Pettifleur Berenger has joined the ladies on The Real Housewives of Melbourne

SEX, drugs and pole dancing: the scandalous allegations are flying left and right in this week’s episode of Real Housewives of Melbourne.

And WTF is Lydia doing with Shane Warne?

Last week’s episode of Real Housewives ended with an expositive scene in which Chyka and Janet very sweetly put it to Gamble that she’s a pole dancing, stripping, sex-party hosting lady of the night. Strangely enough, Gamble didn’t take the allegations well.

MORE: Real Housewives ep 1 recap

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As episode 3 opens we’re with Chyka and Lydia, who are catching up for a cocktail. Lydia makes a point of ordering a drink with Kiwi fruit, informing Chyka that it “unblocks you in … all sorts of ways.” Lydia, if you were any more unblocked you’d be a colander.

Cocktails in hand, Chyka lets Lydia in on all the Gamble-goss she’s missed: Gamble had a nasty breakup that went to court and got splashed all over the media. Rumour has it, she used to be a stripper/prostitute/blow-up doll (circle appropriate).

“But there’s more,” Chyka intones ominously.

“Janet said that apparently, Gamble has been involved in sex parties.”

WELL. At the mere mention of sex parties, Lydia throws her head back, her eyes rolled skyward, re-enacting the restaurant scene in When Harry Met Sally:

Across town, Jackie’s filming an ad campaign for Australia’s classiest line of pre-mixed alcoholic beverages (sorry, UDL), La Mascara.

As with most of Jackie and hubby Ben’s business ventures, the whole ad shoot seems a bit ramshackle: you get the feeling they polished off a second bottle of champers that morning then decided to book a studio and just vibe it.

As Jackie preps for her on-camera appearance, it emerges that Ben and Jackie have been pronouncing ‘La Mascara’ differently for at least the past 12 months. Obviously this is the sort of thing that could drive a wedge through even the healthiest of relationships, so Ben decides to have it out once and for all:

Ben: “La MA-scara!”

Jackie: “Lama Scara.”

Ben: “La MA-scara!”

Jackie: “Llama Scarer.”

Ben: “La MA-scara!”

Jackie: “Lime Spider.”

Ben: “La MA-scara!”

Jackie: “…………………….SHINE SHINE SHINE.”

Cameras ready to roll, Ben directs Jackie to her mark.

“Remember, stay on the crack, babe,” he says, the pair both dissolving into giggles at his Are You Being Served-worthy single entendre.

“I’ll focus on YOUR crack in a minute,” Jackie responds with a wink.

The crew shuffle awkwardly, no doubt wondering exactly how long it will be until the shoot devolves into an enthusiastic bout of pegging.

Over in her penthouse, Pettifleur sits down to a pot of tea (there’d better be Kahlua in that, Pettifleur, or your Housewife membership is under review) with her gal-pal Charlotte.

“Charlotte is a very good friend on mine,” she explains. “She … does my eyebrows.”

That’s not all Charlotte does. Seems Pettifleur has enlisted her eyebrow-waxer to help pen her upcoming self-help bestseller, Switch the Bitch.

But this isn’t the average meeting between co-authors. It appears that, rather than collaborating on the no-doubt brilliant tome, the pair had previously agreed to go off and write exactly half of the book each, without — and here’s the clincher — first coming to an agreement of what the book was about. Rookie error. It does, however, make for an awkward moment when they compare notes on their respective half-books:

“Mine is an instructional guide to women to say, this is how, this is the formula that you need to do that ultimate dance of love and capturing the heart of the man that you want,” Charlotte stammers.

“Absolutely,” says Pettifleur.

“And my book is absolutely 100% in how to switch the bitch, hence the title, Switch the Bitch. Why call it Switch the Bitch? Because we need to switch that. We need to be that proud, fabulous, self-satisfied bitch.”

It’s clear they’re both speaking nonsense — and that they’re each speaking a very different kind of nonsense to each other. So, like Lennon & McCartney and S2S before them, Charlotte and Pettifleur agree to go their separate ways, citing creative differences.

Pettifleur’s not too fazed about losing her co-author though: she still believes the book’s going to be a “bestseller around the world.” First order of business? A Chinese translation, because “there are a lot of crazy Chinese bitches out there.”

Charlotte face suggests she might be used to talking to a certain crazy bitch herself:

With tensions rising between Gamble and Janet, the two meet to have it out with (read: shout over the top of) each other. In private? What are you, high? At a fashion parade of course. As soon as Gamble arrives, she and Janet immediately start SCREECHING WILDLY at each other like a couple of Botoxed Rhesus macaques. ‘You’re a LIAR,” is Gamble’s opening line to Janet — a simple hello would’ve sufficed. Janet doesn’t take the attack well:

Then we’re straight back into those rumours about Gamble’s home life, which it now appears Gamble is convinced Janet made up herself — despite Chyka being the one who initially brought them up.

Gamble: “You called me a pole dancer! A f*cking pole dancer!”

