The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
“Hearing Problems”
February 16, 2016
We are still in San Diego following Erika Jayne’s big gay performance, and Erika Girardi’s big blatant lie about not being the one who immediately tattled on Kyle and Lisa Vanderpump to Yoyawnda.
Kathryn and her sportsball husband, Donnie? Danny? I don’t care, whoever, are hosting the ladies at their San Diego house which in theory is still being remodeled, but looks pretty finished to me. They show off the vent hood made of stones from Jerusalem and joke about people slipping prayer notes into it, because, you see, if the stones are from Jerusalem, they are directly from the Wailing Wall, that just makes sense. They also talk about their marble countertops, which Kathryn describes as “Calcutta, from Italy.” Donnie/Danny corrects her: Calcutta is in India, uh duh. But Kathleen corrects him: Yes, Calcutta is in India, but this marble is from Italy, it’s just called “Calcutta.” Actually, the marble is not called “Calcutta” but “Calacatta” which is not a city in India. So congratulations! You’re both wrong, dummies!
The ladies take Erika’s tour bus to Kathryn’s house because what’s a giant rock star tour bus good for if not driving five women to a suburban neighborhood, right? They take a quick tour of the place, pausing so Lisa Rinna can flip out over Kathryn’s “infrared sauna.” Because when they’re not freezing their silicone implants, California ladies are trying to melt them.
Lisa Vanderpump describes the home as “not overly grand.”
The ladies sit down to brunch, where Eileen, still trying desperately to be relevant this season, mentions that they never solved the Nancy Drew mystery of who told Yoyawnda about Kyle and Lisa’s Vanderpump’s Vanderconversation about Yoyawnda’s kids, and Erika is like, “OMG IT WAS ME, OBVIOUSLY.” And then everyone just sits there in awkward silence for a while, because that’s not how these things usually go.
Changing the conversation, Lisa Rinna makes some jokey comment about not having eaten this much in months, which leads us to Kim Richards. See, last season the women went to Amsterdam together, and when Yoyawnda suggested that they take a moment to share something special with each another, it broke out into a wine-glass-breaking brawl, obviously. Kim Richards lashed out at Lisa Rinna and implied that Harry Hamlin was doing … something, and that Lisa Rinna had an eating disorder and suggested that Lisa Rinna eat a piece of bread to make herself feel better.
To be fair to Kim, eating a piece of bread does make you feel better.
As the past is rehashed for the benefit of our newbies, Kyle becomes increasingly uncomfortable with all the Kim talk, which Lisa Rinna picks up on. In trying to end the discussion, Lisa Rinna describes her fight with Kim Richards and her car ride to the infamous poker/pizza party with her as “scary.” Kathryn, who wasn’t there and doesn’t know, takes exception to the word “scary” and as she and Lisa Rinna bicker over vocabulary choices, Kyle gets up and excuses herself from the conversation.
Inside, Kyle rants at Lisa Vanderpump that it’s rich that Lisa Rinna is calling her altercations with Kim as being scary, seeing as Rinna was the one sending Kim “threatening” text messages afterwards. Kyle then explains to Lisa Vanderpump that she and Kim have been trying to mend their relationship and therefore she feels uncomfortable even being around the conversation.
Outside, Kathryn continues to have many opinions on events she was not a part of before bursting into tears about her father who killed himself after struggling with his own addiction issues. “WHOA,” say the other ladies, “YIKES.” Then Kyle and Lisa Vandereturn to the other ladies and are like, “wait, what is happening here?” And that’s how the brunch ends. GOOD TIMES! SUCH FUN!
Back in Los Angeles (really, Pasadena), Erika and Mr. Girardi host Lisa Vanderpump and Grandpa Ken for drinks. After one arched-Vanderbrow-riddled tour of the Girardi grounds, the foursome go out to eat. Over dinner, Lisa Vanderflirts with Mr. Girardi, while asking him what he thinks of his wife’s risque performances. He calls it “art.”
At some point, Mr. Girardi notes that the young female attorneys in his office hate the words “bitch” and “runt” (but not “runt,” the word that rhymes with “runt”). Erika laughs that she uses both words all the time, and in response, Mr. Girardi tells her to “go to [her] room.” Instead of being grossed out by this, Lisa is, somehow, Vanderdelighted.
The whole tattling on Lisa to Yoyawanda thing comes up, and Mr. Girardi begins analyzing Lisa Vanderpump: “[she] looks great…” Erika interrupts to add that Lisa “has intellect,” and Mr. Girardi snaps at her to STOP TALKING, HE’S TALKING NOW.
And Erika just takes it, while shrugging that he’s “always the boss.”
I don’t … understand? Literally, I do not understand anything that is happening here. If my husband spoke to me this way — even without an audience — I wouldn’t even respond, I would just go call my friend the divorce attorney. The good divorce attorney. Then again, I’m not my husband’s junior by 35 years, nor am I a trophy wife, and I guess the Girardis have an arrangement — no matter how appallingly sexist and retrograde — that works for them. So, I shouldn’t judge. (LOL, I’m totally judging. And I’m totally disgusted.)
Anyway, Mr. Girardi goes on to describe Lisa Vanderpump as an intimidating alligator, and she’s like, “Cool. Vandergator. I like the sound of that.”
Elsewhere, Lisa Rinna bores her poor daughters with her dead sister’s bad poetry.
For reasons that are completely unclear, Kyle meets La Maloof for lunch. For compensation for La Maloof’s appearance, the show allows her to plug the skin care line she and Dr. Paul are collaborating on (Loofahs by La Maloof) before moving on to the real topic at hand: Kim. Apparently, Kim is still friends with La Maloof and sees her more often than she does her sister. But even still, nothing interesting is revealed here. La Maloof doesn’t have any actual information about Kim, Kyle cries about not baking cookies with her sister, it’s all very, very boring and pointless.
