Tag: The Real Housewives of Potomac

At the moment, my favorite non-reality television series is HBO’s Industry. I love it for all the reasons that everyone else does, but beyond that, I am enthralled by the premise of a show heralded by a woman who we know from day one is committed to making her life better at the world’s expense, and is willing to claw her way to the top by hook or by crook alongside the caravan of Machiavellian schemers she calls colleagues and mentors. Without a doubt, Harper Stern is my favorite evil Black woman on television right now. When she peers down in slight aggravation as a client strokes out in front of her, I can only gasp in awe at her and her boho braids of doom.

While Harper is the example of Machiavellian plotting wielded for maximum enjoyment, Potomac’s Gizelle Bryant shows how that same kind of scheming, executed poorly, just amounts to misery for all parties involved. It is a wonder of wonders how she can take an incident that rightfully infuriates her — subpar accommodations from the host — and somehow be so insufferable about it that I still find her in the wrong. Still, her ultimate problem is that her lack of tact or consideration propels her to escalate something way beyond any reasonable measure. Is it appropriate to be frustrated with Angel about the subpar accommodations and hosting failures? Absolutely. Is it worthwhile, entertaining, or productive to sit in a private jet and berate Angel for over 30 minutes about the issue, without giving a word in edgewise? Not as far as I am concerned.

Therein lies the conundrum of the show — Gizelle is the most propulsive member of the cast and its anchoring force, and without Karen in play to really keep her in check, the vibe and tenor of the cast accommodates her whims. Multiple women later sheepishly admit that the pile-on of Angel while she was trying to show them the Aspen experience was overkill, but it was almost entirely in the confessionals, not in person. Angel was left to endure the barrage that she was clearly attempting to apologize for on her own, while Wendy leapt to get in unnecessary jabs in edgewise. Not only was this remarkably unpleasant to watch, but it further cements Gizelle as the cast’s gravitational nucleus for the foreseeable future.

Angel undoubtedly made numerous unforced errors that created this issue, but at this point, she is fully backed into a corner and fighting for her life. She’s being penalized for not being open about her marriage, when they refuse to accept any remarks she gives about her family life as fact; she’s held to the fire over having alliances and friendships, which they all do; caviar bumps (which are a known trend) are unhygienic and classless. She’s berated for assuming that the workers were telling her the truth when they reported the water was back, and for not hearing anything to the contrary from the women, which is a hosting failure but not the most egregious transgression in the world.

All of this ire would be way more understandable to me if Potomac had a reputation for glamorous cast trips, but we all know that is far from the truth, which is why they continue to recycle the same footage from Cannes and Nevis when Gizelle insists that her standard is the Four Seasons, a hotel chain that we haven’t seen her in once in the last 10 years. Now we have to humor her delusions about hosting top-tier trips, all because the women are afraid to tell her that she has beaten the dead horse already and is now just spouting delusions. It’s in moments like this where it becomes more obvious than ever why Karen is a necessary oppositional force to cut things like this at the quick.

It’s a shame, because the day that Angel put together was quite lovely: a private jet to Aspen and private whiskey tasting, a shopping trip to Kemo Sabe and private catered lounge, and an extended linkup with Mo where all the women contemplated how much they valued a friendship with Kyle Richards over a night with Aspen’s most eligible mid-life crisis. In concept, the effort should have helped put the women in better spirits, but the women have committed to critiquing every part of this experience, from Monique demanding that Angel answer for her marriage in their second meeting ever to Gizelle blatantly looking past Angel in disgust when she finally breaks down in tears. Nothing about this is entertaining, and by the time they finally go on the shopping trip, I am ready for them to wrap this all up and head back to Potomac. Angel is audibly contemplating whether she should end her journey with these women in Colorado and save herself the headache.

