'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' Recap: Boobs and a Break-Up

I think we all learned an important lesson last night, amirite ladies? If you want to upstage someone who's announcing their divorce on reality television, what you have to do is appear practically naked in every scene. Thank you, Brandi, for that immeasurably useful bit of information.

In the beginning of last night’s episode, though, Brandi still had some clothes on as the girls and their husbands picked up where they left off: at the white party, squawking about how Kyle “had” to kick Taylor and Russell out. (But…Kyle actually could have not kicked them out, right? It’s not just me who thinks that, is it?). Everyone rationalizes giving the Armstrongs the boot by agreeing that had they come in, Russell may have decided to sue anyone, at any time, after threatening legal action against Camille, and that it was very uncomfortable, really, for the Armstrongs to have shown up at all, and soon enough they’re all putting on a brave face and going out to dance, trying to enjoy themselves even despite the trauma they endured by watching Kyle commit a social faux pas. What a noble, heroic bunch of women.

After that mess is sorted out (read: everyone gets drunk and forgets about it), the cast starts getting ready to go to Hawaii to celebrate Mauricio’s birthday. Lisa, per usual, can be found in her closet packing, trailed by Ken, her housekeeper Rosia, and Jiggy, who is already dressed for the occasion in a pink Hawaiian shirt. (You know, I used to think it was cute how they dressed Jiggy up, but the poor thing can never move his legs. Someone should really step in.)

Kyle, meanwhile, can also be found in her respective closet, trailed by Mauricio, who is not wearing a shirt, and so I’m just going to go ahead and say what’s on everyone’s mind here, OK? Bravo, can we please have many, many more shots of shirtless Mauricio? Basically, if you could just go through all your footage and find the moments in which Mauricio is topless, and then put them together in some sort of montage, that would be great. Maybe you even air a special. An hour-long special called “Mauricio: Shirtless.” It would probably get the highest ratings of any of your shows. I’d watch.

Also, can you at some point address the question of why in the world Mauricio is married to Kyle? I’m sorry. I know that’s an awful thing to say. But it’s just that she’s SUCH a BITCH. And he’s SO HOT. (I’m sure he’s totally smart, too.)

Once they’re all packed and primped, the gang heads to the airport. Kim predictably misses the flight, Kyle predictably flies off the handle about it, Brandi predictably looks smug, and soon enough they’re all onboard the aircraft (except Kim, natch) getting drunk and toasting how hot Mauricio is Mauricio’s birthday.

It’s somewhere amidst all this toasting and laughing and being hot that we realize something has gone awry with Brandi. She’s mumbling, she’s shrieking, and soon enough we find out the reason: the way she handles her fear of flying is by plying herself with drugs and alcohol - more than a little ironic, frankly, given the Kim debacle, but I digress - top the point of near incoherence, but not so much so that we can’t still make out that everything she says is sexual innuendo. Brandi’s that girl, it turns out, who gets drunk and is funny for about 10 minutes, and then gets really, really embarrassing. She’s the chick who makes the joke about men who drive Ferraris having small penises just so she can have the opportunity to say the word “penis” in mixed company. She’s the girl who drapes herself on everyone’s husband and has a nip-slip. She’s the one at the club dancing with another girl, hoping that someone’s camera is watching.

To her credit, it seems likely that this is just the behavior of Drunk Brandi, because by the time she had sobered up the next day, she was able to form sentences that didn’t involve the words “breasts,” “hot blonde,” or even “penis” - although that didn’t stop some of the women from continuing to make comments about her appearance when she showed up to the pool wearing little more than two pieces of dental floss.

But everyone seemed in good spirits, regardless of having Brandi’s junk flaunted in their faces. Lisa had a sense of humor about Ken sort of leering at Brandi; Kyle, for once, was too distracted to take her vengeance out on the new girl; Adrienne doesn’t give a shit about what anyone is doing as long as she gets the chance to wear a visor with the name of her family’s hotel on it (and she did last night); and Camille, posing by the pool in the most flattering position possible to accentuate her breasts and flatten her stomach, just thinks Brandi is the bee’s knees.

The group soon migrated from the pool down to the beach, and it was then that the storyline wrenched itself from Brandi’s naked body to Taylor’s broken marriage. The only catch was that Taylor calling Kyle and Lisa to tell them that “my marriage is over” had already been given away in the promos, and that was the only thing that happened. (And also...well, we all know how this story ends, don’t we?)

So Taylor’s separation announcement was no big surprise, and it was almost completely overshadowed by Brandi’s shenanigans, although I guess it was sort of interesting to have a better idea of the timing and build-up to Taylor and Russell’s break-up, in a sort of social anthropology kind of way. Now, I’m not sure whether Taylor and Russell did any back and forth about getting together and breaking up again, but unfortunately it looks like next week is going to be all about how Kyle hates Kim’s boyfriend (NO ONE CARES), so that should be a throwaway episode, or at least a recap replete with expletives about Kyle being a horrible bitch.

Can’t wait! See you then!