Last night was the big night of Kim's date! Weren't you so excited? Did you do your hair and pick out a nice outfit for the special occasion? Was it leopard print? It had to be leopard print.

Ohhh last night. Last night is painful to talk about for a number of reasons, not least among them the hideous grape chemicals I chose to ingest by the gallon. So, let's not belabor this nonsense any longer than we have to.

Do you remember how Kim is sad? Kim is so so sad. She wakes up in the morning and already the world seems brown, like the brown of mice, that dusty dirty dull pale brown that seems to have settled over everything in her life like toxic snow. She gets out of bed and her feet are heavy like lead, her eyes feel sunken and cold, the lights take just a little too long to fuzz and flicker on when she flips the switch. Kim always has a slight stabbing pain in her stomach, always has a nervous whine building in her throat, always takes her thumb and rubs a spot on her right hand over and over and over again until there's a rash or abrasion that she covers with her long-sleeved sweaters, those big flowy loose things that she likes, the ones you can disappear into, the ones that are like wearing a blanket, all day, even out in public. Kim sometimes drinks a glass of whiskey before bed, just so she can fall asleep and not lie awake, blinking at the ceiling, a furious stampede of jangly thoughts racing through her head. Kim is upset. Kim is an upset woman. Kim thinks this means that she needs a man.

So she decided to have the girls set her up on dates. Just casual dates, nothing life-determining at all, no sir, she wasn't going to act like that (but she really was). Because of exciting dates, her younger sister Kyle took her to get a facial. "It's unlike any facial I've ever had," Kyle said, and you can tell, just by the way she walks, that the woman knows her facials, and she has had some bad old facials, mhmm? Just some real dirty "there's a Japanese man filming this and I'm crying a little" facials. Remember the '80s? Yeah, that was a whole "Middle Eastern oil baron is having his valet give me a facial while he sits on a leather couch and pours cocaine into an enormous goblet" decade of facials, wasn't it? That's just what people like Kyle were doing back then, facials-wise. So the lady really knows her facials. And this one is unlike anything else. See, what they do is they wrap your face in clay, then they put paper or something over that, then they put on a Hannibal Lecter mask on you, then a conical Asian farmers hat over the entire thing, and then they electrocute you. I'm not even joking about this! This is what they did on the television screen last night. It was actually a really cute little ruse to get Kim to subject herself to her electroshock therapy willingly, don't you think? "Oh yeah, we're.... ha, we're getting facials, so just let this woman strap these electrodes to your face, nothing to worry about... When we're done you're going to feel so good...."

Anyway, the elaborate and undoubtedly expensive procedure had absolutely no visible effect, except to make Kim's face look pinker and more upset. Good work, Kyle! Meanwhile, while Kim poked sadly at her face and felt the rush and hush of years ebbing away grow full and desperate in her chest, we were meeting the date! Yes, he's a friend of Lisa and Stansbury's (or whatever he's called) and his name is Martin and he's rich and charming and approximately 182 years old. Nothing wrong with that! He's a red blooded 182-year-old and just like any man, he needs company, and he needs help making his body function in various daily, rudimentary ways. "Be a dear and massage my colon, will you? My bowels need moving." Things like that! Normal people things. So that is very exciting for Kim! It's not every day that you get to go on a date with a man who remembers when they called it Siam and whose passport was issued by the Habsburgs. Very exciting stuff. So we'll get to the date in a moment, but first we have other matters to attend to.

This obligatory Camille paragraph will be about her one scene last night, in which she tried on a trio of dresses to wear to her bigtime divorce Tony Awards evening. So yeah, she tried on three dresses and said things like "For my husband's big night, which is also MY big night, as far as I'm concerned," so you knew that whatever ruler or tape she was using to measure meaning in her life was working just fine, just fine, and that lukewarmed the heart. She said another thing like "My husband has been nominated for an Emmy 16 times and won 5, and I've been with him when he doesn't win, and it's not good" or something like that, and it was like, yes Camille, and people have been with women like you when women like you don't win and it's usually in Las Vegas and it's 3 in the morning and the scent of a Newport cigarette is filling the air and it's another fucking merry Christmas. What I'm saying, Camille, is that not all hookers get a chance at the big leagues, so at least there's that, huh? Oh and she chose the worst of the three dresses. OK, paragraph over.

Speaking of hookers, Taylor. Oh lawwwwdy Taylor. What a miserable monster, huh? Her plotline this week was just a continuation of the pathetic dog story from a few weeks before. See, her husband Russell bought their daughter Kennedy (that bright light you see on the horizon? it's Hyannisport burning) the dog as a way of upstaging Taylor's $60,000 birthday party and asserting his dominance, and so Taylor resents it. Well, she would resent it if she were capable of processing complex emotions like resentment, but to her it just feels like her insides have a cold sore and it flares up when she looks at that dog. So imagine her strange, confused delight when she took little Kennedy (goodbye, Brookline) to the doctor and he said "Yeah, these rashes and this eye irritation that's cropped up only since you brought this dog into the house, well I'm a rocket surgeon so I'm qualified to say this, but I think she might just be allergic to the goddamn dog, you fucking nitwit." So they might have to get rid of the dog!!! Something wicked and electric passed through Taylor when she heard this news. She had something. A point. A knock against her boss husband. He brought the dog into the house and he was wrong to, ultimately WRONG!!, because Kennedy is allergic. Ha ha! Ha haaaaaaaa!!!!!!! went Taylor's heart for a few minutes, until she looked down at the whimpering child standing next to her and realized "Oh, yeah, fuck, she loves that dog, this is gonna suck. Awww fiddletits."

