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Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Season 12 Reunion Part 1

 

The chicks from Beverly Hills, Bel-Air,  Encino, Hidden Hills, Hancock Park, and the San Fernamdo Valley managed to make it through an entire season, but now the chickens have come home to roost, and it's time to get called out on your shit by the boss, Andy Cohen.  Production does a pretty cool job replicating the iconic Beverly Hills Hotel, but how cool it would have been had they actually filmed at the real hotel ... I can only assume there must be a story there.  Noticably missing is newcomer, Diana Jenkins, but she is phoning it in via Zoom because she tested postive for the Chinese Flu.  Right out of the gate, Andy comments that Diana is the healthiest looking sick woman he's ever seen, and it becomes apparent that the boss man isn't playing.  

 

 

Part 1 kicks off with special guest, Jamie Lee Curtis, perfectly timed with tomorrow's release of Halloween Never Ends, co-starring Kyle Richards. Curtis appeared in earlier in the season when Kyle hosted a fundraiser for her "My Hand In Yours" charity.  In the episode, Curtis shamelessly peddled various products from the charity, and Dorit could not stop describing each of the (rather ordinary) items as “chic”, which then became a bit of a running joke ever since.  Jamie tells Andy that appearing on the show became the single biggest day in history of her chartity, so much so that she has renamed it The Chicest Children's Charity, and what's more, renamed the wind chimes, "Dorit's Chic Wind Chime". 

 

BTW, what a missed golden opportunity for someone (Garcelle) to point out the hilarious irony in a notoriously "long winded" person (like Dorit Kemsley) endorsing a wind chime.  But girlfriend was obviously preparing for her showdown with Diana (more on that in a minute).   Curtis then gifts the ladies with really cool hand-carved pumpkins in each of their likenesses.  Conspicuously missing was Kathy Hilton's pumpkin, but I guess officially holding a diamond has to count for something.   

 

 

As we all know, Garcelle's 14 year-old "child" son, Jax, had recently been the target of online attacks.  Drama queen Cohen describes the comments as “racist and unsettling", and I guess some of them were.  One of the more unsettling comments read "Jax would gasping for air with a knee on his neck had his mother not been appearing on a tv show with a bunch of White women", or something of that nature.  This got me thinking, Oliver maybe, but Jax?  A visibly distraught Garcelle tells us that it was Jax' first week of high school, and what's worse, one of the psychos even sent Garcelle's Playboy pictures to him.  Now I'm sure this wasn't the first time that any of her sons have seen mom's nude pictorial, but still .... ewww!  Andy speculates that the comments were coming from bots, not real people, but Garcelle believes that someone in the group (Diana) was responsible for hiring them.  This is where we could have a long conversation about the age old story of an actress's reckless decision to pose nude coming back to bite her on the ass, but I guess this isn't the time. 

 

Andy asks Garcelle, “Was there a point where you thought she (Diana) was behind it?”.   Garcelle responds, “Yeah, I did, if I’m gonna be honest, I did think she was behind it ... absolutely”.   Cue Diana.  “You think I would send that to Jax?” Diana asked. “Yeah, I did,” Garcelle confirms. “Then you obviously have a very low opinion of me if you think I would be behind bullying a 14-year-old,” Diana replies. Garcelle then simply says, "Yeah".  

 

As it turns out, Jax reposted a particularly disturbing message that he was sent, and where Diana’s name was mentioned.  Diana tells Garcelle that she wasn’t happy that her name was involved, and Garcelle then becomes only more outraged at the thought that she should be worrying about a cast member's delicate feelings when her son's life is being threatened.  Garcelle then reveals that Diana had sent her a threatening text which read. “...believe me when I say if anything happens to my children you will be held legally responsible and no Bravo contract will stop me,” Diana wrote.   *Gulp.  The conversation ends with both women proclaiming that they have hired investigators.   Andy tries to play the impartial moderator, but we've seen this look on his face before, and at this point, I would be shocked if Diana is asked back.  I have to say, I really didn't see this coming. 

