Season 4: Episodes 6,7 & 8
I love how the conventions of reality television force these women to preface each doomed cast trip with multiple confessionals along the lines of "I just want to relax, have fun and let go of all the drama
"
Anyway this was very much Brandi's trio of episodes so I'll reserve most of my commentary for that.
Brandi
Brandi made a spectacular entrance in Season 2, easily slotting into the role of the younger, prettier girl with a trucker mouth and a zero fucks attitude. She could be petty and abrasive, but even in her first major spat against the obviously vulnerable Kim, she came across as a sympathetic person trapped in a nightmare feud with an unstable aggressor.
Season 3 and her alliance with Lisa took the bloom off a little, but Adrienne was too aloof and high-handed to really sympathise with too much. However, the entrance of a new younger, prettier model in the form of Joyce Giraud has really tipped the balance and exposed an ugly, ugly side of Brandi's character.
The thing is, Joyce shouldn't be a serious threat to Brandi. On current evidence, she's a bland, faintly grating type-A girl who has displayed none of Brandi's innate wit or likability. But for whatever reason - insecurity, problem drinking, a misguided awareness of her need to create good TV, or most likely a combination of all three, Brandi decides to relentlessly target her, resulting in some seriously ugly behaviour.
It'd be more forgivable if Joyce rose to it, but she spends the entirety of the Palm Trip getaway politely bewildered at Brandi's awful behaviour. I still haven't found much to enjoy about Joyce, but she acts with a hell of a lot of restraint and dignity here. Which is probably not a recipe for success in this format, but it's as difficult not to feel for her as it was not to feel for Brandi every time Kim cornered her at a party and started drunkenly wagging her finger in her face back in Season 2.
It's not just Joyce either, Brandi is on an all-round downward spiral through these episodes, drunkenly imploring Lisa to stop 'strategising' and pissing off Carlton by loudly announcing that they'd had a late-night makeout session. The Palm Springs episodes end on a somewhat sympathetic note when one of her dogs is stolen during a burglary, but on the whole it's a fairly disastrous showing for the one-time golden girl.
Stray observations
* Another example of Yolanda's penchant for passive-aggressive MIND GAMES at her horrible dinner party, when she draws little hearts on Brandi, Carlton and Lisa's place cards and leaves everybody else's blank, then claims she must have done it subconsciously.
* Other than a slightly bizarre moment where she's caught crouching behind a BIN, Kim is largely background in these episodes. I do, however, continue to love the dynamic of her occasional flare-ups with Lisa, and the fact that she's the only member of the cast who seems capable of rattling her. It happens again here when they're bickering over some imagined slight or other, Kim apologises, Lisa starts trying her passive aggressive wounded martyr schtick and and Kim just snaps "Look Lisa, either accept the apology or don't" and leaves the table.