The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

A Celebration of Life Season 13 Episode 11 Editor’s Rating 2 stars **

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

A Celebration of Life Season 13 Episode 11 Editor’s Rating 2 stars **

This week on our favorite television program, Rich Women Doing Things, the rich women didn’t even do things. They just sat around at lunch and licked each other’s toes, demonstrated scissoring for the last five remaining straight people who had never heard of it, and then licked inside each other’s mouths like a deranged COVID test. They talked about their shopping addiction and then only spent $500 in a store but had enough bags that they could have filled an entire FEMA trailer. What are they even buying? There was no cruising around in luxury cars, there was no fighting about silly things, there were no discussions about race, gender, creed, or color. There was just a big fat gaping maw from which emerged Kim Richards, TMC Faye Resnick, Camille Donatacci Grammer, and Teddi Mellencamp. Guess the only thing the rich women did was say her name three times so she appeared.

The beginning of the episode was given up to Annemarie’s birthday party in Ojai, which I always pronounce as, “Oh hi!” like someone you haven’t seen in forever just appeared. Look, it’s Eden Sassoon. Oh hi! Speaking of Eden and Annemarie, we need to talk about the newest Housewife. Here at the Real Housewives Institute, we give every new Housewife a five-episode grace period before we judge her, and, girl, is Annemarie’s up yet? She didn’t show up until episode five, she wasn’t on last week and it’s now episode 11. I don’t even know if we should be judging her or not yet, but I’m creating the Annemarie Whosiwhatsit Addendum to the Eileen Davison Accords. If we hit episode 11 and you haven’t appeared five times, then we’re judging the shit out of you.

I’m not really judging her, but I am judging the show. Why is she even full-time? She is giving me “friend of” vibes. Eden Sassoon gave more and all she ever did was laugh when Lisa Rinna pulled out her giant bag of pills. What has Annemarie done other than talk about Sutton’s esophagus? Even Crystal Kung Minkoff is doing more and she is a rich woman who has not done a single thing during three seasons on Rich Women Doing Things. When they get to Ohhi and go into an olive oil store (a million question marks followed by one exclamation mark that is in italics because it’s drunk from all the questions), Dorit starts talking to the proprietress in Italian, and Crystal says, “That poor woman, she’s going to be there for seven hours.” See, that’s good and funny! Annemarie could never.

Even when they have Annemarie’s birthday party, she doesn’t say a damn thing other than a “thank you for coming” at the end. Can’t we just airbrush her out of the entire season? It does look like things are going to get spicier between her and Crystal next week, but is her second half of the season going to be enough to dig her out of this hole? Should we even? Should we just let her lie in that hole until she starts composting like one of those Sweetgreen bowls?

The thing about Annemarie is that she’s not just boring; she’s also entirely wrong. She’s decided to make someone else’s tiny throat her entire storyline. Then, when she brings it up to Garcelle and Crystal, she says that doctors say it can be a sign of an eating disorder. Crystal then says that she seems to be insinuating that Sutton has an eating disorder. Then Annemarie says she never said that, that “”eating disorder’ are Crystal’s words, not mine.” Um, you just said them! This sounds like she’s trying to get someone else to say “eating disorder” so she doesn’t have to and she’s doing it in front of the one person on the show who has been very vocal about her eating disorder. It’s like everyone else is playing chess and Annemarie just lost at Uno. She’s like the Housewives version of playing a record backward to find the Satanic messages.

There wasn’t much else going on in this episode. We did see Garcelle have a very cute scene with her 15-year-old future model sons where they talk about sex, and the boys get all silly and squeamish, and then Jaid belches out just like Sutton did in the Sprinter on the way to Ohio, and someone told her she’s acting like a 15-year-old boy. Full circle moment. I just can’t wait to see Jaid wear a kitty sweater on a first date. That scene was cute, and I love that, even though it was a silly moment, Garcelle took the opportunity to tell her boys that no means no and that consent is sexy. This is how to raise young men!

