The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
“Hearing is Believing”
March 15, 2016
Programming note: Apologies, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills fans. Thanks to spring break, this is last week’s recap. I am currently busy at work drinking rosé and snarking hard about this week’s episode and plan on posting it sometime before the next episode airs. I’m terribly Vandersorry life got in the way. I will try to make sure it doesn’t happen again, darlings.
A recipe for Awkward Viewing:
1 part strained married couple
1/2 part chronic illness
1 part reality show
2 parts fame
Blend. Heat gossip media and bake for 6 months, until couple has publicly filed for divorce. Serve with a side of dramatic irony.
So we know that on the show Yoyawnda and Musical Genius David Foster are a mere 3 months from announcing their divorce, but they don’t seem to have any idea. And it’s this knowledge makes it so very painful to watch Yoyawnda in the opening moments of this episode call her (for the time being) husband and ask him to help her write her speech for her upcoming Lyme Disease event. Musical Genius David Foster, who is at the “gym” when she calls, seems irritated and put out at the request, whining that she wrote her own speech a while back, why can’t she do it again? Yoyawnda, who reminds us in an interview that her disease has hampered her ability to freely express herself, informs him that she’s been working on this speech for 2 weeks now and is stuck. “FINE.” Musical Genius David Foster sighs. “WHATEVER. SURE.”
Meanwhile, Kathryn is fitted with her new hearing aid, realizes that all this time she’s been SHOUTING! at EVERYONE! I mean, that’s only part of her problem, but if it gets her to apologize for being such a jackhole all the time to everybody, then great.
So our old friend Camille hosts a Very Expensive Jewelry Party to benefit National Race to End Women’s Cancer, herself being a survivor of endometrial cancer. And by “Very Expensive Jewelry Party,” I’m not talking about Lisa Rinna’s backyard necklace party, I mean $35,000 bracelets and $79,000 earrings and $100,000 rings Expensive Jewelry Party. Not surprisingly, this appears to be the only event all of the women on the show manage to attend this week. Go figure.
Things are still tense between Yoyawnda and Lisa Rinna — a fact that it obvious to everyone in attendance. But despite the obviousness of this, Yoyawnda announces that she can “feel” Rinna’s energy from across the table because it’s “like [she’s] almost become psychic in the past year.” So I suppose there’s at least one upside from having your brain riddled with Borrelia burgdorferi.
Yoyawnda gets up and hugs a confused Lisa Rinna, making everyone else VERY TENSE except Kyle and Lisa Vanderpump who think the whole thing is Vanderhilarious.
Once freed from Yoyawnda’s insincere embrace, Rinna announces that she needs to clear the air: she saw on Instagram that Yoyawnda went out to brunch with Sober Kim and Brandi instead of attending Erika’s dinner, and the caption of the evidence photo read “#RealFriends.”
Yoyawnda calmly — and reasonably! — explains that she had previously agreed to go to the brunch to celebrate Kim’s birthday, but by doing so, she exhausted herself and decided she couldn’t make it to dinner. Has she mentioned the brain disease? Because her brain, it is diseased, and it sometimes makes her tired. And psychic. But mostly tired.
And anyway, Brandi and Sober Kim have both been more supportive of her through this “journey” than the rest of the ladies put together. And ANYWAY, Yoyawnda didn’t even post the dumb picture; Brandi did, so it wasn’t Yoyawnda’s hashtag in the first place.
Meanwhile, Lisa Vanderpump is all of us as she straps in with another Vanderdrink.
Lisa Rinna huffs that she doesn’t understand the decision to go out to brunch with Brandi and Kim in the first place, and doesn’t understand why Yoyawnda could manage that but not go to the dinner. Erika interjects that she was fine with the fact that Yoyawnda chose to skip her dinner, her brain was SWOLLEN with BACTERIA after all, but Lisa Rinna just keeps clucking that she has “trust issues” with Yoyawnda. Lisa Rinna then attempts to make herself look like a victim here, by complaining that it’s unfair that one can’t question a sick person’s health motivations, and that sick people “get away with everything.”
Oh, Lisa Rinna, honey, no.
With that, the two women agree to not “hug it out,” that their disagreement is a “work in progress,” and Yoyawnda takes her leave so her swollen bacteria brain can rest. So, I suppose we are done with this argument for forever and ever, amen.
The next day? Sure, let’s say it’s the next day, Lisa Vanderpump has Kathryn over to PINK HOUSE to invite her to join the Vanderprotest she is organizing against the Yulin Dog Meat Festival in China …
… and to forbid Kathryn to pet her Vanderpuppy. That is not a euphemism.
Later, Mauricio and Kyle take some of the ladies out to dinner to thank them for “working” on the Habitat for Humanity home, and for Kyle to invite them on a ladies’ trip to Dubai, thereby fulfilling the obligatory trip of the season. No, the Hamptons doesn’t count. Neither does San Diego, come on, get serious.
Lisa Vanderpump and Grandpa Ken then invite the ladies to join them on their “Stop Eating Dog Meat, You Savages” protest, and Eileen is all, “I could attend, but I don’t want to.” This leads to Eileen to announce that she knows that Lisa knows Eileen called her manipulative. Lisa demands to know what, exactly, it is that she has done that is so Vandermanipulative? Vandermanipulate Lisa Rinna into going shopping with Kim in Amsterdam? THE HORROR. Lisa Vanderpump then reminds everyone that she did not Vandermanipulate Rinna into telling Kim that she “loved” her, which no one accused her of in the first place?