By the time things wind down and Angel starts to lay out the itinerary for the next day, Gizelle makes her final coup and announces that not only will the girls be going to the Four Seasons, but they will be heading back to Maryland after brunch, and puts the plan up to a vote. It’s a shameless power play, and an unmerited one by any definition. If Gizelle didn’t leave Miami when Mia got drunk and assaulted Wendy, and stayed in Austin while Ashley had them literally dancing with chicken shit while staying in a souped-up Hampton Inn, there is no way she can reasonably convince me that she cannot endure one more day of activities. But left unchecked, the power that Gizelle has over the cast and the show has the potential to corrupt her absolutely. While most of the season has been an entertaining success, this episode showcased the downside of Gizelle’s dominance, creating fertile ground for Karen’s inevitable return. The trip comes to a miserable end next week. See you all then!

• Even on an episode that doesn’t center on Stacey, she manages to steal the show. Accidentally eating her contacts? I have been wearing glasses and contacts since the ‘90s, and that is absolutely a singular experience, although I will be saying “20/20 bootyhole” to myself for quite some time.

• Did we always know that Ashley met her ex-husband, Jack Skellington, at a “membership lounge”? For a second there I thought she was trying to bring Mia back into the group.

• I get that Jassi really wants a moment to shine on the show, but every time she tries to bring up her marriage as a reference point for anything on the show, I cringe in secondhand embarrassment. There’s no way in this universe or the next that she genuinely believes that her wrangling babysitters for her husband’s harem of co-parents is in any way akin to a breastfeeding mother needing to figure out how to adjust childcare plans for the night.

• I’ve tried to ignore commenting on this because, for the most part, she has been pulling off the looks, but after the stiletto boots, enough is enough. Why is Wendy trying to put on a fashion show to go to Colorado? Go to Designer Shoe Warehouse, get a sensible heel, and keep it pushing.

• A short chartered flight is a lot less expensive than I thought. I’m not saying I’m about to fly to the Hamptons every weekend, but it’s definitely more attainable than expected.

I can’t believe it’s been over six years since the infamous barn fight between Candiace and Monique. It honestly feels like a lifetime ago that we saw Monique latch onto Candiace’s wig and summarily fight her way out of a job, but in retrospect, not all that much has changed. Sure, everyone is divorced now, and Candiace has taken her talents for histrionics out of the music studio and into the podcast mic for the time being — but we have the same President, Ashley remains as messy as ever, and Gizelle still won’t bring a man on camera. Some truths remain immutable in the Potomac universe.

I can be honest and admit that at the time, I was a bit clouded in my distaste for Candiace’s antics in a way that probably let me give Monique a bit too much grace about the situation. For one, the franchises are no strangers to violence: RHONJ occasionally serves as a WWE undercard, depending on the season; Salt Lake City has thrown more drinks in people’s faces than Susan Lucci; and Atlanta couldn’t even keep a slumber party peaceful. During this period, the ladies of Potomac still held onto a delusional pretense that they represented a specific style of Black upper-class genteel that had long been abandoned – the cast may be products of Jack and Jill, but the show is no The Gilded Age. And so once the fight actually aired, over a year after the fiasco had already leaked to the press, we spent an entire season being beaten over the head with the insistence that the cast was above this.

While I can now recognize that what Monique did was an unacceptable escalation of interpersonal issues in a workplace (which is what the show is, after all), her reunion performance will remain an all-time moment in not just Potomac, but Housewives history simply because she broke the show. Fully knowing she was on her way out, she summarily dismissed Gizelle with the binder moment that aired all over the world (Karen asking “is Jamal coming” with sardonic satisfaction remains etched in my cerebellum), but more importantly forced everyone to acknowledge that despite her being the deserved target of the reunion, all of the women have skeletons in their closet that they were unwilling to confront. Gizelle was reunited with a man who had embarrassed her numerous times with his penchant for skirt-chasing; Robyn was in an endless engagement with a now-husband who, then and now, seemed to barely humor her; Karen is a sugar-baby turned breadwinner who could be found at any watering hole in Potomac; Ashley was married to the personification of the grim reaper.

