When I was in middle school, I got a miniature poodle. He was white and furry and remarkably snuggly. He would meet me at the front door every day when I arrived home from school and he would watch me as I did my homework and then recline beside me as I watched old episodes of What's Happening.
I think he liked Rerun.
Unfortunately, this puppy would also run in concentric circles around the coffee table in the living room when I needed to pick him up to take him outside. You have never seen any living thing book around a table faster than this nine-pound dog. He'd skid to a stop when I tried to trap him and pivot like he was fucking Baryshnikov and then start running in the other direction. He was twelve steps ahead of me – physically and strategically – and it was rather disconcerting to be outsmarted daily by one of the smallest members in all of the animal kingdom.
Eventually, my mother suggested that I take my devious doggie to obedience school because, cuddly though he was, he wasn't a very good listener. So twice a week my mother drove me to a local obedience school where I'd stand in a line with the other owners and their pets, waiting for our turn to practice heeling, fetching, and sitting.
Here's what I learned:
1. There is a drastic difference between the poo size of a miniature poodle and that of a Newfoundland.
2. The legend that states that people look like their dogs is completely accurate. Seriously – if you lined up the dogs on one side of the room and the humans on the other, I could immediately tell you who was the owner of the German Shepherd and who lived in a house with the Labradoodle and I literally couldn't stop staring at the lady who owned the Weimaraner, because she looked so much like her dog that it was mildly terrifying.
My dog failed the course. She wasn't into learning good behavior and – at twelve – I wasn't all that adept at enforcing good behavior. We were supposed to practice the drills at home, but I was lazy then and there were boys from Social Studies class to talk to over the phone and I'd go into the bathroom for privacy and shut the door and the phone cord would be stretched to the limit and I'd look at myself in the mirror as I'd talk and I'd wish for my hair to grow longer. And it's not like my dog insisted on being trained. He was very happy to run in dizzying circles.
My mother – never one to accept a failure that could have been avoided, especially if she had paid for it – re-enrolled me and the dog in the course and insisted that I do the required work at home. To pass, both of us – the dog and me – had to do the work, and I’d learned my lesson, which means so did my poodle. That ball of fluff learned to sit and to stay and to heel and to trot over to me when beckoned. And on Graduation Day, he earned the distinction of Most Improved Puppy.
I'm willing to go out on a limb and guess that Kim Richards has never won the following awards from any Alcoholics Anonymous group: Most Improved Addict; Addict Least Likely to Relapse; Highest Level of Self-Awareness of An Addict; Addict Most Able to Forgive People for Reacting to Problems She Caused In the First Place; and Addict Who Is Not the Biggest Fucking Asshole on the Planet. And the reason I am certain that she never won any of those awards is because I don't believe she has ever completed a full sobriety program and because she in fact is the biggest fucking asshole on the planet.
I'm also willing to go out on a sober limb and guess that her pitbull Kingsley, who has bitten several people right down to the tendons, will never win the distinction of Most Improved Puppy, but that's not his fault. It's the fault of his asshole, damaged, piece of shit owner who destroyed the last fraying thread of compassion for her that existed somewhere inside of me while I watched the first ten minutes of this episode.
I’m very aware that there is a vocal population of viewers – who certainly have far more rational thought than the woman they are kindly defending – who say that Kim is sick and that she is being exploited by Bravo. That’s a complicated charge, and I’m not quite sure how I feel about it. See, it would be one thing if this happened to be the first season of the show and Kim had no idea how invasive participation on reality television could be or that she had no idea how the editing on shows like this work by trimming out anything that doesn’t fit into a compelling storyline. But this is not Kim’s first ride on the roller coaster. In fact, she has signed up for this show both as an active addict and one in recovery – and as whatever category she fits into now, which I’ll call one of delusionary desperation. And I think it’s clear to all of us who watch this show that Kim is desperate for both money and for a camera to be aimed at her, and she has made the choice to appear. She knows the downfall of this kind of media exposure; her fucking niece is Paris Hilton! And there had to be at least one person in her rehabilitation clinic who posed the question about whether or not being on a reality show would be healthy during recovery, but I’m pretty certain that Kim smacked away that concern just as she does with every other concern verbalized to her by people who might know better but have the audacity to disagree with a choice she has already made. She very well might have answered that person’s trepidation with something well-expressed like the “blah, blah, blah” response she gave to Lisa Vanderpump a few episodes back when Lisa told her that they were all there for her.
