Category Archives: RHOBH

RHOBH, Television

Real Housewives of Beverly Hills-“Pay Attention to Me!”

rhobh

I missed the first 20 mins of last night’s episode, but I can ALMOST guarantee that I missed everyone (the couples) going to a dinner together and chatting about how they found their hubbies, Kyle reveals she was engaged to an old geezer when she met Mauricio, Rinna saying she snatched Harry post-Nicolette Sheridan dumping, Lisa probably saying something catty. Portia trying on bikinis and demanding designer duds that Mauricio didn’t skip a beat to purchase for her, and Yolanda and her daughter Bella talking about nail polish. Was I close? Please feel free to let me know in the comments below if I left anything out.

We get to see some sisterly interaction in last night’s episode, which does nothing to warm my heart but is entertaining to say the least. Kim’s daughter Brooke is getting married and all the sisters Richards gather for wedding dress shopping. Kyle suggests that Kim try on a few dresses as a gag before being told that it’s Brooke’s day…oh yeah, Kyle agrees and slinks away to steal the attention from someone else. Suddenly everyone is silenced at the arrival of Kathy Hilton, who struts in oozing fame and fortune. Kyle and Kim cower in the corner as Kathy immediately barks out that the dress Brooke has on is hideous and to take it off immediately. I’m so gleefully thankful that every season they max out the budget for one episode to pay Kathy Hilton to make an appearance. It’s worth it every time. I’m floored that they don’t make any mention of Paris or Nicky for extra thirsty ratings like they usually do. Things take a heavier turn when Kim talks about her first husband, Brooke’s dad, who has several types of cancer currently and is living with Kim. Her sisters act like this is the first time they’ve heard of this, so we’re all convinced that they’re super close. Lots of tears from Kim and then Kyle says something condescending about how she always thinks of Kim as fragile but is shocked to see she’s actually strong sometimes. The backhanded compliments for Kim are never-ending and always appreciated. And that concludes our sisters Richards reunion for this season. It was everything I had hoped and dreamed.

We get to watch Yolanda dye her hair a gleaming shade of white, and talk about her impending vacation/trip home to Holland to take care of her mother who has uterine cancer. Real heavy episode, lots of tears and I’m not into it. Although if we’re being honest when Yolanda goes on and on about how important family is and then goes back and forth between talking about being on yachts in bikinis and going to take care of her ailing mother, I’m a little fuzzy on the deets of why she is actually traveling there. Then she kicks it with her maid Blanca because apparently we’ve now signed up to watch Real Maids of Beverly Hills after a third week in a row of a maid story line…I’m guessing they’ve become an integral part of this show just to prove that the housewives give them ample vacation days and treat them well? In our bonus scene this week Yolanda shares with us candidly that she ALSO always flies private. How about this, let’s go ahead and assume that everyone in this cast flies private except for Brandi, k, Bravo? That way we can avoid any further scenes about the details of their private jets. Yo sleeping on a California king, smothered in silk sheets on an airplane was pretty hilarious though.

FINALLY Eileen has arrived. Was it worth the three-episode wait? Nope. Rinna and Eileen gather for lunch and apparently have known each other since the 80’s because soap operas. They show a cheesy Days of Our Lives clip from forever ago where feathered hair was okay and they both had their original faces. Rinna compliments Eileen on getting an Emmy and Eileen humble brags about how she can’t keep track of where her Emmy actually is right now. Eileen does some contrived performance in her talking head segment about how actresses get a bad rep for wanting all the attention but she doesn’t? Or something…The amount of times that each utter some cliché that they haven’t seen each other in forever means that they were brought together just for this show. Do better at hiding the staging, producers. Geeze.

Brandi is wearing a winter hat in California in the summer and picks up Kyle to go hiking. We are treated to some flashbacks to drunk Brandi days-YAASSSSS. This week’s installment of “I’m a whale who will never be able to wear a bikini” is brought to you by Kyle and Brandi exercising and seeing who can out-fat each other. They talk about Lisa, and Kyle makes a lot of faces. Brandi decides to call her on speakerphone mean girls style and this will OBVIOUSLY go well. Lisa pretends she doesn’t have caller ID on her probably brand new iphone and acts the most surprised to hear that it’s Brandi. Brandi plays it casj cool and is all, “hey you coming to my house warming party before I inevitably move again?” Lisa demands an apology, obviously…and I reeeally hate to do it but I have to actually side with her on this one because Brandi isn’t really approaching this in a fab or mature way. Brandi continues to have a who gives a fahk attitude and tells Lisa “If you want to be friends, fine, but I’m not going to kiss your ass.” Divine intervention causes Brandi’s phone to die at this exact moment. Or did Lisa MAKE her phone die? We’ll never know…but Brandi makes an even dumber decision to snatch up Kyle’s phone and call her back to clear the air. This obviously opens up a whole other conflict and Lisa’s like hey screw you guys I’m having a lovely afternoon with my husband while he’s still able to walk and talk and I’m over this shit. Brandi clears it up that she didn’t actually hang up though…soo we good? No we’re not. The conversation ends with an “I hope to see you?” “Okay?” and it’s the most confusing resolution to a convo BUT leaves the window open to further continue to drag this stupid fight on for the rest of the season.

