The Real Housewives of Miami Recap: Lost in the Mail

Last week, we had the Mamacita Lunch, where everyone got a free denim jacket with their names on it and a really bad Ruby Kaur poem from a man in a horrible outfit. This week they’re going to Marysol’s house, where she held an exorcism just so that she could turn her backyard into a gifting suite complete with a caviar ice sculpture, a whole rack of free muumuus, and some giant flamingo ass table decorations that not a single person would be able to see over if they remained on the table. Marysol says she spent $50,000 just on “florals” for the party, including a pink rose martini glass sculpture. Is that where Julia got the idea for the world’s ugliest earrings in her confessional look? Is the only thing these women do now hang out with each other and give each other shit? Is this The Real Unboxing Videos of Swag Gulch?

After the explosive Mamacita brunch doubleheader, this episode was a little bit boring. Is that because Dr. Nicole chose to stay at home? Possibly. I’m sure you’re all aware, but I am a giant Dr. Nicole stan. We call ourselves the Nicole-backs, because we always have Nicole’s back. Nicole and Julia head to Guerdy’s house to see how she’s doing after surgery. I love that we have Nicole here to explain things about medicine rather than just like, you know, the Countess pretending she’s a nurse or Annemarie staking her medical certification on someone else’s esophagus.

Anyway, while they’re there, Guerdy very conveniently gets a text invitation to the party at Marsyol’s, and the only one left off the group chain is Nicole. I feel terrible for her, and she gets teary-eyed right there in Guerdy’s bed. This all stems from Ana being invited to the Mamacita Madness, which Alexia and Marysol blame on Nicole even though she had nothing to do with it. Nicole says, “I don’t need friends who think such shitty things about me.” She’s right! The problem isn’t so much whether or not she invited Ana; the problem is that, as Nicole says, they want to believe these nasty things about her. I think it’s a classic case of deflection. Alexia and Marysol both think, “If I was Nicole, I would have invited Ana,” but she’s neither of them. She’s better than that!

Nicole says that she is not going to go to any more group events until she gets an apology. Yeah, right. From Alexia? We’re more likely to find out that Elon Musk is a generous lover than we ever are to hear Alexia say, “I’m sorry.” But is this like Housewives’ version of a hunger strike? Is she harming herself more than she’s harming them?

In the room, Julia says that she is going to make sure that everyone knows the truth because Adriana told her she was inviting Ana to stir up shit about Alexia’s finances. At Marysol’s party, when it comes up, Julia stops the conversation about Nicole to say it’s not her fault. While she’s doing this, Adriana starts telling her in French not to do it, to keep her mouth shut. Julia finally convinces Adriana to admit the truth and say she invited Ana with Nicole’s consent. She gives some bullshit excuse about how she was mean to Lisa, but that wasn’t the reason. She just wanted to embarrass her nemesis.

The problem is they kind of forgive Adriana and are still mad at Nicole. In confessional, Marysol says she’s tired of being angry at Adriana, who is always an asshole. Alexia, also in confessional, says it’s just Adriana being Adriana. Yes, so if that’s the case, why didn’t they think this in the first place? And why do they still assume that Nicole did something wrong? Just like Nicole said, they don’t want to trust her; they don’t want to like her. Nicole hasn’t done anything bad to either of them, but they have been gunning for her since she showed her pretty face in season four. I wouldn’t want to be friends with these ladies, either.

There were a few scenes in this episode that were nice and light, if not a little boring. Alexia and Frankie go looking for new $45,000-a-month apartments, and I’m sorry, if you’re spending that much on rent, you should just buy a freaking place already. Right? Lisa wants to teach her son the value of a dollar, so she takes him to deposit the $443.47 he has accrued in the bank, even though she will undoubtedly spoil this kid rotten. Speaking of which, we discover that Sophia Pippen’s monthly allowance is $2,500. Does she have to pay rent? Does she have a student loan we don’t know about? What does a 14-year-old have to spend two grand a month on? Boxes of Nerds and earrings at Claire’s aren’t that much money!

Then we get to Marysol’s party. Julia arrives wearing a gorgeous crop top, a floor-length skirt with a ruffled slit all the way up the leg, and a pair of battered cowboy boots. Lesbians gotta lesbian, even if they’re bisexual. Speaking of outfits, Marysol was wearing a dress with a huge flower on the collar, so big that she couldn’t even hug anyone, so big that it kept rubbing up on her face. By the time they sat down for lunch, the flower looked like it was brown and wilting because it had collected so much foundation and/or fake tanner.

We already covered the fight about Nicole and Julia and Adriana and the awful white rag she was wearing on her head. There was also another fight I didn’t understand at all. Lisa shows up two hours late to the party, a move that would have me so annoyed that I wouldn’t talk to her at all. Anyway, she is gunning for Alexia because she is mad that Alexia told her not to drive Lenny’s car when she was driving Todd’s. This is so dumb that it makes me long for when we were fighting about whether or not people should have mortgages. Also, Lisa is so clearly wrong. This man accused her of bugging the car, and she’s going to take it away for days at a time? That’s just dumb! Also, she can’t compare her husband she’s about to divorce and Alexia’s husband, who she is, you know, still talking to without lawyers present.

Lisa is so dumb coming after Alexia for this, but she did have some good points. She tells Alexia that she always shouts over people and she should actually listen for a change. Okay, that is her only good point. But Alexia, the Cuban Giudice, aggravates me so much that I’m actually trying to find ways for Lisa to be right. She’s just exhausting, even when she’s utterly and truly right.

I think Guerdy had the same reaction I would have had. She gets up and says that she’s leaving. She tells the women that they didn’t get all of her cancer and she needs to have another surgery in a week. What is amazing is that she stands up and tells them just how dumb this fight is. Lisa and Alexia are shouting about their luxury cars, who said what to whom, who had an attitude and who didn’t. It’s nothing. It’s silly. It’s stupid. Yes, it’s what we’re all here for, but the stupid can’t exist in the same space as the real. For stupid to work, everyone has to be equally dumb. This season Guerdy can’t be. She has real things to worry about. She has to think about her health, her breast, her family, her survival. She has to think about icing her chest and having enough blue Gatorade for another day. She has to think about a future she might not be in; she has to contemplate her own mortality while these two bitches shout about their Rolls-es. Her standing up is enough to take this whole enterprise down, to expose it for the vacuous fallacy that it really is, and never in my life have I ever wanted it to be toppled so badly.