Leave it to Adriana and Larsa to turn what should be minor conflicts into opportunities to open up old wounds.
Photo: Bravo
This episode centers around a party that Adriana throws for Art Basel; the only problem is that all of the art we see on the show is terrible. Okay, Chris Rivers, the handsome Mancunian who is the star of the party, isn’t that bad. I could see his work hanging in the lobby of a boutique hotel in a second-tier city. However, his galactic landscapes are the only good displays throughout the entire episode. What about that giant, green gummy bear statue that Larsa had installed on her front lawn by the artist WhisBe? More like WhisBe biting off Jeff Koons. Lisa tells us in a confessional that she’s really into art, but all we see are bedazzled paintings of her and things that look like they would hang in a Holiday Inn in a fourth-tier city. Buying a Chris Rivers is the smartest thing she ever did.
Before we get to the big beef at the art party, let’s discuss a couple of the storylines this season that give me the creeps, and I’d rather not talk about. The first is whatever is going on with Alexia and Todd. When the season started with their dramatic bust-up, I thought this would be a blockbuster for the rest of the season. But no. Alexia has just sat on the story as she tries to get back together with Todd, to everyone else’s dismay. Considering how much he hates the show, it’s a wonder that she’s still on it and they’re still together.
It’s just hard to care about this storyline because I know what happens, and I’m sorry, Stephanie is right here. When the trash takes itself out, then you should just let it stay out. What’s even worse is that his tactic worked. He moved out on Alexia, divorced her without even talking to her about it, and then she’s letting him decide if they get back together or not. Like Larsa and Stephanie tell her when she goes to visit Larsa’s job site that is pretending to be a house, she needs to take some of her own power back. She has a voice here too, and knowing her worth and deciding what boundaries she has in her own relationship are way more important than giving Todd what he wants.
Speaking of women who need some of their own agency, I’m so sick of Lisa poking and prodding Jody to marry her. When they have a romantic dinner in her backyard, she says, “I don’t want to pressure you. I want you to want to be with me forever, and if you don’t want to, then don’t do it.” Um, that sure sounds like pressure. That sure sounds like, “Marry me or GTFO.” Lisa is going right from one terrible marriage straight into another relationship. Why not try to be with her kids a bit, find out who she is on her own, and figure out what she wants out of life?
This reminds me so much of another romantic dinner she has, this one on the patio of her house with Lenny, where he basically ignores her and talks shit about her the whole time. Here is another ungrateful man — like Lenny, like Todd — who is giving Lisa conditions on what she needs to do to stay with him. He says he doesn’t like that she brings “chaos” around, that when things happen with Lenny or with Larsa (which seems like code for the show), she then takes it out on him and criticizes his driving or how he “stands in the door.” How are you standing in the door, my dude? This sounds like such a specific allegation I have an idea that you might be doing it wrong.
Jody tells Lisa that if she reads some self-help books or goes to therapy, then he’ll marry her more quickly. I’m all for self-improvement, and I love therapy (shout out to Dr. Cohen!), but this sounds like a mechanism for control, like she’ll only get what she wants if she behaves the way that he likes. Girl, give up this man. You don’t need him. Tell Russell to hook you up with one of the single guys from the firehouse and just slide down his pole until the kids are in college.
I’ve already discussed how I think the situation with Julia and her adult daughters is unusual, and I want to reiterate that I don’t understand it, and we’re not getting the full story. When Julia tries to talk about it with Martina, she is entirely dismissive of everyone’s feelings but her own. When Julia says the girls said they would have felt better if they were still living at home when their new sons arrived, Martina dismisses them all and says it would have been awful otherwise. Then she says that the girls asked not to know about the adoption process (but why?!?!), and then they got mad when it happened without them. I’m sorry, but this whole thing is fishier than a clam bake. I don’t like it.
Finally, it’s Adriana’s big party and everyone shows up in their best fits. Adriana is wearing a black and silver mini-dress with a sequined blazer on her shoulders. (Those in the New York fashion world call this the “editor’s cape.”) Larsa is in a killer bodysuit that appears to be velvet. Stephanie looks her best all season, wearing a blue blazer with black trim and a single aqua dot centered on her chest. Okay, this is giving fashion, henny. (Too bad her reunion look is giving the Riddler but even gayer.)
