Copyright Vulture
Something Bronwyn has going for her on this show is that even if you’re iffy on her as a Housewife, her personal life is so riddled with villains that you can’t help but sympathize with her on that front. Anytime we get a scene of her personal life, I have to prepare myself to see someone who’s supposed to love and care for her (whether it’s her bobbed-up mother or elderly husband) treat her like garbage, and it’s distressing. Todd hobbles into each frame like a joyless ghoul, hating the cameras and hating his wife for bringing them into his world. So imagine how jarring it was to see that aforementioned black hole of emotion utter the words “raspberry cookie swirl” while ordering at an ice-cream shop. It was like seeing Wednesday Addams at an amusement park. But that wasn’t even the craziest thing to happen as he and Bronwyn got their sundaes. Bronwyn arrives at the table with hers, explaining to Todd how excited she is for her maraschino cherry and how angry she gets whenever he swipes it from her before she can have it. Not 30 seconds later, something haunting happens. Todd helps himself to the cherry off Bronwyn’s sundae, looking her dead in the eyes as he eats it without a glimmer of humor in his eyes — just daring her to stop him. I’m not even being hyperbolic when I say I would divorce someone for this. She goes on to tell him about all the drama from the garden party, and his eyes completely glaze over. So then she tries telling him about her experience with the psychic, and still he won’t give her an inch, so finally she starts to cry. Do you know how horrible you have to be to make someone cry while they’re eating an ice-cream sundae? He simply refuses to care about his wife or what she has to say, much like Bronwyn’s mother refuses to care about her daughter or what she has to say. Somebody free Bronwyn from this hell! Maybe Lisa will have better luck sharing her psychic experience with John, even though he was the subject of the reading. She tells him that what Terrence told her about their communication struggles “really resignated,” though she meant resonated. But then something really crazy happens. In the midst of this dramatic, emotional scene about their faltering relationship, we cut to a confessional of Lisa in which she’s wearing a cowboy hat without explanation or reason. I was almost too distracted to hear her talk about how their marriage has been plagued by the blurred lines between their business and relationship. Ultimately, they agree that they’re not on the same page, but each of them feels like the other doesn’t listen. Speaking of relationships that need healing, Mary arrives at Angie’s house after catching a stray at the garden party. There’s a reason that everybody treats Mary with kid gloves, because airing whatever grievance you have with her just isn’t worth the unpredictable, nuclear blow-up that results. Angie forgot that she’s supposed to just let Mary be Mary, so now she has to grovel to get back in her good graces. It’s like she’s been called to the principal’s office, and from the moment Principal Mary enters and disparages the drink choice offered, we can tell she’s still furious. Angie wisely kicks this sit-down off with an apology, but when she accuses Lisa of being like a playground bully, Mary points out that Angie has been becoming one, too. She’s been so blinded by her rage at Lisa that she’s stooping low and isn’t the cool, calm Angie that Mary is used to. “You’re a little bit mean,” Mary tells her, “like when you made fun of my fart.” We then flashback to a week earlier, when Mary mentioned that she had gas, and then get a supercut of Angie continuing to bring it up. This has clearly been bothering Mary all week, and now she finally has an opportunity to confront Angie about it, and it quite simply is one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Ultimately, the exchange (or perhaps monologue is the better word?) simply had to be transcribed, so we could really sit with these words. Feel free to use the below for any and all auditions. MARY: First of all, the dog farted. And then you said, “Oh, maybe that’s Mary.” You said, “Come on, Bronwyn, we’d better sit over here because Mary’s got gas.” Then your dog farts and smells the whole house up. And then you blamed it, like it was my fart. I’m like, first of all, I eat healthy; my farts don’t come out like that. We should know the fart between my fart and a dog fart. And then you’re like, “Oh my God, Mary, is that you?” And you’re both like, “hehehe.” I’m like, enough! I got it. Next time, I won’t tell you when I fart. Seriously? Like if you farted and I smelt it? I would never make fun of you. You don’t even know if I smelled your fart before; maybe I have. But I would never talk about it and make fun. But you didn’t smell my fart. ANGIE: I didn’t smell your fart, but you acknowledged that you farted so I said “Why don’t you stand over there —” MARY: I said I had gas. I was offended by it, okay? This is pure poetry to me. There were moments when I was watching this conversation play out where I genuinely started to wonder if I had died and this was what heaven was. But alas, it’s real, and it really is about much more than farts. Mary explains in her confessional that it takes a lot for her to let someone in the way she has with Angie, so any conflict or indiscretion, no matter how small, ignites her fight or flight. She ultimately breaks through to Angie, telling her that she can’t imagine her life without her, but she’s got to get her act together and stop letting this war with Lisa impact the relationships that really matter. Heather has a somewhat similar conversation with Lisa, basically urging her to put the weapons down, but Lisa disagrees that she’s just as at fault as Angie is. But what about the Soup Man? Well, the biggest revelation of the episode is the reveal that Lisa was actually never saying “Soup Man”; she was saying “Suit Man.” Those 12 threads on each side must have had an impact on her speech. As some fans speculated, when Meredith was on Sofia Franklin’s podcast, Sofia mentioned that her ex-boyfriend (whom she apparently referred to as Suit Man) maybe used to hook up with Angie. So we at least have a source of origin, but nonetheless, Lisa sort of shrugs the whole thing off as a baseless rumor she threw out there just for the hell of it. Now, I may be losing count, but I think this next scene was the third instance of me saying, “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen” in this episode alone. It is the sit-down between Britani and her daughter, Olivia, which kicks off with Britani awkwardly asking, “Can I hug you?” Olivia reminds her that the last time they tried to do this, Jared showed up and Britani just made out with him the whole time, continuing the pattern of neglect. What’s really remarkable about this confrontation, though, is that Britani isn’t defensive at all — she takes accountability for being an absent mother but doesn’t understand how it happened and how to stop making that choice over and over again. It’s one of the darkest (and most vulnerable) scenes I’ve watched play out on Bravo. Olivia is sitting there begging her mother to care about her and want to spend time with her, and it’s a skill set that Britani simply doesn’t know how to access. It’s completely brutal. In all this hubbub, you might have missed that they’re all going on a trip on Captain Jason’s superyacht (a welcome Below Deck crossover), which means they need to fill out their preference sheets. They have to fill out Mary’s form for her, because, naturally, she requests 2003 Dom Perignon no less than three times. It’s during this little scene that Angie makes a masterful transition after Mary requests tea. “Speaking of tea, have you guys seen all the tea on Bronwyn floating around?” Headlines abound! Felony past! Grand theft! Identity theft! Remember in a previous season when Lisa Barlow said, “I’m very important to God”? I’m starting to think she was right. For Bronwyn’s part, she explains that these headlines are a composite of two different things. On one hand, there are mistakes she made in college 20 years ago (an eviction notice that went unpaid), and on the other hand, there are accusations about things happening in the present day, but she says that they really happened a decade ago. It was a case that was dismissed (to borrow Lisa Barlow’s favorite word) and later sealed, meaning that she conveniently can’t really talk about it at all. Now the question is, Will she go on this cast trip? Probably, despite Todd’s discouragement. But one thing we know for sure is Lisa is definitely going now.
