I hate boat parties. A decade ago, my roommate was throwing one for his birthday, and I felt obligated to go, so I planned to roll up two minutes after the boat left the dock, take a picture of the boat leaving, and be like, “Girl, sorry. I tried.†Well, as I arrived, the crew on the boat was getting ready to push off, and they were like, “There’s still time. Get on.†Then I was stuck for three hours on a cold boat with no food and a bunch of drunk homosexuals who did not want to make out with me. Hell! And there is no escape. Just ask Lisa, who is stuck on Alexia and Todd’s wedding-party booze cruise in the middle of the Stupidest Fight Ever, Part II, with Larsa.
We’re two episodes in, and so far, this season loves a flashback, a flash-forward, a flash drive, and a Flash Gordon — anything with a flash in it, really. At the beginning of this episode, we see boat drama and then we see a title card that reads “48 Hours Earlier.†After the drama on the boat and Lisa talking about Lenny, we get a card that reads “2 Weeks Later†and see Lisa cursing out her soon-to-be ex-husband. Can’t we just live in the moment? Can’t we just carpe someone’s diem? (And if we get to choose, I nominate Kiki’s hot wedding date’s carpe to be diemed.)
But before we can set sail, we have to meet all of Julia’s goats and her mystical pineapple, which has healing and meditative properties. According to Teresa Giudice, it also makes your juices taste nice. Julia says she lives full time in the Miami Beach house with Martina, but she had to sell her farm and get one nearly three times the size. The current farm is listed as 2.6 acres. Now, I failed all that maths that the British make plural, and even I can figure out this means the old farm was less than an acre. That’s not a farm; that’s just your backyard with a chicken coop. That’s like installing a kiddie pool in the back and charging everyone who visits you for an all-inclusive package at Club Med.
What I bet happened was that Julia’s neighbors in this suburb were sick of hearing the goats and smelling the goats and Julia getting their goat, so they called someone who showed up and was like, “Lady, this is a condo development. You can’t keep livestock here.†So she had to go and buy a farm that would actually allow her worm-and-flea-ridden goats, who probably wouldn’t even stand on you when you do yoga. I don’t know this to be true, but I feel like it is, and that’s enough to convict in Scrooge McDuck’s America.
Back in Miami, Lisa has lunch with Guerdy and Alexia, and her fight with Larsa comes up. They all say the same thing I do: Larsa fights dirty, she took something personally that wasn’t intended as such, and her blows are lower than the prices at Crazy Bruce’s Liquor and Meat Pie Emporium. Lisa says she might have insulted Larsa’s building but Larsa insulted her personally, and that’s a pretty good summation of the Stupidest Fight Ever: A New Hope.
At the same lunch, Guerdy asks Alexia how the wedding planning is going. Alexia tells her she wanted her to do the party and doesn’t tell her how much she loves Melissa, her new party planner. Alexia tells us Melissa never asked her to fill out a questionnaire or suggest that they have a party in a chapel, so she’s already better at the job. Um, actually, maybe you are just a bad and lazy client, and if you had filled out the questionnaire, Guerdy could have done the job better. Just a suggestion.
Guerdy says she was sorry she couldn’t do the boat wedding because she had another event booked, but she did tell Alexia she was hurt when she compared her party to Marysol’s. Okay, now we’re getting the full picture. Apparently, Alexia said the party Marysol threw at the Versace mansion was better than the fundraiser Guerdy threw for her dead brother’s charity. I am so on Guerdy’s side here. She points out that Marysol rented the Versace mansion; most of the work was done by a great fashion designer in the ’90s, so she just had to dress the table. Meanwhile, Guerdy had to build out a whole event space for her gig. Yes, the “aesthetics†of Marysol’s party might have been better than Guerdy’s, but I totally see her point. Sorry, Alexia. Ya burnt on this one.
There follows a brief interlude in which Nicole goes out to lunch with her mother, her son, and her son’s nanny and everyone around the table thinks Dr. Nicole is a mean bitch who should treat her mother better. They cry and eat some gross-looking empanadas, and that’s the whole scene. Next up is Guerdy doing a photo shoot for the cover of one of those magazines that exist only so Housewives can pose for them and so dermatologists’ offices don’t need to subscribe to Vanity Fair. No notes on any of this. I missed this. RHOSLC could use a photo shoot for Journeys magazine.
Now it’s time for the wedding boat party, except that Lisa has to attend on her own. Why? The nanny called in sick, and there’s a replacement nanny, so Lenny has to stay home to keep an eye on the replacement nanny. No no no no no no no. That is not how this works. Either you get a sitter for the kids, or he stays home to watch them. If he has to stay home to watch the nanny, why can’t he stay home to watch the kids? As Marysol points out, why does Lisa struggle with child care? She has more employees than a TGI Fridays in a mall parking lot.
Alexia gets to the boat early to cry with Marysol about their dead mothers, and Lisa Rinna pops out from behind a couch to tell them how every seagull flocking around the boat that day, well, isn’t either of their mothers, but it is hers. Then Alexia’s son Peter, the worst man on television, comes by with his new girlfriend. Someone texts her the “Molly, you in danger girl†GIF every second until she comes to her senses. Alexia tells us Peter has matured and grown so much since last season. That is a lie. There’s no way this human NFT has learned any lessons and no way Alexia can see either of her kids objectively.
As everyone arrives at the party, including Guerdy, who rushed over from her other event, everyone decides that Lisa and Larsa need to talk about their beef before the couple gets there for the non-ceremony. As they sit down, Lisa tells Larsa she was hurt by what she said about her at the previous party. Yeah, I get it, but I agree with Guerdy: Lisa started it by talking shit, so she needs to be the one who starts apologizing. Instead of saying “You really hurt me,†maybe she should have started with “I’m sorry I said that and it hurt you, but what you said really hurt me as well.†Put them on equal footing. Instead, she’s just looking to replay the Stupidest Fight Ever, and they launch into round two right there on the boat.
What they’re fighting about this time is whether Lisa and Lenny have a mortgage on their house. Lisa says they don’t, which she confirms with Lenny. Larsa says they do, that it’s public record. She’s right about that; the former bill collector in me knows you can call up the tax assessor’s office in any city and get all kinds of information about a homeowner. So yes, as ridiculous as it sounds, Larsa may know more about Lisa’s house than Lisa herself does. I mean, we know Lenny is staying home only so he can screw his new girlfriend while the fill-in nanny watches the kids; it’s not a leap to think he’s lying about the mortgage, too. (But if he knows he’s about to divorce Lisa, why does he want her to think she has more assets than he does?)
I’m saying there is no shame in having a mortgage, and I don’t really care if Lisa does or not. Also, her pointing out that Larsa might have broken up a marriage is stupid too. (I’m really sick of all the slut shaming Larsa gets, even if I don’t always love her argument tactics.) Now these two are arguing about who lies about what instead of, I don’t know, just sucking it up and apologizing. But Guerdy, who follows Lisa away from the speeches that Alexia and Todd’s friends and family are giving, says there has to be something else going on with Lisa. Oh, she’s right, and we get a preview of it right there at the end of the episode. Lenny is going to wish that he’ll get a boat party when his divorce is done because, honey, he’s sunk.