The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Season-Finale Recap: Under the Cover of Darkness

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
Closing Chapters
Season 15 Episode 18
Editor’s Rating ★★★★
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This week on the season finale of Rich Women Doing Things, the rich women did things for the last time. They watched as their $40,000 Gucci bear purse was knocked off a mirrored end table and broke. They then, in the voice of the bear, murmured, “Mommy, it hurts. It hurts,” and then picked up a solitary Tum from the carpet and designated it as fine to eat because her friend owned the club. They sat in a living room with all of their clones, I mean daughters, and all rasped in their deep voices about whether or not their separated parents should have to share a bedroom at the second oldest clone’s wedding. They threw garden parties for their even richer daughters so that they could launch a jewelry line that is festooned with bees and then complain that all of the floral arrangements look alike and that it feels like a charity fundraiser because bee jewelry is clearly not charity.

But mostly, what the women did this week was fight with Dorit, who has become so insufferable that she might start getting her own withering descriptions like her soon-to-be-ex-husband, PK, a sewer full of rotted tiramisu. It starts at her cover reveal party, which Kyle, Erika, and Sutton all decide to skip because Dorit, a Shein bikini that comes with a built-in yeast infection, has treated them like shit all summer long. When she realizes that they’re all no-shows, she tells her hot party planner, “I’m surrounded by fucking cunts.” I hate to quote Kyle Richards, but if you meet more than one cunt in a day, maybe you scheduled some me time on April 21 because you’ll be seeing yourself next Tuesday. Dorit reveals her cover. She is Unburdened, unbridled, and unbothered. She is homeless, not toothless. She is Lucy Lucy, and she is (what?) Apple Juice. You know that’s right.

While the party is happening, Erika is at Sutton’s in the cuntiest knit polo shirt (hey sis, can I offer you $49.99 for it on Vinted?) and tells Sutton that she thought that she should attend. She thinks about all the times that Dorit has supported her, but then she remembers how poorly Dorit treated her in Italy, how she said Boz was a better friend to her, how she said she was attacking her job, and she decides she has met her limit. 

That is what this whole episode is about: hitting limits. We see Kyle, Erika, and Sutton all reach their limit with Dorit. Something happens when Dorit goes over to Rachel’s living room, which has become the debriefing center for this whole show. I’m so impressed by how Rachel has essentially seized the center diamond by being the one with such emotional intelligence that she can clearly see what is happening in all of these friendships. Anyway, Dorit, a scrunchie for pubes, says that she’s overwhelmed with her life and that’s why she’s acting “erratic.” She says, “I’m not myself. I’m sorry.” 

But it’s the way that she says it. She’s not saying “I’m not myself. I’m sorry. I need your help.” It’s not, “I’m not myself. I’m sorry. Have some patience with me.” It’s not, “I’m not myself. I’m sorry. But I’m trying my best to be a good person.” It reads more like, “I’m not myself. I’m sorry. But I’m actually not because I am making my problems your problems, and if you don’t like it, then you can get the fuck out of here, you fucking cunt. I’m going to smoke a cigarette. I hate you.” Later, after all the fighting at Kathy’s Hilton Garden Inn and Suites, Rachel has the same realization. “It’s not what you’re saying, it’s how you’re saying it,” she tells all of them. These fights aren’t about substance because there is little substance to them; it’s all about tone. Dorit’s tone is not saying she wants to reach détente or find understanding; Dorit’s tone is saying that she wants dominance. She wants these women to just shut up, tell her she’s pretty, and comb her hair while she cries about having to send her kids to public school. Well, boo fucking hoo. They aren’t interested in that, so Dorit just keeps shouting at them. Kyle, Erika, and Sutton’s tones aren’t great either, but they’re following Dorit’s lead.

When she arrives at the party, Dorit, a stiletto stitched together from a million bunions, walks in and sees the whole cast arranged on two couches. She says, “A weaker person would feel intimidated by this display of a lion’s den. I don’t see lions. I see cowards.” What is this woman even talking about? Why are they cowards? Also, they aren’t trying to eat Dorit, they just want her to shut up and listen to them, to be able to have a conversation. Dorit’s problem has always been one of vulnerability. She didn’t want us to see that her marriage was bad, her finances were worse, and that her accent was as fake as her nose. She couldn’t let anything look imperfect, so she lied about it. Now that we’ve seen the truth, the lying won’t work anymore, so she goes on the attack. She’s rude and says what a hard time she’s having without actually addressing the hard time. It’s the same kind of deflection tactic, but this one brings the drama, so no one is bothering to look under her hood, or, and this would be a more fascinating peek, into her books. 

