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\n Adriana tries to be on her best behavior, but her fa\u00e7ade quickly dissolves as it\u2019s revealed that she has been behind much of the turmoil this season.
\n Photo: Bravo\n <\/p>\n
The end of this episode felt like the climax of a Scooby-Doo cartoon. Everyone is gathered around to hear the evidence that will tell us there wasn\u2019t a ghost at all, nor a demon haunting these proceedings. It was really a person in a disguise. As they rip off the mask to see who has been causing trouble all season long, it\u2019s Adriana de Moura! Well, maybe when they ripped off the mask, they found a demon after all.<\/p>\n
Adriana has had a good season, ducking most of the drama and staying out of fights so that she can pout at events about how her friend Julia has betrayed her for Alexia and Marysol. Okay, there was that one episode with the dueling boats<\/a> where she screamed at Marysol about her old knees, but even that was kind of cute and quaint, and it seemed like Marysol deserved it somehow. But now the old Adriana is back, the one who exasperated me for three years during the show\u2019s first incarnation as someone who can\u2019t be reasoned with, who takes things out of context, and has little loyalty for any of her friends when they aren\u2019t giving her a fawning level of devotion. Yes, she was exasperating, but that also made her a perfect Housewife.<\/p>\n This all starts when Adriana shows up at her mortal enemy, Marysol\u2019s, house because Marysol is hosting a gifting suite that also doubles as a holiday party. Strangely enough, the one thing Marysol and Alexia don\u2019t talk about is which day they were both going to have their Christmas parties, and they end up at the exact same time. Adriana, Guerdy, Larsa, and Stephanie visit Marysol\u2019s, where they\u2019re given free pajamas, IV drips, jewelry, and a variety of other gifts. They also get to rub shoulders with our favorite undercover spy, Jill Zarin, who has been plotting her revenge against Andy Cohen from her lair in Boca Raton for years. Meanwhile, Julia, Lisa, and Kiki all pull the short straw and go to Alexia and Frankie\u2019s Beauty Bar for free manicures, half-stale prosecco, and warm sushi passed around by waitstaff that aren\u2019t even hot. Also, there is no Santa, but Alexia\u2019s gay Jonny is there to trash-talk Todd once more before flying home to Spain.<\/p>\n At Marysol\u2019s party, Adriana is already telling Guerdy that Julia is not a good friend because of what happened between them at her art party in the last episode<\/a>. She feels that Julia is using her and that she has been her covert enemy this whole time. She also says that Kiki is a problem for making a joke about her age in a mean-spirited way. Stephanie is worried that Adriana and Kiki, the two \u201cfriends of\u201d who are the lynchpins of her own holiday party, aren\u2019t getting along. Adriana says that she will make sure that everything goes smoothly.<\/p>\n Between these competing parties and Stephanie\u2019s big Christmas blowout, Julia has an event that is both for opera and foster care. It is not a fundraiser, mind you. It\u2019s not a concert either. I\u2019m not sure what it is. It seems like a promotional event for Carmen at the Florida Grand Opera, which Julia costarred in, but Julia tried to wrap it up like a charity gala. At the event, she introduces the opera and the foster-care case worker she used to adopt her new children so that they can possibly work together in the future. This event could have been an email.<\/p>\n Julia\u2019s new besties, Alexia and Marysol, attend, as does Kiki, and they\u2019re all talking about why Adriana didn\u2019t come. Adriana says later that it\u2019s because she had to rehearse with her 12-person band and couldn\u2019t reschedule with all of them. In the conversation about this event and who is attending and why, there are many people who are correct. Julia says that it shows how Adriana feels about her and her children that she\u2019s not there, and she\u2019s right. Adriana says that Julia texted her the day before, didn\u2019t tell her she was going to sing, and she couldn\u2019t skip her rehearsal, and she\u2019s right. Alexia says that Adriana wants Julia down in the darkness, hating everyone \u201cin the group,\u201d and now that Julia is starting to make friends and see the light, Adriana wants to punish her, and she is right.<\/p>\n They\u2019re all right, and they\u2019re all also wrong. Julia should have understood that the short notice and Adriana\u2019s performance didn\u2019t allow her to come. Adriana should have understood that this was important to Julia and at least texted her after rehearsal to see how the event went. Alexia should have understood \u2026 well, actually, I think she has known Adriana long enough to fully understand what was going on, and she wasn\u2019t wrong at all, perhaps for the first time in her entire tenure. Someone give Alexia a gold star and a raise.