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Both episodes together felt like the end of story arcs we had not gotten to see.

Lemar being a cartoonish villain to everybody, including Pray Tell after Castle had to be taken away on a stretcher, just seemed so weird. Especially with them ending last night with him and Cubby in the hospital. Like even at her worst, Elektra had a lot more stuff going on in her bitchiness. Everything about the character development seems so rushed.

The actor who played Damon, his sister died somewhat close to start of production so this was their admittedly clunky way of dealing with it. I don't know why they didn't say he was dancing on a tour instead.

This episode felt strange because it felt like a retread of the season premiere in a lot of ways. Also, how we got to certain story points seems very tortured. Like they clearly wanted another dinner scene blowout but Pray Tell already agreed to go to the rehab so them reading the letters did not make sense. Also the writing of Lemar into a cartoonishly evil character was wild to me as well just to like get him to the point where Pray Tell would be justified in punching him. That's probably my main gripe is that they have certain plot points they want to hit but don't know a way to get them. And as much as I love Pose, one of its chief problems has always been the way they introduce and drop plot points at random.

I thought it was very interesting point too they made about how a lot of people move to Las Vegas and don't have a support system to help navigate stuff. I never thought about that. Also, they were a little fuzzier on the "How does he make his money to afford alcohol" than they usually are on this show. But maybe they wanted to be a little lighter on him given how everything played out.

This episode made so sad. I think the ones with alcoholism always do because it's one of the easier addictions to practice out in the open, especially if you're in a party-centric place.

There was something incredibly telling about the relationship between Amber and Olivia and particularly Olivia and her mother when Olivia was like, "Shouldn't I be praised for helping someone out" which is an issue I wish they had dug into more.

Welp, we can call this Jen Shah-shank

Utica is allergic to critiques it seems like. Every time they give her one, she seems to double down on whatever they're telling her not to do. It's like if you took Gigi Goode's "I hear your concerns but I don't have those same concerns" attitude but have it completely misplaced.

Jen: What a Shah Show.

Utica also bombed Snatch Game when she competed Drag Race style competition in the Twin Cities so clearly it's not her strength.

Symone only being safe is reminding me of when Mariah was only safe with her All Stars performance

You cannot tell me that Meredith and Brooks did not try to get him onto the reunion. She would've shared her chair with him.

There are so many dynamics at play with this reunion that it was a wild watch. You have Lisa, who has had this intense backlash from the viewers, trying to save herself and flip the narrative and you have Heather, who has lingering jealousy over Jen wanting to be friends with Meredith/Lisa, having the wind her sails because of her current fan favorite position. It's especially wild where it seems like so many of them seem to be jostling to be friends with Meredith, giving her a level of emotion that Meredith seems incapable of giving to anybody aside from occasional strained moments through a Xanax-esque fueled fog to say something about them talking about the marriage she and her husband made central to their storyline.

Meredith's defense of Brooks was WILD. "HOW DARE YOU TALK ABOUT MY CHILD....who is 21 years old and had testimonials like he was a Friend Of. HOW COULD YOU!"

I was impressed by the ways the ladies really went at it and called things out. I thought in particular Heather's whole thing about Lisa and how she basically actively tried to portray herself as this shady queen bee and it backfired massively was interesting. If Lisa hadn't gotten such universal negative opinions, she'd be different at this reunion. I think she went into the filming thinking she was going to be some LVP/Bethenny hybrid and that did not work at all. Placing the blame on Heather for the audience not liking her and not her own behavior was wild.

That felt like such an influence from production because it goes against human nature completely. It felt like they did that to force tension for no reason.

Honestly, just being a friend of could've been good for Monique. It can be argued that Countess Luann's best season as a housewife was the one where she was demoted.

I am thoroughly enjoying Bravo ending their seasons with some fourth wall breaking with Dorinda's freak out on RHONY about Tinsley and Michael Darby's mess with production. That cut from him acting a fool to that "They went to Bahamas the next day and now she's pregnant with baby number 2" was so dark. The editing of how they would keep jumping back to Michael getting progressively drunker was genius too.

Meredith and her witness protection wig in her testimonial took me the fuck out.

If you told me that Whitney was an Anna Faris character that just sort of got away from her, I would believe you.

I really believe the theory that Ashley is riding so hard for Monique because Monique and her husband helped Ashley and Michael get out of the butt grabbing gate by magically not having footage on their security camera and they've formed an alliance over that.

I think the reason why this Monqiue/Candiace fight is such gold is because narratively speak, it's bringing together years of different storylines into one moment and the fight is almost minor because it's how each of the women are using the fight to their own benefit that is fascinating to watch. I will need Dr. Wendy to stop with the respectability politics of it all, especially since she talks about without any sense of self-reflection. You're so concerned about the image of Black women being viewed as angry but were calling people fake bitches just a few episodes ago. Gizelle talks about respectability as if being with Jamal isn't clicking on some stereotypes. The whole idea that if you act right, you'll be accepted is so toxic because racist people are going to racist because they fundamentally think they are inherently better than you. And even if you believe in respectability politics, going on a Bravo show that taps into the worst stereotypes of women being unable to be friends with each other is not going to do it.

I wouldn't be surprised if Erika didn't return. Based on the season finale, it felt like they had pretty much wrapped her whole arc as a character on this show.

That doesn't make a lick of sense since she was starring right at Candiace and there was a whole table between them so for her to think Candiace reached across and pushed her is some bull.