The women’s behavior is so shameful that they take turns storming off in embarrassment.
Photo: Bravo
One of the great things about our mojito graspers is that they are actually friends. Miami is a small town, and they hang around each other even in the off-season. Other franchises seem like coworkers, but they’re just letting the cameras into what feels like a real friend circle. At the final, disastrous dinner of this episode, Larsa tries to remind everyone of this truth. The fights in Miami were usually the kind of petty squabbles you’d get in a group like this, but they’ve taken on a darker context, they’ve gotten deeper, and they go unresolved. The darkness and desperation that surrounds Real Housewives seem to be coming for Miami like a hurricane or some kind of manufactured health event that Ron DeSantis allowed because he hates vaccines.
When Larsa brings this up at dinner, she says they need something. Lisa interjects that they need Jesus. No, Larsa corrects her, they need common sense. Lisa adds that they also need Jesus. She might not be wrong. Neither of them is wrong. They need common sense to know that they’re losing the audience and Jesus to absolve them of these sins and get them back on the loving path.
The episode begins with Lisa and Larsa at each other’s throats, not letting go of their disagreement over Jody texting Larsa. Everyone agrees that Jody needs to keep his thumbs to himself and off of his phone screen because whatever is happening between Lisa and Larsa has nothing to do with him. Marysol arrives at the table and says they have an issue and that it’s Jody texting Larsa all afternoon. Adriana, surprisingly, is the voice of reason, saying they have a bigger issue, which is Lisa’s court order that needs to be signed immediately.
Lisa storms away from dinner and sits in what seems like a production’s green room, surrounded by old napkins, discarded cardboard salad bowls, and more ugly backpacks than you would find at a lesbian hiking convention. (I kid lesbians. They have excellent taste in backpacks.) Guerdy walks in and, like a consummate event planner, takes total control of the situation. She dries Lisa’s tears, she gets her on task about taking care of her court documents, and shuts down Jody when he tries to pick this fight back up. (Marysol has an excellent point. If Lisa is dealing with all of this court bullshit, why is Jody texting Larsa and not helping his girlfriend?)
It turns out that Lisa has done this online notary work before with a woman named Gysell, who, in my mind, is The Real Housewife of Potomac’s Gizelle Bryant, and she’s just at home in the DMV, making extra money to pay for the Hotel Gizelle renovations. (Why oh why does she not call her ill-fated manse Bryant Park?) This is what drives me crazy about Lisa: she is always helpless. She can’t do anything. She can’t be on time on her own, she can’t sign her papers, she can’t fight her fights, she can’t do her hair and makeup, she can’t write her own jokes. What, exactly, can Lisa do?
When Lisa rejoins the table, she and Larsa start sniping at each other like a single body possessed by a demon. They’re the right hand and the left hand trying to stab each other. They’re two parts of the same whole that is bent on self-destruction. Guerdy says that they will do this all night, and that is the problem. Neither will cede any ground, neither will apologize, neither will say they’re sorry. It’s like trench warfare, but it’s just one person trapped in a Porta-Potty flinging shit at itself, hoping that it will somehow get clean.
What eventually ends the dinner and turns everyone against Lisa is when she starts taking notes about what is happening on her phone. They can’t understand why Lisa can’t take mental notes. I’m sorry, but Lisa Hochstein can’t find her own ass with two hands and a flashlight. You expect her to take mental notes? But they all seem to be worried that she’s taking notes to sue them. What are any of them going to do that will lead to a lawsuit? It’s not that serious. Ideologically, I understand what they mean. If they’re a group of friends, why does anyone need to save evidence? But also, Housewives’ contracts don’t allow them to sue each other, so they’re protected. Calm down, everyone.
The next day, they split into two groups, with Larsa, Julia, Alexia, Marysol, and Stephanie going to appease the spirit of Mama Elsa by painting ceramic tiles. Stephanie points out that if Larsa is uncomfortable with Lisa being on the plane with her, she will disinvite her. Ugh, I hate this. This is how Stephanie uses her money to try to control the situation and win herself friends and allies. The plane ride is 22 minutes. What is going to happen? Yes, Lisa might break “jet-iquette” by being late, but that is a separate issue.
Meanwhile, Adriana takes Kiki, Lisa, and Guerdy on a tour of Alcazar, the oldest castle in Spain, and rattles off all sorts of facts, figures, legends, and lore about the place. Did Adriana’s body get taken over by Siri? When did she get so wise? Do you think we can get an Adriana-powered AI chatbot that will give you art history lessons and then hurl insults at you? Adriana is the voice of reason yet again when she tells Lisa that it’s time to unfollow Marcus, as Larsa wants her to. Yes, doing it capitulates to Larsa, but it also takes away Larsa’s ammunition to turn the group against Lisa.
