Real Housewives of Toronto episode seven recap: golf stretches and stretch limos
This week’s episode of the Real Housewives of Toronto opens with a casual visit to Wooftown, a dog store in Summerhill. Roxy and Ann bring their pets, Lola and Emma, to test the resident doggy chef’s offerings. This is important business because Lola has a curated diet and refined palate. “I once tried to pass off un-organic chicken on her and she just didn’t take to it,” says Roxy.
While the dogs enjoy their tasting boards—which they just scarf, not taste, because they’re dogs—Ann and Roxy discuss Kara’s private shopping party. Kara’s hard-sell tactics for AMBI Gala tickets turned Roxy off. Apparently, it is uncouth to put half a dozen women in a room together and try to get them to drop $25,000 on dinner. Roxy announces she is bowing out and not buying a table.
Next up, Joga Jana and Grego meet for coffee at 5 Elements Espresso in Yorkville, where they discuss last week’s revelation that Kara has been going around town telling everyone their friend Joan gets drunk and takes off her underwear at dinner parties. This is social suicide because, according to the other Housewives, Joan is one of the most respected women in the city. They decide Kara is only doing it because she is jealous. Jana is pissed and is gunning to call Kara out—but only after breaking the news to Joan first.
So, once Jana, Grego and Joan are tucked safely inside an SUV limo en route to a golf tournament that Jana is sponsoring, they tell Joan the news. Her reaction surprises them. Rather than being mad at Kara, she takes issue with how Roxy spread Kara’s gossip to her friends instead of coming directly to her first. Joan would have a point, except that Kara has been blabbing about how the women acted at her party for weeks. Even if Roxy were trying to stir things up, she is on the right side of history.
Kara remains oblivious to the other women turning against her as she drives around town selling AMBI Gala tickets to her other rich friends. At a stop at her friend Holly’s mansion, we hear about the AMBI Foundation’s noble ambition to finally put Toronto on the map with a gala as “frenetic” and “decadent” as the ones in the south of France. “Why can’t we strive for excellence here?” Kara asks. You’ve got to respect her tenacity. She is really going to work selling these tickets. I guess if you’d been on the charity circuit long enough and were forced to attend six cheesy galas in Arcadian Court every fall, you’d be motivated to up the ante. Also, Prince Albert of Monaco is going to be there, and as Kara says, “Who doesn’t love a royal at a party?” Looks like Holly is in for a table.
Kara invites Holly and Ann for afternoon tea at the Windsor Arms. Everyone wears an overwrought hat, and Ann tells us, “I go for high tea about once every…lifetime.” Nice. Of note, Holly is now Kara’s second friend to both buy an AMBI Gala table and conveniently appear on Housewives. (See: Ainsley Kerr’s appearance last week). What are the CRA’s tax rules on trading charity dollars for reality-TV screen time?
Back at the golf course, Jana has dressed Joan, Roxy and Grego in “Joga Girl” uniforms and recruited them to help her lead a 16th-hole stretch for the men playing in Gregg Zaun’s charity golf tournament. This seems like the type of friend activity you agree to after a few glasses of wine then really regret the morning it arrives. Roxy is the most vocal about it: “I’d be happy to provide her with marketing advice or business help, not stretching in front of men on the 16th hole. It’s not my thing.” I hear that.
Things get worse for Roxy when Joan decides to confront her. She thinks Roxy made up the rumours to get Joan to be upset with Kara. This is the first time we have seen Joan angry on this show, and she does it well. Sweet, Forgiving Corporate Wife Joan is gone, replaced by Fierce, Determined Joan. She is going to get to the bottom of this.
Next, all the women get together for a group lunch at Patria. Ann is hosting the lunch so she can invite the other women on a trip to Barcelona, where they would act as models for Ann’s plastic surgeon husband, Stephen Mulholland, in a sales presentation of a new fat-sculpting laser machine. Come on. Not only is this a convoluted, self-promotional trip, even by Housewives standards, but also who can forget the “instant rhinoplasty” Stephen did on his model during the first episode of the season? It was horrifying. Ann, didn’t your mother ever teach you it’s rude to bribe your friends with a vacation so they’ll have their fat sculpted on television to help you sell procedures (and financing)? Yet, all of the women agree. Barcelona for a weekend of fat sculpting it is!
When Kara sits down for lunch, she begins to realize that she is on the outs with the other women. The hellos are stunted and the eye contact is awkward. When Joan asks her to step outside to talk, Kara shoots Roxy a glare on the way out, like she knows Roxy is behind whatever is about to happen. In a way, she kind of is, but Kara is completely guilty of talking shit about Joan, so it’s fair she faces the music.
Instead of fessing up, Kara tries to weasel out of the confrontation by telling Joan it’s “her policy” not to speak about other people: “I hate the rumour mill.” But then she admits she did tell Ann about the drunken dinner party. And Roxy heard it elsewhere, too. Kara’s “policy” doesn’t hold up. Joan doesn’t yell, but she lays down the law. “I cannot allow people to treat me like this,” she says. Rather than apologize, Kara falls back on her main talking point, the AMBI Gala invitation. Bad timing.
