So, that happened. Is anyone else having flashbacks to middle school? It seems that all of the Housewives except for newbies Joyce and Carlton been holding on to niggling resentments toward Lisa for most of the season (or really, most of the series) and have just been too chicken or busy getting spray tans to confront her. Now, with Yolanda leading the charge for reasons that still aren’t entirely clear, these women are joining forces to take down the series’ queen bee. This brings up a lot of questions, not the least of which is, how did I miss the fact that Lisa and Ken smoke?
Oh, and before we address the brouhaha, remember Joyce’s tearful conversation with the group about how, even though her dad just died, she wanted to soldier on so that her new friends could have fun? And how Lisa felt they all needed to go to Puerto Rico to support her? How is having a screaming fight during the nice dinner Joyce planned supporting her? Were these women raised in a barn or what?
Anyway, let’s get back to the “Let’s Go All Crazypants ‘Lord of the Flies’ on Lisa” part of the episode. Yolanda, who feels Lisa is manipulative, manipulates Brandi into confronting Lisa about how she feels manipulated by Lisa. Brandi then drops a bomb — Lisa tried to bully her into taking tabloids with stories about Mauricio’s supposed affairs to Palm Springs. Jackpot!
While Lisa is trying to sun herself, Yolanda (with timid back-up from Brandi) launches into Lisa about whether she’s a real friend or a Hollywood friend, and then the issue of the tabloid comes up, and then Kyle gets involved and Kim gets involved and Ken gets involved and Mauricio gets involved and it just becomes a big, stupid mess during which everyone gets lots of camera time and Lisa gets weepy. Brandi is upset because she never got to tell Lisa all the many things that upset her, like not getting her daily phone call and Lisa not setting Scheana on fire and disemboweling her in a public display of support.
Initially Lisa tries to shrug this off, and then, when Kyle gets dragged into the action, tells her that she has no idea what Brandi is talking about. I honestly can’t tell who is lying, but obviously someone is, and, as Mauricio points out, everyone’s lying about something. Ding, ding, ding!
On the bus ride to the restaurant, Brandi finds the guts to confront Lisa about being friends with Scheana and setting Brandi up to be humiliated by having Scheana work while she was visiting Sur. Lisa makes the point that, while Pandy has been friends with the waitress for five years, she doesn’t hang out with her employees. This seems pretty logical to me, but Brandi just pouts her excessively pumped lips and tries to make an expression. Does anyone else think Brandi surpassed the limit on subtle plastic surgery many, many months ago?
During dinner, Kim decides to scream at Ken for being a “stubborn, old man” for having the temerity of defending his wife, and Yolanda yells at him for having the temerity of yelling at her. Yolanda is incensed that a woman’s husband would speak up for his wife, which makes me think David Foster wouldn’t really give a crap if someone cussed out Yolanda and beat her with her wallet.
In the midst of all this, Joyce and Michael are thrilled to support Kyle in her quest for “the truth,” as they’re probably over the moon that all this fuss and drama has nothing much to do with them.
Lisa, who is too smart to sit around and allow a bunch of mean girls to kick her, grabs Ken and heads back to the hotel. Unfortunately, she’s not too smart not to smoke a cigarette with Ken. Maybe tobacco tastes better when it’s flavored with tears.
While I’m not sure if Lisa is lying, and Brandi might have some valid points (it’s hard to know, as a viewer, if Lisa is different when the cameras are gone), but the way all of the women find some random crime to toss in Lisa’s face (Kim’s still bitching about that stupid graduation party?) seemed like dirty pool to me. Of course, as Lisa says, there’s no way this is checkmate. I’m guessing she’s right.
Do you think Lisa deserved what she got? Do you think Brandi’s telling the truth? Why do you think Yolanda led the charge? Is she really that pissed Lisa didn’t come over for crafts?