Random Highlights:

-All the cringes in the world every time we see Lisa as a talking head wearing an off the shoulder, emerald green, shiny ball gown that is basically showing her nipples. That’s SOMEBODY’S MOTHER.

-The ice queen’s ringtone is classical music. I can’t decide if this is fitting or a curveball.

-Rinna with the quote of the night, “I get high off of everything”. PLEASE make an episode where Rinna, Brandi and Kim eat pot brownies, Andy.

Standard
RHOBH, Television

Real Housewives of Beverly Hills- “Who Stalked JR?”

rhobh

The theme of this week’s episode is we’re all rich but we’re suuuupess humble…you know, minus the humble part. We have another week with a no-show from supposedly new character Eileen…probably for the best but this also means we have to endure another week of Adrienne returning for a cut of the pay and the fame. But we’ll get to that nonsense later.

We start on Brandi’s moving day…she’s no longer homeless, guys. She has a house with a roof and apparently enough dough to hire movers that absolutely strip at night, Magic Mike style. Kim comes over to “help”, aka pull up a chair with Brandi and her hairstylist as they ogle the movers that are roughly half their age while they carry in Brandi’s stripper paraphernalia and nude portraits. This is an opportune time for Brandi to remind us about JR, who apparently she no longer dates but still phone sexes with. Since she’s not tied down, she’s free to stare at fresh out of college (jk they prob didn’t go to college) movers’ abs and then later bang one. Whoops–spoiler alert.

In an attempt to show the difference between how Brandi lives and how the rest of the housewives live, we move onto the villain who continues to cackle atop her ivory tower of evil, otherwise known as Lisa. She has a meeting with someone who creates her handmade silk shirts with her name encrusted in jewels on them. She just doesn’t have the time to shop, guys. She then introduces us to “the help” because she’s a woman of the people. Lisa tells a heartwarming story about how her immigrant maid was walking uphill to another interview and she poached her, told her to get in the Benz, and saved her from her terrible life of walking places. “One good deed” is hiring a maid apparently. Lisa later goes diamond shopping with Shiva (Muhamed’s girlfriend) and the two of them try on grossly expensive diamonds and make a bunch of innaprops sexual jokes toward the jeweler. Nice try, Lisa, we all know can afford all the diamonds in the world and don’t need to pay in sexual favors.

In case you aren’t yet full of humble pie, let’s have another slice with Kyle as she prepares for her family vacation in Lake Tahoe. Kyle tries to explain in a way that doesn’t make her whole family sound like a bag of assholes, that Mauricio only flies private now because he hates airports and is above the common traveler. She giggles and says, that sounds awful, doesn’t it? Yes, yes it does. To offset this statement she tells her own story of when Mauricio and her were first married and poor, they told their kids to act like babies so that they could sneak them on the airplane without paying for their seats. Giggle, giggle. I think we took a sharp turn in the opposite direction there, Kyle…you overcorrected and told us all how you used to cheat the airlines and everyone still hates you. Cool story though. While boarding their private plane to Tahoe, we see more of Portia being a goddamn toddler diva and I for one will not be able to watch this unfold every week. NIP IT IN THE BUD, KYLE.

Yolanda shows off her bangin bod by surprising David with a fully cooked dinner in lingerie. Is it just me or does “Hi, my love” give you the cringes every time that it’s uttered? David is his usual creepy self and remembers to ask where the kids are after he’s already popped a boner. During dinner he reminisces about the time Yolanda dressed like a hooker in red lingerie and a trench coat and the retelling of the story is so scripted and forced that I was forced to call the uncomfortable police to my apartment, stat. It was an emergency. They eat one bite of dinner, David GRACIOUSLY offers to clear the table and hand off the dishes to their maid so long as Yolanda can be his dessert. ALL THE PUKE. EVERYWHERE. After we see Yo in this getup, it’s a liiiiittle hard to understand how a commercial break later she’s unable to button her pants and declares she’s fat after she makes some outrageous pterodactyl noises trying to get the pants on. Realistically, she probably went from a 00 to a 0. OH THE HORROR. She discusses her fat people problems with the hired help who sympathizes because that’s what she’s paid to do. Yo sticks with her whoutfit (white outfit) that “doesn’t fit” and hits the stables with Kim.

