LibertarianSlut

This sounds like a description of Haredi Judaism, which is defined as “ultra, ultra Orthodox” (though the Haredim reject this definition, it’s the best one I can come up with that gets the point across). Modern Orthodox Jews generally look like everyone else, except the husband will probably wear a kippe. Ivanka is an Orthodox Jew. Not that this is any kind of defense of Leah’s “conversion,” which didn’t seem authentic at all, but she can technically become Orthodox without looking like she stepped off the set of Shtisel. What is more concerning to me is that her sister asked her which rabbi she is working with, and Leah replied “orthodox.” That’s not the name of a rabbi, which leads me to believe she doesn’t have one or she forgot his name, because he’s not important. If anyone remembers that terrible show VanderPump Rules, it is just like the times that Andy would ask Stassi’s boyfriend, Beau, “what do you do for a living?” And each time he’d reply “I’m in commercial casting.” That’s not a job, that’s an industry! Same with Leah—“orthodox” is not the name of a rabbi, it’s a branch of Judaism! Both people were highly suspect to me in their truth-telling to bullshit ratio. And just in anticipation of anyone saying maybe Leah didn’t want to say the rabbi’s name on film...this show has a rich history of bleeping out names. All of season four, Jill and Ramona were arguing about someone whose name was bleeped, and it drove me crazy! So, they can bleep once for Leah, or if she was afraid it wouldn’t be bleeped, she could tell Alien Eyes that she’d text her the name, but, regardless, “orthodox” isn’t an appropriate response, unless she was working with good old Rabbi Orthodox, of Lower Manhattan! We all know about him, right? 😁

I think Teresa and Dolores aren’t actually friends. I think they’re more like family members (though, JFTR, I am aware they aren’t actually family). I doubt they hang out off camera. Dolores appeared as Caroline’s friend several times before becoming a f/t cast member, and I think that’s where her loyalty lies. I think that is why, on season 7, Dolores was so inexplicably loyal to Jacqueline. Strangely enough, I can’t really remember Dolores and Teresa filming as friends. Like, have they ever gone shopping together, or had a sleepover like Dolores had with Siggy? I think outside of this whole “old school Italian” thing that Dolores never tires of lecturing about, she and Teresa don’t have much in common at all. The way they interacted with Danielle in polar opposite ways is telling, I think. Yes! And, may I add, I was at the ER with someone a year and a half ago, at a small hospital, and since I wasn’t the sick one, I was able to notice how it operated, and, since it is an emergency room, the doctors aren’t exactly doing rock, paper, scissors in the back room in order to determine who gets to attend to which patient. It is triaged—treatment is dispensed as required. I simply can’t imagine a scenario where David rushes over to the ER in his motorcycle, demands the file of Giuseppe Gorga, receives it, and then administers care for a kidney stone. What about David’s actual patients? What if one of his high risk moms-to-be went into labor? Does he then drop Giuseppe Gorga? None of it makes sense. I think it was just a shoddily constructed “David to the rescue” scene. Like, if David had a leaky roof, it would be the two Joes running to plug his roof together, complete with hijinx and hilarity ensuing, omg, I am laughing, does the fun ever stop!?! I think this thing with Gorga was partially staged, but it did a disservice to people who actually have the stones. Wasn’t the diagnosis just “live with it until it passes” or something? There are laser treatments that can break them up, just for starters. And pain medicine. I’m no expert, but it’s not something someone has to just live with, the way it seemed to be portrayed on the show, which I found irresponsible. I feel like I really need the tea on Teresa’s boyfriend! What has Louie been up to? 👏 I also think Melissa looks worse for the wear this season—I like her with long hair, but not the dark, dark color (the shorter hair makes her look so chin-ny, like a skinny Shrek)—but she is a woman over 40 and she has low body fat (fat is like nature’s collagen injections), and judging by those factors, I have to reluctantly say I think she looks great for 41—not gorgeous, not a work of art, not a supermodel—but definitely a step above ‘good.’ I think Jackie, Jennifer and Melissa are, at first glance, the best looking women on this cast, even though, as was pointed out up thread, Jennifer and Jackie have work to do (or work to abstain from) on their lips, and Jennifer needs a much less theatrical eyebrow. If this were 15 years ago, Dolores would sweep them all with her looks, I think, though I’m sure they all looked better 15 years ago (well, ‘cept Mel 😆) and Jen was a freaking show-stopper at her wedding, which is weird, because even though I find her in the top 50% of attractive women on this franchise, her looks now are nothing to write home about. Unfortunately, I think she makes poor aesthetic choices for herself on purpose, which is mind-boggling. Like, who (in this century, not the 1990s) looks in the mirror at overlined lips, lined with dark liner, contrasted with pale lipstick and says, “yes, that is! That’s the look I’m trying to achieve!”? Strange world.

I take it that since you are using the present tense, it is your assertion that these constant attacks and poor treatment are all happening to black people by the hands of other races (or “group X,” and I’m not sure who that is) in the US today (and in recent years). I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to go ahead and disagree with you, because the empirical data just don’t support it. If you are talking about black on black crime, yes that is definitely a huge problem that goes largely ignored, but it doesn’t appear from the episode that Eboni was attempting to call attention to that matter. If she had used her place on the show to call attention to black on black crime, I would support it, so long as she also had a good personality and interactions with the other women that seemed genuine, as this is reality TV and not news, after all. Since group X hasn’t been identified other than a group that is ostensibly not comprised of black people, I can’t really comment much further other than to say that I agree with Malcom X’s statement that “[Negro] problems will never be solved by the white man.” I certainly failed to agree with Eboni when she said in the episode that it is “good news” that the governor of California—a state that didn’t recognize slavery—is considering reparations. I’m not quite sure how she would begin to explain that one, and it’s doubtful to me that she thought it through. Agreement without thought is a recipe for disaster, as history has proven. Slavery comes to mind. We can also talk about Europe. As to how it works not to be fixated, I can’t prescribe for a negative, nor do I think that is necessary. There are very many American blacks who are not fixated on race who live good lives. And the way it works, I presume, is that they go about their business in going to work, raising families andworshipping God as they see fit. It’s almost condescending to an entire race to imagine that blacks would want or need this explained. I just don’t think in those terms. I just finished watching the new documentary about the economist Thomas Sowell, and Thomas Sowell lives his life by studying data, publishing, and photography. I don’t think there is a specific formula on how not to be fixated on something; people just live. I also read and own a lot of Thomas Sowell books, and he delivers the data that I would be happy to discuss in the Small Talk thread if anyone wants to have a conversation about specificracial or societal perceived ills. (It’s fruitful for me when we get specific, because general claims tend to shift meanings, and I’d rather avoid clever wordplay and instead actually reach a common understanding). I think we might find a lot more common ground than not. The genesis of almost all of my arguments lies in basic human dignity. I’m pretty sure (or at least I hope) that’s a principle under which we could unite. 🙏 I’m happy to entertain all comers in Small Talk!

Dolores, you dumb cow, lying about a doctor’s appointment is not the right thing. She can just say she is driving up later and not offer further explanation if she is such a real bitch. I have been saying for years that lying makes everyone—the liar and the person who believed the lie—look foolish. Someone who is confident rarely needs to lie, and this wasn’t one of the exceptions. Judge Judy said that if someone lies to her once, everything else they say is suspect. May I suggest that is the case with Dolores? Right or wrong, Jennifer’s mom is one of the most interesting people on the cast. A lot of the moms interest me, like Valerie. I think Melissa’s mom is more attractive than half this cast. Joe Gorga really needs to shut the fuck about Joe Giudice. It’s such a bad look. Giudice is the kids’ father, and what’s worse for Joe, is that Juicy is on foreign soil, so Joe constantly making fun of him now that he knows there can be no physical person to contend with makes him look all the more of a bitch. Joe B spent eight years renovating a room? Speaks volumes for him as a professional. Ugh, Margaret’s book cover concept was so on-the-nose and unoriginal. Whatever will appeal to the lowest common denominator of the masses (why do I think the producers of this show use that exact phrase about us viewers each season? 🤫) Nice attempt at damage control to film the kids’ birthdays with both of your men, Dolo. Not convincing. David seems so much more stable than she is. OMG, it’s fucking hilarious that Frank is a cheater! False. I can’t believe how good Jackie looks for 44. She and Jen both looks so young and fresh for women in their forties. If I had just flipped to the channel when Margaret was coming over to Jackie’s, I could easily imagine Margaret was Jackie’s mom, not someone less than 10 years older! Dolores “almost” finds it entertaining when she gets shit coming from Joe? She is such a liar. She was so upset at what Joe was saying! OMG, does she not know abut this thing called film?? And Melissa letting Dolores off the hook for whatever reason (probably fear) turns me off. Teresa looked like the Wicked Witch of the West at Jackie’s birthday party. It was a day that ended in Y, so Margaret’s breasts were out. OMG, John Michael is the name of Jennifer’s brother’s store on Long Island!! She finally get his brand on the show after throwing a fit two years ago! 🤮 Nothing like rewarding bad behavior! Everything that goes on between Melissa and Joe seems fake. I don’t think he didn’t need to go to the hospital until the cameras happened to be on any more than Vicki had to go into the hospital on season 6 of RHOC, just as Alexis’s fashion show was debuting. Why didn’t Teresa leave with Melissa, even with covid? Teresa would have expected that of Joe. What is David, an ob-gyn, going to do for Joe’s kidney stone? I imagine that there would be liability issues, not to mention time management issues all over the place, if David tried to be Joe’s, I guess, urologist. This seems so, so, so contrived. The flashback to the treatment likely occurred at David’s clinic after the fact. What I don’t believe is that Joe G got admitted to the hospital, and David rushed there to be his attending. Tell that one to the marines. When Teresa is allowed to talk about her boyfriend in the absence of innuendo, gossip and fanfare, it seems real and genuine. It’s so sad that something real that is occurring on the show—finally—keeps collapsing under the weight of the others who are using this storyline because they don’t have one of their own. Yes, Dolores, Joe Gorga had a psychotic break when he told the truth about you. Twelve cheers for Jackie for owning up to what she said—that she believed what Dolores said in the past—what nerve! And Dolores’s only response was not to attack the substance of what Jackie was saying—because it was entirely steeped in logic—but to once again attack the procedure of what happened and just double-down on the idea that they took a vote. Dolores is not a good arguer. And I noticed she can’t pronounce “comparable.” If Teresas gets shit for it, Dolores gets shit for it. She’s no rocket scientist. I don’t see how she’s such a self-described “fucking catch.” She likes to talk tough when she’s not faced with her opponent. She wants to explain to Margaret just how wrong Melissa and Jackie are. Why doesn’t she explain it to them instead? Why does she make such a big distinction between herself and “some dumb bitch walking down the street”? When has Dolores demonstrated smarts in the past five seasons? I think, if they had to go head to head, I would say Melissa is smarter than Dolores. The main good things I believed about Dolores up until recently was that she was nice and a peacemaker, and that’s all been blown to hell. But smart? She’s near the bottom. On this cast. Just off the top of my head, if Joe Gorga should go with Frank to get a colonoscopy, because they’re getting old (why do I feel like this doctor’s trip is in the near future on the show? 😩), then doesn’t it stand to reason that Teresa needs a colonoscopy too, as she is older than Joe? But no one would be able to point even that out to Dolores, because she is so freaking sensitive. She actually makes Jackie look like a stalwart Russian mercenary in how fragile Dolores is as soon as the surface is scratched. I love Jackie vs Dolores. They speak enough of the same language that it is not frustrating, the way Jackie vs Teresa is. Also, neither of them are getting any protection, which makes it far more interesting. The person who would “protect” Dolores is Teresa, and Teresa doesn’t really give a shit, and the people that would “protect” Jackie are Melissa, who is absent, and Margaret, who is scared shitless of Dolores. Let the games begin. No one is allowed to talk if they’re not following Dolores’s party line either. Jackie can’t talk and then Jennifer can’t talk. When Jackie finally got a chance to talk, she made a ton of sense. She learned a lot since throwing out coke rumors “as analogies” at the beginning of the season. I love to see any kind of growth in these women. I loathe people who shut down other people’s speech. I forgot this was 1763 and Dolores was King George. No one is looking for Dolores to fall apart—they just idly gossiped about her at a party—off with their heads? I don’t get it. And that passive-aggressive jab that Teresa better not talk about her man around them, or they will gossip about Teresa? I beg to differ, because Teresa just puts it out there. So no one needs to take secret votes about her. She was mum on the boyfriend for a long period of time (and Dolores wouldn’t even let us see David for at least a season) and now that he and Teresa are serious, she is going to reveal him. What Teresa is not going to do is let this guy jerk her around for years and then get really defensive when people talk about it. Teresa has her flaws, but she doesn’t get defensive in this particular way. She actually stays kind of calm in this type of situation, and tells people to talk to her lawyer or just flatly denies it (then she goes on to hold a grudge, which is a bit of a problem, but a grudge is actually preferable, to me, to someone who hocks and harangues people about what they said, the people admit it, say they understand and won’t do it again, and she still has a fucking problem). I like a cranky Gorga couple. I like them more this season than perhaps ever before, which is still not much. Not everything is so perfect and “thank you Jee-Zus!” Shit is getting real (even if it’s a little fake) and I’m here for that. I think Joe was on serious pain meds during that last argument, especially when he lisped, “if you want to go to the city!” I had to laugh. I didn’t know someone so short could fall so far. I believe Teresa is in a loving relationship with this Louis (Louie?) person (though her date outfit was atrocious and not flattering), but she just sold it, probably because it’s real. I remember that the viewers collectively had a hard time believing that David existed until he appeared on camera, and even then people were weirded out and never really settled into him. I’m not sure how much Dolores settled into David (the kids would have to wait to eat for Frank, but not David; nice priorities) and that is a huge part of the problem. Gosh, I hope to stop writing so much about Dolores. It just took me by surprise because I thought my least favorite was going to be Margaret, right up through the end of the season. Did not see this one coming. Slightly less boring episodes tonight and last week though, so maybe Dolores becoming deplorable actually leads. Whatever works.

