The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

It’s Not About the Pants Season 13 Episode 3 Editor’s Rating 3 stars ***

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

It’s Not About the Pants Season 13 Episode 3 Editor’s Rating 3 stars ***

One of the things I appreciate most about the Bravo fandom is that for every Real Housewife, there are people who love her and people who hate her. Even if I disagree on which way a person feels, I can usually understand where they’re coming from. I might not love Dorit Kemsley, but I get why some people do (but it better have nothing to do with the CHA-NEL earrings).

This applies to everyone except one Housewife: Sutton Stracke. I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. How can anyone like Sutton, and how can she be in some people’s top five? I have heard it from people, and when they say why, I never get a good reason. I just can’t figure it out. She’s mealy-mouthed, her freak-outs make no sense, she’s moralistic but also has a code that changes more than a baby’s diaper when it has diarrhea, she doesn’t seem like much fun, and none of her clothes seem to fit her properly. Okay, that last one is a little bitchy, but I don’t hate Sutton or want her fired, I swear! I just don’t get it.

This episode is a perfect encapsulation of my problems with her. There were some cute moments, like when they tried to stage a dating intervention, and Kyle FaceTimed a guy who ghosted Sutton after she asked him to go on a second date at a black-tie function on the other side of the country. There was also her whole thing about bringing grapefruit juice in her purse so she could have her drink of choice. Well, if Teddi Mellencamp (say her name three times and she shall appear) is right, she also has a bottle of vodka in there, so if she shakes up her purse, she can make herself a Greyhound.

But for every good moment, there is also a moment like when she calls her short-suffering assistant, Avi, into her room to find a skirt in her closet. Then, after he finds it, she says that is why she likes to unpack herself, so she can have control. Well, Sutton, if you like to unpack yourself, then why did you send your assistant to your room to unpack your belongings before you get there??!! It’s like she wants to be Diana Jenkins so bad, but then when it happens, she’s all mad about that.

It all turned even worse when they go to see Magic Mike Live. Sutton wears pants so that she can be asked up onstage by the dancers; she brings a big stack of ones so that she can tip the boys; she sits right on the edge of the ladies’ couch for easy access and reminds the ladies multiple times that she wore pants.

Then, the dancers choose Erika and Crystal as their grindstones for the evening. This makes total sense. It’s Crystal’s birthday, and Erika is the one who set this thing up, and she’s friends with several of the dancers, including her creative director Mikey’s partner. When Erika is up onstage, she does what the Greatest Showman would do and leans into it. Her legs are spread in her amazing latex outfit that makes her look like an ’80s Bond villainess, and the man’s face is right in there, miming what many in the audience would like him to do to them. Never mind that it’s Erika’s friend and he seems like he might be a little bit gayer than Andy Cohen’s jockstrap drawer.

When Sutton sees this, she freaks out, says “I wore pants for nothing,” and storms out of the show. After Garcelle — in the hottest shirt dress I’ve ever seen — goes after her, Sutton changes her tune and says that she is on the board of the American Ballet Foundation and she can’t possibly be seen at this thing. She says that someone being so vulgar is bad for her brand.

It seems like she was upset that she wasn’t chosen, or she was upset that it was nasty. Let’s refute each of those arguments. If she had just stayed, she might have been asked to do the next act onstage, but since she was gone, they went to Kyle, who wasn’t even wearing pants. (When Kyle got up there, the dancer tried to put whipped cream in her mouth and she kept moving, not because she thought it was gross but because she didn’t want the calories.) Also, I went to see Magic Mike Live this past weekend during BravoCon, and at the end of the show, the dancers went into the crowd and gave a lap dance to literally every single person who wanted one. I got a dancer bulge right in my mouth, and I couldn’t have been happier. (Also, shout-out to the dancers, who get just as freaky with the gays in the audience as the girls.) Yes, if Sutton hadn’t thrown a fit, she might have gotten what she wanted.