<\/p>\n This conversation naturally continues at Stephanie\u2019s big party, which her husband, Masoud, doesn\u2019t even attend because he has a business dinner. He couldn\u2019t reschedule? Marysol\u2019s husband, Steve, makes it. Lisa\u2019s boyfriend, Jody, isn\u2019t going to come because she told him it was December and there wouldn\u2019t be any A\/C, but then she told him that there would be plenty of snow, and his eyes bulged out of his head and he shouted, \u201cI\u2019m there!\u201d while grinding his jaw an inordinate amount.<\/p>\n Keeping her word, Adriana is initially on her best behavior, especially with Kiki, who pulls\u00a0Adriana to apologize for putting a math equation on her birthday cake that gave away her age. Adriana accepts her apology immediately, and she apologizes for the nonsense she pulled in the last episode, where she got her Black friend Carol to tell Kiki that she\u2019s not racist. They hug and make up, and it is the only good thing that Adriana does for the rest of the episode.<\/p>\n No, I take that back. Adriana does a good thing when she performs her new hit single, \u201cI Love My Dog.\u201d Of all the Housewives songs we\u2019ve heard over the years \u2014\u00a0\u201cTardy for the Party,\u201d \u201cMoney Can\u2019t Buy You Class,\u201d Danielle Staub\u2019s lesbian anthem \u201cReal Close\u201d \u2014\u00a0none has been more relatable, more honest, more catchy than \u201cI Love My Dog.\u201d It is literally just a song about how much she loves her dog. Been there, sister. Everyone has. Dogs are great. It\u2019s like the \u201cSmelly Cat<\/a>\u201d of the Real Housewives\u2019 discography.<\/p>\n But before she can perform it, she is outside holding up the performance with her diva behavior, demanding that it be dark and people move away from her piano, and that everything be exactly right. Sure, being an artist is about having and preserving a vision. But it is also about being on time and pleasing an audience. I hate to break it to Adriana, this isn\u2019t Carnegie Hall. This is an office Christmas party in a food court. You want to be professional and prepared, but let\u2019s acknowledge the limitations of the venue.<\/p>\n After she sings, Julia sits her down and asks why she didn\u2019t go to her event. Adriana says that Julia doesn\u2019t appreciate \u201cher craft.\u201d Um, no one does. She sings two Auto-Tuned dance tracks and one novelty song about pets. She also said Julia expects her to \u201cgive up her dream\u201d to attend her event. Sure, this is a stepping stone, but is this her dream? When Julia points out that she also performs, Adriana says that she has only been doing it for a year, whereas Adriana has been doing it for 14 years. So the longevity of her dream somehow supersedes Julia\u2019s dream?<\/p>\n As the fight escalates, there is an exchange that perfectly encapsulates Adriana. She shouts at Julia about whether she knew that her band had 12 people in it. Julia, getting exasperated, asks if Adriana has checked in on her children, which is probably a much bigger thing than Adriana\u2019s languishing music career. Adriana asks, \u201cAm I their godmother?\u201d This is how Adriana thinks. They\u2019re only worth checking on if she is the prime person in their life, if they are somehow a reflection of her. She will only put in the effort if Julia does things the way she wants them done.<\/p>\n Adriana then accuses Julia of being a loser whom she found in some grubby home and got her on the show. I don\u2019t know, this feels like it might be the other way around. After all, Julia has been main cast and she\u2019s a friend of. Doesn\u2019t it seem like maybe they only kept Adriana around to get to Julia, a former beauty queen who is married to a tennis legend? But Adriana accuses Julia of that because that is the way Adriana works. Adriana knows she was using Julia, so she assumes Julia was using her back.<\/p>\n Then Julia says something very revelatory, which explains everything she\u2019s said about Adriana and how she\u2019s acted all season. \u201cWhat people don\u2019t know, in front of everyone, she was acting like my best friend,\u201d Julia says in a confessional. \u201cBut behind closed doors, she was guilt-tripping me for things, she was controlling me, she was yelling at me, and making me feel smaller than this all the time. I just can\u2019t take it anymore. It\u2019s four years of mental and psychological abuse.\u201d I\u2019m not saying that Julia is blameless or exemplary all the time (especially this season). But this all makes sense and tracks with what we know about Adriana. I can see how she holds every minute detail hostage and recounts it on the trip home, putting Julia through a litany of loyalty tests.<\/p>\n