Real Housewives of D.C. - Store Grapes

This episode of the Real Housewives of D.C. was all about facades. Which is what they are all about. This time, it was more of Michaele and Tareq's facade, and how annoyed other people are that they get away with it.

The episode starts with the dessicated Lynda feeding her large pet model, Ebong, large slabs of bacon. She is wearing a little apron and standing next to her Joy of Cooking cookbook. Her children, aged 16 and 19, slither into breakfast wearing giant feety pajamas, and some other random grown son comes in wearing a giant white shirt. I will think of him as Fonzie because at the moment he walked in wearing the white T-shirt, Ebong said, "Ayyyyyyy."

So, henceforth, he will be known as Fonzie.

All the kids have that slack look of mommy-doing-too-much-for-them: that smug, self-satisfied demeanor that comes from having your parents give you jobs and it really not mattering much whether you have a job or not because they're always your trust fund.

They sit at a table heavily weighed down with bacon and sausage and is it my mistake or is the Pellegrino tinted orange? They are talking about the new house Lynda hopes to buy, and they all hope that when they get there, the Suddenly Domestic Lynda will make her Signature 16 Quarts o' Chili and that the house will have a pool and that after eating chili, they can dive right in and get horrible cramps (I am assuming from not waiting the requisite 30 minutes after eating, but I guess it could also be that Lynda just makes some spicy, gas-making chili).

Lynda has enjoyed living in a hotel for the last five years, but now she oddly feels the need to give her nearly grown and actually grown children a yard. To which I must ask, "Why?" So they can toddle around in delightful little running steps? So they can practice for Little League? So they can get married in a gazebo draped in ivory bunting, against which the giant model Ebong will be even more imposing and beautiful?

Cut over to Stacie. She is having A Different World moment with her sorority sisters and they are practicing songs that they sang in their sorority years back so that they can do them again at their Howard University reunion. One of them jumps right into the conversation with, "So, how's your search for your birth father going?" which is not at all what she was supposed to do, as that was meant to be the crown on the conversation. Stacie blithely steers her back to the Real Beginning of the Discussion, which is, "I found my birth mother and she's white." The women are horrified. The mother's relationship was "secret" and no one in her family of New White Husband and New White Child knows that she had a secret baby with a Nigerian while she was in the Peace Corps.

And I start wondering: was Hillary Clinton in the Peace Corps? just because I try to entertain myself with stories like this from time to time, and then Stacie says something along the lines of "it's a big problem," meaning that news about her birth is going to create a scandal. And I Google Hillary Clinton Peace Corps but all I can really get is stuff about her swearing people into the Peace Corps and honoring the oldest-living Peace Corps volunteer. I could pull up a bio, but by then i am bored with my theory, so I hit Play again on the DVR.

Stacie's friends are being surprised in that way that people are when they are on TV but they have already been fully briefed on the conversation. Stacie's White Birth Mother got pregnant and the Peace Corps sent her back to the United States and she never told Stacie's Black Birth Father that Stacie existed. It was a love that couldn't happen, them being from two different countries and in the Peace Corps.

"She's selfish," say Stacie's friends, and Stacie says that it would "rock" her birth mother's world if people knew she had a black child. But Stacie has a right to know, dammit. Everyone cries about the selfishness of this woman who didn't get an abortion some time in the 1960s and just wants not to have her husband get mad at her.

Mary is so happy that she is helping Ted open his salon and his Hella Spa (Hela Spa), Washington, D.C. has the reputation of being Hollywood for ugly people, and she is delighted to be part of the move to change that. But then Michaele comes in wearing yet another of her backless pillowcases and a lot of bleached hair, and she screams hello to Ted and throws herself on him like she's hoping to impale his lungs with her nipples. She grinds on him for a while, and then Mary comes in. Mary looks sad, in a dress that shows badly that she is not wearing a bra when she very much should be wearing a bra, no makeup, sad frizzy hair.

