Real Housewives Recap Roundup: Betrayal, Thy Name is Grammer

Thursday, February 7th by

 

Who won the drama awards this week? Watch this space for weekly highlights from the Real Housewives franchises.

The ladies of Atlanta got the week off due to the Beyoncé Bowl, but speaking of which: Queen Bey herself referenced her proudest self-proclaimed doppelgänger Kenya Moore by dubbing her own instant-legend halftime performance "Gone With the Wind fabulous!" Are you dying? I've been dead for days! The neighbors are getting concerned. Clearly Kenya is riding her crazy all the way to the superstar notoriety! And now, on to this week's Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

The Ann Coulter Award for Blonde Conservative Bullshitter: Adrienne

Adrienne pulled off the tricky feat of being worse than Kyle this week. While the rest of the girls were shrieking on stripper poles and drunkenly confronting each other at a private suite dinner in Vegas, Adrienne was making constipated faces (see above) while engaging in another time-honored Housewives tradition: branding other people's work as your own. It appears that Adrienne wants to follow her gaudy shoe line with a matching gaudy handbag line, so she hired a few poor bitches to assemble some sketches and present them for her unqualified approval. She then partakes in some unforgivable slut-shaming, pointing out that she was having her so-called "business" meeting while Brandi was hosting her Night School 4 Girls class because "Brandi's business is on the pole." Uh-huh, you know why else Brandi was putting her "business" on that pole? TO FEED HER CHILDREN BECAUSE SHE IS A MIDDLE-CLASS SINGLE MOM AND YOU AND YOUR FILTHY RICH SIMIAN HUSBAND ARE SUING HER.

The Marilyn Monroe in All About Eve Award for Most Scene-Stealing Starlet Cameo: Paul's laser hair removal lady

In what will presumably be one of our final "Paul has an embarrassing personal procedure on camera" segments due to his looming divorce from Adrienne, he endures laser hair removal on his shoulders and back because of that time his hirsute frame was mocked by a pair of hairless teenagers. But the big story here was Paul's laser "technician," who looked by all observable appearances to be a porn star donning a white lab coat I really expected her to rip off at any moment before mounting him. She made Jenna Jameson look like Lena Dunham.

The ASPCA Commercial Award for Segment Most in Need of a Sarah McLachlan Song: Kim's surgery

If ever there was a time to advocate for producer intervention, it would have been during Kim's utterly sad and unnecessary nose job surgery. Right from the very beginning, when she gave her surgeon the Kim Richards Happiness Test, this entire sequence should have been scored by Sarah McLachlan's "Angel." By the time Kim was on camera when she absolutely should not have been, bloody and stitched and doped up post-surgery, alone in the hospital, calling out in vain for her sister or daughters... let's just say I was ready to make a donation.

Hot, Slutty Judas of the Week: Camille

Like all living people, I was very excited to witness the return of Dramatic Camille this week—that ever-elusive glimpse of all the ugly she keeps bottled up behind that immaculate face and whatever pills she's been on since her split from Kelsey Grammer. Dramatic Camille had just one doozy appearance on season two, and it pretty much changed the direction of the entire show: if she hadn't called out Russell's abuse of Taylor on camera in front of the entire cast, who knows how things would have gone differently? But sadly, Dramatic Camille's appearance this season wasn't nearly as cathartic or satisfying. Instead, she got upset for the exact opposite reason: Brandi was trying to drag her into a drama that she wanted no part of. As we know, Camille has been very careful about her self-representation since being the season one villain, and is quite serious about staying above the fray. And this led her to break my heart by betraying her alliance with Brandi, refusing to corroborate her story about the origin of the Adrienne conflict. But at the very least she gave us a great new catchphrase to slur while holding on to one's dignity despite immense drunkenness: "I can take it, but I will not stand for it!"

Unexpected Heroine of the Week: Yolanda

I never thought I'd say this, but three cheers for Yolanda! She finally proved this week that she has a purpose on this show other than hawking the Master Cleanse and inspiring a million Pinterest "My Dream House" boards with her palatial estate. She seemed loosened up right from the top, when she cheerfully jumped onto the pole at Brandi's class while the rest of the ladies were drowning in self-loathing. The looseness continued (and was perhaps intensified) when she hilariously chose straight tequila as her drink of choice during the dinner party while the rest of the ladies chugged their usual white wine (presumably this was a sugar-related concern). And then, most awesomely, she wisely intuited that Kyle was the real drama culprit during the group argument that ensued ("Kyle loves to make drama" she asserted correctly in her interview), focusing directly on her while elegantly stating, "We've wasted three dinners screaming about this. You've said [your opinion] so many times. We all know it. Let's move on." GOOOOOOOOOLANDA!!! She then shushed Camille (!) before quietly excusing herself to climb aboard her husband's private jet and return to Malibu. Yolanda wins, guys.

Jason LeRoy is a pop culture journalist and blogger. He is perhaps best known as the journalist to whom Rashida Jones was speaking when she urged John Travolta to come out, leading to Jason’s first awkward phone call from Inside Edition. He’s become more comfortable around movie stars since once losing his composure and terrifying Anna Kendrick during a Golden Globes party at the Chateau Marmont in 2010, but still hyperventilates around Internet celebrities and reality stars. Find him on Twitter at @Jason_LeRoy.