Ah, Passover. That elusive holiday that’s not really all that elusive because it swings by every year sometime in April and requires my presence at my mother’s house, where she will have spent two weeks straight cooking for seventeen people who would rather be eating sushi. As a completely nonreligious Jewish person who only participates in the traditions of lighting a memorial candle on the anniversary of my father’s death and collecting presents at Hanukah, I cannot say that I was really looking forward to Passover. There’s always a ton of people and we are crammed around several tables and it’s hard to talk to anybody except for the person sitting directly next to you and we read the same story from the prayer books that we have read for years before even a single bite of dinner is served.
“Why don’t we just discuss it over soup?” I suggested once, but – as the rest of my family cannot be classified as slightly-atheist-heathens – my suggestion was met with silence and just a wee bit of derision.
This past Friday, as I took my place at the Passover table, I told myself to just keep my mouth shut except when it was my turn to read about the plagues. After all, my mother doesn’t ask for much and she really pretends to enjoy cooking for a zillion people and I owe her cooperation – or, at the very least, silence. But when I saw that lone cup filled with wine that sat untouched, waiting for the prophet Elijah to swing by to covertly take a little sip, I started to get nervous the same way I do any time I see a glass of wine now. Because if this last insufferable season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills has taught me anything, it’s that wine will often be thrown for no good reason at all and I should really know better than to wear a cream colored gauze shirt that is dry clean only to a dinner where alcohol is served.
(To be fair, this season has also taught me the following: Kyle was definitely born with an extra set of tear ducts; Lisa Vanderpump is so fabulous that her stylist is clearly trying to destroy her out of pure envy and is attempting her subterfuge by encouraging Lisa to wear one hideous outfit at a time; lemons don’t cure Lyme disease, but I hope that some day soon they will; Brandi is a bag of trash; Kim has finally found the happiness she crows about during the opening credits and that must be why she is such a constant delight to be around; and Eileen and Lisa Rinna are excellent replacements for last year’s duds, Carlton the Witch and Joyce the Hair.)
But lessons I’ve learned aside, it’s time to jump back into the bullshit that these women either create or react to and I hope it’s not in poor taste (actually, I don’t much care if it is or it’s not) that I’m starting to hope that locusts, frogs, and vermin descend upon the House of Glanville and smite out the woman who has become pure mythological beast.
Before we can watch every person but Kim (can you imagine having only Kim as your potential savior?) once again tell Brandi that she’s the piece of shit that hangs onto the end of a proctologist’s glove before he is able to successfully shake it off, we get to witness Andy ask Eileen what made her include “Reality Star” on her already full resume.
“I wanted to do something different,” explains Eileen, and okay – that’s fair. But here are a few other “different” things Eileen could have done rather than fight with adult women on television for a paycheck:
· Work the cash register at Target on Black Friday
· Go to astronomy camp
· Eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s every night for a week with only a straw
· Shave her head and attempt to bring back the sombrero
· Personally check to see if Kyle still gets her period
· Come clean my closets
I get that my suggestions are not glamorous and don’t come with a camera crew, but I’ll happily aim my iPhone at her face while she discovers that I own seventeen identical black miniskirts.
But the question posed to Eileen wasn’t really about her motivations for appearing on this trainwreck; it was about steering the out-of-control locomotive that has leaky toilets back towards Brandi, the leakiest of cesspools in all the land. It’s literally become hard for me to look at Brandi. Her face – I’d call it “her expression,” but there kind of is none since her face has been almost cryogenically frozen – resembles a violent psychopath who just sucked on a rotting lemon after killing an entire family with a single stiletto because one of the people in the family sort of looked like that guy in 8th grade who wasn’t allowed to hang out with Brandi because his parents thought she was trash. And as anybody is asked a question about her ridiculous actions, Brandi’s eyes flit about and her lips purse even further and I would be concerned if I thought she was human and not the physical manifestation of all of our nightmares held together by cherry-flavored lube.
