The glamorous launch of Kameron’s Sparkle Dog pink dog food is nigh, but there’s just one tiny, individual kibble-pellet-sized problem: The product isn’t ready yet. The most recent test sample came out not pink but, horror of horrors, red.
But then again, the flashback in which we see Kam open the box is in black and white, so we can’t actually evaluate the color of the dog food for ourselves. (What if it was perfectly pink from the beginning? Wake up, sheeple.) As a professional business businesswoman, D’Andra advises denial: Act as if everything is perfect, postpone nothing, and keep barreling ahead with the party. But when D’Andra visits the lab to approve a sample of her new skin-care product, she’s dismayed to learn they’re missing a key ingredient, despite being scheduled to launch in two short weeks. With her terrifyingly glamorous and glamorously terrifying mother looking over her shoulder — having reluctantly invested $100,000 in this project — will D’Andra follow the same advice she gave Kameron?
As Stephanie and Cary meet to pick up the emotional glass shards of the white party’s aftermath, Cary ominously warns Stephanie not to let Brandi control her. Meanwhile, Brandi heads to LeeAnne’s with a floral arrangement as tall as she is. She knows LeeAnne was out of line with Cary (who, in my Law & Order–watching opinion, probably has legal grounds for a restraining order), but hey, she’s recovering from a flesh-eating bacteria (Don’t Google ItTM), so Brandi is willing to forgive. LeeAnne warns Brandi that Stephanie might let Cary control her. Uh-oh. Is it possible that Brandi and Stephanie, my OTP, could be headed for another months-long estrangement? I don’t think my sparkly pink heart can take it. But on this episode, anything seems possible. Brandi and Kameron even get together for a successful peacemaking lunch outside Dallas, in lowly Plano. Though Kameron was worried about the Keeper of the Sacred Dildo “jeopardizing [her] brand†— her brand being, again, novelty colored dog food, so — she ultimately decides to invite her to the launch party. “This is new, to be around people who believe in different things,†says a visibly distressed Kameron in a confessional. It’s a big, wide, not-necessarily-pink world out there, Kam.
The Sparkle Dog event looks like a vision out of Toddlers & Tiaras, if it aired on Animal Planet: gift bags, a pink carpet, a step and repeat, bedazzled dog-food bowls, and a dog psychic. Kameron is resplendent in a long-sleeved pink sequined gown. Louis the Yorkie is brought out on a silver sequined pillow, despite his attempts to squirm off, followed by a train of venue staff members holding sparklers aloft. I have seen wedding cakes presented with far less fanfare.
The good news is that the makers of Sparkle Dog were able to achieve the bubble-gum pink of Kameron’s vaguely rendered beef-scented dreams after all. The bad news is the final product is awfully short on that pink. The contents of the bag are mostly raw, brown kibble. (Picture the ratio of oat trash to marshmallows in a box of Lucky Charms.) What happened? “We did a focus group and there was a little bit of a freakout over the pink potty situation,†Kam explained. “So we had to compromise and add a little bit of raw kibble.â€
I have so many questions. First of all, was that a hypothetical freakout, or did they really test out the pink kibble and find it resulted in pink shit? I, for one, would have thought that fun-to-scoop pink poops would be the explicit endgame for Sparkle Dog’s target clientele. To Kameron’s credit, she does snack on some Sparkle Dog herself, and encourages other partygoers to do the same — easily the weirdest, most likable thing she has ever done on RHOD. D’Andra ends up weeping when the dog psychic tells her that her pup Gypsy is worried she’s working too hard. It reminds her of her all-business relationship with her own (human) mother. It’s a moving moment, but also a welcome reminder that everyone on all these shows should be in mandatory therapy on Bravo’s tab, which would ideally not be facilitated by a dog psychic.
LeeAnne has invited everyone but Cary and Mark to her engagement party, but she’s torn. Why? Rich likes them! At the Sparkle Dog party, she decides to approach husband rather than wife, which I guess is a good choice in that she hasn’t made any death threats toward Mark specifically so far this season. She does manage to invite him to the party, but spends most of the conversation complaining to Mark that Cary is a liar. He takes this opportunity to confront her about saying he was “soliciting men for favors.†(I still wake up in a cold sweat at 3 a.m. nightly, screaming, “Her husband gets his dick sucked at the Round-Up!†and yet the people actually involved can’t even be bothered to remember LeeAnne’s exact, perfect words.) LeeAnne deflects, saying that the matter only came up after Cary said Rich has a small penis, which is both false (she told Brandi that before they went to Mexico) and a reasonable excuse only according to the melty, swirling, bendy-wendy principles of LeeAnne Logic.
Cary and Brandi sit down for the first time since Brandi dropped the Nanny Bomb. Cary feels betrayed by Brandi’s “character assassination,†and insists there was never anything shady about her nannying for Mark and his first wife. In fact, she worked as a nurse for multiple plastic surgeons and watched all their kids. Brandi apologizes, and Cary tentatively accepts.
Look, I am not a dog psychic, so I have no idea what, if anything, happened between Mark and Cary while he was still married to someone else. (Then again, Brandi clearly thinks they had an affair, and who knows what she knows?) But to go there, just because Cary was obviously lying about whether she’d told Brandi that a surgeon had killed patients on the operating table? According to International Housewives human rights law, that constitutes a war crime. In fact, there was only one reason for Brandi to resort to that nuclear weaponry in the first place. That reason? It has seven letters, two syllables, and just hands, not knives, but they work quite well.