ON last week’s episode of The Real Housewives of Sydney saw a vulnerable Lisa Oldfield, sobbing as she confessed the extent of her marriage problems.

This week, she’s on the attack — and she’s not the only one, making for one of the most explosive fights in Housewives history.

It’s the morning after last week’s breakdown from Lisa, and by sunrise, she’s fled the boat the ladies are all staying on — and abandoned their group Whitsundays holiday altogether.

Last week’s recap: Lisa breaks down

Breakfasting on the deck, Victoria says she thinks Lisa — who announced last episode that she had almost drowned during the holiday before being rescued by a ‘morbidly obese man on an inflatable swan’ — has a problem with the truth.

“She had flippers, snorkel and goggles. I could’ve swum back to shore and I’d had 35,000 champagnes,” she says.

But the lies run deeper, Victoria claims. One minute Lisa’s getting divorced, the next she’s moving with her husband to New Zealand. “Lisa’s story’s very inconsistent because it’s not the truth. When you tell lies, you forget what you’ve said.”

Victoria’s on a roll now.

“It’s attention seeking because as a woman, she’s not actually that interesting. She goes to work surrounded by men, she makes all these off-colour dark comments and they think it’s hilarious. It’s much easier to get along with men — men are so stupid,” she tells Matty.

On the other side of the boat, a few of the other ladies are also talking about their missing member. As the Housewife who knows Lisa best, Nicole theorises that her attention-seeking actions are a “cry for help.” She explains that Lisa is actually very sensitive: “She’s like a raw egg.”

“YES,” Melissa immediately interjects, before Nicole’s even had a chance to expand the metaphor.

As the day wears on, Athena sidles up to Melissa on the deck to rehash the tiff they’d had during the previous night’s dinner. To wit: Athena told Melissa that Victoria had been gossiping about her having an eating disorder. When confronted, Victoria laughed the allegation off as absurd. Melissa seemed to side with Victoria’s version of events.

Athena tries to goad Melissa into discussing her ‘eating disorder’ again, but Melissa won’t even look her in the eyes. She’s clearly had her fill of Athena.

“I don’t want to talk about the whole f**king anorexia thing, I don’t want to talk about it,” Melissa mutters.

She’s clearly uncomfortable, but Athena keeps pushing her. Before long, Melissa storms out, Athena yelling after her to “love herself” and that “the truths hurt.”

“She’s f**kin’ crazy,” Melissa spits as she storms past the cameras.

Athena assures viewers this disastrous confrontation went precisely to plan:

“My plan was to put a spiritual BOMB within Melissa to ignite her SOUL so she can be awakened.”

Something has indeed been ignited in Melissa, who’s angrier than we’ve ever seen her on this show. Matty comes into her cabin to see if she’s OK. Melissa’s raving.

“I learned my lesson; I got stung by the bee. See you later. All of a sudden I’m supposed to support her and go to her art gallery or whatever? All of a sudden we’re an artist? PLEASE.”

Back on dry land, Lisa arrives home from the trip, exhausted and emotionally drained. Her first words to David: “I need a wine.”

His response? “Any excuse, obviously. I don’t understand why you’re here.” Can’t you just feel the love?

Lisa explains that it was “torture” going on holiday with that “bunch of harpies.” But it’s not exactly a picnic at home, either. Passing her a glass of wine, David sneers at his wife: “Drinking alone again?”

Lisa explains that being away from her husband during their wedding anniversary made her realise she needed to get home and sort out their problems, ASAP.

“Right ... so you came home to make my life miserable instead of theirs.”

UGH.

She confesses that, at this point, she doesn’t even know when things started to go wrong.

“I think it mostly started with your love affair with Mr champagne cork.”

UGH UGH UGH.

They agree to see a counsellor, but David already insists he’ll be found free of fault: Anything he’s to blame for, he explains, is actually just a response to her failings as a wife and mother.

ENDLESS UGH, INFINITE UGH, UGH 4EVA.

Across town and in a more harmonious household, Matty is hankering to get a dog for her family. Her two young daughters want one too, but her partner Michael refuses. She knows she’ll get her way, though: “I’m Persian; we always win the battle with the Greeks!”

Then her face does this:

When Michael’s out, Matty sneaks a whole bunch of small yappy dogs into their house for a ‘trial run’ at pet ownership. Her friend, Sydney socialite and occasional former Real Housewives of Melbourne guest star Christa Billich, drops by with her own pooches.

Her dogs come dressed in tutus. Sat in a pram. Pushed by a butler.

Realising that she’s got one shot, one opportunity to upstage the rest of the overpriveliged women on this show, Billich pulls the ultimate badass move: she casually opens a hat box containing her own porcelain dog bowl and utensils, then starts SPOON FEEDING CAVIAR TO HER TUTU-CLAD POMERANIAN.

Matty gathers up her girls and her new posse of dogs and attempts to take them all for a little walk around the block. She makes it as far as her wheelie bin before the onset of a nervous breakdown.

Matty starting the dog walk:

Matty two minutes later:

She’s bedraggled, she’s barefoot, she may have lost at least one dog, her children are screaming, the dogs are screaming, EVERYBODY IS SCREAMING.

“I AM NOT F**KING GETTING A DOG!” she wails at her traumatised children as they retreat into the house.

From one trauma to another: Next it’s Athena’s exhibition at the prestigious Olsen Gallery, and the girls are there to support her — all except for Melissa, who’s in no mood after their holiday run-in.

