1. Carey: Carlton's pool party was a grand, wet flu-dream. After the kiddies are sent away for the day, naked women descend on the Gebbia manor to get their bodies painted gold and silver so they can hold trays of tequila shots at the entrance of the house for guests. The Housewives arrive separately; Brandi and Lisa continue on their path to friendship oblivion as Brandi complains more about Lisa infantilizing her (let's pretend Brandi used the word infantilizing) after Lisa tells her again to go to the doctor about her hand. Brandi clanks away from her British superior with her ex-fake-model friends in tow. Ughhhhhhhhh Brandi. Ughhhh. Can someone just give Brandi a permanent pair of crutches? Kyle arrives and of course starts in on Carlton's witch shit. She sees the pentagram tattoo that Carlton got on the back of her neck and goes "IS THAT THE JEWISH STARRRRRRRRRUHHHHH?" Of course Carlton is like, "Are you fucking kidding me?" Kyle has been pushing how Jewish she is this season, so Carlton calls her out like, "Aren't you Jewish? Shouldn't you know?" Which is valid. Kyle of course, pretending to just be naiiiiiiive, says, "If anyone is offended, it should be ME," referring to how Carlton reacted when she asked if it was a Jewish star. KYLE IS OFFENDED. I wanted to leap through the TV, past these women, past the women pole dancing by the edge of the yard on the Cliffside and jump off it. Then Kyle gives Carlton some lame necklace she prob found in the trinkets bin at Forever 21 as a "peace offering" and Carlton, tipsy, is like, "That meant a lot to me." GOOD! GREAT!
2. Eli: Well, I think we can safely say that Fatburger has some advertising dollars invested in this season. I don't live in LA, so far be it for me to talk about what and what isn't normal, but I don't think Fatburger stands and food trucks are usually such a staple at these conventions of the skinny, besurgeried women of the City of Angels. In fact, if I had to guess, Fatburger probably paid a pretty penny for that scene in one of the last few episodes where Brandi sits on the steps with Carlton, picking at one of their burgers. However, when the burger ultimately made Brandi throw up, their PR department probably flipped a shit. And now there's a Fatburger stand at a party that seems to be focused heavily on nudity, which is pretty gross, honestly. Let's keep the hot food minimal around the pole dancers. Though I did once have a pretty excellent vegan burrito at a strip club in Portland.3. Eli: Carlton's party also features what I assume to be a variety of aspiring actresses, painted up as Mexican Calaveras. They seem to be actively weighing the publicity benefit of the gig versus having people see them naked, their painted bodies acting as de facto party decorations.
4. Carey: THE AUTOGRAPH AND POP CULTURE EXPO was EVERY-THING. Ohhhhhhhhh my my my my my my. How wonderful was this???? Maybe too much, even. It was almost too much, Bravo producers. TOO MUCH. Kim goes to a convention where fans can meet stars of '70s and '80s TV shows and get shit signed by them. Kim says she's worried no one will show up, which of course is ridiculous. There's a line out the door for her, obviously, and she looks genuinely grateful and excited to see her array of fans ogle over her. I was happy for Kim. She needed this. She needs this. Daily. Anyway. One fan and her daughter, in strange, whimsical voices, give Kim a small turtle pin, and the goth teen daughter says, "We know you love turtles," with wide-eyes (referring to Kim's bizarre Twitter rants about her affection for turtles and use of the turtle emoticon). Kim starts to cry and talks about how important her fans are to her sobriety. Then this guy named Jimmy McNichol comes over and looms over Kim. He was a teen heartthrob during Kim's reign, and now looks like a cross between Skeet Ulrich and Chris Cooper, and has a missing tooth. They flirt awkwardly like middle schoolers, and talk about how they neeeeeeverrrrr dated and Kim says that one time during school (?) Jimmy walked over and grabbed her ass in the hallway. He sounds just like Kim. All of these child and teen stars are all the same. They are all forever 16.5. Carey: Kyle also begins reminding us (aka beating it into our skulls) that she ALSO used to be an actor. She does a stint on Days of Our Lives as a talent agent, and has the most wonderfully terrifying and sad chat with soap veteran Deirdre Hall. "I just wanted to say hi!" Kyle says. Deirdre stands in the doorway of her dressing room, looking at Kyle like she is a wet dog. "I told the makeup people I need to look cuter than you," she says, and they both laugh and laugh, even though she was completely serious. "How long have you been on this show?" Kyle asks her. "36 years," Deirdre says, with the slightest bit of sadness. "That's...incredible," Kyle says, in genuine astonishment. "Yes...it is," Deirdre quickly responds. Oh, it was terrible.
