Tonight’s episode opened with Kim’s concerns about Taylor’s drinking and closed with everyone’s concerns about Kim’s drinking.

Those who have watched the past three seasons of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills are fully aware that Kim’s alcoholism was her story line until last year when she supposedly went for her third, and hopefully, last stint in rehab. However, for those who pay attention, the fact is that with the possible exception of last week’s episode, Kim has always been and has continued to be, a slurry worry and tonight she outdid herself. When the show ended with them all on a Parisian balcony, each trying so hard to not look Kim in the eye so as not to have to be the one to confront her about her, shall we say, appearance, all I could think was the last time I had seen eyes that glassy I was looking at a deer head hanging over a fireplace.

As someone who has a first-hand, family acquaintance with the ravages of recreational pharmaceuticals, it is obvious to me (maybe it’s the HD TV that gives me a good look at those eyes) that Kim’s problem may not so much be alcohol as it may likely be prescription drugs. The inherent, insidious evil of that is that because she is likely taking prescription medication and not drinking, she believes herself to be okay overall.

That said, the unlikeliest irony is that Kim’s insights, when they can be discerned through the haze, are very often worth listening to. But the key thing about Kim is the sadness. It is the sadness of a middle-aged woman for whom Peggy Lee’s, “Is that all there Is?” plays on a loop in her head when she is alone in the night. When she thinks back on the childhood she knows was sacrificed so that her family’s Hollywood dreams could be realized.

It is sadness tinged with anger. An anger that we see constantly played out between her and younger sister Kyle. Kyle, whose happiness Kim watches and yearns for yet resents her for having because it came at Kim’s expense. Kim wonders, I worked so hard for everyone else’s happiness. When will I have mine?

Now Taylor’s drinking, which Kim decided to make her raison d’etre (for this week’s show anyway), is, by Taylor’s own admission, an effort to drown out recent tragedy and the ensuing legal battles she has been fighting due, she says, to sharp business practices by her deceased husband that had been unbeknownst to her until it was too late.

When Kim (with Kyle in tow) tells Taylor she recognizes a drinking problem when she sees it, Taylor deals with it with all good grace.

Taylor revisits her husband Russell’s suicide and admits she drinks to “drown” her pain and the attendant sadness.

Says Taylor, “There are definitely times two drinks help you forget. Then with four you start to feel a helluva lot better for a while.”

Taylor ends the impromptu intervention with the admission she realizes she has to get a handle on the drinking for her daughter Kennedy’s sake.

Kim seemed sincere even though there are some who may say, ‘pot, meet kettle.’

In fact, the only thing that really bothered me about the whole thing was Kyle continuing her sham concern regarding Taylor’s supposed unawareness of her daughter’s whereabouts that was a mainstay of last week’s show.

Inasmuch as Kyle has already clarified that some seriously selective editing had been done in that show and the fact was that Taylor had never been remiss or negligent in her care and custody of Kennedy, the continuation of the Taylor-didn’t-know-where-her-daughter-was slant was despicable on both Bravo and Kyle’s part. The term Frankenbiting has become known to many. To those not familiar with it – Google it.

In her last blog, Kyle clarified that the child-care worker Taylor has tending to Kennedy has taken Kennedy to Kyle’s house for play-dates with Portia on more than one occasion. Some when Taylor was in-town and some when she was not. That scene had been cut to make it seem that Taylor was clueless about Kennedy’s whereabouts/well-being when it was due to something as innocuous as a missed phone message (ramped up by way of an evil edit.) Taylor may not have known the exact GPS location of the nanny that entire day but she was confident of her daughter’s safety in the care of that person and seemingly had every right to be. Anyway it can be fairly argued that while it is true Taylor sounded tipsy on the phone, the fact is that bit about not knowing where her daughter was, was manufactured drama.

Of course it was that bit of manufactured drama that was to provide the foundation for this week’s show and why the continued feigned concern by Kyle for Kennedy’s well-being was fatuous fakery that really chapped my hide. But Kyle being vile appears to be her story line. As Taylor said tonight to both Kyle and Kim, “It was a hand-off matter,” referring to the fact the nanny had stopped by Kyle’s on the way to dropping Kennedy with her grandmother and stayed longer than Taylor had originally expected.

But the gang gets to leave all these sordid concerns behind for a while because, as it turns out, everyone just happens to be going to France at the same time. Don’t you just love when that happens? Anyway, they may likely have a good time as Adrienne and Paul aren’t coming. And no, it’s not because Adrienne is running through Beverly Hills with a pack of baby wipes cleaning up after herself.

Okay, now I have to go there. I refer, of course to Kyle’s tired White Party and Lisa using the occasion to call Adrienne out for her insufferable insouciance. How can you be aware that you are leaving stained furniture in your wake and not try to do something about it even if it meant just sticking a crow bar in your wallet and springing for a top-of-the-line tanner. It’s not like Adrienne can’t afford it.

I mean, if you knew you were leaving trails like a garden slug as Adrienne seemed to be well aware of so doing, why would you wear clothing – white clothing – that exposes more skin than it covers. The only thing worse than the bronze tanning oil-slick she’s been leaving all over town was the brass balls she demonstrated with her cavalier dismissal of those who have to clean up after her greasy ass. “Just use a baby-wipe,” sniffed her majesty demonstrating yet again that she has never had to clean up after herself or anything else and didn’t intend to start.

But enough of the monarchy, as it’s back to France where festivities celebrating the overthrow of Adrienne’s ilk will shortly commence.

Ken and Lisa stop off for a few days in paradise when they go to visit Ken’s son (the product of a brief marriage in his youth. Ken says he was 19 when he had Warren who is now 45 and who Ken raised alone since the boy was two years old). We also learn Ken has a 21 year-old grandson who obviously loves and enjoys his grandfather as much as Ken does him. Ken is always a joy to watch. His joie de’ vivre is infectious and it is so easy to see why Lisa fell into and stayed in love with this man. Interestingly, Warren’s wife Sue is a contemporary of Lisa’s, a former actress who even got to play a Bond girl in, “The Spy Who Loved Me.” Although Lisa, (who informs us she is five years younger than step-son Warren with whom she has always gotten along famously) assures us she and Sue are really good, old friends, they appear to be the English definition of frenemies as pointed British barbs are exchanged between the two the entire three-day stay.

As I watch the two I am reminded of an old saw that, for me, perfectly captures the British mindset. The premise is that two Englishman survive a shipwreck and manage to make it alive to an island where they spend the rest of their lives without ever speaking because they hadn’t been properly introduced.

Anyway, Lisa and Ken (and Giggy) then get in a helicopter headed for gay-Paree where the gang (minus Boris and Natasha – I mean, Paul and Adrienne – and Taylor) as well as the conclusion of tonight’s episode awaits.

We are treated to some good-natured banter on a hotel balcony with a view of the Eiffel Tower that is truly breathtaking. Add into the mix that it was their great, good fortune to have spent that night on the balcony watching Bastille Day fireworks and for a brief moment all is right with their world.

That is until everyone is faced with the inescapable evidence that Kim appears to be acting, er, erratically. Kyle, who earlier regaled Kim with how she always knew when Kim was high and what she was high on, turns edgily toward the balcony in order to avoid having to confront the unavoidable truth which is, Kim is more lit than the Eiffel Tower.

All does not stay gay in Paree as the upcoming scenes at the show’s close disclose when we see what appears to be another showdown next week between not only Kim and Kyle but Lisa and Kyle.

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Tags: Brandi Glanville, Ken Todd, Kim Richards, Kyle Richards, Lisa Vanderpump, Maurcio Umansky, RHBOH, yolanda foster