After last week’s premiere laid the groundwork for renewed drama and new alliances (Angie K. and Mary’s beautiful braindead union), our ladies are hoping for some form of unity. Lisa is still irate at Whitney for the podcast comments and mad at Angie for taking Whitney’s side. Meredith is still a bit upset at Whitney because of the bath bombs, which nobody but Meredith cares about. We see more newcomers Bronwyn and Britani, who do not like each other but are both still establishing their roles in this group of friends.
We begin with Lisa asking Bronwyn how she felt about the previous night’s disastrous Valentine’s day party. Bronwyn, being reasonable, agrees that Lisa has a right to be upset, and as they are discussing this in Lisa’s car, Angie calls and says to Lisa, “Let’s talk!” I do think Lisa might have overreacted to Angie’s role in all of this, but that is par for the course.
We get a pan of everyone’s current state. Mary is talking to her son Robert, who is living at home and has no job and isn’t in school, about how upset she was with Britani. “Don’t ever call me poor because that’s like being ungrateful to God,” she tells him. He is the only person who can tell Mary that it is actually a bit crazy! But go off, Mary.
Meanwhile, Bronwyn and Lisa, once again, are in a car. This time, they’re picking up Heather for no other reason than to go through a Wendy’s drive-thru. Lisa has a partnership with Wendy’s, and so far, we are two for two, seeing Lisa getting Wendy’s. (In the premiere, we get a glimpse of Lisa and her family eating Wendy’s). I am already sick of this Wendy’s shit — it does not make me want Wendy’s.
Anyway, in the car, Bronwyn does not have great things to say about Whitney’s outburst, calling it fake and trite. This raises major alarms for Heather, who is still burned by Monica’s betrayal, which is understandable. She finds it odd for her to have such strong opinions on women she just met. Heather keeps her mouth shut while eating her Wendy’s in the back seat. Clearly, she is banking this information for later.
Then we get a Meredith and Seth scene. My God, I forgot how much I hate Seth. He, quite frankly, disgusts me. Everything he says is overly sexual and just so slimy. They’re going to a cooking class because Seth is returning to Ohio again for work, and Meredith needs him to learn how to cook. Their chef teaches them how to make shakshuka, which isn’t so practical for someone who does not know anything about cooking. Of course, this has nothing to do with cooking.
Meredith uses this opportunity to talk about how Shakshuka reminds her that with all the hate and anti-Semitism in the world right now, she wants to connect to her Jewish roots. How better to do that than have a Bat Mitzvah! They are both very emotional about this — but this very forced scene is obviously so that we know there will be a party that is VERY personal to Meredith and will clearly cause some rift in how seriously her group of friends take it. I fear Meredith just does not have a lot going on this season because even by Housewives standards, the entire scene is stretched out for no reason other than for us to see their marriage is stronger than ever.
Finally, Angie and Lisa have lunch and it’s clear Lisa expects to wear Angie down in hopes of a heartfelt apology, but Angie is NOT giving that. She is firm on her stance — she only told Whitney that Lisa was upset because she wanted Whitney to know that Lisa was owed an apology. Again, that is pretty normal friend behavior.
Lisa is so interesting to me when it comes to conflict. She latches onto being upset about one thing (Angie’s betrayal) when it is so clear her fear is losing Angie’s loyalty and friendship for Whitney’s. Angie stands her ground and expresses that sometimes Lisa is scary to be honest with because of her outbursts, and Lisa predictably disagrees. They don’t come to a resolution but hope to continue the conversation later. Honestly, good on Angie for not taking the easy way out and bowing to Lisa’s anger.
Now, we get a real glimpse into Brownwyn’s life and home. Bronwyn’s home … my God. I can only describe it as the home you’d expect from someone who got rich quickly off NFTs. It’s full of kooky, clearly expensive, and very impractical furniture. As we know, Bronwyn, like Whitney, is married to an older rich man. Her husband, Todd, is a fascinating character; he looks like any 60-something-year-old dad — but he is wearing a very trendy Gucci snake knit sweater, like something a young guy would wear. He is not really trying to look young in any other way, so to quote Britani, it looks like a costume. We learn Todd got rich from being the PalmPilot CEO. They met at a bar ten years ago when she was working in finance in San Francisco. He emailed her, and the rest was history. Honestly, Bronwyn seems pretty normal and happy with her life. She is proving why she belongs on this show (being rich) but also not trying to come out swinging. She can talk shit but clearly hopes to be a voice of reason. We later see her at Angie’s salon talking to her about the Angie/Lisa situation and how she hopes they can patch it up, but she is NOT a fan of Britani’s yet.
