Last week I complained that Real Housewives of Miami was all talk and no action, but last night, we got the action. Karent and Adriana, Alexia and Karent, Lea and Marysol, Joanna and Romain, Elaine and Mama Elsa. Everyone had a bone to pick with everyone else, and it was resplendent. That’s what we watch this mess for, after all.
From what I remember, Joanna and Romain’s not-so-romantic dinner might be the first time that cheating allegations were actually sussed out on camera on Real Housewives, taking us one step further into the relationship-destroying k-hole that is Bravolebrity fame. Their relationship may not be destroyed quite yet, though; find out after the jump.
We started right where last week’s episode left off – Alexia’s magazine party, where Adriana was planning to confront Karent (and Karent knew it was coming because Joanna tattled). At first, everyone just stood around awkwardly while Karent mugged for photos and made an awkward comment about how she and Ana were dressed alike (they were not dressed like, except that they were both wearing…dresses), and then Mama Elsa spoke for all of us when she encouraged everyone to leave the conversation and find the booze. Yes, ladies. Get drunk and yell at each other. That’s what we’re here for.
Before that could happen, though, Mama Elsa and The Omnipresent Drag Queen had one of the most awkward, absurd confrontations I think we’ve ever seen in the history of Real Housewives. Elsa knows that Elaine has been all over Miami talking smack about Marysol, of course, and people of a certain age tend to dispense with the niceties that other people cling to and say whatever it is they damn well please. Mama Elsa told her off, threatened to hit her with her pocketbook and then demanded she get up and leave, which Elaine did while simultaneously braying that no one tells her what to do. Except Mama Elsa, I guess. There was also some nonsense about the celebrity page (Of what? Who knows), and even though I could make out about 60% of what Mama Elsa was saying, it was clear she won the fight. Adriana, who was sitting there the entire time, didn’t even have to intervene.
After Elaine’s departure, Marysol, Ana and Lea also came over to chit chat. Well, Lea came over to show her ass and be a jerk to Marysol again, which is increasingly the only role she has on this show, beyond talking up her charity party. (She did some of that, too.) Marysol brought up the green card joke from last week and Lea apologized but didn’t really mean it, and then told Marysol to stop being the victim. It’s as if she gets nastier each week; by the end of the season, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Lea actually throwing feces at people. Marysol got up and went and sat on the other side of the couch, which, naturally, did absolutely nothing to abate the awkwardness in the group.
Speaking of awkwardness, just when that fight simmered for a second, Karent walked up! Apparently she had already made a lap at the party and had her picture taken with anyone even vaguely famous, so it was time to return to the group and be Above It All. Adriana pulled her out of the group so that they could argue on their own instead of in front of everyone, which I suppose passes for maturity on Real Housewives. They went back and forth for a minute about the same old stuff, but things really got interesting when Alexia came over.
Alexia and Karent clearly have some history between them, and none of it seems to be good. When they got going, all kinds of random stuff started coming out of Karent’s mouth. She doesn’t have time to get close to the other women on the show because her boyfriend is out of town a lot and when he’s in town, he’s the priority! (Well what about all the time that he’s out of town? Can’t she make female friends then?) Karent’s not just a dentist, she’s an actress! (O RLY?) Karent is a spokesperson for Colgate! (Remember how Kelly Bensimon was the spokesperson for wool? And how it also came up randomly in an argument about nothing?)
In a final bid to lose the argument and alienate Alexia and Adriana once and for all, Karent actually stooped so low as to bring up Alexia’s son’s near-fatal car accident and how supportive she had been when it happened (apparently a couple of text messages about the imminent death of someone’s child now qualifies as “supportive”). Naturally, that resulted in Alexia throwing Karent out of the party, which Karent acted like was her idea. To Karent’s credit, she did go and say good night to everyone in a rather mature way, which gave us the opportunity to watch Mama Elsa yank down her dress to cover her ass.
At Lisa’s house the next day, Joanna and Marta showed up to discuss Marta’s plan to move in with Lisa and whether or not they all think Romain is cheating. Marta thinks he is, of course, and despite my general distaste for Marta, I think she’s right on the money. Lisa, in her infinite Lisa wisdom, suggested that Joanna cook him a meal to make things better. Or, never mind, just order some takeout and put it on a serving platter and pretend like you cooked it.
