Alexia and Adriana’s dueling toasts is the kind of friendly rivalry that makes Miami so fun to watch.
Photo: Bravo
Less than a minute into this week’s episode, Julia starts sobbing while practicing opera. I don’t know a better television show. She’s still reeling from her altercation with Guerdy last week, which she tells her instructor all about, saying, “The water got spilled all over the place.” What an incredible and artful way of rephrasing the fact that she threw water on Guerdy. But that’s just the beginning; she ends up fully trauma dumping on this poor opera teacher.
For as much as this fight has apparently affected Julia, Guerdy is still trying to recover from it in a very similar way: sobbing. She cries to her husband that Julia violated her in front of the girls for their entertainment. That last bit is what I find particularly interesting, because it demonstrates that part of what Guerdy has a problem with is that this wasn’t even an authentic outburst — it was for the show. It echoes something she said during the fight itself about Julia “producing.” The offense hits harder if it wasn’t even from a real place. Since the pair ultimately don’t cross paths in this episode, we can put a pin in this.
After all, we’ve got a whole new Housewife joining the cast this episode. We meet Stephanie as she boards her private jet with Larsa, whom she met by way of Caroline Stanbury, naturally. “It was love at first sight,” Larsa says. But Stephanie’s telling is a little different: “I didn’t want to meet her.” But why are they on this plane? Though Larsa thought they were just getting lunch, Stephanie is apparently taking her along to go pick up her dog, Pebbles, so they fly from Miami to Orlando, which is gross. That’s a drivable distance; the dog can handle a car ride. But instead, we get a carbon footprint in the shape of a massive Louboutin.
Having missed the hubbub at the wedding, Lisa meets up with Marysol and Alexia and asks them to fill her in on all the drama that went down. They share Larsa’s story about Jody going nuts when they were in Milan, yelling at her, and having crazy eyes. Lisa denies the story completely and wonders what Larsa meant by crazy eyes. Gee, I wonder what that could mean! He simply has big eyes, Lisa maintains, like a Furby.
Simultaneously, Larsa is retelling the story on FaceTime with her friend Jack, but I’m less interested in what she’s saying and more interested in how she has to keep swiping away notifications throughout the call. One, seemingly from Instagram, even gets blurred by production. Somebody tell Larsa about Do Not Disturb.
While Lisa was acting like she was hearing all of this gossip for the first time, she accidentally let it slip that she already heard what Larsa was saying, but won’t reveal to Marysol who the mole was. She’s no rat, she says, but she’s furious that this conversation was happening when Larsa knew she was with her dying father. What happened next almost made me fall out of my chair.
There have been nearly 2,000 episodes of the Real Housewives franchise at this point, so for these women to still find new ways to shock me is beyond remarkable. But my jaw dropped when Lisa reveals that she texted Larsa a photo of her dead father lying in his casket with the caption, “THIS is what I’m dealing with.” Marysol and Alexia are speechless. The craziest part is that Larsa never brings it up the whole episode. I need to know what Larsa’s reaction to receiving a photo of a corpse was.
Since there’s simply no possible way for me to make a natural segue from that, let’s just forge ahead. When some of the girls go out for drinks, Marysol goes up to the bartender to order, as she is wont to do. But before she even finishes her sentence, the bartender says, “Vodka with oranges on the side?” “Exactly,” she responds, surprised that this barkeep, whom she seemingly does not know, has her order memorized. That simply can’t be a good sign, and we can trust that this will be coming up the next time Adriana wants to attack Marysol about her drinking. Nonetheless, it’s hilarious.
It’s really this outing that introduces us more fully to Stephanie as a new Housewife, so let’s dig into this first impression. As is always the case, we’re judging her based on very little, but that shouldn’t stop us from forming bold, decisive opinions that will likely change completely by next week — it’s our way as Bravo fans. We learn that she met her real-estate-mogul husband when she was 26 and he was 50; she makes a stink about Alexia being late; and won’t let Larsa move her Birkin. I don’t like her. In these two brief scenes, she seems to have a sour aura that, so far, I’m not enjoying watching. That being said, those qualities could be what make her a great Housewife. Her one saving grace comes when she breaks this snooty façade and talks about growing up on a farm and fingering chickens for eggs.
Naturally, that’s what finally wins Julia over and earns her an invitation to the baby shower. Not only that, but Julia calls Adriana to request that Stephanie sit next to her. Julia is sick and twisted for twisting the knife in Adriana’s heart like this! But having planned this whole event for her, Adriana stands her ground and retains her spot next to Julia. Stephanie will have to settle for across the table.
When Alexia arrives at the shower, she right away maintains that she didn’t skip drinks with the girls to be with Todd, but rather needed a mental-health break (on account of all the stress Todd is causing in her life). We must protect this poor woman at all costs. Why must she suffer so? And to make matters worse, within seconds of meeting her, Stephanie takes it upon herself to give her two cents on Todd, telling Alexia, “When God takes out the garbage, you don’t go back into the garbage and go diving.” Alexia’s reaction is shockingly polite, but she acknowledges in her confessional that this was incredibly out of line. Who does this woman think she is? She meets a stranger and the first thing she tells her is that her husband is garbage? Even if she’s right (which she is), what gives her any authority to be so bold? I think this was an act of malice because she didn’t like that Alexia was late to, and then bailed on, drinks.
But don’t worry, Alexia won’t let that keep her from having a good time, and she entertains herself and us by hijacking Adriana’s toast to chime in with remarks of her own. As she says she’s been friends with Julia for three years, Adriana grabs the mic back to clarify that she’s been friends with Julia for over ten. It’s such an exact re-creation of that scene from Bridesmaids that even Marysol yells out the reference as it’s happening. This is the kind of thing I love to see on these shows: friendly rivalry. Earlier in the party, Alexia mentioned that she was still annoyed at Adriana for complicating her relationship issues by spreading rumors about Todd last season, but they’re still able to have fun with playful ribbing.
As for the games, Adriana makes them eat out of a diaper and guess what food it is, but instead of playing with candy bars as is typical, this lunatic filled them all up with rice and beans. Whether it was the taste or the visual, Lisa ended up running off to the bathroom dry heaving. Actually, that could have also been the alcohol. She gets completely sloshed at the event, and tells Stephanie that she wants to be friends with her after seeing how rich she is. It’s clearly meant as a playful joke, but Stephanie takes offense, which is rich (no pun intended) coming from her after the gross way she’s been flexing her wealth this whole episode. Now, suddenly, talking about her money is déclassé?
Speaking of déclassé, Julia uses her baby shower as an opportunity to hold an investigation into who told Lisa about what Larsa said at Marysol’s wedding. I’d say who cares, but I do love the murder-mystery vibe this is bringing to the table. What’s so great about this is that Lisa is standing ten toes down that she would never rat out her source, but meanwhile, we find out that her source was Guerdy, who seems not to care who knows. We even get a flashback of her casually revealing to Kiki that she was the one who filled Lisa in. Case closed!
But even just bringing up the incident is enough to send a very drunk Lisa off the deep end. It’s completely understandable, too. As she explains, she just buried her father less than a week ago, and now she’s already back at work. That would be tough for anybody, but imagine if “work” was standing in front of what’s essentially a Juvéderm-filled firing squad looking to attack you. It’s only natural that the episode ends with her storming out of the event in drunken tears.
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