Whitney and Heather meet at a crystal store to heal. These two have gone through a lot of shit and have had explosive disagreements, but their friendship is deeper than anyone else on this show because they’re vaguely related and share religious trauma. As they patch things up from the previous week’s drama, Whitney mentions she wants all the girls to go to Milwaukee to Trixie Mattel’s new bar and that, so far, the only people she doesn’t have beef with would be Angie, Heather, and Bronwyn. Whitney is immediately struck by the Bronwyn addition because of her words during their Wendy’s run. Whitney tells Heather they met up the previous day and got along great — Whitney once again says nothing, but this only builds her case against Bronwyn. Heather, thank you for saving your confrontations for a better moment, but just say something now, or it will look shady! She has an idea for some unity, a team-building exercise with all the girls to try and have some fun.
We then see the girls get together on an outdoor excursion, where they have to go up very high on a giant jungle gym-like thing while harnessed and balance on some ropes to get to the other side. This is great only because I love any time we get to see Mary be physically active, something that is not natural to her. She is someone who is born to sit and be catered to, but I like it when she steps out of her comfort zone this way. More proof she is actually giving it her all this season.
Once this outdoor excursion is done, the ladies sit around eating tacos when Britani decides to make a toast. While Bronwyn is more or less seamlessly fitting into this group, Britani is struggling. She doesn’t know these women significantly, so naturally, you’d expect her to toast to new friendships or something. Instead, she makes a toast to herself because she and her on-again -off-again boyfriend Jared (nephew to Donny and Marie Osmond) have made it official … kind of? She starts by saying how Jared took her out to buy matching jewelry at Louis Vuitton last night and asked her to be his girlfriend. This grown-ass woman announcing this to a group of women who are barely her friends gave me secondhand embarrassment. But it gets worse. She then says that he also made Instagram official by posting her in his story. Bronwyn brings up that in the post, where there is a photo of them in Costco with her in the shopping cart, he actually calls her his best friend. The girls are then gently telling her this is not official.
Mary, who has been silent this entire time says what I know in my heart everyone was thinking, “I’m just trying to figure out: why do we care?” Britani calls Mary rude, to which Mary says, “Like you were the other night?” referring to their first meeting when Britani said all the wrong things to Mary and Bronwyn. Mary is adamant that she does not care about Britani, does not want to know shit about Britani’s life, and has no friendship with her. Britani tells her to shut up at one point, and Mary yells, “Shut me up!”
Returning to the Britani/Jared situation, the women gently try to tell Britani that she is being played by Jared, who is still hesitant to claim her as a girlfriend. This is when we learn that Britani has some deep abandonment and family issues; her children do not talk to her, and it’s too personal to elaborate on that. The women do not press further, but Mary is relentless in telling Britani that she is difficult, needs soul searching, and is not a kind person because she can’t make amends with her children. During a confessional, we get much more personal information from Mary than we are used to. Britani triggers her because her mother was neglectful, and she and her five siblings felt no love and had no guidance from their mother. This explains so much about why Mary is not pressed that her son just lives at home doing seemingly nothing. She’s clearly happy just caring for him.
This devolves further into Bronwyn telling Britani she wants to know one not unhinged thing about her and that her way of speaking is not thoughtful. “Girl, get your words tight,” she tells Britani. She says that like it is a common saying, but it isn’t, nor will it be something quotable in the future, but good try.
Of course, this gives Heather the opening to bring up how Bronwyn should get her own words tight because was she not talking shit about Whitney only to suck up to her later? Heather was waiting for the right moment to strike, and it fell flat because Bronwyn expressed the same thing to Whitney in private as she did with Heather and Lisa. Though I would argue it was tonally different, Bronwyn wins this round when she brings up a counterpoint: if it was so bad, why were you silent?
This activates a lot of cross-talk and arguing, and finally, Whitney apologizes to Lisa. This is followed by inviting everyone to Milwaukee to Trixie’s bar, where Whitney will host a drag competition. This satisfies the ladies but not Meredith, who says she might not be able to go — nobody really cares. Poor Meredith, so far, she has been somewhat on the sidelines and in her own world of pain over a non-issue.
The women leave more or less satisfied with their bonding activity, excited to get together in Milwaukee. Great! In the next episode, we get them on a trip, and in the previews, Meredith does end up joining, likely to stoke hatred against Whitney. I’m actually pretty into these new dynamics, these women are putting in the work to prove they do not need a huge central controversy to make this franchise worth watching.
