Last night the ladies of Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills went on a journey! First they hitched a ride on Yolanda Foster‘s journey and they traveled to the center of Lymes, past the lemon groves and through the gardens of delusion and deceit, landing themselves at Cipriani. Afterwards they spent 24 hours on a plane hurtling through the night skies to a faraway land where they slept with the sharks, but alas my favorite part was Lisa Vanderpump putting on Kyle Ricahrds‘ signature kaftan and looking so damn good she put Kyle to unholy shame!
After 14 months living deprived of earthly comforts like concealer, Yolanda has finally rejoined the living. Is it me or every time Yolanda provides a ‘fact’ about her ‘journey’ the math inflates? I see someone studied Econ at the Federal Reserve!
CLICK THE CONTINUE READING BUTTON FOR MORE!
She’s preparing to accept an award from the Global Lyme Alliance for raising awareness for Lyme Disease. This leaves me perplexed, as if I’ve suddenly contracted LymeBrain By Proxy, because in all the months (9, no 11, no 13, no 37… ) I’ve been looking at Yolanda’s instagram feed the only thing she’s raised awareness for are Gigi and Bella’s careers. The only thing I’ve learned is that Lyme Disease makes you skip parties to cling to a grubby bathrobe while posting kissy-face photos in various states of undress. Oh, and that baby cows that lick you during childhood can cause you to contract a deer-borne tick illness 35 years later then pass them along to your children via your leaky boob job. No, I don’t get it either, but apparently someone does since this is the second time Yolanda has been ‘honored’ and she’s choosing to go big by putting on mascara and wearing a dress that resembles the ruptured implant we saw getting yanked out a few episodes back. So, congrats!
Meanwhile Erika is dry-humping a hotel coffee table to show off her makeup, so her ‘traveling glam-squad’ can take a photo. Erika, calm down, not every piece of generic furniture is an Erika Jayne stage.
As soon as Kyle walks into the gala, spotting the other celebrities mingling about she’s through doubting the veracity of Yolanda’s journey. Doesn’t take much to convince Kyle – just a Joe Jonas sighting and Tommy Hilfiger‘s daughter being introduced as a Lyme Survivor.
Gigi is dressed in homage to Yolanda’s bathrobe, wearing a white dress resembling a bath towel with unbrushed, messy hair and no makeup. Was it symbolic? I assume Gigi was representing ‘The Journey’.
Here at the Lyme Disease Super-Center everybody gets a journey – they’re handling them out as door prizes! It’s clear Yolanda has adopted all her Lyme-Lingo from the informational packets GLA provided. You get a journey! He gets a journey! Kyle gets a journey! David definitely got a journey. Bella gets a journey – a big 3-year journey that includes DUIs and alleged nose jobs! Joe Jonas gets a journey! Gigi … Gigi does not get a journey; Gigi is the savior, the paragon of virtue; the Lymie’s living saint. Yolanda gushes that Gigi has surpassed all of her expectations and is literally perfect.
Why wouldn’t Bella or Anwar, you know LD journeyers themselves, be making the speech? Oh right, because: not Gigi.
At the table Kyle and her giant 1970’s Liberace cuffs dab her eyes. She sniffles about how bad she feels for ever doubting Yolanda and regrets even being in the same room as that awful Lisa Rinna when she said that awful, awful, awful UNTRUE word, Munchausen. Yes, Kyle never questioned – it was that terrible Lipsa putting evil ideas into Kyle’s sumptuous hair flipping hair! I thought Lisa V. was the web-spinning manipulator?
After accepting her award Yolanda praises David and reveals that Bella and Anwar have Chronic Lyme. Anwar stares blankly ahead, willing this nightmare to end. Kyle, meanwhile, caresses Gigi and thanks her for her bravery because OMG – touching famous people will like let their famousness rub off on Kyle and then squealllll, maybe she’ll get to walk in Paris Fashion Week!
