'The Kardashians' Episode 3 Recap: Let Us Be Covered in the Blood of Christ

This week on Hulu’s The Kardashians, Khloé Kardashian led a prayer for her sister Kimberly on the morning of the most important day of the mogul/comedian’s life — the day she hosted SNL —in the immediate afterglow of her estranged ex-husband Kanye West flying from New York to Los Angeles and back in the span of 12 hours to retrieve a desktop computer and hard drive from the rapper/former Kim-lover/extortionist Ray J, that was purported to contain unseen sex tape footage. (It turned out to just be nightclub footage – “Nothing sexual, nothing weird.”)

“Please give us all the love and grace and let us be covered in the blood of Jesus Christ,” Khloé said to the prayer circle filled out mostly by miscellaneous Kardashian-Jenner assistants.

Kim, in a protective hot-pink hazmat suit that would likely allow her to be covered in the blood of Jesus Christ without needing to take a body shower before SNL, interrupted Khloé’s mega-violent soliloquy.

“And please let us have a sense of humor and no one take anything personally that I say,” she pled to God, holding hands with Kanye and the sex tape suitcase.

That is an objectively hilarious way to cut off your dead-serious, devout sister’s graphic prayer to a nebulous, Justin Bieber-endorsed God, but nobody really laughs at Kim. And that is when I realized that perhaps this scene gets to the root of Kim’s compulsions for perfection (and for her success): Longtime Keeping Up With the Kardashians producer Ryan Seacrest’s cronies pushed the narrative that Khloé is the funny one, Kourtney is the cryptoid, and Kim is the one with the ass. As she’s gotten richer, Kim’s become a little bit of everything. But she’ll never shake off her self-perception that she isn’t funny.

I want to shake her and inhale her scent while I’m at it: Remember that time you rented Kris a monkey? That was pretty good! And don’t worry! Nobody on this show is funny. I didn’t smile a single time during the entire episode, even as the who’s who of comedy superstars orbited around Keeks backstage at SNL and at the afterparty: Chris Rock (remember the slap!?), Amy Schumer, Lorne Michaels, Aidy Bryant, Colin Jost, Bowen Yang, Michael Che, and Punkie Johnson. No sign of Pete Davidson yet. Later in the episode, Ellen appeared with Khloé, which pissed me the hell off.

Actually, I take it back: I did smile and text eight people at the part of the episode where Kim left the stage after the SNL goodnight, only to be greeted by one of the most random gang of local street toughs Midtown has ever assembled: Gayle King, Scott Disick, and Foodgod Jonathan Cheban. What did they talk about amongst themselves, shifting on their heels, waiting for Kim to get off stage and absorb everyone’s focus? The time Oprah squeezed a bunch of limes with her teeth at Yosemite on her road trip with Gayle?

At the afterparty, that legendary crew dispersed, and Chris Rock (I’m remembering the slap again) told Kim that her monologue was “comedy-funny” and was delivered like “an actress or comedian.” Well obviously — it has only been nine years since her star turn as Office Girl in Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor. Regardless, Kim turns to the camera in-scene to ensure they got that.

“Chris Rock made my life. I'm not funny, so the fact that he gave me this compliment…” Kim trails off, smiling, aglow. Poor Kimmy. I want to remind her that the time she wouldn’t stop taking selfies when her sister was going to jail was a trailblazing moment for female comediennes, on par with Nanette or Beanie Feldstein’s recent turn in Funny Girl.

Not much happens in the back half of the episode. Khloé brings the wrong cut of SKIMS to Ellen, Kris confides in Ellen about Travis’s engagement plans, Travis’s idea might be foiled by a surprise egg retrieval on the same day, and Kylie’s lip filler looks like it might have migrated a bit, though we don’t talk about it. The entire family dances around the state of Scott’s mental stability regarding his inevitable reaction when he finds out the mother of his children is getting married to someone else, and Kourtney doesn’t appear a single time.

Now that The Kardashians, which has up to now been a too-long docu-series about the rigors of producing SNL, has reached its climax, I hope it can start making me laugh.

Last week: ‘The Kardashians’ Episode 2 Recap: Truth in Comedy