All of the women were trapped in their own cages of misery, trying to make Monique look like the primary cause for their own distress. Monique very much needed to leave, but the chaos she left behind, while occasionally resulting in uneven, stilted television, forced the women to acknowledge their own shortcomings in her absence. Ashley could no longer hide her disaster of a marriage; Robyn’s permanent state of melancholy became unavoidable; Chris Bassett was unable to hold a job longer than a season. I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to say that women seem to be in 10 seasons is at least partially influenced by Monique wiping the slate clean on her first ousting.

Monique’s penchant for forthrightness, almost to the point of abruptness, is what makes her reintegration to the cast fascinating already. Thankfully, she makes no bones about addressing the elephant in the room, namely, the state of her divorce. It is no secret that Housewives can be taxing on any marriage, but often we hear it from the perspective of women who come on the show to build a career and a platform to split safely. Monique, however, freely admits that being on the show kept her marriage alive for years longer than it should have. Judging from her original run on the franchise, I fully believe that she held onto her marriage out of spite; at that time, there was no way she was going to let Gizelle have one up on her, and the image of her successful Black family with numerous houses, investments, and businesses was her ultimate trump card.

It was refreshing to hear the women reflect on that time without the show turning into a forlorn “very special episode.” Gizelle being able to acknowledge the strain she recognized in Monique’s marriage coming from the side of a divorcee is a conversation Monique simply would not have been able to receive five years ago, and I think it’s healthy that both women recognize that. I don’t know if we’ll get Gizelle to admit on camera that Monique gave her a run for her money at that reunion, but we’ll take the small victories where we can.

Unfortunately, Gizelle and Monique finally finding common ground is not the animating vehicle they are using to structure Monique’s return to the group. Nor are Monique and Wendy finally attempting to establish a relationship outside of Candiace’s sphere of influence after Monique was effectively removed from filming on Wendy’s rookie season. For whatever reason that I am still desperately attempting to make sense of, we are continuing to draw out this tired string of “Stacy being desperate for Chris.”

Listen, I get it. Stacey is definitely nimble with her understanding of the truth. I have dated enough men who told me they had no girlfriend, only to find out they actually had a wife (this has happened only three times, but it’s crazy that it happened more than once), so I recognize a person whose statements of fact come with terms and conditions. But here’s the thing: I don’t care that she fucked Chris, or didn’t. I don’t care that her husband, Temu, barely wants to be on camera and filming with the rest of the cast, or that they are too lazy to come up with coherent excuses to avoid participating in events. Temu says five words a minute, and to my ADHD brain, it feels like nails on a chalkboard; I won’t miss him if he doesn’t get mic’ed up ever again.

What Stacey understands well is that if you are not going to give authenticity, you have to sell the fantasy. Stacey has chosen to be the peppy, out-of-touch model who has the spirit of Mary Poppins in the package of Kenya Moore. Whether or not it’s legitimate is irrelevant to me until it fundamentally becomes irreconcilable with her on-camera persona, à la Grande Dame. Perhaps it’s the QVC training, the same stomping grounds that birthed us the scourge known as Lisa Rinna, but you simply cannot move her off her square.

Stacey’s consistent persona ultimately makes the women look even more deranged for calling it out. Monique already said she couldn’t possibly care less who Chris is dating, but Ashley, Keiarna, Tia, and Gizelle simply couldn’t leave well enough alone. Now I have to pretend that I care that Stacey told Chris that Monique was miserable by the end of her marriage? I’m sure that’s nothing Chris doesn’t already know, whether this Cookie lady is reporting back to him or not. Considering how the last fiasco with a third party bringing gossip went down, I just am not intrigued or inclined to explore this line of inquiry any further unless Stacey ups and leaves Temu for Chris.

