I have always been of the mindset that that “bonus episodes” of reality shows are not really all that deserving of such an auspicious title since what they really should be called are “HERE’S THE FOOTAGE THAT WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH TO MAKE THE FIRST CUT.” But as I cannot possibly be the only one trying to prepare myself for the upcoming withdrawal symptoms I know are a certainty once the months begin to slide by and I don’t get to see Lisa Vanderpump saunter across her moat that’s guarded by pure white swans or Brandi Glanville attempting to equate smoking weed every now and again with behaving like a constant drunken disgrace, I shall embrace this “very special episode” like it’s candy that has no sugar content but still tastes all kinds of yummy.
It’s clear right away that this is a different kind of Housewives episode, that maybe it’s meant to serve as a palate cleanser after I almost did shots of bleach last week to get the residue from watching Kim Richards attempt to make sense out of my brain forever. This episode begins with upbeat music that’s all fun and full of percussion instead of that somber chamber music that all but began the twelve-part Reunion and immediately the silliness transpires with mention of Lisa Rinna’s sex book, which is actually titled The Big Fun Sexy Sex Book. Now listen: I titled my book that came out in December That Year, and I seriously regret it now. I should have called it My Big Fucked Up Sexy Year of Insanity because I have learned some very interesting lessons by watching these Housewives and one of them is that the more fucked up and sexier something is, the quicker Kim Richards will drink it. Wait, no – I mean, the better it will sell.
But it turns out that Lisa R. is not just an author or a student of giving phenomenal blowjobs. She has also been in Playboy and she posed while pregnant and rocking a bush so full that her husband is still smiling. I have absolutely nothing against Lisa posing for Playboy, and I like that she’s open about having done so and that she explains that she showed everything, “the whole shebang,” which I have decided will be my new favorite term for my own nether regions. Yes, from this point forward, I will adopt that expression and my clitoris will now only respond to being called that, which means I have some explaining to do to my gentlemen callers who haven’t yet received the memo.
Since this episode covers the events that have already happened, we’re back once again at Eileen’s movie premiere (who else is giggling?) and Kyle, Lisa V., Eileen, and Lisa & Her Shebang are having a wonderful time since the assholes are nowhere in the vicinity. It’s a scene such as this one – bush talk and all – that makes me really crave a season starring Housewives who I actually like who also like one another. I get that the producers crave the conflict that deranged people bring, but I for one am tired of watching foolish and warped adults act like feral toddlers and the silliness of this scene made clear to me that the show can still be a ball when it involves people who don’t want to destroy one another.
Continuing with footage that makes me clutch my laptop to my chest while wishing upon a star for a home with more square footage, we join Yolanda as she tours gorgeous homes with Mauricio, whose office looks like a modern version of an airport from the sixties that was decorated by someone who loves pops of red. Yolanda’s current mansion is far too big now that two of her kids live on catwalks, so she’s ready to downsize to a home with fewer than nine bathrooms and only one lemon tree. And not only is Yolanda pleasant and very rich, but she’s an easy client; she need not purchase a home that’s adjacent to the one in which Michael Jackson died, but that’s where they start.
Yolanda doesn’t love anything Mauricio shows her, but it’s this kind of episode that made me start watching this show in the first place all those years ago. It’s like watching real estate porn with all those sweeping pans of beautiful grounds and shiny hardwood floors I could see my reflection bouncing off of and private gates that majestically open on the command of the wealthy to reveal sprawling staircases. And I would prefer to stare at an empty staircase for a year straight rather than ever have to lay my tender eyes upon Brandi’s inflated face, so right now this bullshit filler episode is my favorite episode of the season.