When Kyle and Dorit start talking across the two couches, like it’s already the reunion, Kyle says that she’s always had Dorit’s back with her burglary, with her fake accent, even with (don’t say it) Lucy Lucy Apple Juice. Dorit responds, “What about my divorce? Let’s keep it in the last three years.” This is it. This is the tone. Kyle says that she’s not Dorit’s enemy, and Dorit tells her to stop acting like one. Kyle has been speaking about Dorit all season, but she makes a valid point that it’s the whole enterprise. They talk about each other to each other. Kyle not only talks about Dorit to everyone, but she also talks about everyone else to everyone else. They all do. That is the job. Kyle finally elucidates her point that she’s doing what they’re supposed to be, but Dorit is only mad at her about it. “Every single person here has done no different than what I was doing; nobody spoke maliciously, including myself,” she says, and when no one seconds her emotion, she shouts, “CAN SOMEONE PLEASE SPEAK UP AND SAY THAT?”

Then Dorit snarls, “What did I do to you, Erika?” Erika tells her, first of all, not to speak to her like that. Dorit spits out, “Don’t talk to you like what?” Don’t worry, Erika, I’ll say it for you: Girl, just like that! Erika tells her that they can have a civil conversation, and Dorit says, “You have my undivided attention,” but she says it in a way that doesn’t say that at all. It doesn’t say that she cares about Erika’s feelings; it’s a tone that says she’s already pissed off and she’s not looking to be otherwise. 

Erika hits this Lee Press-On Nail right on the head and says, “I want you to soften your edges because you can’t keep letting us have it one by one all the fucking time.” That’s what this fight is actually about: how Dorit treats these confrontations, these moments of conflict, and how she’s fighting dirty. She doesn’t want friends, she wants fireworks, and that’s what she’s getting. 

Dorit says, “This book cover release was so meaningful and important to me.” I mean (teehee) I hear you (ha), Dorit, but (harhar), how can we (lolololol) take you seriously when (titter) you’re talking about a book cover release party being so meaningful? It’s at this point that Erika goes full Cancer on Dorit, pulling into her shell and just letting the waves of Dorit’s faux outrage wash over her. 

“Why didn’t you pick up the phone and fucking call me?” Dorit asks. 

“I didn’t want to,” Erika says as cold as a cryochamber in Greenland. 

“I need a minute to assess our situation.” 

“You do that.” 

“You’re OK with what you did?” 

“Yup.” 

“At least now I can see the real you.” 

“Yes, you can see.” 

“And I can process it.” 

“Sure, sis. Whatevs.” 

“You’ve got nothing else to say?” 

“No.” 

“That’s right.” 

“I’m a rock.” 

“We’re good.” 

“I mean, we’re not, but… cool.” 

The final confrontation is between Sutton and Dorit, and this one is both hilarious and infuriating. Sutton sits down with Dorit as she’s doing her exit interview with Boz and wants to know why, at Rachel’s party last episode, Dorit, a sequin stuck in the back of your throat, said that she’s going to hate her forever. Oh, Catholic Jesus. That was a joke. Dorit says as much, and, golly, this is the only thing she was right about the whole episode, but still, it was a mean joke, and the way she says this is meaner than an emo kid being forced to go to church. She then tells Sutton that she has to go back to her kids, so she needs to wrap it up. Honestly, at this point, trying to fake some empathy and some actual forgiveness for these people would be faster for Dorit than to just keep shouting them down. 

Sutton wonders what everyone on the cast wonders: why can’t Dorit take a minute and speak to them with kindness? Then Dorit goes full feral. “What you have to say is irrelevant to me. You’re out of lives. Your nine lives are up.” Sutton tells her that she’s not a cat, even though she’ll wear a sweater with one on a date. Dorit then says what she’s really meant this whole day, this whole month, this whole season, “I’m dead serious right now. I’m done. I’m not interested. I’m done. I’m not interested in resolution. Sutton, I know you need a moment…” 

Instead of facing this again, Sutton decides to flee the scene, but it seems like Dorit is the one who needs the moment. She wanted them all day as she cussed and insulted and curdled her way through the group. That’s no way to live on this show, where the name of the game isn’t just conflict but conflict and resolution, which Dorit, like so many fired Housewives before her, doesn’t want. That’s no way to live on the Earth, either. For people to see us, we need to see other people; for people to hear us, we need to listen; to have our words echo in the ears of others, we need to temper them with silence. Nothing in life is about having our way; nothing in life is about domination. We don’t do anything on our own. One bee can’t make honey, it can’t build a hive, it can’t keep the queen warm by all flapping their wings in unison. They can only do that together, with their little dances to communicate. They can only create that sweetness by operating together, each doing their job, understanding the needs and uses of the others around them, and helping them in the divine project of feeding themselves, raising their young, and feeding the world. The bees that work together can create miracles. The bee that flies alone gets swatted, or at least turned into a necklace at some rich lady’s garden party.