6. Eli: While Kyle sits in the makeup room, she absentmindedly babbles about actor-y stuff, as she seems to think this is a behind-the-scenes featurette. She dispenses tidbits about actors (AHEM GEORGE CLOONEY) writing medical jargon on their hands on ER, along with other things she's probably realized she's never going to get to tell on a late-night talk show. To her right sits Karen, a make-up artist and decent ringer for Susan Sarandon, who just nods her head, occasionally checking her phone. You can see in Karen's eyes the reflection of herself, lying in a hammock in New Hampshire, reading trashy penny novels, where she so desperately wishes she were. 7. Carey: Meanwhile, back at the Fosters, David stands silently on the lemon terrace behind Yolanda, Joyce, Carlton, and Brandi while they paint stuff for Gigi's dorm room. He listens to them talk for a minute or two, not noticing him, and it really solidified my belief that David lurks on his neighbors' properties at night and looks in at them eating dinner, watching Diane Sawyer. Just strolling along the expansive Malibu yards around him, roaming the hills and cliffs with his hands in his pockets. Waiting, watching, standing, swaying, breathing heavily.
8. Eli: In a development that surprises no one, Carlton can't separate dreams from reality. While painting pentagrams for Gigi's wall, bringing her only inches away from the goth chick from your high school doodling Baphomet in her spiral notebook, she reveals she's had a DREAM. This dream, of course, included Kyle being mean to her. First of all: What a boring dream. These women's lives are so centered around boring confrontations that they dream of more boring confrontations. Also, what happens in a dream is far from proving anything in reality. I once had a dream where I was part of a freedom fighting cell made up of anthropomorphic animal soldiers fighting against an alien threat. I didn't wake up and call Homeland Security, I woke up and shoved that shit back in my deep subconscious, where it belongs.
9. Carey: Carlton puts an ACTUAL spell on Joyce's big-peened, Academy Award-winning German producer husband after Joyce stubbornly laughs off the idea of witchcraft and spells at Yolanda's paint party. "They don't work if you don't believe in them!" Joyce says smiling with clear fear and anxiety in her eyes. "Poor Joyce," Carlton says, "She's so naïve." Then there is this incredibly odd and genuinely creepy transition from the paint party to a shot of a full moon passing across the TV screen with Carlton's voiceover explaining "Whenever people dabble in something that's a negative energy, you always pay a price." The music is this creepy, VERY uncharacteristic take on the soundtrack from Rosemary's Baby, with xylophones and Gregorian chanting. Joyce confides in Kim the next day that after she doubted Carlton, her husband got violently ill later that night, and Joyce is convinced Carlton hexed her. The previews for the upcoming episode show Joyce and Kyle confronting Carlton about her witchcraft. "NO MORE SPELLS!" Joyce shouts. It's about to get Crucible up in here. I SAW GOODY CARLTON STANDING WITH THE DEVIL.10. Eli: Out of curiosity, I clearly looked up some spells on that old witching standby, www.spellsofmagic.com, to try to find the one Carlton might have used. In doing so, I found this spell to "make a person sick":
Focus on the person for a moment and chant "you teased the sick so I shall repeal" three times. It's just that simple!!!As you all know, the sign of some powerful hoodoo is THREE exclamation points. However, even better than this "spell" is the description that's posted along with it:
This is a fairly simple spell (because it was the first successful spell I casted [sic]). I actually ment [sic] to cast it on a random person on my bus (out of boredome [sic]) and my sister wasin [sic] the way and the next day she was sick. Unfortunately I got sick a few days later due to karma but i had a health amulet so it wasn't as bad as her. Be careful though because it is black magic and it's powerful.Thank god for health amulets! If only s/he had a grammar amulet. (Grammulet?)