aghst

Ryan thought he was going to have an easy sale with the virtual guy, who was willing to spend millions without seeing the places in person. I think there are "investors" like that who want to park their money in NYC real estate. But the guy made it sound like he had plans to live in it. I saw a stat that there are currently 15 billion Pounds worth of real estate in London which is owned but unoccupied. Often it's kleptocrats from these shady countries who stole the money and want to park it in the West. NYC probably has its share of such properties. I know pharma executives can get paid well but they made this guy sound like he has a collection of multi million properties around the world. I didn't know of any major pharma companies in Australia but then he was going to come live in NY? Tyler's buyer with the crazy wall paper was realistic about her apt, though again, I don't know how real any of these people on the show are. These brokers all do a lot of transactions so their regular clientele is probably not "quirky" as this show likes to present them. That Rye house, I guess the owners were just happy to be able to put it behind them, get their money out. If they downsize and maybe even move to FL or some lower-cost place, they would have money left over from the sale. Though of course taxes will eat a chunk. The brokers never mention that. They always say these buyers bought for x and put in y so they are into the property for x + y and compare that to the selling price but if they sell for what they put in, they could still have a loss with commissions, closing fees. Plus the've been paying tens of thousands a year on property taxes. Ryan really looked sore that he didn't get the deal -- "did you already hire someone else?" "so this is a firing!" So maybe this wasn't just a TV deal. I remember an article from a couple of years ago that Frederick and Ryan to a lesser extent work with developers while the project is still in the building or even development stage to shape the properties for the current market. I guess Ryan tried to do that with this building, coming up with suggestions and then trying these stunts like the hawk and putting together videos. Yet in the end he gets some crumbs. This is also the developer who said a couple of episodes again that they might not continue to build because of uncertainty about the election. Well he planned it when the previous guy was in the WH and now a new guy is in the WH so he built it anyways? That line was BS then all along. He had spent hundreds of millions already so he wasn't going to not complete it, not get a chance to make money off it. But I wonder how common it is for developers to turn a big complex all into rentals, after planning to sell multimillion dollar apartments. If they were filming the season now, the NYC high-end real estate market might have turned because the stock market is a lot higher than even last year, when it was at all-time highs. So there should be more buyers flush with stock market money these days.

Poor Vinny. First Pauly ditches him for a gf. Then Ronny also ditches him for a VF. So he ditches uncle Nino, though it was probably scripted, with the camera following Nino running around in his Speedos. Ronny’s gf seems low maintenance. So how did he get in trouble with DV? With his baby momma? I think they encourage Vinny and Angelina to go at each other all the time, it’s one of their things they do on the show. Mike isn’t holding back any more. He’s like a guide missile honing in on where the food is. No more cheat days because he’s no longer trying to be fit like in prison. Must have gained some weight since he got out of prison. Once the baby arrives, he’s going to be stress eating.

Brisbane mom may have been too close to the kids but she says she was shy growing up so her children seems to have helped her get out of her shell a bit. They sounded like Kiwis too. She did choose the most expensive one but made more sense with rental income in place. Thailand was fun, spent a little more, found some friends. Seemed to truly like living overseas, at least for awhile, first Nairobi now Bangkok. Maastricht, she seemed to give in to make the bf happy, having to do the longer commute. Those stairs to the loft, you have to concentrate not to fall off. Like the agent Floor. Maybe she and Sarah flip coins on which one does the episode whenever they’re doing an episode in the Netherlands. New graphics and a 3D map with some tower rising upwards.

This episode featured a lot of Pratt Daddy Crystals. So they sell some good amount with their little QVC shows on IG Live? Guess it's true there's a sucker born every minute. Spencer bought some quartz in South America for $65k and spent $10k to ship it back home? They claim to spend $40-50k on advertising. So the financial advisor tells them to use social media. Maybe they should have opened a home renovation shop with fancy counter tops but instead they bought mostly little things that people allegedly pay hundreds for. Still they must have cases of champagne on hand that Heidi can take bottles to a restaurant and spill it. They go from one party to another. Wahlers have a fundraiser event. Then they have some other restaurant get together where Pratts invite all of them to Palm Springs for some crystal event MTV must be picking up the costs for these parties, to be able to film them. If they have any kind of income coming in from crystals, it has to be from their relative fame, because the people watching their little show seemed to know Gunnar. And that fame comes from what, the whole sex tape allegations they made vs. LC? Kaitlynn tries to warn Audrina, that Brody will never change, won't have anything to do with women who have children. Audrina says no, he's growing and will change for her. So they go to a party and she's excited that he's coming but he shows up with a couple of groupies. What does she expect? Now that he's on TV again, he's going to get a lot more play. Caroline -- why did they stick her into the show anyways -- ogles Kaitlyn's big tits. No they're not implants, Kaitlyn is pregnant! Everyone thinks Kaitlyn is moving in too soon with her new bf. Kaitlyn is worried about telling Brody. She can't quit him! They finally called him Justin Bobby instead of just Justin. Everyone is telling both the Pratts and the Wahlers to take the high road and invite, and show up for Speidi's little party next week. I predict they will fight over which one of them took the high road.

