Weekly Bravo Cocktail Party: May 22

Who’s Not Invited This Week:

Kristen, Katie and Stassi: Honestly, the fight that’s been dragging on between them this season has been so boring and hard to understand from a viewer standpoint. I’ve seen some interviews where Stassi attempted to explain her side, and while I know how frustrating it is to have a friend who is such a source of unending drama and negativity, I also feel like Kristen’s drama is good for the show, so maybe they should just suck it up on camera? It will be interesting to see which direction the show goes in next year now that the friendships that were a driving force of drama for the show have ended in a slow whimper. Hopefully, we’ll get more Scheana Shay (and might I even say, more Raquel?) and a lot less screen time for the newbies, especially the guys.

Kyle: Guys, what is going on with Kyle and the other ladies this season? They seem to be coming for her, while she’s self destructing and making it so much worse. When we get into the Kyle and Teddi friendship debate for the four thousandth time, it’s totally ridiculous that the other women say that they though they were in couples counseling together because they did anxiety breath work on camera with a therapist. However, instead of laughing at it and saying that of course they’re good friends on and off the show, Kyle loses her mind and starts getting defensive and telling the women to f-off. Dorit, who can hone in on weakness with laser-like precision, digs in further, and even Erika and Garcelle jump in, while Teddi is strangely and completely silent. It all seems like a very lame pretext in what is clearly just a power play for the women to take down the HBIC, and I wish Kyle was able to handle it with a little more of the LVP finesse. Or even just channel some of Erica’s attitude when she handily shuts down the argument between Sutton and Dorit with one sentence and even gets an apology out of Sutton. Kyle has always been stressed by confrontation (remember the dinner in Amsterdam where she fled the restaurant like a gazelle when Rinna and Kim got into it?), so I think her poor handling of the situation may be coming from that, but I really hope she gets it together and schedules some one on one time with the ladies to fix this so that we can all move on to juicier stuff. 

Lisa Rinna: I’m still not loving her using her daughter’s issues as her storyline this season. From her discussion with Harry (who’s freshly home from rehearsing a play in Delaware?), it sounds like they’re trying to address it as a family, which is great, but it seems to me that it would be better handled privately and off camera. 

Dorinda: I don’t think anyone has consistently made it onto my Do Not Invite list as many weeks in a row as Dorinda this season on RHONY. She’s in danger of becoming one of those people who is such a black hole of negativity and boring drama (see Vicky Gunvalson and Danielle Staub) that they get booted off the show. She has always gone for the jugular in a fight, but this season she has become a full blown bully. I love Dorinda when she’s in a good frame of mind, and I appreciate her talking about how she’s struggling this season in her confessionals, but I wish that she could apply some of the wisdom to her interactions with the ladies so that we could see some of her fun side and not get stuck in a whirlpool of pointless fights. I like my housewife fights to have some drama behind them!

Who Made the Guest List:

Lisa Vanderpump, Dayna, Arianna: Watching these women lay some truths down on the guys this week was definitely the highlight of the season. It’s been a long, slow and weird trip on Vanderpump rules this season, with the mostly unsuccessful attempt to integrate a new group of younger cast mates, the interminable climb to Jax and Brittany’s wedding, and then the fighting between the friends afterward which saw the sad demise of several long standing friendships that have been the backbone of the show. In this episode, however, we got to see Arianna come in and confront Jax about his bad behavior in a calm and logical way. Then Dayna confronted Max about the passive-aggressive and sexist way he’s been treating her since their break-up. When he tried to turn it on her, she called him on the “jankiest high horse of all time” and let him know that she saw right through him-something that makes weasels like him very uncomfortable and sent him running for the hills. The climax was Lisa confronting Jax in what was definitely one of the most epic speeches ever heard on Bravo, and telling him that it’s actually her show, not his and that he needs to realize that his pain doesn’t make him special. It makes him human, and that he needs to appreciate how lucky he is and stop thinking of himself as the center of the universe, before he implodes his marriage and his life. Truer words have never been spoken to Jax Taylor, but it seemed like impenetrable wall of narcissism that cloaks his brain may have kept them from sinking in. I guess we’ll see at the reunion next week!

Dorit: As if Robert Earl, who owns multiple restaurant chains and a casino, cares about Dorit decorating one room of one Buca di Beppo? The whole situation is very mysterious, but I can’t wait to see it unfold because the Dorit-PK-Robert Earl comedy triangle is so entertaining. PK and Dorit were playing off each other and Robert was able to cut them down to size with a few zingers. Even though I don’t know why it’s happening (product placement? RE has a wife who wants to be on the show? Revenge on LVP?), I’m breathlessly awaiting more meetings between this trio and the red carpet reveal of Dorit’s revamp, which I’m 100% sure will be underwhelming and at the same time, totally satisfying! 

Garcelle and Denise: I love it when the housewives get honest, and the venting in the car on the way home from dinner was everything! That may be the most real we have ever seen Garcelle or Denise, and even though I didn’t agree with everything they said, I loved seeing them with their guards down, just being petty and bitching with their friends.