The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills S 8 E 9 type TV Show network Bravo genre Reality

This episode is kind of like when I sit down to write the next Great American Novel (set in the Bachelor universe) — it’s convinced that it’s busy, and yet absolutely nothing happens. This episode is basically scrolling through Twitter and thinking of things to text its friends for an hour. Somehow, nearly the entire episode is spent either in sepia tone (which seems to represent a rosé-fueled brownout) flashbacks, or in entire scenes where Dorit just recaps the exact plot of last week’s episode. And that’s technically my job, so I don’t appreciate her getting paid more to do it while also being intolerable and making, like, half the preferred amount of punny analogies.

But that’s probably because last week had Lisa Vanderpump dramatically storming out of a dinner and into her chauffeured Rolls-Royce while her friends stood with mouths gaping and tiny jackets perched atop their shoulders, empty sleeves fluttering in the wind…whereas this week, we got a bunch of broads sitting around in sports bras talking about their periods. Nuh uh! The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is supposed to be wish fulfillment — escapism! If I wanted to see women being comfortable, both in body and mind, while eating a leisurely slice of watermelon and knocking back a K-Cup, I’d go to the beach with my friends!

I spend time with these beautiful she-demons because they’re supposed to be living a life I know not. All my friends and I do is sit around hungover talking about who did what weird thing the night before and which bodily function has taken us by surprise recently. That is not what I need from Kyle Richards and Erika Jayne! Despite the season’s overall lack of plot, I’ve oddly enjoyed it. It hasn’t felt too forced, perhaps because there’s no reason for the producers to push — Dorit willingly acts as a wrecking ball wearing a wig at any given time. And Teddi, as a woman who doesn’t like to spend money and has apparently never met a HomeGoods wall-art-quotes aisle she did not raid, has been an…interesting cast addition.

However, I simply cannot understand the editorial decision to only show us a drunken rager in flashback, but give us the cringe-worthy discussion about Erika’s period exit in full Technicolor the next morning. Surely Lisa Vanderpump pulling Kyle’s Hanky Pankys up to her earlobes deserves its own scene. Nevertheless, we’re given merely bits and pieces of what happened the night before at Teddi’s beach house, but apparently Erika wasn’t there for any of it. She was having terrible menstrual cramps, so she went to stay in a hotel, rather than at Teddi’s house, as intended. Teddi and Kyle thought that was weird and talked about it around a picnic table at 2:30 a.m.

Dorit takes it upon herself to share that information with Erika the next morning when she arrives back at Teddi’s while the other women are working out. She wraps it in the packaging of saying that last year she got in trouble for saying something about Erika to the other women, when she should have just said it directly to Erika. But the difference here is pretty obviously that she’s telling Erika something that someone else said (in a drunken stupor).

The only thing worse than watching a fight where everyone is wrong is watching a fight where nobody is technically wrong, but there’s still no way out of it. Teddi has to admit (moments after working out, which seems like a nightmare) that she did indeed think it was weird that Erika left when she had already committed to staying. Erika has to admit that it hurts her feelings that her friends were talking about her heavy flow after she left. Then everyone has to say they’re fine because they feel like they should be fine, but they’re not fine because it’s incredibly awkward. Later, in the car back to Beverly Hills, Dorit says, “It’s not a big deal, and those things can become a big deal.” Kyle rightly responds, “Well you just made it one!”

Listen, I’m not promoting gossip, but I’m with Kyle when she says that sometimes a group of friends are going to talk about the odd thing that their one friend said or did or wore, but that doesn’t mean you then tell that friend to their face in the sober light of the next day that what they said or did or wore was weird. Usually someone acts weird because they feel weird, so don’t make them feel weirder by telling them that, indeed, everyone thought their weirdness was weird, Dorit! Especially when you recently made a porcelain figurine of yourself, you speak in a fake accent, and Boy George lives in one of your kitchen cabinets — which are actual weird things. (Recap continues on page 2)



Once we’re finally past that debacle — and truly, I hope no one ever talks about Erika’s period without her knowing about it ever again — there are about 100 vignettes establishing things we already know until we can get to the next big event. Teddi just doesn’t get fashion! Mr. Girardi is a workaholic! Rinna is keeping her daughters humble! Kyle By Alene Too is still the insane name of Kyle’s store!

But best of all: packing montage. As if to atone for making us see these women as normal human beings who sit at kitchen islands and talk about period cramps, we’re gifted with a packing montage on speed, because the whole gang is headed to New York Fashion Week. Kyle is having a party at her New York store — Kyle by Alene 2 Fast 2 Furious — and Dorit is having a party for being on the cover of one of those magazines you only ever hear about because someone like Dorit is on the cover, and Rinna and Camille’s daughters are walking in shows. And everyone else is just down to clown and pack all their designer duds for NYFW, especially Erika who is always at her most extra while sorting through her insane clothes with Mikey. One pink frock inspires this back-and-forth:

Erika: “We have not worn this, we have worn this, it’s heavy, it’s heavy — oh f—! We haven’t worn this!” [Here, the royal “we” of course refers to Erika, Mikey, and the Erika paper dolls Mikey plays with when he’s tucked away at the DoubleTree after Erika heads out for the evening.]

Mikey: “Yes, she’s something.” [Here, “she” of course refers to the dress, whom Mikey has become friends with, along with the rest of Erika’s closet contents, in a kind of Beauty and the Beast-style scenario.]

Erika: “Oh f—, we have to get on her.” [Pronouns have ceased to mean anything at this point.]

In New York, the women reminisce to the camera about their wild ‘n crazy times living in New York in their teens and 20s: staying out until sunrise, living in cockroach-infested apartments, eating carbs. Ah, youth! And now, Lisa Rinna is taking her 19-year-old daughter to shop for her first New York apartment at Jonathan Adler, which makes me want to throw up (but I don’t want to damage my imitation Jonathan Adler couch). Rinna says it’s mostly for ideas though; they leave with only a tissue box and soap dispenser at just over $500.

Kyle and LVP head to Kyle’s New York boutique to reconfirm that they’re still besties after their spat, so they’re not able to join the other women for dinner. Naturally, Dorit takes that as her most opportune time to talk s— about them. Since Rinna has been off the radar for the last few weeks, she asks everyone what she’s missed, and Dorit happily tells her about the dinner that LVP recently stormed off from, and the argument they had at the beach, and the Erika drama that we’ve already spent much of this episode on. It’s a lot of recapping!

Naturally, it all skews mostly in Dorit’s favor, painting LVP as an over-sensitive jealous friend. The other women let her talk and talk, probably texting Lisa Vanderpump under the table, just chomping at the bit for Dorit to get her wig handed to her by the RHOBH matriarch. And what better place than New York City, where dreams really do come true.