Real Housewives of Beverly Hills: The Prime of Miss Camille Grammer
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Last night we finally saw something. A glimmer, a spark of life, a bit of fire in the eyes of Miss Camille Grammer. Where did she come from, this fierce and dynamic creature, and where will she go next? We are captivated.
Before we can get to Camille though, we have to talk about some things I hate. The first of which is Kyle Richards. Well, I don't really hate her, but I'm not digging her reaction to Kim's new man friend. After their discussion on the balcony of Sad Valley Ranch last week, Kim takes Kyle into the house to meet her boyfriend. Kyle walks up to the stucco wall and says, "It's nice to meet you!" and Kim says, "That's not him, he's over here." Then Kyle walks up to another stucco wall and says, "It's nice to meet you." Pumice, Kim's boyfriend, doesn't say anything. He just stands there like a boulder. Then Kyle says, "Excuse me," and runs off into the other room for a good cry.
This is just such the wrong reaction. Kyle keeps saying, "I don't even know him." Well, of course you don't! So why don't you get to know him? She's just passing judgement on him without even having a conversation with him. She'll see that he's good for all sorts of things. I mean, rocks are handy. You can use them to smooth your callouses or ring in a camp fire or weight down a body in a lake. You can use them to throw through a window. Just like Marcus Bachmann, they're versatile.
Kyle bitches about this new relationship later to her love monkey MMmmmmmm (he has a real name, but when I see him, I can never get past that first consonant) and she tells him (or does she tell us?) that she wants all these things for Kim like moving closer to her family and meeting a man and getting married, all these things she thinks will make Kim happy. But not this boyfriend. "This is not my vision," she says. Pumice is not a part of this vision, so Kyle hates him on principal. I kind of hate that.
I also kind of hate that Kim and Pumice wear promise rings. What are they, Jonas Brothers? What the fuck does that promise even mean? Is it because they were both in rehab at Promises together?
I also hate Adrienne Maloof and her husband Dr. Maloof. Did you see the birthday dinner where all they did was fight and argue with each other the whole time. Ugh. These couples are the worst. It's like their little squabbles suck all the energy out of an entire room. I could not spend five minutes with them without wanting to punch both of them in the face. That wouldn't be so bad, because I'd probably get Botox all over my fist and my hands would be nice and young and paralyzed. Perfect!
Know what else I hate and wouldn't hang out with? Taylor Armstrong. Now it's very sad what eventually happens to her and her husband, but this season she is like a crumpled up Kleenex on the floor of a therapist's office that is still soggy from tears she used some snot to affix a wig and a lip implant. I mean, she is just a sad basket case blowing through from one scene to the next. Who would want to hang out with that?
All the ladies show up for her big Ladies Who Lunch Luncheon at the El Segundo Ramada Inn and Conference Center and talk about her great work with BeautyTicket.com, a website that doesn't really exist. She invited everyone but Lisa and then of course Kyle fucked that all up by assuming Lisa was there when she wasn't and hurt Lisa's itty-bitty feeling that she keeps in a carousel glass box on her grand piano in her living room. Ooh, poor Lisa.
But Lisa was having a tea the next day, and she invited everyone (except for Brandi and Dana, because they are both being quarantined with a severe case of the cooties). She even invited Kim who doesn't go to anything. She just sits at home, snuggled up to her rock like a lizard in the sun, all scales and skin folds and claws and a tongue that can lick her eyes.
Know who did show up? Taylor. She breezed in there on the wind like a plastic bag caught on a telephone wire, and she did another one of the things I hate, she started a one-word fight. Taylor's entire problem with Lisa this season hinges on one statement she made. Lisa said to Taylor, when she thought Taylor was being abused, "I know I'm not your best friend, but if you ever need a place to go, you are welcome in my home." Of course anyone who heard that would interpret it as, "I know we're not close, but I like you enough that, if you were in trouble, I would help you." What Taylor heard is different. Taylor heard, "I am not your friend."