Bravo producers are, without question, willing to exploit people on their shows. But these people are not forced to appear; they make their own decisions and Kim has made the decision to keep coming back for years and years. And watching her behavior, I do not feel sorry for her in the least.
This episode begins in Amsterdam, where it appears the world might implode. There’s very little as uncomfortable as traveling with people you’re not compatible with, and I can only imagine that being trailed by cameras cannot possibly make it easier, but – again – these women have made the choice to go on this vacation. I’m just glad that they told their husbands back in the States what day the housekeeper comes because there appears to be a very real chance that some of these women will not make it home.
Arriving first are Yolanda, Lisa R., Kim, Kyle, and Brandi, and Eileen and Lisa V soon join them. The look of sheer relief on Lisa R.’s face when she sees her friends arrive in the lobby seems authentic in its severity. She is so grateful that two calm and stable people have joined the group, and she tells them what happened on the plane ride over: how Kim refused to greet her and then screamed at her for attempting to compromise her sobriety – which I thought had been compromised that time she gulped down that painkiller, but whatever – and how Kim would not accept an apology. Lisa V. and Eileen look shocked, which is the healthy response to hearing something crazy, and the glazed look in all of their eyes speaks to the internal dread they feel for being on a luxury vacation in a faraway land to which they have chosen to travel with psychopaths.
Oh, but it’s about to get so much worse, ladies. I can legitimately say that I had stomach cramps watching this episode and, while I don’t believe we can accuse Bravo of unknowingly exploiting the Housewives, I do think that maybe we can all band together and sue the network for taking something that was light escapism and turning it into torture porn before our very eyes.
Can’t we just see Lisa’s opulent closet or Yolanda’s glass refrigerator – just for a second?
Meeting down in the lobby, the women are all clad in black and one of them makes a comment about how it looks like they are going to a funeral. They’re not – yet – but they are embarking on the worst dinner experience any of them have ever had, and that includes the dinner party at Camille’s house in season one where the cigarette-puffing psychic smiled and told the group that if Kyle’s daughter got kidnapped, she wouldn’t help the police to find her.
At the restaurant – which is made alarmingly out of glass – Yolanda sits at the head of the table and proposes that they all share things with one another in an effort to truly connect, the kinds of thoughts and experiences that they often try to hide in the effort to appear perfect. It is a rather sweet and noble choice of a conversation topic, but it’s also one that can only go off without a hitch when every person at that table can veer into honesty, and when one of those people is a secrets-hoarding addict, it might not turn out all that well.
(By the way, had it not turned out “all that well,” that would have been amazing. The way it actually turned out was nauseating and absurd. Buckle up, my friends – we’re going there.)
Yolanda begins the Truth Talk by discussing how destroyed and frightened she was when her daughter got that DUI, and Kim’s face immediately lit up like a fucking Lite Brite with flashes of fear and anger that anyone was discussing an alcohol-induced misstep because she knew it could lead back to her. She’s not a real empathetic person, that Kim. She’s got too much venom inside of her that is attempting to cover all that she has to hide.
Lisa R. then becomes emotional and she shares that she lost her sister many years ago to an overdose. She tears up as she talks about that profound loss and the fear it has inspired within her that her daughters are predisposed to the genetics of addiction and it’s not just something that is coursing through their DNA because of the alcoholism on her husband’s side of the family, but from her side too. Then she looks across the table at Kim – who has watched Lisa bare her soul without even a smidgen of kindness in her hardened eyes – and she tells her, “I’m sorry if I’ve ever gotten into your business. I never meant to. I only wanted to…”
And with that, Kim cuts her off and responds like this: “Well, you have.”