I respect what you’re saying, and I would agree with you in a vacuum. Like, race doesn’t have to come into the equation. I get that. Anecdotally, though, I get the other side, because I was in this situation where a black friend brought me to see his brother in an all-black neighborhood, and when the brother met me (I’m white), he immediately said, half genuinely, half tongue-in-cheek, “well, we accept all colors around here,” with a big smile, and I was immediately put at ease at the fact that he said it and by the way he thought he could joke with me right out of the gate. I don’t think mentioning race is a problem. I think the fixation on race is a problem, and Eboni is the one who displayed that at every turn this episode. I stopped counting, as soon as I made the affirmative decision that this show will never be on my DVR again, but, just off the top of my head, she mentioned that it was “good news” that Governor Newsom was considering reparations, she wore a sweatshirt with the names of the Central Park Five on it, she mentioned that she met her boyfriend, in part, through commonality on NFL kneeling, and she went on at length about how black people were welcomed in Sag Harbor in the 1940s, which, according to Eboni, was one generation removed from slavery, which is strange, considering the 1940s were 75 years after slavery ended in America. I guarantee if another member of the cast had made such an honest gaffe, they would be taken to school at length for their ignorance, and privilege. Leah was with Eboni when she wore the Central Park Five sweatshirt, and they supposedly knew each other before, so when they were traveling to Sonja’s party in the car and Eboni asked if Sonja was used to being around “people like [her],” it wasn’t a huge leap to me that Leah would ask a clarifying question to make sure that Eboni was referring to race prior to responding. I can fault Leah for being gross, having inappropriate moral outrage, for holding different people to different standards, and for wild immaturity, but I don’t have a problem with her asking if someone who has a penchant for talking about race was talking about race before responding in kind. All of the racial conversation could have been avoided, but Eboni wants very much to talk about race, which I guess is fine in the greater scheme of things. But, if Eboni can make allusions to race four times in one episode, I’m not sure why Sonja can’t make one, especially given that Sonja seemed friendly and non-confrontational in what she was saying. Most of Eboni’s racial speech, on the other hand, seemed designed to be provocative (Sag Harbor as the exception). And I can’t really blame Eboni completely, because another poster explained Eboni’s history to me over PM, and it’s clear that she was one way once, and now she is getting paid to be Bravo’s woke token “person of color.” So Bravo is at least somewhat at fault for only offering a position to someone on the cast who falls in line with what they think we will appreciate and will fall in line with our views of how people of certain races should think and act, and, also, for Bravo to atone for what it perceives to be its own racial transgressions, I guess. So, Eboni is just a pawn in their game. A willing pawn, but a pawn nonetheless. I think it is so sad that Bravo keeps making casting choices in order to pass some type of politically correct litmus test and in order to improve their ESQ score for 💲. I am so embarrassed for Bravo and its players. Because Andy is obsessed with appearing woke (I don’t think he is woke at all, and I think he is actually very elitist IRL), he casts Asian and black cast members who act the way he probably expects Asian and black people to act, with zero thought for diversity of opinion. This is actually kind of racist to me, because white women cast on these shows, while not completely free to act how they want, get a lot more latitude than minority women, who have to pay lip service to certain causes or they will not get or stay cast. I have to call everyone out, now that I am on a roll. Luann really wanted to know how Eboni met her new man, and Eboni was listing a bunch of causes that Eboni and the BF had in common, and Luann was just nodding really hard, as if she aligned with these causes too, when, meanwhile, Luann doesn’t give a shit about these causes. She did an Indian war whoop in a restaurant just to annoy Carole in season five. But she wants to keep her job. It’s so gross how Bravo says “jump,” and these aging, divorced women say, “how high?” I find Sonja’s throwaway comment a lot more innocuous than Luann’s faux enthusiastic nodding about social justice. I also thought Sonja’s throwaway comment about the fish was a lot more innocuous than Eboni’s response, which was that Sonja must be body positive, because some of her fish were overweight, the implication being that one is only “body positive” if they embrace extra fat, as if it is just as healthy and attractive as a normal weight. Just so much PC bullshit. I need a fainting couch. Also, Eboni, put your breasts away! She made freaking Sonja look demure. Those girls deserved their own tag lines. Also, Luann, your apartment ain’t all that. It looked, as another poster up thread pointed out, not very different from Leah’s apartment that Luann dressed down last season (which I agreed wasn’t shit). But it is rich for Luann to make passive-aggressive comments about the size of Leah’s coffee table, when Luann’s table is a cardboard box! I’m also not sure how Eboni was legally practicing law since the age of 23. She is my age and she graduated from law school one year earlier than I did, and I am young for my age in my grade, and there was still no way I could have practiced law legally prior to the age of 25, so it is just a mathematical puzzle to me how she began practicing prior to 24. The world may never know. I sound like such a hater on Eboni, which is ok, she didn’t leave a good taste in my mouth, and if I held that back because she is black, that would be racist to me. I did, however, like how she took responsibility for the messes—all of them—in the past, unlike, ahem, someone’s name who rhymes with Bone Ya (and even Sonj seems to have she shit together a little more this episode than previous seasons. She mentioned the quarantine was good for her twice. Girl, I’m right there with you). I also thought it was funny when Eboni said that she was “old as hell” in response to whether she was going to have kids. Not everyone is Ramona, popping out firstborns naturally at 38. I admire when women don’t think it is some type of anti-feminist taboo to acknowledge scientific facts. In summary, I just have so much more of a problem with Bravo and so little patience for the network, than with any individual player that I am quitting most all of their shows on a dime, and I couldn’t be happier about it. Ok, this is going to make me look like the biggest hypocrite ever, since I said I need a PC fainting couch...but when Leah’s father said this, I was turned off. I was like, “yeah, like there are no Mexican Jews! Has he not heard of Mauricio?” It just seems weird to me to assume that everyone in Mexico is Catholic. I know it’s a joke, but a joke only makes sense if the joker thinks there is something truthful about its core. Not only are not all Mexicans Catholic, but it is disputed how Catholic a lot of Mexicans who identify as Catholic are, as the Day of the Dead is not recognized by the church. It’s not a big deal, but I kind of wish people would be a little more educated when it comes to religion. I have called Ramona out about this in the past, as well as Jill co-signing an attitude the Count had about Judaism. Like...if people who practice the religion are ignorant about it—and religion is unlike race, in that it is a choice, it is not immutable—what exactly is happening with our civilization? And now that I just deconstructed another Housewife show with so much gravitas, I know it is time I go back to annoying the people on the Jersey board (and possibly BH, that one is on the bubble) and leave the good viewers of RHNYC in peace. 😁