We learn right away at the horse stables that Dutch vs. American riding outfit styles is classy vs. trashy. Kim (in her trashy riding gear) knows all about animals cause she was once a PROFESSIONAL ACTRESS-REMEMBER? Yolanda confesses in her aside, “Kim and I haven’t really gotten along but since I met her and saw what an unhinged person she was I’ve wanted to be her caretaker.” More or less. They ride and bond over horse farts and their kids going to college.

Kim may have seemed normal with Yolanda, but let’s not forget how a mere 10 minutes earlier she and Brandi decided to don wigs and scarves and stalk Brandi’s ex boyfriend who is now banging someone new. Although I admit Brandi looked fab with her glasses, this was a real loony tune of a joint activity for them. It’s probably because Kim “has a family history of stalking”. This explains everything and nothing all at once. Brandi talks more about her 23 year old conquest Jake Ryan (by use of full name multiple times, it’s clear that he’s only a part of this episode because his thirst for fame is so real and he has an agent.) Kim tries to be a supportive friend but is internally dialing up the cops because her son is 23 and she’s having visions of cougar Brandi snatching him up next. They catch JR doing nothing, but at least we got to see two grown woman wearing heels and wigs climb in and out of a bush definitely full of creatures.

The grand finale this week is the meeting of Brandi and Adrienne, or as I like to refer to it, the battle of the visible dark roots. (Adrienne is a victor with her black roots basically down to her knees. Time to touch up the bottle blonde, girlie, now that you’ve clawed your way back onto TV again). Brandi is super nervsies and talks about it to death with her hair stylist and then has the nerve to interrupt Kyle while she’s yachting in Tahoe. Kyle eats that shit right up though because she’s been salivating at the opportunity to insert herself into this drama since she heard they were talking at HER infamous White Party. The lunch occurs and is largely uneventful because the two ladies both act like mature adults for once. This is probably the most peaceful apology lunch to ever occur in housewife history-Brandi strings together a sincere apology, Adrienne accepts and suddenly they’ve moved past the fur vest hurling of f-bombs at a rooftop cocktail hour. They start to dish on Lisa and the episode ends with a happy ending for Adrienne and Brandi but a foreboding feeling that the ice queen will strike again. (Seriously, Bravo, how long are we going to play this out?)

PS In less dramatic news: Rinna continues to be cool and down to earth and not actually belong on this show full of self-indulgent monsters. Rinna knows when to laugh at herself and proves it by showing a Depends campaign she did because apparently she “doesn’t say no to anything”. Hmm, possibly how she got on this show? I think we’re onto something here. Stay tuned for more of one cool girl in a sea of twats and hopefully the much anticipated appearance of Eileen?

Standard
RHOBH, Television

Real Housewives of Beverly Hills “Guess Who’s Coming to the White Party?”

rhobh

I’m trying to become more affluent with my TV recaps, so I’m adding a surefire fountain of material, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills to my lineup. I’ve always been a one city housewives fan (I use the term fan SO loosely) so since I’ve been dedicated to Beverly Hills from the start I hope that I can do it justice for all of my fellow Bravo betches. Since witchy Carlton and hoy-say Joyce got the boot after bringing last season’s ratings down, we have two newcomers this season, both soap opera stars so things are bound to get reeealll dicey.

New additions also means new taglines and boy am I glad that there’s fresh material of these rich bitches giving nuggets of wisdom and lying about how love and family mean more to them than getting paid to show that love and family on reality television. Newcomer Lisa Rinna has the best tagline giving a coy shout out to her infamous blowfish lips. Eileen Davidson, the other new addition, who you will not even see this episode, had a tagline saying she plays a bitch on TV but isn’t one in real life. I for one am grateful for the clarification. As a former addict of Days of our Lives (it was a phase, guys) I only know Eileen as Kristin DiMerra the terror of Salem who drugged and raped the friendly priest and put it on tape to distribute. THAT is the person I expected to see in Beverly Hills and I’m glad that our gal Eileen addressed my concerns immediately.

Anyway, this episode, as the title suggests, centers on the annual White Party that Kyle throws for attention. We get to see the party from the beginning stages of Kyle walking around her backyard with the sloppiest looking event planner in all of America brainstorming how she could possibly top the last one. This gives Kyle PLENTY of opportunity to brag about the party and boy does she snatch that right up. She talks about how expensive the party is now and how EVERYONE wants to come. As the episode goes on and we catch up with everyone else’s lives, Kyle wants to make sure that we haven’t forgotten about her party so she brings it up again later. Did you know that everyone’s trying to get on the list and it’s the party of the year?! Because it was SO unexpected for Kyle.