The expressions that immediately flash across the face of everybody at that table – besides Kim, who can’t give such a look because she is dead inside – is one of shock at Kim’s utter inability to be gracious, to show compassion, or to react with anything but selfishness to a woman in tears before her who has just spoken about the tragic loss of her sister and then apologized genuinely for anything she has done that caused Kim to feel offended. But that brief, cutting retort is just the start of the insanity that takes place before the women have even ordered carbohydrate-and-gluten-free appetizers.
“I have been sober for three years,” Kim insists to a table filled with women who watched her lose her shit after swallowing a painkiller with their own eyes. And just in case we don’t remember, there’s a flashback to Kim – severely under some kind of influence – raging at Lisa R. in the car on the way to poker night and slurring her every breath at the card table later on that evening. Then she tells Lisa that if anything had been amiss, one of her good friends at that table would have said something to her.
I’m wondering if by “good friends,” she was referring to Lisa V., who asked Kim a few seasons ago in Paris if she had taken a sleeping pill because she could barely stand up straight, to which Kim responded with pure vitriol. Or maybe she was talking about Brandi, who did tell Lisa R. that Kim had relapsed. Perhaps she was referring to her sister, who sat open-mouthed at that table, horrified by Kim’s behavior and who has been badgered relentlessly about refusing to stand up for her sister each and every time Kim misbehaved in the past. Were those the people Kim was talking about, or were the friends she referenced in her nasty response to Lisa R.’s concern her imaginary friends?
More perplexing is that Kim cannot point a finger at someone without literally pointing a finger at that person, and I wonder if it’s because an acting teacher when she was seven once told her that pointing declaratively made her look strong. In any case, when she shoots that pointer at Eileen, the calm and disgusted woman across the table tells her not to point a finger in her face. The response was so simple and so normal that I tried to high-five Eileen through my television set. It didn’t work, but I got a little shock when my hand touched the screen and I like to think that means that Eileen could feel my symbolic support.
Think it’s over? Not a chance.
“We care about you,” Lisa R. tried to explain to the person who has been taught to avoid personal accountability her entire life, to which Kim sneered and stated, “I’m concerned about you!” And then she got a cruel little glint in her eye at the thought of being able to expose somebody before that person exposed her first. See, it’s a nifty little game she taught herself while she was lying on the floor of a bathroom with the spins.
Kim’s had a lot of time to practice that game.
“I’m concerned about your situation at home,” said Kim, so pleased with herself. And Lisa’s eyes grew wide with shock and at that point obviously every single viewer wondered what could be going on at Lisa Rinna’s house. But whatever it is, it cannot possibly be worse than what is going on at that table or within Kim’s mind, so don’t sweat it, Lisa. You will be fine.
“You want to bring out my stuff?” hissed the more snake-line Richards sister. “Let’s talk about your homelife.” And that’s when Eileen burst in to stop Kim’s reactionary fury and Kim responded to her like this:
“Shut your fucking mouth. I’ve had enough of you, you beast.”
“Beast?” responded Eileen, stunned out of her mind.
“I don’t like you. I have never found one thing to like about you, from your hair to your face to your attitude,” said the crazy lady who is sober.
What was Brandi doing during all of this emotional and verbal carnage? Sipping wine. What was Kyle doing? She was dying inside.
But Kyle snapped out of her shock after the spewing of evil to Eileen, and she looked at her sister and she breathed, “What is wrong with you?” And that’s when Kim busted out her classic complaint that Kyle has never been there for her and has never defended her, and I don’t like Kyle at all, but the obvious truth is that Kyle has defended Kim for far too long. Kim knows what she is doing here, though, and she’s not about to let it go; she knows exactly what the effect will be. She tells Kyle that their sister Kathy would have her back and Kyle’s tears start to dribble down her cheeks and brought to Technicolor is exactly what the relationship is between these warped women. One acts out and then blames the other for not protecting her and the one who is blamed suffers from a complex where she cannot stand to have anybody angry with her. Kim knows this and it’s beyond cruel just to watch.
