And we’re back, too! We hope everyone had a really great summer — filled with culture and meaningful exchanges with friends — to make up for this half-hour of idiocy, lunacy, and Kristin “The Bitch is Back” Cavallari. Random Wikipedia fact: Cavallari appeared as a celebrity spokesperson for “We Are Ellis Island,” a campaign for the restoration of historic buildings on Ellis Island. Huh. We wonder what her great-grandparents would have made of her performance last night: And then, your great-granddaughter will be on a television show about her life — television is a box on which you see images, like theater. No, she’s not an actress, it’s just a show about her life. It’s sort of hard to explain, actually; she is an actress but she’s playing herself, yes, she gets paid, it’s confusing, we know, oh, and she’s the bad guy And here’s something we thought we’d never say: We REALLY miss Lauren Conrad. She was the Phi Beta Kappa of the dummies, and at least was semi-coherent, unlike now-stars Audrina “these are people’s lives she’s messing with” Patridge, Lo “I get paid $100,000 per episode to be identified as ‘Audrina’s Friend’” Bosworth, and Stephanie “She was, like, Brody’s, like, first girlfriend, and I was, like, so confused, cause, like, he got her, like, a dog and I was like wait, Brody doesn’t have girlfriends!” Pratt. And so, let’s discuss the actual episode, which successfully established Kristin as a villain and the rest of the girls as morons.
So Heidi and Spencer are back from their honeymoon, which you might’ve seen on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here (Heidi almost died, people! That was serious stuff), and they’re throwing themselves a party. Over the course of a few months, seemingly everyone has forgotten that they’re supposed to hate Speidi — that plotline has vanished along with LC. Speidi’s new role is that of yuppie marrieds, looking at houses and discussing baby-timing. Seriously, this is boring. If we wanted to discuss marriage and babies, we’d call our married-with-children friends, who would say, “Oh, you’re still recapping The Hills! That’s so cute! I don’t watch that anymore … since I had the baby and my life has taken on a more important purpose.”
Audrina, Stephanie, and Lo discuss Kristin, who’ll be coming to the party, and we learn that Kristin is a “man-eater,” a “boy magnet,” and once slapped Lauren. And yet the girls will give her the benefit of the doubt. How noble of them. After a gratuitous scene of Jayde in a green bikini — we get it, she’s a Playboy model, she has a good body, whatever (MTV does realize that mostly girls are watching, right?) — we finally see Kristin’s legs and her Beamer, and the season plotline is unveiled. She arrives at the party, and is immediately drawn to one Justin Bobby (!!!), who’s looking a lot like Joaquin Phoenix. Somehow, the girls manage to get into a screaming fight within five minutes, after Stephanie confronts JB about not saying hello to Audrina. Kristin gets all tough-girl and Audrina pops in and almost pushes her, but doesn’t. Lo looks embarrassed and Justin Bobby looks amused. Has this show gotten trashier? Yes, yes it has.
On to the next party, which is Frankie’s birthday celebration at a Mexican restaurant. It looks not fun at all. But Stacie the Bartender is there! We’re so glad that she and her Muppet voice have returned. She calls Audrina “a stage-five clinger,” which is not nice at all. Given the fact that Stacie has “the Bartender” after her name, we think she probably shouldn’t make fun of anyone else. Kristin and Justin Bobby flirt, and she and the boys continue on to watch a basketball game. She forces him to ask her out after some sexual banter about his motorcycle, and we get the first Justin Bobby–ism of the night. “She’s fun — different weather, you know?” His friend seems to get what he’s saying, but we certainly don’t. Which is why we love him.
On their date, Justin has tamed his beard and hair, and looks kind of like a vampire, or maybe more like an elf — you decide. Kristin disses Audrina some more (“She’s in love with you, you’re that one guy, that’s how the mind of a woman works”), and Justin asks her about her astrological sign. And then Kristin talks about her bed or something, and Justin smiles bigger than we’ve ever seen, showing his straight, white teeth. That’s some good dental work, JB! There’s some other stuff with Stephanie and Audrina, but it’s basically just the two of them jabbering about how Kristin’s going to ruin their lives. Get over it, girls.
And now, the Unequivocal Hills Reality Index!
Realer than that fame-seeking L.A. real-estate broker with some sort of speech defect:
• As much as the Kristin–Justin Bobby plot is producer-generated, we actually sense a spark between these two. Justin Bobby smiled? We’ve only seen that once before, and it was after he threw someone in a pool.
• Stephanie’s all up in everyone else’s biz, which is totally real. Butt out, Steph!
• Jayde actually does wear a bikini everywhere she goes.
Faker than anyone actually saying the phrase “It’s on, Bitch!”:
• There’s no way Spencer bought a house without Heidi knowing about it. You don’t just put down a deposit — it takes months for housing sales to go through, lots of paperwork, etc. Plus, Heidi’s a bad actress, and is smiling when Spencer tells her.
• Poor Kristin is stuck with the villainess role, and she put her heart into it, but it’s just not possible that one person is so entirely bitchy.
• Everyone likes Spencer now? He’s invited to things? No.