Are you feeling suffocated by all of the humble bragging? Don’t worry let’s mosey on over to Yolanda’s house for a beach day with her and Brandi. As they descend the mountain, through the lemon grove forest, into the real world, Yolanda discovers that poor people have set up tents to sell most likely counterfeit merchandise on her land. Yolanda exclaims to a homeless Brandi (spoiler alert) that she doesn’t know what goes on on her four acres of land. Read the room, Yo, Brandi is basically couch surfing and you lay this shit on her? Yo shows that she’s one of the people though by telling the vagrants that they can continue to push product on her lawn just as long as it’s not every day. She continues to hold her own as my favorite housewife when she makes Brandi become one with the earth while walking the beach. It’s good to see that out of the train wreck that was last season, Brandi and Yolanda are still my favorites (for now) and still friends (relatively speaking).

Speaking of last season, remember when everyone turned on Lisa because she was being a catty bitch and playing everyone like CHESS–direct quote? Well no one has forgotten and God bless those producers (Andy, I’m assuming) for Lisa’s opening scenes in this episode. She is immediately painted as the villain driving around in her white Porsche to sinister music, on her way to a “secret” meeting with Kyle. The witch is back and nobody’s going to knock her down…insert evil laugh…but seriously they did everything short of having her smoking a Cruella Deville cigarette and wearing a coat made of Giggy’s fur. (NOT GIGGY!!!!) In Lisa’s aside to the camera she basically says that she was attacked, did nothing wrong and has been waiting for the girls to come crawling back to her one by one. DANCE FOR ME, PUPPETS. Of course Kyle is the first to grovel. First they must exchange truly genuine compliments “You look good.” “I do?” “You look skinny.” “I do?” Well done girls, lunch can now begin. Kyle tries to bring up why her feelings were hurt and Lisa immediately shuts it down with a firm, let’s not relive the past and forget that I was ever a dick. Kyle awkwardly agrees and they toast to loyalty, so like, things are GREAT now. Later in the episode we see a similar lunch with Lisa and Yolanda where Yolanda’s all “remember when I was on my death bed and you didn’t visit me?” And Lisa’s all “let’s not go backwards, dahling.” I’m sensing a theme here from our ice queen, anyone else?

Then we move onto our first foray into a new character, Lisa Rinna. Also how was she hired for this show…we already have a Lisa! This is going to get real messy. Lisa Rinna will now be referred to just as Rinna forever more. Ok so we get our introduction to Rinna from Kyle, apparently they bonded over a red yarn bracelet, sorry, Kabbalah and that’s how they’re besties. Kyle wants to make sure her more famous friend is attending her INFAMOUS white party. Rinna makes sure to talk this party down as much as possible by referencing that her husband is in Mad Men roughly 4 times over the course of a 2 minute phone call. (Future drinking game?) Rinna can’t wait to attend the White party as an appetizer to her much more famous A-list Mad Men party for the entrée. We then get the treat of meeting Rinna’s teenage daughters who have typical Hollywood names and talk about Coachella a lot, and finally the man, the myth, the legend, Harry Hamlin, or as Rinna refers to him, God/King. Looks like we’ve got another Yolanda and David Foster on our hands. I can’t wait to see these four interact at a dinner party and compete for who loves their husband more.

And FINALLY, the white party has arrived. I honestly thought the day would never come since Kyle began shoving it down our throats a mere 25 minutes earlier. We get to see everyone get ready, the ice queen in her lair with Ken wearing basketball shorts (a vision that I wish with all my heart I could unsee), Kyle with her entire family including little Portia who is apparently a real asshole now, and Brandi with her gays. Everyone is worrying about who they will have an awkward run-in with at the party, in true RHOBH fashion.

The party kicks off with some weird mermaids, a half naked girl in a hamster ball writhing around the pool and a very sensible white carpet leading from the street to Kyle’s house. I’m sure that looked pristine after EVERYONE who’s ANYONE tromped on it. We quickly learn that this is the ghost of Housewives past episode because all the girls are back in town now, or in laymen’s terms, they all could use a paycheck. Camille, Taylor and Adrienne are all present and even our beloved Kim shows up…late of course (cackle, cackle). The girls relive the old days of pretending they’re in high school forming cliques and grabbing at each other’s boobs. They ask Adrienne how old her new woofie boyfriend is. Here’s a clue Adrienne, if they have to ask it means he’s too young. All of their interactions were creepy at best but then Brandi interrupts the cougar and her young conquest to squash the beef from 2 years ago that they had and everyone has long forgotten about. The flashbacks were really key this episode and certainly not short of the dramatic flair. Adrienne and Brandi decided to hash it out at a later date, showing that maybe these bitches have actually matured and learned from their mistakes and everyone returns to the party to dance away their problems. There is a lot of cringe worthy 8th grade dance shimmying, I’m looking at you, Kyle…Brandi doesn’t join the dance party, cause she’s sober. And we end the bash of the CENTURY with Cruella leaving after giving Brandi the cold shoulder hard. “I’m a fucking good friend,” Lisa declares to no one in particular as her limo slips into the darkness of the night.

Standard