What I love about Miami is that it is so dumb. That is a compliment. What are we fighting about in this episode? Whether or not Michael Jordan approves of Larsa and Marcus’s relationship or their podcast Completely Unnecessary With Larsa and Marcus. We’re fighting about whether or not Martina Navratilova will be upset that her wife, Julia, rescued a pig named Houdini, who was being bullied by his littermates for being named after a Dua Lipa song. We’re fighting over whether or not Adriana’s friends will embarrass her in front of Emilio Estefan, her music daddy, and we all know that they absolutely will. I mean, all of this is fucking stupid in the best possible way.
Miami is a deeply unserious city, and this is a deeply unserious cast. That’s what makes it fun. That’s what makes Miami sizzle. But, girl, we are really getting deep here too. I mean cancer, accidents, divorces, and lemonade stands that have more merchandise than they do sales. These are serious topics that we can suffer through because we know, at the end of the day, mostly what we’re going to be talking about is Nicole’s dead dad’s enormous dick.
The episode starts with another taping of Ouch My Ears With Larsa and Marcus, and she wants him to clarify what his dad said about their relationship in the press. Marcus says it’s hilarious if you know his dad. I can see a world where Michael Jordan thought it was a joke to tell the press, sarcastically, that he hates his son’s relationship. I don’t know Michael Jordan personally (though I have walked more than a mile in his shoes), but this is within the realm of human behavior. However, neither Marcus nor Larsa ever say, “Oh, it’s just a joke,†because, well, I don’t think it is.
Larsa has all sorts of deflections: that Marcus’s mother likes her, and that’s all that really matters, or that M.J. just wants his son to be happy, so he won’t really care. She keeps telling the women that it’s “all cool†so hard that it definitely does not feel cool; it feels all uncool. I don’t really care either way because it’s going to be drama, especially now that Marysol and Alexia are already accusing MRSA (that’s their couple name, remember?) of staging their breakup for press attention. Yes, they’re back together.
Next, we have a nice visit with Alexia who insists that she got a very small apartment because they ran out of time to find a place. Well, why were they rushing? Is it money troubles? Could it be? See, this is what I mean. It’s so dumb, but we care; we actually care about whether or not Alexia can afford a big house. But what we care about more is her as a mother. She has a sweet, very frank conversation with her son Peter, where she basically tells him that when she dies, he has to take care of his brother Frankie. Taking responsibility for the first time in his life, this protein shake with various crypto positions and an Andrew Tate fixation tells his mother that he knows this and that Frankie is the only person who brings him happiness, and he will take on the responsibility of his care. Now, if only he would take on the responsibility of removing his awful tattoos.
The dumb but deep dichotomy continues at the big Havana Nights finale party where Adriana is going to perform her new single, “Muevelo,†which, sadly, is not a banger equal to “FYAH,†though it was sweet of all the women to dance to it like it was. The deep is that Guerdy is coming to the party the day before she has to start her chemo treatments. The dumb is that she is spending it fighting with Larsa about whether or not Larsa should have mentioned on a podcast that Guerdy bit her on the cast trip.
This fight is so fucking dumb. It’s so dumb. It’s so dumb that it can’t make ice because it lost the recipe. So, on the Gondola Ride From Hell, Guerdy gave Larsa a little love bite on her arm. It was like a nip, like a little playful nip, and then Larsa went onto a podcast to promote her podcast, Is This Thing On? With Larsa and Marcus, and she said that one of the cast of the show bit her on the trip.
Guerdy reads this in the press and remembers that she told Larsa she wouldn’t use her name in the press, so she expected Larsa would show her the same consideration. When Guerdy brings this up at the party, Larsa, a mythological wraith fueled by semantics, says, “I didn’t use your name.†Sister, don’t you get the point? It’s not that you didn’t use her name, it’s that both of you agreed not to bring up the other person in the press. Just ’cause its nameless doesn’t mean it’s harmless. (Listen, I’ve worked with the nameless, and I’ve worked with the harmless …)
Then Larsa says, “You bit me, and now you’re mad at me.†She says this like Guerdy attacked her. She’s now saying that the bite made her arm hurt. Girl, if that is going to make your arm hurt the next day, then a mosquito bite will require a helicopter evacuation. It was nothing! Then Larsa says, “I feel like Guerdy is always looking for reasons to be mad at me.†That may be true, but the real problem is that she always finds them. If Larsa was actually a good friend, even if Guerdy went searching, she’d end up emptier than the heads of most of Andy Cohen’s bottoms.
Then Larsa tells Guerdy, “I’m worried for you; go take care of your health.†What? Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Girl. She’s the one who put Guerdy’s health in peril when she told everyone about her cancer diagnosis. She’s causing all this stress by always harping on Guerdy and then fighting with her when Guerdy brings it up. As Dr. Nicole says, this woman is going to chemo the next day; maybe dial it back. Even Alexia, who never met an absolutely dumb fight she didn’t throw her entire cat-eyed sunglasses collection into, says that if Guerdy was coming for her, she would say, “Yes, Guerdy. Whatever you say, Guerdy.â€
Even worse, in her confessional, Larsa says, “What else can I say to this poor woman? Like I’m a victim here, too. I’m sick, too. I’m sick over it.†Oh, my God. Did Larsa just liken her being upset about Guerdy telling her not to talk about biting her on a podcast to Guerdy having literal, real, true-life, undeniable cancer? You would think I hate Larsa by how I run her down in these recaps, but I love her. There is no one easier to eviscerate, no one easier to dunk on, no one easier to prove wrong than this alien from Planet No-Doy.