Finally, Erika’s “barbecue.” Yes, these women are taking another stab at having a “barbecue.” No, I do not understand why. LET IT GO. NONE OF YOU HAS ANY IDEA WHAT A BARBECUE IS.
Erika tells one of her hanger-ons that the theme of her “barbecue” — which, just stop right there, Erika: here’s how I know you’re not actually going to host a barbecue, because barbecues don’t have themes, the theme is “barbecue” as in a pile of smoked or grilled meats eaten outside, that’s all the “theme” you need — will be “Beverly Hillbillies.” And by “Beverly Hillbillies,” Erika means “Carnival of Butts.” (Kyle Richards ™.)
Erika surrounds her pool with carnival games and fills the pool with a dozen barely-dressed gay men, and it’s fabulous. But it’s not a barbecue. Be free to invite me to your Carnival of Butts, Erika Jayne! I will be at your Carnival of Butts with bells on! But do not call your Carnival of Butts a “barbecue” because that is not what a barbecue is.
So the ladies ride over to Erika’s Carnival of Butts in different limos: Rinna and Eileen ride together; Yoyawnda and Kyle ride together. And Lisa Vanderpump and Grandpa Ken drive themselves of their own volition, darlings, because Vanderhonestly. Oh, and Kathryn and that husband of hers are there, too, but no one cares.
On the ride over, Eileen reveals that she visited with Yoyawnda, who, after her meeting with Rinna, had her “health advocate,” that Daisy woman, look up the word “Munchausen.” And she was SHOCKED! by what this Daisy woman read to her. HOW DARE LISA RINNA ACCUSE HER OF HAVING THE HOOVIN CHAUSEN! WHY, YOYAWNDA COULD SAY THAT LISA RINNA IS BI-POLAR BECAUSE OF HOW SHE BEHAVED IN AMSTERDAM. Not that she’s going to. Except she just did. The point is she COULD say that Lisa Rinna is bi-polar but she’s NOT going to say Lisa Rinna is bi-polar even though she totally just did.
Meanwhile, in their limo, Yoyawnda complains to Kyle about Lisa Rinna saying she has Moochenhoosan, DOES KYLE EVEN KNOW WHAT IT MEANS? Kyle cowers silently, hoping that Yoyawnda just keeps on forgetting she was involved in the whole “Other One and Boy Child Don’t Have Lyme Disease” controversy from the previous episode.
Everyone arrives and it’s very tense and weird and there might be a twerking contest happening because this is a Carnival of Butts and not a barbecue.
Eventually, the women go get themselves some hamburgers (still not a barbecue, but closer to whatever the hell was happening at Kyle’s house), except for Lisa Rinna who still hasn’t recovered from that brunch salad in San Diego. “I’M NOT HUNGRY YET,” she must have yelled 15 times, doing nothing to dispel those eating disorder rumors.
The ladies sit down to eat (at least some of them) and Lisa Rinna is like, “Let’s just do this, Yoyawnda. Let’s get this whole mess out of the way. I hear that after our talk, you are still unhappy with me. Why didn’t you call me to discuss this?” And Yoyawnda is flabbergasted at the idea that she should be the one to call Rinna — even though Rinna was under the impression that everything was cool between them and had no reason to think otherwise. But according to Yoyawnda, Rinna is the one who put all this nonsense into the universe in the first place, and therefore SHE should be the one to call YOYAWNDA even if she didn’t know YOYAWNDA needed HER to call. Yoyawnda then explains, sorta, that she didn’t understand what Lisa Rinna was talking about when she told her she thought Yoyawnda had the Housenblanchen but SHE LOOKED IT UP AFTER LISA LEFT AND SHE IS NOT AMUSED.
Lisa Rinna tries to apologize, but Yoyawnda is all, “TOO LITTLE TOO LATE,” before going on to read the definition of Moochinpoofin by Proxy, which is not even the condition that Lisa Rinna wasn’t accusing her of having in the first place. Everyone tries to tell Yoyawnda this, but Yoywanda is not interested in letting facts get in the way of her outrage. LISA RINNA LABELED HER (no, not really, that’s not exactly what happened) HOW DARE THE OTHER LADIES DEFEND HER (that’s not what they’re doing, they’re just trying to clarify the situation) YOYAWNDA JUST WANTS TO MAKE PEOPLE AWARE OF HER CONDITION, AND THAT IT IS NOT MUNCHEN FLOSEN.
Erika jumps in, demanding to know who it was that told Lisa Rinna she thought Yoyawnda had Munchausen, but Lisa Rinna isn’t naming names, because the individual isn’t there to defend themself. (It was Lisa Rinna’s hairdresser. She totally named names on Watch What Happens Live, even though Hairdresser wasn’t able to defend herself there either, but I digress.)
Then Lisa Vanderpump jumps in — not that anyone invited her — to point out that Yoyawnda was running around Beverly Hills with them on that stupid scavenger hunt last season, but Yoyawnda isn’t interested in hearing it.
Eventually, Eileen pipes in that they all love and support Yoyawnda and no one thinks that she has MUNCHAUSEN (seriously, the woman is Dutch, how hard can one German word be for her?) and demands that Lisa Rinna and Yoyawnda hug it out, which they do, so I’m sure this is all over and we will never hear about any of this ever again.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills airs on Bravo on Tuesdays at 8 p.m.
This post originally appeared on the Hearst site http://www.chron.com/.