That’s when Lisa V., whom Kyle has never defended, stands up for her friend and tells Kim that Kyle does defend her, which is obvious even to the casual viewer – even one who kind of hates Kyle – but Kim points over at her best friend Brandi and says that Brandi has been there for her more. And maybe Brandi has been there more – in the last six months, which might very well be the only span of time someone with such destroyed brain capacity can remember.
She’s not even close to being out of firing range herself, but Lisa R. looks over at Kyle and at her devastation and she glances back at Kim and tells her that she cannot talk to her sister that way and that her behavior is not okay. To that expressive comment, Kim responds with, “Really?” because Kim has shown over the last many years that she has the very worst verbal comebacks of any human being who has mastered the art of language. She usually responds to something said to her with an eloquent “shut your face” or a “same to you,” – but this time she remembers that she has some gossip up her sleeve, which I’m sure fell from the heavens and not because she was talking about Lisa in much the way that she’s stunned that Lisa would speak about her.
First she tells Lisa to “eat some bread,” which I’m guessing is an reference to an eating disorder, and Eileen immediately looks at Kim with an expression similar to what it might be if she had just eaten a maggot-filled brussel sprout.
“Shame on you,” she says. “You’re disgusting, Kim.”
“Can I interfere one second?” asks Yolanda, who has been sitting completely silently since discussing her daughter’s DUI, and I’m hoping she wasn’t speaking up until then because she was desperately trying to telepathically communicate with her husband so he would send their plane to the roof of the restaurant and have the pilot toss down a rope ladder. Yolanda tries to restore the peace by launching into an explanation of how she sees both sides of the story, and she says something about how Lisa is sensitive to addiction because of what has gone on with her own sister and with her husband’s brothers and that’s when Kim jumps back in and says with pure menace, “Let’s talk about the husband.”
“Excuse me,” says Lisa, her eyes clouding over with a fury I could almost smell. “Did you just say ‘let’s talk about the husband'?"
“Let’s not talk about what you don’t want out,” smiles Kim who then shrugs her bird-like shoulders and is wearing an expression of triumph that everyone is now focused on somebody besides her. “You better watch what you talk about me or everyone will know,” she threatens, and that’s when Lisa R. jumps up and all but grabs Kim by the neck and throws wine into Kim’s face – I hope Kim’s mouth wasn’t open because she’s sober, you guys! – and cracks a glass on the table. And during all of this, Kim keeps repeating the words, “Everybody will know,” in a chant that is so creepy that I’m fully expecting Bloody Mary to jump out of a mirror later on and smack Kim across the face for being the worst person on the planet.
Now listen: I do not condone the smashing of glasses or the grabbing of necks, but I’m willing to take what might be an unpopular opinion and say that I fully understand Lisa’s reaction. She has had her kindness and her compassion dismissed, her apologies have not been accepted, and there is a lunatic chanting threatening words across the table at her. She broke, and I hope I get to sit on her jury.
When the wine was thrown and the glass was shattered, Kyle’s response was to literally run out the side door of the restaurant. I mean, she ran like she was fleeing from a bomb, which she kind of was. And I want to make fun of Kyle for her reaction and I suppose that I can throw out a sarcastic comment about how I was nervous that she went running without wearing her red Chanel fanny pack, but that’s all I’ve got for now, because Kyle is not my focus; my own blood pressure is where I am placing my real focus, because this scene is maybe the grossest thing I have ever watched on television and that includes the time I watched a show called Extreme Parenting and a woman brought out a vagina puppet and a jar filled with liquefied uterine lining during a playdate for two-year-olds.