Taylor had a discussion with Russell about it and he, like a grownup, said "I don't want to get rid of the dog." And the whole thing was just this thinly veiled metaphor for their relationship, Taylor hearing from experts that it's not working, Russell insisting that he'd made a sound purchase, as always. Ultimately nothing was resolved, so what can do you. And it was funny that they had this fight over a new dog, because in a mansion across town, the Maloof was getting a dog of her own. You see it was her anniversary with that shaved baboon she calls a husband, and he orchestrated a whole elaborate evening for them. First he took her to the rococo sitting area, where they had a light apéritif of white Burgundy wine and an enormous bowl of fondue. You know, appetizer fondue. How that works. The Maloof was very skeptical about this whole thing, complaining to him, whining and moaning about "What? What? What are we doing??" but Babbo the Baboon persisted with the romance, escorting her to their rococo dining room that's modeled after Louis XVI's ejaculation room, where they were served the most elegant of sterno-warmed meals, the Maloof prodding at it lazily with a fork, food tumbling about of Babbo's mouth because of his accursed unfeeling lips, all the maids and servants swooning at the romance. But then the real treat happened! Babbo led her outside with her eyes closed, then told her to open them and there was... a fully grown German shepherd dog, complete with trainer! Yayyyyyy, strange adult dogs! Whee!! The Maloof was thrilled, but not nearly as thrilled as I was when I realized that she had strung some sort of glittery something up into her hair. Did you see that? It was simply tremendous. Her hair was all spangly and glittery, just for the eff of it. Just for who the fuck cares, that's what for. Just for that. The Adventures of Sparklehair: A Maloof Tale™. Very good stuff.

OK! Moving on. Kim. Remember Kim? She's the really sad one? Well she had sad lunch with her 14-year-old daughter in which they talked about Kim dating and Kim's ex-boyfriends and a verrryyyy interesting truth was revealed. So the daughter was all "I like the idea of you dating, I know I didn't use to, I mean I tormented all of your old boyfriends." And Kim, perhaps trying to protect her daughter from the watchful glare of the cameras and cruel memory of the boom mics, said "Oh you were only bad to one. You only threw the cheeseburger at Brady." Which. I'm sorry. Huh? Who? That's a casual funny family story? A casual funny family story in my family is like... "Remember when we went to Disney when Richard was 12 and he wouldn't stop crying because we tormented and teased him until he finally agreed to go on Splash Mountain and it was far too scary for him." That would be a funny (and horribly true) family story. But "Oh remember when you threw that cheeseburger at Brady"? That is just not something you reference like it's no big deal. The girl THREW A CHEESEBURGER at a man named BRADY. Oh zoinks, Hollywood. Zoinks to the max. You are one bonkers town, man. That's what it says on the sign when you drive into LA County: "Welcome to Los Angeles, birthplace of throwing cheeseburgers at men with last names for first names." It's a great city motto. THREW A CHEESEBURGER. What I find most amusing about this story is the physics of it. When eating it, yes a cheeseburger is ostensibly one solid thing. But when airborne, it becomes three things — two buns, and the meat, maybe more things if there are tomatoes, onions, lettuce, etc. So throwing "a" cheeseburger, not "part of a" cheeseburger, at someone implies one of two things: either Brady (harharhar) was standing close enough that the whole thing successfully went SPLAT in his face OR it was some shitty cheeseburger, like McDonald's or something, that really didn't come apart even as it soared through the air toward Brady's (lolololol) face. Oh heavens on high that is the funniest thing ever. "Remember when you threw the cheeseburger at mommy's boyfriend?" "I do. I do remember that." "Yes." "Yes. I threw a cheeseburger." "You did, yes." "His name was Brady." "His name was Brady, that's true." "We're all going to die, aren't we?" "Yes. Yes we are."

