There is not a voice of reason on The Real Housewives of Miami. There never has been, and there never will be.
Instead, there are nine hyenas, all trying to be the loudest, funniest, most chaotic in the room, and that’s never been more evident than this cast trip to Seville, where note-taking is treated as an attack, pinky promises have become blood oaths, and a private plane is given more rigorous security than the TSA would for a commercial flight. It’s almost too much to focus on.
Fresh off last week’s cliffhanger about her divorce proceedings, Lisa breaks down in tears while she tries to find an online notary. Meanwhile, the ladies downstairs litigate if they can maintain sympathy for Lisa given how annoying she is, causing Adriana to burst into tears herself while dressed in a potato sack.
With Lisa back at the table, the ladies turn their focus to the most sinister activity known to man: note-taking. It’s dangerous. It’s uncouth. And it’s creepy. Larsa is scared, just like Lisa was when she was at that Spanish train station where no one spoke English.
The Lisa and Larsa issue has continued to transform in beautifully incoherent ways. None of it makes a lick of sense at this point, and the genuine ground Larsa had on her has fallen right by the wayside. She should focus on what’s absolutely true: Lisa is annoying! Keep it simple, stupid. That’s Guerdy’s motto.
Another disastrous dinner down, the ladies spend the next day largely split up. Half the cast goes to paint penises on ceramics, while the others go to the Alcázar of Seville. We’re seeing all the sights of Spain. Personally, I’d rather see some gorgeous architecture while Professor Adriana soothes me with some historical fiction, but hey. Your mileage may vary.
Split apart, Lisa and Larsa dig in the heels of their hatred, encouraged further by some sycophants. At the paint’n’station, Stephanie asks Larsa if she’s still comfortable with Lisa joining them on her private plane. It’s honestly really scary for Larsa to be on the same plane as Lisa. The flight is 22 whole minutes. That’s 16 Tate McRae songs long. Anything could happen.
High on her own supply, Stephanie is so giddy over the idea of reprimanding people and dangling carrots over the group. She may not have seniority or any genuine friendships in the group, but she has a private plane. That has to count for something.
Luckily for Larsa and Stephanie, turning the women against Lisa isn’t that hard, due to the aforementioned fact she’s annoying, and the note-taking, which has everyone on edge. What if Lisa is a private eye!?
“Something’s going on with her, because Lisa was never like this,” Alexia says, before Marysol adds, “It’s like she’s thinking more now.”
Meanwhile, the sight-seeing group talk some sense into Lisa, convincing her to unfollow Marcus Jordan after 40 days and 40 nights of stubborn refusal. It’s on this stoop in Seville where Adriana, always Lisa’s “voice of reason,” offers some solid reasoning: Unfollowing Marcus isn’t about kowtowing to Larsa’s demands. It’s about taking the wind out of Larsa’s sails, so she can look for a new issue. Unfollowing Marcus is actually the best thing you can do if you hate Larsa!
Sadly for Lisa, that new issue is the note-taking, which has already spiraled out of control. Back at the hotel, Marysol and Julia sit Lisa down to demand she put her phone in a basket on the jet and in the Marbella home. It’s a super topical conversation given the general psychosis people feel about whether or not kids should have phones at school, applied to whether a Real Housewife should be able to take notes in the middle of a cast trip.
While I agree in essence with the idea, it is a bit wild to demand someone toss their phone in a basket solely because she’s using her Notes app. Isn’t a core part of the modern experience writing some incoherent scribbles in Notes that you look at a few months later with no idea what they’re in reference to? They’re robbing Lisa of her humanity.
Of course, Lisa insisting she have her phone on her at all times is a little excessive, too. It’s fun to unplug! You’re on a cast trip. Put that phone down and start a fight or something. Live in the moment.
You know who’s really good at living in the moment and starting fights? Adriana. Maybe it’s because, back in her day, people actually engaged with each other without those darn phones. At dinner (that Lisa is late to, of course), Adriana spills the news that Lisa unfollowed Marcus, which breaks the sacred oath the ladies made at the Alcazár of Seville, immediately hexing Adriana with an unbreakable curse.
Hard of hearing due to her advanced age, Adriana never heard the ladies make that pact. A flashback does show that Guerdy just kept yelping “pinky promise!” while jerking Adriana’s hand, so it is totally possible Adriana was just thinking about other things, like why she doesn’t have a mojito despite being the best Real Housewife of Miami, and looking at the birds.
An hour or two late, Lisa rolls up with a major assist from production, who film her in a sickening slo-mo that probably took four or five tries. Maybe that’s why she was so late.
Immediately upon arriving, Lisa is delivered the news that Adriana broke their oath, leading to a surprising scuffle between Kiki and Adriana. Here, Adriana tells Kiki to “stop being so ratchet,” leading the entire table to gasp and guffaw in horror. Adriana can speak five languages, and that’s the word she chooses? Bad optics.
Kiki understandably takes offense to it, which leads Julia to have Adriana’s back for the first time all season, asking her to stop overreacting. She may have finally defeated the bad friend allegations, but the prejudiced towards Black women allegations are only going to fester after this. It’s really not a great look.
Neither is Guerdy’s confessional where she spells and googles ratchet. Not because it’s offensive, it’s just not funny. Not everyone is the class clown. Let’s get a grip.
Anyway, Kiki turns around and tells Adriana she’s “too old to be talking like this,” which Adriana immediately pegs as ageism (which is why I made all those jokes earlier. I respect all elders!). And just when you think she’s taking it on the chin, Adriana interrupts Lisa’s spiel about why she’s a note-taker to announce she’s going home since she’s old and decrepit. Gotta give it to her, Adriana’s capacity for audacity knows no limit.
This, of course, invalidates Adriana’s role as the voice of reason in the group, one assigned to her by an equally delusional woman. We’re left now with, um, no one. No one at all. Just as it should be.
For, as Adriana yells “RESPECT!” 42 times and exits in a huff, Stephanie gets up and starts yelling herself, mad everyone so classlessly ruined the dinner with their own egos. Do they even know that she has a plane? She has a job! She wears headbands, okay? Stephanie is a classy lady who has no time for drama.
That’s exactly why she leaves the restaurant screaming, breaks down in tears, and grabs a pen and paper in the hotel lobby to create a seating chart for the plane ride ahead. Apparently, the plane has a solo seat all the way in the back where you punish passengers, and Stephanie really wants to put someone there. What’s the fun of having money and power if you can’t humiliate others with it?
All I can really say is: Get a grip. Marysol feels the same way, distancing herself from the absolute insanity before her. That explains why the description for next week’s episode mentions that everyone boards the plane except Alexia and Marysol, which is a pretty funny turn of events all things considered.
Where does that leave us? Has Marysol become the voice of reason? No, of course not. Twenty minutes ago, she was asking Lisa to put her phone in a bucket as though she has a criminal manifesto on it. So, stop searching for reason amid the sea of chaos. This is The Real Housewives of Miami.
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