Brianna and her husband Ryan and their children are visiting Vicki’s house and they’ve deigned to enter the place because the healthiest cancer patient on the planet is away for the week. It’s sweet for a moment to see just how thrilled Vicki is with her family surrounding her, but then I realized that the closer Vicki gets to joy, the closer she is to bellowing that’s it’s time to whoop it up and so I have decided to veer towards the side of caution and to not give a sh*t about the happiness of a woman I find almost as appealing as I found Bill. Sitting around the table in the kitchen, Vicki tells Ryan and Brianna that she’s nearing her goal of either selling her business within ten years or handing it over to Ryan, Brianna, or Michael and she reaches out to Ryan and touches him on the shoulder and she expounds about how selling insurance is so much fun and he should take over! He would love it! And on top of all of that bliss, he’d get to go to work with Vicki every single day, at which point Ryan looks like he’s about to chew his own shoulder off to stop the touching and the horrific fantasy from becoming too vivid.
While Vicki takes the kids upstairs and dotes on them, Brianna and Ryan stand in the kitchen and Brianna tells him that it feels good to be home, but she can’t help but also feel weird because this is the place where HE lives. “HE” can obviously be used as a pronoun to discuss God, the devil, or Brooks – who I think might be the devil’s nephew – and I’d maybe put more thought into the possible demonic lineage that all of a sudden makes sense to me, but I’m drawn back towards the action onscreen as Ryan says that the house looks dirty in the way it never has before and it smells weird. I’m sure that Brooks will eventually blame that scent on his coffee enemas or the smell of cancer in general, but I’m more apt to believe that blatant lies might actually have a smell to them and I’m guessing they don’t smell like cherry Chapstick or happy dreams.
There’s a piece of me that almost wants to give Brooks some credit here. The man can invade a space even in absentia and apparently his very presence can alter the pH balance of a home and I think that kind of power should be rewarded and that the prize should be that he is sent to live on his own continent forever where we will never have to hear his annoying drawl ever again.
It comes out for the first time how it was that Brianna found out that her mother and the man who recommended that Brianna’s husband knock her around to keep her in line were living together – and my friends, it’s a doozy. Was there a carefully placed phone call to explain? There was not. Did Vicki hire a skywriter to fly high above Brianna’s home and spell the message out in puffy clouds? She did not. Instead, Brianna found out that Brooks moved into her mother’s house when a friend sent her a link that she found on Facebook. In that video, Vicki sat on her couch and held Brooks’ hand and revealed to the world at large that Brooks had moved in and she guessed that Brianna would now know the truth. Then Vicki allegedly giggled like a schoolgirl and I have to say that it’s pretty remarkable that Brianna didn’t kill her mother for pulling such a revolting public stunt with such a revolting man. I’m serious; I really admire Brianna’s restraint.
“How has he gotten this far?” Brianna wonders. “How has he moved into our family home?” After all, the nonsense Brooks has pulled over the years is legendary in its sheer sh*ttiness. He’s cheated. He’s cavorted with strippers who have barely completed the fourth grade. He recommended spousal abuse to his girlfriend’s son-in-law and the whole sordid matter was caught on tape! I personally have no answers here for Brianna other than the fact that she has a mother who is so desperate that she is willing to cohabitate with a pig so she doesn’t have to be alone, but I’m imagining that Meghan could actually prepare a detailed PowerPoint presentation charting the timeline of exactly how it is that Brooks got this far. Perhaps Meghan will roll the thing out during Part 27 of the upcoming reunion, the one I fear will take us clear until next year, and the presentation will end at precisely the same time that Brooks magically throws his hands up into the air and claims victory over the cancer that may or may not have ever ravaged his body. Lenka will undoubtedly be there to champion the fact that it must’ve been the coffee enemas and the rolling around on the grass that helped him slay the cancerous beast within while the other women band together on the opposite couch and figure out the best way to pummel the hell out of the man without mussing up their hair in the process.
In a far cleaner kitchen across town, Meghan and Hayley are in the process of mixing up some homemade facials because Meghan has decided that Hayley doesn’t need another parent and instead needs a friend and applying facials made out of honey and lemon juice is exactly the kind of stuff best friends do together. I’m of two minds here about Meghan going the friend route with this kid. On the one hand, Hayley is going through a lot as her mother is dying and she probably could really use a wise and warm friend who genuinely cares about her. On the other hand, this kid is struggling and she appears to have no direction and her mother is not able to care for her and her father seems like he’s never home. She probably could use a parent desperately, but perhaps that’s a problem for another time because right now all that anyone should worry about is that Meghan’s breaking out on her chin and that sh*t cannot continue so Hayley rubs something that looks like discharge over her BFF’s face.
A phone call comes in just then from Tamra and Meghan, as per her Bravo contract, answers it on speakerphone. Tamra is calling to invite Meghan to her baptism and Meghan promises she’ll be there. She’s happy for Tamra that she’s found something that gives her some much-needed strength and I’m happy that Tamra will be plunged under water, even if it’s only for a second.
Over at Shannon and David’s house, Tina the Therapist arrives for a session. David offers her water, beer, or wine – all of which she turns down with a smile. He pointedly does not offer her vodka because that sh*t belongs to his wife and cheating on her is one thing, but giving away her booze would be something else entirely and the marriage might never recover from such a blunder. Shannon and David have been working with this therapist for about a year and Shannon says that she has been instrumental in helping them to move forward with their marriage. As they sit on the couch, David reaches over and pats Shannon’s knee in much the same way you might pet a dog you were afraid might bite you or take a sh*t on you, but at least there’s some contact there so the therapy session surges forward and it begins with some kudos.
The therapist is very proud of both of them. She’s proud of David for not fleeing from his family forever even though he so clearly wanted to, and hearing a therapist say such a thing would make me turn around and punch my husband in the face or break his leg with my two hands just so I could watch him try to do some of that running he so badly desired. As for Shannon, the therapist is pleased that Shannon is no longer speaking all of her words from a place of deep anger or pain and Shannon does seem to be a little bit more self-actualized these days which might allow David to be more open about his own feelings. But when the issue is brought forth about whether or not David truly believes that he can be open and honest, he insists that he can be – as long as he’s in what he considers to be a safe environment. At that, Shannon begins to break. See, that sentiment reminds her vividly of the pitch-black moment when David told her that when he was with “his affair,” he could say anything to her in the way that he couldn’t and didn’t want to with his wife. The more that comes out (and I’ll be covering the revelations that pour out like Stoli on the Watch What Happens interview Wednesday on my site), the more it is clear that David was absolutely ruthless towards his wife during the time he decided that he was in love with another woman. She might come off as periodically crazy, but my heart really breaks for Shannon. Nobody deserves such cruelty from the person who promised you a forever.
In a less conflicted and far safer environment, Shannon, Tamra, and Heather meet up for lunch. Tamra’s having a tough day seeing as she has just been forced into having a joint checking account with her husband, a practice that was probably put in place so Tamra could stop secretly filtering money to her grown son. Eddie’s being pragmatic here. After all, they’re probably going to need to be fiscally prudent so they will eventually have the money to pay for Ryan’s trial lawyer, to say nothing of the bail they’ll have to fork over once the guy finally snaps and commits a felony. At this point, Tamra’s son is so creepy to me that I’d be far more shocked if he didn’t wind up behind bars. I am not wishing for such an event to transpire seeing as I’m not evil, but I’m just calling it like I see it and how I see it is that the guy is a quickly ticking time-bomb that will surely blow and the debris will be covered with scraggly beard hair and none of it will be pretty.