I feel sorry for the producers of this episode because you know they were dying to get inside that Caribou Club in Aspen to film Kathy Hilton’s epic meltdown, and TBH I was also dying for them to be inside because epic meltdowns are the entire reason I watch this show. And for Erika Jayne’s zero fucks. And Lisa Rinna’s snark. And Harry Hamlin’s spaghetti sauce. And Kyle and Mauricio’s strangely functional marriage. And for Dorit’s insane ego and also strangely functional marriage. And for Diana having babies well into her late 40’s while engaged to someone in their 20’s. And for Garcelle’s sanity. And for Sutton’s clueless southern innocence. FUCK I have a lot of reasons to watch this show and will never, ever stop.

Back to the meltdown we did not get to see, I am also mad at the crew for not working double overtime in the snow to film late night at Kyle’s when Lisa and Kathy got back and apparently Kathy devolved into more chaos, including threatening to destroy her sister Kyle and Kyle’s whole family!?!? Lisa Rinna claims it was so severe she has PTSD from the experience! Like, why was no one filming this.

Beyond the best drama in Bravo history we will never actually see, Crystal had a pretty boring looking 1920’s themed 39th birthday party, staged largely in her newly-remodeled basement which they kept “in budget” at under 7 figures. Okayyyyy. The centerpiece is an ugly as hell $30K jukebox from the 20s. The best part of the party is when the entire case collectively groans and eye rolls during Crystal’s toast when she laments entering the last year of her 30’s – a decade many of these women have not seen in, well, decades.

On a side note, Erika is winning me over to her side. She has a temper problem and is probably mixing too much Xanax and booze (but who doesn’t honestly), but if you actually listen to what she is saying she is pretty sensible. She has a team of incredibly good lawyers and she isn’t straying from her legal script at all – which is usually very hard for clients to do, let alone those in the public eye, and it makes our lives as lawyers impossible.

As far as the stupid $750K or $1.3 million or whatever the absurdly valuable diamond earrings go that the rest of the women want her to donate to the victims of her ex husband’s alleged fraud out of “compassion for the victims”…. No. Just no. Legally they are hers until proven otherwise in court. The optics of donating them when she is contesting the source of funds used to purchase them is extremely bad. Actions like that have legal consequences and she knows exactly what they are because her lawyers have explained it to her and she is playing by the rules. She’s many things but she is not dumb.

I think Erika does a decent job trying to relay what she’s been told by her lawyers, but she loses her cool and ends up coming off heartless so her message is lost in the delivery. The problem is the earrings belong to Erika and Erika is claiming in court she had zero knowledge of her husband’s fraud, and as such no relation to these victims and doesn’t owe them anything more than any other housewife or person off the street for that matter might owe these victims. The girls are having a hard time grasping this, and are essentially asking Erika to donate $750K (or $1.3 million or whatever the value) to the victims compensation fund. Are these women themselves also donating money to these victims??? I think since the show aired Diana has donated I believe $100K to the victims- which I think is more of a dig at Erika than out of genuine concern for the victims, but whatever.

Why does Erika owe them anything? She got just as screwed as anyone else by Tom Girardi’s fraud. She is now by far the poorest of the Housewives. Yes, cry me a river, she had this insanely luxurious life funded by her husband for many years, and currently is better off than 99% of the population. But that’s really not the standard against which this should be measured. Had Tom Girardi not committed such significant fraud during their marriage, Erika would have been entitled to a pretty significant sum in a divorce settlement, and possibly spousal support (alimony) for some amount of time, if not the rest of her life (the details completely depend on the terms of her prenup with Tom and whether it would be enforceable, etc.).

Instead, Erica left the marriage with literally nothing but creditors coming after her for what little assets she managed to carry on her back when she left their Pasadena mansion. While it may seem tacky to feel sorry for someone who had so much and still has quite a bit objectively, there is a reason California is a community property state and why spouses like Erika are legally entitled to so much in a divorce. This is what California deems to be fair and just. Erica was cheated out of her rightful divorce settlement by Tom’s fraud.

So for the women to ask Erica to essentially donate $750K of her already meager assets (those earrings could literally be her only asset of value) to the victims out of “compassion” is a little tacky from women who all have significantly more resources and are not offering anything of their own. Plus, those earrings will go to the victims anyway if a judge finds they were paid for with misappropriated funds that belonged to Tom’s victims – which Erika has repeatedly stated she fully intends to comply with if that is the case. So everyone needs to pipe down about the damn earrings.

(I am pretty sure I read that Erica has since been ordered to turn over the earrings, and she did. I’m too lazy to look this up and confirm though.)

In other news I am really feeling Diana’s new interview lewk she is serving in the purple with the flowing hair. She really is the most beautiful housewife in the history of the show. Fight me on this. I said what I said. Garcelle also gets snaps for her fire 20’s look with Chanel suspenders and a fedora. Beyond that I’m bored with this episode. Wake me when you get footage of Kathy Hilton’s meltdown.