille snapped at Kyle, Kyle snapped back at her and the psychic, the psychic told Kyle that she had books written about her and a show based on her life and that all made her awesome. So many petty, nonsensical insults were hurled back and forth that I couldn’t even keep up, Although I can totally see why Camille and the psychic are friends – Miss Cleo sat there and drank her dinner and said all of the nasty things that Camille isn’t quick enough or confident enough to actually say to anyone’s face. Somehow the argument also ended up involving Taylor and Adrienne, who both seemed like they were trying to diffuse the situation while the fake psychic puffed on her insane fake cigarette and felt superior. For some reason, Kim got in a fight with Taylor, but I don’t really know how that started.
Taylor and Adrienne got up and stomped out while Camille assured Kyle that she had no problem with her of any kind…except for all that stuff from New York. Oh yeah. She had that problem. Miss Cleo, still puffing that fake cigarette, then gave Kyle the double-bird and made the universal symbol for hand job, and it became clear that she is perhaps the most repulsive person ever to disgrace my television, and that’s saying a lot. I watched 15 minutes of Bridalplasty one time. None of them made the hand job motion at anyone else.
Everyone finally got up and walked out except for Camille’s two friends, at which point the psychic talked about Kyle’s death, shoving things in Kyle’s butt (including, but not limited to, that crazy fake cigarette) and how she probably made people commit suicide in high school. And here I thought it couldn’t get any worse than the double-bird-hand job combo. Miss Cleo hit rock bottom and continued to dig. Also, she continued to drink. Let this be a lesson to any amateur drunks reading this afternoon – this is what you look like when you don’t eat dinner, swill cocktails all night and then get in front of a camera. Just a friendly little reminder from your local neighborhood blogger, in preparation for New Year’s Eve.
While the rest of the ladies were headed to a bar in a limo (well, Kim was relegated to a different limo, as if the Sad Kim meme needed any more fuel), Camille continued to sit around with her friends and cast aspersions on Kyle’s marriage. She apparently believed that Mauricio was cheating on her, which is the ultimate irony since Kelsey was probably joining the Mile High Club with a flight attendant who misspells her own name at that very moment. Too bad that Camille is too dim-witted to grasp the meaning of irony, let alone its sad beauty in these types of situations, because everyone should be able to feel the spectacularly warm embrace of schadenfreude that I felt while watching that scene. I continue to bask in its afterglow today.