Ted does not notice her. She stands there some more and he still does not notice her. She stands there even more, and Ted doesn't notice her, and even though she is pretending to not feel like a loser by play-acting nicey-nice with the help and pawing through the swag bags for the Big Party. Finally she clears her throat, "a-hem," and Ted looks over and goggles. He is surprised perhaps to see that Mary is the unkempt braless woman is apparently Mary, the woman who says that her contacts are simply going to make him in Washington. Mary is so jealous that she is oozing green slime, and then she and Michaele engage in this sick little hang-on-the-hairdresser girlfight, kissing him, hugging him, and generally trying to prove to the other one that she is the most important person in this hairdresser's life.

Mary gets her talking head moment and says that while Michaele may be donating some of her crappy-ass wine, she feels that she, Mary, is the one who is really sponsoring the event.

She is getting her hair done and it's all fine until Ted walks up and says, "What's going on, gorgeous?" as if he hadn't seen her 15 minutes earlier. Mary asks Ted to do the hair for some fashion charity thingy she is doing, and he says he will, and then she says that she noticed that he didn't notice her quickly enough for her liking when she came in the door. "Am I your favorite?" and he says there is plenty of him to go around.

"Who's number one here?" she asks.

He tells the stylist to "hook a bitch up," which really isn't funny and is kind of crass.

The salon opening is full of Housewives telling each other how lovely they look and Cat is over all us Americans who have three-month holidays in the sun. Lynda comes in with her pet model and says hi to Michaele. In a small town like Washington, you run into people, she says, adding that she doesn't hold a grudge because life is too short.

Tareq and Michaele are clinking plastic champagne saucers of some ambery-colored liquid (Lipton Iced Tea and white wine? peach-flavored - and colored - wine? Rotten, spoiled wine that has been sitting in the un-airconditioned double-wide that sits on the edge of their grape farm?) and once again, Mary is seething.

She believes that Tareq and Michaele use their wine as a bartering system to get into things and get to know important people in Washington, D.C. Mary says this in a way that makes me sad that she doesn't have anything to use as a bartering system - other than her sense of entitlement.

To Cat, she declares them as social climbers, and Cat says that she despises social climbers.

Mary says that in D.C., you have to have a certain integrity, or you aren't going to make it. I am glad to know that there is so much integrity being swung around in D.C. If she hadn't told me, I would never have known. Also, good to know that integrity seems to be - according to Mary - indigenous to Our Nation's Capital.

Back at Mary's big traditional stucco house with odd contemporary windows, Mary's Lolly daughter has quit her waitressing job and now is an assistant who has, like, her own desk. But she can take her dog. And I have to wonder - look at Mary's eyes! What is she on???

Cat is throwing a ball in the yard of her rented house in which she no longer lives. Michaele calls to invite her for grape-stomping, and Cat asks to invite her friend, Jason. Michaele says yes. Cat gets in a dig about whether this time there will be wine served at Michaele's winery.

Then Michaele calls Lynda, and they talk about the perfect weather before Michaele informs Lynda that she is inviting all the Housewives and their significant others or husbands (Lynda is the only one without a husband) for grape-stomping. Lynda declines because her kid has football that day.

She says in her talking head that of course if Michaele had been a true friend to her, she would be only too happy to be at Michaele's party. So I am guessing that whole forgive and forget because life is too short thing isn't working out for her.

Michaele is secretly crushed, though she pretends to be pensive on the camera.

Cat and Jason and Mary go to Mary's high-end contemporary furniture store in Georgetown and Mary informs them that she is going to further insult the integrity of her traditional house by painting the dining room high-gloss black and adding contemporary furniture. Cat looks horrified, and basically tells Mary that she is horrified. Then Cat says she wouldn't sit in any of the chairs in that store for more than five minutes (something about her knobbly bottom) and Mary tells her to just. Shut. The. Hell. Up. To which Cat replies, "Should I just say I love everything then?"

