diadochokinesis

Yep. The whole "Luann is homeless" thing was because the building she lived in wouldn't allow filming. Apparently that is becoming quite the struggle in NY. The co-op boards don't want RH being filmed there because it is disrupting to the other residents.

I think Bethenny is more self-aware than Ramona though. Bethenny knows how she comes off. She just doesn't care! Ramona honestly doesn't see how she is being rude.

Here is the difference--control or agency. When Erika is on stage in the EJ persona, she has control over the situation. In this situation, she didn't have control. To me, she wasn't being provocative. She tried to laugh it off while covering herself with a napkin--probably in an attempt to defuse an awkward situation. The being ogled at was bad enough but how PK and Dorit handled it afterward was appalling. I said several posts ago that it showed their true character to me. If I had been Erika, I would have distanced myself from them as much as possible (knowing that her contract obligates her to maintain some contact for show purposes).

People hate Erika so they lash out at her for anything and everything. Same thing with Rinna. Their hatred is blinding them to objective reasoning. As has been explained to me in this thread, a man has no responsibility for his actions. It is Erika's fault. Aka: victim blaming/slut shaming. Seriously! That is what I brought up! There is no way it was just out there for anybody to see one because of the angle but also how she was sitting. She would have had to had her legs splayed apart and sitting higher than the others for them to catch a sight of anything. Again, see above. This could also be the result of producers interfering. You see it all the time in the Real Housewives shows. The producers go up and tell Cast Member A that Cast Member B said ____ about them as a means of jump-starting the drama. I'm assuming it is also how Rinna knows about what Dorit was saying about her and the Xanax since she knew about it prior to telling Eden but couldn't/wouldn't say where or who she heard it from.

I think anybody that is capable of objectively assessing a situation would be able to come to that conclusion. I don't necessarily adore Erika. There are things about her that irritate me. However, nothing about this situation was ok. The Kemsleys treated her horribly.

I take the apology differently. I don't know if she has spelled out specifically why she wanted the apology but I take it more as because their marriage was brought into question. I think if they would have kept it to just making fun of Erika, then the apology to Tom wouldn't have been necessary. However, by insulting their marriage, they also insulted Tom. Hence, the apology.

She didn't volunteer that information. LVP made motions and Erika stopped her and then said she wasn't wearing any. Still doesn't matter though. It doesn't give people a right to look.

Oh, I'm loving this arc. It is like my Christmas wish list! I had just recently started rewatching AOS from the beginning on Netflix and was remembering how much I loved Trip. Hell, I even loved Ward in the very beginning. I see this almost as a redemption arc for his character. Like, we see how Fitz is if his father was in his life and he went bad. So, is Framework Ward the one that we would have known without his crappy upbringing and Garrett? I love Jason O'Mara as an actor but I'm not heartbroken over his death. I appreciate how he went out and felt like it served a purpose to the storyline. I kind of don't want the framework arc to end because that means no more walk down memory lane with all these characters that we've lost through the years.

I disagree that nobody is slut or victim shaming Erika. If people (PK) are insinuating that she is a whore (which he did) then that is slut shaming. If people are saying she asked for it by wearing a short skirt, that is slut shaming. And PK and Dorit repeatedly brought it up throughout the season. As I mentioned, PK was even talking about it at the finale party when conversing with Ken! There are multiple instances of them discussing it while making insinuations about Erika's character. I feel like you need a *sarcasm* in there because I think the second point got missed. LOL. I don't think Rinna has gotten it bad either. Of course, I also don't necessarily see where she said Dorit is on coke like others have stated she said. She asked if the guests were doing coke in the bathroom. She never stated that Dorit was on drugs.

People see what they want to see. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My husband would actually make a concerted effort to NOT look if it was announced. Especially if it was announced!

Leave the show or leave the situation? Either choice, it probably comes down to the contract. Full-time Housewives are locked in for an entire season and have mandatory events that they have to film. At a certain point, she probably is just digging in her heels too because they just don't seem to get why it isn't ok. Even if you excuse the peeking, what transpired afterwards is not ok. Yes, they did insinuate that she was a whore. Yes, they did talk crap about her marriage. They objectified her and spoke about her cruelly. I know if I was put in that situation, I would have stayed on the show just because I had a national platform to speak about why that is not acceptable.

Exactly! It is disturbing to me how many women are slut shaming/victim blaming Erika. You might not like Erika and that is ok but to sit there and say that she deserved what happened or what had been said/insinuated about her is not ok. This is why women keep silent about these things! I don't think it is ever ok for someone to ogle a person's genitalia. From what I saw in the episode, she usually had a napkin in her lap that went to her knees or her legs were tightly pressed together. It wasn't like she was sitting with her legs splayed open and asking people what they thought. She was violated. As Cyberfruit mentioned, you have to consider Erika's agency. When she is putting herself on stage in the EJ persona, that is of her own volition. She intends to put out that image and she has control over it. When she is at a lunch with friends, you don't have the right to violate her. It is similar to the scene in Pretty Woman when Jason Alexander's character believes that he can have sex with Julia's character just because she is a prostitute. Again, think about the eyeline. He wouldn't have been able to see anything without moving his head. He willfully did that. I also believe that the whole thing would have been over except for the fact that Dorit and PK kept bringing it up which would then lead to Erika bringing it up again. She was over the situation. They even brought it up at the finale party! I don't believe they are diametrically opposed beliefs. I am all about empowering women. I am a HUGE card carrying feminist but I also am a wife whose husband is somewhat prominent in his career and I don't want to embarrass him or anything. You can believe in empowering women and still want to not put him in a potentially embarrassing situation. I question Kim's sobriety. I know she has said that she still drinks which is not truly being sober. Being an addict changes your neurochemistry. ANY drugs or alcohol is dangerous to an addict. I think she just replaced pills with booze. As I mentioned earlier, I do believe Erika would love for the situation to stop being brought up. However, PK and Dorit keep bringing it up so then she responds and it is just a vicious cycle. PK was saying crap with Ken even during the finale party! Why is the fact that he is a man an excuse? My husband is a man and would NEVER do that. Believe it or not, men can learn to not violate women.

