Much like having to swap VHS tapes when watching Titanic, we start this episode right where we left off: on a doomed boat. Jen is complaining that Angie can’t take a joke, while Angie is insisting that she doesn’t think getting a drink poured on her is a joke (a fair point). While comforting a spiraling Jen to protect herself from her impending wrath, Heather agrees with everything Jen’s saying while also casually pointing out that Lisa took Angie’s side right away.
Jen, who might not have otherwise noticed this, is now furious at Lisa, too, complaining in a confessional that Lisa didn’t even come to check on her and ask if she was okay. This is one of the funniest grievances I’ve ever heard. That would be like asking if a car is okay after it mows someone down. Imagine Lisa Barlow walking past a Champagne-soaked Angie to ask if Jen’s wrist is sore from throwing it and if she can get her a refill.
It doesn’t take long for this new grudge to show itself, and while the rest of the women think it’s time to party with the on-boat DJ and do handstand twerks, Jen isn’t in fun mode — she’s in attack mode. The second Lisa approaches, a very drunk Jen goes after her, catching her completely off guard. Jen keeps trying to storm away while Lisa scurries after her trying to figure out why she’s mad and physically holding her so she can’t escape. “What am I doing wrong?†Lisa asks, trying to talk her down, but Jen shoves her away and throws an entire charcuterie board into the ocean. That’s how you know things are serious. There’s nothing these women love more than a charcuterie board, so to send one overboard is a true act of war.
Finally, Lisa hits her breaking point. “Stop being a bitch! I have done nothing to you,†Lisa screams back at Jen. At this point, Heather leaps into action, attempting to de-escalate the situation she caused by separating them and huddling with a crying Jen. “I know you have never been ambushed like that, it’s horribly painful,†Heather tells her as if she wasn’t ambushed by an entire SWAT team last season. The rest of the women head into the boat while Heather sits with Jen, even tricking her into chugging a bottle of water to counteract whatever she drank.
Heather jokes that they should throw Angie’s purse in the ocean to teach her a lesson, and suddenly Jen’s ears perk up. “I’M KIDDING,†Heather has to clarify urgently, but it’s too late. “Whose are these?†Jen asks, picking up a pair of shoes before throwing them off the boat into the sea. Jen has enough legal problems as it is; now she will be facing littering fines from the San Diego Coast Guard.
Below deck, a producer mentions that someone’s shoe is floating out in the water and panic erupts. Lisa Barlow leaps up, “Oh my God,†she screams as if she was just told that Baby Gorgeous himself had been thrown overboard. “I hope they’re not my Saint Laurent ones!†The women storm the poop deck, hurriedly searching for their own shoes in the wreckage. Whitney only recovers one, and Heather, being the ride-or-die that she is, lies that the other one slipped. The pair that Jen really hurled were, in fact, Angie K.’s, who’s searching everywhere for her $1,500 pair of kicks. “No one touched your shoes, Angie,†Jen says with such confidence that I almost believe her despite having seen her throw them overboard just moments earlier.
With some of their ranks barefoot, the women load back into the sprinter van for the ride home, where Jen appears to be on death’s door. They give her a Monster Energy drink to sober her up, which I’m worried is like feeding gremlins after midnight. I need a Magic School Bus episode about how Jen Shah’s body manages to completely reject and overcome this Monster Energy drink because instead of hyping her up, she takes an hour-and-a-half-long “rally nap†in the back of the parked sprinter van when they get back to the house.
While Jen sleeps outside, Heather calls our group’s current outcast, Angie H., who got glam and set up her ring light to FaceTime her way into this San Diego trip. While her absence does mean less name confusion between the two Angies, Heather says that she wishes she were there because she’s “pure fun without any of the drama,†which is the craziest thing Heather has ever said. If there’s one thing Angie H. is known for, it’s out-of-this-world drama. Heather fills her in on the trip dynamics, and just like the rest of the group, Angie H. is confused about Heather’s relationship with Jen. Are they fighting or are they besties? It seems to be a comfortable surface-level thing right now, with Heather saying she likes to have fun with Jen but doesn’t have a lot of expectations. That’s all good and well, but as Angie points out, Jen’s probably not going to be reasonable with her in moments that really count.
