Kyle and Dorit’s friendship is officially beyond repair, but that’s only half the story.
Photo: Bravo
Previously on our favorite show, Kyle and Dorit Loved Each Other, Kyle and Dorit loved each other. Here they are meeting for the first time and declaring their love. Here they are laughing in motorcycle helmets. Here they are promising to support each other forever and ever until the stars fall from the sky and the ocean boils into blood. Previously on our other favorite show Kyle and Dorit Hate Each Other, Kyle and Dorit hate each other. Here they are arguing at a group dinner. Here is Kyle yelling so hard at Dorit that her veins are straining against her Botox. Here’s Kyle telling Dorit to grow up. And here’s Erika Jayne saying she thought they could fix their friendship, but maybe things are beyond repair.
What was up with that opening? I don’t think we’ve ever seen a “Previously on…” so focused on one relationship and going back so far. Between that and the mid-season trailer at the end of the episode, it looks like the rest of the season is really going to be about how everyone hates Dorit and why. As someone who never really cottoned to her, I am more excited than Shane Hollander shopping for hot dogs, ginger ale, and lube the day before Ilya Rosanov arrives at the cottage. (Also, a special shout-out to Rachael Zoe in the trailer, pointing out that Dorit looks “hot as fuck” while storming away from dinner.)
We don’t get too much of the conflict in this episode though. We do see Dorit sit down with Mauricio “Camera Time” Umansky, where they discuss Dorit’s divorce. My takeaway from their talk is that, somehow, they’re both right. I totally believe Dorit that PK, a mucus and used Band-Aid pizza, would create his own narrative, use information selectively, and scam all of his friends into believing his truth. However, I also believe DJ Mo-Mentum that he’s seen all the texts and that Dorit isn’t as blameless as she would let on. Dorit says that Mo is there as a “good soldier” trying to push an agenda, but she is also doing the same. She isn’t trying to learn the point of view of PK, a starfish that regrows cancerous cysts instead of limbs; she is there to convince Mo that she is right, and when he won’t do that, she declares the whole thing a waste of time.
At the meeting, Dorit says she wants PK, a newt with no penis that thinks it’s Godzilla, to show up sober to see the kids and points out that he’s drinking again, which Mo counters and says it’s only a glass of wine or two with dinner. (Again, I think they’re both exaggerating to make a point.) Dorit tells us that they entered mediation, and she gave her ex as much visitation as he wanted. However, she wants to talk about money, and all the financial documents were redacted. God, I want those financials. I want nothing more than those financials. Michael B. Jordan could show up on my doorstep naked, holding the Kemsley’s bank statements, and tell me to choose, and I would grab that piece of paper and slam the door in his face. To paraphrase Jerry Maguire: Show me the (lack of) money!
There’s also not a ton of strife between Kyle and Dorit, who Rachel invites to the Hamptons because she is not only a veteran of the reality television arts and sciences, but she is also a messy bitch who loves drama. Don’t believe me? She not only invited Donna Karan to drop by her table (and got her to sign a release!) as a giant flex, she also launched into a rant that was not about her ex-husband but not not about her ex-husband where she talked about middle-aged men who can’t handle having a wife who is more successful than them and get upset when she won’t make herself feel smaller to appease his ego. Dorit, of course, immediately agrees and says that PK, an abandoned Rite Aid filled with nuclear waste, always wanted the spotlight. If there’s one thing I believe about her divorce, it is this. “I’m not going to be Ken Todd following behind you with the dog,” he supposedly told her. Um, “Good-bye, Kyle!” is one of the most iconic lines in all of Housewifery. He would be so lucky.
While they’re off in the Hamptons, the rest of the ladies are forced to attend Amanda Frances’s “Manifestation Moment Lunch” at her house. Erika, this season’s confessional queen, says, “How did I get left out of the Hamptons? I should be in the Hamptons right now manifesting billions, instead I’m at Kyle’s old house with a Money Queen welcome mat.” Another of Erika’s zingers includes, “A signed copy of your self-published book. I’m thrilled.” Also, at lunch she says, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Yes! Finally, someone gets it right.
Clearly none of those women, including happy ending Natalie who I keep forgetting about, want to be there. In the car ride over, Boz asks Erika if people are paying Amanda to teach them how to manifest to make more money if she’s guaranteeing their R.O.I., “return on investment.” That’s what it means. I thought it meant “rarity of intercourse.” Here I thought business bros were just complaining about never getting laid.
At lunch, Amanda tries to get everyone to journal their manifestations, and they all write something for a minute and then start talking again. Amanda says that when she does this for a “VIP day,” usually the women write for ten minutes and get very silent and she’s surprised that didn’t happen. Thank the Catholic Jesus that didn’t happen. No one wants to watch a TV show of people just sitting there writing quietly. How do I know? I’ve pitched a show about myself to every network imaginable, and they all said as much.
Everyone asks if Dorit is coming, and Amanda says that she didn’t have to invite Dorit because she was in the Hamptons. But had she been in town, she would have been “uncomfortable” inviting her over. Ugh, seriously? Enough eyerolls to fill PK’s underpants, which are size Galactic XL. All the women start telling Amanda how to act, or at least how to act on a television program. At the lunch, Sutton was Amanda’s main antagonist. I think she was just upset because she FaceTimed her daughter to tell her that she was changing her name back to Sutton Brown, and her daughter basically says, “Um. Is this your storyline? Do you need me to care? Clap if you care.” No one claps. No one cares.
Sutton tells Amanda that she needs to cop to having an opinion about Dorit’s marriage. Amanda says she won’t because she disagrees with the premise. She doesn’t think that she did or, even if she did, that it’s such a big deal. Okay, I disagree with that premise. If Amanda would just follow everyone’s advice, maybe she would do much better at this game. Sutton says that when Amanda has an opinion, she shares it confidently, but when anyone disagrees with her, her body and face crumble. She’s totally right. Everything about her changes if you don’t immediately consume her rancid potion of light. You can tell that she has manifested a life where no one ever tells her that she’s wrong, and, I don’t know, maybe she should be a little bit more wrong some of the time.
The ladies then try to blame Amanda for deflecting her opinion about Dorit onto Kyle and getting Kyle and Dorit arguing. They’re right, she did deflect, but if there’s one thing I agree with Amanda about, it’s that Kyle and Dorit were spoiling for a reason to fight. They weren’t fighting because Amanda set them off. She was just the starting pistol and then these two greyhounds just did what they were trained to do and chased each around the track. Eventually Sutton calls Amanda a wimp for not wanting any part of any confrontation, and Amanda tells her not to call her a wimp in her own home. And a hand off to Erika, the Confessional Queen, to cue up the montage of the Rich Women Who Do Things calling each other a “cunt” over the past 100 million years this show has been on the air.
The boring lunch ends boringly, with the women sipping their champagne in silence, tucking into their salads, and ignoring the commemorative glasses that no one wanted. Amanda says that the one thing the women want to manifest is chaos, and that’s one more thing she’s wrong about. None of us need to manifest chaos. It’s all around us. The glaciers are melting and old alliances are falling apart. People are losing their jobs and their health, just as others are winning the lottery and getting over cancer. There’s no rhyme or reason to any of it, the good or the bad. While she’s trying to manifest, like it’s some magic spell, atoms collide and separate expending energy that can blow up a continent. All we have is chaos and all we can do is adapt, change, meet disorder with readiness, accept that there is no control over nature, even human nature, and to deny that, well, is to be so defiant as to crumble.
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