‘Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Finale Recap: Fat Ladies Singing
Goodbye, Lisa Vanderpump. We knew you when.
What a stupid episode that was. It was sort of like when you buy a big bag of chips and you think it’s going to be all full of fried potato goodness but then you open it up and find out that most of the bag was just air and there’s a hunk of crumbs congealing on the bottom. It just had so much filler. There wasn’t even enough show for a whole episode. A good 15 minutes was spent letting us know that there was going to be a reunion. Ah doy!
That sort of what this whole season felt like. Yes, a few things happened, but not much. There was no forward movement, there were no breakthroughs. There were no divorces or suicides or weddings or births. Carlton didn’t figure out the spell to revert her to human form from the human change purse that she had become. And there is no redemption for Joyce, a Puerto Rican beauty queen who married a fat, rich German (seriously, everyone, it’s time to call her what she is).
Even the final party was a huge joke. What was this? The Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce celebration for the 100 years of Beverly Hills party? That is hardly a must-attend. There was a bigger line at an Activia party hosted by Jamie Lee Curtis at the Kyle by Alene Too outlet store. And Kyle didn’t even have her White Party this year. What is a year without a White Party? It’s sort of like having a bunny without a nose.
The biggest thing to happen at the party was that we had to rehash the argument against Lisa Vanderpump which, well, I still don’t understand. I guess she supposedly told Brandi to bring some tabloids on vacation. Brandi did not bring them. No one else was there. It is purely Brandi’s word against Lisa’s. Why is everyone so up in arms about this? How did this become the driving incident for the whole later half of the season? As my boy Ken Todd would say, it’s so “stoo-pit.”
The real fight here is that Brandi felt like she was being too closely associated with Lisa Vanderpump. That’s Brandi’s problem. She’s besties with the most popular person on the whole fucking franchise. Oh, that’s really got to be difficult for her. So she dragged this tabloid thing out of the ancient past and she manipulated everyone into thinking it was a story and told them all that Lisa’s playing everyone like a puppet. That’s such hogwash. But now Lisa’s spell over Brandi has been broken and we’ll see if she can stand in the cold light of day on her own.
The worst part of their sit-down discussion was when Lisa tried to defend herself and Brandi said, “This isn’t about you. This is about me and how hurt I am.” What are you hurt about, Brandi? What? That someone tried to make you take a tabloid on vacation? Seriously? Or are you hurt that Lisa made you talk to Schaenna, who fucked your husband. That, I can understand. That was insensitive and Lisa should apologize. But Lisa was friends with this girl before she even met Brandi. She can maintain relationships with both. She shouldn’t be bringing these girls around each other and to do so is callous, but Brandi keeps showing up for free dinners at SUR where the girl works. How about turning down an invitation every now and again, Brandi.
In comparison, I loved how quickly Ken and Kyle’s husband Mmm figured out their beef. Mmm said he was hurt. Ken said that he was Mmm’s friend and that his wife would never do that. Mmm believed him. Case closed.
But the women can’t do that. They can’t believe Lisa, for whatever reason, and after telling everyone, repeatedly, that she did not tell Brandi to bring the magazines and Brandi denying it, Lisa just says, “OK” and bows her eyes down and gives up. I think that’s why they are believing she’s guilty. Because she just won’t fight. And what’s the point? There is no end to this. There is no conclusion, there is no finality, there is just Lisa versus Brandi and no one will ever come out unsullied.
And that is the end of that, as it were. Carlton and Joyce — a troll doll left out in the school yard after recess, a bowl full of only the yellow Starburst, a charity fashion show gift bag full of conditioner and Tic-Tacs (okay, I couldn’t resist a few more) — are probably going to get fired and we’ll have everyone else back next year for another round of intractable trench warfare over arcane things and tiny moments that happened off screen. With that, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills has fallen into the same horrible trap of every other city. It started off special, with the dark undercurrent burbling up every once and again from beneath the mansion floor to show us what we really wanted to see. And now it’s just the same as the rest. It’s about blogs and tweets and who said what to whom and who said it when and who is who’s friend because someone gets more air time or a spin off or an invitation to Andy Cohen’s book party and American Horror Story: Coven viewing party.
Lisa and Ken did what any sane person did: they left. They walked out of that silly poolside party hand in hand and they got back into their limo and they rode off toward their home that looks like a jewel boutique at a five-star hotel. All the way home Lisa stared out of the window, watching the busy streets of Rodeo Drive buzz by as they got further away from town and towards the estates. And then the roads started to shimmy and the gates and shrubs pop up, like some sort of tamed jungle. You wouldn’t know which way you were going if you haven’t navigated it before. It’s easy to get lost.
Lisa knew where they were heading, though, so she was just inspecting the blur as it roared past the car, everything tinged a little grey thanks to the window tint. She felt like she could cry. No. She felt like she should cry, but she didn’t want to. What was left? There was no redemption, there was nothing left to prove. She knew what she had lost and she didn’t really care.
She felt something nudge her hand as it sat on the leather seat beside her and she looked down and it was Ken’s pinky caressing hers ever so slightly. She looked up his arm, up to his shoulder, up to his face and it was focused on her. He was smiling. It was that same ageless beam she had seen 30 years ago when they first met in London and she felt the same way now that she did then. She had everything she needed right there in that limo. Everything outside, well, it was just a blur.
