Previously: Tom had a dream -- a dream of opening a pizza parlor; Monique was found dead and toothless; plus there was all the dirty dirt from last week (Gabby has a stalker, Alma bought a house on the Lane, Mike ran into CreePaul in prison, and Julie messed with Texas).

This week's theme, as announced by Mary Alice, is all about protection. We start off with a montage of all the Housewives watching some (apparently non-significant, plot-wise) news story about rioting. MA tells us how much "average housewives" worry: they carry pepper spray, they prop baseball bats up by the door, they invest in spendy alarm systems. And suburban housewives aren't the only ones who worry. Why, prison inmates worry, too. We see Mike grinding the end of a toothbrush down to a sharp point so that he can, as MA tells us, "go about his day feeling safe and protected." But despite his orally hygienic precautions, Mike still runs into trouble: he's pumping iron out in the yard when two inmates wander over and start kicking his ass. Mike drops his totally lethal and intimidating barbell and goes for the little pointy toothbrush he's got stashed in his sock. The thugs, no surprise, are not thwarted by the sight of his toothbrush, even after he manages to scratch one of them with it. Mike looks poised for some serious damage when in swoops CreePaul, who whoops the two assailants without even breaking a sweat; prison, it seems, has transformed CreePaul into some kind of super ninja karate hero man. The ruffians turn tail, and Mike (who, as MA pointed out in the previouslies, doesn't even know who CreePaul is, because their whole relationship actually falls inside Mike's two-year memory blackout) turns his doe eyes onto CreePaul and gratefully declares that he is now in CreePaul's debt, to which CreePaul readily, hungrily agrees. MA: "Yes, we all need protection from those who would do us harm. And, sometimes, from those who protect us." Later, we see the two thugs standing around in some corridor. CreePaul appears and does a Big Man On Campus strut up the hallway, flicking them some cash as he passes by. That's right: he staged the whole thing. I wonder, do prisoners often get free rein of prison buildings like that? And also? Again I ask why it is that Mike, who still has yet to be convicted of a crime, is serving hard time in the big house alongside these orange-suited convicts? And the "You Can't Trust Anyone, Not Even the Writers On This Show" music swells.