I watched this episode three times.  No, really. I did – twice last night and then again this morning.  Then I started to write a post.  That one was deleted and so were two others because I didn’t know what it was supposed to be about.   This episode felt like, as Yogi Berra said, “deja vu all over again.”  It’s all Teresa’s fault.  If she hadn’t hurled that table at Danielle, the rest of the Housewives might never have been inspired to engage in such ridiculous fights.   So, this is I how I understood this episode and some of the things that led up to it.

Capitalizing on Heartbreak

This comment was really rich coming from Brandi.  Someone is capitalizing on heartbreak, no doubt about it – lots of someones.   Brandi is doing it herself – for herself and to herself.  She’s made a cottage industry out of her heartbreak.  For all of her claims that she just wants to “move on” from her ex-husband and his laundry list of mistresses, she’s using it for every last dime she can squeeze from her wounded wife storyline.  She’s a Bravolebrity because Eddie Cibrian had numerous affairs – among them was with a waitress from Lisa’s restaurant, SUR and, another, more famous one was with country singer Leann Rimes.  This is Brandi’s storyline, her only storyline.  Without it, she has nothing else to offer Bravo and the viewers.  She wrote her first book, and  though I haven’t read it, I understand it goes into details about her marriage and the resulting heartbreak.  I did read book number two and she has a lot to say about her ex, his new wife, her STD gift from Eddie and how he drove her to drink away her sorrows.  Even her multiple booty calls and hookups are his fault, because now all men are just douchebags, you know.  If that isn’t capitalizing on heartbreak, then I don’t know what is.  Brandi can make hay all the hay she wants while the sun shines, but don’t turn it around and tell us you’re moving forward.

I don’t know what she means by moving on, because, in addition to all of the things I listed above, she has taken to Twitter to plead her side of some pension settlement issues with Cibrian.  This is always the best route to take when you receive a letter regarding legal matters, especially when you don’t know exactly what the documents say.  Just throw your “poor me” tweets out there, ignore the facts, THEN call your lawyer.   No wonder she pays so much for legal counsel.  Maybe her copies of documents should be accompanied by visual aids, like stick figure drawings and emojis.

During this episode, Brandi had been told by her on-again, off-again boyfriend, the one she calls The Latino, that he couldn’t go on the trip to Puerto Rico because he had too much work to do at Mauricio’s real estate firm. A day or so into the trip, they spoke on the phone and he told her he had decided to take some “me time” in Italy.  While I was watching this episode, I wondered how much of this played into her sullen and juvenile attitude.  We haven’t seen it yet, but when she got back to L.A., he called to tell her that he had met someone in Rome and had feelings for the new woman.

Brandi has trust issues, and for that, her ex-husband deserves every bit of the heat he’s taken.  She, on the other hand, has to find some way to live her life with a bit of dignity.  More than half the marriages in the country end in divorce, not always because of infidelity, but enough that they’re not uncommon.   Women become single moms and their kids divide their time between parents.  It’s tough and painful, but it happens all the time.  Brandi wants us to believe that she’s the only one who’s suffered this kind of heartbreak, giving her license to strike out at all of us, Lisa, Kyle, Kim, Adrienne, Taylor and viewers.  If you don’t believe me, just go to Twitter and count the number of STFUs directed at anyone who asks a question or offers a differing opinion.

Capitalizing on heartbreak doesn’t stop with Brandi.  Kyle, Kim and Yolanda do it, too.  Kyle had no problem bringing up her husband’s cheating rumors early on in the season.  She discussed them with Joyce and Michael, and alone with her husband.  It gave her storyline some drama and caused a stir among viewers, and now she’s raising it again, only this time it’s her concern over some tabloids.   Kim’s heartbreak is self-inflicted, brought on by years of substance abuse which left her family in complete disarray while she makes feeble attempts to set things right.  I don’t know if she’s in a 12-step program, but she seems to be walking backwards.  She may be in a better place with her immediate family, but now she’s turning her pain and frustrated efforts of recovery on her castmates.  She’s become besties with Brandi who accused her of using meth, while also commenting that Kyle really didn’t want to see Kim in recovery.  She told Ken Todd that she was sick of his “Goddamn mouth” and called him “a stubborn old man” when he dismissed her contributions to the fight at the dinner.   Maybe he is, but maybe he just sees a woman, about the same age of his own son, acting like a loon, with no real independent knowledge regarding the argument at hand.

Yolanda’s heartbreak is there, although she holds it a little closer to the cuff by overplaying her love and devotion to her husband David.  She can’t help but feel that she’s just one in a long line of Foster wives.  She also knows how her ex, Mohamed, feels about Lisa and that has to bunch her panties, too.  Mohamed loves and admires Lisa, probably in a way he never has for any of the women in his life.   So Yolanda does what she does best, aside from being a trophy wife.  She turns her energies towards her children,  especially “the child”,  guiding and overseeing every aspect of her modeling career.  It gives her something to do, and a sense of self-worth, while her King is at the Mormon Tabernacle with Stevie Wonder, gifting the world with his music.  We all know he ain’t gonna be caught dead with this group of “clowns”.

I really don’t give a rat’s patoot about a stack of tabloids.  If this dinner was about airing their respective grievances against Lisa and proving she lied, so be it.  Lisa did  hedge a bit about the dumb rags but that doesn’t really prove anything – I’ve been known to walk into my kitchen and then forget what I wanted to do in there, so please don’t ask me what happened six months ago.  If she put them in Brandi’s suitcase, then Brandi could take them out – unless Kim was sitting on them  – after all, Kim did try to pack herself into hers for the trip.  It really doesn’t matter if Lisa invited Scheana to Dancing With The Stars, unless Brandi, again, sees another opportunity to air her ex’s dirty laundry.  It’s my understanding that Lisa’s daughter, Pandora, is friends with Scheana, so it could be that Pandora brought her along.

Finally, Bravo and the cast capitalized on Joyce’s heartbreak.   Okay, she allowed her father’s death to be a part of this episode, but I don’t think she expected a bunch of harpies to turn the trip into a full-blown disaster.  She told the group that she wanted the trip to be fun and not about her loss.  Until that dinner, her scenes were with her Mom, her husband and her extended family.  They talked about their love for each other and her Dad.  These scenes looked like they didn’t even belong in this episode.

Carlton was missing…small favors.

Empress