With the conclusion of the first part of American Horror Story: Delicate, this is the last week that Kim Kardashian will be pulling double duty, starring in two series a week. In each of these shows, AHS and The Kardashians, she’s proved to be a master at tormenting those around her when need be, but which Kim took the cake? Let’s take a look at what she was up to this week to see which Kim was more sinister.
How menacing was Kim?
I would love to see a breakdown of how much of The Kardashians’s budget is funneled into filming each sister’s respective story line. Because this season alone, Kim has towed a camera crew to Cabo, Boston, Ohio, Miami, Milan, and now London — in just four episodes. Since Khloé barely leaves her house, and Kourtney doesn’t film at all anymore, I imagine there’s technically room in the budget to spare. KimAir might even give the production company a discounted rate, but this allocation of funds still doesn’t seem particularly well balanced.
This week, Kim is taking her son Saint, four of his friends, and their moms on a “soccer tour” through Europe, starting with seeing an Arsenal game in London. Kim tells us that she likes to find each of her kids’ passions and do a trip with them centered on it. North, for example, loves Paris and fashion, so as we saw in a previous season, she took her to Paris Fashion Week. Saint is getting this extravagant soccer tour. And Chicago got a trip to the San Diego Zoo. Now, wait just a minute … this isn’t adding up, and if I were Chicago, I’d be pissed. No offense to the zoo, but Saint’s being flown in a private plane to meet world-famous soccer players, and poor Chicago is taken to San Diego to see some penguins. And Psalm has it even worse! He doesn’t even get his own trip, he just tags along for whatever Chicago’s is.
In a way, it’s the same discrepancy reflected in the older generation, with Kim getting to jet-set the world while Khloé is stuck with Kris in Calabasas interviewing potential suitors to set Scott up with. At least Chicago and Psalm will grow up to see this footage and be able to demand the luxurious trips their other siblings cashed in on.
In the meantime, it’s Saint’s big episode, and if you ask him what Kim’s big misdeed this week is, he’d tell you that it’s her forgetting his red Arsenal jersey. Because of this mistake, he’s not able to match with his friends at the game, so while they’re in the luxury box, he hilariously tells him mom, “This is the worst day of my life.” Luckily, things turn around quickly and he rallies to enjoy the game. Afterward, they do some sightseeing, including going on the London Eye and seeing Back to the Future: The Musical. Who would have thought Roger Bart would get more airtime on this show than Kourtney?
Afterward, the moms hit the pub to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a round of Guinness. Didn’t Kim only just have her first beer earlier this season? And now she’s already advancing to Guinness!
It all makes for a relatively sinister-free episode for Kim, unless you ask the people staying below them at the hotel, since Kim lets the kids play soccer in the hallway. To her credit, she does say they booked the whole floor, because “I would never let my kids keep people up at night.” But she doesn’t say anything about the floor below them.
How menacing was Siobhan?
While Anna is visiting Siobhan’s office, pastries in hand to thank her best friend/publicist, she’s surprised to pass Babette Eno in the hallway. Babette is the young actress up against her this awards season, including at the upcoming Golden Globes. She’s the one that Siobhan has been making Anna work tirelessly to beat, so she’s shocked to find out that Siobhan has been representing Babette too. This would be like Kim finding out that Kris represents Chloë Grace Moretz.
When Anna confronts Siobhan, she doesn’t flinch, telling her that she doesn’t have a noncompete clause. Sure, they’re best friends, but as Siobhan adds, they’re also work colleagues who should have boundaries.
The ground beneath Anna is already shaky, and now she’s left questioning one of her few sources of security, her relationship with Siobhan. “Are you punishing me because I got pregnant?” she asks, because if you recall, the pair met in an IVF-support group, but the process was never successful for Siobhan. “Wow, paranoid much?” a chilly Siobhan says, encouraging Anna to relax now that vomit-gate is over. As she leaves, Siobhan stops her to give her another set of those red vials, which she told her was B12, to keep her energy up for awards season.
Last week, we found out that Siobhan and Hamish (Anna’s director) were having mysterious transactional sex. Well, to Siobhan it was transactional, but clearly Hamish is in love with her, despite her constant cruelty. This week, the transaction includes dinner, for which Siobhan is on her phone the whole time, saying that having to listen to him talk is too much to ask.
He takes her phone from her, saying that he’ll give it back if she answers his question. This question finally gives us some much-needed context about the circumstances surrounding Anna’s award-winning film. Hamish recounts Siobhan coming to him with a mysterious script, telling him to put his name on it and hire Anna Victoria Alcott for it. He doesn’t know who actually wrote it, or how Siobhan got it, and doesn’t understand how it became such a hit (like she said it would) when everybody told him it would be a flop. “What the fuck is going on, Siobhan? And who the hell are you?” he asks her. And Siobhan slowly turns her head and glares at him, before the scene ends.
This exchange, and Kim’s master class of a glare, finally confirms Siobhan’s involvement in whatever sinister plot has been surrounding the success of this movie, which seems to involve far more than just good publicity.
Since pregnancy complications prevent Anna from traveling to the Golden Globes, she has to watch on television and see Babette win in her category. That’s when she gets a phone call from Siobhan, who asks her, “Do you want an Oscar? Do you want it as much as a baby?” After a brief pause, Anna says “yes.” “Are you willing to do anything I say to get it?” Siobhan continues, and again Anna confirms. “Good, I’ll call you in the morning.” The scene then cuts just as Anna is grabbed by an unseen figure, awakening in her bed the next morning to news that Babette was killed in a car accident. And who’s calling her again? Siobhan.
Who did more tormenting?
Thus far in the run of both seasons, Kim and Siobhan have done their fair share of villainy. Kim started off strong, eviscerating Kourtney by telling her that everybody, her friends and kids included, had a problem with her. But as Kim cooled off with each passing week, Siobhan heated up. Slowly but surely Siobhan has gotten more and more ominous, and now this week she’s finally giving us some tangible villainy to work with. As if secretly working with Anna’s competition wasn’t bad enough, we also find out that there’s clearly something fishy about how Siobhan made this movie come about in the first place. And then she maybe had Anna’s competition decapitated in a car accident? Not very nice, if you ask me. It took some time for Siobhan to catch up (and surpass) Kim’s torture of Kourtney, but we got there. But who knows, maybe Kim went Method for the role and we’ll see her do even more terrorizing on the next season of The Kardashians.