Maybe they filmed on a studio set. You'd figure at a resort like that, they'd have a big terrace and lot of natural light coming in. So it doesn't seem representative of what you'd find in real life?

No I meant social media brought the Kardassians hundreds of millions and Speidi was never near that level and never will be.

Oh, sorry, I haven't watched the last episode yet.

Huh? I don't hear him saying that. Heidi is the one saying they have to tighten their finances, work with someone to help them on their budget. She's the one who alluded to having to lay off people. Spencer is chugging champagne and spending on organic beef to get some taco truck to make him custom tacos.

If they did a lot of drinking, $50 may be too low. Well I haven't been to Croatia. But someone orders a nice main, like a steak, and it's at least $30 and wine is now closer to $10 a glass than $5 a glass. But those are typical prices in Europe and that's kind of moderate priced places. Could easily be double what they paid for a nice sit-down place.

Did she really fire him or she was playing out the script? Firing/leaving is now a common event in all BD shows.

Seems like he works but Ashley doesn't. They seem to have a nice but modest home. I guess he gives motivational speeches and maybe coaching? But doesn't sound like it would generate reliable income. Maybe being on the show would help him get speaking gigs, though getting into a feud with Spencer probably isn't good.

Drinks are not cheap. I bet the show pays for it. At one point they said they each had to pay 300 Euros for dinner. That's a LOT per person for dinner, even if they drank a lot of alcohol with the dinner. Then later Malia mentioned 300 kuna. Well 300 Kuna is approximately $47, while 300 Euros is like $360, so BIG difference. Apparently Kuna is the main currency in Croatia but they also take Euro since they're near a lot of EU countries. In any event, if they had to pay anything like 300 Euros for dinner, I would think some of the cast members would bail on these filmed dinners, because it would be eating into a huge portion of their tips. But they go back to the ship and hit the hot tub, drinking some more but this time from the ship's supply, which no doubt Bravo is paying for. They seem to be able to drink as much as they want so obviously the producers want the cast to be drunk and then have the kind of fights like Lexi wasn't instigating.

Well Mat didn't need to tell Sandy because he knew the real employers were Bravo so he addressed them a couple of times to the cameras, as he knocked out at least a couple of them. Sandy didn't cast him, so he is talking directly to the ones who cast them. The ones who knew he had the potential to melt down. On other BD shows, we saw the crew helping the chef, like wash dishes, clean up the galley, even do some food prep. They either didn't let them do that here or he antagonized the people who were mostly in the galley like Lexi, though she wasn't going to help him anyways -- she just got pissed because he didn't want to deal with her for that breakfast.

How does Brody make money? Oh the DJ thing? Justin Bobby has hair salons? And what is the American Express thing?

I think they encourage them to do the shows. I doubt they'd go out of their way, fly to Croatia on their own dime, other than to be on the show. After how embarrassing Roy was, does the wife and other family want to appear on the show with him again? We shall see next year.

Yeah she had a pretty modest budget so the choices all had compromises. She said she bought properties and had rental income back in the US. But she didn't want to spend too much? But Valencia seems to be a value destination, though a previous episode in Valencia featured a family so they had a big budget IIRC.

Lexi was executing her burn list on people who weren't even on it. Her foobs keep popping out of her swimsuit and she has a massive chip on her shoulders. Surprised her father isn't on her list for dying on her. What a way to go through life. Bravo casting has got it down to a science now, they know how to pick these volatile personalities. They're not going to care the chef quit and busted up some stationary cams. The crew scrambling for a new chef makes "good TV" in their eyes. Two likely departures in the same week is a bonanza! The last season of BD Sailing Yacht, the cast seemed obliged to go to the hot tub every night off. Looks like they're doing something similar on this BDM season? I think in previous seasons of BD shows, some cast went to the hot tub but not the whole crew. Even after Lexi was cross at the dinner she joins everyone else in the tub, where they keep drinking? Maybe it was communicated to them that they were all expected to get into swimsuits, especially the women in skimpy bikinis for Malia and Courtney and Lexi with the swimsuit which couldn't contain her foobs. Katie and Malia put on a T-shirt and shorts after enough camera time ogling Malia's thonged ass -- not that we male viewer are complaining too much.