And speak of the devil: A well-rested Jen returns from her van slumber just in time for the dinner she’s throwing. It’s not a moment too soon since the women are all starving, having only had Champagne and tequila all day — because, apparently, Bravo blew their craft-service budget on this lavish San Diego Airbnb. A triumphant Jen emerges for the celebration, wearing one of the four wigs she brought for this three-day trip, and leads the women out to her traditional Polynesian luau, complete with a roast pig and fire dancers. “These fire dancers are amazing. The sad thing is I’m gonna have to pull them aside after and let them know they’re probably not going to get paid,†Angie K. says, keeping her confessional zingers coming.
But those aren’t the only dancers Jen has lined up, because as they eat, the Fun Police (a.k.a. strippers) make their entrance. “This is quite ironic,†Heather says. “The last time I was this close to cops, I thought they were strippers and they turned out to be federal agents.†But unlike the SWAT team in the Beauty Lab parking lot, these cops give Whitney a lap dance. “We got a call that there was a noise complaint … that it’s too quiet,†the strippers say, which doesn’t hit quite as hard when the women have been screaming at each other at full volume all day.
Unfortunately, the strippers leave before things really get loud, which happens when the conversation finally turns to the conflict between Jen and Danna. But the thing is, nothing actually happened between the two of them — Danna just doesn’t like how Jen treats everybody else, so she’s taken it upon herself to make being the peanut gallery her whole story line. Yes, it’s annoying, but to be fair, it is interesting to have an outsider come in and be like, Wait, this is how you all live? She doesn’t like how Jen treated the two Angies and then turns the conversation to the conflict between Jen and Heather, which has thus far been swept under the rug.
We find out that the apology Jen requested from the Harringtons for ShahXposed has been denied after their lawyer advised against it because they don’t want any association with her (apart from being her castmates, apparently). Jen is naturally livid over this, whereas Heather, caught between the two, says she understands why they won’t do it. Jen’s head spins around upon hearing this, and she zeros in on Heather like a sleeper agent hearing her trigger phrase.
Suddenly someone taps in Angie K. to defend Danna’s shit-stirring and says that Heather is spewing a lot of bullshit. Angie says she doesn’t understand why Jen’s friends with her, and Heather quickly replies, “I’m trying to understand your relationship because she threw your shoes off the yacht today,†completely blowing Jen’s cover. It’s perplexing to Heather (and me) why Angie is suddenly the arbiter of being a good friend to Jen when she annihilated her on the sprinter van just hours ago. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw shoes.
Our next fighter making her way to the ring is Lisa Barlow, who jumps in to bring up all the shit Jen talked about Heather last week in Whitney’s hot tub, where she complained about Heather being a bad friend. She’s sick of all the dishonesty and wants to air it all out — including the fact that she’s mad at Jen for coming at her on the yacht.
“When did I come at you today?†Jen earnestly asks. The question becomes this: Does Jen not remember because she was drunk or because she has a very selective (and hypocritical) memory? Lisa thinks it’s the latter, saying, “She only remembers what she feels wronged with, but it doesn’t matter what she does or says to anybody else. That’s how Jen works.†Essentially that’s the thesis of the entire series. Continuing her perfect analysis, Lisa points out that all of these shifting dynamics are just because Jen fell out with Angie K., so now she’s riding the Heather wave. Basically, Jen has no object permanence when it comes to conflict — she can only focus on the one directly in front of her.
At some point during this fight, Jen takes off her massive hairpiece, and in a move that’s just as big of a continuity error, she turns to Angie and gives her a heartfelt apology for the Champagne pour, which Angie believes and accepts. Jen even goes so far as to say that Angie K. is the only one at the table with whom she knows where they stand. This is a completely jarring exchange for everyone there. Fish are choking on designer shoes over this argument, and now we’re all suddenly good?
This is enough for Heather and Lisa to walk away from the table and end the dinner, where the rules are made up and the points don’t matter. “I’ll bring Jen her hair,†Meredith says, taking the abandoned extensions back inside.