See, I disagree. Peeking is a HUGE deal. Think about the angle. He would have to turn his head and possibly bend down a bit to get a peek unless her skirt was basically at her belly button. He knowingly and voluntarily violated her. To me, it isn't any different than grabbing a woman's boobs just because she is wearing a low cut shirt. No woman deserves or asks for it. How both he and Dorit went off afterwards was appalling and speaks volumes to their character. They would be people that I would immediately distance myself from.

Exactly. When I lived in the US, I was a mandatory reporter for CPS and APS. What someone sees on tv wouldn't qualify as reasonable suspicion the majority of the time. The way I always thought was that 90% of reality shows are fake. Think about how much the producers interfere and how timelines are shifted in the editing room. KUWTK is particularly guilty of shifting timelines (i.e., showing events in the same episode that happened 3-4 months apart but presented as all happening concurrently).

No, no. You misunderstand me. I think she faked the whole bathroom coke thing. I think she made a statement that she knew could be misconstrued and did it because she thought it was edgy and cool. Her behavior doesn't strike me as that of a person on coke.

Good point. It is potentially a huge HIPAA violation because the cameras would have potentially shown other children and families which is a violation of their privacy (and federal law).

You are absolutely right. Some are great at mimicking and some not so much. I think the thing with Dorit is that she wants to appear special and different. For her, that is having an international background. I see it quite often amongst the former expat community. You run into some of the people who think that being expats and living in all of these countries make them special and unique. The current expats don't necessarily think that way because it is so common to us (especially in Dubai where I live because it is 90-95% expat). I think that could also potentially explain the whole bathroom coke thing. She was doing something that she thought would be noticeable and cool.

Erika is a difficult person for me. There are aspects of her that I like and aspects that irritate me. I don't necessarily view her as cold like some people but I can see where she is slow to trust people and slow to warm up to them. My brother is similar. But once you are in, you are in.

Honestly, I've been an SLP for 13 years. Not a lot surprises me anymore. I've had parents that were completely uninvolved and others that were helicopter parents that I had to kick out of the therapy room. Like I said, I sideye it but it was one session. She might have had something going on during that time. Personally though, I think a lot of it is flashing around a lifestyle that they don't have and can't afford. Dorit is just the new Taylor Armstrong.

Yes, I read the bolded but who gets to decide what qualifies as a seriously significant reason? Sure, military deployment is seriously significant. But my husband also travels as a consultant. So, he spent 3 months in India on a consulting project. Is that a seriously significant reason? He doesn't have to have a job where he travels but it makes him happy. A lot of this is that I hate the mommy wars. I hate the mommy judgment. I'm a speech therapist and I will be the first one to sideye Dorit's seemingly non-involvement with her oldest's speech therapy but it was one session that we saw. She might normally go to them. Who knows. We only see what Bravo and the ladies put out there for us.

Several participants on a variety of reality shows have all said that the bathroom is the one universal place where cameras aren't allowed.

You didn't make a distinction. You just stated that if a parent was away from a child. There are several careers out there (besides entertainment) that take parents away from children. Trust me, the kids don't understand why a parent is away--especially at 3. My daughter was 2.5 when my husband did his last deployment which was for 13 months. She didn't understand that he was leaving because of the military or that it was any different than when he is gone because of his consulting job. Kids are remarkably resilient--more than what most adults give them credit for. We honestly don't know what the arrangement was, how often she saw him or spoke to him, etc. In my opinion, they have a good relationship today so I'm willing to accept that he was fine and not damaged by it.

I think that is an incredibly rude statement to make because of the sweeping generalization. My husband was military and would deploy for 12-15 months at a time. He now is a consultant and travels during the week. My dad was in business and traveled every week and would come home on weekends. Nobody is "damaged" by this. I'm extremely close to my father. My children are extremely close to their dad. It isn't about the quantity of time but the quality of it. Yes, I picked up the lion's share of work when my husband would deploy but I wouldn't say he decided the child wasn't worth it. So yes, I can "spin" that.

Hi, I'm coming late to the game. I'm a speech therapist that has been doing accent/dialect coaching for 10 years. If you noticed, Erika did pick up a slight Southern accent during her scenes with her mom. My Southern accent is similar. I largely don't speak with a Southern accent because of my career but when I'm around family, it comes out. Dorit's is fake. It doesn't match PK and it doesn't even really match most common British accents. Duchess Kate had dialect coaching prior to marrying Will to try to give her a more posh accent. Watch her few speeches that she has given and you can tell how uncomfortable she is at using it.