Also, I’m surprised Yolanda didn’t hold her GLA award in the opening credits of RHOBH instead of the giant diamond. I would say she can display it lovingly on the piano alongside David’s Grammys, but….
Kyle confides to Erika Girardi that Lipsa is horrible for making Kyle doubt Yolanda. Then Kathryn Edwards pipes up that LVP “does it too.” Erika wishes Lipsa could have attended the gala to see how real Lyme is. I don’t think Lipsa is doubting Lyme Disease – she’s doubting Yolanda, specifically Yolanda’s motives! Limes to lemons there Ms. Empowered Panties!
When Yolanda returns to the table Kyle sniffles and begs Yolanda to forgive her for her lack of compassion in seeing the truth. Yolanda gives her a sharp smack on the wrist, forces her to tweet 26 times “YOLANDA IS MY LYME QUEEN” and then hugs her. “Kyle hasth seen these light,” smirks Yolanda. The LymeLight that is, glowing green and eerie from across the dock, the color of limes, pathology, and mucus, yet beckoning with its craw. [Points if you get the book reference!]
Back in Beverly Hills Yolanda and David have sold their home for $19 million and are moving to start a new life… apart. They’re abuzz with packing, the mood is light and happy, when suddenly Yolanda starts morosely bemoaning her exhaustion and how she must lie down. David practically runs upstairs calling over his shoulder that he’s packing his closet.
Once again Yolanda quickly revives herself for the presence of Brandi Glanville, who is apparently Yolanda’s elixir of health. I’m not giving Brandi the satisfaction by discussing her save to say she busted out those tired out fringe boots and her tired-out ass in some tired out ass-baring shorts, and she is tiresome in her shock-value attention seeking tirade. She eviscerates Lipsa as crazy and wig-wearing, then accuses her of preying on the weak. The weak being the very ill Yolanda.
The most interesting moment was when Yolanda informed Brandi that all was good with David – they announced their separation weeks later. It’s intriguing to see Yolanda overtly lying to her very good and eternally supportive friend. Uh-huh. Yep!
Well, we’ll miss that fridge.
At Villa Rosa, Max visits mum and dad. Lisa rewards him for his hard work at SUR and PUMP, running food and bussing tables, with a new Jeep. Max’s reaction is so sweet and authentically grateful. So endearing! Lisa assures us of her staunch Britishness in keeping her emotions buttoned-up, except when it comes to telling her children she loves them – which she does daily. Nice. It turns out she missed the Global Lyme Alliance to renew her passport in Britain so she could travel to Dubai. I’m sure she was oh so sad.
Then the packing for Dubai commences. Everyone worries about the strict customs and laws – morally and otherwise – and ponders who they’d choose as a prison cellmate, not a one chooses Kyle (nor Yolanda), but LVP and her evil webs get the most votes.
Lipsa debates what to pack with Harry Hamlin. Eileen Davidson lectures Vinnie, and Erika meets with her ‘glam squad’ (aka her only friends – the ones she has to hide in the closet from Tom Girardi), so they can peruse her trip ‘look book’. Apparently Erika is smuggling them aboard the Dubai journey. For a girl’s trip? Ahhh…Erika and her lookbook of gays. I loathe a woman who collects ‘gays’. It’s not cute.
Then it’s off to Dubai for a 24-hour journey. A journey for which Eileen WORE OVERALLS. To spend 24 hours on an airplane where one will ostensibly need to use the bathroom. A bathroom the size of the sofa cushion I am currently sitting on. And Eileen drank many drinks. Eileen – go home, I think you have LymeBrain and need to spend the next 9 months wearing a bathrobe in time/truth flux. Also you must cut all your hair off and claim you haven’t used mascara since the late-7os when you purchased said overalls. We will give you an award for being a survivor. So yay – light at the end of the tunnel. LymeLight that is!
After 24 hours trapped on a plane helping Eileen unsnap her overalls, Kyle reveals the unsettling news that they’ll have to SHARE ROOMS! Erika’s heart sinks as she looks around this ally-less limo, realizing she’ll be forced to buddy-up with Kathryn. Hey, heartwarming Lifetime Movies about endearing friendships have been built on less!