Oh my God, I am just going to say I love that this question was posed—it is “champing.” “Champing at the bit” comes from a poem: “Twelve beauteous steeds, of golden color and with golden mains, champ at the bit.” “Chomping” is also accepted, but it’s not technically correct. Nerd rant over. So this was the finale? What a drag. They didn’t even include Jenna, my favorite (by default), unless I was seriously not paying attention, which is a major possibility. 😊 The break broke the show, and once it came back on Monday nights, I couldn’t be bothered. I flipped my opinion when she gave birth and I wish Jenna the best, but that weird lockjawed construction working boyfriend (how does he work construction but only weigh about 115 lbs) can kick rocks, and her dad probably needs to grow up more than she does, freaking her out about her own pregnancy more than she was already freaked out, instead of swallowing his fear and putting on a brave face, which is what every good dad has done since the dawn of time. I am not a fan of reunions, or tell-alls. It allows a lot of weakness for the regular episodes. If there was no tell-all at the end of the season, they would have to give us a lot more over the course of 15 episodes to get us to tune in again. This season was the worst—so boring and not enough function to round out the dysfunction. This season would have done better as a five-part limited series, but then where would all the TLC advertising revenue come from? I’ll start with my second-least hated couple—Ethan and Myrka: I think what happened to them is not an argument in favor of abortion, but an argument in favor of abstaining from sex or, failing that, using double protection correctly. If I was making an argument for abortion, I would have to say that I am advocating for two underage, unskilled teenagers to have unprotected sex, get pregnant, then get unpregnant through surgery and antibiotics and a whole slew of other meds (and this is without getting into complications) so that she doesn’t wind up wondering who is going to pay for her college tuition. Why not just...abstain? And then you can go to college without wonder or worry. Wouldn’t that be so much more logical? To me, it’s like saying that the Donner Party Should have chosen cannibalism instead of saying that they should have avoided crossing the Sierra Nevadas at that time of year, only, with the Donner Party, it is much more complicated. Two teenagers sticking to making out and heavy petting is just not a tall order, unless they’re multi-millionaires who can make any choice with regard to their offspring they need to. They were pretty clear when they came on the show that they had unprotected sex as a habit. So uncool. I don’t feel sorry for them, especially Myrka; she’ll love you and leave you, and I think she’s more bewildered than anything else that someone (Ethan’s parents) got there first. Lilliana (who I think would have been ok with adoption, though I don’t have good evidence to back up that assertion) was proven right. The people I feel most sorry for are Ethan’s siblings, especially the baby. And I don’t believe the mom that Myrka moving in and then bringing in another whole-ass baby had “nothing” to do with them splitting up. Though that was definitely mixed signals the genius parents were sending: we are so happy you are having a baby while you’re in high school, that not only are we going to throw you a big-ass “gender reveal,” complete with fake mustaches you can hold up to your face in the photo station on (I mean, what “gender reveal” would be complete without that?), but we are going to spend hours decking our SUV out to the nines in pink bows and silly string and confetti in order to pick you up from the hospital. Every fucking one of those people in that house (except the little kids) is sorely confused and confusing and it’s depressing as hell. Ok, I don’t know who I hate more—Alex and Tyra or Lilly and Lawrence—so I’ll just go with Tyra next: Alex is a fucking psychopath, it’s confirmed. Tyra is no picnic either. Clearly, HE CHEATS. What he got caught doing is talking to other girls, but he cheats. Sure as Matthew cheated on Hailey, Alex is cheating on Tyra, and the two winners just sit there uncomfortably and dance around it. I think Tyra is such a selfish bitch for going away to college to cheer, essentially rendering Alex a single father five days a week (it took me a long time to realize how selfish she was being; I thought she was going to a local college and that cheering was paying for it at the beginning of the season). Now she just expects Alex’s grandmother to watch Layla. But can we talk about Alex for a second? He is so shy and awkward and seems physically pained when a question is posed to him. This episode, it was the tearing at the curls nonstop, but at almost every other point, his MO is to go down. My husband laughs at my impression of him—it starts with the ducking of the chin into the chest, then the shoulders hunch, and finally the body doubles over. This is not even a boy, let alone a man! This is more like an earthworm when poked with a stick. I don’t care that he never had a father figure growing up (actually I care a lot, but it doesn’t give him total immunity). Has Alex never watched TV and seen a police officer or a judge or even a self-respecting criminal stand and speak assertively? He’s going to be a horrible father, because he has no idea how to teach his child how to act out there in order to meet her goals without harming people. These two need to break up and stay broken up ASAP. And they both need a serious amount of help growing up. The dark horses for this season for me? Alex’s mom (just for gong from totally creepy to partially creepy) and his freaking grandma, who did an about-face and acted mature and kind all season long. The grandma (great-grandma, I guess) is Layla’s best hope. And look at the job she did with Alex! 🙇‍♀️ Lilly and Lawrence—I HATE THEM. They do not offer a single redeeming thing to anyone. Not even to themselves. The only one I like in that entire equation is Lawrence’s mom. She is way too happy about this unplanned pregnancy, but she has been speaking sense since the beginning. She knows Lawrence has to ingratiate himself with Aaliyah, even though he is not her father or stepfather, and that he has to be something of a dad to her. Lilly’s mom and Lilly’s mom’s boyfriend are such losers and liars. First of all, I just have to clear something up—there are no step-parents in this family. The show erroneously bills Lilly’s mom’s boyfriend as “Lilly’s Stepdad” and it is frequently mentioned that Lawrence is Aaliyah’s stepdad now. Full-stop—FALSE. There is a huge difference between “partner” and “family.” The latter suggests a permanent relationship. The former connotes only what is going on in the relationship at the moment. So Lilly’s mom’s boyfriend (I don’t know his name—calling him The Haircut works out for me just fine) can be gone at a moment’s notice. He is not any kind of father to her, not her stepfather, and I’m not entirely sure why Lawrence asked his permission to marry Lilly, other than the plot called for it. I also think Lilly’s mom and The Haircut are such fucking liars in that they gave their blessing (with hands on their hearts and weeping eyes IIRC) for Lawrence to marry Lilly, and then immediately in their talking heads they said they think they should wait. “Wait,” in this instance, means, “we don’t think she should marry him.” Then man up and say something. You guys are in your forties and sixties, respectively. When are you going to start giving your opinions about what is right and what is wrong, especially when it goes on under your roof? When she is on baby number nine? (Will that be before or after someone gets off their ass to potty train poor Aaliyah, whose diapers the camera never fails to catch, which means that when she is in school, her peers will be able to make fun of her for wearing a diaper during the day at three. This is all, of course, her skanky mom’s fault, but the peers won’t see it that way). As far as Lawrence and Aaliyah, whooo child, where do I even start? He came into the picture, aka slid into Lilly’s DM’s, knowing she had a child. Why he is now taking his kohl-rimmed eyes (the weirdness of which I can’t even get into) and giving Aaliyah the death stare several times is a pathology so deep that it frightens me through my TV screen. Now that this baby is born, Lawrence views Aaliyah as a threat to the family he wants to have, either with Lilly or another brood mare, so long as he can be completely in control and “famous”. He said, when they were still in the hospital, that he wants to have “another one.” He is clearly one of those guys who likes knocking women up because it makes him feel like more of a man. There was a guy just like this on Growing Up Hip-Hop, but that guy had at least some disposable income. What does Lawrence do, other than impregnate Y-list former reality TV stars in order to get his 15 seconds of fame? Nothing. So, Lawrence, I have a wild fucking idea—now that you have a kid with this ho, and when she had the baby, you were 19 and she was 20, which means y’all are probably closer to 21 and 20 now...why don’t you actually marry her and then take steps to adopt Aaliyah, and then she will not be just your stepchild, she will be your legal child, and you can mold her and lay down the law for her, not even like a dad, but as a dad? These two are not even teenagers anymore. They claim to be so in love. Technically they are engaged. March down to Suffolk County Clerk, which is right there in Riverhead, and make an honest woman out of Lilly, but more importantly, adopt her child and be the father she never had (I doubt Kennedy, of season one, would mind, given that he doesn’t even pay support) and then Aaliyah won’t feel like the red headed stepchild. But having an intact nuclear family in one’s twenties is a sure fire ticket off the show, so the chances of Lilly and Lawrence actually doing this are...I’d say “slim to none,” but “slim” sounds wildly optimistic! 😦

Perfectly stated. I admire your brevity. To bolster our points that they are exhibiting unresolved issues and she’s got Frank on a leash, there is never a point when Frank has a girl around ever, not just in situations where Frank is appearing as Dolores’s “date.” For instance, this season and last season, when they went to the Jersey Shore, Teresa didn’t have a date. They were just group trips. Yet Frank never brings a female to accompany him. It’s clearly (to me) because Dolores doesn’t want to be embarrassed. Embarrassed by what though? I thought they were “just friends.” And it is being passed down to their kids. Last season, when Gabby was home and Dolores was speaking hypothetically about Frank moving on, Gabby said, “my butthole just clenched when you said that.” And it was clear from the way Gabby said it that she was clenching on Dolores’s, and not her own, behalf. This is a veterinary student whose parents divorced when she was a baby! Why is she clenching about her dad moving on, unless there is something very wrong with her parents’ dynamic? 🤷‍♀️ I just want to add that I was tricked because of the editing for so long. It just looked like a big, mashed up family where Dolores’s ex and boyfriend lived together, and aren’t they wonderful? 😍 What a cute commentary on the new normal! It was definitely a process for the scales to fall from my eyes, but Dolores losing her shit and demanding to Frank that they “fucking go” from a party where Dolores was questioned about her house of cards, I completely realized the situation is FUBAR.

I don’t understand this term. It sounds like being a little bit pregnant 🤔. I assume it means “estranged husband.” I’ll just go on to use that term moving forward. I don’t think the story that was shared sheds favorable light on the situation between Dolores and Frank. Judging by what you shared, you don’t want to be divorced, and you offered reasons as to why. I don’t think it’s because of paperwork, because in ten years, there is a lot of paperwork that is done that is tedious, but we generally just do it, if we want the result enough. If we don’t want it, for medical or other reasons, we don’t do it. Dolores and Frank divorced a long time ago, though, so this is like apples and oranges to me. Since it’s out there, I’m going to offer my opinion. This...seems like a situation that can benefit from a fair bit of attention. If a boyfriend is going to over-imbibe to the point that he is not a good candidate for a work event, and an estranged husband has to secretly stand-in instead...there is work to do. There are conversations to be had. There are decisions to be made. Obviously this whole situation isn’t working for Dolores, because she can’t even have a conversation about David like an adult; she has to run out of the room like a little kid. If that’s “working”, what does dysfunction look like? 😄 If it was David as her date, the two of them could have hashed this out side-by-side with David and her working in tandem, as a couple does, but Dolores had to take the brunt of it all, which is another example of how her model is flawed. This isn’t complicated to me. This is why monogamy, aka one on one partnerships, which has its challenges, has been the favored model of romantic relationships for millennia. Because that is what works for human beings. Singledom is also a viable option in 21st century America. If someone has a boyfriend for certain arenas of their life, but a date for other arenas, and they are on reality TV, the onus is on them to prove it works better than the socially proven alternatives, so Dolores better get used to facing the questions (alone). On RH of Potomac, there are Robyn and Juan—a couple who is divorced, but live as if they are still married—and they get so much shit for it. I think that’s actually more normal than Dolores splitting the baby this way, because at least Juan and Robyn have plans to reunite, whereas it appears that this is at least a semi-permanent arrangement for Dolores. She can do whatever she wants, as long as she is dealing with consenting adults. I just think it’s dysfunctional, not just in the abstract, but for Dolores. And I think that’s self-evident. People can say “this works out really good” and “she can be really good friends with her ex, and also have a boyfriend,” but it doesn’t seem like she’s very happy. If I had a new Porsche and two shiny new residences, with closets for dresses the size of two rooms, I would be a lot happier than Dolores is now. And that is because I already have the foundation—the loving and stable relationship with a partner with whom I have communication. It seems like Dolores is desperately trying to have two things that don’t quite fit, but she’s so unhappy that she is enjoying neither. I think Dolores is doing this because she is uncomfortable being alone, and she needs therapy. I also think that she is extremely materialistic in that she would rather deal with this fuckery and have new shit than to date a man with a lower income bracket who will love her and live life with her side by side. It’s fun to take the piss out of Teresa, for all of her malapropisms and whatnot, but she wouldn’t be caught dead in this situation IMO. None of them would. Even Danielle, with all of her twisted shenanigans, never tried to cram this down our throats and expect no one to say boo. I also notice that when Dolores went on about her relationship with David about how good he is, and how he doesn’t yell and hit—she never said that they love each other. Even Tom and Luann claimed to love each other and look how that turned out! The anecdotes provided above prove only that there is another poster who understands why Dolores engages in her particular brand of antisocial behavior, but it doesn’t do much of anything to sway me to accept or applaud said behavior. A rule of thumb that I observed is if someone finds themselves screaming at friends and abusing colleagues at a cocktail party over a man who couldn’t be bothered to be there...Houston, we have a problem.

