"The Real Housewives of D.C." Go to the Goat Rodeo

In the words of the immortal Blanche Devereaux, there is no way to describe how stunned, absolutely stunned I was by tonight's episode of "The Real Housewives of D.C." And I mean that in a good way. I was completely mesmerized by how Tareq and Michaele could sit on the couch and spin their fantastical tales with a straight face. What Andy Cohen, the rest of the Housewives and their mates fail to understand is that nothing is the Salahis fault.

Last week, Lynda refused to breathe the same air as Tareq unless Ebong was by her side. Apparently, Lynda didn't have to cut a bitch, as Ebong was stashed in the wings while Tareq was allowed to join the party solo. Uncle Andy Cohen (so named for all the times he had to give up trying to get any kind of cohesive or coherent explanations from the Salahis about their antics) asked Tareq his thoughts about what he'd been hearing. First in his crosshairs is Lynda, whom he pegs as being obsessed with and jealous of Michaele. Michaele turned on the waterworks once again as the topic of her does-she-or-doesn't-she MS comes up. Lynda tells Tareq to stop pulling joker cards from the deck.

Uncle Andy attempts to break down some of the season's more controversial plot points concerning these so-called ballers. First up, Paul Wharton's party, which the Salahis were to have paid for. They claim Michaele was one of four co-hosts that night and that they donated wine (which the party venue says never happened). Next, why didn't they provide Stacie the letter of credit she asked for before showing them real estate listings? Well, see, Stacie never emailed them about that (even though she asked him twice on tape) and ok, well to be honest the real truth is Stacie knew they were working with another agent. Um, yea, ok.

And speaking of, where do the Salahis live? So there's the residence at Oasis, a farmhouse that's so private that no one knows about it (probably because it doesn't exist.) And what about the house in their audition tape? Well, we sold it, and we were renovating it, which is why there were no pictures anywhere. The other Housewives fire back that the audition house was borrowed and Stacie says there is no record of a deed to any house with the Salahi's name on it. Micheale gets so incensed that their living arrangements and finances are such a hot topic, she wants to know why Cat is living in Lynda's non-existent basement. The explanations about the various lawsuits and bankruptcies that the Salahis are involved in elicit snores from the other Housewives and Uncle Andy chastises the ladies for being unladylike.

The other husbands jump into the fray and the infamous grape stomp dinner is revisited. Tareq trots out his so-called evidence that Mary's daughter was involved with the theft of his car and polo equipment. It consists of a printout of a Facebook post where Lolly made a comment about a hat someone was wearing in a photo. No one can find any evidence of well...evidence that she had anything to do with any theft and Uncle Andy says flat out Tareq's printout proves nothing. Tareq blames Mr. Cabernet and Mr. Merlot for his behavior that night and both Rich and Jason want Tareq to man up and apologize. Michaele claims because they don't know what happened, they can't apologize. After going around the spin cycle 20 times, Uncle Andy has to put a fork in the issue and move on.

We finally get around to Party Crashing 101 as the Congressional Black Caucus dinner comes to the fore. Tareq blames Ted Gibson's husband, Jason for making up stories, says he and Michaele were never escorted from the party, claim they were guests of a law firm, yada, yada, yada. Uncle Andy reads from an email sent by The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation that confirms indeed they did crash the party and they were kicked out. Stacie can't understand why there's never a straight answer about anything and Lynda practically leaps out of her chair yelling, "Goat Rodeo!"

Uncle Andy moves on to the biggest party of them all, the infamous State Dinner. Tareq calls it a series of misunderstandings between them and the White House. Uncle Andy says he read and re-read the so-called email they held up as proof of their invitation and states it didn't look anything like an invitation to him. He calls them out for their "optimism, delusion and chutzpah," and tries ten ways to Sunday to pin those two down on even the smallest shred of truth. Cat can take no more and scrambles out of the sandbox, but Uncle Andy is able to coax her back in.

Cat's White House disinvitation comes up and Michaele finds it hard to believe the "humane" Obama administration would do such a thing. Michaele claims anyone can go to the White House Christmas Party and Cat is horrified to think that Michaele might show up to the White House dressed as "Mother Christmas." Michaele says if indeed Cat was disinvited, it was her own fault since in the first episode she stated she "didn't care for Obama." Boy. For someone with so much love in her heart, Michaele is a stone-cold assassin. Oh - and the reason why they didn't stay for the actual dinner? Michaele doesn't like lentil soup, so they left. I mean...you just can't make this stuff up.

The most disturbing incident involving Tareq occurred during a promotional party for the show. According to Lynda, Tareq was verbally bullying some women at the event and Lynda went over to ask him to keep it down. Tareq, who it seems had invited Mr. Cabernet and Mr. Merlot along for this ride as well, threw a glass of wine in Lynda's face, who retaliated by throwing a glass of water in his, because she "would never waste Scotch" on him. All hell broke loose and Micheale tried to pull Tareq back, who responded by shoving her. The Queen of Denial didn't deny that one and Cat backed up Lynda's version of events. Lynda thinks Tareq keeps Michaele handcuffed to a dresser in the basement (wherever that is) and Micheale claims Tareq was going to call Lynda the following day to apologize and insists he do so right then and there, which he did. Ebong steps up and says had been there that night, Tareq would have been asleep. Oh, Ebong. Why couldn't you have been there?

The night ended on a bittersweet note as Uncle Andy queried the wives as to whether or not they'd want to do it again. Overall, they chalked it up as a positive experience and Uncle Andy was vague on whether or not we'd see the ladies again for Season Two.

And so Season One of "The Real Housewives of D.C." comes to a close and I have to say, I would definitely be up for more. Beats watching those New Jersey gals.