Real Housewives Recap

Real Housewives of Dallas kiss and make up after feisty fight

Real Housewives of Dallas Tiffany Hendra

You don't want to mess with Tiffany Hendra.

Photo courtesy of Bravo

A whole lot of carny kid spilled out of LeeAnne Locken in the opening moments of this week’s episode of Real Housewives of Dallas on Bravo.

LeeAnne grew up working the carnival circuit — as we’ve been reminded in every episode so far — and sometimes her carefully tended glossy veneer as Dallas charity do-gooder slips just enough to see her tough and ornery side.

Continuing from last week’s cliffhanger, LeeAnne is seen stalking angrily out of the all-ladies cocktail party at the now-closed Stephan Pyles restaurant, with bestie Tiffany Hendra close behind. What ticked off charity maven LeeAnne were some uncharitable remarks by ginger spitfire nemesis Brandi Redmond.

Champagne was thrown, ruining the pricey print frock of snooty nose-and-boob-job nurse Cary Deuber. (And not even coming in a close fourth to any of the top three wine tosses in Housewives history.) Calling Brandi “a little piece of trash,” LeeAnne, in a striped jumpsuit, hit St. Paul Street ready for war. “I have two choices: kill the bitch or start crying,” she hisses.

Tiffany misjudges LeeAnne’s mood in this scenario. Instead of calming her friend down, Tiffany gets right in her face and screams, “Don’t you [F-word as a gerund] talk to me like that!”

“I’m done!” LeeAnne screams back.

Now get this: Not a foot away from Tiffany and LeeAnne on the otherwise empty downtown Dallas sidewalk in the dusky light of evening, a small man can be seen making a call on his cellphone. He doesn’t seem to notice the cameras or the two heavily blush-dusted women about to throw down right in front of him. He’s this week’s uncredited cameo, a silent leprechaun who had to make a call right then and there. (Maybe he was dialing 911 in case blood was spilled. Maybe he was calling Uber to get a ride back to actual reality.)

The fight then escalates to non-injurious poking and shoving between the ladies. LeeAnne runs over and whacks the camera capturing footage of this scene. (If there’s anything you don’t do as a TV “real housewife,” it’s make viewers aware that there are cameras rolling.)

Then in a bit of inspired, spontaneous choreography, LeeAnne steps off the curb and is almost flattened by the downtown Dallas trolley. She reacts by punching the trolley, kicking off her shoes and padding barefoot to the other side of the street.

At this point, the soundtrack from Carmina Burana would have been perfect.

Instead, we cut to domestic drama unfolding on some other day at Brandi’s mansion, where her hubster is off on another biz trip while she’s arranging an awkward family reunion for her mother, her long-estranged grandfather, and his wife. All this stuff is boring as bejeebers to watch until, at the reunion backyard barbecue, Brandi’s husband arrives late and drunk and ignores all the company.

The Redmonds’ marriage is in the red zone.

Brandi’s friend Stephanie Hollman, on the other hand, lives in a dream world inside her palatial mansion. Stephanie is a wispy blond who speaks in a sing-songy baby voice, drawing out vowels. Her seventh anniversary date with hubby Travis is “gonna be so romaaaaaantic. Like we’re in caaaaaah-lege.”

For the date they ride in a gold Rolls-Royce to de Boulle jewelers, where Steph picks out a $70K diamond bracelet. “The most beautiful distraction I’ve ever received,” she says.

Later Brandi gets weepy hearing of yet another perfect moment in Stephanie’s perfect marriage. Brandi’s husband bought her french fries and 29 other food items when she turned 30, she recalls. Brandi wants carats, not carrots.

Back to LeeAnne and Tiffany, who resolve their tiff after frosting each other at a clothing drive for Legacy Counseling Center. They meet for lunch and swap kisses and apologies. “We’re gonna sit down and come to Jesus together,” says LeeAnne.

Tiffany explains her angry outbursts toward her friend of 25 years by reminding her that she’s half Japanese and half Native American. “I will scalp you and go Mr. Miyagi,” Tiffany says. Hands up if that offends. Yeah, thought so, too.

We end this week back at Brandi’s, where she’s at the kitchen counter, sawing away on a fresh tomato with a dull knife. She and the not-the-sharpest-knife-in-the-drawer have a lot in common.

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Real Housewives of Dallas airs at 9 pm Mondays for the next five weeks on Bravo.

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Movie Review

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is better than the first but not by much

Blumhouse

Five Nights at Freddy's 2

Blumhouse Productions first made their name with the Paranormal Activity series, establishing themselves as a leader in the horror genre thanks to their relatively cheap yet effective movies. In recent years, they’ve added on “soft” horror films likeM3GAN and Five Nights at Freddy’s to draw in a younger audience, with both films becoming so successful that each was quickly given a sequel.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 finds Mike (Josh Hutcherson) and his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) still recovering from the events of the first film, with Abby particularly missing her “friends.” Those friends just so happen to be the souls of murdered children who inhabit animatronic characters at the long-defunct Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, children who were abducted and killed by William Afton (Matthew Lillard).

A new threat emerges at another Freddy Fazbear’s location in the form of Charlotte, another murdered child who inhabits a creepy large marionette. Mike, distracted by a possible romance with Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), fails to keep track of Abby, who makes her way to the old pizzeria and inadvertently unleashes Charlotte and her minions on the surrounding town.

Directed by Emma Tammi and written by Scott Cawthon (who also created the video game on which the series is based), the film tries to mix together goofy elements with intense scenes. One particular sequence, in which the security guard for Freddy Fazbear’s lets a group of ghost hunters onto the property, toes the line between soft and hard horror. That and a few others show the potential that the filmmakers had if they had stuck to their guns.

Unfortunately, more often than not they either soft-pedal things that would normally be horrific, or can’t figure out how to properly stage scenes. The sight of animatronic robots wreaking havoc is one that is simultaneously frightening and laughable, and the filmmakers never seem to find the right balance in tone. Every step in the direction of making a truly scary horror film is undercut by another in which the robots fail to live up to their promise.

It doesn’t help that Cawthon gives the cast some extremely wooden dialogue, lines that none of the actors can elevate. What may work in a video game format comes off as stilted when said by actors in a live-action film. The story also loses momentum quickly after the first half hour or so, with Cawthon seemingly content to just have characters move from place to place with no sense of connection between any of the scenes.

Hutcherson (The Hunger Games series), after being the true lead of the first film, is given very little to do in this film, and his effort is equal to his character’s arc. The same goes for Lail, whose character seems to be shoehorned into the story. Rubio is called upon to carry the load for a lot of the movie, and the teenager is not quite up to the task. A brief appearance by Skeet Ulrich seems to be a blatant appeal to Scream fans, but he and Lillard only underscore how limited this film is compared to that franchise.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is better than the first film, but not by much. The filmmakers do a decent job of making the new marionette character into a great villain, but they fail to capitalize on its inherent creepiness. Instead, they fall back on less effective elements, ensuring that the film will be forgettable for anyone other than hardcore Freddy fans.

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Five Nights at Freddy's 2 opens in theaters on December 5.

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