Erika’s spirits balloon again when she sees the hotel is the size of a small city and each ‘room,’ if you can call them that, are larger than my actual house and contain multiple floors. Erika and Kathryn actually can’t find each other (they need tracking chips) and are calling across the denizens so they can walk the many miles to the LVP/Kyle suite – a “suite” – fit for queens, and bitches.
Lipsa and Eileen are sharing their room with sharks -the room literally has wall-surround aquariums. Lipsa likes these sharks a helluva a lot better than the usual ones she’s forced to interact with. She and Eileen stare peacefully into the tanks meditating about harmony, and how to destroy it all.
As the ladies make their way to Kyle and LVP’s suite they are so awed by the surroundings they fail to notice Kyle and LVP greet them sitting in front of an ENORMOUS chess set. It was so hilariously intentionally ironic and I loved it. If only LVP would have also been holding a giant spider. She is wearing a caftan with her hair swept up and she dwarfs Kyle’s gift-giving by being so serenely unflappably regal. Kathryn tried to shun convention by coming to dinner in a mini dress, but everyone else dressed for the occasion in a mumu and Kathryn ultimately decided when in Dubia, don a kaftan – especially after Kyle gifted her one.
The ladies all gather for dinner, where they are required to perch rather awkwardly on the floor around a coffee table eating hummus. Lipsa chooses this very moment to bring up her doubts about Yolanda – not about Yolanda’s sickness, but Yolanda’s choices and the ways she uses her illness to manipulate others. Case in point: choosing Brandi and KimKillah Rambles Richards over her BFF Erika. Erika blindly and vehemently defends Yolanda because she has draaaaaank the Lyme-flavored kook-aid and is lying both her asses down in the jungle to abandon her sense of reason in exchange for a long strange journey to Yolanda-land, helped along by the purified air of sanctimonious perfection and David’s twinkling piano keys.
Lipsa can’t let it go – she cannot imagine what Yolanda is thinking remaining friends with Brandi, of all people. It’s that whole birds of a feather thing ticking through her brain. Kyle sits there wide-eyed and innocent-acting, not mentioning how she totally decided the Lisas are evil cretins who are manifesting lies to make Yolanda look bad. Instead she mentions casually that Yolanda announced Anwar and Bella’s Lyme. “Oh really,” murmurs LVP, not reacting and eating a bite of baba ganoush.
Interestingly Erika lies once again to Lipsa on behalf of Yolanda – she tells Lipsa that Yolanda called her the night of the dinner party to say she wasn’t feeling 100, and Erika insisted she stay home. LIES! What actually happened was Yolanda called in a bathrobe bemoaning about her swollen brain and said her spoons were out of order and she couldn’t attend, and Erika accepted it, because what else could she do? Why does Erika need to lie to protect Yolanda? That’s creepy and weird. Why can’t she be honest while protecting Yolanda? Something fishy is going on – fishier than an Erika Jayne concert. Fishier than the scenery in Lipsa’s hotel suite!
Since we’re talking about Erika’s dinner party and all Erika has to complain that the party was a disaster because of KATHRYN. LVP pipes up to let Erika know she’s not upset about the spider comment as she knows it was not said “mean-spiritedly.” And we all know this is a little tactic known as: Keep your friends close [Kyle], but your enemies closer [Erika and by-proxy Yolanda]. LVP may not be manipulative but she is savvy and smart as hell.
Erika is tired of fighting – she just wants to have fun. And I agree! Why is Yolanda’s illness the constant topic of conversation? So they all go out to balcony to admire the view where Kyle makes a toast to friendship. Which can only be ominous of the very bad non-friendship-like things to come.
TELL US – DID YOLANDA’S AWARD MAKE YOU LEARN MORE ABOUT LYME?
[Photo Credits: Bravo]
