Let me just start by saying that I will never forget this paint party. The blending of Housewives, all the Housekids, small dogs, a string quartet down a player, LeeAnne eating dog food, and paint-me-like-one-of-your-French-bulldogs Adam will forever be burned into my memory. When Stephanie arrives with her sons and not Biscuit, and everyone promptly freaks out about Biscuit’s absence, she says, “I can do kids or dogs but I can’t do both.” Truer words have never been spoken.
But the two moments that left an indelible mark on my brain this episode were both fleeting and “fashion”-centric. The first, was the very quick shot of D’Andra’s wedding dress that just breezed right by us as LeeAnne was lamenting her habit of loving too hard. I thought Scheana Marie’s crop top wedding dress on Vanderpump was the wildest bridal moment I would see on Bravo, but this is something else. Something undoubtedly way pricier than that crop top. Something where a headpiece covers your entire head. We do later see D’Andra wearing a Blossom-style bucket hat so I guess she likes coverage, but I need an entire episode dedicated to this wedding dress. It can go in place of the inevitable Jax & Brittany Bravo wedding special.
The second was Mark in a thin robe. No.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The episode opens where we last left off, at the Westcott household, where the kids are baking and speaking Spanish. As decent as these kids are at Spanish, Kam is as terrible. Elephanto! Lo amo la familia! She even asks, in all seriousness, what “ay ay ay” means. I’m so glad these kids are learning Spanish so young. That generation is going to save us all.
Kam attempts to shove an entire cupcake in her mouth and the whole thing is pretty fun and surprisingly sexual coming from a woman who everyone was worried couldn’t handle Stressticles.
At D’Andra’s, Jeremy’s other son Koen (if D’Andra didn’t say the name right away, I definitely would have pronounced it “cone”) has just come back from a tour of SMU (pony up, Koen). He might transfer there because the girls are pretty. He’s cute (Can I say that? Is that creepy?) and wearing a Vineyard Vines tee so he’s going to fit right in. But Koen hightails it right out of the kitchen when Dee shows up. Koen, with his casual attire and sandwich, clearly recognized that he didn’t need to be in a room with two women in full hair, full face, and full blazer.
I basically blacked out during Dee and D’Andra’s entire interaction because all this “separating the company” talk is getting monotonous and I, like D’Andra, don’t really trust Dee at her word, but also, Dee was finally granted her very own testimonial. It’s vibrant and glorious. She’s wearing so much pink that I wonder if she knew it would be Mean Girls Day when this aired. (She would.) I cringed a little when anyone posted a picture of themselves in pink yesterday, just like I did when anyone posted a screenshot of the presidential alert (we literally all just saw it on our own phones), but Dee crushes it.
But also, in this testimonial, Dee continues to shade. She didn’t think D’Andra was ready for the responsibility when she “gave her the keys” last year, but she doesn’t want to lose her daughter (they’re all each other have! *cue Terms of Endearment soundtrack*), so, in a confidence-inspiring move, she says she’s just going to give the company to her anyway. Dee’s got [husky southern whisper] ice in the veins. She doesn’t give a rip!
There’s a sweet little scene where Stephanie takes her sons to a hip-hop class at something called AlphaMidway. It’s quite possibly the worst dancing I’ve seen since Mischa Barton was on Dancing with the Stars, but it’s endearing as hell.
Over at LeeAnne’s, she’s talking to her beagle, Carly, an excellent reality dog who clearly DGAF about anything. Give Carly a testimonial. Rich arrives to talk about the 30 wedding guests he’d like to add to LeeAnne’s 130, and LeeAnne tells him that her heart is cracking over her rocky relationship with D’Andra. She felt like they were sisters, and now she doesn’t feel like she has a family. She loves too hard! (LeeAnne definitely binged some weepy ’80s dramadies to prepare for this season.) Rich tells her to just call D’Andra about this “stupid girl stuff.” Men, amiright!?
At Cary and Mark’s, Mark is wearing that robe, and Cary plants the seeds for the Real Housewives trope of an international cast trip! I mean, most other cities are just like, “I have a house in Cartagena let’s go!” or whatever, but Cary layers in a little extra meaning by saying she wants to reconnect with her relatives in Denmark. I wish I had cousins in Copenhagen.
It’s finally time for this dog paint party. Host Kam arrives early with her dog Louie to set up, and I wish I could start each day the way that small dog gets placed in that stroller. “Easy breezy,” coos Kam as she slowly closes the barrier in case bigger, scarier dogs are in their midst. Inside, Kam sets up dog food right in the middle of human food, and I don’t blame LeeAnne at all for eventually eating that iced dog biscuit. The string quartet arrives and it’s oddly only a trio, but all I can think of is that heartbreaking scene in Titanic when the string quartet plays “Nearer My God to Thee” as the ship sinks. Seems appropriate though.
A handsome man named Adam from Blueprint (not the store) is there to teach the women how to paint portraits of their dogs. Adam has his work cut out for him. The energy of this party is pure chaos. There are so many Housekids, and dogs, and women ping ponging off each other to gossip about other women and discuss who or should not be friends with LeeAnne. Brandi arrives without Bruin or her tiny dog Sugar because Sugar doesn’t get along with other dogs. (I’m not at all surprised by this statement about Sugar.) Bruin is able to stay home because Brandi finally hired a very lovely nanny named Allison, one of those rare people who looks super cute in overalls. Yay! Also, Brooklyn throwing a tantrum that she’s too hot was my inner dialogue for the entire summer. Someone does need to tell Brinkley not to lick Bravo cameras though.
At one point during this “paint and sip,” Cary just flat out starts telling LeeAnne what everyone thinks of her because she’s “not a gossip, but if you’re going to ask [her] point black what people are saying, sure!” This is absolutely something gossipers say to convince themselves they’re not gossiping. I hardcore love to gossip, so I would know!
Also, Kam’s daughter Hilton grabs her brother Cruise (not to be confused with Stephanie’s son, Cruz), who has been flirting up a storm with Cary’s daughter, Zuri, all day, and in a forceful whisper tells him to, “FORGET ABOUT ZURI.” Woah.
Eventually, the party and kids clear out, and it’s just D’Andra, LeeAnne, and Kameron, who has truly found her bliss painting dogs. I don’t think we’ve ever seen Kam this happy. LeeAnne openly discusses the exclusive lunch she, Kameron, and Stephanie are planning right in front of D’Andra, who has been actively ignoring LeeAnne for the entire party. Everyone at this event was a child.
We end the episode with the most aggressive conversation anyone has ever had while wearing a bucket hat. D’Andra and LeeAnne are somewhere on Greenville Avenue drinking coffee and finally addressing their feelings. Except, not really. It’s mostly just D’Andra interrogating LeeAnne with really heavy questions about her relationship with Rich. Questions like, “Do you think he’ll stay married to you?” and “Do you think he’s faithful to you?” I can’t believe I’m saying “sheesh” but sheesh!
I mean, my thought is that D’Andra is projecting her owns fears from her first, infidelity-filled marriage onto LeeAnne’s current relationship. Rich is a fox, but he doesn’t seem like the type! I don’t know. This is way intense. So intense, that it feels like we’re missing something important that would drive D’Andra to such an interrogative state. Will we find out what that something is at whatever this ’80s prom situation is next week? Probably not!
Until then.
