thank you notes 1/21
i'm thankful for the best line on this week's kuwtk, which was when kendall asked caitlyn "do you ever use your helicopters anymore?" i'm thankful for helicopters, plural. i'm thankful, though i usually abhor drama in this show, for the way that this week's episode was about life and death. i'm thankful that the first act was primarily about khloe refusing to take a genetic test to reveal whether she's a carrier of BRCA1 or BCRA2 because, as she says to kris, she doesn't care when she dies, whether it's when she's 30 or 85, and that knowing about it in advance will just make the life she has left worse by scarring it with fear. i'm thankful for her fear of the test and of the knowledge, even if it's irrational and counterproductive, because i think it's something that i and a lot of people can understand; i'm thankful for the scene where she's sitting in a makeup chair having her hair done and surrounded by kris and the genetic test people, for how she steadfastly refuses against the insistence of the doctor to be tested because she "doesn't have time" even though she is sitting in a chair immobile and thus clearly does have time (i'm thankful for the way this reminds me of my wussy refusals of flu-shots while sitting on the crinkly paper cushion cover in doctors' offices). i'm thankful, for the sake of her health and hopeful longevity, that khloe eventually agrees to be tested (i'm thankful for angelina jolie, even though i will ride for jennifer aniston till i die, because of the way she has set a public example about this kind of testing), and thankful for her relief (and the relief of her sisters and mother and grandmother) when it is revealed that none of them are carriers for the gene. i'm thankful to remember the episode earlier in the season when khloe meets with a teen medium from youtube to try to commune with her dead father's ghost.
i'm thankful for how, in the last act, there is a long and incredibly tense and (to me at least, moving) climactic scene which has this slightly meta effect because the kardashians are sitting in a kitchen eavesdropping on a phone conversation as we in front of our televisions eavesdrop on them eavesdropping on the phone conversation. i'm thankful that, in the scene, we hear khloe's disembodied voice through a speakerphone as she tries over and over again to convince scott, who seems, in a strained, far-off voice, to be threatening to commit suicide, that he shouldn't commit suicide, that he matters. i'm thankful that she tells him that life is valuable and that things will get better and that he doesn't want to die and she doesn't want him to die, thankful that she tells him that he is loved and that even if he's made some mistakes that "there is a way to fix everything in life." i'm thankful for the hope of that statement, which given her refusals earlier in the episode and her history of depression and emotional issues, feels hard-won and true.
i'm thankful to think about how life and death isn't just about the big things like this, but also is about how attentive we are to the small things, which, again, is the thing i love about the kardashians: the way their extreme privilege makes possible an idleness and a slowed motion in which it is easier for us to bear witness to immanence that is always encoded in even the most banal moments of our lives. i'm thankful for kylie's snapchat, which d and i just started watching, thankful for last night's installment, where she lounged in front of a radiant sunset with her friend. i'm thankful for the shot of her friend looking through the screen and commanding us to go out and watch the sunset, thankful for him saying that this message was the only way to tell us to get off of our phones and do that. i'm thankful for the mixture of irony and sincerity in his voice, but thankful for the montage of sunset images that followed, which seemed to affirm that the sincerity had won out.
on the other hand, i'm thankful for the conversation kendall and kylie have in this week's episode, when kendall is ranting (in a way that's clearly aimed at kylie, even if it's expressed in the first person) about the problem of being on your phone all of the time and how she feels like she's wasting her life when she's on her phone late at night and how nothing makes her happier than being out of range of service and not being able to use her phone. i'm thankful, when she pauses for a reaction from kylie, who has been "mmhmm"ing and nodding along occasionally, that it becomes clear that kylie has not really been listening to kendall talk about the problem of looking at our phones because she's busy looking at her phone.
i'm thankful, always, for the small things—i'm thankful that kim's primary issue with having the genetic test done is that she would have to wear a bandaid during a photo shoot. i'm thankful for kourtney's insistence that the nude photos she's posing for will be shown in a "fine art gallery." i'm thankful for the opening scene of kris crying while reading a poem about horses that kylie wrote when she was a little girl. i'm thankful for the sweet scene of kendall and caitlyn trying to dance together on hoverboards, for the interesting problem of their bond being so based in physicality and activity and how that's complicated by caitlyn's transition. i'm thankful that it's revealed that the place that scott is considering suicide is a room at soho house new york (i'm thankful for the time that c and his husband took me to dinner at the soho house in miami, where i nervously ate an expensive salad). i'm thankful for the minor leitmotif of critiques of interior design choices, from khloe's argument that kris stole her idea of large glass candy jars (the most conspicuous kardashian interior design element) to kris's remark, as the sisters sit at a kitchen table and lazily pick apart all the things they would change in kris's house, that "you're talking about my house like i'm dead." i'm thankful for how, in pure kardashian fashion, it became increasingly clear that they and/or their rich friends have holdings in the genetic testing company and that this genetic testing storyline is probably just an extended form of product placement. i'm thankful to fantasize about the kardashians having holdings in cryogenics, that they might live forever.
i'm thankful for this video of britney spears painting colorful ovals while listening to "la mer."
Don't miss what's next. Subscribe to thank you notes: