Holy bananas. I am not sure I can stand to watch another episode of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” in which Brandi and Joyce get into it, especially as Brandi gets drunk and inarticulately hostile. While Joyce takes great pride in standing up to Brandi’s bullying, after a certain point I just want someone to call an emergency treatment center to see if Brandi can be taken in for a 72 hour hold. There’s drunken arguing, and then there’s a cry for help, and I think Brandi may have just poured herself over the line between them.
Lisa had a nice idea of bringing the gang together, even inviting a few of Joyce’s friends so that the new kid wouldn’t feel she was all alone. But Lisa didn’t need to worry about Joyce. While Brandi was the one who started the fighting, Joyce didn’t exactly curl up into a ball and take the beating. The insults started at a high pitch — racist, bully, instigator — and stayed there. Meanwhile, Yolanda and Lisa sat on the sidelines, occasionally piping up to tsk-tsk Joyce for getting Crazypants so riled up as they nibbled on their salads. I’m not sure why they felt it was Joyce’s responsibility to shut up, as Brandi was perhaps even more at fault, but I guess they were worried Brandi was more likely to attack them with a stiletto.
Oh, and sidebar: tonight’s episode of “Vanderpump Rules” was more than worthwhile, if only to hear the staff gossip about how these ladies are too old to act like this (true) and to hear Jax confuse Joyce with LaToya Jackson.
Clearly, Brandi is going through Something. Unfortunately, she’s decided that Joyce is the problem, which is a little bit like Kim deciding to get her nose fixed right after rehab. A convenient distraction, sure, but hardly the real issue. I’m not quite sure what’s going on with Brandi — she clearly wants a boyfriend, and she misses her dog — but I have to think it’s something bigger than anything we’re seeing on the show.
But forget all the silly screaming and fighting. This episode was really about getting to know Carlton better. I’m not sure this is a good thing, because I’m starting to wonder if Carlton isn’t a little nuttier than I had originally thought. She takes her mother-in-law along with her to shop for bikinis. In the Hustler store. While her mother-in-law seems like a sassy sort, even she seems a little appalled when Carlton tries on a bikini, which is really only a bikini in the sense it gives a stripper something to remove as she grinds on the pole, and tweaks her butt in her face. While Carlton assures us that she and her MIL have a close relationship, I have to wonder if the woman is taking notes just in case her son decides to file for a divorce and full custody of the kids.
But then, all of these housewives love nothing better than to flaunt their hot, usually surgically enhanced bodies. Yolanda has a romantic anniversary planned with David Foster in which he gives her a letter that might have been better if found in a Hallmark card (and is just about as personal — he can reuse it on his next wife) and she gives him a Shutterfly book of naked photos. Isn’t that sweet?
Another unsettling relationship is the one between Kim and Kingsley, her dog. Sixty percent of the time she wants him to be her baby, forty percent of the time she wants him to be a dog, and all of the time I want her to think about getting a real boyfriend before she pushes this dog into a mental breakdown. She decides that she needs to be the alpha for Kingsley, so how to do that? Racecar driving, silly! Kim reveals that when she was a kid, her grandma would drive her to work. Unfortunately, Granny couldn’t see very well, so Kim started driving the car into Hollywood when she was 12. I suspect this is one of the least creepy stories Kim has about being a child star, which just makes me sad.
Looking at the promo for next week, it seems that Yolanda and Lisa are left trying to sort out what to do with the problem otherwise known as Brandi, Brandi becomes a crying, sodden mess of a drunk, and everyone starts wondering if it wouldn’t be fun to end the season with an intervention. Hey, that’s good TV, people!
Do you think Brandi has a problem? Do you think Brandi or Joyce is most at fault? Do you think Lisa should have tried to get Brandi to stop the fighting instead of Joyce?