On rewatch, I noticed a few things. First of all, when Marge said that Joe had to go home to shower after fucking her, Teresa slapped Margaret five. That tells me not just a lot about Margaret, but a lot about Teresa. Second of all, it was not just that Dolores started things in general terms as I posted up thread. Dolores specifically started with Joe at the cocktail party, not the other way around. I think she was very drunk. She was the only one who thought Teresa left because she was upset, and as soon as they explained that Teresa left because of a booty call, and zero people were upset, Dolores made the big speech defending Teresa anyway, saying what Teresa had a right to do, and how much they have both been through and how much everyone judges them. She completely misread the room, and clearly had an axe to grind, and it was inconvenient for her that none of this applied to Teresa, but why let the facts get in the way of a big, morally high ground speech (did I mention she reminds me of Caroline? 😉)? When Melissa said that Joe is the kind of guy who will share that he just had sex with his wife, Dolores turned to Joe and said David would never be that way and that “David would be very upset around you.” It was only after two provocative comments that Joe came up to Dolores, (also very drunk), put an arm on her shoulder and mumbled (in an imitation of Dolores) “I’m so happy.” They went back and forth a few times and then Dolores faced Joe very aggressively and said very loudly “I don’t want someone getting mad at me for getting ahead of them when I walk to the car.” Ok, now she’s bringing Melissa into this. If I were Melissa, I’d be pissed. So that’s why Melissa told Dolores “not everybody wants your exact replica.” She could have gone harder and I’d still have been on Melissa’s side. Then I think Joe went a little off the rails and began to show old Joey G, “you’re my father, my fucking father” behavior, but a lot went into it beforehand. I was just really glad he wasn’t ass-kissing for the first time over the course of the show. I was really glad that he said that Frank was out “doing his thing” and that broke Dolores. I don’t really think it is funny and wacky and cool to have a storyline where your husband, who got disbarred and didn’t tell you when you guys were business partners, which, by definition, makes it your business, was sticking his wick in other women while Dolores was pregnant. Why is it ok that Frank did that to Dolores, but when Tristan Thompson does it to Khloe, it’s international news? It’s not just about Frank and Dolores. There was a very young daughter involved and an unborn son. Those children, who are now adults, could very well go on to have intimacy issues, and rightfully so. What’s wrong with these people? I am not saying Frank should be cast out of society for cheating, but I don’t think he belongs in the group. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with him in the group, and that’s why I’m glad Joe Gorga, the biggest pussy ever, called it out. I’ve said it before, but not in these words—Frank props Dolores up socially and financially. I had to laugh earlier in the episode when she said she’s done so much, and was a financially independent single mom. Right, if you call demanding cabinets from your ex-husband since season seven “financially independent.” David doesn’t show up to events, so Frank comes as his stand-in and whenever we have seen that with Housewives before, there has always been trouble in paradise. Right off the top of my head, Jim Bellino and Alexis, who went on to get divorced, come to mind. When Melissa is asking Dolores a direct question, instead of gossiping about her behind her back, Dolores can’t handle it. That’s what I don’t like. This is a show about people talking about other people, at its essence. (I also loved in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment when Margaret tried to backpeddle on the rumor-mongering, which is Margaret’s MO because she’s a fraidy cat, and Melissa called Margaret “bitch” to her face and then went on to name every single person at that party who had been talking about Dolores and her Porsche versus her non-ring. If this is who Melissa Motherfucking Gorga is, then she can stay). Dolores said she is good with David and the way things are and no one said one thing against it as soon as she explained it, but that was still too much for her and it was suddenly, “Frank, I want to leave.” Why does Miss Independent need Frank to take her home? We all know that Bravo provides car services for these people, or one of them could have called an Uber. Why is she so dependent on Frank? It reminds me of the way Teresa couldn’t stand on her own in past seasons, and said everyone needed to leave with her. And the way that Melissa demanded that Teresa get Michelle and her husband to retract the truth about Joe’s financial shenanigans, otherwise she’s not a good sister in law. And the way Melissa demanded Teresa stay in the Hamptons last year instead of leaving with Jennifer, otherwise, again, Teresa is not a good sister-in-law. I don’t like coalition-building through blind loyalty, and I really don’t like that, when Dolores is talking, Frank is standing there like a puppet, nodding vociferously, as if his balls will be handed to him in a jar if he isn’t Dolores’s whipping boy. I have to keep quoting Dina season six about what she said about Bobby being with Nicole because he wanted to be one of the cool kids. This goes just as much for Frank. Frank wants to kiss Joe Gorga’s ass and hit golf balls and drink with the guys and mouth-breathe while Dolores gives him the skinny about whether Evan is “coming in hot,” and the price he pays is to be Dolores’s whipping boy, and it’s gross. Frank told Andy at one of the reunions that he is not back with Dolores because he is not 100% sure he can be faithful. I interpret that to mean that he does not respect Dolores enough not to fuck other ladies. She is not worth the commitment to him. Men like Frank may want us to believe their penis just makes decisions, but, alas, we have free will, and Frank could be faithful to Dolores, but instead he chooses not to be, and everyone pretends to be ok with that, when, at the very least, Dolores is not, as I’ll explain below. In earlier days of the show, it was said that Frank had a girlfriend. I don’t think he’s a particularly good-looking guy, but I am positive he can get laid a lot, and probably by a pretty high caliber of woman. He also has good manners and seems to be able to carry on a conversation with a woman. Yet, notice how Frank never, ever has so much as a date at any event on camera? It is because Dolores has his balls in a vice, because she is broken and she has a scarred heart over what he did, and she’s not taking affirmative steps to get over it. Mark my words, because I’ve seen this before: Frank is not free to be happy until Dolores is completely happy. Frank will not have a date until Dolores gets what she wants from David or some other millionaire (an ob-gyn for high-risk pregnancies who can afford to own and renovate that property in their area has at least a million dollars in assets). Some sick shit at play for Dolores to keep Frank on the hook at least until David acts, maybe longer. Whatever Joe said that was out of line didn’t justify Dolores individually saying to everyone at the party, “fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.” That’s trashy. “Frank, let’s fucking goooo!” hollered across a nice party was especially classless. Clearly she has something to hide, because someone who didn’t have their defenses up would have noticed that once the explanation was given, everything was fine. She’s a control freak in a lot of areas, and up until this point, she’s hid it very well, but now the mask ain’t slipping, it’s like it’s been peeled off, discarded, and burned. Remember how, in season eight, we were all wondering why Siggy was going fucking crazy about Margaret and Dolores refused to ever say anything to or about Siggy in any capacity and just defended the crazy? It was because Dolores thought that Siggy had a right to go that hard at Margaret for not falling into line, because Dolores has that mentality that you never go against the family, Fredo, and anyone who dares to question anything, like whether the Porsche was in lieu of the ring, is dead to her. Jackie had a point, and the show flashed back to proof of it, when she said Dolores’s party line on David went from all to nothing. Last season, at the reunion, she was dead set on that ring. Now she doesn’t want a ring. Ok, fine, but if these people are your friends—and it’s her job to pretend that they are—then they get to ask questions about it. Just like they get to ask questions about whether Teresa has a boyfriend. I don’t think it’s good TV to make a season out of whether Teresa has a boyfriend, but they can and do ask, and Teresa puts up with it, because she is very aware that they are trying to make a television show here. It was very telling to me that Dolores’s parting words were, “well, figure it out, because whatever I said is what I fucking mean.” The subtext to that, to me, was that no one is allowed to question her behavior. But this is reality TV and that’s literally the format. Jordan Peterson loves to pose the question of how to we figure out what one believes—do we listen to what they say or do we go by their actions? And it’s a really deep philosophical question that he traces back to Nietzche, Kierkegadd, and a whole school of thought. I would pose that question to Dolores. I’m gathering that Dolores thinks that she has every right to make inconsistent and self-nullifying statements both in her words and her behavior and no one is allowed to say word one about it, or they get an earful. Like I said, this traces back to Siggy and even Dolores’s defense of Jacqueline in season seven, when almost every single viewer was like, “I really like this Dolores person, but why does she keep on defending Jacqueline’s indefensible behavior over and over and over again?” Now it’s rearing its head in an ugly way, not a benign way, but it comes from the same set of beliefs that we have to be totally blind about people or we are not good friends. Dolores totally lost me this episode. The standard can simply not be as simple as “if she says she’s happy, then it’s nobody’s business.” That doesn’t hold up when I scrutinize it. What if she was doing something really destructive, but claimed to be “happy”? Would no one be able to say a word about that? What if people do not believe that she is happy? What if she is happy, but she’s doing something really antisocial, like killing people? That’s an extreme example, but I’m using it to expose that there is a fallacy in using Dolores’s subjective use of the term happy as the end all and be all. Maybe the standard is that if she’s happy and not harming anyone else, we should leave her alone, which is a totally different thing. And even that doesn’t work on reality TV, clearly. If Dolores wants to be a tertiary character, then she should be a friend-of. This show has a long history with friends-of. Or, as I suggested earlier, she doesn’t need to participate. No one is forcing her. And she may not be harming other people, but I think she’s hurting other people. Her outbursts, which started early with Danielle, when Danielle hadn’t really done anything to Dolores, are now continuing, and while it is more interesting than wondering if Teresa is getting laid or whether Joe thinks his wife works too much at her fake store, are completely unjustified and it’s like social terrorism to talk about/to Dolores about Dolores. In addition to the fact that it appears she is holding one man hostage (Frank, who is an adult and responsible for his own decisions, but I am positing that they are both making a bad decision to stand in for each others’ love interests for the time being) until another man (David) takes a step, or a series of steps (marriage doesn’t occur in a vacuum; several things have to occur for people to get married), which he doesn’t appear to be willing to take. I know Dolores and Frank seem fun and light, but there is a dark underbelly to their relationship that her kids are seeing, where mom is keeping dad, her ex, on a leash for transgressions that occurred two decades ago, and her kids are far from stupid. The message is that dad hurt mom so much at such a vulnerable time in her life that dad must now be a slave to mom’s whims and kiss her ass and pay for her home renovations until she’s ready to release him. No wonder Dolores can’t get along with Ramona from RHNYC. Ramona knows what forgiveness and moving on from an unfaithful spouse looks like, and Dolores wouldn’t recognize it if it smacked her in the lips. And her friends had better take the ring story du jour at face value, or she will cut them out too. If I’m David, I am watching this episode and I’m scheduling tons of Caesarian births with the most high-risk pregnancies possible (ok, I’m wrong, maybe something good does come out of this), because who wants to face the wrath of that? And David clearly has his own issues too if he keeps buying shit for a woman to whom he doesn’t want to commit. It’s all completely fucked up, it’s been going on for too long, and I’d really like to see her get her shit together and be single until she can find a normal relationship, and set Frank and David free to live their own lives, and make that myth she tells herself about being an independent woman the truth. Until then, I’d rather hear excerpts from Margaret’s book about the tremendous burdens of being an attractive 22 year old blonde who had casual affairs with her bosses between trips to Bloomingdales. I’d rather hear how many calories Jackie consumes in a day. I’d rather see a Posche fashion show than to endure more teasing about Teresa’s boyfriend (a divorced woman pushing 50 is dating a man—let’s get the press!) or to watch Dolores abuse an entire set of party guests because they’re not dancing to her tune. This season is bullshit (and it’s still better than 90% of the other reality shows, from which I’m trying to gear away, but every time I try to get out, they pull me back in! 😕)

