It’s a full-blown Greek tragedy when Angie suffers a breakdown that’s been brewing all season.
Photo: Bravo
Angie is falling apart, and while she’s trying to keep it a secret, the cracks are starting to become so visible that everyone around her can tell that something is up … They just don’t know what yet. It all eventually comes to a head this episode in a truly dark, painful way — but before we get to that, we’re given the treat of watching Lisa train with her vocal coach. She has her do vocal warm-ups on camera, which is a fate I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy, and somehow they manage to get Lisa’s fountain soda involved in the process. Lisa tells us that she’s gonna be big, and she doesn’t mean community theater; she means Gaga.
Speaking of pop stars, something that I’ll be thinking about until the day I die is John Barlow sitting down in the confessional seat to tell us that one of his favorite singers is Halsey and paraphrasing one of her songs to say that Lisa is a god. “And I’m happy to worship her,” he says, and I couldn’t agree more. I also worship her.
Somebody I don’t worship is Bronwyn, who shows up to shop at Kemo Sabe (Kyle Richards you are always with us) in a foul mood, which she expresses by wearing jeans. She repeatedly tells us that she only wears jeans if she’s in a bad mood, and does it over and over, really trying to make it a thing. It’s performative, like those people who store sweaters in their ovens to be like Carrie Bradshaw even though they’ve got drawer space. Enough already, just be pissed off.
She’s especially pissed at Angie, who she thinks was stirring the pot at the Jupiter Party and being “Lisa’s soldier” and doing her dirty work even after Bronwyn told her she didn’t want to hear it. Angie defends herself by basically saying she was being funny by telling her the gossip anyway and points out that Bronwyn was laughing about it in the moment. To quote Lisa Barlow: “Roll footage!” Sure enough, she was laughing it off in the moment, but it’s fair that in hindsight Bronwyn feels like Angie was being messy and acting out. It’s the overarching sentiment of the episode: Something is up with Angie.
This whole situation is especially frustrating for the viewer because we have more information than most of the cast. We know why Angie is acting out, whereas all of her castmates (save for Heather) lack that context. Would the context make them give her a free pass? Probably not, but at least they’d have the full picture. As of now, we just have to watch them confusedly surmise that something must be going on with her at home, like concerned guidance counselors when a middle-schooler randomly starts talking back. Plus keeping this secret in — though understandable — can’t be good for Angie. In fact, I think her acting out is more the result of her keeping this secret and not because of the split itself. But slowly and surely she’s starting to soft-launch the breakup, as we see her nervously tell her father.
But it’s not all bad news; she first proudly shows this elderly Greek man that she won the Grindr Award for Housewife of the Year. “This is the Grindr Award, because they love me and I’m funny, that was given to me by the gays,” she tells him, holding up the statue. This is clearly a broken woman. She says she’s a gay man trapped in a woman’s body, and honestly, seeing her desperately turn to Grindr for validation in her lowest moment makes me think she actually might be right. We make a sharp pivot to her crying as she tells her father about her marital problems, but fortunately he’s completely supportive, telling her that life is too short to be miserable. It’s a weight off her shoulders and hopefully a key step toward her opening up more to the group.
That is, if it’s not already too late. They’re all heading to a reiki session that Quai planned (Mary accidentally refers to it as “racketeering,” and honestly, given the history of Housewives, that’s not a bad guess), and on the way there, Bronwyn and Mary commiserate over their frustrations with Angie. Mary was particularly upset that, rather than check on her as she stormed out of the Jupiter Party, Angie opted to stay back and film a TikTok with Britani, who was the reason Mary was storming out.
When they arrive, Angie tries to pull Mary aside, sensing that they need to clear the air. But Mary isn’t interested in clearing the air; she’s interested in snapping at Angie for what she did. Angie is completely thrown and doesn’t understand where this is coming from, and quickly runs off crying after Mary tells her she’s got a “head of granite.” Knowing that Mary drove over with Bronwyn, Angie is convinced that Bronwyn got in her ear to rile her up, and when she returns, calls Bronwyn a snake for that. Her screaming is interrupted only by the reiki healer walking over with her little drum, just in time.
The highlights of the reiki session itself included the practitioner/medium not knowing that Heather was dating someone and then pretending that she actually did know, Lisa skipping the session because she was good with her energy as it was, and Mary later revealing that she prefers to use the bathroom completely nude like George Costanza.
When they sit down for lunch afterward, the drama picks right back up. Sure, Whitney and Lisa come to some kind of peace, but the vibe turns sour again when Angie once again takes the floor and starts fighting with Bronwyn over being called Lisa’s soldier. There’s also a weird dynamic here where each of them seems to think they have a leg up on the other by way of information they got via Todd and Shawn’s friendship. Angie knows (or claims) that Bronwyn is playing nice with Todd to get her $85,000 payout, whereas Bronwyn alludes to knowing more about Angie and Shawn’s split than she’s thus far shared.
But then something really bad happens. Mary and Angie get back into the same argument from earlier about Angie being self-centered, and Mary snaps, “What happened to your husband? What happened to your child?” And Angie, clearly not thinking, throws the question right back at her, saying, “What happened to your husband? What happened to your child? What are you talking about?” The room freezes. Whitney leaves to throw up.
Angie, seemingly still not realizing what words just came out of her mouth, just forges ahead — eventually explaining that she forgot what situation she’s in and meant it in the general sense to say that anybody being a mother shouldn’t mean they can’t take care of themself. But naturally, and understandably, it’s too late for Mary, who clings to the statement immediately. The misstep only makes Angie crash out even more; she stands up, fully sobbing and screaming and throwing utensils. “Somebody get Jen Shah out of here,” Mary says, using their former cast member’s name like a slur. As a complete sidebar, I do just want to say that I love that kind of self-referential shorthand … but they must be wary. I fear it may be a Beetlejuice-like situation where if they say her name three times she’ll appear.
After Mary storms off, Heather, Lisa, and Whitney circle around Angie — not to defend her but because they can clearly see that she’s in the midst of some kind of breakdown. Even Bronwyn doesn’t like seeing her, and the group, in this state — and they all put everything aside to try to throw water on the situation because nobody wants to see these two best friends fall apart for good. Angie keeps trying to explain herself through tears, and even tries to chase down Mary in the parking lot, but no dice. We know Mary and her ways, and (as Britani can tell you) once she makes up her mind like this, it’s almost impossible to bounce back. The whole thing is dark and sad on so many levels, but hopefully, with time, things can settle.
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