This week was all about parties: gay brunches, Champagne and oysters, house coolings. What’s a house cooling? Well, it’s like a housewarming, but it’s when you go to see the house you used to live in after a friend bought it. In Adriana’s case, I’m sorry to admit, Lisa and her boyfriend, Jody, who bought Adriana’s old house, have also made the house a lot cooler. I don’t know. Returning to your old house is a bit like returning to high school after graduation. It’s familiar but different, and you really have no business being there. It’s like watching your slot machine after you walk away. If someone hits a jackpot, you’re not going to be happy, just pissed off that you aren’t still in the same exact place you used to be.
Before we get into the parties, there is one thing that I need to call attention to. At the little montage at the beginning of the episode checking in on all the ladies, we see Julia with her new gorgeous short haircut in a pair of overalls, washing her dog in the tailgate of a pick-up truck. Lesbians gonna lesbian, even when they’re bisexual.
Speaking of which, Marysol decided to throw a gay brunch for all of her homosexual friends and then totally ignored them while she sat at a table gossiping with her girlfriends. She said that the first gay brunch she threw was in New York, and then all the gays got wasted and stuck her with the bill. “Steve was mad at me, but I thought, Why not do it again?†she says. When the DJ shows up with arms that look like coconuts in a lady’s stocking, she tries to get him to take his shirt off. She must have attended the Erika Jayne School for Giving the Gays Everything They Want. She also says that she has to have a lot of room for the gays, which is accurate because, with all of our wrist flopping and death dropping, each gay requires at least ten more square feet than your average human. That number increases to 20 if they are walking and 30 if they are walking with an iced coffee and listening to Kim Petras on their earbuds.
The craziest thing about the brunch, however, is that it is at the Miami outpost of Barton G, a BRAVESCO World Heritage Site, where Bethenny Frankel yelled at Countess Luann that “Life is not a cabaret,†and Tinsley Mortimer said, “Yes, I’m drinking, Luann.†All of the guys in attendance are very hot, and that does not surprise me at all, given that it is Miami and Marysol is not the girlie to hang with pudgy gays. Jonny, the ladies’ resident gay, is also there, but I didn’t even recognize him at first because he got a haircut and looks hotter than ever. (DMs are open, Jonny!)
The talk of the brunch is that Larsa has “permanent lady wood†for her boyfriend, Marcus Jordan. I have seen pictures of Marcus before, but when he and Larsa have lunch together, I think it’s the first time I’ve seen him on camera for any length of time. I have to say Marcus is hot. The handsome face, the perfect beard, the deep voice. Yeah, I get it, Larsa. I would miss him when he was only gone for three days as well. The rest of the ladies think it’s overkill, and I would too, but, damn, if I had a man like Marcus Jordan, I don’t think I’d ever let him leave the house.
The other chat is about Lisa and her boyfriend, Jody, and they’re all worried that she is jumping into a relationship a little bit too soon. Lisa tells them that no one has loved her like Jody loves her and that someone is actually asking about her feelings for the first time in 15 years. I have an inkling that not only applies to her emotional feelings but her physical/sexual ones as well. You know Lenny never once asked, “Does that feel good for you?†You know he just finishes on her tits, rolls over, and starts snoring immediately. Speaking of Lenny, he finally decides that Lisa deserves $8,000 a month in temporary support while they unravel their marriage. I feel that someone like Lenny should lose all of his money to his ex. There should be some kind of asshole tax, and if the judge declares that you’re a son of a bitch then your soon-to-be-ex partner gets to take whatever they want.
Cut in between the Gay Brunch is Dr. Nicole’s meeting with Guerdy, Julia, and Adriana, a.k.a. New Kids on the Block, a.k.a. NKOTB, a.k.a. where is Jordan Knight these days anyway? Nicole called the cocktail hour because they all noticed something was off with Guerdy the week before at Alexia’s party. At first, there’s some discussion about why Todd wasn’t at Alexia’s party, and then they move on to Julia’s nine engagements. That seems like a lot, but remember Danielle Staub was engaged 19 times, prostitution whore, table flip.
As for Todd skipping out on Alexia’s party, I don’t think I can agree with Adriana that it means something is wrong with their marriage. I’m sure she and Todd fight just as much as all couples fight, and this was probably another one. But then, when I heard more details about his absence, it just seemed weird. He didn’t even go out; he was just working out in the gym and then eating in the restaurant in the building. He also saw everyone as they were leaving and said hi to them. Well, if he could see everyone on the way out, why couldn’t he just chill with them? Also, he said it wasn’t Nicole and Anthony he was avoiding or Adriana, so who was it? I don’t think there’s a problem in their marriage like some others, but it does sound fishy.
Anyway, over Champagne and oysters, Nicole asks Guerdy what was up at the party. She starts to say that she had a mammogram that led to an MRI that led to three biopsies, and you can see in Dr. Nicole’s pained face that she has already figured out the diagnosis, and she is horrified for her friend. Guerdy tells them about her breast cancer, and they all flock to support her. She’s crying, Nicole is crying, Julia is crying, I am crying. We’re all crying. It’s one of the saddest and hardest scenes we’ve ever seen on Bravo, and once again, I would like to commend Guerdy for letting us in on what must be a horrible time in her life.
Speaking of horrible times in her life, she and Larsa meet at a coffee shop to discuss their fight in the last episode, where Larsa was mad at Guerdy for calling her fake. As soon as they sit down, Larsa is like, “Let’s not cry,†and Guerdy takes offense to it. I would, too! I can see if she said, “Let’s try not to cry,†but don’t tell me how I should or shouldn’t behave or feel. Guerdy explains to Larsa why she called her fake, saying that she often speaks poorly of her or tells her that she should wear a muzzle. Larsa says, “I have no idea what you’re saying, to be honest.†Yes, this is Larsa’s problem; she’s always so busy venting her own feelings that she doesn’t care about other people’s feelings and doesn’t bother to listen when they express them.
Guerdy sums it up perfectly when she says, “You need to offer a safer space for people to be open with you.†Guerdy then starts crying, and I think we all know it’s because she knows she has cancer, and she either wants to say it or doesn’t. It’s a trump card, and she knows it, but is now the right time to play it? While they’re screaming at each other?
Larsa quite flippantly says, “You want me to start crying and tell you everything that’s wrong with my life?†Oh, Larsa, there is nothing that bad. There is nothing as bad as what Guerdy is going through, and Larsa has no idea. That’s why you can’t be callous or ever think that what you’re going through is the worst. Guerdy says they’re done, and Larsa asks, “What are you crying about?â€
I wanted Guerdy to yell, “CANCER! I am crying about cancer, and I am literally fighting for my life while you’re making fun of me.†But she can’t, not through the tears, not through the fog of her diagnosis, not to someone who is deafer than one of those giant stone faces on Easter Island. Guerdy can do nothing but cry, and here we are all at home, not even able to comfort her, not even able to reach out and tell her that eventually, one day, it’s all going to be nothing more than gay brunches and house coolings.