I would have more sympathy for Dolores about being confronted about David in front of everyone if she wasn’t such a busybody about everyone else’s relationship. The best example I can think of—the one that still makes me mad to this day—was in season nine, when Teresa was all over Melissa’s shit in a very aggressive way about Joe spending time with Giacinto, and when Dolores began to chime in on another character’s personal family matter in front of the whole group on multiple occasions, Melissa very politely asked her to stay out of it. So Dolores stopped speaking on it, apologized for sticking her nose in, and urged Teresa to change the subject. Erm, wait, no, none of that happened. Melissa very politely asked Dolores to stay out of Melissa’s private family matter in front of the group, Dolores shut up for one second, and then when Teresa could not defend her indefensible position, Dolores began speaking on Teresa’s behalf, under the auspices of being close to the family! Ummmm...Teresa, who was right there, is in the family, as is Melissa, so they don’t need a representative or a liasion, especially when that person was in the pocket of one of the parties. This is actually what led to the big Jackie moment of “would your husband be in jail...”. No one was willing to shut the fuck up about stuff that wasn’t their business, beginning with Dolores. To quote a two year old, “she started it.” Dolores survived four-plus seasons on this show minding other people’s business. She is like a prettier Caroline (and, has anyone seen Caroline lately—she looks like William Forsythe 😄), but Caroline wasn’t as opaque about her storyline as Dolores. Caroline was clearly keeping shit hidden, but she put it out there—son failing out of law school, daughter’s weight loss surgery, absent husband who might have had affairs, etc. The only thing that she was closed up about was her feud with Dina, and I still feel like I know more about that than I do about Dolores. So I give the entire cast a lot of leeway for talking to Dolores about Dolores’s shit for the first time in five seasons. I read an article that they are looking to cut her from the show. Maybe this was some kind of Hail Mary pass (doubtful; Joe Gorga is probably talking about this selfishly so that he can stay on the show, but it’s a possibility...). Dolores gets to skate on what she shows and what she hides more than pretty much any Housewife I’ve ever seen. She makes Bethenny Frankel, who got to keep her kid and her multiple partners off the show, look like Danielle Staub, who told us every time she gave phone sex. (Speaking of Danielle, I hated the way Dolores treated her. I’m not saying anyone needs to be friends with Danielle—they should stay away from her—but, for instance, the way Margaret treated Danielle after their friendship died was so much more humane. Dolores, if I think about it, had such low character when it came to Danielle—before the show filmed, she wanted to use Danielle’s connections to Marty to get her own son ahead, so she was fine socializing with Danielle off-camera. That was good, because it was benefiting Dolores. But as soon as Danielle said something on-camera that Dolores didn’t like, she went ape shit, screaming, fingers in faces, making Teresa and her wine-throwing look demure in comparison, and shouting “welcome back scumbag!” like a wild banshee...because Danielle told Teresa that Dolores said to watch out for Teresa and she only cares about money. If it wasn’t at least partially true, if Dolores had said nothing of the sort, she would not have freaked out like that. I think Dolores gossiped a little behind Teresa’s back. I don’t think she had bad intentions, and she was very embarrassed that it came back to bite her, but that’s not the way a hinged person, as opposed to an unhinged person, reacts. Two things can be true at once—Danielle and Dolores can both be unhinged, to differing degrees). Then Dolores freaked the fuck out that Danielle was talking about Frank being disbarred, so she was mad at an enemy for speaking about what was public knowledge and record, but she didn’t get mad at Frank, she said him failing to tell her was him “taking it like a man.” 🤮 Dolores is so that chick that will say a woman deserved it if her husband gives her a black eye, but I digress. So Joe Gorga finally said what was on his mind about Dolores and it was probably the wrong venue, but I give him credit for saying it to the sacred cow to her face. I applaud people who aren’t afraid of the big, scary Dolores with the waving arms and the big mouth. Everyone has to talk about their relationship and their bullshit on this show. Joe and Melissa are putting so much out there this season that many of us don’t believe they have these problems that they are claiming to have! So I think Joe, who has known Dolores since childhood, has some latitude in opining on a situation that causes people to scratch their heads. If Dolores wants to live a private life, she is perfectly entitled to do that—there is this thing called not being on a TV show that billions of people practice all day, every day, and we all manage. Of course, most of us don’t have a second closet in our second residence that is reserved for our “A-list” outfits only. If Dolores wants to have all these closets and A-list outfits as a product of being in “the business,” which is a direct quote from Dolores, then she has to put her story out there! It’s so obvious. It’s what the economist Thomas Sowell calls incremental trade-offs. Even if we’re not all economists, I think most sane people of sound mind understand this concept. To quote another economist, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Either deliver on reality TV or live a private life. Elegant in its simplicity. Everyone else on this cast has been exposed raw. I mean, do I have to go through the list? Margaret and her cheating and bankruptcy and broken family. Melissa perhaps having been a stripper (a rumor not originated or perpetuated by Teresa), getting four nose jobs, and not being able to afford to live in Franklin Lakes. Jackie has a husband with a possibly wandering penis, a refusal to give blowies (likely because she can’t justify the caloric intake of swallowing), in addition to her eating disorder. Jen had a kid who got bullied, a rumor that her husband sleeps with his girlfriend, and that her house overlooks a cemetery. Do I even have to go into how much Teresa has put out there over the years? I’ll get carpal-tunnel syndrome. So what has Dolores ever shown us? As Judge Judy would say, “bupkus.” Not fair. She gets paid just like everyone else. So even if Joe G wasn’t perfect in his delivery, he started a conversation that I think was sorely overdue. And Melissa continued the conversation in a very nonjudgmental way, but she came with an opinion (remember, Dolores thinks she is allowed to give her opinion on Melissa’s family in front of the group, after being asked to refrain), and that opinion was that there was something awry or amiss with what Dolores is telling us—there is something about her storyline that doesn’t add up, to break the fourth wall, and instead of having a calm conversation about it, Dolores bolted. I don’t want her back next season. She offers nothing. I think that she is either involved with Frank beyond what she tells us, and she is too embarrassed to share, or she is using him to stay on the show, as someone to bounce stuff off of, when Housewives do solo scenes. Everyone else has a husband, and Teresa has her kids. That keeps them interesting. So Frank is playing a role on reality TV, but...we’re not allowed to talk about it. Not acceptable. If we think Dolores is somewhat boring now, can we imagine how boring she would be without a person to film with?!? I can say exactly how boring it would be—it would be season two Dina, sitting in her cluttered house watching her cats before she quit the show mid-season. That would be Dolores without Frank. But he’s not her husband! And she has a boyfriend! That is info coming straight from Dolores, not conjecture, and she doesn’t have a good explanation that would not break the fourth wall, so she just refuses to give one. I urged Margaret upthread to look in a mirror aka to own her shit. I have had a hard-on for Margaret all season long (and before), but she could turn that all around in a minute if she would just get honest and let people opine about her the way she opines about them, the way she was when she first came on the show. Dolores doesn’t even have that track record of honesty. She never gave us a thing to work with, other than the fact that Frank cheated on her and they divorced. Jackie was right last season in Jamaica when she said that there is something off about someone—she was talking about Dolores—who can be cheated on at nine months pregnant and not be fazed. I think Dolores is fazed, I think Joe Gorga was right on the fucking money when he said Dolores had a “scarred heart,” and that hit so close to home that she freaked out and ran like a thief in the night. I remember when Dolores first came on the show, she at least went to a therapist and talked about her just broken off engagement and that never went anywhere. But at least she was willing to open up a little. Four seasons later, it is just “Frank, I need cabbinnnettts!” In a voice that is not very distinguishable from Jill Zarin’s. As someone who grew up on Long Island and the daughter of a man who had a contracting business—I feel like I have heard this exact demand in this exact voice way more than my quota for life. Twenty years later, I don’t want to turn on TV and have to hear it all over again. It’s not entertaining, it’s fucking annoying. I also do not give one fuck about her volunteering, and I doubt many other viewers do either. If she had an interesting personality, like Kelly Dodd, who knows? But I don’t tune in to see Dolores hugging underprivileged kids and getting a mammogram, because she’s already boring, and this is not helping. I’m much more interested in Jennifer’s William Hickey-looking old dad and his Turkey stories, if they can’t fill an hour. If Dolores can’t take the heat and will only talk about basic things and Teresa (there is a joke somewhere in there, but I’m not making it, because I think Teresa is actually complex and way more interesting than Dolores), she needs to be in the third reunion chair—I have no idea why she keeps getting that second reunion chair, especially last year, when her storyline was whether her father was following his diet—and then she needs to be off the show . I’ve been complaining for years that Melissa is boring, and she is. But Melissa is a freaking three ring circus compared to this other one. I’m tired of it. I am on the team of anyone who is going to poke Dolores, just because she needs a really good poking. In several ways.

Gotcha. But...doesn’t she own a three-way mirror? She seems to have a lot of money. Doesn’t she have her outfits that make her look hot when her weight is up, in addition to the ones that are for down weight times too? I think most non-rich women have several sets of wardrobes—hot, sensible, stuff we’ll fit into someday, stuff we wear when we feel fat, and, probably most ubiquitous, that one LBD (or black sweater and slim black pant if the situation is really dire) she can wear that will mask all the flaws, even if it’s not hot off the runway or anything. Kelly Clarkson has made a career out of wearing outfits that make it simply impossible for one to ascertain what her body looks like—it’s actually quite a phenomenon and a little scary how she will be singing on a stage and I just can’t see her body and she looks like a floating head like she’s on Wheel of Fortune in the 1980s—and Michelle has a much better body than KC. Like, throw on a blazer like Aviva Drescher, even, and close a few buttons and it will make all the difference, whilst also showing tons of sexy leg with a bright high heel, like Kristen Taekman. I dunno. She has a good body. She has an amazing face. I wish she would wear the clothes and not let the clothes wear her, but I’m not overly concerned. She’s not a fashion victim like some of these women on other franchises who consistently wear terrible clothes, like Kyle.

