'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' Recap: I'm Doing This Because I LOVE YOU

Oh Taylor, Taylor, Taylor. I don’t watch Real Housewives of New York, but even I know that what we witnessed last night was Beverly Hills’ answer to Kelly Bensimon.

Yes, last night marked yet another Taylor-is-publicly-losing-her-mind episode, but first, a few other details needed tending to. Pandora’s wedding continues to be laboriously planned, although let's be honest, it’s getting a little boring, isn’t it? Lisa is going to go ahead and spend $1 million on the nuptials despite her weak protestations, so there’s no conflict there. Pandora has epically uninspiring taste, so the festivities will take place under a bland blanket of pale pink. And while the tables laid out the Vanderpump’s tennis courts were beautiful, watching Lisa, Pandora and Kevin Lee squawk about the pink napkins with the white plates vs. the pewter goblets with the pink tablecloth was about as interesting as watching paint dry.

Fortunately, that bit of storytelling didn't last long, and across town, Brandi announces to Adrienne that she is going to make good on her promise to host a party for the housewives, a group of women who openly hate her. But Brandi also has a sense of humor, and that's why, despite having cancelled the blowjob instructor, she’s still going to inject the get-together with a little sexiness by bringing on a belly dance teacher, knowing full well that any challenge to their sexiness will cause the Housewives’ latent primitive natures to come roaring to the forefront as they compete to prove that they STILL FUCKING HAVE IT.

The get-together will also be the first time Camille and Taylor have seen each other since the tea party incident, and since Camille has been texting Taylor and Taylor has been roundly ignoring her.

And you know who isn’t going to stand for Camille being ignored? Her BFF, Deedee.

Up until last night, Deedee has played a small, background role in the RHBH franchise. She appeared in a few scenes with Camille, and the only remarkable thing about her was her notable lack of Botox, which lead her to look strangely pliable next to the rest of the cast.

But Deedee’s lack of plastic surgery has also made her look deceptively sane, and as we learned last night, she is anything but...

Taylor and Camille's reunion is strange from the get-go. On the ride over to Brandi’s party, Taylor spends the entire time telling Kyle how nervous she is to see Camillle, how she thinks she’ll probably ignore Camille, how she’s still not ready for an apology from Camille, and then upon arriving at the party, she immediately embraces Camille tightly in a hug that seems meant to say, “our rift was deep, but now it is forgiven.”

Even Camille seems confused and uncomfortable by the gesture, but who could know that Taylor is already beginning to unravel?

Meanwhile, it doesn’t take long for Brandi’s mere existence to throw Kyle into a hot rage of jealousy. Despite having shown up to Brandi's house willingly, she proceeds to snark about Brandi's (admittedly irritatingly pert) nipples, and when Brandi introduces Kyle to other party guests by saying that Kyle has a really hot husband (true enough), in a cutaway to Kyle’s interview, Kyle tells the camera that she's had enough of the hot husband talk: "Rawr!" she says, and lifts her hands to imitate a cat revealing its claws.

Soon, Brandi brings out the belly dancing instructor, and before she can say “shimmy your hips” Kyle is on the floor in a split. Then she’s up, with a branch around her neck. Then she’s over to the left with a pink scarf around her head. Then she’s doing some sort of chicken dance as the rest of the housewives look on in confusion. Who has the hot husband NOW, BITCH?!

Throughout all this merrymaking, Taylor is quickly caving under the pressure of being in the same room as Camille. She makes a snide comment to Adrienne about loyalty and friendship while Camille is standing about three feet away, and BOOM. The tiger that lives inside Deedee is unleashed. All of a sudden, she’s wagging the finger and yammering in Taylor’s face about how Camille is great, Camille has supported Taylor, and Taylor is an evil witch, and before you know it, every woman at the party has swarmed Taylor. She gets escorted outside. Deedee follows. The more upset Taylor gets, the less able Deedee is to control her anger. The two women need to be physically separated, even despite one partygoer's vain efforts to diffuse the situation by pointing out the calm majesty of the sea in an attempt to both soothe the screaming ladies and make a poignant example of the pettiness of human squabbles. No one hears her, though, because drowning out the gentle crash of the ocean’s waves are the harsh, shrill shrieks of about 15 women all clamoring at each other to CALM DOWN.

Brandi soon realizes that this isn't going anywhere good, and she does what any sane person would do - she asks Taylor to leave. But sanity doesn’t fly with this group, especially not with Kyle, who’s looking for any excuse to exorcise the rage she feels over a universe that created women like Brandi who are more beautiful than she, and so she launches into her “you don’t talk about my sister” act, only this time, playing the role of "her sister," we have Taylor, rather than Kim.

Meanwhile, Taylor, sadly, has gone into broken mode. She’s crying. She’s screaming, “You don’t know what she did to me!!!” over and over again. And once she’s finally escorted to the car, the tears and yelling give way to wordless sobs, delivered as she looks directly into Kyle’s eyes, almost as if, in her delirium, she’s regressed all the way to infancy.

Back at the beach house, Deedee is beside herself with love for Camille. In her frenzy, she finally screams “I love you!!!” at Camille so loudly and with such passion that Camille was again wrenched out of her drugged haze and forced to be momentarily uncomfortable, because that did not sound like the cry of an anguished friend but rather of an unrequited love. But Camille then floats back up into her Xanax cloud and says, “I know you do.” It’s all too much for Camille, anyway, who insists throughout the entire episode that she really, seriously hates drama.