The scene between Dorit and PK, a shart that was given a presidential pardon during the Trump administration, was a lot better than I anticipated. Dorit had her therapist over to talk about Dorit’s PTSD and how her husband doesn’t understand it. I mean, this man is the absolute worst, stopping on his way to let the therapist in to house a slice of pizza. Every marriage should come with an emergency eject button, and I would have pushed it then. Both the trailer and the “Next Week On” previewed PK, a game of Tetris played entirely with scabs, saying, “There are elements I understand and elements I don’t consider PTSD that I find more obnoxious.” In context, it’s not that cringe. I think they are just getting their conversations mixed up.

The point of contention seems to be the Pretty Woman birthday present (anniversary present, maybe; I can’t focus when he’s onscreen). We once again see Dorit saying to PK, if your Dominos delivery man was 200 pounds of already-flushed flushable wipes, “All of this takes a lot of time.” But how does that fit into anything? She’s saying the surprise upset her because she has so much PTSD that anything throws her off. PK is upset because he did this whole surprise and she didn’t appreciate it. But how is the quote showing her upset at the surprise? Yes, she expressed this, but this quote seems to address more how damn high maintenance she is.

It seems like PK, a rotten slab of Chilean sea bass marinated in snot, is mad about her PTSD ruining the surprise and how high maintenance she is. Dorit is only focusing on the first part. PK is trying to see if these things are related or how they might be, and everyone, including me, is a little bit confused. However, at the end of the conversation, he tells her that he’s asking these questions because he wants to understand her and help her get through her PTSD. It’s a sweet sentiment, but if he were my husband, I would request he ask these questions in a less, well, cunty manner. Okay, that’s enough compliments of Mr. Kemsley, the feeling of putting back on a wet bathing suit.

The final part of the episode is devoted to Kyle’s celebration of life ceremony for her friend Lorene, who died of suicide last year. It’s hard to be snarky about such an event, especially because we also heard Sutton address her father’s suicide and the guilt that plagued her for many years. I don’t have anything bad to say about this shindig, but I don’t have much good to say. It was a little blah, to be honest. But what do you expect from what is basically a wake? If people were fighting or being silly, I would have been like, “Girl, it’s a funeral; calm down.” So, for a change, everyone behaved appropriately and here we are just, you know, watching Kyle read a speech in an adorable black pantsuit.

The one remarkable thing about the event was the presence of Morgan Wade, Kyle’s rumored lesbian lover. But that wasn’t even when Garcelle got her dig in about the couple. As they were at Annemarie’s birthday playing one of those games where you read cards with saucy questions, Kyle — unprompted by card or human — asks everyone if they would date a woman, adding that she would. Garcelle wonders how Kyle went from being squeamish about threeways and kissing girls to saying that. “I think there’s a country music song in there somewhere,” she quips. Looks like Garcelle is trying on her shady boots and taking them for a walk around the neighborhood.

Dorit also says that she met Morgan about two years ago at a dinner with Kyle, Mauricio, her, and PK, a person voted Nastiest Man of the Year by Assholes magazine three years running. She said that Morgan really stuck out and that it was one of the last times they hung out with Kyle and Mo together. This is so old-school Housewives, how we’re having to read between the lines and figure all this stuff out. On most of the other shows we now have someone who will bring up the rumors and nastiness about the husband, as Meredith Marks says. Not our BH ladies. They’re just throwing bombs and hiding under the table, trying to pretend they didn’t do it, but the bomb is just like a raised eyebrow.

The real thing that betrayed Kyle, however, was how she looked at Morgan. It’s the face she made when she broke away from the party planner to go moon at Morgan’s sound check. It’s the giggle she makes when she feeds her the cantaloupe she doesn’t want from her fruit skewer. It’s the quiver in her eyes while she watches Morgan play guitar for all of her friends, to help her through her mourning, to carry her — body and soul — through this horrible period and into something else, something different, something where there might be scissoring involved but Dorit will be very very far away.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Recap: By the Throat