Evan really doesn’t miss an opportunity to tell the world he was drowning in pussy in another life, huh? I guess one good turn deserves another, after last season with Jackie telling us twice that Evan had to sign a prenup and that she got a ring from another guy. I wonder if that guy is still single. Maybe he can hook up with Dolores. I really don’t see yet another doctor running in to swoop Dolores up. She is shallow, materialistic, always looks like she’s sucking a lemon, no spring chicken (they say men in their thirties want women in their twenties, and men in their forties want women in their twenties and thirties), has a loud voice with an obnoxious accent, and talks only about house renos and other people’s relationships. I have never heard her voice an original thought. The only time she was good was when she was running across the parking lot of Rails, after Jacqueline, and Siggy asked what to do if they step on broken glass, and Dolores, mid-stride, yelled, “then you pick it out!” I couldn’t imagine having a conversation with her. She’d purse her lips, say something generic, and look into the near-distance blankly until I asked her about her damned cabinets. Riveting, that one. Holy shit, Margaret is the woman with two faces from Seinfeld—she looked fucking smoking hot at Michelle’s cocktail party with the long pony, red lip, and chic black dress with no cleavage. What the hell happens to her the other half of the time?? PS Michelle, you can put your girls away too. Just cause you can doesn’t mean ya should. Dolores, thank you for putting the girls away for the first time all freaking season. Jen, I don’t need to see your abs every time you go to a formal event, but the skirt was super cute. Melissa’s dress looked cheap at first glance, but it fit her so perfectly that it looked either custom made or tailored to within an inch of its life, and I appreciated that. Teresa and Jackie looked smoking hot, in slightly similar, yet different ways. Party of one, maybe, but I don’t think that Jackie looks disturbingly thin when she wears clothes, I think she looks heroin chic. It’s when she wears swimwear that it looks like something insidious might be going on. But she looks really pretty and young with her hair like that. Why doesn’t she always wear it like that?? Jackie and Margaret, live these looks from the party!!! Teresa really needs to see a voice coach about that squeak in her voice. It’s really disturbing. I can’t think of another woman across the franchises who has an annoying tick that they don’t work on over the course of 11 seasons. Not even Ramona. In addition to Dolores, I don’t think men are falling all over themselves to date Teresa. The baggage to brains ratio isn’t favorable. I’m sure her boyfriend is happy with her. I think she would be a loyal woman who would be good to a man, but, again, what does a conversation with her look like? I shudder to imagine. Dave, who is, what, 30, is not lining up to date Teresa or Dolores. I’m not biting. This episode was all about Joe Gorga’s ass and Teresa’s boyfriend who was as present on the show as Gina’s husband Matt from RHOC, which is not at all. Show, I’m not mad, just disappointed. The last 15 minutes were the only part that was redeemable. The first 45 minutes were a snooze. Margaret is such an angry bitch. She hates men that aren’t pussies. Hates them. It’s very obvious that she has an unresolved issue with men that needs to be worked out in therapy, probably going back to childhood. She is so controlling when it comes to other people’s marriages—first Jen’s, lately Melissa’s! Down, girl. Also, Marge, when are you going to realize you don’t get to have it both ways? You told everyone you cheated on your husband, and then got mad when Jen said you cheated on your husband. You told everyone you slept with your boss and then got mad when Jen said you said you slept with your boss. Tonight she joked about the first time she had sex with Joe was in Jan’s house. Guess what, bitch? Someone is gong to fucking use that info as the butt of a joke! And you’re going to go slack-jaw AGAIN. What does she not understand about this process? Margaret, queen of the passive-aggressive jab, cannot seem to allow anyone to hold a freaking mirror up to her and it’s ugly. Look in the mirror, bitch! Face your weaknesses. That’s actually a beautiful human moment when you let your guard down. Dolores loves to give opinions unsolicited, but when someone else does it to her, she takes her toys and goes home. I think Dolores is somewhat broken. Holy shit, I agree with Joe Gorga. I think he is correct that she has a “scarred heart.” Yes, Dolores, you’re on a reality show, that means that people get to have opinions on you, duh. I have to hand it to this cast—they finally confronted Dolores with her bullshit in a respectful way, and she showed her true colors. She’s a total bitch. Team Gorgas on that one, kill me. She totally uses Frank as her shield. That’s not being a strong woman. Her tag line is bullshit. Michelle’s home is so nice. She can join Jen (and possibly Jackie) in the group that actually has a few coins. I just hope, for her own sake, that her husband doesn’t start to let these husbands rub off on him. Figuratively and literally I guess. 😀 Jackie, with her hair down and wavy in a dress that slayed, drunkenly leaning on her fairly attractive husband (he’s Fabio compared to the guys in this group) not saying a word was the most I liked her in a season in a half. I am just going to pretend they left the cocktail party, went into NYC and got involved in some sordid Eyes Wide Shut shenanigans. I bet there is a lot going on in that marriage that would be really interesting to follow in a seedy, voyeuristic, peering through your fingers whilst nervously shredding a tissue with your fingers way, soooo...of course we don’t get that, we don’t get to be a party to their dark dysfunction, we get a video of Joe’s ass. Gee, I wonder why interest in this show seems to be waning. 🤔

Michelle the really pretty realtor (real-a-tor?) is the person Melissa wanted to be, it is crystal clear. Michelle has more character, substance, and smarts in her little finger than Melissa will ever have. The scene with Teresa revealing her boyfriend to Michelle was so staged, just like last week’s scene of Teresa talking about her boyfriend “spontaneously” on the yacht. There is something very stilted there, like the show has absolutely nothing else to do, so they are going to tease us with Teresa’s boyfriend forever. It had the effect of making me not care. My care is null and void because it’s been dragged out too long. The show spoiled this for me. Thanks, show. 😔 If Melissa and Joe actually started cheating on each other, I would be here for it with bells on!! That could freaking save the show. I agree with Melissa that the men are gross. And, may I add, ridiculous characters, dancing for the audience like monkeys, hoping to get that cash. Margaret keeps telling us that “people” are waiting for their second stimulus check. Would those “people” include Marge and Joe? 🤔 For a show that is supposed to be about rich women, why can’t we see Jackie and more of her “winning” money? Why is it one woman’s entire storyline that she is going to the doctor? On RHBH, two women went to the doctor, and they only made one segment of it. My, how the boring have fallen.

These Ho’s look so bad at Jen’s mommy party. Margaret and Dolores should be on RH Atlanta with their breasts, except the ladies of Atlanta wear supportive garments. Melissa with the two-piece outfit with the same ugly pattern that looks like it came off the same bolt of fabric—oy. Jackie’s fake braid that is one shade away from her real hair, Jennifer with the really cute dress, but the camera zooming right at her bra with the smooshed boobs...maybe Teresa left because of all of the visual carnage. Dolores has some dramatic features that make her seem beautiful to me, but her age is really starting to show. Maybe that is why she is freaking out and getting all the surgery. Margaret’s breasts at Jen’s house, I cannot believe them. I felt like she is trying to breastfeed me through the camera; it’s no longer passive-aggressive, it’s aggressive. Why does she do this shit? At last season’s reunion, they asked her why her breasts were so out, and she asked rhetorically, what do they want her to wear, a turtleneck? Well, that would be a good start. A burka might complete the look. Is she so afraid that Marty was right that a man in a room wouldn’t look at Margaret twice, and she is overcompensating? Well, good job Marge. Everyone’s eyes are on you now—men, women, children, and, especially, hungry babies. I am pointedly ignoring the men.

Thank you! I am so glad that you made the medical argument in favor of circumcision. I had a feeling there were health benefits to it, but I was too lazy to look them up, I’ll admit it. I stand by my social/cultural reasons for being in favor of it. I wrote my earlier post in a wishy-washy way, but I actually am firmly in favor of circumcision. I think that it is cleaner, or it seems cleaner, and I wouldn’t want my son perceived as unclean. Aside from the scientific evidence that was pointed out above, there is just an ick factor there that I am happy to talk about, regardless of whether I’m taking the stance that is in vogue with the elite at the moment. It is like, you know how when you go to the bathroom at the mall or at a restaurant, you always wipe the seat down with toilet paper before you touch your body to it, and if there is, OMG, I’m gagging, urine on the toilet seat, you squat over it and don’t touch your body to it, even though we are probably coming into contact with other people’s urine all the time anyway, and there is nothing particularly sanitizing about a swipe of toilet paper over a seat? It’s just a visceral thing we do in an effort to mentally trick ourselves into thinking we’re not coming into contact with other people’s germs. It makes me feel better, anyway. The same thing is true with an uncircumcised penis—it’s not widely accepted in most of the US. There is a difference between what people will say to save face in public to appear “open-minded” and how they actually feel about their partner’s junk, there just is, I don’t believe otherwise. People generally don’t perceive uncircumcised penises well. I would want my kid to be perceived by the world as best as I possibly could. Giant ears don’t pose a significant health risk, but people think they’re weird, and if they’re big enough, with skin flying and flopping all over the place, it’s going to put people off, and even if they don’t know why, they are going to begin to avoid that person and over the course of their life, they could be denied opportunities. People with overly sweaty hands are denied jobs. That’s just how it is. So....I’mma want my kid to have nice dry hands, and if that means getting him medical treatment for his sweat glands if the situation calls for it, cool. I’m completely unapologetic about wanting my (currently nonexistent) child to get ahead in life as long as I’m not harming anyone else in the process. I think Lilly is saying she will not circumcise her son because she is vacant and has nothing to say, yet her platform is on a reality show, so she is throwing whatever she can against the wall to see what sticks. I don’t think she has any idea about the implications it could have on a boy who is later going to be a man. I think she is a very selfish and stupid person. I noticed that her three year old daughter still wears diapers. That’s setting her back! A lot of preschools don’t want a kid who has to be changed. Very few moms are going to change her diaper on play dates. But why do something mind-numbingly boring like teaching potty training when she can sit around with Lawrence, mining Instagram for the latest trends, what the Kardashians are doing, what Gwyneth Paltrow is doing, and then regurgitating it to the reality TV audience and thinking she is novel? Let’s remember how they met after all—he slid into her DM’s and then got her pregnant, and—as if by wizardry—she’s back on TV. They are full-on social media whores and slaves. The difference between Lilly on the one hand and Kylie Kardashian and Angelina Jolie on the other though? The latter have a zillion dollars, and they can afford for their kids to be “different” and alternative, because they are living in this uber-chic sophisticated universe between Bel-Air, Park Avenue and Paris, where “normal” is sneered at, and if you name your kid “Eric” he will be teased, but if you name him “Apple” it’s cool. Lilly is from Riverhead, New York. I have had the displeasure of practicing law in Riverhead, shopping at their outlets (actually, the outlets have some cute stuff), and playing at their water park a few times in the past, and it is an outpost at the eastern end of Long Island, where there are a lot of farms, a downtown with a Subway restaurant, and not a whole lot else. They’re way too far east to have cultural ties to NYC, and not far east enough that they are in the Hamptons where things operate in conjunction with the cultural elite standard. In East Hampton, where the artists live, about an hour to the east of Lilly’s town, an uncircumcised penis would be appreciated, but that’s not where they’re at. They live in the Russellville, KY (Tyra’s hometown) of Long Island. And since Lilly and Lawrence are so limited and dysfunctional, and her mom and her mom’s boyfriend aka The Haircut (what middle aged man has a center part and bangs?!? 😨) aren’t much better, my spidey sense tells me that Lilly’s spawn, LJ, ain’t going to become sexually active at Columbia University, where the female students are going to marvel at his uncircumcised penis and think it’s cool and edgy and different. He is, at best, going to attend the Riverhead campus of Suffolk County Community College, where the girls are looking for a classically handsome dude who goes tanning after he goes to the gym, wears designer sweatsuits, expensive cologne, drives a late-model SVU, who has some money in his pocket and a fake ID so that they can go out to bars, and...a freaking circumcised penis! Trust me. These girls don’t even want a guy who doesn’t manscape, never mind a guy who is walking around with enough organic material to fashion a hand puppet. Good, bad, sad, surprising, or all of the above—that’s what’s up. And it’s not like he’s not going to get laid without it being circumcised, thus avoiding the single parent statistic his parents are in—he’s just going to face more rejection, and he’ll wind up with a girl like...Lilly. Awesome. Lilly with this circumcision thing reminds me so much of Cheyenne on Teen Mom OG, who couldn’t just take her daughter to get her ears passed like a normal little girl, when two adults do it at the same time, so that the kid only has to feel the pain once. No, Cheyenne had to take Ryder to the tattoo shop where Beyoncé got Blue Ivy’s ears pierced, where they do them one at a time with a needle. Ooh, how edgy! Too bad the kid got one ear pierced, got scared, started crying, and they had to leave with the kid having one ear pierced, one ear unpierced like a boy. Brilliant, Cheyenne. You got to emulate Beyoncé on national TV, and the only downside is that your kid is now stigmatized. Great parenting right there. Great prioritizing. I think Lilly with the circumcision is the exact same thing, only with significantly higher stakes for the innocent party, the child.

