The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills recap: 'Unfashionably Late'

Just change the name of this show to Real Housewives in Restaurants Giving Rumors — Dames in Diners Getting Dishy…Gals in Gourmet Shops Getting Gossip…should I stop?—because for an entire hour on Tuesday night, the cast of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is just putting on statement lipstick, sitting down at restaurant tables, ordering some spicy-margarita-and-chunky-guacamole variant, and talking non-stop s— about each other.

It’s incredible how much I don’t want the debate over whether or not Dorit was a forgivable amount of time late, or an unforgivable amount of time late to be a story line for the rest of the season. And yet…it gives me such ample opportunity to practice one of most beloved pastimes: going off on Dorit, who is the stone-cold worst. As someone who knows that one of my worst qualities is that I’m frequently a little bit late, I can tell you that the very worst thing you can do when you are running late is lie about it. Just shoot ’em that text: Sorry girl, I’m running 15 minutes behind, first round’s on me, and maybe a GIF of some otters stacking cups or something.

Don’t say you’re going to be 10 minutes late if you’re going to be 20 minutes late, and don’t say you were 6 minutes late when you were 54 minutes late before Teddi hit you with the Smell Ya L8r. DEFINITELY don’t tell it to Kyle, who will run and tell that — and maybe make an entire show about it on a network you’ve never heard of — faster than you can dodge an alleged quivering shove from Ken Vanderpump. Ugh, and look at me go: already going on and on about the one thing I’m dreading hearing about for the next 122 episodes of season 8. But I just can’t help myself. Let’s sit down to 10 different dinners to discuss it in full, shall we?

The only Housewife who doesn’t sit down to a meal exclusively to gossip about her co-workers is Erika. She does go to lunch with Kyle, but she simply raves about her time in Tokyo with Lisa Rinna, and then tells Kyle that her husband, Mr. Girardi, was in a car accident and broke his ankle. She says repeatedly that he’s fine and it could have been much worse, but her husband is 79, and she’s clearly shaken. Later when she talks about it with her OTP Mikey, she says, “For the first time I had to check myself. I thought, ‘Hm, one day you’re going to be here alone…Are you going to be able to stand on your own two feet? Is your life going to change?” It really puts the important things in life into perspective…

Dorit’s making bikinis, y’aaaaall! We’ve heard tale of Dorit’s swimwear line, which was apparently called Dorit International for the five years that she ran it, and “on the cusp of going to the next level,” Dorit says. “Then I met PK, and he wanted me to let go of the swimwear company so that we could start a family — and that’s what I did.” This line combines the two most charming aspects of the Kemsleys: his gross and obvious misogyny, and her complete inability to take ownership of her own decisions and actions. And if you thought listening to Dorit’s normal voice was maddening, just you wait until she’s emphasizing every word, while explaining that her new line will be called Naaaaava Swimwear, which means beeeeeautiful in Hebrew, and is also Phoeeeeenix’s middle name.

But learning about Dorit’s fashion background has led me to one wonderful discovery, for which I will be eternally grateful. While googling “Dorit International,” I found something even more startling than Dorit’s former fresh-faced look and barrel curls: the tagline for Dorit International was — I kid you not — “Looking good should be effortless.” EFFORTLESS! Dorit! I am not exaggerating when I tell you that in my episode notes, prompted by those purple thigh-highs coupled only with a men’s dress shirt and blunt bob like some sort of Risky Business nightmare, I went on a 200-word tirade about Dorit’s epic thirstiness that I will summarize to you only with the final line, unedited: Dorit thinks she oozes excess, but she only oozes effort.

Dorit, if you’re reading this, you can have that tagline for your new swimwear line for the low, low price of never bringing PK onscreen again.

Alright, let’s detox with some puppies. Lisa Vanderpump has started the Vanderpump Dog Rescue Foundation, which is lovely and noble, and I have nothing snotty to say about it. All snottiness comes from the editors when someone drops off a puppy LVP proclaims to resemble her husband, and the editors put their two photos side by side, one labeled “Stray Dog,” and the other labeled “Ken.” Lisa casually mentions that last season she and Ken were working with an organization called “Saving Spot,” but they decided to open their own rescue center instead because, “Things were a little sketchy, shall we say.” Put that in your back pocket… (Recap continues on page 2)

