Real Housewives Drama: Rob and Candiace’s Explosive Feud

Remember when our Traitors would giddily hop up and down upon being reunited in the turret? We were all so happy then, we couldn’t even imagine how terrible things would soon become. That joy and camaraderie is gone, replaced by infighting and treachery. Now you could cut the tension in the room with the knife in Lisa Rinna’s back.

As Candiace and Rob reunite for the first time since that betrayal, he tries to explain himself, and she in turn has to defend writing down his name as a “throwaway” vote. It’s of course ridiculous for him to attack Candiace for doing a tamer version of the very thing he did, but at least he has something to counter with so she doesn’t eat him alive. Any trust between them is now gone, but they still have to work together and decide whether to kill again in the night, or recruit a new Traitor to replace Lisa.

Rob doesn’t want to bring in any more Traitors, and Candiace agrees, knowing that he could very well use a new ally to take her out next, so they decide to kill. Since Rob was the one really pushing to not recruit, he lets Candiace lead the charge on who to kill. How chivalrous! Or is it strategic? She’s choosing between Stephen, Natalie, and Colton — the latter of whom Rob is of course most against killing because that’s who he’s closest to. But that’s the very reason Candiace decides to kill him. At first it’s shocking that Rob would let this happen with such little pushback, but then he reveals his master plan: He’s deliberately not telling Candiace that Colton had been spreading her name around, so now his death will point right back to her. He’s handing her a gun that’s really a grenade. I hate where this is going, but admittedly it’s phenomenal gameplay.

After Colton’s death is revealed at breakfast, the castle tries to consider who might have been working with Lisa. Since the Winter Olympics are starting this week, the show synergetically gives us one of our first scenes of Johnny and Tara talking to each other. She thinks it’s Natalie and he thinks it’s Stephen. If you’re itching for more of this pairing, tune in to catch them in Milan. But in another scene, Tara says she’s bad at the game and feels like she has no idea what’s going on — that’s my kind of girl. Tara is going to win this whole thing. That’s the correct energy to have on this show: pure confusion and zero confidence. It led Dolores to victory last season, and my gut tells me Tara will be following in that beautiful tradition.

Meanwhile, the five remaining members of the “Dagger Six” have their sights set on Candiace, largely thanks to Rob pointing them there by saying that her name was the last one Colton said before he was murdered. The drama. But two can play at that game, and at the beginning of the mission Candiace tries her hardest to keep Rob from getting one of the shields. “Rob getting a shield is like me running up a hill. I don’t want it,” she says in her confessional. The group is deciding who will be up for them, and just as they’re about to choose Rob, Candiace awkwardly jumps in to suggest Johnny instead. It’s clunky, and ultimately unsuccessful. Rob, along with Kristen and Mark, all have the chance to find a shield as they head off to a room full of paintings. Meanwhile, the rest of the castle splits up into two teams to re-create the paintings they’re meant to find, posing like they’re in a regional production of Sunday in the Park with George.

After the mission, in which Kristen is ultimately the one to find the shield, Candiace attempts to win Stephen over to her anti-Rob cause. But just as she’s doing this, Rob walks in, and Stephen gives them a moment alone. We’re getting a lot of alone time with the Traitors outside the turret this season, and today of all days they really could use it. Knowing that her name is out there, Candiace accuses Rob of being responsible, but he denies it. Instead, he tells her that Colton was the one saying her name, and she catches his master plan in action. “So when did you know this? Not yesterday?” she asks, and in an attempt to clean up his mess, Rob says he only found out about it this morning. But it’s too late, she has his number, and his nervous smiling as he lies shows that he knows he’s been caught.

He thinks she’s taking this all much too personally, because it’s just a game. “It is a game, and you are a snake,” she fires back. “I see what you’re doing, but I also want you to know, if I get banished tonight, your name is going to come up.” I love a good threat, but what exactly is her plan here? As we know, she’s not allowed to throw Rob under the bus post-banishment, so if anything she likely just means proactively at the roundtable. In any case, points for theatricality, and I’m glad we got this final face-off before a roundtable that they seem to know only one of them will be coming out of.

But before we get to that head-to-head, Johnny kicks off the roundtable by going after Stephen, whom he says Colton tried to warn them about before he was killed. On top of that, Dorinda has some evidence of her own, bringing up last week’s mission when Lisa (who they now know was a Traitor) confusingly chose to put her gold into Stephen’s box. “I didn’t know you two had a relationship like that,” Dorinda said, but Stephen explains that he simply asked her to do that. While I do think this is some of the most compelling hard evidence presented at the roundtable in a long time, it doesn’t stick.

Instead, focus turns to Candiace and how out-of-character her throwaway vote for Rob was, given that she’s normally very consistent in her strong opinions. It was that warning shot that ultimately kicked off her undoing. She tries to change the subject to accuse Rob of being oddly flustered at breakfast, but him dropping his fork isn’t the smoking gun she’s hoping it’ll be. In fact, the move backfires tremendously. The problem is, as Maura points out, now that she’s so clearly targeting Rob, last night’s vote seems like it might have been more than a “trowaway” vote after all. But nevertheless, she persists, accusing Rob of using Colton as a puppet to take out Lisa. “For me, Colton was being used as Rob’s beard,” she says, which is funny because normally Colton’s the one with a beard.

Even with Candiace coming after him in this last-ditch attempt, Rob still feels safe enough to hold on to the Power of the Dagger, which would give him two votes — and he was right to keep it. Sadly for all of those who love entertaining television, Candiace is banished from the castle in a near-unanimous vote. Rob’s bold, traitorous move against Lisa caused her to scramble, and it was that scrambling that was her own undoing.

Now as the last Traitor standing, Rob has a decision to make. Who will he recruit to join his ranks? And how will he use them? Alone in the turret with nobody but the ghosts of Housewives past, he considers whether to bring aboard the most suspicious Faithful — Johnny — to keep the heat off himself, or someone who would be more of an asset in continued gameplay, like Eric or Mark. But Mark’s so boring that I don’t think anyone would even remember he’s there long enough to banish him, so Rob would almost be guaranteed to end up having to split the prize money with him. Instead he decides to seduce Eric. “That handwriting is the Traitor’s and I know whose it is: Johnny,” Eric says upon reading his invitation, proving his eyes to be about as reliable as his “magic ears.”

His senses may be lacking, but the confidence is certainly there, which is why it’s especially fun to see how shocked he is when Rob takes off his hood. But will Eric accept the offer? Or die? Probably the former, but let’s not ruin the suspense of a cliffhanger.