You know how they say the anticipation is greater than the act? I don’t think “they” (whoever they are) are talking about that tingling sensation you get in your undies when you’re making out with a new person and you know it’s going to go there, and then you get there and, well, the fireworks were more like a damp sparkler that you found in the back of the shed and lit with a match. They weren’t talking about that. They were talking about Lisa Vanderpump‘s annual Tea Party of Death on The Real Rose Swillers of Petit Four Junction. The event was all anticipation and then when we got there, it was like Debbie Downer’s quinceañera.
God, this whole episode was just a bunch of bluster, like a wind filling a plastic bag (and not in that cute American Beauty way, but like when it blows against your leg on a windy day and you can’t shake it off). What even happened before the party? Kyle’s clothes fell all over the floor because she has so much clothing that it can’t even fit in her gargantuan closet, so she needs to have it on a nasty little rack in the hallway. It’s as if her master suite doubles as a thrift store somewhere on Melrose that specializes in blouses where the sleeves won’t close all the way. Then Kyle, looking like a space priestess from a ’70s B-movie, went over to visit Lisa Vanderpump and the two have to talk it out. Kyle thinks that Lisa is holding a grudge against Kyle for when Kyle didn’t defend her against Adrienne saying that Lisa sells stories to the tabloids. (Oh, man, I had to take a big breath to get all of that out.) Lisa thinks that, yes, her problem is exactly that Kyle won’t stick up for her and now she can’t trust Kyle and she is mad that Kyle didn’t defend Lisa against St. Camille, saying that Lisa doesn’t own her restaurants. (Oh, another deep breath.)
Yes, this is all true and Kyle should just admit she was wrong and feels bad about it and let the two of them move on. Of all the Housewives, Lisa is usually one of the most game and forgiving. Also, she is everyone’s favorite and getting on her bad side isn’t the best bit of business for Ms. Richards-Umansky. Revealingly, Kyle also said that “friendships are like a balancing act.” No, Kyle, friendships are not like that. People don’t have to balance who is right and who is wrong or who they like better or who they want to ally with. Housewives have to do that. And it’s only a balancing act for Kyle because she has the inexplicable need to have everyone like her all the time which, ultimately, makes her kind of unlikeable. So while she’s going around trying to make sure everyone is happy and gets along, she just creates more drama. The funny thing is, she’s never in the center of the drama. She’s like the wizard in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, flailing her arms about in her castle, making the tides rage and flood and the lightening crash all around her.
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We interrupt this recap to bring you the latest episode of At Home with Yolanda Bananas Foster. On this week’s episode, Yolanda Banana’s Foster, America’s premiere agoraphobic gourmand, actually left her house. She took her daughter Bella riding and she jumped all around the dressage gates on Lego, a steed not named after plastic blocks but what Yolanda makes her children to do Eggo waffles. Oh, poor Yolanda. If only she could afford three or four horses for her daughters like the other moms at the equestrian school. Yolanda invited over her friend Brandi, who is worried about going to a tea party. Yolanda told her what to wear, what sort of cakes to make, and how she can introduce the Master Race Cleanse into conversation. She gave Brandi seven magic lemons to bring to the tea party.
Then Yolanda used her greatest power as a hostess, the power of perception. Lately she has been able to see into the souls of the women on this show with a clarity that is usually reserved for psychics and reality television bloggers. She said, “Adrienne, Queen of the Maloofs (which I hear are a race of mole people who live under the mountain), is an insecure person who is using her status to intimidate people.” That’s it. That is it right there. That is all you need to know about Adrienne — wrap it up, send it to the Post Office, and set it on fire. We’re done here. Thank you Yolanda, for summing it up so nicely. Then Brandi pleaded for Yolanda to come to the tea party with her. “I’m sorry, sweetie, I can’t. David and I are going out of the country.” And that concludes this week’s episode of At Home with Yolanda Bananas Foster.
Okay, so everyone showed up at Lisa’s Tea Party, starting with Brandi, who is girding her loins for her first interaction with Adrienne since Adrienne maybe or maybe not sued her for maybe possibly saying that Adrienne, I don’t know, kind of allegedly had her children through a surrogate? The widow Armstrong showed up next and all she could talk about is how Lisa’s tea party last year ended up being all about the abuse in her life. Poor Taylor, in her big black Victorian mourning costume with the black fringe and the bustle — it’s hard to be her with her ebon parasol propped up against her shoulder. She is only living the glory of her past last season when it was all about her. Even when Kyle brings up the annual White Party later in the afternoon (oh my god, is it time for the White Party again already?!), Taylor says, “Remember last year when you told me I couldn’t come in?!” It’s always “remember last year” with this one. No wonder there is discussion that she won’t be coming back.
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There is an amusing little interlude during which Brandi takes the Widow Armstrong on a tour of Villa Rosa, Lisa’s “pink house,” and they linger in Lisa’s closet like they’re Jodie Foster and the Golden Globes aren’t happening any time in the near future. This thing is a modern marvel right up there with the Burj Dubai, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Yolanda Bananas Foster’s refrigerator. Who gets to have a room like this? Only Lisa. The rest of us stand jealous for eternity.
Brandi and Lisa and the Widow Armstrong and St. Camille were all hanging out with Fetch, who was there because, ugh, I guess she has to be, when the Holy Triumvirate of Terror arrived: Kyle, Adrienne, and the morally corrupt Faye Resnick, who wasn’t even invited. Is it just me or does Faye Resnick look just like an orc from a Lord of the Rings movie? She’s like an orc in a wig. The big drama is that Lisa did not invite Faye and she showed up anyway, which is the only way that Faye ever gets to attend parties. She was rather well-behaved though, even though she looked down her nose at everyone. It’s not that she thinks she’s better than them (she does), it’s just that her nose has been shaved and her eyes pulled tight so many times that she is forced, anatomically, to look down her nose at the world.
