Photo: Shannon Finney/Bravo

Throughout all of the relationships I’ve built in my life, I have come to three major conclusions about friendship: (1) almost always split the check; it is just easier and will very often even out over time; (2) be judicious about the friend groups you mix and how they relate to you as a person; (3) keep group chats to three to four people whenever possible. (Four is even pushing it.)

Group chats are both the bane of my existence and the light of my life. When calibrated correctly, it’s a great way to maintain connection and rapport, but the more people involved, the quicker it goes left. All of a sudden, there are secret group chats where people snark about the issues they have with people they don’t like, and that tension is brought back into the main group chat like a bad cold. I have been on both sides of that equation, and it has almost always led to a conflict that you regret well before you end up cussing each other out over memes and constant subliminals.

My trauma and exhaustion aside, group chats can take their toll on even the strongest friendship groups, and Housewives is no exception. While many housewives fights are about the show itself and who is perceived as compensated, celebrated, or enabled the best by production, group chats are also the source of 45 percent of the fights that kick off against franchises. Not in the group chat? You just came to the hard realization that you are not considered part of the circle. Find out that there’s a separate group chat you had no idea existed, and you realize that people are trying to film around you. Bring your tensions to the group chat, and you will find out very quickly who feels closer to who as the fallout unfolds. These passive-aggressive levers were used to great effect this week in one of the only genuinely thrilling episodes in quite a long time.

First, we have the fallout from the last episode’s birthday brunch. When we pick up, Mia is still crying and venting in the bathroom while Wendy attempts to de-escalate with the rest of the women, pointing out that their remarks are quite harsh. I think multiple things can be true here — the comments were harsh, Karen was clearly deflecting with Gizelle’s assistance, and Mia still made choices that didn’t protect her children. That doesn’t make her a bad mom, but it does make her someone who simply didn’t think things through, especially when she came to Karen’s birthday brunch prepared to make Karen sweat.

Karen Huger is at a fascinating juncture in her life and reality TV career.  I won’t belabor the comparisons to Shannon Beador but it is clear that Karen’s main plan for evading accountability for presumably engaging in dangerous behavior is to remain on the offensive, which she does all episode. After the event, she tells Gizelle that Jacqueline is on “time out” for merely saying that we should let the judicial process play out (imagine what she thinks now that she’s seen all of Jacqueline’s comments from that day). She exploits lingering tension between Keiarna, Ashley, and Gizelle, letting Keiarna know that she was excluded from her birthday event by Gizelle while carefully omitting necessary context about seating capacity (although several non-cast members were there, and it seems as if Keiarna was indeed that important for an all cast event, she should have been swapped in, but I digress). Despite Gizelle clearly extending an olive branch to resume their frenemy dynamic this season, Karen simply cannot let the shady drink menu slide and retaliates by forcing the group to choose between attending competing events: GNA “Wellness” or Karen being honored at an awards ceremony.

Let’s start with the basics: both events are unclear to me.  What is GNA “wellness” exactly? Is the event a fundraiser, an auction, or an announcement for business? What is Karen being awarded for? What is being “femme powered”? The details are never quite clear enough, but the logistics and etiquette of the dynamic are pretty straightforward. Gizelle invites the entire group at Karen’s birthday brunch, and emphasizes that it is in support of research for brain tumors like the one that killed her father just 12 days after discovery. Karen waits until the day before Gizelle’s event to send out a mass text that excludes Jacqueline, not only waiting until the eleventh hour to extend the invite but also conveniently omitting until the last possible second that her awards ceremony conflicts with Gizelle and Ashley’s long-established plans. Not only is Karen attempting to burnish her reputation at Gizelle’s expense, but she is also attempting to leverage her clout with the women to do so, who are clearly struggling with the fact that Karen is a fan favorite after Gizelle isolated her enemies over the past few seasons. It pains me to say this, but Gizelle was right to be upset with Karen and the women that chose to attend Karen’s ceremony when they had already committed to her.

To the women’s credit, they do try to make it to both events (with the assistance of production, who absolutely provided the sprinter vans to increase the chaos). Between horrid D.C. traffic, the rain, and the drinks, however, they could not reasonably make it to Gizelle’s affair before 8 p.m., well past the threshold she deemed acceptable. When they finally do make it, Gizelle roundly kicks them out, which is both shocking and, frankly, hilarious.

It genuinely pains me to point out all the ways that Gizelle is right in this situation, but it’s obvious. She is grieving and trying to honor her father’s memory and she asked the cast to show up, and only a few of the newbies who haven’t established their foothold in the housewives power rankings did. Karen has touted prioritizing her parent’s legacy for multiple seasons, yet plainly flouted that to sort out a personal grievance. She could have gotten Getty photos with Ray all the same without requesting that the cast attend so that it could be filmed. It was petty and misguided, particularly since Gizelle seems game to uphold their longstanding banter dynamic despite taking issue with her DUI — while Karen may have felt she got one up at the moment, the show thrives most when the light-skinned duo is willing to play ball with each other and not take up arms in permanent conflict. Here is hoping that the grand dame didn’t sacrifice what easily looks to be the most promising season for the franchise since season five with her shortsighted machinations. It’s a little early in the season to go all in, but I am.

Cherry Blossoms

• Gizelle’s house is looking good! It may have taken seven seasons, but the exterior and kitchen have come so far. I fear her bedroom is probably still a leopard print nightmare, but you can’t outspend bad taste, I fear.

• Gizelle making amends with Wendy is an arc with high potential for comedy. They both are clearly apprehensive towards the other and are approaching the reconciliation with the excitement of an upcoming root canal, but production is forcing them to put a “get along shirt” on and move forward. Every response by Wendy is a canned madlib from someone who has spent time in couples counseling — “I receive it.” — while Gizelle is not willing to accept that she has been actively alienating people she does not get along with by refusing to give them camera time since season 5. They both have each other’s number, and it will be interesting to see what progress is made because Gizelle calling Wendy a bestie in confessionals is certainly far from the energy we saw in that meet-up. (Also, what the hell was Wendy wearing? She looked like Big Bird with all of those feathers).

• It is striking that newbie Stacey has been so forthcoming about her personal life in such a short time. In just two episodes, we clearly understood the dynamics of her split, her romantic life, the life she is trying to build for her daughter, and her life before the show. Ashley still gives us vague, nondescript answers about her split three seasons in. Juxtaposing them was a smart move by production because a lot of their arcs overlap: both married to white foreigners with money (you are not getting so rich you forget you cut your grass on a QVC paycheck), both raising multiracial children, and both struggling with shifting and new cultural realities in an evolving racial framework. This is the most open Ashley has ever been about her biracial identity and anxiety over raising kids who present as phenotypically white while being raised by the Black side of her family. It was genuinely compelling to watch them contend with the reality of Black American culture, socialization, and the impact of integrating into white upper-class structures with multiracial children without it feeling preachy or contrived. It is a welcome course correction to the tortured dialogues about colorism over the last few seasons.

• I hope the short jokes about Mia’s new man never end. When the girls said that Mia and Inc don’t see eye to eye, I lost it.

 It genuinely pains me to point out all the ways that Gizelle is right in this episode.