The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills recap: I think I wanna marry you
There are approximately 2,800,953 emails sent every second; each minute, there are 3,780,000 questions answered by Google; every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings; and on any given day, there are an infinite number of lie detector tests being administered in Los Angeles by a man named John who would like absolutely nothing to do with you.
I knew the “Lisa Vanderpump takes a self-selected lie detector test” storyline was coming, and I knew it would be absurd to watch LVP and John Sessa flounce into the fluorescently lit office practically oozing the fact that they just coated themselves in a thick layer of Purelle…but I never could have expected how much more absurd it could get when Kyle later explains to the other women how she found out about LVP taking the lie detector test. It wasn’t because Lisa told her she took the test or offered her the results, no; that little scene seemed to be for our benefit entirely, and more than likely a product of the one-act playwriting class Sessa is taking (he failed with flying colors).
As Kyle explains it, her daughter Alexia has a friend whose home was burglarized while it was also under the construction, so that “friend” took all the construction workers to have a lie detector test done, and guess who was also there taking a lie detector test??? Lisa Vanderpump! Of all the lie detector test joints in all of L.A., these poor construction workers walked into hers and reported it back to Alexia’s friend, who reported it back to Alexia, who reported it back to Kyle, who reported it back to her fellow Housewives. You know that movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood? It’s actually about this exact incident.
Honestly, not a lot goes down in this episode other than Camille getting married, and since I am inexplicably annoyed by the way that Camille talks about Hawaii, I see no reason that we shouldn’t spend 1,000 hours talking about every detail of that polygraph scene first. (Don’t get me wrong about the wedding, which was utterly beautiful — but there was something very Michael Scott “I love it, I love this TV!” / Tom Cruise “I love this woman!” about the way Camille was trying to sell us on Hawaii, right? Like, girl, it’s Hawaii. You do not have to explain it.)
Lisa Vanderpump and John Sessa come bounding down the narrow hallway of whatever strip mall they’ve entered saying such dynamic lines as: “Well, here we are,” and “where did you find this guy,” not to mention the very natural, “he’s supposedly the best.” The best what, you ask? Well, the best polygraph examiner named John! And you know that he’s the best because of his unwillingness to disclose his last name, his race-car-driver office chairs, and the high-end digs from which he caters to L.A.’s elite. Let’s talk some more about this office that Lisa and Sessa have just entered, shall we?
It is incredibly small for three adult people to be standing in, but every inch of it tells a story. There is a counter/cabinet situation in the corner, kind of like what you’d see in a doctor’s office, with a built-in paper towel holder hanging from the cabinets, but no sink or apparent need for constant access to paper towels in sight. There is what can only be described as a gallery wall of polygraph paraphernalia, but it’s just the same three posters over and over again so that they’re visible in every shot. One poster shows a silhouette of the United States with two shaking hands inside it, and reads, “Polygraph Examiners of America” — John wants to be very clear about what takes place in this office. Another says in very large font, simply: “MEN,” then in much smaller print, “Police Personnel Only.”
And the rest are just your average waving American flag clipart next to a polygraph chart, no explanation necessary.
The first thing LVP and Sessa do when they enter the office to a monotone greeting from John is discuss at length the questions they have sent over ahead of time. Which seems an odd approach to proving your innocence via an allegedly unbiased test. Now, I understand that John probably does not have a working knowledge of RadarOnline’s content catalog, and that judging by the looks of his laptop—the right-click button of which has been rubbed completely raw with age and polygraph testing—might not have regular access to the internet, and therefore could not credibly come up with the questions himself…and since Lisa isn’t speaking to the other women right now, she couldn’t reach out to opposing counsel for the questions they would want answered…
So, my suggestion would be that we do this thing one more time before the reunion, and have a third party come up with the best questions to be asked during the test. Say, someone who has a deep, deep knowledge of the whole situation because they’ve been writing thousands of words about it every week for the last 15 weeks? Maybe someone who, until just today, was under the impression that it was still April, but who could tell you word-for-word the entire transcript of LVP and Kyle’s kitchen battle, including at which point Ken scurried off to get a laptop, and exactly which berry hue Kyle’s fedora-of-the-day was…
Anyway, just a thought!
