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I've been trying to figure out how Aviva Drescher is going to hold her own on this season of The Real Housewives of New York. She's happily married with children, and she seems relatively laid back, not one to dive into the drama -- not exactly the makings of an interesting Housewife. Tonight her role became a little more clear -- she's an instigator.

She doesn't want to be in the firing line, but oh does she like to see those shots go off. Tonight the flames she was fanning were those between Ramona Singer and LuAnn de Lesseps.

Though they've feuded long and hard over the years, Ramona and The Countess finally seemed to have reached some sort of truce, but Aviva was out to put an end to that. True, LuAnn's move at the wine party was low (where is her etiquette book?) -- trying to trick Ramona with her own wine. I'm sure they were hoping she'd criticize it, saying it sucked or something. 

And she did, a little, but not too badly. When the big reveal was made, Ramona, surprisingly, was a good sport. She made a joke, poured herself a big ol' vat of pinot, and was ready to let the whole thing go. Aviva was not.

She carried her outrage over the event during their trip to Miami. The one where Aviva totally left out LuAnn and Heather Thomson even though she thought it was so rude of Heather for leaving Ramona out when it came to London. Not sure how she can justify that, but anyway, there they were in Miami at dinner, with some vulgar hot dog in front of Aviva, and Aviva just had to start stirring the pot.

"I think it was really below the belt," Aviva told her, then started rehashing and bashing the whole thing. Suddenly, Ramona started thinking that maybe she really should be mad too. "I don’t know why she goes out of her way to do such mean things to me," she said of LuAnn, with storm clouds brewing in her eyes.

So you know there's going to be a confrontation about that coming up soon, one that could have been avoided if Aviva had just left things alone. It's one thing to have a friend's back; it's another to try and rile someone up -- especially someone so easily riled as Ramona.

Previews show plenty more confrontations this season, and it will be interesting to see how the sides settle. While Aviva and Ramona are chummy now, it doesn't look like that's going to last. Mostly, I hope to see Carole Radziwill take LuAnn to task for being the phony, "friend jumping" one-upper she is. That whole dress borrowing request from Carole's friend was so classless it was almost comical.

And talk about trying to stir things up ... I can't wait for Sonja Morgan to meet Aviva's dad. He's a character (and a sex addict), and I'm not sure if even Sonja can handle him or why Aviva would want her to. But I can't wait to find out. And for the first time, I'm feeling like maybe this season of RHWONY might not be a total waste after all. Let's see if they can keep it up ... as well as Aviva's dad apparently can.

Do you think Aviva was just trying to stir up trouble between Ramona and LuAann? Do you think LuAnn trying to trick Ramona was mean or all in good fun?

Image via Bravo