Housewives Stop Dancing Around Armstrong Abuse

Last night’s episode of The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills, 90210 was especially heartbreaking — and may as well have been titled “The Undoing Of Taylor Armstrong’s Marriage And Sanity.” We’re first taken to a luncheon for an award that Taylor has been nominated for; Taylor brought her husband, Russell, and all of the Housewives — with the exception of Lisa Vanderpump. As we saw last week, Russell is convinced that Lisa is leaking items about their marriage to the press and, it would seem, has convinced Taylor that Lisa is the enemy.

The very next day, Lisa hosts a tea party — tea parties, guys — at her home and as soon as Taylor arrives, Lisa tells her that her feelings were hurt after being excluded from the previous day’s luncheon. And that’s all it takes for the conversation to quickly spiral out of control, with Taylor crying and accusing Lisa of being a terrible person. Eventually, Camille declares the event to be an impromptu intervention. When Taylor asks the women to “start saying what they mean,” Camille finally drops the biggest truth bomb of the season (which we’ve known was coming for months): “We’ve been protecting you. Because we don’t say that he hits you. Because we don’t say that he broke your jaw, or that he beat you up and that he hits you. We don’t say that, but now, we’ve said it.” Since we already know that this will end with Russell’s suicide, it’s particularly hard to watch, far more so than your usual housewivean drama.

On a lighter note, because we really need one right now, Taylor argues that Dame Vanderpump’s iPad is an indicator of her inflated ego. Christ, you guys: if it’s wrong to have a photo of yourself and your adorable-as-sin pooch as the background on your iPad, I don’t want to be right.