There's a lot of metaphysical trickery at play in the second episode of The Real Housewives of Auckland. Michelle tries to turn back time, Angela's healer pulls metaphorical daggers from her body, and the "tide turns" at another disastrous social event.

It begins innocently enough at Gilda's wedding cake mansion, where she has invited Michelle and the badly-behaved Marley over for a doggie playdate. When Marley plays up, Michelle uses that well-known dog-taming trick - threatening to take away the Louis Vuitton.

"You little monster," she chides. "I'm going to get you a cheap lead next time. Really cheap."

Michelle may have been the villain of episode one, but she's keen to start again.

Michelle is rightly concerned that she got off to a rocky start with the other ladies, and floats the idea of a "start-again" dinner party, although she can't resist restating her position on Angela's figure. "She is a plus-sized model, let's face it."

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SUPPLIED The Real Housewives of Auckland march towards instant fame.

Gilda, who appears to have already tired of being on a reality TV show, is not keen to see Angela again.

"If she has a go at me, I will shoot straight back," says Gilda. "Don't forget, I come from the land of AK47s."

"Life stylist" Angela, feeling blue after failing to gel with the wealthier Housewives, heads off to see her "healing practitioner" Karen, who is into crystals and shizz.

SUPPLIED Don't you dare try to style Anne Batley Burton.

"Honey, I can feel the energy," says Karen dramatically. "There are loads of daggers in your back."

Karen connects with Angela's "higher self" and finds a ruddy great tight cord wrapped round her chakra! Undaunted, she reaches in and pulls it out, or is that the daggers she pulls out? It's hard to tell because these things are invisible and also a load of bunkum.

"The message that's coming through for you, honey, is that you are amazing at what you do," says Karen.

Julia Sloane wades back into the "gold digger" cesspit.

Thus inspired, Ang turns up at Anne's Huapai place for afternoon tea (booze) with a rack of clothes and the intention of clearing out the Champagne Lady's wardrobe.

"It's like a weight loss," says Ang, soothingly as Anne sputters like a wet cat. "It's very lethargic."

"What did Angela mean when she said it was lethargic clearing out her wardrobe?" Anne asks the camera. "I think she meant cathartic, heh heh heh."

It's more misery on the second episode of The Real Housewives of Auckland.

Then Julia arrives, which is a relief to Anne because she has zero interest in being styled - even when the clothes on offer are, according to Ang, "more modern looking" than what she usually wears.

Before someone is forced to hide Ang's clothing rack, Michelle rings to invite them all to her start-again dinner party. They bravely agree that this is a lovely prospect, although Ang asks the others to "look after" her.

"I think you're very capable of looking after yourself somehow," says Julia.

GILDA KIRKPATRICK/INSTAGRAM Gilda is over it.

"I don't think you should take clothes to her," says Anne.

On the day of the dinner, Michelle is in the kitchen of her modern Coatesville mansion thinking about how much she dislikes entertaining people at home. She hosts, she doesn't cook, sweetie - there are caterers for that - and when it comes time to sit down for dinner it becomes clear that she can't even be bothered to put the food onto people's plates.

Michelle greets her guests in a pair of, as Lou calls them, "those cheap-as white slippers you get in hotels". Michelle's place is a shoe-free zone, which irritates everyone except Gilda, who doesn't give a f....

Gilda doesn't give a f*** about your insults.

Anne is especially annoyed because she wore her Swarovski crystal sandals with extra crystals on the soles. "I'm going to be really brought down to size," she cries. "I'm small enough, heh heh heh."

Gilda, Michelle and Anne head off on a house tour, leaving the other three in the custom marble bar, which Lou reckons needs "another 20 or 30 bottles" of booze.

Fatal mistake. Just as Gilda is warming to the concept of Angela ("I'm pretty sure behind that pretty face is a pretty person"), Ang is on a mission to get "the real story" on Gilda.

SUPPLIED Gilda reacts to one of Angela's zingers.

After what feels like an hour of inept verbal manoeuvring, Ang finally wrestles a bleeped-out nugget of information about Gilda from Lou. Cue gasps and saucer eyes and much delight.

Seated for dinner, Angela, who clearly does not know how to converse with people on whom she made a poor first impression, asks Gilda whether she's ever had her colours done?

"When you wear the right colours, you look amazing," she says, eliciting eye rolls.

SUPPLIED The Real Housewives of Auckland will hit Kiwi screens on August 22.

Julia whisks Gilda away for "a break", then hits her with a blinder: "I don't think it's Angela you have to worry about. Anne said to me the other day she thinks you're a gold digger."

This is not exactly what happened, mind you, but that doesn't really matter because in the dining room Angela is speaking mysteriously about how "the weather has changed" and "the tide has turned" and we all know to expect the worst.

"I think it's time to get some truths out," Angela says, as Gilda and Julia take their seats.

Gilda thinks this truth is related to the "gold digger" comment, so she attempts to cut Ang off at the pass, explaining that while her ex-husband James Kirkpatrick is 45 years older, her feelings for him are genuine. "I love him. I fell in love with him. It worked for 15 years, we are still best friends."

She can't resist adding, "I'd rather dig gold than dig s...," which is a most excellent line.

Having failed to rile up Gilda, Ang tries to get Lou to spill the bleeped-out secret/accusation, which is not about gold diggers, and may or may not be true, but is bad enough that it has to be bleeped out.

Finally it's out, and Gilda doesn't give a f.... No need for the AK47s.

"I don't care about your bullshit demeanour and your gossipy character and your fake smile and your eyes boop-boop-boop," says Gilda. "Listen, I don't want to be your friend, alright? You'll never be invited into my house, you are never going to be considered a friend of mine."

"It's really hard for you listen, isn't it?" says Ang, evidently believing that there is something "lethargic" about this icky conversation.

"What the f... is wrong with you!" says Gilda.

"Gilda, you're not getting it. All these people are talking about you," says Ang, a puppy with a new chew toy who is about to get her nose smacked.

"Do you know what I heard about you?" says Gilda. "Not a f...... thing."

Angela leaves before dessert is served, Anne comments darkly on another "fabulous night" out with the Housewives, and Julia says she just can't work Angela out.

But Michelle delivers the killer blow to a Housewife trying and failing to fit into Auckland's social scene: "This is Gilda's town."