At some point, Kyle sticks her head halfway back into the door of the restaurant and rightfully berates her sister for acting in a manner beyond reprehensible, telling her that there is no way that she can defend such indefensible behavior and then she turns around to leave once again because there’s nothing in that restaurant anymore but shattered glass and broken promises and repetitive family strife – and Brandi, which means that nobody should eat even a spoonful of anything in that place because the surroundings are pervasive with terror and with disease.
“Go after your new friend, Kyle,” blabbers Kim, growing even less normal by the second – if that is even possible – and she stays there, accompanied only by Brandi who has to be thinking back longingly to the sun-filled days when Lisa Vanderpump used to confide in her and laugh with her and invite her over for spa treatments in her expansive backyard instead of what her present has become, which is sticking close to Kim, The Frail Blonde Demon. But stuck she is, having bet spectacularly on the wrong horse, and so she picks glass from her hair extensions and discusses how crazy Lisa Rinna was acting and Brandi deserves every single second of that miserable moment.
“Kyle,” mutters Kim to Brandi as they stand amongst the shards of glass. “That just gets me. Fuck that.”
She’s eloquent as always, that Kim.
As she is led away from a dinner where she was served no food while being continually taunted, Lisa R. is still in a state of disbelief.
“What the fuck does Kim Richards know? What does she know about my husband? She doesn’t even know Harry,” she says, and what that means is that Crazy Kim did her job: she planted doubt in Lisa’s head and got the woman to worry about her own tarnished life instead of Kim’s life, one Kim thinks is glowing – but it’s really just the imaginary spotlight in her own mind that gives off artificial light.
Outside in some alcove where they are hiding, the women who are not Kim or Brandi are comforting one another as though they just survived a genuine disaster. Eileen embraces Lisa R. and then turns to give a hysterical Kyle her support. I thought this was a moment about Lisa Rinna’s pain, but Kyle swoops in to lap up most of the empathy in a way I might normally judge her for, but I think that maybe she is just grateful to have support and witnesses to the emotional violence she has probably experienced for all of her adult life. Since Lisa is not Kyle, she doesn’t turn to her and scream, “It’s not about you, Kyle!” and instead she allows her to vent, but then again, I’m pretty sure that Lisa is still in shock that her well-expressed good intentions turned into an evening of horror.
Yolanda ventures back into the restaurant and tells Kim that how she spoke and behaved is not the correct way, a lesson any kindergarten student would nod along to, but Kim continues to defend what she just put them all through, saying that she has been pushed to the limit.
“You shouldn’t go after her husband or her children,” admonishes Yolanda, who is really wasting her breath by trying to explain correct behavior to a person who has sidestepped it her entire life by placing the blame for her reactions on the normal actions of those unlucky enough to be caught anywhere in her proximity.
“She went after me,” breathes Kim, a pathetic dragon whose breath smells of lost dreams and residual vodka and cigarettes. “My kids have been through hell because of my drinking. The rumor impacts my children,” says the winner of Mother of the Year – if every other mother was buried in a coalmine and couldn’t forage her way to safety to accept the award. And it’s here where we terrified viewers get yet another look into the way this woman rationalizes things. It’s not her questionable behavior to which the women reacted that is the thing that will impact her children; it is someone mentioning it instead of burying it in a closet somewhere that is already stuffed with old Disney scripts and pictures of Kim with Leif Garrett and all of her choices which have led her to this moment of adult dysfunction.
I’m willing to wager that Kim’s kids did not have an easy night watching or hearing about their mother behaving like an unhinged shrew on camera – but that’s probably Lisa Rinna’s fault too.
Back at the hotel, Kyle continues to be comforted because she has a sister who is the worst, and Lisa R. tells her that she is in an abusive relationship with Kim.
“I’m tired of this fucking abuse,” wails Kyle – and I have never claimed to like Kyle at all, but she should be sick of this abuse. Eileen brings up how insane it is to believe that any rational person who witnesses such destructive behavior would stay silent, and she adds, “Brandi and Kim are both very mean people. They seem very comfortable with crossing a line,” and it’s like Eileen has become a one-woman Greek Chorus, saying what I think (and hope) most viewers are saying to themselves. The night ends with Lisa R. telling Kyle that she will never speak to her sister again.
