You know that fight Mauricio and Brandi had last week at Kyle’s little Moroccan-themed get together? Well, it was so intense, it’s still going on a week later! Not really, but we’re picking up right where we left off last week, which means more of Brandi screaming and swearing, more of Mauricio wondering why he didn’t just pick up McDonald’s and have a quiet meal at home, and Ken nibbling on Mauricio’s knees in defense of his glamazon faux-girlfriend. Oh, and as usual Taylor tries to make it all about her, not that anyone cares.
So, Brandi is screaming, “Maybe Mauricio needs to know my KIDS!” and Mauricio is trying to assure he he cares about her and her kids, and Lisa and Ken think everyone should stop picking on their pet model, who probably will move into their guest house one of these days. Blah, blah blah. Once you can tune out the main argument, though, there’s plenty of crazy popping up on the sidelines. Kim has to interject that, as a single mom, she just never says anything bad about anyone, because you can lose jobs and contacts that way! Is this the same woman who called Brandi a pig all through last season? I guess you can make an exception to the rule if you’re saying nasty things about someone who’s even less financially equipped to sue you than you are to sue her.
While Kyle snarks that she thinks everyone should bleep off, as she’s so tired of trying to keep the peace among her crazy friends (is Kyle really presenting herself as the sane one? Really?), our new friend-of-housewife Marisa (think of her as “Housewives”-adjacent) admits that she thinks people should fight their own battles, and she isn’t interested in fighting on anyone’s behalf. This is an entirely sane and coherent sentiment, and I haven’t heard anything really nuts out of Marisa’s mouth thus far, so I’m feeling a little bad for her. She may just be too sane for this show, right?
Wrong! But we’ll get to that in a minute.
Back at the far end of the crazy narcissist spectrum, Taylor is bitching to Camille that she’s been through ten times as much crap as anyone else sitting at the table, and she doesn’t care what Yolanda thinks of her. Yolanda thinks Taylor should shut up, and honestly so does Camille, but Camille is trying too hard to be nice to tell Taylor that everyone’s sick of hearing about her dead husband swinging in the closet and she’d better get a new schtick before she’s written out of the show. Still, Taylor hints that she and Camille know a lot more about Yolanda’s husband David Foster than Yolanda probably realizes, because they’re close friends with his ex-wife. Hey, I think Taylor just found a way to show up on a future episode!
Finally, the party (such that it was) starts breaking up, and Mauricio tries to assure Brandi nothing he said was personal. Brandi, however, points out that it felt personal to have him yelling at her from across the room, but whatever. Ken sneers that Mauricio is a typical man, and I have to say Ken is just cute as a button when he gets all protective about his Brandi, who could probably bench press him.
So, given that Adrienne and Paul were part of the focus of this insane fight, you’d think they’d be eager to get the dish about it. But when Kyle and Mauricio invite them over for a delightfully casual salad course eaten on a sofa (I hope that Kyle has the girls over for TV dinners next week), Adrienne and Paul don’t care to talk about it. They went to New York to get away from Brandi’s toxicity, which apparently has a radius that doesn’t quite reach the East Coast. Adrienne will only say that if Brandi wants to talk to her, she can talk to her face-to-face. You know, with both of their lawyers present and a court reporter.
The middle of the episode is a whole big bunch of boring. Yolanda bullies a furniture mover into learning English while doing some interior design work for her ex-husband. I’m getting a little sick of Yolanda’s “look at my life/do a Master Cleanse/is Bravo ready to give me and my husband our own Brady Bunch-esque series yet?” segments, as she clearly thinks she’s more interesting than her clear glass refrigerator, and the truth is I’d rather watch that thing for a full hour than listen to Yolanda yap. Kim gets a visit from her nutball psychic, who says her future grandchildren are jumping on the bed (no joke), and Kyle and Faye go out to buy some mannequins for a store Kyle is opening. Did you know Faye does interior design work for Avril Lavigne, Nick Lachey and Paris Hilton? Yeah, I didn’t care, either.
Things get interesting again when Brandi goes out to dinner with Marisa, her husband Dean and her brother Paul. Marisa explains that, like Brandi, she tends to talk first and think later. And what does she have to say? She finds her brother more attractive (as a type) than her husband. And, you know, she really wants some alone time. And she hates that he doesn’t make as much money a he could. Dean just keeps grinning through the insults, as if this is one of the things he finds so charming about his wife — how much she doesn’t want to be married to him. Brandi feels bad for Dean, and I’m thinking we can all start placing bets on when Marisa files for divorce.
During dinner, Brandi also reveals that she’s going to be teaching a Night School for Girls in Las Vegas, which is really about teaching grown women how to strip. Marisa is ALL for it, as she, you know, finds her husband totally unappealing and may be able to get into a late showing of the Thunder from Down Under.
Finally, the girls are gather at a gallery opening for their beloved friend Daniel Maltzman, and Brandi tries to get everyone on board for her stripping class. Taylor would LOVE to go but she’s working with a domestic violence organization and shooting PSAs and trying to convince everyone in the room that she does have something IMPORTANT to do. Kyle, wearing a dorky headband that makes her look like a “Solid Gold” dancer, corners her niece Paris Hilton to tell her she has to learn about her life from TMZ, which does not seem to bother Paris in the least. Brandi invites Paris to come to Vegas, but she can’t. She’s performing in front of 30,000 people in Brazil, because she’s closing a show for Jennifer Lopez. I wonder if the promoters in Brazil were desperate, big fans of her sex video, or think that they might be able to fool the audience into thinking she’s really Britney Spears.
Anyway, Marisa is there still yapping about how she doesn’t find Dean cute at all, and she deeply regrets getting married when she was 20. Brandi nods and listens, but she clearly wants to slap Marisa upside the head. But hey, maybe they can be roomies once Marisa dumps Dean!
Finally, Mauricio gives Ken a bottle of gin. Ken seems utterly perplexed and largely unappreciative. In fact, he says he doesn’t like it, which makes Mauricio laugh but I get the impression this isn’t a case of Ken’s deadpan British wit. He’s still pissed at Mauricio for picking on Brandi, and after Lisa awkwardly scoots past Mauricio like he’s riddled with small pox and dead fish smell, it’s pretty clear that a bottle of booze isn’t going to smooth things over this quickly.
Do you think Marisa is going to join the show? Would you go to Kyle’s new store? And would you spend $8,500 for the paining Yolanda bought at the gallery?