All these shenanigans ultimately end up doing is cementing Stacey as indispensable to the group. I can somewhat understand Tia’s frustration — despite overselling the Nigerian royalty bit, she has, for the most part, been sharing her personal life on camera, warts and all, and is frustrated that Stacey won’t do the same. But Keiarna is getting irate on Monique’s behalf when there is absolutely no indication that Monique would even care or be bothered by this at all, and as a result, Stacey dealt with her accordingly. Keiarna may be a breathtaking beauty, but she was not prepared to step into the ring for a war of words with the Detroit Barbie. Stacey cheekily telling K that “the only time you get heated is about me” was a nice little jab, but when K tried to counter by saying “I would never leave my husband around you,” Stacey had no choice but to hit her with the uppercut: “You don’t have one.” I’m excited to see Keiarna finally show up this season, as I prefer a beautiful bitch on wheels to a sedate one, but unfortunately, she still came up short this time around. See you all next week!

• The more Angel carries on about her imagined issue with Wendy, the less rational she sounds. Her husband can’t even pretend to be bothered about this nothingburger of an issue on his wife’s behalf. Every time she insists that Wendy somehow betrayed her more than Gizelle by defining what a catfish is, a clown nose starts to sprout on her face spontaneously. Wendy and Gizelle were indeed being messy and mean, but nothing about that warranted the weeks-long spiral our WAG has been going through.

• Wendy was really rocking the finger waves! It’s such a shame that her best season to date is coming on the heels of what we know to be a precipitous downfall. (Yes, yes, I know she gave a gracious showing at BravoCon and had a generally good reception, but when your local paper is reporting claims of alleged aliases and over 40 credit cards, there is clearly still a long road ahead.)

• When it comes to crossover moments, I allow/overlook them if they make sense for the show and the groups’ connections. The Vanderpump Boys on Summer House, sure, whatever, they basically helped launch that franchise. Cynthia making a guest appearance on any franchise she wants is fine because I appreciate any excuse to swoon over her cheekbones. Bringing in competitors from the Love Hotel, however, is where I have to draw the line. I’m sure Wale is a lovely man, but this isn’t Marvel, and I’m not about to start watching three other franchises just to understand what is on my TV screens. I already have to monitor the subreddits like a hawk!

• At this point, “What is GNA” could be a Jeopardy category. We have gone from clothing line to wellness brand to events promotion to philanthropy, and now we’re making floats. Many companies do PRIDE floats, but they are usually selling something. What, pray tell, is GNA selling? I still have no clue.

• Ten million downloads on Reasonably Shady? Y’all are really listening to that podcast? Color me shocked.

In the words of the esteemed founder of the Reality Television Arts and Sciences, Brian Moylan, most fights on Housewives are not really about whatever the ladies are talking about on camera, but are really about the show and the power struggles around what is going on behind the scenes, namely, compensation. When the girls locked in on Denise Richards in Beverly Hills, a big part of that was because of the seven-figure paycheck she commanded while barely filming. The Atlanta ladies turned on Kim Zolciak as soon as she got too big for her britches and thought she had secured a gravy train with her NFL husband and spinoff. The hierarchy that income presents is understood subtext for those who are savvy (or nosy enough) to make sense of the maze of blind items, shady Instagram stories, and thinly-veiled tweets from glam team assistants to understand that when the ladies of Married to Medicine engage in their seasonal Quad humiliation ritual, it’s not solely because she’s insufferable and annoyingly dramatic, but also because she establishes clear boundaries between her coworkers on the show and her real-life friends.

Because I am incorrigibly nosy, I can generally immediately glean what the subtextual shade of any scene is about — odds are I’ve already listened to the obscure podcast posted in the recesses of the official subreddit months ago — I am primed to understand the actual tension onscreen. For example, it was clear in the premiere of Potomac that Stacey was putting Keiarna on notice with the “you’ve been trying to come around for years.” They’re both trying to stand out, and Keiarna is realizing that Stacey’s star is rising as hers is dimming — Stacey is calling out her desperation to get a camera moment by manufacturing tension between them. It’s cheeky but fairly straightforward. This episode, however … I have no idea what, if anything, the actual issue is between these women.