When it’s brought up that maybe one of the reasons Brandi might not care for Eileen is because Eileen and her husband were each married to other people when they fell in love and that upsets Brandi because she is the Commissioner of Married Women Who Have Been Jilted, Eileen says something borderline ridiculous about how she had to sit her kid down and explain things to him because Brandi made their past public. Eileen, I like you, but calling out Brandi for announcing to the masses that a million years ago you and your husband broke up your own marriages to be together is silly. Now, I can see why you didn’t choose to sit your young son down in a corner at Chuck E Cheese one year during his birthday party to quickly announce the Family Secret before bringing out the cake, but you have to know that nothing stays buried on a reality show and the only people even allowed to pretend that they do are the kids who were on the first season of The Real World. Everybody else knows better, and that includes you. But Eileen does score some points when she tells Brandi that she gets along with her husband’s ex-wife and, for the sake of her own children, maybe it’s time for Brandi to make peace with LeAnn Rimes, the woman who kind of made her famous in the first place – which, of course, means that LeAnn Rimes has to be punished. I’d suggest that the punishment take the form of either starvation or forcing her to marry a douchebag, but those things have already occurred so I’m instead going to advocate for clobbering her over the head with a bat.
But will Brandi take such a suggestion from a home-wrecker like Eileen of all people? Stop being silly! Instead, she will maintain that Eileen knows nothing about her relationship with her ex-husband’s wife, which is both hilarious and a terribly-formed argument because Brandi has made it the world’s knowledge that she thinks LeAnn Rimes is a total cunt. Has nobody yet broken the news to Brandi that Twitter is not a private journal? Can somebody else please tell her? Because I’m afraid that she’ll smack me across the face with a bagel and then tell me that everybody hates me and I will respond by ripping her vocal cords out of her neck and how will I be able to recap these shows if I’m in prison?
Kim has a great insight about this entire scenario and she says it thusly: “That’s why it’s best to stay out of other people’s business if you don’t know.” Whenever Kim speaks in full sentences it confuses me, but I think she was referring to the fact that Brandi has tried to be nice to LeAnn Rimes by only calling her a cunt sometimes, but all I can really concentrate on is the idiocy of the statement made by a woman on a reality show to a group of women on a reality show. Kim, you brain-fried moron, when you go on a reality show, you get into other people’s business. That’s what happens. And then, by virtue of being on such a show, recappers like me also go snorkeling through your business, though there’s nary a pretty shell to find and the starfish are all missing at least one leg, or whatever it is you call the points on a starfish. That’s the deal with reality shows, and to make any other argument is to try to spin bullshit.
Scarier than Kim trying to make sense is the look of smug approval Kyle throws out into the universe as Eileen fights with Brandi. The look is eerie and I’m already getting the idea of creating a line of Cabbage Patch Kids who remarkably resemble all of the Housewives, and so help me – if someone buys me the Kyle one, I will bury it underneath the home of the person who gave it to me and that doll will haunt that person forever.
It will also steal your goddamn house.
Like a perfectly-contoured soldier who is ever marching forward and tasked with dragging these women with him, Andy Cohen would like some resolution to the Eileen/Brandi conflict. Has Eileen forgiven Brandi for throwing wine into her face for no reason other than the fact that Brandi is perpetually drunk and idiotically stupid and almost pathologically incorrect when it comes to basic decorum?
No – and it’s because Eileen is a bitch.
“If you could fire one Housewife, who would it be?” Andy randomly asks Brandi.
“Eileen, because she brought nothing to the table,” snipes Brandi, though had the question been asked while Brandi was brawling with Kyle, I believe she would have said Kyle’s name.
It’s so hard to think through all of those fillers, you guys.
“What do you bring to the table?” asks Eileen.
“Conflict,” answers Brandi – and it’s gross because it’s true.
Appealing to what’s left of my belief in humanity, Lisa Vanderpump jumps in to say what the normal people are thinking to Brandi, who finds it crazy that Eileen holds it against her for throwing wine at her and insulting her home and declaring her a destroyer of marriages: “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. You do something and you apologize and it’s supposed to go away. Life doesn’t work like that.”