Now, let’s say we believe her that she is upset with how graphic it is. (I do not believe this, but whatever.) Sutton knew what show she was going to. I feel like Erika told the women in advance so she had time to watch the movie and see how Channing Tatum dances with the ladies in the movie. Also, if Erika hadn’t seen the show, she at least knew the dancers. Sutton could have been like, “Are they going to be, like, all up in our vaginas and shit?” Erika could have said yes, and then she could have stayed home. She did none of this because she’s not really offended.

This is why I can’t see why people like her. She isn’t entirely honest about her motivations, and then when it seems like she’s being a spoiled brat, she switches what she’s saying and takes the moral high ground, which no one can refute. This not only makes her look good and gives her an unimpeachable stance, but it also makes all the other women look bad because they engaged in behavior she thinks is nastier than naked PK rolling around on the floor of a public restroom after Carrot Top took a dump in it.

“You can think it’s great,” Sutton says. “But I hold myself to a different standard.” Wait, what standard is this? The one where you talk about your perfect nipples at dinner, list off the litany of your sex toys, and then keep Garcelle up until 1 a.m. reading a book about tantric sex? I’m sorry, but if the people on the board of the ballet are getting upset, it would probably be about that, not Erika getting her coochie fake eaten by her best gay Judy.

Also, as Dorit points out, it puts Sutton right in the middle of everything, drawing attention to herself and derailing everyone’s plans because she’s uncomfortable at a show that shows you only one (1) butt and exactly zero (0) penises. Kyle sees them talking and goes to find out what is up, and she, just like all of us, doesn’t buy Sutton’s story about it being too raunchy. She keeps asking if it’s because she didn’t get chosen. She also tells her that her storming out was excessive and she made too big of a scene.

“Then don’t follow me,” Sutton says.

“I was just going to the bathroom, and I saw you guys,” Kyle replies.

“Then shut up,” Sutton says.

“Stop being a bitch,” Kyle retorts.

Yes, stop being a bitch. That is what she is doing. Not to mention that it’s Crystal’s birthday, which she doesn’t want ruined. The dancers spend a lot of time roaming among the crowd and would have noticed that the ladies’ section was mostly empty, and it would have been even more obvious given all the cameras, etc. Erika has friends in the show who will ask her why their table was half empty, and she will have to tell them that one of her friends thinks the job they do is nasty. That’s putting Erika in a bad position. After her past two seasons, everyone is shocked that Erika isn’t giving it to Sutton with both barrels in the car, but it looks like she gets her revenge in the next episode.

Most groups of friends have someone like Sutton, someone who doesn’t get their way, is a little bit drunk, and derails the whole evening because of it. I hate this. It’s so inconsiderate of everyone else’s time, and it sucks the whole group into their gaping vortex of need. Sutton could have said, “I’m not feeling well, you stay here, I’ll meet you guys in the van,” and then slipped out. This is not what she did. She wanted the stink, she wanted the attention, and if she wasn’t going to get it from hot dude dancers, she was going to get it for her friends. I’m so glad that Kyle told her she was being a bitch because I have watched every single second of the Housewives, and this is one of the bitchiest incidents I’ve ever seen.

The next morning, everyone has forgotten about it, mostly because they’re all talking about how Kyle has to take her Birkin to the gym first thing in the morning. Then, at breakfast, Garcelle brings up how she feels uncomfortable talking about her kids with the group after Erika was mean to Jax last season and how Kyle and Dorit laughed about it with their husbands after the fact. I totally get her point. Yes, she has forgiven Erika and Dorit, but that doesn’t mean she can jump right back into that level of intimacy with them. These are her kids, and she needs to feel like they’re being respected.

What I don’t entirely understand is why she needed to bring this up to the group. Just keep the kids close to the vest for a bit until you can feel comfortable with the ladies again. This seems like opening up an old wound for no reason. But, hey, at least the attention is off of Sutton for a little while. But given the way she treats even Garcelle, I don’t know why even she likes Sutton Stracke.

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