The Real Housewives of Paris Part Deux Recap

 

I’ve found this week’s recap a hard one to write due to my practically being at a loss for words.
As I stated last week, it is becoming harder and harder to watch Kim Richards and not feel morally-compromised. I tell myself that if she had come to any harm we would know by now. The season has been wrapped so we now know that no matter how bad things look episodically-speaking, they didn’t go from bad to the worst for Kim in real life – at least so far. Now, if there is anyone in charge at Bravo with anything even resembling scruples, Kim will not again be paraded in all her blurry, slurry glory for yet another season.
As Brandi rightly observed when Lisa said she hoped Kim was “fine,” even when it was glaringly apparent she was not, “There’s fine and then there’s Kim.”
I should take the time to note here that for the entire episode, Kim seems as wasted as Eric Spicoli and about as coherent.
As usual, as the rest of the gals wait for what seems an interminable amount of time for Kim to meet them in their limo, Kyle is one of the most vociferous voices lamenting Kim’s continued tardiness despite Kim’s having supposedly turned over a new leaf since leaving rehab. 
See, the problem is that Kim is clearly under the influence of something. In fact, since arriving in Paris she has appeared on camera to be even more of an space-case than on any other previous episode in any prior season and this includes pre-rehab. She believes she spent the afternoon till at least four or five PM with Lisa and Lisa has to correct her and remind her they had each gone their separate ways before noon. It only gets worse from there after Kim asks, in a snit, why they flew all the way to Paris only to have to cook their own meals and Lisa’s riposte is that she booked the cooking lesson as a way to get Kim out of her room. I, on the other hand, think isn’t it just like Lisa to come up with such a wonderfully novel, off-the-beaten-tour idea of how to spend some time in Paris.  
But, back inside the limo, things are less carefree. “Careful now,” says Kim to Lisa. Kim then proceeds to dissolve into tears because Lisa has pointed out that Kim is not remembering the day as it actually played out.
Kim continues to play out the episode lit, either from some pharmaceutical confusion or because she is singing the body electric (note her hair as she, Kyle and Yolanda discuss as to whether Lisa’s stated concern for Kim is genuine or not) as she continues to babble, yammer and just plain mentally wander.
Lisa and Yolanda’s halos tarnish just a tad in this episode. Yolanda’s by way of a facile observation she made questioning the genuineness of Lisa’s concern for Kim and Lisa’s jibes. Yolanda falls from grace in my eyes  when she cattily observes that as Kim’s phone has no messages on it from Lisa that day, how concerned can Lisa really be about Kim.
And Lisa’s finely-honed British humor is obviously too caustic for someone as sensitive and obviously fragile as Kim and she does appear to spend a good deal of the episode discussing Kim with some of the others causing Yolanda to chide her to stop. However, to her credit, Lisa does do her best to assure Kim she has nothing but the best of hopes and intentions for her and I believe she genuinely does. We have all seen that mother hen is a role that well suits Lisa despite all the worldly glamour of her life.
While it is true that Ken did earlier suggest to both Yolanda and Lisa that perhaps they both should, “agree to keep an eye on her (Kim),” after Ken remarks that Kim had seemed to him that morning, “a little bit medicated,” I wonder if in Yolanda’s mind that meant it was Lisa’s day to watch Kim and if someone had told Lisa that.
It has been said that those whom the gods (or Bravo, depending on your beliefs) destroy, they first cast high. I guess that is as good an explanation as any as to why we have the twin saints, being brought down a peg or two this episode.   But, it’s on to other matters.
Kyle of course, has been seething with jealousy all season regarding Lisa’s blossomed friendship with Brandi. As Paris (France, not the niece – that’s a whole ‘nother thing that had nothing to do with love but, I digress) is supposed to be for lovers, Kyle takes their being on the top of the Eiffel Tower as an opportunity to call Lisa to the side and demand that Lisa declare her undying love for Kyle. Of course Kyle being Kyle refuses to be called to account for herself and so she deflects by trying to manipulate Lisa’s emotions saying she fears that Brandi has replaced her. 
I think, sweet Jesus, is she for real? Knowing that despite that finely-honed, caustic British wit of Lisa’s she is just an emotional marshmallow at heart and I worry that Kyle might wear her down and be able to get over on her as Lisa will be moved to assuage Kyle’s worries.
Of course my fears are unfounded as Lisa stands her ground and reminds Kyle that they are adults and as such are expected to take responsibility for their actions. Lisa knows now that loyalty is just another situational ethic with Kyle and that because of that she and Kyle’s relationship has changed. Kyle is incapable of accepting that you can’t un-ring a bell. Lisa now knows who and what Kyle is and has adjusted their relationship accordingly. As Lisa observes, “it’s not that it’s over but it has changed.”
Again, Kyle being Kyle has to tell us that she feels that Lisa and Brandi are “mismatched” in their friendship. Implying of course that she, Kyle, is of a much higher social strata than Brandi the parvenu. Although it is a typically nasty, Kyle-comment, you just know you could cut off Kyle’s hair before she would admit meaning just that but what else could she have intended with such a mean-spirited comment?
As Lisa explains how they got to this place we are taken back in memory to Kyle’s unforgivable treachery at last year’s reunion when  Adrienne The-Aloof Maloof slandered Lisa as Kyle sat there silent in tacit complicity even making her own snide comments about Lisa’s character. 

 

I absolutely loved Lisa’s close of this week’s episode as she sums up her and Kyle’s relationship. “We’re fine,” says Lisa, “I’m over it.” I can’t help but think, ‘aren’t we all?”