But see, Brandi doesn’t work like that – and by that, I mean like a normal person with emotions balanced out by logic – and so she retaliates and says that the only reason Kyle is friends with Lisa again is because Lisa must be selling her house and everybody knows that Kyle and her husband cozy up to people for a commission. Now, what’s kind of funny here is that Lisa does not deny that she’s selling her house and I’m sure that Brandi knows that she is. On the evenings when she’s not asking eligible young men to strangle her to get them to cum, I’m relatively certain that she is online all night long, trolling for reasons to call other people hypocrites. And personally, I don’t get the relationship between Kyle and Lisa because I love Lisa and I find Kyle – at best – to be passive-aggressive and showy and overly emotional, but I hope that Kyle and Lisa get married just to annoy Brandi.
I’ll be the flower girl, and looking at what some of these women are wearing, I’ll choose my own dress. And as a wedding gift, I will buy them a cutting board in the shape of Brandi’s face.
And now it’s time for Brandi to fight with someone else! Who’s up to battle the lunatic next? How about Lisa Rinna!
The fight is on when Brandi screams that Lisa has had the same hairstyle for twenty years – a joke Andy Cohen has clearly made before based on his giggly reaction. But it’s not her frosted hair that so offends Brandi about Lisa; it is the fact that Lisa publicly stated that she based some character she is playing somewhere who is a “trashy mom” on Brandi and it’s here where Brandi fights the least logical fight she’s launched so far tonight.
Brandi doesn’t like that comment because it impacts her children, and listening to her say such a thing means that I’m going to need to either burst into uncontrollable laughter or throw my laptop out a plate glass window. Please talk amongst yourselves while I decide which course of action I shall take.
Okay, I’m back. I decided to just laugh (and punch a wall), though I fear that if this Reunion somehow grows into four parts that I might become a cutter just to relieve myself from some of this pain. That Brandi can even try to dip her toe into the excuse that something someone else does or says impacts her children when she has happily branded herself as a drunk woman who is fond of conflict and is very, um, free with her labia is ridiculous. But she does get a decent comment in when she tells Lisa to go change her Depends because they’re full of shit. Lisa responds that Brandi should go get her tampon campaign, and Brandi nods sagely and says that she is going after that and I’m already bracing myself for the day she becomes the new face of super-plus tampons, though I’m already in need of therapy since hearing the news that she actually has a line of alcohol that’s about to be thrust onto an unsuspecting planet. And then, fed up with Lisa, Brandi tries with all her might to screw her face into an expression that might indicate disgust and all the plastic surgeons of the world immediately gather into a prayer circle to apologize and acknowledge that they have finally gone too far.
At some point during their meaningless back and forth – mixed into the comments about shit-filled adult diapers and trashy mothers – Lisa Rinna stands up to accuse Brandi of having double standards and she accompanies her accusation with a dance – it’s nothing spectacular, just some hip thrusts – but what’s odd is that everyone at this point, including me, just kind of shrugs that someone got up to randomly break into a dance.
That’s where we are at this point. And it’s terrifying.
I think it’s sweet that Andy Cohen only poses incredibly specific questions to Kim so she shouldn’t be confused when he asks her if watching her best friend’s behavior on national television changed her opinion of Brandi, and I’m sure we all breathed a collective sigh of relief to find out that Kim and Brandi are as close as two co-dependent sociopaths can possibly be. And as for Brandi’s horrific behavior, well, that’s just because Brandi is Brandi.
Okay, we need to officially make Brandi is Brandi a game because this might be one game I could actually win and I never won a single game of Monopoly in my life and that has fucked with my self-esteem. But I propose that the Brandi is Brandi game basically involves replacing the second “Brandi” from the title with a preferably derogatory word. I’m not sure how points will be allotted, but we can figure that out after I calculate manufacturing costs and decide if it’s meaner to call someone “a walking embodiment of dogshit with a diarrhea consistency” or “the ugliest, droopiest testicle on the sweatiest day.”
Regardless, Brandi is both.
After a few more minutes of people telling Brandi that she is awful (I think it was Eileen this time), we get a light and fanciful montage showing the Housewives trying to keep their children’s Chanel-clad feet planted firmly on the ground. We watch the kids get on private planes go on shopping sprees and ask what jewelry will be theirs when their mother dies. Oh, silliness! Oh, comedy!