Everyone sat down and Lisa really wanted everyone to get along for some reason. God, don’t these ladies know how these things go? Adrienne was just as deluded, saying, “This really isn’t the place to discuss my issues with Brandi.” Really? It’s not? Well, then what the hell are you doing here? So everyone just sat there and seethed and gritted through their teeth like they’re trying to hold in a Guinness Book of World Records fart. Finally Taylor lets it out, making some snide remark about how Adrienne sues everyone. That was the key that opened that whole door.
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Lisa made a big show about getting Brandi and Taylor to follow her away from the table and they go and stand in front of Jax and Peter, who are there to lure the women with their big muscles and remind all of us to watch The Vanderpump Chronicles. Lisa told Taylor and Brandi to knock it off and don’t stir trouble and Brandi was like, “Double you, tee, eff, Lisa. I’m behaving!” And she was! Back at the table the ladies were already talking s**t about Brandi and Adrienne is all like, “I’m not suing her. Is she saying I’m suing her? I’m not suing her.”
So Lisa, Brandi, and Taylor all sat back down and Taylor goes right back to it. What is her horse in this race? Why does Taylor care? Why is she stirring this up? If Adrienne and Brandi want to ignore each other and pretend it’s not happening, why is she pressing the issue? It makes no sense to me.
Alright, the rest of the argument went like this: Brandi says Adrienne is suing her and Adrienne says, “No, that’s not true.” Okay, this is a lawyer trick. Adrienne is saying, “I’m not suing you,” and she means she has not filed an actual lawsuit. Brandi says that Adrienne’s lawyer sent Brandi’s lawyer a letter and I honestly believe that is true. It isn’t a lawsuit, per se, but it is the threat of one. That is just as bad and Adrienne doesn’t understand how that is harassment. And still she feigns innocent like she has no idea what is happening.
The next item on the agenda is that Adrienne is upset about a Twitter that Brandi Twittered about how Bernie, Adrienne’s a**hole chef who hates Lisa, is going around trying to sell stories to the tabloids about Brandi. Brandi denies Twittering the Twitter. Okay, well, Bravo handily provides the Twitter for us on the screen so we can see that Brandi Twittered it. (Hey, Bravo, where is the copy of the letter Brandi’s lawyer got so we can determine whether or not that is true? Why are you on Adrienne’s side?) Adrienne says this story is not true. I don’t know who to believe. I believe that Brandi thinks this is true and if it is, I don’t blame her for fighting against it. And she has nothing but Adrienne’s word that it isn’t true. Why should Brandi take Adrienne’s word on anything?
What the whole fight came down to is this: Brandi saying, “You sued me!” and Adrienne saying, “Nuh uh! Twitter!” and then Brandi replying, “Nuh uh! Bernie!” and Lisa saying, “Nuh uh! You should be ashamed of yourself! Ashamed.” That was the whole fight. We are now adult humans discussing, at length, a fight about a Twitter about whether or not someone’s personal chef sold a story about someone to a tabloid. I sort of wish the Widow Armstrong would finally snap and blow them all away with a shotgun. I mean, this is just getting tedious. But then it all ended and on her way out, Kyle said, “Don’t forget about the White Party next week, everyone. Byesies!!” My heart was once again full of joy.
Just as Lisa is cleaning up… oh, hahaha. Lisa never cleans up anything. Just as Lisa is standing over the table watching the maid clean up the finger sandwiches and tea cups and little frosted cakes that no one ever ate, the phone rings. She rushes inside with that Carrie Bradshaw trot that you can do only when running in high heels and a tight skirt. She answers the phone while it’s still on the wall and puts it on speaker like it’s an intercom. “Lisha, it’s Kim,” Kim says, slurring through the phone. “I can’t make the party because, well, I got hit in the face. Well, not, like, hit. I was on my way there and I got hit, not by a car or a person, but my new dog. He, like, jumped up and hit me in my face, but it wasn’t a hit, it was more like a really hard lick, but I still have my nose bandage and, well, now that I got hit I just need to lie down. Lisa, I need to lie down so I can’t make it. I might have taken seven pain pills too. And some wine. Just a little because I had nothing else in the house and the dog told me I should have some wine and so I did and, well, Lisa. Hi. It’s Kim. I got hit in the face by my dog and, oh, no, my nose is fine. I knows that everyone knows my nose is fine. But I got hit in the face by my dog and I can’t come.”
Lisa was a little concerned. Kim was up to her old tricks again, calling up and making strange excuses as to why she couldn’t show up to places. Lisa stood on her back patio looking out on the long city before her. Like she was on a mountain top, the green hills unfolded all around, the houses knitted in their nooks like barnacles on the scraped bottom of a ship. She scoops up her dog Giggy and rubs his fur. She thinks about all of them, Kim in her Sad Valley Ranch with empty bottles, both of the liquor variety and the orange plastic kind, scattered around her. She thinks of Adrienne with her mouth twisted into a pout riding in the back of her limosine. She thinks of Faye the party crasher and Kyle the appeaser. Mostly, she thinks of Brandi, who rushed out of there injured once again. She thinks of Brandi, so strong in public, with tears streaming down her face as she winds around the curves toward her house, crying in frustration. She thinks of them all and wonders, in this great expanse of land, if there is anyone else who will ever understand her. Just as she’s coming to an answer, Giggy jumps out of her arm and runs across the lawn, letting out a bark at something that is not there.
Follow Brian Moylan on Twitter @BrianJMoylan
[Photo credit: Evans Vestal Ward/Bravo]
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