Last season, Life & Style magazine branded Camille Grammer “America’s Most Hated Housewife“.  The Housewives franchise had been chugging right along, giving us wealthy ladies with acute narcissistic personality disorder for a few years when Beverly Hills came through.  RHBH got our minds right about how a Real Housewives series could be done. These women weren’t even playing; they were so rich their money had money. Their money’s money was laced with money, dipped in a little bit of money and then drizzled with cash. They were wealthy and shiny and botoxed and amazing. We loved Lisa’s British charm, Taylor’s vulnerability, Adrienne’s logical business sense and Kyle’s hair. We hated Camille. Hated.

Camille would make horrible statements and then coquettishly shrug her shoulders as if to say: “Teehee!”  Between her flirting with married men, complaining about having to travel to her estate in Hawaii and reducing her mom’s cancer diagnosis to an irritating check on her own To Do list, we were taken aback, to say the least.

It wasn’t as if the other housewives weren’t making questionable choices, such as Taylor spending $50k on a 4-year-old’s birthday party and Kyle and Kim’s devastating sister fight that was filled with irreversible, hateful words. But it was all somehow more palatable than almost anything Camille did or said.

But this season, we have a whole new girl! Camille is sweet, sensible and lovely. She waltzes into a room with grace and charm and she seems to have grown a sense of humor. It’s such a complete transformation that it’s hard to believe she’s the same woman who giggled after Alison “Fake-Smoke-Face” Debois quipped that she knew when Kyle was going to die and what was going to happen to her children.

It makes me wonder: if we all flipped a camera on ourselves, would we want to make changes?  Would there be glaring flaws in our personality that we’d fix for the next season?

90210 wasn’t the only area code that had a personality overhaul. I sat, beside myself, as I watched a certain Miss Kelly Killoren Bensimone put on her clear-thought-pants one leg at a time this fall. KKB had just ‘bout lost her dang mind last year on “Scary Island”. At the height of her crazy, she was seeing visions of Al Sharpton and accusing chefs of being cooks.  This season—totally lucid.

Kelly was peace making and troubleshooting and “yes, and”-ing in a way that I never thought possible.  She was… how do you say… normal?  There was the moment when she said to Alex, “Cover your shoulders. We’re in Marrakech.” She followed that zinger up with the request that Alex open and close her eyes as they spoke. But that gets a pass because it was hands down my favorite scene of the season.

I’ve taken to asking the general public to open and close their eyes, but it’s usually met with outraged looks. It worked this one time at a Banana Republic in London but it was with a pre-teen boy and I don’t think it counts.

The long and the short of it is, change is possible. If you don’t happen to be on a reality show, you should at least have a friend or therapist who can mirror back some not-so-cute behavior.  I recently learned that I have a horrible habit of bragging that I’m great at ping-pong. People don’t need me throwing that in their face. A friend brought that flaw to my attention and I corrected it. Now I simply let my skills speak for themselves.

I also think there is a strong chance that these broads have hired publicists who place words, ever so carefully, between their lips.  Either way, the change is good. Unless you’re Teresa from RHNJ, and if that’s the case, we prefer the first version.