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The Real Housewives of Dallas Recap: Leave It to Beaver Creek

The Real Housewives of Dallas

The Badger of Beaver Creek
Season 3 Episode 3
Editor’s Rating 4 stars

The Real Housewives of Dallas

The Badger of Beaver Creek
Season 3 Episode 3
Editor’s Rating 4 stars
Photo: Bravo

Dallas’s tiniest male debutante has made his society debut! Kameron is a little offended that Brandi kept the new baby a “secret,†like “Madonna or Beyoncé,†but she can’t help but notice their group is uncharacteristically peaceful right now. Maybe Bruin is like positively charged Ghostbusters mood slime in teensy, ginger form.

Brandi even tentatively makes up with LeeAnne, though she and D’Andra are a ways off from a successful conciliation. At the Bubbles and Bru party, Brandi picks up the peace talks where she left off after crashing D’Andra’s anniversary party, but her attempt to “clear the air†is about as successful as a fart. D’Andra insists that, while she talked about people in Dallas generally abusing Adderall, she didn’t name names, and she wasn’t talking about Brandi specifically. The only issue with this explanation is that Cary reported to Brandi that D’Andra told her she was talking about Brandi specifically, an act of snitching that Cary cops to so quickly and nonchalantly that D’Andra can’t bring herself to be irritated with her.

This fight reminds me of a dumber version of Lisa Rinna’s supposed Xanax smoothie addiction. The major takeaway here is that I already like Cary 50 percent more this season then I did last season. “Enjoy your baby and your Adderall,†D’Andra grumbles, and even though she didn’t say it to Brandi’s face, this is surely the “Fuck you and good luck with your wedding†of RHOD season three.

Enough with the miracle of human life; it’s time for a vacation! Kameron invites everyone to Court’s family’s house in Beaver Creek, Colorado. The gang is dressed in compulsory pink-striped monogrammed pajamas issued by Kameron for their flight on the Westcotts’ plane, the subject of a long-enough series of adoring, lingering shots that it feels like I’ve accidentally navigated to a specialty adult website for people who fall in love with inanimate objects. “PJs on the PJ,†chirps Kam, and it takes me a few seconds to stop racking my brain about exactly what kind of a sex act a P-job would be. (I mean, I have at least one idea.) She’s also printed up detailed pink itineraries, the sight of which makes me long for a Xanax smoothie of my own.

Right from the tarmac, still in PJ PJs, the gals are off to a store with the truly inspired name of Beaver Liquors. Beaver Liquors is clearly leaning into the double entendre, based on their racks upon racks of vagina-themed merchandise. Brandi and Stephanie stealthily purchase a poster depicting some outdoor cunnilingus with the most ’90s beer commercial aesthetic imaginable.

The Westcotts’ very beautiful, very large Beaver Creek home is two-thirds the Overlook Hotel, one-third the house from Hereditary, if either of those properties had its own bowling alley. Brandi and Stephanie sneak up to Kameron’s bedroom to deposit the poster on the foot of her bed, a prank that goes over much better with their hostess than last season’s endless saga of Sexual Chocolate the Dildo. As Kameron playfully bonks Brandi on the head with the rolled-up poster, I dare to wonder: Could Dallas’s two-headed Jim Halpert and its very blonde and sparkly Dwight Schrute finally have found a happy, healthy friendship dynamic that works for them? (Spoiler for the rest of this episode: No.)

After Brandi and Stephanie spend a bracing afternoon trying to sled on things that are decidedly not sleds, including a log and also each other, it’s time for a private-chef-prepared dinner of bison short ribs and baby-related sniping. Kameron feels that Stephanie made her look like an “idiot†by telling her that she was the one having a baby, not Brandi; Stephanie says she was just trying to preserve the surprise, and that Kameron was about to find out the truth in “20 minutes†anyway. “It wasn’t in 20 minutes; it was like an hour,†Kameron responds, as if this is a remotely meaningful distinction. “Badger, badger, badger!†Cary shouts, which at first I take to be a well-meaning if ineffective method of distracting her friends from their disagreement, but which actually refers to the fact that Kameron’s preferred style of arguing involves stridently repeating the same thing over and over again. Honey badger don’t care, except that she clearly does, and very much so.

Brandi, bewitched by the Midsummer Night’s Dream potion that is whatever they’ve all had far too many shots of, embarks on a quest to convince Kameron to kiss her. “I’ve only been with one person my entire life,†she says. “You could be number two.†Kameron would have guessed she’d be tracking closer to number 50, a comment that contorts Brandi’s face into an open-mouth Invasion of the Body Snatchers rictus. “My vagina is superclean!†she protests. “You can be with a lot of people and still have a clean vagina,†LeeAnne counters, sagely. Eventually, Brandi attacks Kameron’s nose with smooches, looking not unlike she might eat her face.

After a brief dip in the outdoor hot tub (Kameron in a ruffly swimsuit, Brandi in bra and panties, and Cary in the nude), everyone but LeeAnne (who goes to bed early, having probably wisely decided not to drink tonight) gathers in the kitchen for ice cream and more fighting.

Kameron pronounces Brandi’s decision to keep Bruin a secret from her “so stupid,†despite Stephanie’s protests that people Brandi’s known for literally ten years—and not just frenemies from a reality-TV show who just spent most of a season being performatively annoyed by her — didn’t know about the baby until the big reveal. Look: I get why Kameron’s feelings might be a little hurt that Stephanie bothered to lie to her 20 minutes (EXCUSE ME, ONE HOUR) before Brandi introduced Bruin, even though I don’t think Stephanie’s intentions were malicious. But what’s totally fucking ridiculous is that Kameron thinks she could dictate how and when Brandi chooses to introduce her baby to the world. This could not have less to do with her.

“We’re not going to bash her about adopting a baby,†Stephanie says, reasonably, which the honey badger apparently mishears as “We’re not going to bash her adopted baby.†And so Kameron begins to shout, “Take back what you just said! Take back what you just said!†cementing her place in future textbooks as the most annoying person to fight with in history.

Brandi, by this point, is sobbing in bed, saying she wants to go home. Kameron wants Stephanie out. And to think, we got all this drama while LeeAnne was snoozing peacefully upstairs. I’m so proud of everyone.

Real Housewives of Dallas Recap: Leave It to Beaver Creek