Next, at Ana’s office, we got a peek into the reason that she and her soon-to-be-ex-husband haven’t really rushed along the whole divorce thing: they work together. We watched them argue back and forth a bit about the terms of their divorce and whether or not Ana can require him to get a pre-nup in his next marriage, if he has one. It was a discussion of important, real-life things, for sure, but they clearly don’t have a whole lot of animosity toward each other. If I’m ever in the position to need to get divorced, I hope I’m more like them than Adrienne and Paul from Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. (have you guys been following that? It’s insane.)
Once again at Lisa’s house, Karent showed up to complain about Adriana and Alexia and how things went down at the party. Perhaps the only thing I don’t like about Lisa so far is that she can’t see through Karent’s BS. I can understand that the new people to the cast have to stick together, but come on. On top of being aggravating and self-aggrandizing (above and beyond normal Real Housewives episodes), Karent is kind of a terrible bore. The only thing she talks about is her boyfriend, and it seems like most people aren’t even entirely sure that he’s all that into her.
While Karent complained that she got thrown out of a party for mentioning Alexia’s newly disabled son, Ana went over to Alexia’s house to actually see how things were going with the family. Alexia’s son seems to be doing better than anyone predicted, but based on the tiny bit that we saw, it’s still difficult for him to walk and speak. Those are profound injuries that no one has the right to use as ammunition in any kind of argument, particularly when Karent apparently thinks that she deserves to be congratulated for sending a couple of text messages about them. I’d have kicked her the hell out for trying to score points over that too.
At Joanna’s house, things somber for a completely different reason. On the phone with Marta, Joanna explained that Romain had left his computer open and she had looked at his email, where she found all kinds of messages between him and some other girl that he had clearly been flirting with, if not more, for months. I wish I could say I were surprised. (Well, we all saw it on the preview, so I guess none of us can really be surprised.) Marta, for her part, has officially moved in with Lisa, and it seems like Lisa is thrilled to have another girl around during the day to hang out with her and Daysy. At Lisa’s house, she let it slip that Joanna had found proof of Romain’s infidelity, because sometimes secrets slip out when you’re having a mid-day Chinese food feast in bed with your new bestie.
So how did Joanna decide to handle all of this? She decided to make Romain dinner. She and Ana went to Whole Foods to shop for the meal, and after a little bit of relationship talk, Joanna let the cat out of the bag that she found inappropriate messages on Romain’s computer between him and another woman. Instead of telling Joanna to be realistic about what all of that meant and move on with her life, Ana told her to…give Romain more affection and do nice things for him, so that the vultures waiting in the wings won’t have an opportunity to strike? What kind of bass-ackwards advice is that? Cheating is the responsibility of the cheater; if Romain feels neglected because Joanna travels for work, then perhaps he shouldn’t have tried to wife up a supermodel with a bustling career. The answer is not banging some dumb dancer from his club who thinks he’s going to leave Joanna for her. (Hint: They never leave, no matter how much they promise they will.)
Somehow, Joanna seems unconvinced that Romain actually slept with this girl, despite the fact that she found endless flirtatious messages and promises to leave her and ideas for the two of them to go away together. No dude plans a romantic getaway for a woman he’s never slept with. Let’s be real, ok? At home, Marta showed up to find Joanna trying to cook risotto amid an explosion of packaging from the new dishes she’d bought for the occasion. We all deal with crises differently, especially in relationships, but I still can’t imagine why Joanna went to all that trouble. If it were me, I’d have gone out and rented an emergency apartment and then let him come home to find me with his laptop on my lap. But I don’t play around.
During their meal, Joanna brought up the messages. To Romain’s credit, he copped to the fact that he had tried to hook up with someone else in order to speed up the process of ending their relationship. He claimed that he never actually went through with it, which I don’t believe, but he admitted that he simply didn’t have the balls to tell Joanna that he wanted to break up back when he wanted to. Apparently he doesn’t want to anymore, though, because her requested that Joanna try to make a little more time for them as a couple and that he’d try to do better too. I didn’t expect Romain to admit to doing anything at all, let alone admit that anything he had done was wrong, so that conversation went better than expected, at in my mind.
The show ended with Joanna and Romain promising to work harder at their relationship, but from the looks of the preview, there’ll be plenty of drama coming up in the rest of the season, both with them and the rest of the cast.
