“I thought Sutton was gonna be in the hot seat. I didn’t realize I would be in the hot seat.”
It was supposed to be a beautiful day, but then the reunion came and changed everything. After a season full of Sutton Stracke slam downs and Kyle Richards meltdowns, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is shifting gears for a surprisingly ruthless reunion, as almost the entire cast go after Garcelle Beauvais.
It’s an eerie feeling knowing we’re watching the end of Garcelle’s Housewives run, and it’s immediately clear this reunion is going to be brutal for her.
First, she tests fate by saying the cast can finally take a group photo this year, after skipping out in Season 12 because Kyle was crying and some guy named Doug felt bad, while the Season 13 reunion lost Sutton after Kathy Hilton used her telekinesis for evil. Sadly, that doesn’t come to pass since Garcelle storms off set sometime before the reunion ends. Maybe they should take these photos before the reunion! Just a thought.
The reunion begins with a segment that makes me feel like I missed something, as Kyle rages against Sutton and Garcelle while getting glam, and Garcelle tells Sutton she and Kyle are in a bad place. News to me. But alas, this is Beverly Hills, where the worst thing you can do is be mildly biting in a confessional while pushing someone to be open and honest.
RHOBH reunions usually have this air of nothingness, an aura of dissatisfaction. Some franchises can make the most tepid season shine on the reunion stage (Orange County), while Beverly Hills struggles even with the strongest seasons (see: Season 11’s slog of a four-part reunion).
So it’s interesting that the air feels a bit thicker immediately here. There’s a visceral disdain lurking around the corner, just waiting to be released when the first Housewife takes a misstep. Will it be Sutton Stracke, famous for setting off bombs in inspired, never-before-seen locations? Will it be Dorit Kemsley, whose long-winded nature compels people into a hypnotic state of annoyance? Or will it be Kyle Richards and her signature two strands of hair, dressed like Xena the warrior princess as she dodges lesbian allegations?
No, the first shot comes from PK, who lights a match by opting to send in a scathing statement claiming Dorit “has made several mischaracterizations about me.”
“The Dorit I married would never have allowed this, much less caused it. That woman embodied kindness, integrity, and grace. I can only hope this version of Dorit finds her way back to the person she once was,” he added.
It’s the kind of harsh, biting critique only the shriveled-up raisin himself could give. Erika’s still shaking off the “you’re not deliberately cold, you’re inherently cold” burn years later. And it’s one Kyle lightly agrees with, which a viewer question aligns with her not believing victims of abuse. It’s always nice when Andy reads an unhinged question by a viewer from Parasocialville.
Next, Kyle and Dorit get into the semantics of Kyle’s “memes and jokes” friendship with PK, and her texting him before she texted Dorit about the separation. Kyle’s still as obtuse as ever on the subject, which is admirable given her stance on it is so unbelievably bad for her image that a shallow apology would do wonders. A decade of reality TV hardens you.
That’s followed by the one-two punch of Dorit revealing PK’s no longer sober, and Erika realizing the reunion set has the same coffee table as her living room. It looks ugly in both settings; how chic!
It’s Sutton who steps on a landmine next, claiming she’s not just worried for Dorit amid her crumbling finances, but that she worries for all women.
“Whose name is on the mortgage? Do you know thaaaaat?” Victoria Ratliff Sutton Stracke asks.
Then Dorit does a little song and dance to explain her nonsensical financial situation, which only leads me to think she’s either a bad liar or deeply stupid in a way that would explain how she ended up married to a grifter like PK. It’s certainly impressive that Dorit’s house of cards hasn’t fully tumbled in her time on air, I’ll give her that. Dorit lives her life on the green, and envy’s just par for the course.
Dorit is majorly assisted by her emotional support Housewife, Boz, who has brought her stock back into the green after taking over as CFO of Dorit enterprises. Boz is just a bit confusing, hawking whatever The Bad--s Workshop is while toting around a boyfriend who’s clearly up to no good, but sadly in the most boring way.
Her clip package is kind of a series of red flags that make clear that being good at business does not make you the sharpest tool in the shed, something that should’ve become abundantly clear when our businessman president and his tech cronies took over. The humanities are so, so important.
She’s a charming goof, though, especially when you stop expecting Boz to be the voice of reason. Her slight tiff with Garcelle is actually pretty interesting, as both sides make a good deal of sense and the major issue just seems to be miscommunication. It’s not cataclysmic, it’s just a rift between two people who never got to properly know each other due to their own allegiances.