It seems like they are turning, mostly because of Stephanie. She sends Julia and Marysol, the nominal hosts of this trip, to disinvite Lisa from the plane. That’s not what it turns into. It becomes a meeting about how she can’t have her phone because she’s taking notes. Marysol says she has to put it in a basket on the plane, and when they arrive at Julia’s friends’ house in Marbella. Lisa argues that she has two young children and cannot be away from her phone. Okay, for 22 minutes in the air she can. At the house, that might be a tall order. But there is a gulf of possibilities between taking notes and taking her phone away like she’s a high school sophomore that got caught with some BuzzBalls in her lesbian-approved backpack. Can’t we just get her to promise she’s not going to take notes anymore?
Lisa storms off, says she’s not going to dinner that night, that she feels like she’s not wanted. Oh, boohoo. Of course, Marysol calls and convinces her to come, but why can’t we let Lisa, Larsa, and whoever else drop off? If they’re going to be that mad, give them their moment, let them go, not be filmed at the group event, and become irrelevant to the show. Why is everyone taking the bait every single time?
Lisa arrives at dinner, late, of course. In her confessional, Larsa asks who can show up two hours late and pretend like nothing happens. The editors do us a favor and give Lisa a chyron saying she’s only one hour late. Oh, is that supposed to be some exoneration? Let’s throw a freaking parade for Lisa, who was only 60 minutes late because she was in her feelings about her friends not wanting her to take notes when they’re around. Someone does need Jesus, and it’s Lisa and all of her friends for putting up with her.
The dinner takes a sharp left turn, and it all hinges on Lisa unfollowing Marcus on Instagram, but not in the way we think. Before Lisa arrives, Adriana, the new voice of reason, shares this news in an attempt to de-escalate things between her and Larsa. Kiki and Guerdy tell her they had a pact not to say anything about that. But why? If she was going to do it, doesn’t Larsa need to know? Why unfollow him and not say anything? That’s like settling a lawsuit and still showing up to court. I don’t get it.
When Kiki comes for Adriana, she finally loses it, showing the volatile villain that we always knew was lurking just below the surface. Adriana tells Kiki to stop being “ratchet,” which is basically like calling one of the two Black women on the show “ghetto.” Kiki, rightfully, loses her mind. Kiki, like a long-dormant volcano, is not someone we often see activated. She’s usually just serving looks, making jokes, and trying to be kind to the women. But, girl, this is why you don’t piss off Kiki. “You are too old to be talking about this,” she says, somehow verbally bolding and italicizing the word “old.”
This hits Adriana right where she lives, and ironically, is the same insult she used on Marysol and her “wrinkly knees” just a few episodes ago. There are several attempts to get the dinner back on track, and Lisa grabs everyone’s attention by first apologizing for the previous night and trying to explain the note-taking. But Adriana, in a way only she can, seizes control back, saying she needs to go back to Miami to babysit Lisa’s children because “that is what grandmothers like me do.” She can’t get over being called old, and she is going to put a witch’s curse on Kiki that no amount of wishing on 11:11s will ever undo.
Then it’s a battle about who gets to storm out. Adriana tries, but Stephanie interrupts her and tries to storm off herself, saying this is the third dinner that the women have “rooooooned” in a row. (What about the one she “rooooooned” by beating on her chest at Alexia?) Then Marysol, Larsa, and Alexia try to run out because they’re embarrassed about all the shouting. Lisa goes around the restaurant offering her Canadian apologies and drinks on the house before tripping over a chair and trying to run off out of embarrassment.
In the cabs, Stephanie is sobbing. Why? I don’t know. But she is going to take control of this situation by not allowing anyone on her jet. Or maybe some of them. Or maybe none. No wait, what if she can sit someone in the cabin by themselves and then divide the group up. She decides that if she has the perfect seating chart for the group, then maybe she can still allow them to fly. Ugh, I hate this plane thing even more. I could almost understand if at dinner Stephanie said, “None of you are behaving, and until you can get along and have some good discussions, then no one is flying.” But that’s not what she does. She tries to use it for leverage and control, and, as Marysol points out, that seems like she’s trying to punish certain people. The episode ends with Marysol refreshing her drink from a half-drunk cocktail sitting on the table. She takes a deep sip and thinks back to her house in Mexico, with its Spanish tile so ornate that they were dizzying. She asks the spirit of her mother for strength, silently trying to connect with it, hoping to see into their future and how this all resolves itself. She sees nothing but light, nothing but a great blinding flash. She chooses to believe that it’s the conflagration of love the women all have for her, but another part of her, the part that bobs just below the surface of those cocktails, knows that it’s probably just another explosion.
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