There is a huge difference between, "I am not your best friend" and "I am not your friend." One word can change everything. Think of the difference between, "Stop being a bitch" and "Stop being a little bitch." Totally different. Note the difference between, "Now we're fucked" and "Now we're gonna fuck." Absolutely polar opposites. Taylor can not see that. She says that she tries to be friends with Lisa, but Lisa doesn't want to be friends with her, which might be true. I wouldn't want to be friends with that satchel of tears either. She tells Lisa, because Lisa makes sarcastic comments, "You make me feel bad about myself." No, Taylor, Lisa doesn't make you feel bad, you make yourself feel bad in front of Lisa. Do you get the difference? Taylor hates herself so much she's just looking for other people to reflect that hatred back at her and Lisa, who says some hilariously hateful things can be reinterpreted in just that way. The whole fight Lisa keeps sighing, "Oh god," because Taylor has taken something Lisa did to try to help and spun it against her.
So, Taylor storms out and she gets to the front gate and realizes that she is locked in. On the other side of the gate is Dr. Maloof. She takes this opportunity to bitch about Lisa and then to get a little check up on her plastic surgery. Dr. Maloof says, "Oh, is that some Botox or a bruise. I can't tell." Alarm bells go off in everyone's head in America who is watching this damn show. Did you not hear them, Dr. Maloof? Did you just mention a bruise on her face?
Apparently he was locked out and Taylor was locked in, so she does something I don't necessarily hate, but is something you never do on a reality show: she goes back. Do not go back. Ever. Do not ever go back. This is true of relationships, crime scenes, restaurants where you find a Band-Aid in your salad, a butthole that gave you Hepatitis C, and especially especially rooms where you just got in a fight on a reality television program.
You know the minute you walk out of that room all the bitches in that room are talking about you and talking about you and talking about you, ginning up negative energy and spinning it with crackling lighting into a ball that looks just like one of those spheres at the Sharper Image that spits blue flames out at the glass and when you put your hand on it. When Taylor walks back into that room, she is the hand on that glass and all of that negative energy is going to explode in her face like Ron Jeremy at the end of a long day. Except it's twice as messy.
Taylor walks back into the room and everyone has turned against her. They're all sick of her being a skinny version of Slimer from the Ghost Busters just bobbling around and spilling her green goopy ectoplasm all over everyone. They turn on her and start shooting with their spangly energy guns.
Yes, Taylor coming back lights something on fire in Camille. I'm not sure what. She hasn't done much this season but mope around and provide background noise, but here, it was like a robot being turned on after a long slumber. A fire-breathing evil robot that is also your best friend and after it sets the whole town on fire you say, "Good robot. Good robot," because you are an evil mastermind and this robot just ruined everything in the best way possible.
Camille finally said what everyone had been dancing around, that Taylor has been talking about how she's being abused. I think Camille just couldn't sit there and listen to this petty fight about what Lisa said and how Lisa talks to her and how shitty it is that people talk behind her back when she's been running around talking about Russell breaking her jaw and no one will say anything. That is why I love this damn show. There is just so much darkness burbling below everything. It's like a palace built on a tar pit and everyone just runs around the fancy rooms in their gowns (which pretend to have sleeves, but don't really have sleeves at all) like they aren't slowly, slowly, every so slowly sinking into the mire. Then, there it is, right in the middle of the High Tea Room, a big bubble of tar seeps up through the floor and it explodes, coating everyone its black goo.
Camille drew it up. Like Mad Max trying to get gas out of an abandoned car with nothing but a siphon and some determination, she sucked that bile right through the floorboards. Oh, Camille, you are my new favorite. It is official. You looked all fierce and sunkissed and svelte with your turquoise earrings on that couch and you called that sad sack Taylor Armstrong out. You put your foot right on that balloon and busted it so everyone in the room recoiled and covered their ears. We have you to thank, Camille Grammer, and we will built statues in your honor and we will clad them with robes and smother them in tar.