The Devil Went Down to Georgia But Stopped at Beverly Hills First

The most anticipated dinner of the social season finally took place on Wednesday night’s episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, featuring the southern belle smackdown fans have been lusting after since the previews first rolled out. The evening had everything: Baccarat crystals, caviar pie, tiny food on silver platters—everything, that is, except for the very thing the season preview promised, which was a fulfilling confrontation between Erika and Sutton.

Once again, RHOBH chose to waste everyone’s time by focusing on the lives of the women who aren’t going through an extremely public and messy divorce, eating up a huge chunk of air time that could have been devoted to the so-called Dinner from Hell Part II. Because the show chose to spend so much time on people who’ve got nothing interesting going on at present, I will do the exact opposite and spend not a drop of virtual ink on everyone else.

So what happened at dinner? Well, Kathy Hilton reminded everyone that she is the only truly fabulously wealthy person on the show with a parade of servers in tuxedos, candle holders that could cover half a month’s rent on a New York studio, and some sort of egg appetizer with “mayonnaise flown in from France.”

When at last everyone was seated in front of their red and gold name cards, the show truly began with Sutton attempting to have a chat with Erika to clear the air about what Sutton had been accused of saying behind Erika’s back. Earlier in the episode, Sutton told Kyle, “I’ve been using kid gloves with Erika,” and intimated that she would not be doing that at dinner. But Sutton, chained by the rules of decorum and good Southern manners, started her conversation with the softest ermine-trimmed baby goatskin gloves she could find to broach the topic. Erika refused to engage (shocker), and Sutton backed down for the moment because there was a four-course meal underway.

But Dorit—perhaps sensing that she was getting less and less screen time despite her perfectly curated outfits—decided that this dinner was her moment to dip her toe into Erika and Sutton’s pond. Of course, where Dorit dares to tread, Kyle will surely trample. So not only did Kyle jump in, thereby reigniting the dispute between Sutton and Erika, but she also threw Sutton so far under the bus the MTA will have to build a new fleet, accusing her multiple times of not telling the truth, which she would have been able to do had everyone at the dinner table not cut her off.

The true star of the night was, of course, Erika, who gave one of the best performances we’ve seen to date, accompanied by excellent voice modulation for emotional effect and beautiful single-streak Hollywood tears that only slightly disturbed her makeup. Sadness has never seemed so poised. Erika’s shining moment came when she looked across the table at Dorit, mustered all the vibrato she could, and said, “Look at me, look at my life. Why are you torturing me?” Not even Meryl Streep could have put on that level of performance.

Eventually, Erika’s despair turned to wrath, which was aimed squarely at Sutton, who really hasn’t said anything incredibly outlandish other than she doesn’t fully believe Erika’s many stories, a sentiment shared by nearly all of the ladies. Erika was absolutely apoplectic that Sutton would have an opinion about the biggest event happening in the friend group (Erika’s divorce) and Sutton simply sat there, flabbergasted by the display of it all. It was plenty of bark and not a single attempt at a bite.

The disappointing part of the evening is that the great Southern showdown viewers were promised was nothing more than a few minutes of what we had already been shown in the preview, Erika talking through her veneers, telling Sutton to shut up. There wasn’t even a ‘To be continued!!!!” Viewers deserve better after sitting through a disastrously boring season of that other housewives show.