Evergreen

My issue with this season is that it makes no sense without viewing it in context of their jobs with Bravo. All of this drama stems from being a Housewife. Other than Kandi and Phaedra, I don't think any of them are even friends. Porsha hates Claudia because she took her peach. Cynthia and NeNe just wouldn't speak anymore if not for the show. NeNe literally has no friends left on the show, not even friendships being faked for the camera, like the two factions. Todd wants to live in NYC or LA but Kandi shoots the show in ATL so they can't move, at least not permanently. Claudia, Kenya and Cynthia are only friends for purposes of the show. Cynthia is friends with them because they are a refuge from NeNe. Apolo was trying to milk his paycheck with Bravo and drummed up storylines by lying about Kenya's texts, and now (I believe), lying about texts from Chocolate to Phaedra. Cynthia would never directly confront Phaedra about the texts (what does she care?) if she didn't have to drum up drama to stay on the show. Did I mention no one talks to NeNe? It's bizarre to see her in with her group of friends now. It's not remotely believable. And Phardra wouldn't be caught dead in the same room as Kenya if her paycheck didn't depend on it. The show has just crossed a line into the absurd for me (kind of like RHONY and RHOBH) and they need to either clean house and keep only one of the factions, or just break the fourth wall and talk aout what all this sniping is really about: being forced to work with people you hate.

This was a really interesting episode. First, I liked Jack a lot. He seems like a good-natured kid, but like an average teenager, he's not above playing his parents against one another. I'm glad he had a nice birthday party. I wish Mary Jo would come on as a co-star. She was great. She presented herself with dignity and grace, and she showed Tori and Dean for who they really are: two people who are driven by their own desperate insecurity. I'm glad she finally had her say on screen, but more importantly, I am glad that she's somehow overcome the pain they caused her to co-parent in a civil manner with Dean. That's pretty incredible. Weirdly, I think I finally saw what attracted Dean to Tori in the first place. I think he likes women who are going to order him around - I was going to say he likes strong women, but Tori is the opposite of strong. I think Mary Jo is probably domineering in some respects and it intimidated him. He probably thought Tori was easier and more vulnerable. Turns out she's just insecure and desperately afraid that people won't like her, so her aggression comes out in stealth ways, but at the end of the day, everything is still about her, even when she's trying to come across like she's listening or being supportive. In almost every situation, I can almost see the wheels spinning in Tori's head while she tries to figure out, "How can I appear to be supportive or say the right thing, but still get what I want out of this situation? I can't be direct and say what I want, so I'll just silently disapprove until Dean guesses what I really want." She's so insecure, she followed Mary Jo around that party like a little puppy hoping to get a pet from her master. It was pathetic. Both Mary Jo and Charlie dodged a bullet when they unloaded these two. I definitely thing they're soul mates, but not in the way they think they are.

This trainwreck actually inspired me to create an account just to rant about this mess. I'm not proud, but I can not look away from this. I know Dean is the "villain" in the storyline, but this relationship seems like a classic narcissist/codependent relationship, and Tori is the narcissist. Dean is the codependent with terrible self esteem who is bending over backwards trying to please her and never succeeding, with a good dose of self-loathing and addiction thrown in. I'm not saying he's a victim, because he fully participated in creating this situation, but I actually feel pity for the guy because he's just so pathetic. Even looking at photos of him from when they met until now shows how his misery is written all over his appearance. His obsequiousness is uncomfortable to watch. I think Tori is actually glad that Dean cheated, because she gets to be The Victim, and she can hold it over his head for the rest of his life and she has a bulletproof excuse to treat him like crap whenever she is in a mood. I hope it's all fake, because otherwise, this situation must be awful for the kids to experience. Last season, it was clear that Liam knew something bad was going on, and Tori just dismissed his questions with flippant answers. Tonight when she told Dean she might be pregnant in a neutral way, he responded positively and said he wanted another baby - god knows why - and then the previews for the next episode show that Tori is sending him to get a vasectomy and saying that after what happened she didn't want any more kids with him. A vasectomy is a good idea for that family, but not when the guy just said he wanted more kids. I don't think anything Dean could have said to her potential pregnancy would have pleased her. She dangled that out there to see how he would react, and then she was going to be a contrarian to whatever he said in order to prove she can control him. And last season when he was going to Canada to film Chopped, she kept whining that she wanted him to stay with her, even if it meant being sued for $5 million. That was so selfish, it actually boomeranged back into being self-defeating since they're married and she'd be on the hook for the $5 million too if he got sued. And you can tell by the way Tori talks that she thinks she's just a regular quirky gal and a "mom-trepreneur", but then her aggression seeps out in passive ways like when she resentfully proclaims herself the breadwinner for the family, as if pressuring Dean not to go to his contracted-for job wasn't a sabotage of their financial state that she feels responsible for. She can't see her pattern of cheating on her SO's, or picking the "wrong" kind of guys. She thinks it's all on Dean and his problems. Her therapist must be terrible at her job if she can't make Tori see her own destructive patterns after 10+ years. Tori must pay her well to be her Yes Man. The whole thing is a mess, and the worst part are the therapy sessions because the show treats them like something serious and therapeutic. It seems extremely unethical of Tori to drag her husband(s) to her personal therapist for marital therapy. Every time Dean tries to tell her how he's feeling she reacts resentfully and responds about how that's affecting HER, and implying that his pain is a burden on her. Her therapist never checks her on that. Meanwhile, Dean is clearly getting something from this awful dynamic, because it encourages his own self-flagellation, which he does in every episode. I want to yell at them to divorce and to never see each other again, but I think these two are magnets for each other. She loves being The Victim and he loves having someone that he will never please because it supports all his self-loathing. No wonder they started an affair after one day. It let them create the fantasy of "you and me against the world", and now they're stuck in a pattern of making each other miserable that they can't - and don't seem to want to - break free from. Mary Jo and Charlie must be having some well deserved feelings of schadenfreude watching this mess.