Over at a home so magnificent that it doesn’t even look like a place real people live, Pandora and Jason arrive for lunch with Lisa and Ken and they enter a backyard where more puffy and fluffy dogs are scampering about than I’ve seen outside of a Cottonelle commercial. Seems that Pandora and Jason have been very busy lately with work, and it upsets Lisa that they are not around and that they are not gunning to take over one of the restaurants she owns. Upsetting her even more than the likelihood that Pandora will never facilitate the serving of fried goat cheese balls by the heathens at SUR is the fact that Lisa does not have a grandchild that wears all pink yet, and I am right here and now publicly volunteering for Pandora to adopt me. I know it would be unorthodox and all, but I am already potty trained and both my college and graduate school has been paid for and I look seriously good in pink. I will fit right in and Pandora can appease her mother without getting stretch marks. And with that appeal made, I look forward to hearing from anyone within the Vanderpump/Todd/Whatever-Jason’s-Last-Name-Is camp telling me when this adoption will commence and which closet in the house I will get to call my very own.
I’m going to skip the meeting between Lisa Rinna and Kim for now – I’ll get back to it because, like horrifying dreams about teeth falling out, there’s no real escaping it – but for now let’s stay in Happy Land, a place where Eileen gets to win an Emmy for a showy performance on Days of Our Lives and where her husband gets to walk into a room and see his glammed-out wife before him and gaze at her with the kind of awe that seems genuine, even though it’s happening while cameras are abounding. The scene is made even better by the understanding slowly seeping into my muddled head that Eileen earned an award for pretendingto be a psychopath, not for actually being one.
Over at Kyle’s house, Portia has learned to scale countertops to snag a brownie and to ask for an agent, which is kind of exactly what I’d expect of a young child in that family. According to the kid, she thinks acting will be fun and when her mother asks her – in front of cameras – why she thinks that, there’s not really much of a response so I am going to be presumptuous for a moment and answer Kyle’s question. Portia wants to be an actress because she has been raised in a family where fame equals acceptance and esteem. Everyone around her has garnered fame for just about no reason at all and they have gotten progressively richer while constantly getting attention from outsiders. Perhaps that’s why Portia is drawn to fame; it’s what she sees. You know how other kids want a Happy Meal because they see other kids having one? I think this might be the same deal.
Sadly, it’ll be time before Portia earns her own Daytime Emmy for playing a sociopath because the cute little girl cannot say her R’s. Now, I’m all for having secrets revealed as per Bravo’s promise/threat, but was anyone dying to find out the previously undisclosed information that Kyle’s child couldn’t say her R’s? Sure, I want everything to go well for her. I hope that one day she names her own daughter Roberta Rose and that she says all of those consonants with pride, but I can’t really say that I care all that much about watching this scene, though it might be the closest the Housewives have come to performing a public service because lots of kids do need speech therapy. Still, on a week when Portia’s aunt lost her entire mind in public and then hauled back and kicked a cop, I can’t spend too much energy on where Portia places her tongue and I’ll trade her my own R-less name as long as she gives me a piece of that brownie.
Over at Lisa Rinna’s house, she is preparing for a small role in a TV movie and I think that part of her contract is that she must provide her own wardrobe. Helping her weed through the pencil skirts and bandage dresses is one of her daughters, who almost burst into tears upon hearing the tragic news that her mother has sold some of her designer accessories. I totally understand, Delilah (or Amelia – I can’t tell them apart): I imagine what you’re feeling is the same sadness I felt when my parents got divorced when I was five and we had to move to a smaller house that didn’t have a pretty pink cherry tree in the yard like my first house did. Loss is so hard, but hang tough, Delilah/Amelia – you’ll get through this pain and, on the bright side, now you have something to discuss in therapy besides your mother’s sex book!
On the set of her movie, Lisa R. is punctual and energetic and prepared and enthusiastic and I don’t really care that she’s had the same hair for twenty years; I like her, and my Rinna Affinity is not just because she came the closest to decapitating Kim, though I do appreciate her efforts and I wish her better aim next time.
