[Warning: spoilers ahead.]
Hide the little ones, shield the impressionable, secure the homeland.
The Kardashians are back.
Not that they ever really left, of course. But in the unlikely event anyone sensed a couple of weeks there when the family seemed tragically out of view, E! comes to their rescue by launching Season 12 of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” Sunday night at 9.
Less a television event than a make-good on a dare, the premiere arrives at a moment when a precipitous Kardashian decline into utter irrelevance feels nigh and certainly overdue. The backlash against The Shallow Ones has been so powerful and enduring of late that it’s nearly morphed into a frontlash – a condemnation so robust that it has expanded to ensnare Khloe’s hapless ex Lamar Odom and Kim’s husband Kanye West. (Though it should be noted that Kanye does a fine job of generating contempt without any help.)
Today’s betting line says Kim and Kanye are close to over as a dynamic duo, even if her celebrated buttocks continue to inhabit their own unique solar system. Also showing distinct signs of overexposure and creeping insignificance is estranged Kardashian clan member Caitlin “I Am Cait” Jenner. Her E! trans-reality show essentially tanked in its second season and likely won’t see a third.
So while Beyonce and Jay Z may be sizzling, the most popular peg on the Kardashian board at present appears to be one who is no longer with us: patriarch Robert, whose depiction by David Schwimmer helped to boost the acclaimed FX anthology series “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story” that wrapped April 5.
And how is the 12th season kickoff of “Keeping Up”? Pretty much as divertingly, absurdly trivial as anticipated. You can’t jump the shark when you were barely flogging a flounder to begin with. Too, it’s challenging to assess the relative entertainment merits of a series that long ago devolved into self-parody – and whose stars exist as so many painted and sculpted punchlines.
Let’s just say there is so much cheese in the premiere that mama bear Kris Jenner and her darling daughters Kim, Khloe, Kourtney, Kendall and Kylie should be renamed Brie, Cheddar, Feta, Gruyere, Asiago and Comte.
As we check back in on our heroes for the first time since the Feb. 22 climax of Season 11 that found Kim’s water breaking conveniently on camera before giving birth to son Saint and her obsession with vaginal rejuvenation, Kim is still fixated on that same vagina (“Larsa says she thinks it looks gorgeous and perfect after a baby”).
Khloe is still fussing over the health of her ex Lamar following his drug-induced meltdown and health crisis. Kourtney’s ex Scott Disick is lonely and troubled after moving into a big, gorgeous house in Calabasas. And Kylie and Kendall show themselves to be monumentally boring while enjoying massive business success with new clothing and make-up lines and jet-setting around the world. The urge to place sticks of dynamite in our own ears and light them proves occasionally overwhelming.
We’re also treated to a couple of minutes of Caitlin in the premiere, but only via a phone conversation on speaker in which she slams Kris for allowing Khloe to bring shame on the family. If true, however, she’s got plenty of company.
Partially saving the day in the first hour is Kris, who gives a convincing mini-speech (defending her helping of son Rob) that dresses down the numbingly narcissistic Kim and Khloe – and leaves the impression she’s as sick of this show and its inhabitants as is everyone else. Take it away, Kris: “All of you can go fuck off!…I’ve seen you guys through so much shit that you do that I have to fucking put up with! You guys can do anything you want and it’s OK and I’m supposed to accept it all!”
Cue the “ba-bummmmm” music.
Of course, this all presumes that that what the camera and microphones capture in “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” as in nearly every unscripted series, is somehow real. Which of course it isn’t. And therefore Kris’ little lecture is ultimately as contrived as everything else on a show that’s fairly begging to be put out of its misery.