‘The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills,’ Season 1, Episode 9, “The Dinner Party from Hell”

Writer: God

Original Air Date: 12/16/2010

Watch It On: Hulu

What It’s About: After getting into a dramatic fight with Kyle in New York City, Camille attempts to make nice by throwing a dinner party at her house. The catch is that her dinner party feels less like a peace offering and more like a trap. Camille is armed with not only her astonishingly normal best friend, D.D., but noted medium (and possible crazy person) Alison DuBois. Kyle, in turn, brings her best friend, “The Morally Corrupt” Faye Resnick along.

Camille’s household staff plies the women with enormous cocktails that contain fruit, sprigs of lavender and too much alcohol. Slowly, the women start picking at each other until all Hell breaks loose. Camille shades Faye for posing in Playboy after the O.J. murder trial, an incredibly wasted Alison pulls out her e-cigarette and suggests that Kyle’s husband is cheating on her and soon everyone (except Adrienne and Lisa) is fighting. Kyle, Faye, Taylor, Adrienne and Lisa leave together and laugh about the night, while Camille is left to go home alone.

Why It’s So Good: Like many networks, Bravo figured out long ago that the cheapest way to make compelling drama was to get a bunch of insecure, self-obsessed women drunk and to let them tear each other apart. What makes this specific episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills so bonkers, though, is that Camille added a drunk, vainglorious, N-list celebrity psychic to the mix.

Do you know who Alison DuBois is? Do you know the show Medium? Did you know it was based on Alison DuBois’s life? It’s okay that you didn’t know. Alison’s fine with it. You know why? Alison knows exactly how you and your loved ones will die—and she loves that about herself.

Alison DuBois only appears in a single episode of reality television and she might be one of the genre’s greatest villains. She has a weird superpower, a penchant for boozing and a never-ending supply of horrific comments.

If you love reality programming, this episode is filled to the brim with the kinds of wacky characters and “unscripted” confrontations that define the genre. And if you think reality television is loathsome because it props up horrible and selfish people, then you’ll love this episode because it proves your point. In addition to the nightmare dinner party, we see Lisa complain that Christian Louboutin’s personalized signature on her shoe looks like graffiti, Kyle has a hair dresser visit her at home to blow dry her hair for a low key dinner party and Camille talks about the horses she still owns like they’re board games she shoved into her crawl space.

Simply put, this episode is the platonic ideal of a Real Housewives episode in all its grotesque glory.

The Best Moment: In any other episode, we would have elected the moment in which Camille pretends to suddenly realize that Faye posed for Playboy and then, in confessional, describes her as “The Morally Corrupt Faye Resnick.” However, Alison DuBois just had to pull out an electronic cigarette at the dinner table. Every second that DuBois sucks on that plastic menthol stick is a gift from the heavens–or maybe from Hell.