Janet: “I did not! I said you were a STRIPPER.”

We’re getting into Showgirls-esque territory here, but before Janet can explain the differences between the two occupations, Gamble lets loose with some dirt of her own:

“I know a heroin addict who says you f**k for heroin. I’ve got his NAME. So don’t f**k with me darling, I’ve done some research on you. I’m gonna destroy your life too!”

Wow — this is a pretty huge allegation. Is Janet Roach, high society lady, doting mother and successful property developer, secretly a heroin-addicted sex maniac? Erm, no. In an aside to camera, Gamble lets us in on her cunning plan: When in doubt, just make some really awful sh*t up on the spot.

“I’ve got a hothead. I don’t always think about what I’m saying. I thought I’d make up something about Janet to make her feel as bad as what I felt,” she shrugs.

Innocent bystander Jackie gives her verdict on the whole sorry mess:

“I was hearing one thing, hearing another … I’m still trying to figure it out. I will tell you one thing: She was f**ken fumin’, mate!” Ah, Jackie Gillies, the Alf Stewart of Real Housewives of Melbourne.

As the girls continue to squabble, Gina shows up, heralding her arrival by sneaking up on Gamble and grabbing her bum. Gamble doesn’t even flinch at this sudden grope from an apparent stranger, which really does nothing to quell all those stripper rumours.

Sensing tension, Gina sidles up to Gamble, asking her how she’s feeling about the gossip Janet’s whipped up.

Gamble: “I need a lawyer. It’s serious, sweetie, it’s quite serious.”

Gina: “We’ll catch up.”

Just when you thought ‘I hear you f**k for heroin’ was as weird as this show could possibly get, entire stage right, cricket hornbag Shane Warne. He’s enlisted close personal friend Lydia to take part in a celebrity poker tournament to raise money for his charitable foundation.

Barely a minute into their ‘poker lesson’ and Shane’s away, exhibiting the sort of international playboy sweet-talking that snagged him Elizabeth Hurley:

“You’ve got an advantage of being a female, a good-looking, attractive female, so straight away when you sit at a table you can intimidate your players,” he says.

Hear that, fellas? She’s a top bird, this little sheila.

Outside of Shane’s solid-gold moves, this ‘Lydia learns poker’ diversion is a bit boring to be honest — we kept ourselves entertained by inspecting Warnie’s much talked-about facial tightness. In fact, we’re not actually sure whether this is Shane Warne or if Janet’s just had a haircut.

In the interests of giving Chyka something to do, we next visit her house where she’s clearing out her giant walk-in wardrobe with the help of her daughter Chessie (which autocorrected itself to ‘Chess’ FOUR TIMES before we were able to write it properly, so is definitely a real name).

Why exactly is Chyka’s wardrobe so big? Because it’s her son’s room, silly. Yes, Chyka last year forced her teenage son BJ (these kids … what names) to vacate his bedroom so she could have more room to store her scarfs and hats. But you know what, she put some newspaper down in the laundry and BJ is just THRIVING.

Like ‘Lydia learns poker’ before it, ‘Chyka cleans out her cupboard’ is probably not going to make the end-of-season highlights reel though, is it? Come on Housewives, get back to the bitching.

In a restaurant across town, Janet meets her slightly terrifying pal Manuela for lunch. This is how she describes this dear friend: “Manuela is one of Melbourne’s elite. I often say that I’m friends with Manuela because I’m too scared to be enemies with her.”

She’s also the sort of friend who tells you when your clip-in hair extensions are a bit ratty:

“It’s a bit uneven. Didn’t do a good job,” she sniffs as Janet proudly shows off her Britney-circa-2007 weave.

The episode ends with another power-bitch-gossip-meet-up, as Gina and Gamble meet for dinner to discuss all those sexy sexual sex rumours and how they can best extinguish them.

“If I’m about to get married, the worst thing you can say is that I’m the Queen of the Sluts,” says Gamble, who’s apparently decided if she’s going to be called a prostitute, she’ll at least take a royal title too.

Gina feeds Gamble ideas: Janet’s jealous. She’s trying to destroy you. She’s out to get you. I’ve got your back. It’s hard not to feel like Gina’s just trying to settle some of her old scores with Janet, and using Gamble to do so.

“Do you want me to talk to her?” Gina asks, her face lighting up at the prospect of a slanging match with her best frenemy.

“Confronting Janet about Gamble may well ruin that friendship, but I think it’s difficult to maintain a friendship with someone that lacks integrity,” Gina says, setting the stage for a big showdown next week.

NEXT WEEK: Gina confronts Janet about Gamble, and Janet immediately calls her out: “I don’t think she gives a sh*t about Gamble, to be honest.” JUICY.

The Real Housewives of Melbourne screens 8:30pm Sundays on Foxtel’s Arena Channel.

Check back after each episode for our full recap of the show — and in the meantime, join our recapper Nick Bond on Twitter (@bondnickbond) to debate the correct pronunciation of La Mascara (it’s clearly ‘Lemur Scarecrow’).