We leave the happy world of Lisa and next thing we know, we are back in Amsterdam. Can I possibly be the only viewer who began to shiver upon seeing that idyllic land after the insanity that took place there earlier this season? If so, allow me to take some calming breaths – like the kind Kim takes before her showdown with Lisa…oh, we’re getting close! – and realize that my terror was for naught because this clip is about Yolanda touring her childhood home. It’s quaint and there is only one bathroom and Yolanda makes the very identifiable remark, “Everybody needed to shower one at a time,” to which the one percenters reacted to by covering their eyes with their hands lest they even peripherally experience something so tragic.
Not at all tragic is Camille’s house, which the Lisas and Kyle visit for an afternoon where they get to loll in the sunshine and drive the expansive grounds on golf carts and pick fresh pomegranates off a tree and experience almost bloody flashbacks of the time the electronic-cigarette-puffing psychic told Kyle that her marriage would never fulfill her and that, should her daughter get kidnapped, she wouldn’t help the police to locate her. Yes, my friends – those were the innocent Housewife days.
Tarnishing the fun and pissing upon the daffodils and the lightheartedness are Brandi and Kim, who are in very good moods during their silly Pilates excursion. They are such good friends those two, and the root of their bond is based upon honesty. That’s correct; Brandi and Kim boast about how truthful they are with one another about such dire personal issues like the fact that Kim uses too many emojis in a text. Why it’s not brought up that perhaps Kim uses too many painkillers is odd to me, but it’s not that much odder than watching Kim try to tell a joke about how Brandi is not into exercise and trying to make her mouth form words that might turn into sentences.
But Kim is ready to say several sentences when she and her nemesis Lisa Rinna meet up. Not only is she going to create language, but she’s also going to prove that she can read text messages and correctly pronounce her R’s! Before Lisa arrives for the pathetic duel, Kim sits alone and does calming breathing exercises, which I totally snickered at – and loudly. Then she begins the meeting by setting the terms: she only wants to discuss “these texes,” which is the drunk plural of “texts.” She is afraid, terrified even, that the violent texts Lisa sent indicate that Lisa is about to physically harm her. Now, it’s fair to say that I have given up on attempting to understand or empathize with any action or reaction of Kim Richards, but I can still get grossed out by the sheer idiocy of her saying such a thing about being genuinely fearful of the physical prowess that is Lisa Rinna. Seriously – even my shebang is annoyed by listening to such nonsense.
Willing for some reason to engage with what I’d long hoped was a blonde figment of my own imagination, Lisa tries to explain that Kim’s comments about her husband served as a trigger, to which Kim will take no responsibility and instead responds, “You just don’t go threatening peoples’ lives!” But see, I think that’s exactlywhat Kim was doing to Lisa by making boldly-asserted claims about spousal infidelity on camera and it no longer surprises me in the least that Kim cannot see any parallels between what she said to Lisa and what Lisa said to her. In fact, she wants to make sure that Lisa will “keep her hands to herself,” like she’s a four-year-old who might try to steal Kim’s Xanax.
Before Lisa can really respond, Kim decides she’s done and she walks away while Lisa calls after her, “Somebody will hold you accountable sooner or later, Kim Richards,” and it turns out to be a rather prescient comment in light of the recent drunken events in which Kim finally had a starring role. I don’t know if it’ll be the judge or Dr. Phil, but I actually smiled at the line and then burst into laughter as the scene ended with Kim climbing over some concrete divider and wandering into the wilderness, as it might be the most normal thing I’ve seen her do in years. May a rabid coyote teach her the joys of sober living!
Turns out that the only secret revealed tonight was one we already knew. Kim is a morally-barren wiry monster of a woman and if sobriety actually makes her behave in a rational manner, great. But I am not at all interested in watching her possible evolution towards sobriety and humanity. I’ll read about it on TMZ. I want this woman off my television screen for good. And I kind of want that coyote to sidle up to Kim in that dark wilderness and whisper, “Everyone knows…”