As the fight devolves into Guerdy and Larsa each calling each other disgusting, Guerdy finally snaps and says, “This is what I did today?†She takes off her hat and her wig to show her newly shorn hair, and it is a trump card. The argument is over. Guerdy wins. She’s dealing with cancer, and Larsa is upset that someone is mad about a podcast appearance, and her BF’s dad is big mad because she used to be married to his old colleague.
Russell, Guerdy’s absolute saint of a husband, comes and leads her away from the drama and calms her down a bit. “Why do you deal with this?†Russell asks her repeatedly. If I could answer that question for any of these women, I would have my own show, healing them and leading them to a life of obscurity where they can eat $30 bottles of guava jam.
Now that the altercation is over, everything moves outside, where we get Adriana’s performance. Everyone is having a great time. Nicole’s father, Mike, and his girlfriend, Isis, are both in attendance, and Mike takes a spin on the dance floor with Nicole. After that, he starts dancing with Kiki, who is a good 300 feet taller than him. He’s loving it, though. How can we tell? When he’s done, his girlfriend points out that he has a boner. The camera zooms right in on it, and boom, there is the dickprint right there on his khakis. I mean, there is no mistaking this. This is like Jon Hamm on the set of Mad Men dick. It’s so big I could almost feel it slap on my face through the television. Even Kiki, a dildo connoisseur, says, “It’s long, and it’s big.â€
Now, this would all be well and good and fun and dumb, but being Miami, there needs to be something deep. This is the last time that we’ll ever see Mike on film because he died unexpectedly after it was filmed but before it aired. I’m glad that Mike is going to die the way that he lived, with everyone admiring his enormous schlong. I have a feeling that he would thoroughly enjoy this send-off.
When the party wraps up, we get updates on the cast, including — drum roll, please — friends! Kiki gets an update: She’s dating a guy in L.A., and I am secretly hoping it’s Mike Hill. Marysol gets an update from Scotland: She renewed her vows with Steve, who she’s not really married to, so I guess that’s how she escapes the vow-renewal curse. Adriana gets an update: She still sucks, and we still love her.
Then we hear from everyone else: Nicole is pregnant; Alexia is letting Frankie take Ubers to work; Lisa is still not divorced from Lenny and is waiting for him to build a house that will never materialize; Julia gets to see a nude portrait of herself, and it turns out to be the world’s ugliest painting and is now in the Guinness Book of How Very Dare You.
But there’s only one update that matters. We see Guerdy go into chemo the day after the party with Russell by her side, and then we see that 127 days later, she is cancer-free. I tell you, I cried. I cried real, actual tears as if this was a person whom I actually knew, a friend whom I was worried about, someone whom I cared about deeply and wanted to survive. “Guerdy is cancer-free,†the screen tells us. “What else matters?â€
What else matters, indeed? Is it your shitty podcasts and your shitty boyfriend’s parents, and your shitty jokes about being bitten? Is it Ana showing up at a party with some other lady who I guess was on the show at some point, but I don’t remember? Is it the size of your apartment or the number of bullied pigs you’ve adopted? Is it your dance singles and squabbles and fights with your asshole ex-husband, who everyone always thought sucked?
No, none of that matters. So what else matters? Love. Love matters, and we see it on full display when Guerdy decides that she wants some control over her battle with cancer, so she is going to shave her head before the drugs rob her of it. She has her stylist in the room, and they braid everything right down to the scalp, but then the stylist leaves Guerdy alone with Russell.
“I want to thank you,†she says.
“For what? Shaving your head?†Russell replies.
“For everything. I don’t know what I would have done without you.†She shears off a few of the braids in the front and then shudders, barely able to contain herself, the tears flowing like the beads of water on the outside of a mojito glass. “You do the rest,†she tells him. He does, our Russell, with his big handsome face that never moves and his big dumb hands so used to putting out fires. Then he takes out the clippers and starts on the back of her head. Guerdy can barely sit there. “Am I bald?†Guerdy asks. “Is it bald, bald?â€
Russell keeps going. “You’re going to look so good,†he says, as a spark lights on his face, not that he’s happy doing this, about the situation, but that he’s happy that he can be strong for both of them, that he can be the one who helps her shoulder this burden, no matter if it’s rides to the hospital, cooking for the kids, or even this, the unthinkable, shearing his wife’s scalp as she unravels right in front of him.
“You’re very beautiful,†he says with the closest thing to a laugh anyone should let out in these circumstances. “It doesn’t look bad at all. Trust me.†And he means it not because it’s true and he’s right, but he was going to say it anyway. Yes, the only other thing that matters is this right here, and it’s the best thing we’ve ever seen on any of these dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb shows.