 

As we all saw, this season started off with Dorit’s home invasion.  BTW, while I've decided to stop calling it an "alleged" home invasion, I am sticking with "alleged" as far as her being held at gunpoint goes.  In case you haven't heard, there was no reportedly no mention of guns in the police report.  A simple oversight maybe, but not mentioning such a serious detail in a crime is really odd.  There's a big difference in a simple burglary and "armed robbery", that is holding people at gunpoint, and that diffence can mean many additional years in prison.  Andy doesn't bring this part up, but to his credit, he does point out that there have been naysayers.  

 

Dorit then details the ordeal which she reveals has impacted all parts of her life, from her marriage to her confidence as a protective mother. “I’m struggling with trying to get out of bed in the morning,” Dorit says, adding that she has been diagnosed with PTSD, which I guess is supposed to make it official.  The robbery is still an open investigation.

 

Then in a really weird twist, Kyle chimes in, providing an update on her robbery that occurred back in 2017.  She says that the person who burglarized their home reached out to her sister-in-law (Mo has a sister?).  He tells her that all their items are at his grandmother’s house, and even sent pictures of the stolen items. Kyle says that they sent him some of the money he was asking for, but then he got nervous that they were calling the police.  A shocked Erika jumps in and says, "That's what we call a shake-down".  Kunty got that right! 

 

As Andy continues reflecting on the season, it's time to discuss Crystal's alleged eating disorder (I know, I know ... I'll try to make it brief).  You will remember that at Diana’s Christmas party, a tipsy Erika commented on the subject (directly to Crystal) twice. “Like I always say, take laxatives and get rid of it” she said to the sparkly Grinch.  Then in an even cringier moment,  Kunty grabs Crystal's plate and says, “You can’t have this, it’s a chicken tender”.  When Andy questions Erika, she comes up with some ridiculous excuse claiming that she wasn’t telling Crystal to take laxatives, she was saying that’s what SHE would do.  Sure Kunty. 

 

Andy then puts Dorit in the hot seat for her revealing to the group that Crystal was “vomiting every day”.  “That was not okay”, says Crystal (using that annoying millenial tone).  Typical Dorit; she is shocked that Crystal would feel that way. “It felt very gossipy and so personal,” Crystal says, getting emotional. Dorit explained that Crystal had talked about it, and it wasn’t until she found out she raised it with the group that she spoke about it, because she didn’t think it was a secret.  But eventually Dorit apologizes and the two agree to have "better communication about their private conversations" in the future.  Oh brother. 

 

 

But now it's Crystal's turn in the hot seat as Andy brings up Crystal use of the word "dark" when she was describing comments that Sutton allegedly made. As the other women point out, Crystal's refusal to reveal EXACTLY what Sutton said would leave everyone (especially the viewers) thinking the worst.  Often the voice of reason, Garcelle says to Crystal, "You basically wanted everyone to think that Sutton said something racist".  This is why I like Garcelle; she doesn't beat around the bush.  Crystal squirms and says, “It wasn’t something specific ... it was the overall conversation that made ME feel a certain way".  Clearly not buying one word of Crystal bullshit, Andy rounds out the conversation with, “The learning experience seems to be don’t accuse someone of saying something specifically very dark on television”.   What I said a minute ago about Diane goes double for Crystal, but we all know that NBC/Bravo is not going to let a powerful middle aged White man fire an Asian Pacific Islander ... not in this current climate.  But nevertheless, Andy isn't done calling Crystal on the carpet. 

 

When the ladies were in Punta de Mita, it was revealed that Crystal had a falling out with 14 of her friends.  BTW, fourteen is about as believable of a number as the "two huge charity events that Crystal hosts at her home every week".  At the time, some of the other women had heard from her ex-friends that Crystal is basically a liar, so now it's time for Crystal to set the record straight (Spoiler Alert:  She fails miserably).  She said that said friends had suddenly stopped talking to her since she started appearing on the show, intimating that they're just jealous.  Kyle jumps in, saying that some of those women who stopped talking to her were asked to be on RHOBH, thus implying that it doesn't make any sense that they would be jealous.  They go back and forth mincing words, and ends with Kyle revealing that she knows for a fact that Crystal's estrangement to her friends had nothing to do with Crystal being on television.  However, the biggest revelation for me is actually no revelation at all.  In fact, all I'm getting is that these women cannot stand Crystal, probably ever more so than the viewers, even that's even possible.