The dramatic situation two English people would find themselves in looks like any regular old Tuesday to us highly strung colonists.
Photo: Bravo
Last episode we got a tutorial on London neighborhoods, but for this very emotional episode, it starts off by talking about how English people deal with feelings differently than Americans. We see Myka and Margo talking about how they feel all the feelings, while British people scowl and pull their faces away like someone just pissed in their tea. “How awful to feel an emotion,” Martha, the Bravoverse’s new spirit animal, says while holding in a gasp. In my experience, I have widely found this to be true, that the British are usually more withholding than their American counterparts — with one great exception: When they’re drinking. Yes, that is why English people drink so much, just so they can feel, or maybe to forget that they feel, or to foster an environment where everyone around them is feeling so that they can feel openly without being embarrassed.
Because they’re so reticent about anything that might be possibly construed as emotion, when they do emote, it’s all the more powerful. When Emma goes to Mark’s house, which looks like a powder room at Mar-a-Lago, she opens up about a cyst on her pituitary gland that has been giving her trouble and an unknown prognosis. Her even bringing it up is a huge deal and her expressing worry is an even bigger deal. This is the American equivalent of calling all your girlfriends over, having a huge weeping cry about it, eating three pizzas and two candy bars, and enrolling yourself in ChatGPT therapy, which tells you that, honey, you are underreacting. That is what Emma is doing in this scene by talking to Mark, looking at the floor demurely, and wringing her hands precisely three (3) times.
Mark’s reaction, which you might not realize, is equally effusive. Emma says that she needs to be well to take care of her children, and Mark says that she needs to be well to take care of him as well. He holds her hand, gives her a kiss on the hand, and what the English would call a “cuddle” (the Welsh would call a “cwtch” with not a vowel in sight), which is sort of a hug but with more emotional intent. The American equivalent is showing up at your girl’s house with three pizzas and two candy bars and telling her, “You got this, sister. God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers. Do you want to go to Walmart and buy some guns?” What I’m saying is, this is the most dramatic situation two English people would find themselves in and it just looks like any regular old Tuesday to us highly-strung colonists.
I was equally surprised by Mark’s reaction to Kimi’s nude-drawing class, which has become something of a staple on Bravo shows after RHONY revolutionized it during its dreaded 13th season. Their male model is Dev, a delectable treat that I will be searching all over London and Instagram to find, but Mark finds that his “willie” being out is totally “unnecessary and hideous.” Don’t anyone show Mark how to log onto Sniffies. We’d need to get out the smelling salts and then immediately check him into The Princess Grace Hospital. Martha, who has more zingers than sense, totally rounds out this scene, saying, “I’m quite surprised that Mark wasn’t willing to address the penis in the room,” and then, after Kimi shows off her drawing that is all dick and no body (just the way I like ’em!), says, “Of course Kimi only addresses the penis in the room.” That wasn’t enough though. Martha adds that Kimi made him look like he needs a “course of penicillin” because she drew the dick all green and oozing. Leave it to our girl Martha to make even a hot guy’s dick truly hilarious.
The biggest emotions of the episode come thanks to Kimi. The news of her comments made their way around the group like a California wildfire because of Malibu’s own Margo, who told everyone that would listen that Kimi said some not nice things about Missé sharing the story of her brother’s murder at the wine tasting the week before. First, she told Myka when the two went for massages, then she told Martha while talking to her on the phone, and then she told Missé herself when she went over to her house. Missé, of course, is upset about it, particularly because Margo brings up what Kimi said about the murder being drug related while dismissing it, which is the part that makes this discussion tricky.
On the way to the naked painting party, Margo and Missé are talking about how to bring it up with Kimi, and Margo says to do it before she’s had too much to drink. Missé says, “But she drinks so fast!” She’s right, they better swoop in there right as the party is starting.
There’s a very simple reason why Kimi is always so sloshed. Martha says, “Kimi treats emotions like a Brit; she drinks them, she doesn’t feel them.” Yes, Kimi has lived in the U.K. so long that she’s adopted their emotions, their words — and she’s even adopted their accent. Did you hear the way she said banana like “ba-naaaaahhhh-na”? (Fun fact: If you ever want to piss off a British person, say “Bananarama” the American way.) Martha also says that Kimi doesn’t like to deal with dark things and that she’s just partying her way through life hoping to forget it. Martha alludes to Kimi having a tough life, and Mark, when comforting Missé, says that something about the story of Missé’s brother hits “close to home.” However, because Kimi keeps it light, we might never find out exactly what they mean.
When Missé finally pulls Kimi over to chat, Kimi has already heard that she’s mad and immediately asks her why. Before Missé can even give her rationale, Kimi already has her defense: She didn’t want to sit through these dark tales while sitting at a lunch, and that Missé’s sad story prompted everyone else to tell their own teary tales. Kimi is forgetting what she said about the drug-related nature of the crime and is focusing on the inappropriateness.
I do agree with Kimi that if I’m at a lunch with people I don’t really know, I want to keep it cute. Let’s save the dwelling on the negative for small groups, like Emma and Mark being British effusive in a room with more guilt than Saddam Hussein’s summer retreat. I do understand Missé wanting to get the story out there from a tactical reality-TV perspective. I’m not saying this entered into Missé’s mental calculus when divulging it, but the story of her brother’s death was in the press; everyone could easily find out about it. She’s been on reality TV before and knows that, by bringing it up herself, she can frame the story any way she likes. This way, it comes across as what it is to her, nothing but a tragedy, and no one can turn it into a weapon. When someone has a problem with Missé, they can’t drag it out and say, “Your brother was a drug dealer who was murdered!” to make Missé look bad. She’s controlling her narrative and, from a reality television arts and sciences perspective, that is very wise.
Missé and Kimi go back and forth a few rounds about what is appropriate or what is not, and they’re just not going to agree on this because they have very different views. I can honestly see both of their points. Missé says this is how you get to know people, and Kimi says that she doesn’t want to have to deal with dark topics in public. This could go either way. What’s strange is that Margo inserts herself in the discussion, and it seems like Kimi is more upset with her for taking this issue, “stirring it in her cauldron,” and then using it to get more attention for herself. I have a feeling that Kimi and Missé may find their way to forgiveness faster than Kimi and Margo will.
Kimi does attempt a “Housewives apology” with Missé and says she’s sorry if she made her feel uncomfortable, but doesn’t apologize for her behavior at all. Of course she wouldn’t. She still believes she’s in the right. But the ability to stand her ground and be funny while doing it turned Kimi from a reality-TV participant to a reality-TV great in the space of an afternoon. Welcome to the big show, honey. You have secured your spot. Missé and Margo, too, showed admirably that they have what it takes. The rest of the crew cowered at the table while the fight raged on just an arm’s length away. Martha says, “I kind of feel like I should wear bulletproof vests, but I think that is an inappropriate thing in this situation.” She’s hilariously right. But Mark, he didn’t intervene at all. He was sitting there, his back against the wall, thinking about everything he’s just seen, how he wants it so badly but can’t bring himself to desire it, can’t get himself down into the muck to really announce how much pleasure he would take in grabbing it, manipulating it, turning it around, and shoving it inside of him. He will hide behind his wit and his money, never uttering to a soul that the one thing he wants more than anything is Dev putting his entire bodyweight on top of his in a bedroom that looks like a leftover set from a TV remake of Amadeus that no one wanted.
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