And after midnight, Heather Dubrow nee Paige Kent, was sitting on a rented white couch in the yard behind her giant Granite Palace and was looking out over the little hump in the earth that spilled down and down and down a hillside and eventually into the sea, which she could see trilling the moon back at itself in little waves. She had a glass of champagne in one hand and ran the other through her straight, dark hair. It was getting a little chilly as she pulled her toned arms into herself as if that would provide some warmth. Around her churned a coterie of workers and servants, picking up the plastic champagne flutes with the removable plastic circles, digging the fake diamonds out of the grass, and sweeping up all the fake fur that fell off wraps and coats and out of hair. Heather just sat there and sighed, too exhausted to even supervise. All she could do was breathe. Even the heavy breath was too much. She knew she should go to bed, but it called to her, that light dancing ocean with the sphere hanging above it like it was some sort of post card. She was living in a post card, this Heather, but on the back was scrawled a message in red. “Help me!”
So much went wrong at Heather’s party during which she finally changed her name to her husband’s. So, so much. I can’t even talk any more about Sarah the Striver who ate the bow and was kicked out of the party. (Even though I need to point out that Alexis was all, “I’m not a bodyguard, I can’t escort her out of here.” Um, you brought her! Get her out of there!) I can’t even talk about Gretchen giving Tamra that stupid bracelet and using the word “fashionista” with a complete lack of irony. I can’t even talk about how Heather Paige Kent Dubrow still refers to sparkling white wine as “Champs” even though a board of doctors has told her that it is hazardous to her health. I can’t talk about Slade Smiley’s turtleneck or Jeanna Keough’s lump of dough face with two googley eyes popped into it or the nasty red drinks they were drinking. I can’t talk about any of it. There are only three things I can bring myself to talk about today.
The first is a creature that god named Alexis Bellino and then quickly forgot her name and everything about her. He puffed her up with air and then poked a hole in her and watched all the air slowly shriek out of her so what is left is a deflated balloon that is all stretched and warped and filled with little rubber warts all over it. Even worse than Alexis is her husband Jim Bellino, who is USDA certified The Worst. He’s just an awful human being. After telling his wife Alexis that he’s not going to escort her to the party, he shows up half way through wearing a vest with iridescent wolves heads on the back, half red, half navy blue. It is from the Edward Hardy Formalwear collection by Christian Audigier for Ed Hardy. So, he shows up and surprises Alexis and it’s all sunshine and unicorns for a minute, but then Terry Dubrow, Heather’s husband who called Alexis “phony.” Jim wants to talk about this issue “next week.” What, when filming is over? Oh no no no no no. That is not how these here proceedings work, Jim. You’ve been on the Housewives long enough to know that if you show up to a Housewives party, you are going to have to talk about the Housewives issue. That’s just the way it works.
Terry convinces Jim to sit down to talk and they find a little table and Jim says, “So, you said my wife is the most phony person in the world?” And Terry says, “No, that’s not what I said.” For a minute, I thought my Terry had failed me. I thought he had become a real Househusband and would lie about things and try to smooth things over even though he was caught on camera doing exactly what Jim said he did. “I didn’t say that she was the ‘most phony person I ever met in my life,'” Terry said. “I just said she was phony.” BLAMMO! That’s why I love Terry. He’s not going to lie, he’s going to stand up and be accountable for what he said and, you know, call an Alexis an Alexis (which is phony). It was absolutely amazing and I was dying to see how Terry got out of this. But then Heather sat down and started to explain to Jim her conversation with Alexis and Costa Rico and then Tamra pulled up a chair and plunked herself down with a huge smile on her face and a grin that said, “What you talking about? I wanna get in on this!”
That’s when Jim stormed out. “I’m not doing this,” he said. What? You can’t walk into the lion’s den and think that you’re only going to fight one lion. This was the only way this was going to happen, and if you don’t want your life to be like this, then you need to get your wife to stop being on the show. Jim storms out and gets his car and Alexis goes running after him and he’s pulling away and she has to yell to stop him. He was going to leave her there. You know he was not thinking one bit about Alexis and was just going to ditch her and leave her at that party to clean up his miss. That is why Jim is The Worst. But he stops for her, which was nice and she opens the door and says, “Thanks, honey.” Yeah, thanks for almost leaving me at a party and not even thinking about me for one second. Yeah, thanks for that.
Now I guess I have to talk about human blowfish Vicki. I really don’t want to. She’s just become such an awful hissing mess, mostly because of Brooks, the hobo grifter that has latched onto her. I get it, Vicki, that you’re in love and that this man is your everything but don’t you see that he’s going to take you for everything. He’s like a one man cult, always asking about your finances, dependent on you for money, and trying to separate you from your family and friends. And that is just what happened.
Vicki made some stupid joke about Alexis, like all jokes are, and Tamra rolled her eyes. Brooks accused Tamra of giving Vicki “the evil eye,” and all hell broke loose. What the hell is this, some sort of Kaballah convention? Who the hell cares about the evil eye? The evil eye carries no weight whatsoever. What even is it? Do people really care about this? Isn’t it kind of like a “yo momma” joke, like people get offended because they think they should be offended, not because they really care about it one way or another?
Anyway, Vicki and Tamra start yelling about it and Tamra tells Vicki that she needs to stop letting Brooks tell her what to do all the time. Vicki tries to run away but Tamra follows, which is stupid because you never run after the fight, especially when everyone is as blitzed as they were at the party. I’m still not sure what Tamra did exactly, but whatever it was, Vicki said it was so bad that it ended their friendship. Say what? God, I can’t even keep up with these women’s delusions anymore.
Outside Vicki says she wants to leave but she wants to talk to her daughter Brianna, who is a real actual person who is smart and sensible and has no place being on this show (also, she’s pregnant!). But then Brianna goes outside and tells Vicki that Tamra’s right, that everyone hates Brooks and maybe she should think about that unless she wants to be alienated, which she literally is right at that moment. She is outside crying with her man whose teeth she fixed while everyone else is inside drinking champs with diamonds in it. Then Brooks is like, “We’ll show them who’s not alienated. Go inside Vicki!” See, she is doing exactly what Brooks says.
God, when is Vicki going to wake up? When is she going to realize that there is this nasty monkey hanging off her back? Her son-in-law Ryan said the most brilliant thing when Vicki asked that he “give Brianna back” to her. “If your daughter gets away from you, that’s on you, not me.” Why are they letting real rational human beings on Housewives? Oh, it’s so true. And Vicki says that she has misgivings about Ryan and Ryan says he’s right there to answer any questions she has. The problem is that Vicki is expecting everyone to blindly love Brooks as much as she does. That is not the way the world works, Vicki.
Now, I will talk about the final thing I want to talk about. The jeweler with the blue hair. Who does her color? Someone please tell me, because after that night of a million screams, I need to get my hair to be the color of washed up seaweed and see if I can find a diamond in the bottom of a flat flute of “champs.”
Follow Brian Moylan on Twitter @BrianJMoylan
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