I’ll go from most to least comprehensible. Stacey is not taking the jabs against her lying down and is recruiting Jassi for her revenge. Stacey is well within her rights to want to strike back, but I must say, her acting was worse than the time Cynthia was forced to expose Mr. Chocolate. That said, Jassi seems down for the tag team, and oohed and aahed appropriately at the reveal that — drumroll, please — Gizelle is dating. If they want to return fire, they’re just going to have to come harder than that.

Then we have Wendy versus Keiarna. I get the gist of Keiarna’s issue: she wants them to be legitimate friends, and Wendy views her and K as work friends, which doesn’t suffice for her. She doesn’t want to do the phony double kiss at events; she wants genuine friendship, sisterhood, bonding … but that is just not what Wendy offers. Explaining the intricacies of tensions between women and they ways that passive aggressive tactics are used damn near requires and advanced degree in sociology so I’m not all that surprised that Keiarna is getting flustered at Wendy’s deadpan energy; but she has to know that she is simply not communicating her issue well at all, and Wendy is not going to give her any rope beyond the exact amount she needs to hang herself. Wendy laughed in Keiarna’s face, and they both threw up middle fingers at each other, yet they walked out of that scene arm in arm — I would need 10,000 words to explain how that indicates the emotionally volatile behavior of women who have dominated their respective group chats, fuming about each other.

While I more or less get the gist of the above issues, when the horses start coming in, everything stops making sense. First, there’s tension about two competing events between Keiarna and Wendy, except Keiarna’s is a pre-party at the condo, and Wendy is hosting a formal party at the race, so there’s actually no conflict at all. Then, the chin-checking issue is resurrected, except now Gizelle is mad that Angel said Keiarna doubled back, and Angel claims she would have a serious issue if she lied. So then Keiarna cops to saying it, and Angel seems happy as a clam, and now Wendy and Gizelle are annoyed with her that she’s not mad at Keiarna, and now Keiarna is mad at everyone in her condo? I genuinely don’t understand what we are supposed to care about here or why. I get that Angel is wishy washy about calling out her best friend in front of the crew, but most people wouldn’t leap to drag their best friend with an audience. I just am struggling to wrap my head around why the phrase “chin-check” is such an issue to be continuously dragged out like this; it’s starting to remind me of how we spent an entire season arguing the semantics of “violated” on Beverly Hills.

By the time Stacey and Keiarna reprise their argument, I am simply fully lost as to what everyone’s issue with each other is. Stacey hasn’t gotten invited to Keiarna’s functions, Keiarna doesn’t care for her, Stacey reminds her of the physical altercation they had, and I am just wondering why this has all gotten so hostile. Now we’re piling into the van, and Angel has an issue with Wendy, and I’m just stuck, wondering how the word “chin-checked” caused all this. Usually, the alliances and subtext are quite obvious — this time, it felt like Keiarna was trying hard to establish her rightful place at the table, and everyone endured friendly fire as a result  of her half-hearted efforts.

Anyway, the taglines have finally arrived. Let’s rate them, shall we?

This episode might have been more confusing than the third act of a Chris Nolan movie, but we are about to take the cast to St. Kitts and Nevis, where we can at least be befuddled while staring at the beach. See y’all next week!

• I laughed out loud when Gizelle politely informed Angel that her sound bowl event was boring as hell. I am sorry, but I have seen enough faux meditation routines for the next four lifetimes.

Genuinely astonished by how little I miss Mia on my screen, but I hope her and Bobby Valentino (or whatever obscure Atlanta area man who was relevant 15 years ago she has glommed onto now) are doing well.

Stacey being a pageant mom is as predictable as Kenya Moore’s color contacts. But Arabella looked cute!

Ashley looked beyond absurd doing spin class with a melted wig and a full face of makeup. Just splash on some powder, fill in the brows, and call it a day!