The Kardashians know how to put on a public face. Each member of the family carefully curates a public persona and some even complete it with a smartphone app. On this week’s episode, “Fake It ‘Til You Make It,” the family confronts the issues of authenticity, recognition, and belonging.
Scott returns this week to answer questions from Khloé and Kim about why he ditched Kanye’s fashion show. The response they get seems to surprise them. “I felt like I was overstepping my bounds,” he says. He didn’t want to be the tag-a-long standing next to everyone. It was a big event. There would be tons of photographs. He didn’t want to start the ‘are they back together again’ conversation.
“Oh, so just let me and Lamar have that title,” Khloé jokes. Jokes aside, she is sympathetic. At first, they thought it was the “typical Scott” but his reason makes sense. Khloé even feels bad for thinking the worst of him.
Khloé takes the time to check in with Kourtney on the whole Scott issue. “I really miss him, and I really miss hanging out with him,” she tells her sister. She wants to do ‘things’ with Scott.
“What kind of things?” Kourtney asks, always worried about Scott and bad influences. Khloé explains that she means things like lunch. She gets the go-ahead and manages to be sensitive to her sister’s feelings, even if it is sometimes unclear whether or not Kourtney actually has feelings.
Things take a complicated turn when Scott gets invited over for a big family dinner. Every year the family gets together to celebrate the late Robert Kardashian’s birthday with an Armenian dinner from his favorite restaurant. Scott is included and seated next to Kourtney. He is uncomfortable and simply shrugs when Khloé asks him a question. He slinks away from the table, clearly pissing off his former, not-quite sister-in-law. “It's definitely sad for me. It’s hard. I don’t know where I fit in with this family,” Scott says to the camera. “I don’t really know how to act.”
Lamar joins Scott inside and asks, “What’s good?” Scott has a simple response. “Nothing at all.”
Khloé is totally over Scott’s sad face. She complains to her sisters after the dinner. “This is what I dislike about Scott,” she says. She is upset that he wants to be included but then acts like “the most negative, depressed victim.” Kourtney has a better handle on it suggesting that he might actually be depressed. She has tried to explain to him that he does have a family in the Kardashians even if he lost his parents. Khloé just isn’t having it saying that if he wants to have a relationship with their family he needs to try as well.
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Their conflict comes to a head when Khloé confronts him directly. She tells him flat out that they want him around. They invite him because he’s a part of the family. Scott confesses he was worried that the invites were pity invites. Later on, at Kendall’s condo, he makes a promise to himself to be more of a joiner. The power of positive thinking, that’s Scott’s new plan.
While Scott might be struggling to know who he is to the family, Kylie and Kendall are struggling to be someone that no one knows. Kendall takes a quick trip to Rome with her mom for a Fendi event with Karl Lagerfeld. Kendall and Kris capitalize on the opportunity to do some quick sightseeing in The Eternal City. “I don’t get to be a tourist very often,” Kendall says.
The Kardashian version of European Vacation doesn’t last long. Kris spots paparazzi. “We’re dead. We should go,” she tells her daughter. Kendall is visibly upset, and Kris explains that Kendall is super sensitive to the constant attention, and she feels bad when her daughter feels trapped.
Back stateside, Kylie is having a similar moment. “Sometimes I just want to be a kid,” she says.
Big sister Khloé comes to the rescue. She regrets that the young Jenners have never had the time to walk around the mall and hang out at the food court. In a moment of honest insight about the Kardashian fame, she says, “It’s a gift and a curse, no matter how you look at it.” Pretty much sums up that trip to Rome in one sentence. Khloé suggests they get a make-up team to put them in prosthetics so they can go out unrecognized.
So what exactly is Kylie’s big dream for her day of anonymity? A Hollywood tour because she wants to hear what people say about them. It’s almost sad in a meta kind of way. Especially when she says she missed out on being able to get out of the car and not have anybody staring at her.
When the big day arrives for the transformation, Khloé goes a little more all in than the other two. She opts for age transformation while Kendall and Kylie look like Kendall and Kylie with fake noses and wigs and a pregnancy belt. They successfully navigate Subway without being recognized, but Kendall spots paparazzi outside and melts down. “I’m going home. This is a fail,” she says, darting away.
Khloé and Kylie convince her to stay and they, as advertised, go on a Hollywood tour. The gig is clearly up as girls in a passing SUV scream Kendall’s name. They ditch the tour and make a sprint for the paparazzi-free zone of the Beverly Hills Hotel, but not before Snapchatting the whole episode thereby scooping the photographers.
So, the undercover moves didn’t go their way, but they all have a blast. In a big family debrief at Kendall’s condo with Kim and Scott, Kendall sums it up this way: “We had the best worst day of our lives.”
Kim is stoic about the whole thing: “I think you’ve just got to surrender to the fact that the paparazzi are going to be everywhere.” Spoken like a true pro.
Meanwhile, Kris’s boyfriend Corey is trying to step out of the shadows and make a place for himself. He wants to do something special with Kris, not just shopping for home goods and antiques. “I did discover one thing,” he says to the 60-year-old Kris. “You’re my perfect little antique.” He is clearly trying to be something more than just an accessory in her Calabasas kingdom.
Corey has the perfect solution, even if Kris’s mom does shoot it down over lunch. He is planning a roller skating party for the whole family. Kris comes up with excuse after excuse, not to roller skate, but Kim shoots her down. Once again, Mrs. Kanye West speaks truth to power. “My mom and Corey’s relationship is like 90% of what my mom wants to do. I feel like we need to nudge her and be like ‘you have to do this for your man.’”
So, roller skating it is. Kris does fall, but Corey is there to catch her. He appreciates her effort beaming like a camp counselor who got campers to show up for the intramural three-legged race. He might just get to keep this job after all.
Bonus Weirdness in Bel-Air: Caitlyn stops by Kim and Kanye’s mansion with a housewarming gift. It’s a carved wooden sculpture that bears a striking resemblance to Kim’s most famous asset. Guess they were all out of the fancy scented candles.