Real Housewives of Dallas Recap: Growers and Show-ers

Just when you thought the drama was over on Real Housewives of Dallas, Brandi comes for LeeAnne… again.

In Copenhagen the Brandi/LeeAnne/alcoholic accusation showdown fizzles into an anticlimax as a tearful Brandi thanks everyone for listening and heads off to bed with Stephanie and Cary. LeeAnne follows, and I’m glad to see what’s hopefully the last of those ridiculous circus (carnival?) pants. D’Andra and Kameron remain in the bar, where D’Andra broaches the subject of their recent rift. She wants to repair things with Kameron because they both struggle with the expectations of Dallas society—actual Dallas society, not this cast friend group—and have confided in each other about the pressures of being members of their respective families. And I’ll bet that pressure is real, people. I don’t know much about Dallas society, but I suspect its provincialism writ large, laden with more judgment and cattiness than a chapter meeting at the Kappa house.

Kameron is at a bit prickly at first, still smarting over the idea that D’Andra thinks she would deliberately hurt her, but as D’Andra explains the challenges she’s been facing, Kameron softens. Her sincerity transcends her cartoonish delivery, and I’m thinking there might be more to Kameron than pink sparkles and a life-size Barbie wardrobe. She and D’Andra bury they hatchet and, unlike the previous night, enjoy a nice elevator ride together.

The next morning Brandi is of course doing a hybrid twerk/hump on top of someone’s bed. I know people love her, but I find her antics vulgar, juvenile and exhausting. The ladies discuss the itinerary for the day; Cary, Kameron and Brandi will go biking while LeeAnne, D’Andra and Stephanie will go on a boat ride. Brandi is disappointed that LeeAnne won’t be biking, since she’d like to see this wicked witch on a bike a la The Wizard of Oz. Drama queen that she is, LeeAnne is offended and cries to Kameron, Cary and Stephanie that she always feels like the scapegoat of the group. She wonders why D’Andra can fly into a rage with no repercussions, but LeeAnne herself is always the bad guy. Maybe that’s because D’Andra doesn’t have a history of borderline behavior punctuated with smashed wine glasses and snarled threats of death. Just saying.

The boaters boat and the bikers bike (and we find out that Cary dated Lance Armstrong for a year) until Stephanie spots Brandi along the canal. The captain pulls over so the boaters can disembark, and the ladies all enjoy some trampoline fun. (How cool is it that there are public trampolines in Copenhagen? I would expect nothing less from the country that gave us the sublime Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.) The bikers continue their ride while Stephanie, LeeAnne and D’Andra go to lunch. I love D’Andra for ordering potatoes. How very unlike the Orange County housewives, who, in their cliched quest to avoid carbs at all costs, warded off any and all offers of potatoes when they were in Ireland. Ireland. Don’t tell them what the vodka they swill is made of.

Anyway, the real purpose of this lunch is for Stephanie to mediate the dispute between LeeAnne and D’Andra. D’Andra finds Stephanie to be a calming presence while LeeAnne likens her to a singing Tibetan bowl. They’re both right, because Stephanie steers the conversation into a rapprochement, and cloaked in her calming aura, D’Andra manages to keep a straight face when LeeAnne tells her the thing that hurt her heart most was that D’Andra took away LeeAnne’s “opportunity to love her.” Take it down a notch, girl.

Back at the hotel, Cary makes everyone dress up in “Danish girl” garb for their excursion to Tivoli Gardens. The Danish girl outfits are actually less costume-y than what these ladies would have selected from their own wardrobes. Over beers, Brandi gets pissed when she hears that D’Andra and LeeAnne made up, and Cary stirs the pot by telling Brandi that LeeAnne was upset over her witch-on-a-bike comment. Brandi is still mad about LeeAnne saying adopting Bruin was an attempt to save her marriage and the alcoholic comments, so she is not apologizing for calling LeeAnne a witch. In fact, she should have just called her a bitch. Brandi did not navigate a stint as a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader without being able to throw down with manipulative, passive-aggressive women, and her skills are on display this season.

The next day everyone is going to Cary’s cousins’ house. What is with all these fluffy, Teletubby-colored faux (or maybe real) fur vests and coats? Someone is wearing one in pretty much every episode. Cary is excited to meet the rest of her cousins, but guess what? Mark and Zuri are there! They have traveled to Denmark to surprise her and she is bowled over. Everyone dabs at tears over the sweetness of it all, and even though Mark skeeves me out, I have to admit this is a stellar move on his part.

The group sits down for a traditional Danish lunch including pickled herring, the taste of which Stephanie elegantly compares to “salty asshole.” Stephanie thinks a lot of things taste like some variation of asshole, which makes me wonder what she and Travis get up to in the bedroom.

After lunch it’s time to go penguin dipping in the Baltic Sea. Everyone except LeeAnne participates, because the last time Cary convinced her to go skinny-dipping, she contracted a flesh-eating bacteria. LeeAnne gets a pass on this one. All the ladies are cringing over seeing Mark’s legendary sucked-off-at-the-Roundabout penis; I guess it didn’t occur to them that they could simply look away. Brandi feels liberated by the icy cold plunge until she notices LeeAnne filming her with her phone. On the bus back to the hotel, she asks LeeAnne to delete the video. LeeAnne does, but Brandi wants her to delete it from her trash, too. She thinks LeeAnne is vindictive enough to pretend it’s deleted, but save it to her Cloud or e-mail it to herself so she can use it against the other ladies later. I don’t doubt that LeeAnne is capable of such Machiavellian tactics, but the fact that Brandi immediately goes there makes me suspect that Brandi’s mind also works in nefarious ways. Again, she wasn’t a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader for nothing.

Kameron astutely wonders why Brandi is freaking out about LeeAnne’s cell phone video when she was skinny-dipping in front of reality show cameras. Good point. LeeAnne insists she wanted the video for posterity, so the ladies could reminisce and laugh about their Danish adventures at a later date. I tend to believe LeeAnne on this one, but Brandi is not going to let it go.

For their farewell dinner, the ladies enjoy a tasting menu at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Well, Cary enjoys it. LeeAnne refuses to eat the first course, Stephanie thinks it’s repulsive and lazy that they didn’t remove the shrimps’ heads, and Kameron complains that she can’t eat any of Denmark’s “fancy, sophisticated” food. How does she keep her svelte figure on a diet that apparently consists of chicken tenders and quesadillas?

As the ladies go around the table expressing their favorite moments of the trip, Brandi says her favorite moment was ruined when she discovered LeeAnne filming her. Everyone agrees that LeeAnne wasn’t filming the skinny-dipping with malicious intent, but there are legitimate trust issues with her. Brandi articulates her position well when she tells LeeAnne her concerns. She thinks the next time LeeAnne is mad at her, instead of simply telling Brandi she’s mad, she’ll go behind her back and share the video or make up a rumor about her. These are exactly the kinds of things LeeAnne has done numerous times in the past, but LeeAnne is convinced Brandi just wants the old LeeAnne to rear her ugly head to vindicate Brandi’s distrust of her. LeeAnne admits the old LeeAnne is still there, but the new LeeAnne is able to control her. We’ll see, because Brandi just told her that no one at the table trusts her. Next week, who will come to dinner? The old LeeAnne or the new? I’m kind of hoping it’s the old one, because there’s nothing like a good LeeAnne Locken meltdown to liven up a Wednesday night.

The Real Housewives of Dallas airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on Bravo.