The glass doors of Villa Rosa slowly come into focus as Adrienne hobbles up to them. She barely has the strength to make it over the lily-strewn moat, but she feels the heat of the cameras at her back and knows she must press forward. This is her last stand, and even if she is riddled with bullet holes, she has to at least try to spill some blood on Lisa’s white carpeting before she goes down for good.

“You guys, Adrienne’s here,” says Mauricio, and the Richards sisters both crane their necks to see the freshly divorced Adrienne Maloof just as she gingerly sets her behooved foot over the threshold. They flock up to her, Kyle going in first to put her arms around her.

“Are you OK?” Kyle asks, as Adrienne’s arm dangles uselessly in the air, forgetting that it was in the middle of attempting a hug.

“Not really,” Adrienne mutters, eyes struggling to stay open like a tiny, disoriented newborn lizard.

“Oh my god,” Kyle guides her back to the couch, pulling the corners of her mouth back into a proportionately reverent pretty-cry. “I don’t understand. What happened?” They sit, and Adrienne covers her face with her hands. “Adrienne, we’re here for you,” Kyle croaks.

Adrienne starts talking, but her words are rambly and not terribly lucid, and they may as well not be. She really doesn’t have to think too hard about what she’s saying at this point, because the main task was just lugging her dark energy through those doors and onto Lisa’s sofa. Camille and some other blonde lady gather around to ogle at Adrienne’s blotchy face, like the incarnation of a Star magazine “CELEBS WITHOUT MAKEUP” spread on a slow news week. In any other context she’d be humiliated, but she’s happy to sacrifice her good looks to prove a point. She has their full attention; she’s been to enough parties with these ladies to know that by this point in the evening they’ve already gone through several dramatic appetizers and are primed for the main course.

“And so it’s tough, because I just got served the papers tonight … ”

“Tonight?” everyone echoes in unison, subconsciously backing away a couple of inches.

“Do the kids know? Did you tell them?” asks Mauricio.

“I talked to them. Yeah, they’re home crying,” Adrienne says nonchalantly. “I just wanted to support, you know … ” she gestures around Lisa’s living room and trails off.

“You know, children are very resilient,” says Mauricio sagely.

Adrienne nods and looks out the window. There’s Lisa, sipping on her rosé, surrounded by her loving husband and her happy friends and her vow-renewing excess. But when Lisa finally looks back and sees her, she quickly glances away, her face suddenly guilt-stricken, robbed of all celebratory glow. Adrienne’s heart leaps a little in her chest.

“What’s important to me is my children,” she continues sanctimoniously, “Obviously, I want to get back to my children.” The other women nod sympathetically — children! So important! — and she feels a surge of nihilistic adrenaline as she lines up her final play as a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills.

“So Kyle,” she glances out the window at Lisa again and makes sure she has her eye as she issues her last will and testament. “I know this is Lisa’s day, and I don’t want to be the downer.” Kyle grabs her hand, reassuring her that walking into an ex-friend’s home during her wedding anniversary just hours after getting served divorce papers is in no way a downer thing to do. “So … congratulate her. For me.”

She looks back out the window, but Lisa is gone.

“Thank you guys,” Adrienne lets her arms fall to her side as the circle surrounds her in one final group hug before her last walk back over the Villa Rosa bridge and back to the gilded shit show from whence she came. “I think it was a good idea to come by.” Truly, Adrienne Maloof had never had a better idea in all her days, but the best was yet to come.