The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
“Lymes in the Sand”
March 22, 2016
We begin with everyone in New York getting all dolled up for Yoyawnda’s “Lyme Disease is For Real, You Guys” gala, which for Erika involves climbing onto the hotel suite coffee table on all fours and posing for a series of photos. The Instagram feed must be fed.
That bit of business taken care of, the ladies head to Cipriani’s for what is, to Kyle, Erika and Kathryn’s astonishment, an actual fancy ballroom gala and not just a backyard necklace party. Who knew!
After Tommy Hilfiger and his daughter speak about their family’s experience with the disease, Gigi introduces her mother with a speech that brings Kyle to big fat, possibly phony, tears, because even though this is Yoyawnda’s moment, really this is about Kyle and what she’s been through. In the interview, Kyle earnestly explains that she felt weird being a part of all that “Munchausen” talk and now feels terrible she didn’t defend Yoyawnda more strenuously.
Yoyawnda then speaks, and mentions that Other One and Boy Child also suffer from Lyme Disease, and Kyle declares this to be “really upsetting,” and decides she needs to tell Yoyawnda that she “feels bad.” Because the children’s Lyme Disease only becomes real for Kyle right then and there, not in any of the MULTIPLE CONVERSATIONS she’s had with Yoyawnda on camera about it.
You can read the entirety of Yoyawnda’s speech here on her bravotv.com blog, but there is literally NOTHING NEW here. She has said all of this and more on the show over the past two seasons, but it’s only now that it is real for Kyle Richards because I don’t even know why. Perhaps Kathryn should give her the name of Ronald Reagan’s audiologist.
Anyway the point is, when Yoyawnda returns to the table, Kyle apologizes for not “getting it” until now, and Yoyawnda is all, “fine, whatever, OK.”
And before we move on from the whole Lyme Disease discussion, I happened to recently see this piece on Cracked.com about Munchausen’s and thought it that was an interesting reminder in this discussion that Munchausen’s is itself a real condition. Unlike Lyme Disease, Munchausen’s is a mental disorder, but it still deserves to be regarded as something beyond the patient’s control and deserving of empathy and understanding. /soapbox
When Yoyawnda returns to California, she and Musical Genius David Foster pack up the Malibu home which has finally sold for 19.495 million dollars. Just THINK of how many lemons they could buy with that kind of money! Musical Genius David Foster announces that he has to leave the packing party for reasons, and Yoyawnda is like, “FINE. GO,” and everything is very loving and totally cool between them, y’all, don’t even worry about it.
Later, Brandi pops in to help pack, and by “help,” she means take Yoyawnda upstairs, and not pack.
First Brandi discusses her dating life, complaining that the last man she went out with had tiny little arms.
Brandi then asks Yoyawnda how things are in her marriage and Yoyawnda is like, “Very loving and totally cool. Don’t worry about it.” But Brandi is worried about it, and reminds us in an interview in which she looks alarmingly like a thinner La Maloof, that Yoyawnda used to wait on hand and foot take care of Musical Genius David Foster, but in the past few years her illness has prevented that. (Unsaid: And because Musical Genius David Foster is an enormous, gray-haired, navel-gazing infant, he can’t take care of himself, much less tend to his ailing wife, and therefore their marriage is falling apart.)
Brandi and Yoyawnda discuss Other One dating The Weeknd, which is still a thing that is happening, before moving on to the real topic at hand: The Other Ladies. Yoyawnda recounts her conversation with Lisa Rinna at Camille’s fancy backyard jewelry party, noting that Rinna was angry at Yoyawnda for having brunch with Brandi and Kim. Brandi declares that Lisa Rinna’s wig glue is affecting her brain, to which Yoyawnda is all, “What means this ‘wig goo?'”
And then Brandi returns to her La Maloof interview look to yell at Lisa Rinna to get a life and eat something.
