The Hills: Shifting Alliances

Both of last night’s episodes of The Hills were filled with stunning betrayals. Old wounds were reopened. New alliances were formed. Family loyalties were called into question and even the truest of friendships were forever threatened.

Okay, now seriously, all that happened was that Lauren invited Spencer’s sister Stephanie to her birthday party. And EVERYONE freaked out.

These episodes really highlighted how ridiculous this never-ending feud between Lauren and Heidi/Spencer has become. The fight that started it all was months ago. In case you’ve forgotten (and I wouldn’t be surprised if even the involved parties couldn’t remember what started it anymore) the official split between Lauren and Heidi occurred when Lauren believed Heidi was the source of a nasty Internet rumor involving Lauren, her ex-boyfriend Jason, and a naughty videotape. Neither of these girls has done anything harmful to the other since then. They’ve gone on living separate lives (except when MTV sends them to the same hot spot for the sake of ratings), and there doesn’t seem to be any reason why they shouldn’t be able to move on. Yet, whenever Heidi talks to Audrina or Brody runs into Stephanie or Lauren’s eighth cousin encounters Spencer’s great-uncle at the grocery store, everyone gets all riled up again, and a new chapter in this silly saga begins.

One of the funniest editing tricks in the show’s history came during Lauren’s party, as the camera cut back and forth between Lauren telling Stephanie what a great person she is on one couch, while Lo and Audrina whispered about how untrustworthy Stephanie is on the next couch. Whitney appeared to be giving Stephanie cautious glances from a third couch, but since we never heard Whitney speak, we really don’t know what she was looking at. This scene brought me to two realizations: 1.) Stephanie could save Lauren from a burning car, and Lo and Audrina still would accuse her of being “Spencer’s spy"; 2.) All these girls ever seem to do at these nightclubs is just sit around. It looks so boring. Don’t they ever dance?

Lo and Audrina’s mistrust of Stephanie was echoed the next day when Brody advised Lauren that he’d known Stephanie for a while, and Lauren needed to watch her back. These words probably would’ve had more effect if it wasn’t for the fact that Lauren’s still reeling from the realization that Brody has a girlfriend, which he finally admitted to. Her name is Cora, and I’m guessing she doesn’t watch The Hills. The big disappointment of this scene was that we didn’t get to hear if Brody answered when Lauren asked him how long he and Cora had been together. I’m sure I’m not the only one dying to know just how long Brody had been stringing Lauren along for.

Meanwhile, at Bolthouse, Heidi learned from a coworker that Stephanie had been spotted at Lauren’s party. A call was immediately placed to Spencer, who then promptly laid the smackdown on his poor sis. Despite all the messages we’re being fed about her “untrustworthiness," I kind of felt for Stephanie in this scene. For all his talk about the importance of family, Spencer doesn’t treat her very nicely, as was evidenced in an earlier scene where he showed a complete lack of gratitude for her hospitality, and kicked her out of her own living room so he could watch 24 in peace. Stephanie was dead-on when she told Spencer, “You need to stop having enemies." I’m still not sure I quite believe that she’s befriending Lauren in hopes of bringing her and Heidi back together, but she doesn’t deserve the verbal abuse she’s been getting from Spencer, either.

Heidi’s motives also remain unclear at this point. After getting upset with Stephanie for going to Lauren’s party, Heidi decided it was time to patch things up with a skeptical Audrina after running into her at a club. It looks to me as though even though she claims to be angry about Stephanie’s friendship with Lauren, Heidi might still be holding out some hope that her own friendship with Lauren could still be salvaged -- just as long as she doesn’t have to admit she did anything wrong. She still claims to believe the only reason Lauren is angry with her is because she’s with Spencer, and denies any involvement in the sex tape rumor. I kind of think that even though she won’t admit it, Heidi is hoping that Stephanie or Audrina will lead her back to Lauren.

But Lauren has other ideas. After finding out that Heidi had stopped by the apartment to pick up some old belongings and visit Audrina, Lauren made the extremely egotistical remark that she doesn’t see why Heidi would want to befriend Audrina again, unless it was to hurt Lauren. Audrina was all “No, no, I won’t make up with Heidi. I’d never do anything to compromise my role on your TV show, I mean, our friendship.” (Okay, that wasn't a direct quote.) But the previews for next week show more Heidi/Audrina bonding time, so we’ll see who is friends with whom next week.

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