I would’ve liked seeing that relationship further explored, but alas. Garcelle is leaving just as her role in the group becomes its most dynamic. To that end, it’s fascinating diving into the rift between her and Kyle, and Sutton’s role in the middle of it.
Meanwhile, Erika’s claim to Entertainment Tonight that Sutton and Garcelle don’t show their real lives is addressed. It’s one that would land better had Erika’s storyline this year not been “I made my house uglier” while her story last year was “I’m learning about empathy.” Erika Jayne has been a Beverly Hills Housewife for nine years, and she was interesting for two of them. She has no business being the judge or jury on what makes someone good TV or real, given she constantly melted down at anyone discussing Tom Girardi’s legal trial at the height of her villain era.
I don’t disagree that Garcelle’s solo storylines range from tepid to uninteresting, but I believe Garcelle when she says that’s just her life. Not everyone is uber exciting, and if you refuse to bring it in your home life, you can make up for it with group contributions. Garcelle does that, largely.
So when Erika hits Garcelle with “I wish you were more interesting, I guess,” it only halfway lands. It’s a good burn, one that Garcelle only retaliates on hours later in the privacy of her dressing room, but… yeah, it’s the wrong messenger. I’m so sad that Erika gained her lucidity back and immediately went back to the humorless Housewife she was before Tom’s house was broken into and he confronted the burglar and then had to go have eye surgery.
As for Sutton, well, it’s ludicrous to say she’s hiding her life when she’s been the beating heart of Beverly Hills for four years now, and the main reason she lacked personal story in her first two seasons is she filmed Season 10 as a Housewife and was edited into a friend and filmed Season 11 as a friend and was edited into a Housewife. But the Reba arc alone bought Sutton more solo footage goodwill than all her castmates combined, sans Dorit.
Garcelle makes a great point: Just because her life isn’t falling apart doesn’t mean she’s hiding. It’s clear Erika is still reeling from everything and wishes her castmates could face the same heat she endured a few years ago, but that’s not Garcelle’s fault, nor is it Sutton’s. At some point, this merry-go-round made me dizzy to a degree I just want to get off, go home, and forget I ever enjoyed Erika’s villainy.
Kyle piggybacks on this moment to lash out at Garcelle for claiming “Kyle’s not showing her life.”
“What more can I show of my life?” Kyle asks, once again tap-dancing around the fact paparazzi constantly catch her and Morgan Wade at random gas stations while she plays up her privacy to Bravo cameras. If only Kyle would realize that that’s the crux of the issue, not her refusal to define her sexuality. It seems hard to believe that Morgan hates the cameras when she’s seemingly a willing participant in Kyle’s tabloid game. Or maybe that bothers Morgan, but we’ll never know if Kyle keeps hiding the most interesting part of her life.
Next, Kyle breaks one of the sacred accords of Housewifery: She calls Sutton and Garcelle “mean girls.” These are grown adults who star on a show about catty gossips being rude and abrasive, and it’s loser behavior when the fans claim the “Fox Force Five” are the Beverly Hills mean girls, and it’s loser behavior when Kyle slams these two for doing their jobs.
The coolest thing Garcelle ever did was tell Kyle “if you want to be a lesbian, be a lesbian.” We need to celebrate these moments of RHOBH excitement instead of trying to stifle them.
At the same time, Garcelle’s a big fan of throwing a dart and acting surprised when it hits its target. It’s one thing to poke at Kyle’s sexuality, that was a good poking-the-bear moment. It’s another to continue propagating the baseless theory that Dorit’s break-in was orchestrated. It’s not that Garcelle being tactless and flat-out mean is wrong; that’s the name of the game on Bravo. It’s that she can’t just own it was nasty to say.
I love when Garcelle dips her toes into villainy, but I hate when she falls into the Lisa Vanderpump trap of pretending she’s above Housewifery, and that it’s just observational (or British) humor. Dorit rarely gets a gag in on Garcelle, but she certainly comes out better in this exchange as she slams Garcelle and her “four other people from Twitter” for the absurd claim.
And thus ends Reunion Part 1, with Garcelle down but decidedly not out… yet. There’s no doubt the fans will be in a fury, but this is the most well-matched, dynamic fighting RHOBH has seen in quite a while, as all sides are sympathetic to a degree, while no one’s coming out unscathed. Cheers to the next two rounds.