I can’t believe how much more interesting the discussion here is than the episode was. God forbid I should resist a chance to give my long-winded opinion on some of the issues, so here goes: I think, with regard to Dolores receiving the award for raising breast cancer awareness when she hadn’t had her own mammogram...exactly the right thing happened. She should get to keep the award if she raised, I guess, awareness that there is breast cancer going on (sounds a bit self-congratulatory, but ok), and I think she deserved to be called out on social media for neglecting herself, because that falls short of setting a good example. It shouldn’t not be called out IMO. Just the way that people mock the hell out of the 5’2” and 270 lbs Janelle Brown of Sister Wives for trying to get the rest of us to “Strive” to lose weight, I think this deserved commentary and criticism, but not recall of the award. JMO. As far as Teresa and her crimes.......look, I’m not looking to get any upvotes with this post—I know I am splitting the baby—so I am just going to go there and say I’m conflicted and do a little Paradise By The Dashboard Light and get out. I think that a crime is a crime is a crime in a lot of aspects. I do not think the judge should take into account the convicted’s domestic situation at all in sentencing. That is not a criminal justice ideology that I buy into at all. I wouldn’t even know what to call that—it’s not rehabilitation, it’s just letting someone off the hook. I am more Old Testament and I think the primary purpose of the criminal justice system should be retribution, followed closely by deterrence. If the criminal didn’t care enough about their family enough to abstain from crime, then they get to sit in a jail cell and think about it. I choose not to have kids. The idea that I should be incarcerated for a longer period of time than someone who made different family planning choices than me is something I wouldn’t know how to begin to wrap my mind around. That, IMO, can quite definitely be labeled as the opposite of justice, or “injustice.” On the other hand...I, in my subjective mind, draw a distinction between violent and non-violent crime. I think that there is a tremendous difference between someone laying their hands on another and something that does not involve violation of body autonomy—and that person who attacked another really needs to be in jail IMO for as long as they need to be until they are no longer a threat to society. I have compassion for the person whose face will never be the same because someone cut it, or the person who will never move the same again, because they got hit in the neck with a barstool. My compassion for the perp was left in my other pants. That’s all on a different level than fraud to me. But I can see the other side—a lot of people would rather take a punch to the face than get the message from Bank of American that their bank account has been wiped out. I get that. There’s a grey area there, and I guess that’s what makes the discussion so interesting. On the other hand (anyone who is still reading..I warned you this would be tedious 😫🤠 🤗)...businesses are, or should be, sophisticated enough to predict how much “defaults”(whether legal, through “legit” bankruptcy, or fraudulent, of which Teresa’s was the latter, by her own admission) will cost. There are algorithms available and software to absorb a certain amount of loss. Bankruptcy is legal, yet a lot of businesses get stiffed on that. It’s literally the cost of doing business. I think it matters to an extent that Teresa did not bilk the businesspeople legally, but I also think that businesspeople have a responsibility to protect themselves. A lot of contractors—for whatever reason—do work and expect payment after the fact, instead of getting paid in stages. I spent a good part of my childhood in small claims court at night, with my dad, the contractor, suing peeps for not paying him for services rendered. At some point, even as a kid, I had to look at my dad and do one of these —> 🙇‍♀️. Freud might theorize that I went to law school in an effort to rectify the chaos of a child of disorganized businessperson. At some point, ignorance becomes sin. On that note, Teresa bears responsibility here. She didn’t *just* sign some documents without looking at them (although I never got the full “story” behind her and Juicy’s schemes; with fraud there is always a story; it bothers me that I know Frank Catania’s story of dipping into his clients’ IOLTA accounts to make pay roll at his gym, but somehow it is impossible for me to find exactly what the Juicys were attempting to do over the course of their fraud). Bringing it to the level of abstraction of “signing some documents” reminds me of the movie Blow and that awesome scene where Johnny Depp, as George Jung, told the judge he was not drug trafficking, he was bringing “some plants” over an “imaginary line”! And she threw the book at him, 😆. All crimes can be boiled down to a level of abstraction that makes them sound absurd. A man who chops his wife up with a machete can accurately be described as a man who is going to jail for “waving his arm a series of times.” If it’s a crime to sign fraudulent documents, then you got to pay the piper (which she did, which makes it even more grey to me). And Teresa didn’t have to go to jail—the judge is on record as saying she was completely prepared to give Tre probation, but she (the judge, who is now deceased) was so appalled by the lack of disclosure on Teresa’s forms that she felt she had no choice but to send her to jail as a lesson. That makes me shake my head. Teresa blamed her lawyers. If she is a mom to four beautiful daughters and her freedom is on the line...dude, get better lawyers. I don’t believe her. When she gets a verdict in her favor in a malpractice suit against her former counsel, I’ll say she can tell her story without walking. She did pay restitution, but I believe that was only $444,000 or something, and not the $11 million they owed. But, again, how do we reconcile bankruptcy with the fact that the people Teresa did business with didn’t get paid? Something being legal doesn’t restore the money to the business people’s bank accounts, right? Would it have been significantly more moral if Teresa had gone through legal channels, but the businesspeople still weren’t paid? There are real questions that I wrestle with. I understand a visceral reaction to her that one cannot get past. I have that reaction to Michael Vick—I know the judge threw the book at him, and I will never feel like he is alright with me, society, or God, so I’m not going to ask anyone to forgive Teresa, because that would make me a hypocrite. I am just going to say that some degree of relativism comes into my analysis. She did go to jail, she did have to work and pay restitution and, as someone who formerly had an internship with the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, I can say with complete confidence that there are many, many violent criminals walking the streets freely, with three pages of single-space rap sheets, and...no one really gives a shit. Seeing what I saw there, at that internship, people who almost lost their lives in an assault, and their assailant gets a slap on the wrist (at best), I just can’t be bothered to, I guess, be bothered what Teresa did very much anymore, unless I think about it, and then I think it’s disappointing, and then I move on. I think it’s a really complicated topic and it deserves a ton of thought. I think it is positive that we are still discussing it years later, just because it’s really layered. I don’t really know anyone who doesn’t cheat on their federal income taxes. I simply do not care about that, even though it’s against the law. What about the validity of the laws? Do those questions come into it? For me, they do absolutely. Not trying to be the Carrie Bradshaw Dumb Bitch philosopher on criminal justice—as if I am Tolstoy or something—but, I can’t help but wonder...at what point do crimes become unforgivable? It’s my tenuously held opinion that Teresa can be forgiven by me at this time, yet I just wrote about 1,500 words on it, and I haven’t stated a case as to exactly why. I know I didn’t change anyone’s mind—I’m not even looking to change minds, because I can’t make a persuasive argument for or against full forgiveness. I don’t think it’s just a legal thing, I think there’s a spiritual component to it, (see, Vick, Michael, above), and since I can’t claim to know what is in Teresa’s heart (she pays lip service to feeling remorseful, but it strikes me as insincere), I am not in a position to judge whether other people should forgive her. I think it’s completely personal and individual. At the same time, I think it advances society for us to discuss it, no matter where we come out. Well, I said a mouthful (without really coming to a conclusion, mind you 🙄). I just had to get that off my chest for some reason. I feel so much lighter now. Please don’t mind me and continue with the regularly scheduled snark. 😇

Hilarious! Kermit playing the banjo, damn.

I like Kam just fine, but...in what part of Montecito do they have that accent? 🤫 Gurrrrl...

Is the title of the episode a harbinger of just the episode, or the season? Seriously, this description is underwhelming. I’m not sure how this show is now better than RHSLC, which I put on a serious time-out, from which I am now out, and I feel great about it. I don’t give a shit about Margaret’s book. I am tired of her fighting with Jennifer, whose side I cannot take, because of the way she apparently neglects the needs of her young daughter and other children in her family. I am so tired of hearing Teresa turn her parents’ deaths into entertainment for our consumption. She lost me when she fully made up with Jackie when I am completely convinced she is going to come loaded for bear for Jackie at the reunion. That’s such poor character. Teresa can stop with the euphemisms for food as body parts any time now. Hashtag, wasn’t funny the first time, less funny alll the subsequent times. Who is left—fake Melissa, who puts us—the viewers—down in her tag line by telling us that “honey, green is not your color”? Actually, I look quite nice in green, thanks. Honey, D was not your cup size until some guy you were humping paid for your plastic surgery, probably on credit. Oh, and then there is the ever-captivating Dolores. And her gossipy girlfriend Frank. 💤 I’ve quit better franchises for worse reasons, so I am just putting it out there that if this franchise doesn’t deliver—beginning with this episode—I’m out. I hung in there for Teresa for as long as I could, but when she did an about-face (not just an apology, but a fake about-face) for the coin, I stopped caring about her cause and now that I am looking at it with unjaundiced eyes, it’s quite childish and pathetic. The emperor has no clothes. I am tired of these people. It’s probably apropos to comment on a dying franchise by quoting someone from a dead franchise: My weave is tired. My pantyliner is tired. We just had two horrendous episodes. If this episode continues the trend, I’m off like a prom dress.

