Shannon and Tamra meet Meghan for lunch and coo over baby Aspen. Shannon is trying to avoid alcohol so she orders some tequila. Meghan’s nanny takes the baby for a walk so the grown-ups can engage in vicious gossip with impunity.

Meghan describes the struggles of being a new mother but Tamra is unimpressed. When she was raising Ryan as a single mother, “there was no nannies.” It’s time for a remedial English lesson. “Nannies” is a plural subject and thus requires a plural verb. “Was” is a singular verb and therefore does not agree with the plural subject “nannies.” The correct way to express this thought is to say, “There were no nannies.”

Shannon kvetches about her weight gain and Meghan astutely observes that the Vicki situation is bad, “but not forty pounds bad.” She, like everyone else in the world except for Shannon, thinks it has more to do with Shannon’s marriage. Meghan informs Tamra and Shannon that she has invited Vicki to Aspen’s sip-and-see, and they reluctantly agree to attend in spite of this unpleasant fact.

Lydia and her family are frolicking through Hawaii. She and her husband have a conversation with their young children where they try to explain sex through the lens of their creepy mega-church brand of Christianity. TMI.

Peggy and her family are sitting down to a home-cooked meal that Peggy has infused with Armenian love. Her daughter has been accepted to fashion school and I smell yet another kid-leaving-for-college-angst scene in the near future. Peggy is having a party to celebrate the delivery of a bright yellow Lamborghini she has designed and calls Shannon to invite her. Bright yellow is an improvement on the half white-half black thing in which she currently drives around. Shannon apologizes for her behavior at the Quiet Woman, but declines the invitation because Vicki and Kelly are attending. Peggy thinks Vicki is her friend and doesn’t want to hear Shannon’s spiel about why she can’t be around Vicki.

Kelly is concerned that her mother is becoming a recluse so she drags her to the senior center. Kelly thinks that playing ping pong and attending pancake breakfasts will bring  meaning back into her mother’s life, so despite her mom’s protests she signs her up for a year of patronizing activities better suited to a Brownie troop.

Vicki takes a break from bragging about her insurance empire to grill her son Michael about his sex life. I love it when Vicki tries to interact with Michael because he just laughs in her face as her lectures go in one ear and out the other. I’m sure Michael loves his mother, but he recognizes that she is a person to be endured and is able to mollify her by mumbling the responses she wants to hear. Michael is the only person I’ve seen who can effectively shut Vicki up. Kudos, Michael!

Kelly is enjoying the awesome view from her deck as she calls Tamra and invites her to have coffee. She doesn’t want to be an outcast like she was last year and realizes that patching things up with Tamra is the key to inclusion this season. Tamra agrees to have coffee and calls Shannon the minute she hangs up with Kelly to report the conversation. Shannon has a flash of reasonableness and acknowledges that Kelly probably reached out to Tamra instead of her because meeting with Tamra will not include plates of food flying through the air. This is most likely correct, but only because Tamra doesn’t eat food.

In Hawaii, Lydia wants Doug to get a vasectomy. She pitches her plan by telling him he needs to “cut his balls off,” which is probably not the best way to sell him on the idea. He’s not excited about going from a stallion to a gelding and doesn’t give her a definitive answer.

Jimmy returns from his travels and cuddles with Aspen. Normally I’m bored to death by scenes with the Housewives’ small children, but I could watch an entire episode of curmudgeonly Jim Edmonds melting in the presence of his baby.

Tamra meets Kelly for coffee. Why do all of these OC people order food and drink by saying they will “do” a latte or they will “do” the calamari. What is with the grammatical tics in this part of the country? Just say, “I’ll have a latte” or “I would like the calamari.” Tamra is confused by Kelly because she thought they made up after Ireland but then Kelly attacked her on social media. Kelly Dodd has a real problem with social media. She responded to a tweet I sent about Vicki and called me rude. Why would Kelly Dodd concern herself with a tweet sent by someone with all of thirty followers?

Kelly’s plan to out-puppet the new puppet master works because she and Tamra make up over coffee. Kelly is glad because she just wants to be friends with everyone. Wait a minute. Did Kelly ask to meet with Tamra because she wants to be friends with everyone or because she wants to out-puppet the new puppet master? One approach is genuine and one is manipulative. Can these opposing motivations coexist? Does Kelly feel she needs to out-puppet the new puppet master in order to achieve her goal of being friends with everyone? Kelly Dodd is not the most sophisticated logician so maybe she doesn’t realize that her two statements contradict one another.

It’s time for Peggy’s Lamborghini party. Peggy is horrified when Lydia tells her that Doug is indeed going to get his balls cut off. Balls are important in Armenian culture. Jim and Meghan arrive, and I wish Meghan had chosen a better outfit. She seems to have great taste in home decor but her wardrobe needs some work. I have faith in her.

Vicki shows up with her boyfriend and wastes no time grousing about how quickly Meghan has lost her baby weight. Jealousy is never a good look and it’s the only look Vicki wears–consequently Vicki never looks good. Peggy unveils her yellow Lamborghini and naturally Vicki snarks on her new friend’s color choice. Meghan thinks this type of car is an instrument its owners use to show off how rich they are. I think it’s a way of telling the world that you are compensating for a small penis. Or are a douchebag.

The talk turns to Meghan’s upcoming sip-and-see and the potential for drama when all the women are contractually obligated to be at the same place at the same time. Tamra and Shannon, who have skipped the Lamborghini party, are also concerned about how they will react when they see their respective nemeses. Shannon agrees to meet with Kelly before the sip-and-see, and she and Tamra promise to keep each other in check at Meghan’s event.

The other women discuss the importance of being cordial to one another at the sip-and-see, and Vicki laughably says she would never behave rudely at a party. Meghan calls her on this patently false statement and we flash back to Vicki telling Jim–at a party–to talk to her in five years when he and Meghan are divorced. I love how Meghan doesn’t let Vicki get away with anything. She thinks Vicki should try to understand where Shannon and Tamra are coming from and apologize. But Vicki the martyr has apologized enough and isn’t going to swallow her pride again. Vicki is maddening because doesn’t get that she only apologizes when it’s necessary to further her own agenda and never takes responsibility for the thing she’s apologizing for.

As Meghan is trying to explain that swallowing one’s pride can be a good thing, Peggy takes her fingers, literally clamps Meghan’s lips together and tells her to zip it. How rude! Maybe Peggy and Vicki are destined to be real friends after all. Meghan is shocked–and should be because she was actually dispensing good advice that Vicki desperately needs to take to heart. Vicki loves it because in her opinion Peggy was right and Meghan needs to shut up.

Next week: the much anticipated sip-and-see. Maybe something will actually happen.