Is Nicole that great? Look at the daughter she raised. Yeah if she is a high-profile CEO, she'd probably have assistants around, not be reading her emails here and there. I don't know how exclusive the White Lotus is. I guess it's on a separate, small island. High-level tech CEOs probably aren't in some resort with other people around, especially if they're well off. And that room situation is really odd, for a party of 5 you'd think they'd have rented at least two suites or villas. Shane does want to control her while Rachel sees doing gigs as a hedge, if her marriage ends. He was going to spoil their honeymoon by obsessing over money but when she wants to try to have some measure of financial independence, he won't have it -- he flat out said "NO" before offering her double not to take the job. Come on, she could have done the job while he was lounging by the pool or eating. She still would have had time to service him sexually, since that seems to be the big draw for him about being married to her. Why did Rachel end up with him though? She doesn't feel secure financially, even with the prenup. They're clashing during their honeymoon, may be downhill from here on out. They seem to give a lot of screen time to the two girls though. Not sure why that is, unless they figure in the dead person's plot.

But didn't he bring it up repeatedly with her, maybe once with the manager?

That may all be true but Rachel's POV was that it wasn't worth letting the agitation get in the way of them enjoying their honeymoon. She was happy with the room they got, didn't feel wronged that she didn't get the honeymoon suite.

OK, she's a comedian as well as a professor? Maybe she's not fully tenured at NYU. She was mugging for camera time. I think it was an act.

Wonder how much that helicopter cost. I don’t think the seller would pay for it nor Steve out of pocket so it was probably for show. OCD woman could be an actress. If she was really like that, so private, why would she put her business out on a TV show? Can university professors be fame whores? Maybe but seems unlikely. Does it seem like there’s more interaction between the brokers than previous seasons? They’re going to each other’s showings more often and having convos followed by them trash talking each other in THs. Oh and it looks like the meme they wanted to push was that Frederick has lost touch with the NYC market because he’s out in LaLa land.

Still suspect the beefs depicted on the show are just for show. Not sure how many of these people socialize outside the show. It seems like they organize gatherings — like trips out of town to San Diego, Tahoe, etc. — or little parties just to have content for the show. Frankie said he’ll toss together a little Tiki party but they’re holding it at the Sofitel hotel. I doubt Frankie is paying for the venue and all the catering, it has to be MTV right picking up the bill? Yet Spencer says he had to spend a lot for the Tahoe trip but again, production must cover at least accommodations and those vans that took them everywhere. Probably the food and booze whenever they shot them dining together. Not to mention the salaries they must be paying them. So the Pratt’s say they spend $5-7k a month, sometimes $10k on “food” but that must include all the champagne they’re always drinking and nice restaurant meals? Heidi doesn’t seem like a cook. Maybe all those hummingbird feeders are filled with Veuve Cliquot.😊 Spencer says they made millions and lost millions. How? At the peak of The Hills maybe? We’re they doing a lot of appearances back then? Because about 10-15 years ago you heard about Kim Kardassian making huge fees to appear at clubs. That was before social media really took off and probably brought them hundreds of millions. Then again I’m not sure how they make a lot of money selling crystals. Do they have huge IG followings and the lemmings buy up that junk? Maybe MTV pays them more than most of the other cast members. Some world, Spencer makes a name for himself 10-15 years ago, describing someone’s private parts and he’s drinking champagne like some people drink water. Also funny Brandon says his girlfriend “won” since he chose her. Kaitlyn says before she met Kris, she didn’t think there were good men. Is she complimenting her current boyfriend or throwing shade at Brody, her previous bf?

So now this show has a literal gangsta mayor, who is shot but survives. He still has business out on the streets, going to literally defund the police. And this show continues with the abduction/sex slave plot, except Keisha names her baby after the guy who rescued her from the rapist baby daddy. And if open marriage wasn’t enough, Emmit and Tiff are hitting swinger parties. Predictably more drama with infidelity in the Nina and Dre marriage. So unrecognizable from the first two seasons, which were more grounded in reality. Maybe fitting they feature those high tech aerial night shots of the skyline. When did it jump the shark? When Dre pulled out the big strap on?

I wonder if Billions and Succession will overlap in the fall. They never have before. Two shows about plutocrats, both were critical darlings.