Real Housewives of Potomac Recap: “Ruffled Feathers”

It’s a tenuous time for the ladies of Potomac. Nobody is directly down anybody’s throat, but most of the intertwined relationships feel like a powder keg that’s about to explode into a cloud of insults and questionable interior design choices. Things are simmering. There’s the smell of deceit in the air. And if La’Dame Fragrance is any indication, these women can’t go too long without calling it out when they get a whiff of something nasty.

Things kick off with Candiace browsing for new homes online. The only thing I can imagine being worse than sharing a house with Candiace is being Candiace’s real estate agent. Candiace is hesitant to go on a girls’ trip because most of the said girls hate her. In most cases, a very reasonable way of thinking. However, this is “Real Housewives” and if there’s a cast trip, I’m gonna need you to go. Even if it’s to Monique’s weird ass lake house. Pack those bags, Candiace. 

Gizelle calls Jamal’s assistant to see if he’ll be able to come to town for their daughter’s birthday. Why are we figuring this out through the assistant? Isn’t church once a week? Gizelle wouldn’t see a red flag if it was flying right in her damn face. Even the tone of his assistant is like “I don’t know what you’re doing, girl, but we’ll try to make it work!!!” Get off the ride, Gizelle. It’s been over. It’s stalled. It’s in the station. The park is dark.

As the girls are shown packing for the trip, Michael reprimands Ashley for even thinking about leaving her son behind. He says that it’s not good for a baby to be away from his mother for three days. She just spent nine months carrying him around, you slime ball, it’s time to step up to the plate! As he compliments her “muscles,” Ashley says that her husband has become an ass man, which is not what I’d be saying to my husband who VERY RECENTLY WAS ACCUSED OF SLAPPING THE ASSES OF MEN ON THE CREW. The self-awareness is not high with this one.

Monique, who has apparently been prepping for this girls weekend like it will be her last few days on Earth, forces Gizelle and Karen to ride to the lake house with her bird T’Challa in the truck. What exactly is going on here? What kind of midlife crisis is this bird? Is Monique so desperate to have a personality that she thinks strutting around with this flapping, shitting mess will make her seem quirky? Monique loves this bird more than her children and husband combined and at some point we’re going to need to have that conversation. 

On the drive up, Gizelle plants the seed that Wendy does not believe that Ray has been planting his seed in Karen for a very long time. Karen, meanwhile, claims to know absolutely nothing about Wendy despite being in approximately 736 photographs with her. It’s clear that Karen is trying to stall for time as she figures out exactly where Wendy fits into this group. Karen knows that Wendy is the real deal and I think that scares her a little bit. While Karen enjoys the company of women like Monique and Candiace, I don’t know that she necessarily respects them. Wendy is a woman who commands respect and Karen is not quite sure how to handle that.

At the house, it’s all fun and games for a while. Candiace reveals she has a huge bush! Wendy has to put her breast milk in the freezer! Laughter and joy all around. And then Ashley shows up with her damn baby. Let me issue a PSA to all young parents: nobody wants your child on a weekend trip. They just don’t. Leave them at home. Lock them in a closet. I don’t care. This isn’t the time. You have a grown ass husband named Michael who can figure out how to open up the baby food for a couple of days. The men on this show (other than Juan!!!!!!!!!!) really leave something to be desired.

It’s at this moment when Monique’s lake house, which has really proven to be more of a brokedown cabin in the woods, turns into a scene out of some Busch Gardens horror show as T’Challa flies at poor Wendy’s head, leaving her scarred for the rest of her natural life. Monique laments the women for scaring “her baby,” seemingly unfazed by the fact that her new friend has just been attacked by a wild bird while sitting at her kitchen counter, and takes the bird to shit in the master bathroom toilet. 

Ashley trots herself into the kitchen with baby Dean on her hip and all hell breaks loose. Wendy, being the truth teller that she is, says that Ashley should have left Dean at home. Wendy, who has a newborn daughter two weeks younger than ol’ Dean, is sipping champagne fancy free and enjoying her time away. That’s called balance. The women all take Ashley’s side, which is weak. It wasn’t about Wendy criticizing Ashley’s parenting skills. Quite the opposite, really. If I’m going on a friends’ trip, even if the friends are new, I don’t want a baby who looks like a middle-aged man named Gerald staring at me from his high chair in the corner. 

Prior to dinner, Candiace and Gizelle have a conversation about their last conversation, which went a bit haywire. Candiace, who got dressed in Vanessa Hudgens’ closet, and Gizelle, who got dressed in the dark, have more a mother/daughter vibe than either of them would probably care to admit. But I enjoy it. Candiace is always looking for a more stable motherly figure than her own and Gizelle is looking for a younger acquaintance who won’t completely despise every one of her decisions. They’re both just unhinged enough to understand each other. 

At dinner, Monique and Ashley have the idea to play something called The Game of Curiosity, which in my day was just called A Conversation. Mere minutes after a nice reconciliation, Gizelle asks Candiace why she got a nose job, which Candiace denies and deflects with all the confidence of someone who definitely got a nose job. Karen, who has no time for small talk, asks Gizelle about being back with her philandering ex-husband and if Ashley has anal sex with her husband. Curiosity, indeed. 

Karen, however, saves her sharpest daggers for Wendy. She asks Wendy why she’s been blabbing about her (non-existent) sex life instead of trying to get to know her first. Wendy has a pretty foolproof explanation for this, which is “bitch, I do know you!” Wendy remains the topic of conversation when the ladies bring it back to her rant against Ashley earlier in the day. Ashley calls Wendy “ferocious,” which Wendy calls “passionate.” Wendy literally goes tit-for-tat professionally and you can tell. Ashley is no match, even with the swell of support from the group. It’s an odd thing. I think the other women are afraid of being labeled as anti-mom, but again, that’s not really what it’s about. All told, Wendy left her newborn at home with her husband and plenty of breast milk to go around. That seems like a better option than taking your kid to a home in the middle of the woods with a wild, rambunctious parrot in the adjoining room. But what do I know?

Ashley, though, just can’t help herself and says Wendy’s attitude is why she doesn’t have many female friends. That’s a no-no on multiple levels, girl. Just because you have some strange woman rocking your baby to sleep in a bunk bed next door doesn’t mean you get to attack another woman for how she manages her friendships. Wendy shuts all the shit down by saying “people like you call me Dr. Wendy.” Iconic. Delicious. Soul-crushing.

This is now a space dedicated solely to fandom of Dr. Wendy Osefo. These other bitches aren’t ready.