Hell has frozen over, pigs are flying, She by Shereé joggers have hit the shelves, and LeeAnne and Rich have officially set a date!
They’ll be united in holy matrimony at the modern-art amorphous white space chapel on the grounds of the Cathedral of Hope, famed for its prominently LGBT congregation. Their future anniversary: April 27. (Not to make this recap any more about me, which, to be clear, it always has been and always will be, but I’m getting married on April 13. If this is your way of inviting me to have a double wedding with you, LeeAnne, my answer is yes, though I reserve the right to make out with Rich at some point during the reception.)
Even more improbably, Dee finally, officially turns over the family business to D’Andra, at a staid daytime luncheon slash public paperwork signing. This is pretty much how the pilot of Arrested Development goes down, except not on a boat, and the SEC doesn’t take anyone into custody, at least not that we see on camera. Come the season four premiere, Dee will probably reveal she used prank-store disappearing ink, but until then, it’s real! Newly minted bosslady D’Andra is deeply moved to hear that her mother is proud of her. I am more convinced that ever that we need a Dee Simmons biopic, if only because Jessica Walter deserves another great role.
Stephanie is planning a raucous frat party to send Travis off for his month at Harvard Business School. “Some of my best memories were on the floor of a frat house,†Stephanie says, then abruptly clarifies, “But not having sex.†She will later elaborates that she did have sex in a frat house. Just not on the floor, I guess.
Beer pong is a must, as are funnels and Jell-O shots galore. Stephanie’s even springing for a foam-filled bouncy house. You see, college means spring break. Spring break means Mexico. “And they always have foam pits in Mexico, right?†Stephanie asks.
LeeAnne is convinced that this party is not a foam pit, but a snake pit, or arguably worse, a pit that contains both foam and snakes. But goddammit, as she tells Kameron, she’ll out-foam-snake them all: “Every ounce of me wants to walk in the door and say, ‘The peaceful bitch that you all have been dealing with is back home banging the shit out of that Tibetan singing bowl, and Bitch Leeanne showed up to kick all y’all’s asses.’†Let’s get #ThePeacefulBitchThatYouAllHaveBeenDealingIsBackHomeBangingTheShitOutOfThatTibetanSingingBowlAndBitchLeeAnneShowedUpToKickAllYallsAsses trending on social media!
Though she’d earlier agreed that there was no way Brandi stole LeeAnne’s phone, Kameron has dutifully amended her version of reality to better correspond with LeeAnne Ron Hubbard’s. Now, she speculates that Brandi must have found the phone as she said, but then took her time returning it, so, you know. Kameron is going down with the H.M.S. LeeAnne, playing “Nearer, My God, To Thee†with the rest of the doomed band while everybody else scrambles onto the lifeboats.
In advance of the party, Kameron tries and fails to convince LeeAnne to help her wash her hair, which is somehow not the most alarming incident of codependency the two of them exhibit this episode. For reasons that I don’t understand, Kam has elected to attend the frat party dressed as Cher from Clueless, who was, lest we forget, a high-school student. As soon as she sees the yellow plaid blazer and skirt, LeeAnne runs out to the same store to buy the same costume, while K washes her hair all by herself. She returns in, yes, a matching outfit, but one that she’s mysteriously accessorized with a cluster of multicolored ribbons tied in her pigtails. I am not sure LeeAnne has seen Clueless.
“Everyone’s going to, like, stare at us,†Kam predicts, not inaccurately, as the vast majority of guests are wearing T-shirts and shorts. Brandi, however, is wearing her old cheerleading uniform, because of course she is wearing her old cheerleading uniform.
The frat party is a Who’s Who of Dallas society, by which I mean that Callie-Roo the kangaroo makes an appearance. I am genuinely delighted by the Solo Cup mosaic wall that spells out the Greek letters ΤΦΗ, Tau Phi Eta, as in Travis “Phucking†Hollman.
LeeAnne briefly debates Stephanie as to whether her false claims of cloning Brandi’s phone constitutes a “lie†or a “joke.†(White House Press Secretary LeeAnne Locken has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?) “I am not Satan,†LeeAnne explains, which, to play devil’s advocate, is probably exactly what Satan would say.
When she can bear this no longer, Stephanie physically pulls Brandi and LeeAnne together, and the rest of the women encircle them like they’re watching a schoolyard rap battle. I really do believe these two despise each other, but the particulars of this fight are so stupid — then again, that is probably the best proof of all they can’t stand each other.
LeeAnne insists that Brandi stole her phone, because she had “images of the Baltic Sea†(perhaps the best euphemism for nudes I’ve ever heard). Brandi insists this is dumb, because then why would she have handed the phone back over? Because, LeeAnne retorts, she would have used Find My iPhone and traced it to Brandi’s room.
The fight becomes heated faster than Mark’s $75,000 Molteni stove, which, by the way, has its own Instagram. “Do you think you’re better than than the rest of us?†Brandi asks, getting in LeeAnne’s face. “No, I don’t, and that’s your problem,†LeeAnne says, poking Brandi in the chest repeatedly to punctuate her sentence. Ruh-roh.
This is by now a full-blown scene, which at least one Party Rando is filming on his phone. Brandi takes it upon herself to kick LeeAnne out. “You better kiss your own ass and fucking hit the door!†she shouts, using two expressions that I am pretty sure do not exist in the English language. In that moment, LeeAnne utterly transforms. She snarls and whispers, “Try me,†and emphatically does not leave.
As Brandi cries on somebody’s shoulder in a far corner of the backyard, LeeAnne takes a lonely seat a picnic table. “Cry, bitch!†she shouts at her enemy’s distant form. “Be a motherfucking victim that you created for yourself!†Way harsh, Tai.
LeeAnne flops from her chair onto the grass and, on her back, screams into the heavens: “Jesus Christ, please tell me what the fuck to do. I can’t hear you, God, and you have fucking left me. I am so fucking alone. And I don’t know what to do!†Cary, who is not amused by any of this, seemingly dumps her drink out on (or at least in extremely close proximity to) LeeAnne, then throws her cup at her. But Not Satan doesn’t even notice.
In Cary’s view, Brandi intentionally pushed LeeAnne’s buttons. I certainly agree that Brandi was being both aggressive and, more importantly, annoying, but the physical contact took their conflict to another level. Brandi may have started it, as LeeAnne says, but she certainly finished it.
It is to D’Andra’s credit that, rather than entertaining any of this nonsense, she elects to do a keg stand with Brandi. The other woman leap into the cleansing foam, like Aphrodite being born again for a new season.