But then the sunny morning dawns and we find ourselves in Lisa R.’s room where the woman is suffering from post-traumatic stress.
“I’m not all here,” she says. “I’m half here. I am in survival mode.” And what better to deal with on a morning you wake up and consider embracing agoraphobia than having the monster who tried to destroy you (Everyone will know…) knock on the door and ask if you have a minute to talk. To her credit, Lisa lets her in and is probably flooded with waves of relief that a cameraman is there to report what could potential ensue to the local authorities.
“I thought we’d handled it on the plane,” Kim begins, and we get a flashback to Kim screaming at Lisa on the plane ride over and then refusing to listen to anything Lisa said by repeating, “drop it” again and again. So really, what exactly was handled? Is a one-sided badly formed argument how Kim has always handled her problems? If so, that might be yet another teeny clue into the severe mess that she has become. But Kim does acknowledge – to the camera, not to Lisa – that she was acting her most ugly, and I almost felt sorry for her for a second until she added, “It bothered me where I allowed this person to take me.”
Unless Kim is referring to her more evil imaginary twin who took her someplace bad, she is more of a lost soul with a dark and damaged heart than I could have ever have imagined – and I’ve got a pretty vivid imagination.
Out of what I think is desperation for peace and solace and the awareness that she will be stuck in another country with this person for a few more days, Lisa accepts Kim’s apology and actually apologizes as well. I can see apologizing for heaving glassware at Kim’s cranium, but I can’t really get on board with any of the rest of Lisa’s apology. I understand why it’s happening, but all it’s really doing is continuing to let this warped woman off the hook for behavior that is damaging and dangerous and destructive and delusional. And now, having used all of my “d” words, I’m going to run from this odd scene to the one taking place outside of the hotel where the women are ready to embark on a carefree day of bicycle riding, even though none of them slept a wink the night before because the sickness in the group was not cured; it was just masked with a generic Mickey Mouse Band-Aid.
But one more quick thing: Kim says that she is able to forgive and to move on, which is something she learned being “in treatment on and off all these years.” I think that the being “off” of treatment so frequently might be part of the problem. She might have stopped the drinking and the pill-popping – which I still question because I’ve been blessed with a handy thing called vision – but the behavior that cushions the addiction remains stronger than any other part of her.
The ladies have a jolly time biking around, but Eileen is normal so she is a little stunned by the turn of events. She also says that she hopes that maybe Kim will shoot an apology her way – you know, for calling her a beast and saying that she hated Eileen’s face – and that she hopes Kim will apologize to Kyle too.
I really think that neither Eileen nor her face should expect that apology.
Along the ride, the women stop to gaze at scenic windmills and we cut to Kim trying to make a joke during one of her interviews, but it’s just painful to watch someone who has no command of the English language and, even when happy, I still find her utterly tragic. But things look up when Yolanda runs into a farmer who claims they once dated and Yolanda cannot remember dating or kissing him.
“I should remember who I kissed,” she muses, and you know what, Yolanda? So should I, but that doesn’t always happen.
I remember the good ones, though.
Watching the exchange between Yolanda and the stranger whose tongue once wandered into her friend’s mouth, Lisa V. laughs and says, “She was clearly riding other things. It wasn’t just bikes in Holland,” and I’d like to ask the universe at large to join me for a quick prayer of thanks that Lisa Vanderpump exists and is able to inject some humor into the worst voyage that I have never been on.
After the happy day of sightseeing and avoidance is complete, Yolanda takes the women to her mother’s house. Yolanda’s mother and brother seems like welcoming people who do things like serve cake and things appear to be looking up, which means that maybe nobody will have her life or her reputation threatened for the next quarter hour.