As soon as Larsa gets to the party, she’s Sherlock Bones, and she is on the Case of the Cake. She wants to know who put the math equation that is Adriana’s age on her cake. Just as I did in the last recap, she runs through all the suspects and narrows it down to the same two: Julia, who was in charge of the cake, or Marysol, her mortal enemy. Larsa starts asking everyone who did it, and finally, Marysol knows the truth. It was none other than Kiki Barth. Kiki? Really?! Our sweet baby angel who never harmed anyone at all? How could she do such a thing?
We then get a flashback of Kiki telling Marysol about her plan and how she thought it would be a way to tip her hat at how Adriana wants to be 32 again, even though she said she would rather be 45. Whatever. Kiki did it because she thought it was cute and then when it didn’t come off, she felt badly but didn’t want to interrupt the fun of the night to say something to Adriana on the cruise. She fully intends to do it at the party, tell Adriana that she is very sorry and meant no harm, and that for her next birthday, she is going to give her a vibrator rather than a cake. This is the Kiki we know and love, without a cruel bone in her body.
The problem is that the narrative is taken over by both Larsa and Adriana, who don’t have any bones in their body at all, only cruelty. When Lisa and Larsa are hugging, Julia joins them and says she misses when she and Adriana were that close and happy. Double-L then pulls the two of them so that they can have a conversation about getting Julia and Adrian’s friendship back on track. Larsa, however, gets off topic and asks who put Adriana’s age on the cake. Lisa blurts out that it was Kiki, letting Adriana know in the worst way possible.
Julia comes in for the assist and says that Kiki probably didn’t mean it that way, that it must have been a joke. Larsa, who couldn’t spell generosity with an infinite number of alphabet magnets and a dictionary, tells Julia to “stop talking.” She says there is no other way to see it than Kiki being cruel to Adriana because she already called her old once before when they were feuding in Spain. This is Larsa’s problem: she is so dark on the inside that the black goo rises into her eyeballs, and all she can see in anyone else is darkness. What about Kiki would ever make you think she would intentionally hurt someone’s feelings like that?
Adriana gets upset that Julia is defending Kiki, then Julia tells Adriana that what she did to Marysol when she called her old was the same thing. Then Adriana gets pissed that Julia is defending Kiki and Marysol and not having her back. I get it, Adriana feels like Julia is not as close as she used to be. But they still don’t have the full story. Julia was basically saying, “Don’t jump to conclusions, maybe Kiki didn’t mean it like that,” whereas the original Salem Witch, Larsa, is trying to get her to drink from her poisoned potion.
Adriana says that they’re not close because Julia defends her enemies, but Julia says, “We’re not close because it’s too difficult to be around you. You’re not fun anymore. You’re so negative sometimes.” Adriana will never forgive her for this. She’s the kind of person who needs unquestioning loyalty and devotion, and the second that it is questioned, she turns the friendship off like it’s a one-use light switch.
Julia is right: Adriana, like Larsa, is another person who always sees the worst in people, and she runs with this reading of Larsa’s and only makes things worse. Before Kiki can talk to her, Adriana, who is at the bar with her friend Carol, who happens to be Black, gets her attention and says, “You’re calling me a racist for using the word ‘ratched.’ Carol has some words for you.” This is the Adriana of old that those who didn’t watch the first three seasons don’t remember. This is the Adriana who takes arguments, willfully misinterprets them, and then comes for someone at the worst possible moment. Kiki never called her racist, even when they were having this fight. Also, this fight was settled back in Spain when they hugged it out. All was forgiven. But Adriana got some facts, came up with her own incorrect assumption (that Kiki did this as revenge and that she thinks Adriana is a racist), and is retaliating when there was no initial strike. She’s a shoot-first, ask-questions-second kind of lady.
This all comes across badly. Kiki immediately says she never called her a racist, but still, here is Adriana, looking a little bit racist, giving full “some of my best friends are Black” energy. For the record, I don’t think Adriana is a racist. Was she fully aware of the racial implications of some language she was using? Maybe not, but that’s not the worst crime in the world. And Adriana explained herself, Kiki explained why it was bad, and it was time to move on. But no. Now Kiki is spooked, walks right out of the party, and basically hitchhikes a ride with some invisible truck driver. (“Tell them Large Marge sent ya.”) It’s all lost. It’s gone. What could have been an easy conversation and a quick forgiveness has transformed into something bigger, far worse, something that is subsumed by the darkness on a quiet street as one woman fled an art party because she knew that she wouldn’t be understood.
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