Married to Medicine: Houston
“I Left My Heart in San Antonio”
December 30, 2016
We’ll take care of Dr. Erika’s story — if you can really call it that — first. Dr. Erika meets Derek at Croissant Brioche over in the Village for lunch where Derek talks about what specialities he’s drawn to (colorectal); Dr. Erika humors him by smiling and listening politely before laughing in an interview that he’s too early in his residency to have any idea what he’s talking about, the dear thing; and then Derek starts going on about wanting to one day move back to Abilene because there’s nothing better than having cows, driving tractors, and shooting guns off the back porch.
Isn’t there, though?
Dr. Erika smiles and nods along at this, too, because even though Abilene isn’t exactly a plastic surgery hub and she could give two sutures about living near cows, there’s no point in starting a fight over it, he’s only two years in what will be at least a five year residency and he might be singing a different tune when he suddenly remembers that Abliene doesn’t have any Kata Robatas or professional football teams or Anvils or Cucharas sure, why not. Sounds like a great, albeit gunsy, place to raise kids.
In other relationship news, Dr. Monica decides to fly to San Antonio in a torrential storm (and for those of y’all reading this who don’t live in Texas, I assure you, the storms we were enduring last spring when this was filmed were NO JOKE) to surprise Imad at his dealership. And if his dealership gets a little free publicity out of it, so be it!
Imad is not on the showroom floor when Dr. Monica arrives, so she and another dealership employee come up with a plan to hide her behind one of the cars to surprise him. Because I’m sure he won’t notice all the cameras and reality crew milling about the showroom.
Once reunited, Imad shows Dr. Monica the Mitsubishi he’s picked out to give his son upon his graduation — and, again, this is completely spontaneous and absolutely not just free advertising for San Antonio’s Mission Mitsubishi on San Pedro Ave. — before leaving to go grab some dinner.
The next morning, Dr. Monica attempts to be all domestic and make Imad some breakfast despite being, as she explains, not much of a cook because feminism. He responds to this gesture skeptically and sarcastically — which is just how every insecure cook wants to be received. Hot tip, Imad: If you ever want Dr. Monica to cook for you in the future, you could try not being an asshole.
But then something remarkable happens: Dr. Monica and Imad actually have a substantive, productive conversation about the state of their relationship. For whatever reason, Imad chooses now to explain that one of the reasons he hasn’t proposed to her as of yet is because he hasn’t even met her parents after 3 1/2 years of dating. Now, I don’t know if he has ever expressed any interest in meeting her parents before, or if he is just using what is admittedly a very Bad Fact against Dr. Monica to try to make himself look like less of a bad guy, but in any event, DAMN! WHAT? REALLY?
So Dr. Monica calls her mother and leaves a message in her voicemail telling her that she wants to bring her and Imad together over lunch soon. Dr. Monica’s father? Well, he’s a whole other story that will have to wait until another season day.
Later, Dr. Monica and Imad attend Imad’s brother’s birthday party and we get to meet Imad’s large, boisterous, friendly family — all of whom know Dr. Monica quite well, despite Imad never having met her parents. Interesting.
Dr. Monica then enlists Imad’s sister-in-law Suzie to help her plead her case for getting engaged . When Suzie confronts Imad about the fact that 3 1/2 years is SERIOUSLY LONG ENOUGH, he complains that Dr. Monica wants him to pick up and move to Houston tomorrow, she’s not willing to compromise on religion or kids and she can’t cook. Despite all of that, he’s already bought the ring … he’s just not sure he wants to give it to her. So, three steps forward with these two, one step back.
As for the other ladies, it’s finally time for Dr. Ashandra’s big “Havana Nights” fundraiser, which is being held in some event space in Montrose run by yet another of my Facebook-but-not-in-real-life friends, Dutch Small. So many people I don’t really know!
At the space, they meet with Theresa Roemer who shows them the clothes she wants them to model during the fashion show and plot out where they will put the silent auction items. Riveting stuff.
On the day of the fundraiser, Rachel and Dr. Ashandra inspect the venue, have a few minor crises about the silent auction items, receive a call from Dr. Monica explaining that she’s in San Antonio nagging her boyfriend to marry her and can’t be bothered to attend, and then it’s party time.
We get to briefly meet Dr. Ashandra’s adorable parents and sister; Dr. Ashandra explaining that she has her parents to thank for raising her with the expectation that she should do what she could to help the less fortunate — a philosophy that is entirely responsible for everything she is trying to do with this fundraiser.
As for Dr. Erika, she arrives wearing a jaunty fedora at Derek’s insistence, thereby escaping the wrath of Mamacita Maribel, fashion fascist. Speaking of, Mamacita has thoughts on Theresa Roemer’s fashion line: “True and Real,” namely, “No es true, no es real. Nadie can afford it, y es made en China.”
BUT ANYWAY. The fashion show happens, and Dr. Ashandra and Pegah and Rachel do fine. A solid B effort. Needed more Ramona eyes.
In other news, Dr. Elly and Cindi Rose, who is in attendance with none other than daughter Erica, reality show ghost (but they are disappointingly both on their best behavior), both have their eye on the same purse in the silent auction, and Dr. Elly wins because in the end, goodness triumphs over evil.
Finally, Pretty Ricky thanks everyone for attending before announcing that they raised a whopping $14,000 in the silent auction which is, you know, considerably less than $350,000, but hey! It’s $14,000 more than they had when they started this whole thing, so that’s … something! Right?
Married to Medicine: Houston aired on Bravo on Fridays at 8 p.m. But it SHOULD have aired when someone might have actually seen it because it was pretty good.
My favorite part was Cindy Rose buying her own purse back because nobody else wanted it.