During the first few episodes of E!’s Keeping Up with the Kardashians, a drunk in love Kris and Bruce Jenner celebrate their anniversary, with Kim purchasing the couple a stripper pole followed by the youngest Kardashian-Jenner, Kylie, doing her best Showgirls impersonation. Meanwhile, Kim completely freaks out over a photo shoot that exposes her breasts.
Eight years (and seasons) later, and the Kardashians have exploded into the cultural consciousness. Every move they make, whether it’s a dye job or some idle gossip, makes front page news. Kim has a $200 million app wherein users literally mimic her life. And the entire gang recently re-upped their KUWTK contract for a reported 4 years and $100 million.
But things have changed quite a bit as well since those halcyon mid-aughts. Kris and Bruce are now divorced, with the latter reportedly transitioning into a woman. That little girl working the pole is now 17 and dating the rapper Tyga, 25. And Kim, she of the 72-day wedding to an NBA role player, is now married to one of the world’s most gifted musicians in Kanye West, and mother to their daughter, North. Oh, and the memory of her sex tape—and her resulting never-nude stance—is a thing of the past, with Kim baring all for two magazines this year alone.
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Which is all to say that the tenth season premiere of Keeping Up with the Kardashians introduces us to a family not united but divided along filial lines.
We’ll get to that in a second. The episode opens in much lighter fashion, with the Kardashian gals gathered around Kim gabbing about the merits of using a tapeworm as a weight-loss product (don’t ask). Kim, meanwhile, is glowing—lying on the bed in a robe. When Kendall asks her why she’s lying down, she goes a bit off-script.
“I, um…the doctor said when I have sex I have to lay down for 10 to 20 minutes, and I just had sex before you guys got here. I swear,” Kim says. “He said it takes 10 minutes for a sperm to swim up there. I’ll wait, like, five more minutes for this to marinate inside of me.”
Yes, throughout this episode, we fail to catch a glimpse of Kanye—but we are treated to plenty of glimpses of a relaxed Kim mere moments after they’ve banged.
The next time we see Kim she’s posing for a series of nude photos to, she says, “preserve” her body prior to having a second baby. And again, Kanye popped in—literally and figuratively—sight unseen.“I was like, ‘I’m ovulating today!’ so I made him come to my photo shoot,” Kim tells Khloe, insinuating that she and Kanye boned in the bathroom. “There’s only a 20 percent chance of getting pregnant every month. I know that I’m ovulating right now, so you gotta get it in when you can get it in,” she says matter-of-factly.
Meanwhile Mario, Kim’s makeup artist, sums up the scenario perfectly: “[Kim] goes to the bathroom and [Kanye] follows her into the bathroom. Ten minutes later she comes out, he’s gone, she has the most beautiful glow on her face with little bits of sweat dripping, and she says, ‘I gotta lay down for 10 minutes.’”
The rest of the episode is, frankly, a bit of a snooze. Bruce and Kris are in the process of finalizing their divorce, and Team Kardashian freaks out when he’s caught by the tabloids getting cozy with one of her close friends at an Elton John show. This leads to an angry Kim confronting Bruce at a lunch spot. “Because she is my mom’s friend, my mom is owed a conversation,” Kim tells him. “My mom deserves the respect of a phone call.” Poor Bruce, really. Oh, and just when you think he’s taken enough of a pounding, Bro-dy Jenner storms in like a bat out of douchebag hell, telling his father that he’s going to throw him a “Bruce on the Loose” bachelor party and that the poor guy needs a “Sluger: A slut and a cougar.” Dear god.
So the gals, as is their wont, decide to throw a competing party of their own for the Momager: “Kris J. Needs a Lei.” It’s sorta clever in a “We have way too much money” kinda way.
There’s also, in two throwaway scenes, major shade thrown at Khloe’s ex French Montana following their split. “He’s so dumb. I can’t spend time with dumb people like that anymore, so please don’t bring another dummy,” Kourtney says.And Bro-dy still seems to be terribly bitter about the Kimye nuptials. In case you missed it (and you should have), the Jenner man-child was angry that Kimye didn’t allow him to bring his latest girlfriend to their wedding, so he bailed altogether and then later attended the wedding of Kim’s ex Reggie Bush, presumably to spite his famous stepsister. So Bro-dy vents about the whole affair after being overserved wine in Vegas.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” Bro-dy says, defending his appearance at Bush’s wedding. “I love Reggie! Put Kanye and Reggie together in a burning building, guess who I’m saving? Reggie. Reggie all the way.”
Let’s hope Kanye swoops in and slaps around Bro-dy with one of his leather gloves, because that would really make this whole damn charade worthwhile.