I’m so sorry about this but: Following her swimwear meeting, Dorit invited Teddi to meet for drinks at 4. Teddi arrives at 4 because, as she’s told us, she considers punctuality a “respect thing.” The clock on the screen starts updating at sporadic intervals: 4:06, 4:15, 4:28, 4:36 — no Dorit, no text, nothing. At 4:48, Teddi asks for the check, and at 4:54, Dorit finally calls her, going on and on about how she was on an international business call and didn’t realize the time, and yes, she says she’s sorry, but she makes about 100 more excuses than apologies. Teddi isn’t over the top cold to Dorit, but she’s clear with her that she changed her schedule and left her kids with a sitter (a sitter! I don’t know if I’ve ever heard this line from a Housewife before), so she’s going to leave now. Dorit says she’s almost there, and then we hear her driver say they’re still 15-20 minutes away. “I’m not that hungry to friggin’ hang out with Dorit,” Teddi says it in her testimonial. “Cancel it!”

Later, Kyle goes to lunch (well…she goes to pressed-juice-and-porridge) with Teddi and, of course, tells Teddi that Dorit mentioned she felt bad because she was 20 minutes late to meet her recently. That annoys Teddi because she hadn’t planned on making a big deal of the inconsiderate lateness, but now Dorit is out here lying about it. She tells Kyle that Dorit was, in fact, nearly an hour late before she decided to leave, which Kyle, of course, immediately relays to Dorit at a different lunch. Dorit is annoyed, because she’s crafted a very elaborate alternate narrative where she thought she was meeting Teddi at 4:30, so since Teddi texted her worried at 4:36, it was basically like she was only six minutes late, not like she was still 20 minutes away at 5, which would have made her nearly an hour late, even for her newly invented meeting time…

But hey, what are numerical facts, anyway!? And speaking of numbers: TWO. That’s how many more shows based on her own life Kyle has just sold to networks. I mean — good on her. I don’t love that she’s lost the tenuous grasp on her relationship with her sisters, but you know what, things didn’t seem super great there before she sold their life story to Alicia Silverstone, or whatever. So, as always, I nervously wish those Richards sisters the best, and stand in awe of Kyle and Mauricio’s glow-up since this show premiered. May we all be able to wear the names of our many, many successful businesses on baseball caps one day.

Finally, it’s time for two separate dinners where everyone talks about the same thing. At one restaurant we have Dorit and LVP chatting about the time debacle, and at the other, we have Kyle, Teddi, and Camille chatting about — you guessed it — the time debacle. But thanks to Camille not giving one single f— tonight (“Dorit’s a bit self-absorbed,” she says in testimonial, “and a bottomless pit of bulls—“), the conversations quickly turn to Dorit’s behavior at Kyle’s dinner party last week. You know, the one where Dorit asked Camille if she’d wear a strap-on so she could be their fake baby’s godfather, and then when she didn’t seem super receptive to that, called her “a stupid c—.” Remember?

Dorit barely does, but she tells LVP that surely Camille understood it was a joke. LVP explains that perhaps her yelling the c-word across a table at Camille on the very first occasion of her bringing her new, normal boyfriend around was the more offensive part. At the other dinner, Camille confirms that she was humiliated in front of her boyfriend, and that Dorit tends to talk too much: “Or she was just really drunk, and it was all about her, and she’s really desperate for attention, so let’s target Camille.” Camille, you’re basically just writing these for me at this point.

Now, if you’re wondering where Lisa Rinna has been, well…she’s actually been doing something pretty cool and productive with her time: filling in for Kelly Ripa on Kelly and Ryan alongside Ryan Seacrest. And you know what? I don’t even begrudge her mentioning upward of 17,000 times that she nearly got the job with Regis after Kathie Lee left, because that is cool, and she’s never shady about Kelly getting it over her, and she would be good at hosting a fluffy morning show…

Ohhhh but Lisa the Good Witch can only be Good for so long. So, it’s time for her to stroll into this dinner straight off a plane with a whore’s bath in the Uber, sit herself down with Kyle, Camille, and Teddi, close her ears off to whatever weak sauce c-word and punctuality drama they’re jabbering on about, and say what she flew 2,000 miles to say: “There’s a little something happening with Lisa Vanderpump in the news…a little lawsuit happening,” she says. “I know about it, and allegedly something happened with Ken and the woman who ran [Saving Spot].” All right, Rinna you have our attention. “Allegedly…Ken assaulted this woman somehow.” See you next Tuesday!