The plan for that night should be a fun one. They all – except for Kim, who will stay in her hotel room and run a brush through her hair one hundred times and smile in the mirror at herself at how much rehab has helped her – plan to go to a café where they will indulge in some space cakes and hopefully laugh a lot and put the bullshit behind them.
Unfortunately, though they are in Amsterdam, most of the Housewives have no desire to partake in the local custom because they have children or because they are on camera or because, according to Brandi, they are all trying to pretend that they are people who they are not. After all, the last time Brandi smoked was with Kyle, who appears horrified to be exposed as a sometimes-weed-smoker-who-rolls-the-worst-joints-in-history on television. Brandi doesn’t want to eat any of the cake filled with more hash than sugar because she needs to be on her game in front of these women, which makes me laugh because Brandi and her game have both sailed and capsized. Kyle doesn’t want to eat any of the cake because she knows that she’ll get paranoid, which makes me realize again that Kyle would have been that girl in high school who would have annoyed the fuck out of me because of her constant posing and her preening and the way she pretends that she is stoned out of her skull because of all the second-hand smoke and how she can sometimes suck the silliness out of any scenario like a long-haired superhero who has no real powers. Eileen also initially refuses to eat the cake, but then she takes a nibble, laughing that she is weak and that she succumbs to peer pressure. And Lisa V. eats some too, shrugging at what the others might think of her because she has a nice little quality within her called self-confidence that usually enables her to walk through the moments of her days and her nights with a dismissive wave at most of the nonsense around her.
But outside of the café and back in the gutter where she feels most comfortable, Brandi can no longer take all the hypocrisy.
“You guys can all have an opinion about me and you can say whatever the fuck you want, but God forbid I say the truth about you and the world ends,” she rages to everybody, especially to Kyle. She then maintains that Kyle has said that she’s not a good mother and that she has a drinking problem and while Kyle tells her directly to her face that she has never said a word about Brandi not being a good mother, I think that every viewer can agree that there is nothing that any of these women need to say in order to convince anyone that Brandi has a drinking problem; it’s Brandi’s televised behavior that indicates that she has a drinking problem.
I’m not sure that Brandi is an alcoholic, but it cannot be denied that Brandi drinks a lot and that her behavior becomes even more despicable than usual once some of that shit is running through her bloodstream and most of her conflicts have in some way involved her consumption of alcohol. So really, it’s not Kyle who is causing other people to react to Brandi – it’s Brandi who is causing people to react to the most uncouth behavior seen outside of an episode of Mob Wives.
You have brought this perception upon yourself, Brandi. Own it.
As Brandi screams in the streets, Yolanda links her arm through her brother’s and looks mortified while Eileen simply looks exhausted.
“Where is this coming from?” she wonders. “Finally we have a reprieve, but no – here it comes…walking down the street…screaming bloody murder,” a sentence that really made me laugh.
“What happened?” Yolanda asks Brandi, but that’s a useless question. See, what happened is what always happens when a woman who has made a career out of being “unfiltered” is contractually obligated to be around people that she hates. And I cannot stop wondering if any of these women will one day choose to forgo the paycheck and the silly endorsements and the semblance of fame that comes with being on this show so they can return to a life where nobody is threatening to smack or expose them. What exactly will it take to make that choice?
According to the previews, Brandi slaps Lisa across the face next week. As Brandi has been symbolically dead to me for some time, I will therefore commemorate her upcoming disgusting behavior by symbolically grabbing a shovel and digging up her symbolic corpse so I can have the symbolic pleasure of burying her again.
And in the meantime, I call absolute shotgun on the idea for a screenplay in which a woman who greatly resembles a limp yellow balloon animal that has been left in the sun for too long pretends to embrace sobriety while hacking through the doors and the windows of women who have no idea that they are so vulnerable to attack. And this blonde monster will wear a sweater that looks just like the one Chucky wore and she will turn directly to the camera right before she commits a murder and she will whisper, “Everybody will know” before she giggles demonically and slices a woman into three.
