The Kardashians

The second part of the Khloe & Lamar Season 2 premiere kicks off with two tricky themes: divorce and insomnia. Festive!

First up: Khloe Kardashian’s BFF (and former personal assistant) Malika Haqq is dating Adrian Wilson, a gorgeous NFL player who just so happens to be married with three kids — but is separated from his wife, he says. Khloe tells the camera she’s very protective of Malika, who has been her friend and assistant for a number of years.

We are then introduced to Adrian at a double-date dinner with Lamar and Khlo, who immediately begins to grill her BFF’s boytoy about how many kids he has, how old they are, and how long he’s been married. (Answers: three, the youngest is only 2 years old, and 10 years). Lamar tells Khloe to back off, because, ya know, there are cameras around and this guy is obviously involved in some drama and might be shy about sharing all of the details on camera. “She’s my best friend,” Khloe defends, “and I’m gonna ask the questions that need to be asked.” To his credit, Adrian answers all of them and seems to be super into Malika.

Back at the house, Lamar is inflicting his adorable yet incurable insomnia on his wife. The NBA lockout has left Lamar listless, and with no hooping time in sight, his life consists mostly of eating candy, playing video games, and making Khloe stay up and watch him do both. (Sidebar: Lamar is eating in every scene in this episode, save for the studio confessional and his gym workout.) Khloe’s willingness to be with Lamar at all moments, waking and sleeping, is the true gold standard of commitment; she stays up watching him play video games until 5 a.m., but not without repercussions.

The next day, Khloe sleeps in past her alarm and is late for her Kardashian Kollection photo shoot for the sisters’ new denim line. Malika bursts into Khloe’s room to wake her up, and Khloe’s sleeplessness is starting to catch up with her; she groggily fumbles for clothes and asks Malika to drive her to the shoot. On the ride to the studio, Malika vents some more about the tricky Adrian’s-still-married-with-kids thing, and explains her own similar childhood trauma: Her dad left her mom when she and her sister were little. She’s obviously conflicted about the relationship, but says “I can’t help the way I feel.”

At the photo shoot, Khloe yawns nonstop but still manages to look good. She’s only been getting 2 to 3 hours of sleep per night, she later confides to the camera. Khloe’s big sister Kim Kardashian confesses her worries about how Lamar’s sleep schedule might be affecting Khloe’s ability to get pregnant. It’s a tender sister moment, and Khloe takes note.

Later, more talking about feelings! Malika and Khloe go on a walk and Malika confronts Khloe about how “judgmental” she’s being about Adrian. Khloe says she’s not judging her for her relationship; she just wants her to be realistic about the lay of the land. “You have to know what you’re getting into,” Khlo says, adding that Malika’s always been the one with rules about not getting involved with married guys orguys with kids, and this dude is both still married and a dad to three kids, the youngest of whom is just 2 years old.

Malika storms off, yelling about how she knew Khloe was judging her. Sobbing, she heads to her sister Khadija’s house, confessing, “I don’t wanna be accused of ruining someone’s marriage.” Khadija tells Malika she needs to talk to Adrian about all of this, because she’s only running in circles in her head.

At Adrian’s house in Arizona, Malika storms around until he asks her if something is up. She comes clean with him about how she’s insecure about where she fits into his life and is worried she’s preventing him from being a present dad to his kids. Adrian insists he wants to be with her and that he wants to focus on their relationship. Malika looks relieved, but wary, and says all she can think about is how this is going to affect the kids. Her childhood pain is obviously seared into her memory, and she can’t seem to stop reliving it — or thinking that she’s inflicting that pain on someone else’s kids.

When she returns to California, Malika tearfully tells Khloe she’s ended it with Adrian. Khloe tells her BFF she’s proud of how willing she was to put herself out there and move past her “rules” and fall in love with Adrian, but supports her decision to remove herself from a potentially dramatic situation. Spoiler alert: Khloe was right.

In other couple news, Khloe is so exhausted and frustrated with Lamar’s lack of sleep that she tries to drug him by crushing melatonin up in his bedtime tea. Rob watches this all go down, pointing out the “floating bits” to Lamar, who side-eyes his wife and refuses to drink it. But, Lamar sees how much his insomnia is affecting Khloe and realizes he can’t keep making her stay up, so he rubs her back until she falls soundly asleep — and then calls his best friend Jamie over for a night of video games.