Three episodes into the season, and we’re finally getting taglines, and the good news is that they were worth the wait. In fact, these are some of the best in recent memory. Meredith’s monotone voice saying, “While you drop lies, I’m dropping the beat,” teases her upcoming DJ arc. “I’m Greek, and the rest are just a tragedy,” Angie purrs. And perhaps best of all (and the most factual tagline in history), Mary’s is, “I’m just here to eat, drink, and be Mary.” Well, yes!
After a brief, yet beautiful scene of Lisa rearranging chairs for a Sundance party, the episode begins with Bronwyn getting lunch with Todd, who always appears to have been tricked into filming the show, and we hear about the health struggles her parents have been going through. They just moved her father into a memory care facility, but her mother is still living with them after recovering from surgery for a brain tumor. And if that’s not bad enough, she’s got Lisa Barlow on her case, but Todd encourages her not to engage. However, my eye is drawn to a perplexing close-up shot they give us of Todd putting a Splenda into his (presumably) iced tea, which then makes me focus on how the drink levels jump around the whole scene thanks to editing. Continuity errors like this remind us that there are truly artists at work behind the scenes. Why those artists chose to zoom in on that Splenda, we may never know.
Back at their house, Bronwyn talks to her mom about her cleaning out her childhood home to sell it, and how her father seems to remember the era of their lives that she’s not the most proud of. But Bronwyn gives herself credit for at least getting through that and landing on her feet, at which point her mother feels the need to say that she couldn’t have gotten there without Todd and his money. I suspect this is the last time Bronwyn is going to let her mom around the cameras.
Speaking of parents, Angie is visiting her father, who shows her photos from his youth. “We were serious because there was nothing to smile about,” he says of their stern expressions, going on to talk about the Germans coming into his village and burning it to the ground, which puts things into perspective for Angie. “Some of my biggest concerns of the day are, I need to get microneedling so it heals up in time for my next event,” she says. She also talks about wanting to pass this history down to her daughter and include her in their traditions, like her father’s garden, so they stay alive through the years.
But Elektra might not really want much to do with all of these traditions, at least that’s what Angie tells Heather when she goes over to paint her new home office in full glam. Because when Angie excitedly told her daughter that she is working on getting her Greek citizenship (fork found in kitchen), Elektra couldn’t have cared less. “You’re really taking this Greek thing really far,” we see her tell her mother, and while it is her actual identity, I’m sure Angie has also been leaning into it more than usual since getting on the show. After all, everything is branding. The pair (Angie and Heather, not Angie and her daughter) also talks about Heather’s lunch with Lisa, and despite being allies, Heather is still miffed by Lisa saying they live very different lives. “We’re sitting at the same restaurant, we’re both wearing thigh-high boots,” Heather says to counter that claim, as if those are the two barometers of commonality. Perhaps they are! Unrelated, but I simply have to know how much of this home office actually got painted by the end of this scene.
We then get a hard cut to Lisa wielding a gun, but fear not, enemies of Lisa Barlow — she’s skeet shooting … for now at least. She planned this little pre-luncheon activity with Amy, Meredith, Mary, and Heather ahead of meeting up with all of the other women. It’s sort of like a middle school birthday where only some of the girls stay after the main party for the more exclusive sleepover. “This is the A team, and the D team will be at lunch,” Lisa explains, where she has plans for a big confrontation. Luckily, it seems like Bravo made her leave the gun behind.
Instead, what they find when they all walk into lunch is that the room has been adorned with massive posters of various court documents and headlines with the word “DISMISSED” splashed across them in big, red letters. Just as I’m about to laud Lisa as the funniest person I know, Mary chimes in to critique the print quality of the posters. Start engraving the Emmys now. Amidst these displays is also, inexplicably, a poster of her and John on a yacht and at a Utah Jazz game (which Bronwyn points out isn’t courtside). Lisa tells them that anybody can allege anything, but that doesn’t make it fact, so she’s brought them here today to sort out the truth from fiction. But there doesn’t seem to be much sorting to do, because she simply denies everything — not only calling it all a “fanciful tale” but even naming a drink on the menu that.
It’s amidst this argument that we finally hear from Amy, the Utah Socialite, as I chose to call her, who tries to defend Lisa by saying the mystery man with the credit card was someone they were in business with. But Lisa wants to know why this conversation even came up at all, and the ladies say that she was the one who started it by digging into Bronwyn. Lisa denies this and, somewhere along the line, invokes the name of Anna Kendrick, making it impossible for me not to be on her side. I, too, would have chosen to go to the premiere of A Simple Favor 2 rather than spend the night with my enemies in an RV.
As Angie tries to explain how and why this conversation came up, Lisa refuses to let her finish a sentence or answer the questions that she asked. “I’m not the one trying to be Jen Shah,” Lisa says, because this has apparently become a go-to insult in this city, and she alleges that Angie uses the same brow girl, lash girl, and nail girl as their incarcerated former pal. The list feels a little like a cosmetic version of “Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.”
Then something really beautiful happens. Britani, who has been all too quiet this whole time, sees an opening to make it about her, and thank god for that. She heard “brow girl” and her ears perked up, so she asks if it’s the same brow girl who, last season, was apparently getting DMs from Jared. Her question goes completely ignored.
“Sorry to interrupt, are you ready to order?” a waitress, who is braver than our troops, then says amidst the chaos. Against all odds, she finds success, in part with the help of Amy, the Utah Sociality, who tries to wrangle them all to finally order. I have to say, despite only having heard this woman say a few sentences, I already love her energy. She reminds me of Rita Wilson.
When Meredith chimes in to defend Lisa, all the women point out that this is a marked change from the camping trip, when she was completely silent during the whole conversation. Meredith completely denies this and tells Lisa that they’re just saying that to cause a rift, and Lisa believes her. I find this to be particularly interesting, because last week Lisa was crying after Heather told her that Meredith was staying silent. Somewhere between then and now, Lisa has decided to believe Meredith, and in Meredith’s defense, she did eventually say that they shouldn’t talk about it until they can discuss it with Lisa. Not necessarily the strongest defense, but at least it’s something.
When it’s time for Whitney to get her licks in, Lisa wastes no time going after her failed business — essentially saying that the pot’s calling the kettle black. She brings up people “bitching on TikTok” about Whitney’s venture, which doesn’t help Lisa’s reputation as someone who digs up dirt. When Whitney accuses her of lying to cover up her misdoings, everything explodes. At one point, Lisa simply shouts out, “Redhead!” as an insult, and that seems to ignite something in Whitney; the pair then start screaming over each other. It’s like beautiful music. Eventually, Whitney throws her napkin and storms out of the luncheon, as Real Housewives are wont to do. And as Bravo is wont to do, they end the episode on a “To Be Continued…”
Lisa mounts her coordinated defense against all the rumors the group has been talking about, but it devolves into a shouting match.