Athena says having her own exhibition is “a really stressful process — you could potentially completely humiliate yourself in front of everybody.” From now on if you google the term ‘foreshadowing’, it should just show you a gif of this moment.

The night starts off relatively sedately, with gallery owner Tim Olsen welcoming those who’ve come along and Athena giving a very Ja’mie speech to her guests:

“You know, a lot of people think that I am perfect,” she announces, “but I’m far from perfect. I am flawed, just like everybody else in this room.”

Mingling with the other housewives, Athena finds herself facing the same question over and over: Why is Melissa not here?

“You know what? Melissa didn’t want to come because this is too ADVANCED for her. She’s the POT PLANT in the room,” she scoffs. The others are shocked.

Athena’s not finished though: “She reapplies lipstick more than the clock ticks. She’s a has-been guys; when was her latest hit? As an artist, she should be supporting another artist.”

Yes, she just said artists should support other artists in the same breath as labelling Melissa a ‘has-been’.

Nicole tries, as she did last week, to encourage Athena to get to know Melissa rather than insult her. Does she even know what Melissa’s children’s names are?

“HOW CAN I KNOW SOMEONE’S KIDS IF I’VE NEVER F**KEN MET THEM, YA IDIOT,” Athena screams.

“I KNOW THEIR F**KEN NAMES, BUT YA PUT ME UNDER PRESSURE, AND I F**KEN FORGET THE NAMES!!!”

People are staring.

“F**K OFF! I’M SICK OF IT!”

Athena stalks over to another corner of the gallery like a boxer between rounds.

“She’s crazy,” whispers Nicole, wide-eyed. This is not news to Matty: “And NOW you realise? CHEERS,” she says, sipping her champagne.

Krissy follows Athena, the pair getting into a heated discussion while Athena’s husband Panos stands awkwardly between them watching on.

Krissy tries to reason with Athena, who at this point is making little to no sense:

“LOOK AROUND YOU BABY, IT’S ABOUT THE MASKS. I WEAR NO F**KEN MASKS. I AM FREE. NO BIMBO IS GONNA TRY TO INTIMIDATE ME.”

Realising she may catch some crazy by association, Krissy moves away, leaving Athena standing at one end of the gallery by herself, her assembled audience of invited art lovers up the other end watching in horror:

“THIS IS MY TURF,” she bellows at the room. “ATHENA X TURF.” At this point we can only imagine Tim Olsen is furiously rifling through the gallery’s backroom for a tranquilliser dart.

You thought that was a wild scene? Darling, that was just the entree. Main course is coming right up in the form of Lisa, who arrives late and apparently hasn’t stopped drinking since that wine she had earlier in the episode.

“Last time I saw you girls, I had a terrible headache,” she announces on arrival, referring to her early morning flit from the holiday.

Krissy’s not up for such a euphemistic description of Lisa’s emotional breakdown.

“Is that what it was, a headache? So Panadol fixed it?” she asks, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Lisa, who called Krissy ‘Chewbacca’ within minutes of their first meeting and hasn’t warmed to her since, immediately sees red.

“You’re always talking about the big c**ks you’ve sucked, the small c**ks you’ve sucked, ‘Oh I like a bit of anal,’” she tells Krissy.

Not for the first time tonight, Krissy plasters on her ‘I am face-to-face with insanity’ grin:

Continuing on the high road, Lisa then busts out a Krissy impression she’s clearly been practising at home. Grinding on the other women, she mock-moans: “Ooh, I’m Krissy Marsh, I’ve got giant t**s, ooooh look at me.”

“I’m gonna call her what she is,” Lisa says in a piece to camera. “She’s a whore, she’s a slut, she’s a tart, she’s a moll, she’s a F**KING EMBARRASSMENT.”

Krissy is “just a skinny chick with a really bad nose job and s**t fake t**s,” Lisa continues.

She then tells a story about Krissy throwing open the bathroom door on a plane to loudly announce to the cabin she has a “smelly vagina.”

It’s … really bizarre, and about as believable as the existence of that morbidly obese swan-riding man. Krissy rolls her eyes. “You are laughable, Lisa Oldfield, you are laughable.”

“I try and get to know you and all you do is act like a slut,” says Lisa.

Matty steps in, telling Lisa to cool it. Lisa pushes her — PUSHES HER!

At this point, Lisa’s slurring her words. She throws a couple of final f-bombs in Krissy’s general direction, then goes and plonks herself on a seat in the corner, glassy eyed.

Krissy’s had enough too. She kept her cool during Lisa’s entire Rodney Rude monologue, but she’s getting teary now.

“That is vile filth that has come out of that girl’s mouth. She can’t even stand up, she can’t even speak she’s so drunk. Filth, and disgrace, and I think she should all be ashamed of ourselves.”

Picking up her handbag, Krissy turns to deliver the powerful clincher in her speech:

“Can somebody drive me home?”

Next time: It’s Matty’s turn to host a party and her request for peace at her Persian-themed dinner barely lasts past entree. And if you thought Athena was OTT this week, you ain’t seen nothing yet: Next ep, we finally get to see her already-iconic ‘Captain Eyebrows’ insult in all its glorious context.

The Real Housewives of Sydney airs Sundays 8:30pm on Foxtel’s Arena channel — and check back here after the show each week for our full recap. In the meantime, chat all things Housewives with recapper Nick Bond, who writes these recaps from the comfort of a pram while being spoonfed caviar, on Twitter at @bondnickbond.