Ali TrachtaNow for the uncomfortable part.
When we last left the Housewives, the “creaky beavers” were storming Beaver Creek and having a grand old time. They had a lovely day on the slopes, were greeted at the bottom with warm chocolate chip cookies, then headed back to the Grammer compound where the white wine flowed like…wine.
Which may have been part of the problem for Taylor, who got a little too hot in the hot tub and snapped.
Taylor, who at the time of filming was working on her broken marriage to the late Russell Armstrong, began crying in the hot tub as she spoke to Kyle about being afraid for her future. Her tears continued when she busted in on a napping Kim, who in a hazy state of half-sleep was surprisingly nurturing to her former frenemy. Then, somehow Taylor made it from Kim's bed to the walk-in closet, packed herself in a suitcase and said she wanted to go home.
Taylor Armstrong, in a moment of stress.; Credit: bravotv.com
Her fellow housewives eventually coaxed her out, succeeded in getting her makeup on (which seemed to be of utmost importance to all of them) and got her to the dinner table, where she continued to cry.
Now, anyone who witnessed the great Kelly Bensimon breakdown on Scary Island in RHONY season three knows that for Housewives standards, this was crack-up light. Taylor was certainly overemotional and out of sorts, but as the ladies mentioned, her episode likely stemmed from a combination of being underweight and having too much alcohol in such a high altitude location.
Still, we couldn't help but wonder — is Bravo crossing the line by not editing this out? Footage of Russell Armstrong appears to have been completely eliminated from this season, but what of Taylor, if anything, is too gratuitous to show? Last night's episode showed Taylor at her breaking point — at least we certainly hope that's as bad as it gets. But as viewers, what makes our stomachs churn is knowing that this poor, broken woman's life is only set to get worse with her husband's suicide. It's pretty heavy stuff for a what's usually a humorous hour of television, but we hear Bravo's ratings are through the roof.
Some other things happened — Lisa tried to convince her husband they should buy the space next door to their WeHo restaurant and Adrienne and Paul went to a Sacramento Kings game. (Adrienne and her brothers own the team.) Camille sunned herself in Malibu. But somehow none of that really mattered. We were too busy calculating how much we could afford to donate to Taylor's domestic violence charity.
Next week brings us our first look at Brandi Glanville, and hopefully some comic relief.
Follow Ali Trachta @MySo_CalLife and @LAWeeklyArts on Twitter.
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