So that's the best thing that's ever happened on this show, hands down. The rest of the episode is going to be a letdown after that, so let's just get through it. OK, so date night! Lisa has this friend named Mohammed who, like, got hit in the face with a cheeseburger full of money, because he is RICH. He basically lives in the decommissioned PanAm terminal from LAX his house is that big. He has this hilariously tall and silent model girlfriend and everything is made of marble. He had folks over for a "dinner party," which to us probably means many bottles of wine, some passably cooked food but mostly a lot of bread, and then more wine. But for Mohammed and company, it basically means this party was planned by the same lady who did Jasmine and Aladdin's wedding. It was a lavish affair and there, decked out in his regal Prussian army dress uniform, was Martin, making the whole affair seem even more regal. Everyone was giddy with anticipation about Kim's arrival, because this was to be her first meeting with Martin! It was a date, sort of! At an enormous party held in the residential wing of an art museum! So intimate. So everyone chewed their nails and discreetly farted into potted plants and shifted awkwardly until Kim finally, a clatter of nerves and heels, came running in, dressed in the most gorgeous leopard print tube sock you've ever seen. What I'm saying is that it was tiiiiight and showed of a whole lotta low-hanging fruit, if you get my cruel meaning.

Martin's eyes did a bwoooga-bwooooooga when he saw Kim's breast bones, which is dangerous for his heart, as it is mostly made of dust, spirit gum and determination at this point, but he couldn't help it. She looked ravishing, in a "I don't dance anymore, no, but I'm an assistant manager now and Randy gives me a cut of the girls' tips and I get to help them with their routines sometimes" kind of way. The two courted for a while, trying to have a normal conversation but inevitably interrupted by some piece of garbage from the show and forced to talk about if they were having a wonderful time or not. (The chief offender was, of course, Babbo, who was just like "Oh you're on a date. How's your date going? Do you two have feelings for each other?" which is a really nice, relaxing thing to ask people while they're currently on their first date. Ably played, Babbo.) Martin showed Kim his wooden jawbone and Kim showed him her Tic Tac box full of klonopin. They giggled at each other, he told her stories about the 100 Years War, and then... then she went to the bathroom and disappeared for a long, long time. Everyone was concerned, upset, annoyed, befuddled. Where could Kim have run off to? People were worried that she'd left, and Martin was already getting ready to leave himself, strapping on his leather helmet and scarf, winding up the Stutz for the long motorcar trip home, when Kim finally reappeared, draped on the arm of another old man! Kim!!!! You can't jeep on an old dude like that, it's just mean. But she laughed it off and said it was no big deal, and Martin had forgotten what was going on at the moment anyway ("Is this the World's Fair?") so all was well. The two flirted some more, everyone stared, and then! And then — sadness be damned, loneliness cast out, old mangy dogs banished from Kim's heart — she and Martin (or "Mohammed... I mean... um... Martin" as Kim called him) disappeared into the night together, ostensibly so he could drive her home, but maybe for more. The real Mohammed clapped his hands in delight while his silent robot wife stood by his side and he said "Well, guests, I see that I have made one love connection tonight, so half of the evening is through. Unfortunately for you all, the second half of the evening consists of me hunting you all to the death across the expansive grounds of the property." The robot wife handed him an enormous elephant gun and he immediately started blasting away, sending the panicked guests running and screaming into the bushes.

The last scene of the episode was a strange, mournful one. Poor dog-addled Taylor went to lunch with Kyle and they got to talking about Russell and marriage and all that and Kyle was like "Well, don't you at least feel like you have a best friend in him? Like you have someone watching your back?" And Taylor said the most awful thing in response. First she said that no, she and Russell are better "business partners" than they are friends, which... gunshot. And then she said, in regard to the someone having your back thing, "I don't know if I deserve that" or something like she was too timid to expect that from anyone in her life. Which is a horrible way to feel! Gosh, I probably OVERLY expect people to have my back, but she just... feels like she's twisting in the wind, alone and unguarded. Which must be a terribly lonely, desperate feeling. I don't know. Taylor's kinda dumb with all her plastic surgery and $60,000 kid's birthday parties, but how can you make fun of this? This deep, old, clawing pain that's clearly a big part of her? Yikes magikes, I don't know what you do about that (except maybe just pack up a suitcase and leave one day, get in a convertible and drive drive drive away, put on some "I Don't Wanna Fight" maybe and fucking floor it, babe.)

So that's where we stand! Or stood. Or crumpled and wept. That's where we something. Kim might be in love. Maybe she is. You know, I'll bet that when Martin "drove her home" that they spent the night together in Martin's Stutz, up by the Hollywood sign. I bet that he creaked into position and they made a kind of soporific love together, always on the edge of sleep but never quite falling into it, one always teasing at the other with a finger or just the warm thrum of their chest beating, keeping the other awake. And then when there was that first flare of sun, I'll bet they both got out of the car and walked hand-in-hand to the edge of the hill and looked out over Los Angeles in all of its dingy grandeur. And I'll bet that Kim squeezed Martin's hand and said to him "It's all ending, isn't it? All of this." And Martin nodded his head, his thin hair lit up like cellophane, and said "That it is, love. That it is. But the good thing is," he said, pulling her in close for a squeezing hug, "The good thing is it's been ending forever." And she liked that, liked what it meant to her, so she put her head on his chest and they stood there looking out over the city, a new day rushing at them from the East, the bleats of early traffic, that terrible snarl of people and motion, still hours and hours away.