ladle

I, too, have nostalgia for the first season, and I agree with many of the negative comments (for instance, I do think it's problematic that Beth obviously has so much clout on the show and the other cast members for the most part just blow smoke up her ass instead of honestly engaging with her.) BUT I still think this is the best RHO franchise by far. To me, it helps that these women seem to have friendships (or at least entanglements) that transcend the boundaries of the show. For instance, I loved this episode. I thought it was a Bethenny-buggin', Countess-offendin', dog-poopin', apology-textin', Sonja-excludin' rollicking good time! YMMV.

Never mind

Just catching up on this episode now. All I can say is, wow, those three solos were collectively the worst I think I've ever seen in any episode of this show, ever. I'm not even talking about the girls' technique, but rather the lackluster choreography of all three and the fact that they weren't actually hip hop. Way to go out with a whimper, Dance Moms!

I just want to say, I clicked on the link to the Previously.tv breakdown of the episode, and at first only the top half of Leeanne's face (from the eyes up) was visible on my browser, and I was confused as to why they were using a photo of Mindy Kaling for this show. Leeanne needs to BACK. AWAY. from the bronzer. Far away. Like, call AAA and get a tow truck to drive you far, far away. Also, I'm still really confused about what she does for a living and how it relates to all of her charities. Is she an event planner? I didn't see the WWHL with her; did she address it there? To me, this show is an interesting hybrid of simultaneously being a throwback to what was once great about these housewives shows and an embodiment of everything trite and terrible they have become. On the one hand, throwback elements: Brandi and Stephanie seem to have a "real" friendship, and I like seeing scenes of them with their families (like Brandi getting her kids ready in the morning) that do not seem overly staged. I think part of that is that the young kids add to the organic feel of the show, since they're really not old enough to "turn it on" for the cameras -- or, even if they are (Milania Giudice), they don't appear to be doing that very much on this show. On the other hand, the adults are *so* aware of the cameras and the confrontations are *so* staged/hackneyed/boring it's like they're just picking vignettes out of the Real Housewives playbook at this point (Throw a glass? Check! Accuse a friend of not "having your back"? Check!). And that's tiresome and dull. Oh also, one thing I will say for Leeanne is that at least she doesn't pretend to have more money than she actually has (*cough* OC Housewives *cough cough* Jersey Housewives), even if she think she has more class than she actually has.

Can we have a contest in which we try to figure out what's happening with Leanne's necklace in her talking heads? To me it looks like she's wearing a hanging ID tag inexplicably wrapped in bright blue burlap.

The best part of this episode, BY FAR, was Erika's face when Rinna whipped out the phone records. All she needed was some popcorn.

Apparently there was someone named Kristin who used to be on this show?

I was confused about the 2K because I would think that as a college student, Lip would be required to have medical insurance - either through the school or his own.

What does it say about my overall enjoyment of this episode that I thought the best part was Ken looking bored stiff while Katherine's husband spewed sports platitudes?

A cryo-freezing scene with a character named Yolanda and not one of the women makes a "fro-Yo" joke? This show is so disappointing.

I'm confused about this. My understanding of Carrie's disorder was that once you have it, you really need to be on meds for the rest of your life. You can't just wean yourself off and miraculously be fine. At least, isn't that what Carrie's father and sister kept emphasizing in the earlier seasons? But I have no personal knowledge of this, so I could be wrong. And, hey, I'm still confused about how they all blew up at the end of last season but emerged unscathed, so what do I know?

1. Tamra asking Andy if something is morally wrong is like the very definition of "blind leading the blind." 2. I wonder if Newport Imaging got any business from this? 3. Even after all of this dreck, and even with my fiery disgust for almost all of these women, I would still totally watch a reality show in which Tamra pre-screened Vicki's dates.

If someone hasn't already recut Vicki's "I'm done, call Brooks, I'm done" speech into a rap, then that needs to happen, stat.

I don't have any strong feelings about Eddie, but I do find it amusing how blase he is about the drama at this point. That brief interspersed shot of him casually eating out of a bowl with chopsticks while the ladies tore up the party was TV gold.

I must be getting soft because I found Vicki oddly likable for a good portion of this episode.

This probably makes me a horrible person, but when Vicki was going on about how when Brooks leaves her she'll be all alone, and her son replied, deadpan, "So should we split an appetizer?" I laughed out loud. Never change, Michael.

19 Kinks and Counting?

Maybe I'm extremely naive, and I understand that I don't "know" Vicki -- just the imagine of Vicki that gets projected on my TV every week. But... I just don't see Vicki agreeing to go along with faking cancer. Don't get me wrong; I think that woman is a real piece of work. She's flawed in so many ways. I just don't see her doing this.

How did Arianna turn out so (seemingly) normal/smart?

You guys, I'm seeing a theme in this thread that's upsetting to me. People are ragging on Meghan's headband at the final dinner - which, okay, I totally get. But meanwhile Lizzie's beaded monstrosity has managed to escape comment. And that's just not okay. Vicki is a severely flawed human being, but I honestly believe that when a friend tells her something in confidence, she doesn't blab it. At least, I can't think of any instances on this show in which she's done that. And I actually thought her scene on the beach with Shannon was one of her more likable moments in ten seasons. Finally, the conspiracy theorist in me sort of wants to believe that Shannon has only convinced David she's willing to work it out with him in order to lure him onto the show for a second season and slowly unroll the tapestry of shittiness that is David as a human being in front of a national audience. Then, when she's done fully humiliating him, and the season ends, she'll dump his ass. That would be all kinds of awesome (well, *would* be, if they didn't have kids who will see this play out on TV.)

I think the reason I disliked Jeremy so much (even before the finale) was that his character was so poorly drawn - I never knew why I was supposed to care about him as anything other than a prop for Rachel. I get that the show had a limited number of episodes and, with that limitation, they really did a fantastic job of fleshing out so many different personalities. But a *little* back story on Jeremy might have been nice. What were his motivations for doing any of the things he did this season? Even that subplot about moving to New York or getting a promotion - who cares? Why did it matter? Maybe we'll get some of that next season. Or a black hole could swallow Jeremy, and that would be fine too. Like others, I also would have liked to get more of a sense of how audience response played into the making of the show. They did only a smidgen of that with their throwaway comment about how Faith was a fan favorite, and I was actually confused about that because don't these Bachelor-type reality shows usually wrap up filming and then air? Also, when they brought Britney "back," I was confused about that too because I thought on these types of shows they typically kept the contestants on site, so it wasn't immediately clear to the public who was being kicked off when?

I don't know if the buyers were there or not, and I think Sonja is full of poo, but I thought she was saying "The buyers aren't here" in the context of "They aren't here on this seating chart, so we need to add them"?

When Heather was getting Tamra out of the water, did she really say, "Your biscuits stink"? Because that's what my closed captioning says she said. And, if so, then, um, what?

Do we think Brett Michaels *knows* that Meghan is raiding his headband collection? Or no?

Okay, I hate to defend Heather/Terry ...Herry? Hmm...There's a Sesame Street character called Herry Monster... seems appropriate... So anyway, I hate to defend Herry Monster, because I don't like them (Really, I can't think of anyone on this show I do actively like ... Except maybe that lesbian fitness trainer who was vaguely a housewife for one season... Though she did have a crush on Tamra, speaking of questionable taste.)... But I digress. If I were looking to purchase something and the salesperson told me Jim Bellino had also been interested in the item, it would make me question my own taste level as well. That's all I'm saying. To be fair, it looks like Meghan is saying everything through her teeth because of the odd way she holds her jaw.