The Kardashians Recap: When It Brains, It Pours

The most important time jump on television this week wasn’t on House of the Dragon; it was on The Kardashians (easy mistake though — Kim often has the same hair as Daemon Targaryen). After the entirety of the first episode covered Khloe addressing the Tristan scandal and welcoming her new son in August, episode two hits rewind and brings us back six months before that, kicking things off in February 2022.

So far, the season’s birth-per-episode ratio is off the charts, because this week, Kylie’s the one in labor and we’re alerted to this with supposed “home video” of Kris getting the news, which plays more like a found-footage improv show. To watch this little scene of her scrambling to get to the hospital, we have to suspend our disbelief big time.

They expect us to believe that Corey would know about Kylie going into labor before Kris would and had to wake her up to tell her, as if Kris doesn’t have a blaring alarm ringtone for that very occasion. We then have to believe that Corey has the foresight to start and continue recording this on his phone so the show will have footage of this moment — which I can actually believe, because I think Kris has trained everybody in that family to become camera operators when need be. Next, we have to believe that Kris just so happened to be sleeping in full glam. She then hurriedly grabs snacks and a bottle of Champagne, must-haves for the hospital. And finally, you can really tell that Kris is acting when she says something that we all know she would never say: “Stop filming.”

Kylie’s baby boy arrives on 2/2/22, and if you’re hoping we’ll finally get the name this episode, I’ve got bad news for you. As I’m sure you’re aware, Kylie famously named the baby Wolf and then a month later said Sike! While they have picked a new name, she’s wary of announcing it just yet in case they change it again. Though we don’t get the name itself, we do get the backstory behind the switch — and it wasn’t a cease and desist from Wolf Blitzer as I’d suspected. She didn’t have a name picked out and was hoping that it would just come to her when she saw him. It did not, so with that birth-certificate deadline fast approaching, they pulled the trigger on Khloe’s suggestion of Wolf — and instantly regretted it. Poor Khloe’s getting blamed for everything.

The naming saga gives Kris a chance to run through her naming process over the years, which can be summed up by simply saying they all began with a K. The one exception to that rule, of course, is Rob, whose name Kris literally forgets. “Robert is Robert George Kardashian — No! Sorry, sorry, Robert Arthur Kardashian.” Now to be fair, how is she supposed to remember that if she’s not seeing it written out on the call sheet every day? “This is so confusing. Can anybody keep up with this?” Yes, Kris, there was an entire television series about doing exactly that.

Speaking of Rob (which we rarely do), we get our first mention of the looming lawsuit from his ex Blac Chyna. She’s suing Kris, Khloe, Kylie, and Kim for defamation of character and interference of contract, but Kris doesn’t want to say too much about it and fan the flames. I suspect they’re just biding their time until they get the artist to redraw their courtroom sketches to be more flattering.

Lawsuits and babies aren’t the only big life events happening, though, because Kourtney is hard at work planning her wedding. She’s trying to figure out a designer for her wedding dress, and her main note for the people around her who are actually doing the planning is that she wants a veil with the Virgin Mary on it to match the tattoo that Travis has on his scalp. Just a new impossible standard for brides everywhere: finding a veil that matches your groom’s head. True to character, Kourtney seems totally relaxed about the whole thing, mostly because she wants as small a wedding as possible — even bringing up the idea of a Quaker wedding between just the bride and the groom. Plus it’s on-brand because oatmeal is gluten free.

Over on a massive bed the size of Rhode Island, Kim checks in with Khloe about how she’s holding up. Now remember, in this current timeline, we don’t yet know about her baby’s being on the way, so they’re only addressing the original scandal and the humiliation that came with it. However, we also find out for the first time that Tristan actually tried to propose to her about a year prior and she kept it a secret (even from her sisters) because she was embarrassed. If she was going to accept, she wanted it to be at a time when she’d be proud to tell people, which never came.

Luckily, Kendall has a great way to cheer Khloe up — yep, you guessed it: a brain scan! You might remember from all of the machinery and chambers that Kendall was climbing in and out of last season that she’s become obsessed with health-and-wellness gadgets, and her latest obsession is this brain scan. As the name “brain scan” suggests, the device scans the brain and produces an image that highlights overactive areas, telling one things about oneself that only a brain scan, or anyone who has watched multiple television shows about their lives, would know.

Before the actual scan, Khloe has to take an online personality quiz for unclear reasons. The results are pretty accurate with the exception of Khloe scoring only one percent on resilience — which she takes deep offense to after everything she’s been through. But Kendall, not one to doubt science, wonders if Khloe really processes everything she goes through or if she just puts on a brave face. Kendall says you have to have a breakdown to have a breakthrough, and I trust her on this, because it looks like she’s trying to grow out her baby bangs.

The duo go to Dr. Amen for the scan, whom I immediately recognize from his TikTok reading of Lili Reinhart’s brain, and into the machine Khloe goes. Now for some reason, Kendall brought her massive dog along to this doctor’s office, and I’m convinced she wanted to sneak him into the machine after Khloe to read his dog brain.

Dr. Amen shows us both of their brains (Khloe and Kendall’s, not the dog’s), which tell a rich story about their respective brain injuries and anxieties. He asks about her trauma, and she runs down the list, but he stops her when she gets to Lamar, saying, “He struggled with drug abuse? Yeah, I had season tickets to the Lakers for 20 years.” I don’t know about Khloe, but I don’t know if I’d want a doctor referencing tabloid information about my life during an exam. It’s the primary reason why I’ll never become the Kardashians’ medical provider.

After laying it all out on the table, Khloe gets Dr. Amen to concede that she is in fact very resilient despite what the personality quiz said. “I’m resilient! I’m strong! I’m powerful! I have head trauma!” she cheers on her way out of the office.

Speaking of head, Kravis is enjoying some time in Palm Springs, because as Kourtney says, they love a little escape out of Calabasas — and who doesn’t? That’s all anybody really is ever trying to do, isn’t it? Escape the hellhole that is Calabasas, California. Kris and Corey join them there for dinner, and amid some chat about naked dishwashing and Kris reading Travis’s scalp tats, they dig into Kourtney’s IVF journey. Last season, they decided to take a break from IVF to try doing things naturally, but after being encouraged to give it one more shot, they did a final egg retrieval — which resulted in an embryo that they’re now waiting to get test results on.

Meanwhile, Kim and Kendall are off to Milan for the Prada show. Dressed in a baggy green leather getup that makes her look like Kermit the Frog’s foreskin, Kim FaceTimes with Kendall — newly a redhead — about their flight on KimAir, letting her know that there will be waffles onboard. Kendall mentions that she’s going to get a quick spray tan before the flight, and we can visibly see the panic flash across Kim’s face. A spray tan?! On her brand-new light-colored KimAir cashmere seats?! But Kendall assures her it’s some fancy spray tan that won’t ruin the plane.

They touch down in Italy, a country that Kendall incorrectly claims invented pasta (famously that was China), and make their way to their hotels with Kendall’s top-secret ginger locks covered up in a beanie. “Kim and Kendall take Milan,” Kim jokes. “Is that like blasphemous to say on Hulu?” Might be, but if not, I’m sure we’ll get a ten-episode order.