Elsewhere, Lisa Vanderpump gives that one child of hers, Max, a Vanderjeep to celebrate the fact that she hasn’t yet had to fire him from SUR. Or PUMP. Or VILLA BLANCA, or wherever the hell he runs food, it doesn’t much matter.
And then we have to sit through the obligatory and mind-numbingly tedious Packing Ritual for the ladies’ upcoming trip to Dubai. Lisa Rinna packs “a thousand dresses;” Erika has her team pack everything she owns using a lookbook, because of course she has a packing team and of course they have created a lookbook for all of her outfits; Eileen massages her awful husband’s back. Great packing everyone! This was all very much worth our time!
The ladies meet at the airport for their 18 1/2-hour-long journey, and Lisa Rinna marvels that Erika is wearing tennis shoes and comfortable pants, as opposed to a bespangled spandex catsuit, nine-inch heels and body glitter. Because somehow Lisa Rinna still hasn’t grasped the fact that, LIKE HERSELF, Erika Girardi is a performer and not actually her stage persona. What I’m saying is, Lisa Rinna is an idiot.
They then fly to Dubai where they are taken to their hotel, Atlantis, The Palm, which upon first blush looks like a very fancy casino, and upon second blush it becomes clear that it is the sister of the Atlantis in the Bahamas, you know, the one with all the water slides? So it IS basically a casino, but without all the gambling.
Kyle explains that they’ve booked two suites that will hold two people each: the Grand Atlantis and the Royal Bridge Suites; and two individual suites: the Presidential and the Underwater Suites. Eileen immediately calls dibs on the Underwater, and Lisa Rinna, the Presidential. Kyle explains that since she made the arrangements (“made the arrangements” = had Mauricio’s assistant arrange a deal between the Atlantis and Bravo for free rooms in exchange for a two-episode-long advertisement), she and Lisa Vanderpump will be taking the fanciest of the suites, the Royal Bridge, leaving Erika and Kathryn to share the Grand Atlantis.
What follows is a lot of footage — SO MUCH FOOTAGE — of the women ooh-ing and ahh-ing over their ridiculous suites, with the sharks and the pool tables and the walk-in closets and the rose petal-filled fountains and the servants, because Kyle and Lisa’s $40,000 a night Vandersuite ain’t going to pay for itself.
The ladies eventually gather in Lisa and Kyle’s 10,000 square foot suite where Kyle presents the women with muumuus …
… and eat hummus (or “hoomas” as Erika pronounces it).
The ladies lament that Yoyawnda couldn’t join them, which leads to Kyle talking about how moving and powerful the Lyme Disease speech was and informing Lisa Vanderpump that Yoyawnda did, indeed, say that Other One and Boy Child have the Lyme Disease, too. Erika then pointedly states that it was a shame that Lisa Rinna couldn’t be bothered to attend because it might have helped answer some of her questions. Rinna insists that she doesn’t doubt that Yoywanda is sick — except for when she totally does — she just thinks that Yoywanda uses her illness as a shield and is never held accountable for her actions and choices.
Erika points out that the idea that Yoyawnda would rather sit around in a bathrobe than go see her daughters at Fashion Week is preposterous, so Rinna falls back on the ol’ “It’s Just My Opinion” defense, before moving on to the issue of the Brandi/Kim brunch picture for the ONE. JILLIONTH. TIME.
Lisa Rinna complains again that Yoyawnda skipped Erika’s dinner after having exhausted herself with Brandi and Kim and Erika explains AGAIN that she was fine with it. In an attempt to deflect the conversation from herself, Lisa Rinna then asks Erika how she felt about how the dinner went, and Erika is like, “YOU WERE THERE. I THINK YOU KNOW PERFECTLY WELL HOW THAT DINNER WENT.” However, Erika, Kathryn and Lisa Vanderpump Vandermanage to not walk into Lisa Rinna’s trap and agree instead to go outside to admire the suite’s view and get drunk.
هتاف!
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills airs on Bravo on Tuesdays at 8 p.m.
This post originally appeared on the Hearst site Chron.com.