Have you ever smoked so much pot that somehow you went from stoned all the way back to sober again? No? You haven’t? You just freaked out in a Colorado hotel room like Maureen Dowd, holding onto the bedspread for dear life? Okay, that’s cool too, I guess. What I’m saying is that there was so much stupid shit packed into this episode that it went from stupid right back around to being wonderful again. I mean, a tea party, a pickleball tournament, scream therapy, ice bath therapy, a foot photoshoot, an LVP tattoo, and Katie Maloney-Schwartz making something akin to sense all in the same hour? I mean, it’s enough to make your head spin around on your body like it’s one of those magical sweets in Candy Crush.
When everyone shows up at Katie’s house for the foot-fetish photoshoot to fund Raquel’s facial reconstruction surgery — a constellation of words so unique it is why the sentence was initially invented — Ariana tells the group, “This is perhaps the dumbest, most amazing thing we’ve ever done.” This is the only correct assessment of this activity. I love that when Courtney, the photographer Muggle who Katie has come take their feet pictures, finds out about their plan, she is like, “Um, you’re not actually doing this, right? Like, this is not actually real?”
The foot photoshoot goes about as well as you think it will, except some of the ladies have on straps too tight or socks that are too tight because they have visible lines on their milky white tootsies. I don’t know if that is what makes the difference because no one at all seems willing to buy these, which means that Raquel’s nose will continue to be slightly, imperceptibly tilted for the rest of her life. The best photo, of course, is when Katie puts her feet in a bowl of half-eaten spaghetti. There is nothing that is a better metaphor for this show than a photo of Katie Maloney-Schwartz’s manicured toes in cold pasta that no one wants to buy.
Really this episode is packed, though. We learn that Brock grew up on a farm and only has four fingers on his left hand because his index finger was torn off in a gate when he was a child. How does he pick his left nostril if he has no left index finger? Is it full of decades’ worth of crusty boogers? Aviva Dresher, Real Housewife of New York and noted unijambiste, lost her leg in an accident on a farm as a child. What does that teach us, people? Don’t go on reality television because they’re going to exploit all of your old scars for content.
Lisa goes over to Lala’s house because her dog Lilly is sick and may die, and Lala says she needs someone who knows how hard it is to lose a “fur baby.” Ugh. Pull that phrase out of my aural canal like an ear candler on the side of the road in India. The only phrases that are worse in the English language of “baby bump,” “bikini body,” “guncle,” and “Sorry, sir, but we are out of cinnamon buns.” As Lisa is leaving, Lala confesses that she has to shave Randall’s lower buttal regions in case she needs to go visit. Lisa has no idea why that would be, and Lala says, “With my mouth.” Lisa is still unclear. Poor Ken. Poor Randall. Poor Randall’s hairy ass-crack. Poor all of us.
While James is immersing his loins in some very unprofessional looking ice baths and shouting while some man bangs a gong like it’s the “Turning Japanese” video (canceled!), it’s clear he’s trying a bunch of different therapies to try to combat his anger, addiction, and Microsoft Office Suite for Mac of other mental health issues. I don’t know if this could be a spin-off, but it could at least be a special. Raquel, a catered floral dress-themed tea party in a public park, is hosting a catered floral dress-themed tea party in a public park. She invites along her friend Paige, a Lana Del Rey B-side played on repeat.
The fight that breaks out at the party is one that is carried out throughout the rest of the episode, and it’s about the guy who tried to inappropriately touch Charli at Brock’s birthday party last episode. As soon as he went for a hand on Charli’s bum, she backed away and told him it was unacceptable and that her boyfriend was nearby. Charli is mad that Scheana didn’t support her more. When she explains this, Scheana says that Charli had it handled and she didn’t feel like she had to intervene. I agree with Scheana. If I saw someone treating a friend of mine like that and she said nothing, I’d be like, “Dude, watch those hands.” However, if she acted like Charli, I would have done nothing but stand there and have my girl’s back. I think Scheana could have said, “Are you alright?” after she freaked out or checked in on her and told her that the guy was a jerk. Charli clearly went through something; the nice thing to do would be to check on your friend.
I don’t think Scheana owes her that much more, though, but this once again becomes a question about Scheana’s loyalty and who she likes and who she will tolerate. This has really been the argument with Scheana since she first fucked-Brandi-Glanville’s-husband-ed her way onto the show. When they discuss this again, we learn that Charli is mad because Scheana asked her to stop being friends with Danica after they had a falling out. Scheana texted Charli to say that she was being disloyal by giving her too many compliments on Instagram. Charli had the only correct response to this, and it was, and I quote, “lol omg stop exclamation point, exclamation point.”
I am done adjudicating this fight because it is stupid. Instead, we need to focus on the fact that Danica, a screeching rage harpy let out of the Book of the Damned, is not on this show this season. She’s friends with Charli; she’s hated by Scheana. Done. Give this girl a contract. Bring her in. Let her tear Ariana’s liver out with her beak and then shit it out on Schwartz’s front yard. Then Charli mentions someone named Jackson who was saying bad things about her that Scheana is friends with. Here’s a contract, Jackson. Sign right here. This isn’t difficult, people. (It is also not Difficult People, which I miss every day.)
Finally, the last event we visit is the Emmett/Schartz Pickleball Open, which isn’t really an open because only two people are playing, so it’s more of an invitational. Still, I’m not here to mansplain what people do in their backyards unless they are having pickleball tournaments, then apparently that is exactly what I am doing. All the gang is there to watch a rematch between Schwartz and Randall, who has brought in the top pickleball professionals as his coach and the runner up for American Idol to sing the national anthem. I remember a time when Justin Guarini at least got a movie deal and a shitty advertising gig for coming in second. Now you’re at a third-tier movie producer’s house, overly trilling the rocket’s red glare.
Randall wins, gets a huge trophy, and the rest of us look at Brock’s rainbow shirt. That shirt is so gay. How! Gay! Is! It! That shirt is so gay that it’s number one artist for its Spotify Wrapped is Kim Petras doing covers of Little Mix. That shirt is so gay that it’s a video game where you have to walk fast on the sidewalk picking up all of the iced coffees you come across. That shirt is so gay that Netflix tried to get it to be Colton Underwood’s guide on that crazy reality show of his. That shirt is so gay that it posted an Instagram story looking to trade one Unter ticket for one Horse Meat Disco ticket and then ended up just going to both.
Other than the shirt, the only other thing of merit to mention at the party is that James and Brock are in some dumb fight about a photoshoot, and Katie tells Brock that James is feeling used and then tells James not to get too upset because one day he may need something from Brock so just chill out. God, I hate when Katie is reasonable and mature. I hate when she’s the voice of reason. Let’s get her back to hating everyone with a better haircut than her. This new mature and relatable Katie is someone that Danica could have ripped the spinal cord out of like she is the loser in a match of Mortal Kombat.
After his pickleball defeat, Sandoval was comforting Schwartz the only way he knew how. He had his chest pushed up against the bathroom wall while he took him from behind. Sandoval drove deep into him, their flesh slapping at the point of entry, he pulled on Schwartz’s neck for leverage, so he could get deeper, please them both more eagerly, drive them to the inevitable conclusion where their groins, their torsos, their limbs, their brains, their eyes, their bodies filled with an unspeakable flashing light for a few glorious seconds before it expelled from their bodies in a rush of release. As Sandoval backed away, he saw the “Bubba” tattoo on Schwartz’s right butt cheek and the “LVP” tattoo on the left. “Huh,” Sandoval grunted. “I never thought I was going to come between two women, but here we are.”