It’s been relatively smooth sailing so far this Reunion, and I was just about to put the Dramamine away when up the rear comes the issue between Lisa Rinna and Kim that I am already completely over because I don’t care who Kim is fighting with; unless she’s fighting with the lady in the mirror, Kim will always be the loser in a fight. She cannot formulate or articulate an argument. She responds to insults with expressions like “Same to you!” She told a grown woman that she hates her face. She will never win.
And win she didn’t, because it basically comes out that she never had any story against Lisa’s husband, that she just claimed that she did and she felt proud when a natural reaction like shock and fear is what passed across the attacked woman’s face when it was strongly implied that her husband was cheating on her. No matter how secure you feel in your relationship, having someone say such a thing to you will get a reaction, and Kim is so proud that her lie did just that. Even though she has literally no response to the entire group – including Lisa – begging Kim to “Just say it! What did he do?” she remains very proud of herself, actually chortling, “I hit a nerve!” You hit a nerve? Um, congratulations? I ate a salad. Where’s my excuse to act like an unhinged lunatic for pay?
But wait! It’s been five whole minutes since Brandi has spotted any hypocrisy and she sees it now with how Lisa Rinna got away with tossing a wine glass at Kim’s head and she has been castigated for throwing just a little bit of wine into Eileen’s cornea.
“It’s the same thing,” Lisa says dismissively.
“It’s not the same thing. It’s called assault and battery, bitch,” sneers Brandi, and my very favorite thing occurs next: Lisa Rinna just very casually shrugs and says, “I never touched her.”
Lisa Rinna clearly knows the variables that make up assault and battery, and as I appreciate a woman who does her own research and development, I wanted to applaud her. My ovation is cut off quickly though when Kyle brings up that – speaking of assault and battery – Brandi has threatened to knock her teeth out. Brandi tries to calm Kyle down by screaming that she hasn’t done it yet and, to keep things as calm as possible, Brandi finishes by saying, “Wait till I do it.”
Kim is then asked if she feels she owes Eileen an apology for calling her a beast but Kim can’t seem to answer the question until Andy Cohen all but dons finger puppets and tries to make the question make more sense. (He actually says, “Do you feel you owe Eileen an apology for the words that you said to her that night in Amsterdam?”) Kim is finally able to respond with the word “yes,” and then she turns to Eileen and apologizes and Eileen looks absolutely terrified to be so close to Kim and she just says “thank you” and hopes that somebody wakes her up soon from this nightmare.
Speaking of nightmares, at one point Kyle, Brandi, Kim, and Lisa Rinna were all screaming over one another. I have no idea what anybody said – I’m just assuming that Brandi was quoting Hemingway – but I do know that the noise eventually ended with both Kim and Lisa saying “fuck you” to one another so I guess there’s that.
It all ends this time with Kyle and Kim and the rift between them, though the root of their newest issue still hasn’t been explored and now I guess we know why there’s a part three to this nonsense. What we know at this point is that Kyle is done and the weariness is seeping through her pores. She is tired – of Kim not realizing or acknowledging that her own behavior is destroying her, of Kim saying that Kyle should have defended her deplorable actions, that Kim actually chanted the words “Everyone will know” at Lisa Rinna during that Amsterdam dinner table that I keep forgetting to turn into my ringtone.
Kyle is over it.
But being over your sister does not mean that you are over being an aunt to her kids, and Kyle bursts into immediate and violent tears at the thought that Kim will disinvite her from her niece’s upcoming wedding and that Kim will take her children – who she loves like she loves her own children – away from her and then she completely loses it and she screams, “You’re so fucking mean! Leave me alone!” and then it all ends with Kyle bawling her eyes out and Brandi smirking, which really just means it’s a Tuesday.
I was hoping to hear the top secret story Kim alleges to have on Kyle’s daughter that made getting bit by Kim’s pit bull – whose lack of proper training was an actual storyline last year – her own fault, but I guess that’s what will make next week special.
But next week is already special because it is the final episode of a show that has made me question humanity and believe that evil takes a human and blonde form. I cannot tell you how excited I am to be nearing the end of this journey. I feel like we have all crawled across an arid desert while trying to outrun plagues.
We should really discuss it over soup.