While Joan and Kara are outside talking, the women start a wager on who they think will win the fight. Everyone puts their money on Joan. When Kara notices the cash on the table and learns everyone bet against her, you can see a realization that this whole Housewives thing isn’t going her way wash over her face.
The episode ends with Ann and Kara at 5 Elements, the same Yorkville coffee shop where Jana and Grego met earlier in the episode. These producers are getting lazy. It’s also becoming painfully obvious that the only automobile they know how to get a camera crew into is an SUV stretch limo. In this episode alone, Kara takes this party bus of a vehicle from Rosedale to King West for lunch, and women in groups of two or three take SUV limos from the Beaches to King Street and from downtown to a golf course in Brampton first thing in the morning. No one in Toronto does that.
Anyway, over coffee, Kara gives Ann an urgent update on the AMBI Gala line-up (Aretha Franklin is out; Earth, Wind and Fire are in) and tells her she is no longer coming to Spain. She has a list of excuses: doctor’s orders related to her “broken rib,” she has to watch the kids, AMBI duties. Ann isn’t buying it, and eventually Kara admits she just doesn’t feel like travelling with the other women.
In that moment, you almost feel sad for Kara. But then she invoices Ann for a $25,000 table that she hasn’t committed to yet, and you realize Kara isn’t torn up over losing friendships; she’s just upset she’s losing ticket sales.
. What are the CRA’s tax rules on trading charity dollars for reality-TV screen time?
Back at the golf course, Jana has dressed Joan, Roxy and Grego in “Joga Girl” uniforms and recruited them to help her lead a 16th-hole stretch for the men playing in Gregg Zaun’s charity golf tournament. This seems like the type of friend activity you agree to after a few glasses of wine then really regret the morning it arrives. Roxy is the most vocal about it: “I’d be happy to provide her with marketing advice or business help, not stretching in front of men on the 16th hole. It’s not my thing.” I hear that.
Things get worse for Roxy when Joan decides to confront her. She thinks Roxy made up the rumours to get Joan to be upset with Kara. This is the first time we have seen Joan angry on this show, and she does it well. Sweet, Forgiving Corporate Wife Joan is gone, replaced by Fierce, Determined Joan. She is going to get to the bottom of this.
Next, all the women get together for a group lunch at Patria. Ann is hosting the lunch so she can invite the other women on a trip to Barcelona, where they would act as models for Ann’s plastic surgeon husband, Stephen Mulholland, in a sales presentation of a new fat-sculpting laser machine. Come on. Not only is this a convoluted, self-promotional trip, even by Housewives standards, but also who can forget the “instant rhinoplasty” Stephen did on his model during the first episode of the season? It was horrifying. Ann, didn’t your mother ever teach you it's rude to bribe your friends with a vacation so they'll have their fat sculpted on television to help you sell procedures (and financing)? Yet, all of the women agree. Barcelona for a weekend of fat sculpting it is!
When Kara sits down for lunch, she begins to realize that she is on the outs with the other women. The hellos are stunted and the eye contact is awkward. When Joan asks her to step outside to talk, Kara shoots Roxy a glare on the way out, like she knows Roxy is behind whatever is about to happen. In a way, she kind of is, but Kara is completely guilty of talking shit about Joan, so it’s fair she faces the music.
Instead of fessing up, Kara tries to weasel out of the confrontation by telling Joan it’s “her policy” not to speak about other people: “I hate the rumour mill.” But then she admits she did tell Ann about the drunken dinner party. And Roxy heard it elsewhere, too. Kara's "policy" doesn't hold up. Joan doesn’t yell, but she lays down the law. “I cannot allow people to treat me like this,” she says. Rather than apologize, Kara falls back on her main talking point, the AMBI Gala invitation. Bad timing.
While Joan and Kara are outside talking, the women start a wager on who they think will win the fight. Everyone puts their money on Joan. When Kara notices the cash on the table and learns everyone bet against her, you can see a realization that this whole Housewives thing isn’t going her way wash over her face.
The episode ends with Ann and Kara at 5 Elements, the same Yorkville coffee shop where Jana and Grego met earlier in the episode. These producers are getting lazy. It’s also becoming painfully obvious that the only automobile they know how to get a camera crew into is an SUV stretch limo. In this episode alone, Kara takes this party bus of a vehicle from Rosedale to King West for lunch, and women in groups of two or three take SUV limos from the Beaches to King Street and from downtown to a golf course in Brampton first thing in the morning. No one in Toronto does that.
Anyway, over coffee, Kara gives Ann an urgent update on the AMBI Gala line-up (Aretha Franklin is out; Earth, Wind and Fire are in) and tells her she is no longer coming to Spain. She has a list of excuses: doctor’s orders related to her "broken rib," she has to watch the kids, AMBI duties. Ann isn’t buying it, and eventually Kara admits she just doesn’t feel like travelling with the other women.
In that moment, you almost feel sad for Kara. But then she invoices Ann for a $25,000 table that she hasn’t committed to yet, and you realize Kara isn't torn up over losing friendships; she's just upset she's losing ticket sales.){kind=link}