Back to the most interesting office in America: LVP, Sessa, and John hover around because there are only two chairs in the room, and things are about to get real musical-chairs around here, real fast. LVP feels the need to explain to John that there are women accusing her of something she didn’t do, and Sessa, sensing a spark of intrigue in John’s cold, dead stare, elaborates, “She’s been friends with these women, some of them for over 10 years, so it’s been awful.” John blinks. He blinks again, “Well, I’m neutral,” John says with complete disinterest, and never have I related to anyone more, except later in the episode when Mauricio is so high he can’t even remember whose wedding they’re attending, only that he is in Hawaii and Hawaii has that good-good.
John begins administering the test which starts with baseline questions to establish truth like, “Do you live in Texas?” and then moves into the questions Sessa sent over, beginning with: “Do you think Dorit’s face has changed in the last year as much as her accent?” Sessa giggles that he couldn’t resist, and he truly must not have been able to resist, because drawing attention to the work someone has had done on their face is a pretty bold move from our guy John Sessa. John the polygraph administrator continues with the questions that are in English but somehow sound like Mandarin coming from his mouth: “Have you ever given a story to RadarOnline about Dorit Kemsley abandoning her dog to a shelter?”
If you can believe this, Lisa Vanderpump passes the test with flying colors and much fanfare from John (“you passed”). And it just…super doesn’t matter!
Sessa exclaims, “Told you!” and it is very unclear who he’s talking to or what he’s talking about. Does he feel victorious because he told John they wouldn’t need a single paper towel during this meeting, and he was right? Is he telling LVP that he knew she would pass the test? Is he telling her that he knew her passing the test would prove her innocence? Because LVP’s innocence has not been the thing in question for so long at this point. These two parties are diametrically opposed and nothing is going to change either side’s opinion. The only questions that need answering at this point are: is there any way Lisa Vanderpump can stay on this show anymore, and if not, what does this show look like without Lisa Vanderpump?
And of course: Why have 30 years of polygraph administering been so rough on John’s hands?
Alright, time for that wedding we’ve been talking about for so long! Camille is getting married on the Big Island and Kyle and Mauricio, Teddi and Edwin, Rinna, and Dorit are attending. Kyle is attending as a bridesmaid, and as someone who wore a navy blue gown in a wedding party just last weekend at what already felt to be perhaps too-ripe an age for matching dresses, I felt her cap-sleeve concern — but ultimately thought she looked lovely. As did everything at the wedding, including Camille’s house in Hawaii that I forgot she had, her handsome now-husband David, and the pasta served in hollowed-out wheels of Parmesan at her welcome party.
Various things are discussed throughout their stay on the island, such as Teddi’s ongoing concern that she’s not spending enough time with her children while she grows her business as…someone who sends out cell phone videos telling people to get out of bed??? I don’t know, I’m still not sure what Teddi does, but it’s hard to focus on anything except the fact that Denise Richards is maybe, possibly filming a Hallmark Original Christmas Movie, bringing together two of my greatest passions: Denise Richards and Hallmark Original Christmas Movies.
But no matter the network, Denise is definitely filming a Christmas movie opposite Patrick Muldoon who is described as her “ex-boyfriend/co-star,” but these days they are clearly just weirdo best friends who exclusively call each other “schweet babe,” an old nickname from the set of Starship Troopers. They might be absolutely housing burgers the entire time we see them catching up, but it’s sweet to be able to tell that two people are actually very good old friends and not just people who say they’re good old friends for the sake of drama…
Anyway, Lisa Vanderpump is not at Camille’s wedding, (a fact that Camille told LVP she understood last week but tells the other women this week makes her “sad”), which leaves plenty of opportunity to talk about her. Namely, at a dinner the night before the wedding where Rinna is chugging tea because she’s sick and Mauricio is repeatedly making toasts to David and Camille “hopefully” standing the test of time because he’s hella high, Kyle unleashes the information that some construction workers told her LVP had a polygraph test. They all laugh at the concept, saying that polygraph tests aren’t even accurate (uh, please do not say that in front of John), and you can train yourself to pass one. “Ted Bundy passed,” Teddi deadpans. She’s not wrong!
But Camille is wrong for choosing to ride to her wedding in the tiniest car I have ever seen, and that includes the other tiny car we’ve already seen this season. Should I wed, my only high-maintenance request will be that I be transported from place-to-place in a refrigerated 18-wheeler that I can lay perfectly flat in the back of. Folding myself into a tiny car in a full-length gown on a hot Hawaiian day when I’m about to have to stand in front of all of my closest family and friends is my idea of a small nightmare. But ladies don’t sweat in paradise, I guess, and Camille shows up looking resplendent, and marries a man whom she describes as the opposite of her ex-husband with a literal rainbow arching over them in the sky. Mazel, y’all.
Related content:
