Real Housewives of Sydney episode 2 recap: First date disaster and a diversity drama

This Real Housewife went on a blind date on camera – and it went so badly she fled into the night to “feed her cat.” Here’s our full recap.

The Real Housewives of Sydney gets a little too real for comfort this week, as a group dinner devolves into a tense debate about what it means to be a good mother.

And while last week, Caroline found herself in the middle of a “porn star” drama, this week, it’s her own bizarre stand against diversity that lands her in hot water.

Kate's first date disaster

Before all that, happily single Dr Kate heads out on a blind date – a usually fraught activity that she insists she just “loves” (for real? … freak).

Look, Kate may have high standards: last episode she revealed she recently dumped a guy for the mortal sin of wearing a short-sleeved shirt to a formal event. And as her date Adam approaches, it seems she’s once more being a little picky.

Medically, this is known as “getting the ick”

She complains about the poor guy’s height – doll, it’s 2023! We stan a short king! – but once he opens his mouth, I’m firmly Team Kate.

He doesn’t drink – “I’ve got PT at 6am” he humblebrags – making her immediately self-conscious about the negroni she’s ordered.

A blind date with only one person drinking makes for a dangerously uneven playing field – at least two pre-dinner cocktails per person should be mandatory.

Adam then tells her about his main interest in life: Taking daily ice baths. Each morning, he leaps out of bed and jumps into a bath of ice “for integrity,” he tells her, with the wide-eyed zeal of someone who clearly believes all of life’s problems can be solved by plunging into a bucket of freezing water.

I would save him in my phone as ICE BATH BLIND DATE DO NOT ANSWER

Then come the six words that should strike fear into the heart of any woman on a blind date:

“Have you heard of Joe Rogan?”

Adam explains that podcasting bro Rogan does the ice baths “to control his inner bitch,” and judging by her face, Kate’s having a hard time controlling hers right now:

Bracing herself for his inevitable lecture about Bitcoin

“I try very hard to look at the good in everyone – but oh my f**king god, make this be over,” she says (not to his face, sadly).

Nevertheless, she persists, asking him what other interests he has.

His answer: “Holotropic breathwork.” Taxi!

Kate brings the date to a swift end with the best lie since Romy’s “I cut my foot earlier and my shoe is filling up with blood”: “OK, well, I’d better get home and feed my cats. I will … see you around Bondi.”

Not if she can help it.

Kate also provides another pre-group-scene highlight this week, meeting up with Caroline to divulge more details of her pre-season feud with OG Sydney Housewife Krissy Marsh.

Krissy, she explains, was a rude customer at her Bondi vet clinic, and now appears to have no memory of them ever having met. She estimates they’d met “seven times”, and that Krissy would come into her clinic loudly talking on the phone and speaking to her dismissively as though she were ‘the help’.

Behaviour like that? From an unspeakably rich woman who lives in Double Bay? I’m sorry Kate, I just can’t picture it.

She begs Caroline not to bring up her past Krissy encounters with the other women; she just wants to forget their past and try to start afresh.

Caroline’s face … oh you’d better believe she’ll be bringing it up:

“Of course I won’t babes” *Immediately tells everyone she's ever met*

HAD (Housewives Against Diversity)

Nicole’s hosting a group dinner at her house this week, celebrating her heritage with a Lebanese feast. Victoria’s first to arrive, wearing a fur stole that we have to assume is real after she proudly revealed last episode that she uses real fur in her boutique clothing label.

Truly the Cruella de Vil of Rushcutters Bay

A trailer for the rest of the season reveals that this will later become a point of contention with some of the other Housewives – perhaps by that point she’s threatening to skin them and wear them as a coat.

Over dinner, Krissy raves to the rest of the group about her 15-year-old daughter’s recent runway modelling debut. She explains that her daughter Milana was part of a diverse runway show: Models of different sizes, ages and ethnicities.

Surprisingly, Caroline wrinkles her nose at the very notion.

Finally, someone bravely standing up for hot white people

“Is this the ‘diversity’ thing? I don’t know about this. If I want to see a mix [of people] I can just go to Westfield,” she announces, as jaws drop around the table.

“Averageness does not need to be celebrated.”

Sally valiantly tries to give Caroline a brief explainer on representation and how it, y’know, matters. “You can’t be what you can’t see,” she tells her.

"Oh, that's not-"

“How far are we going to go with this?” asks Caroline. “All the way? I agree with global diversity, 100%. But at a fashion show … do we have to … do the whole thing?”

Got it. Caroline “agrees with global diversity” – no, I have no idea what that even means either – but draws the line at “doing the whole thing” on a catwalk.

Real Housewives gets a little too Real

Having taken a stand against diversity, Caroline then announces apropos of nothing that she’d never dream of letting any child of hers model before the age of 18 – to allow it any earlier, as Krissy literally just has? Well, that’s just bad parenting.

Krissy’s not happy, but then she takes a jab of her own, lecturing host Nicole that she’s been too overprotective with her own teenage daughters in not letting them have social media before the age of 18.

Nicole says she’s glad she’s been able to shield them from the perils of social media – but then Terry jumps in to say that, actually, a parent’s job is to monitor their children’s social media rather than ban it outright.

"Who invited these women? Oh yeah, I did"

So Nicole hits back at Terry, pointedly telling her that parents who work don’t actually have time to do that.

Then Caroline wades back in: “You make the time. Otherwise, don’t have a child.”

Dear god. It’s the world’s worst party game: Everyone turn to the woman on your right and tell her why you think she’s a crap mum!

From there, it gets even heavier, with Kate announcing that she’s the child of a working mother – who she resents to this day. The other women fall silent as she insists that both her parents were “terrible.”

"Mind if I lighten the mood by burdening you all with my unexamined childhood trauma?"

“My mum can do seven gazillion things, but she can’t pack a lunch, so she just wasn’t a very good mum,” she states matter-of-factly.

It visibly rattles several of the working mothers at the table, who worry their own children will grow up with Kate’s same resentments.

It’s a weird, heavy dinner, with a succession of increasingly personal clashes, in a franchise where characters usually argue about very trivial topics.

There’s only one thing to break the tension – bring in the saxophones!

Boys where were you, this is an emergency

As the dinner ends, Krissy takes some jabs at Kate, asking her about dating as a single person – “how many [men] would you ‘run’ at the one time?” she asks pointedly.

Kate says she can feel the judgement dripping off Krissy’s questions.

“What I’ve learned about married people is they all want to live vicariously through me … and they all have a f**king opinion.”

And it seems like Krissy vs. Kate really explodes in next week’s episode, as the girls unite for one of Sydney’s most time-honoured activities: getting out on the harbour to sail around in circles while competitively binge-drinking.

New episodes of The Real Housewives of Sydney air Tuesdays on Binge and Foxtel, and we’ll recap all the wildest moments from each episode here on news.com.au each week.

Originally published as Real Housewives of Sydney episode 2 recap: First date disaster and a diversity drama