Because it's Mary's friend's store. Jason (a hairdresser) and Cat say the furniture looks like something the guy from American Psycho would have, and they laugh and laugh. Mary sits there sucking the skewer stuck up her butt. Then the storekeeper gives them some wine and Jason - wearing a knit cap from Wal-Mart and the arm protector from his grandmother's sofa - makes fun of the plastic cups.

He is finished being disdainful of the store. He tells Cat and Mary about going to the Congressional Black Caucus Dinner. Mary says it's the biggest weekend for the African-American community. Apparently, Michaele invited them and her ticket only admitted one, but they snuck right through. They sit in the empty chairs because sometimes people don't show up to these things.

Mary is mad because she has invited Ted and Jason to meet All the Important People and it just Doesn't Look right for them to be sneaking everywhere.

Anyway, Secret Service spots Michaele and Tareq and they get escorted out by Secret Service.

"Brazen!" says Cat, and Mary is amazed by this word.

Somehow, after they are finished getting thrown out, Tareq and Michaele end up sneaking back into the VIP room.

They all go to the grape stomp, which is the first time they've stomped since Tareq's mom tried to have him removed from the property. Tareq's mom is a local reporter, and she's sent the press, and Michaele is concerned that the press-media is there. Tareq calls Stacie to let her know that there may be problems getting in.

Mary wants to see what the grape farm is all about. The vineyards.

There does seem to be some double-wides, and Mary says she has never seen Michaele without Tareq since Michaele was behind the counter at Nordstrom's selling makeup.

More on the Black Caucus dinner: Stacie is horrified that they would insult the black community like this. Obama was there! Stacie's very own delightful president!

She calls Tareq back. She has two young kids and she can't be walking into all this crazy shit. She wants the scoop. Cat asks, "Are we safe to come to your place?" and the phone goes dead.

Tareq and Michaele have dressed their security guards like Secret Service guys. Michaele hangs on 40 seconds too long in each air kiss. Tareq tells everyone to stomp three gallons and he'll give them a bottle of wine of their choice. Cat can't get over the security. She grills Michaele, who pretends not to know what they are talking about.

Stacie is just drinking.

Cat won't stomp. She must have funky feet. She is flat-out rude to this big imbecile whose mother wants him off her damned property.

"I know you're American, but let's just have some manners," said Cat.

Michaele's assistant says love is better than being bitchy to everybody. Stacie's husband says that generally you don't expect your service provider to call you a bitch, but, keeping it real, Cat was being a bitch.

He may be the show's only redemption.

They start to stomp, and both Cat and Mary notice that the grapes in bins on the platform are Thompson seedless, from the supermarket.

Michaele stomps as if she is a go-go dancer in the 1960s. Mary says not one ounce of liquid came from those grapes. Cat keeps saying "Bollocks!" She grabs Jason's early car back to D.C. Michaele is mad that Cat was insulting. Mary tries to defend Cat because she had the exact same thoughts that Cat did. They all smack around their glasses of vin rose.

Mary brings up the Black Caucus dinner and Stacie says that Jason and Ted were upset about not having tickets. Michaele says that they did have tickets; they just weren't seated together. Mary tells Michaele that she builds people up and she doesn't like to talk about people. Then she talks about Lynda with Michaele and Mary smacks Michaele for picking fights with Lynda. Mary tells Michaele that Lynda adores her. They are agreeing to disagree. Stacie is gonna take Michaele's side.

Now Mary is going to bring up some incident where Michaele said, "Ask Mary - she likes to talk about people." Michaele plays dumb and then says that she heard that Mary, Lynda and Cat took great enjoyment in making fun of Michaele. Stacie said that Mary wasn't part of it and that it was Lynda who said the bad things. Then she says that Mary was close to it.

Tareq brings up something about Mary's daughter and next week we're going to see Mary crying. Somebody goes to the hospital. It annoys me that I had to sit through this lackluster episode to get to something that may or may not be interesting.