We know D.C. Get our free newsletter to stay in the know.
Time to check back with our antagonists on The Real Housewives of Potomac, where we find Karen‘s husband Ray showing off his matching tie-plate-drapes-coffeemaker set.
Last week, we learned that tony Potomac, Md. is the kind of place women face Henry James-ian social ruin for slight social missteps. To recap: Karen is the matriarch and etiquette enforcer, Katie is scheming to get her boyfriend to marry her. Gizelle is the wild but also mean one, and Charrisse and Robyn are the spaced-out ones with troubled relationships with former NBA players.
Last week, Gizelle terrorized Charrise and Karen at a crab boil. On this week’s episode, the feud continues, mostly boringly. But it also inspires Gizelle’s hair dresser/pal Kal, pictured below in happier times…
…to plump his forearm at Karen like he’s Popeye and she’s Bluto:
The feud remains unresolved by the end of the episode. The cause isn’t helped when Charrise tells Gizelle that “the presence of your face repulses me.”
Gizelle disagrees: “This face repulses no one.”
Fortunately, the rest of the episode moves onto a less contentious topic: racial/religious identity. Katie is biracial, and she’s also Jewish, a fact that baffles her pals as she tries to score a Jewish naming ceremony for her daughters. Gizelle, for example, shows up late to the ceremony and handles it with her usual Potomac tact. “I didn’t know that Jewish people started everything on time,” Gizelle explains. “I thought they were like black people.”
Just as baffled is the rabbi, who describes Katie’s boyfriend during the ceremony as “her most delicious fiancé.” “Andrew tries to make it clear that we’re not engaged, and I try to keep it muddy,” Katie says.
Fortunately, there’s a new character who is too busy partying to care about engagement rings or etiquette: Ashley.
Ashley is fun and she’s young, so naturally they despise her. Above, Ashley illustrates that she’s so young that her breasts don’t need support. Seriously.
Ashley’s rowdy behavior also inspires the best Potomac screenshot so far:
Ashley is somehow associated with this society blog, which is how she “meets” the rest of the gang at a sponsored party. Gizelle, who isn’t having any of it, starts grilling the 26-year-old Ashley on the 29-year age difference between her and her husband.
“So y’all are popping the Viagra?” Gizelle says.
“No, no,” Ashley responds. “My guy has a really big penis.”
The exchange leads Gizelle to declare Ashley a “thot.”
“I can tell you one thing,” Gizelle says. “She’s not from Potomac.”
Indeed, she’s not. Stretching the Potomac theme pretty far, Ashley and her local real estate heavy husband avoid the Potomac manners panopticon by living instead in Arlington. They’re opening a kangaroo-themed restaurant, inspired by his Australian roots.
“That accent makes my panties wet,” notes Ashley.
Speaking of, Ashley says they’re trying for a child—but only in October, so their child conceived then would be a Gemini. Which: hmm.
I can’t end this recap without noting the several minutes devoted to Karen’s attempt to serve a properly heated cup of tea to her husband’s aunt. Karen escaped Maryland farm life through her marriage, thanks in some part to etiquette lessons from this Aunt Dot, but all that could be spoiled if Dot’s tea isn’t piping hot.
It’s a tense moment:
The tea, it turns out, isn’t hot enough. More like Watch What Doesn’t Happen Live, right?