??
Lisa Rinna instead points to the fact that Lisa Vanderpump has apparently been calling her, asking how she feels about Yoyawnda saying Rinna is bi-polar, to which Lisa Vanderpump Vandersniffs that she never told Lisa Rinna to tell Kim she “loved” her.
???
When Lisa Rinna asserts that FOR THE LAST TIME this isn’t about Kim and Amsterdam, but the fact that Lisa Vanderpump is obviously trying to push Rinna into a fight with Yoyawnda over this whole bi-polar thing, Vanderpump is saved by a blind tackle from Kyle who announces that Lisa Vanderpump is a “strong person” and a “leader” and Lisa Rinna is just a “follower.” And with that, the discussion of Lisa’s Vandermanipulation comes to an end, and I’m sure we’ll never talk about it again.
As for Lisa’s Vanderprotest, marching against the Yulin Lychee and Dog Meat Festival in China is an admirable thing. The festival is a horrific event in which somewhere around 10,000 dogs are tortured and killed for their meat, so good for Lisa Vanderpump and the other Housewives (at least those who could be bothered, Eileen) for bringing awareness to the issue.
That said, bringing dozens and dozens of angry vegans to yell “DON’T EAT DOG MEAT!!” at a completely innocent and unaffiliated religious community center instead of the Chinese embassy, does not actually do any dogs any good at all, Lisa Vanderdummy.
Sometime later, Lisa Rinna and Eileen go luggage shopping in Santa Monica, where they discuss their feelings about Lisa Vanderpump. Or as Eileen describes it, the “stuff” that hasn’t yet been “addressed.” I’M SORRY, EILEEN’S FEELINGS ABOUT LISA VANDERPUMP HAVEN’T BEEN ADDRESSED? BY WHOM?
I refuse.So instead, we’re going to jump to the part where in whispered tones, Eileen reminds Lisa Rinna of their conversation on the beach where Lisa Rinna welcomed the apocalypse by revealing Lisa Vanderpump encouraged her to make the Munchausen’s reveal on camera, claimed that Lisa Vanderpump and Kyle were Vandergiggling at Yoyawnda, and wondering if Yoyawnda even has Lyme Disease for real, for real. Eileen wonders why Lisa Rinna didn’t say any of those things to Lisa Vanderpump or Yoyawnda’s faces? I mean, you know, ASIDE FROM THE FACT THAT IT’S THE NUCLEAR OPTION?
They then revisit the fact that Lisa Vanderpump kept changing the conversation to Lisa Rinna and Kim in Amsterdam every time Lisa Rinna brought up the whole bi-polar conversation. They agree Lisa Vanderpump is deflecting, and maybe using Lisa Rinna as a scapegoat — a word whose definition Lisa Rinna has to look up.
Finally, Kyle, Kathryn, Yoyawnda, and Musical Genius David Foster join Erika and Mr. Girardi on one of Mr. Girardi’s jets for a trip to New York City for the “Yes, Yoyawnda Foster Has Lyme Disease, Seriously, We Mean It,” event. Lisa Vanderpump couldn’t make it because she’s still Vanderlooking for the Chinese embassy and Lisa Rinna and Eileen couldn’t go because they didn’t want to.
Yoyawnda and Musical Genius David Foster are staying in something called the “Jewel Suite” at the Lotte New York Palace Hotel, so named because the room has a few display cases with jewelry in them. Is this a selling point? Do people actually pay for the experience of accidentally being locked in a jewelry store?
As Yoyawnda and Musical Genius David Foster welcome their guests for a cocktail party in the suite, Yoyawnda sits down at the grand piano (obviously there’s a grand piano, obviously) and picks out “Frère Jacques,” only to have Musical Genius David Foster come stand over her and add accompaniment just like they are a happily married couple. Somewhat hilariously, as they conclude the song, my closed caption reads: [TRIUMPHANT ENDING CHORDS] which would be an ironic way to describe the closure of the Foster marriage. I imagine it more like the losing trombone sound on the Price is Right:
youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ytCEuuW2_A
As to that point, the guests all tromp upstairs to the suite’s amazing rooftop terrace where Musical Genius David Foster toasts his (as of now) wife, with this touching tribute: “I wanted to say I’m so happy my (as of now) wife is out after nine …. that robe, we are going to burn it. We are going to have a burning robe ceremony.” such love! wow! much feels! very romance!
Yoyawnda then thanks her “health advocate” and her friends who have always supported her — but not as much as Brandi and Kim because those two have supported her more than all the other ladies put together, that’s just a fact. Yoyawnda then turns and thanks Musical Genius David Foster who has stayed with her for four years despite her illness, and who has made “lemonade out of lemons.”
And if that wasn’t painful enough, the party moves back inside where on the couch, right next to Erika and Kyle, Musical Genius David Foster has a conversation with his friend, Tom, that I’m almost 99% certain he didn’t realize was picked up on the mics:
Tom: How are you?
Musical Genius David Foster: Good.
Tom: Are you feeling better?
Musical Genius David Foster: A little, yeah. It’s been a stretch.
Tom: I want your life to go back to the way it was when you first got together.
Musical Genius David Foster: How’s that going to happen? I don’t know.
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/.