This is a completely different show from last season, where there was humor and tension and a layered plot. I don’t recognize the stumbling through 47 minutes I’m watching, show runners apparently trying to cobble something together with spit and bailing wire. I used to laugh out loud about half a dozen times per episode, but this episode I only half-smiled once, when Jackie made the self-deprecating joke about being Irish and Scottish. I have no idea why he let that kid off the hook, the one whose mom drank beers with him last episode. I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person and I follow the show pretty well, and it makes no sense to me. How did that help Jackie? (And Jackie only looks out for himself, so that is the only consideration). All of my questions are rhetorical, because if I have to go on the Internet to find out theories about how a show works, I’m not into it. It should be self-evident if the viewer is paying close enough attention. Siobhan and Decourcy are not nearly as charming as Affleck and his cronies seem to think they are. They are not leads, and I am quite unsure why they are suddenly acting like Beth and Randall Pearson from This Is Us. They were so edgy last year. Now they are just bland and prickly. Why are Decourcy’s eyelids suddenly always at half-mast this season? I really can’t stand Siobhan anymore. She has become a caricature of who she was last season. She acts like she fucking hates her husband. I think he’s a decent guy—that’s the problem. Things that bothered me about my last episode watching this show: ADA is not an administrative job, nor is it a cop’s job. It’s a litigator, or at least Decourcy is supposed to be playing that role, as we have seen last season. Yet Decourcy doesn’t go to court anymore, we never see him in his office preparing for a case; he is somehow now a acting as a cop. Very odd. Also what’s odd was the opening scene, when his boss came in and told him that there is going to be a grand jury investigation into Decourcy letting that kid off. What was that kid’s crime, calling a cop the n-word? Since when is that a crime? Even if Decourcy did let him off for a crime, the prosecutor has discretion as to what kind of cases he will prosecute, so I don’t see this going anywhere, but if it did, there is a much higher likelihood that the body that oversees the DA’s office would launch an administrative investigation, as well as the bar launching a professional misconduct investigation. If an indictment was coming down the pike, it would be a much bigger deal, and Decourcy would be on leave. He would not be showing up at the same interrogation as his wife, putting on a dog and pony show for the viewers, and not asking a damn question, even though the person under arrest was there to answer questions, per his attorney. That was pure theatre for the cameras. It didn’t advance Decourcy’s purpose at all. I don’t care about grandiose speeches for the TV audience. I find it condescending. I have a wild idea—tell a good story. I will miss the AUSA Shimizu. Whenever she is on camera, she pops. She has the right amount of evil and cunning to propel this show forward. I will miss Grace a little bit too. She got a lot better after that cartoonish threat to divest all of the housing project’s funds from the bank in the first episode. She has some complexity to her, and she is a decent actress. I just can’t watch her marching around with Leon anymore. He detracts from the subtlety of her work. She is good enough that she can perform on her own. She’s far better than the one-note Siobhan. Last complaint, and this is consistent with what they did last year: when Decourcy went to Cathy’s salon to get her to flip, he had no evidence. That’s a problem. Cathy is written to be street-smart and she would have told him in no uncertain terms to get the fuck out of her shop. Why the show didn’t write in some forensic evidence, I don’t know. Laziness, I suppose. But there is no way that she would have fed Decourcy info. Even if it didn’t make her an official “snitch” or CI, it made her look like she had something to hide. I do not believe the show that Cathy Ryan would be this stupid and shortsighted. Anyway, this new show, this City On A Hill: The Remix just isn’t good. It’s not something that gives me any joy anymore.

I don’t know about the dead horse stuff, because I have my settings so that I don’t see everyone’s posts, but in case this was a reference to my use of the terms, I was just shortening the names of the holidays because of the format of the message board. My mom’s family is Jewish and I’m also from New York and no one that I recall says them that way. I don’t use the terms that way IRL, but they flow off the tongue easier than they are to write. I was using shorthand, sort of the way some people say “Tre” for “Teresa” or the way some people say “immediate family” when they mean “family of origin.” 😃 BTW, I love your screen name. That’s a status I hope to attain someday.

This was the only part of the episode that gave me life—he said exactly what I think needs to be said in a lot of walks of life—we can’t judge the past based on the present—simply none of us would pass that test. What a breath of fresh air. I was also really proud of Jen for getting something out of the psychic somehow, and giving her mom a chance to air her side. Jen is constantly looking to improve herself and to move past negativity. The only thing I will quibble with is Jennifer’s use of the phrase “her truth” about her mom. We’re all entitled to our own perspective and opinion, but we’re not entitled to our own truth. Truth is objective. I don’t know where this “live your truth” Oprah psychobabble bullshit came from, but it’s erroneous. When someone takes the stand, they are not asked to tell “their truth, their whole truth and nothing but their truth.” It’s not subjective. Sorry. This is a huge pet peeve of mine—the archetype of the wife (it could be a husband, but I always see it as a wife in pop culture) who is so disappointed that her husband is going to miss a social event. I always want to be like, “bitch, you want him to work less? Which car would you like to give up? Which club membership would you like to cancel? To which small house do you want to downsize?” It seems like a lot of spouses think the money is made in a vacuum. No surprise that so many people go bankrupt. Jen doesn’t fall into that trap—she seems to really appreciate Bill, and I respect that. Jen seems to have one of the cleanest marriages not just on this franchise, but across the Bravo shows. She has to be careful, because people are going to hate on her for that and want to take her down. If Jennifer were single or divorced, I bet Margaret would have a whole other view on her. She wouldn’t be smirking about Jennifer’s great-great massacred uncle. What kind of psycho smirks about that shit? And can we imagine if the shoe were on the other foot and Jennifer smirked about the death of one of Margaret’s ancestors?? Hell would hath no fury for the rest of the season. I don’t know if Evan is cheating—if I was a betting person, I would definitely put money on the idea that Evan has at least stepped out on the marriage in the past—but I think Jackie does really love him. I can tell by the way she looks at him and touches him. I would have shipped them if she hadn’t seemed happier about the prenup than the marriage. Actions speak louder than gestures. Two of their kids—I guess the older set of twins—are gorgeous though. There is a beautiful brunette girl and a very fair blonde boy who could probably model. Melissa’s son Joey also got much more than his fair share of the good DNA. If Jackie is really embracing the Jewish new year to have more fun and better energy, and she actually makes a change, I will applaud that. It’s long overdue to say the least. Did anyone notice when they showed pictures of the young Housewives this episode, Jennifer looked just like Jackie in her old graduation photo (skinny with long straight blonde hair) and Jackie looked just like Jennifer (pre-makeover) in the photo of Jackie’s family where they zeroed in on her sister? Uncanny! It is like that thing where Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy, and Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln. Also, in the flashback pictures of Jen’s dad, I was getting really strong Borat vibes. She is so awful. Marge isn’t an independent thinker at all. She is perpetually shocked that she toes the politically correct party line and other people don’t, but she is making no sense. The problem—if you can call it a problem—with Jen’s Instagram stories is that she appears to be doing them while she’s intoxicated—that’s it. Instead of going with the obvious—which really isn’t Margaret’s business either—Margaret said twice that other people were at disadvantages (first she said they are waiting on a second stimulus check and then she said people are unemployed), so...how dare Jennifer go online and offer employment?? Nice argument. Marge, platitudes and empathy aren’t going to put food on the table. Go back to writing your ambiguous book where you were either a slut or a young girl being taken advantage of, depending on what day of the week it is. Oh, but her ghostwriter is taking them out on a yacht next week where Margaret will read from a “juicy” party of the book—fun! 🙄 So now it’s “juicy” to have been taken advantage of? Is this dizzy bitch coming or going? (Hopefully going). Margaret learned that she was going to get ahead using her sexuality and she learned to play the game. These are her words. I know she has a big trout mouth, but I still don’t know how she speaks out of both sides of it to the extent that she thinks she can say this shit but then Jen has no right to judge her for sleeping with her boss. Jen didn’t even judge her—she just said “you slept with your boss.” Why is Margaret so defensive? Is it because she knows how inconsistent she sounds and is just hoping for platitudes and blind acceptance from people like Melissa who don’t think very deeply and just rubber-stamp whatever doesn’t directly affect them? Margaret is trying to hide it, but I think she’s anti-traditional family, or at least hostile to the concept. She told Melissa (completely unsolicited) that Melissa doesn’t need Joe. Never mind that he is her husband of 16 years and the father of her three children. That’s a really fucked up thing to say. Margaret thinks families are disposable, and I think she was shocked that both of Jan’s kids didn’t want to eat out of her hand after she was the talk of the town for humping the contractor under their dad’s roof. Melissa and Jackie seemed so much more reasonable in that conversation. If there is turmoil in the Gorga marriage, I think Melissa is making an effort. I don’t see a woman walking all over her husband here. It seems like Joe is trying too. There is a good chance they’re just faking the whole thing, but I have a feeling that if Melissa were to announce that she and Joe were getting a divorce, Marge would be all for it, and setting Melissa up with guys from New York City that Melissa could walk all over, the way Margaret walks all over Joe. Her idea of a modern woman seem so warped. If Melissa was telling the truth that her mom never talked to her about opposite sex relations, but then shamed her when she was nine and sat in a guy’s lap, I feel really bad for her. That is such a fucked up message, and I can see where she would internalize it, which she apparently did. To parents who are too squeamish to talk to their kids about sex? Man the fuck up ASAP. If you can’t educate your kids about sex, I don’t think you should have children. The theme of the episode was neglect—that’s neglect! Ugh, on first watch, I didn’t notice Melissa wearing a shirt with “Gucci” printed across the front, in addition to the “Versace.” In a flashback, Teresa was wearing a t-shirt that said “Balmain.” Who is making these choices?!? One of them claims to be a boutique owner, whose marriage is allegedly suffering because she’s so preoccupied by fashion week! How about Melissa’s leather pants with the holes in the knees? I can’t unsee that. Yet she looked so good talking to Joe in her closet in dressy olive green athleisure. Why not keep it simple, stupid? OMG, Dolores’s talking head with the green silk top that barely covers her mammaries—I need eye bleach! In that light, she doesn’t look all that great; she looks kind of seasoned. It’s time to put the girls away at least a little bit. Who is Margaret blowing to get that soft lamplight glow in her talking heads? It makes her look twice as good, which is still nothing to write home about. I like Michelle as a friend. She is just pretty and quiet and I like the fact that she is Portuguese, because I like to learn about other cultures. The fact that she bought into the psychic, even if it was just for TV? 👎 This episode and last episode’s memorial brought to us by Johnny Blue. How fucking trashy for a liquor company to sponsor a memorial. How about the whole segment between Joe and Melissa being brought to us by Rails? I have never seen a Housewives franchise where they frequent the same establishment, year in and year out, so often. This was above and beyond though. We had to hear about their party rooms, their drinks, their steaks...this might as well have been a commercial! 💤 No shame in Bravo’s game. Ha, Melissa didn’t want “any boys” when she met Joe; she was too busy working three jobs. Let me just deconstruct that for a second. First of all, she wasn’t looking for boys, she was looking for a wallet. When she first came on the show, Teresa told us that Melissa told them at her bachelorette party or something that Melissa said she wasn’t going to be stupid like her sisters, and that she was going to marry money. Second of all, three jobs? Would one of those three jobs happen to be working at the little gentleman’s club in Elizabeth where she did admit to having bartended, but allowed Teresa to take all the heat on in season four for suggesting that Melissa worked there, which later turned out to be good information? And what did happen to her teaching, one of her other jobs (I believe it was student teaching). Why didn’t she pursue that?? Because she was looking for a boy with money and she found one! Not looking for any boys, my foot. What a piece of work this one is (she’s still coming across better than Margaret this season for me though. Melissa lies and shades the truth, Margaret just slings bullshit, which is worse, at least according to the philosopher Harry Frankfurt, because it shows disregard for the truth). This show really does remind me of Arrested Development in how committed its players are to avoiding the truth. It’s starting to become kind of funny in how delusional they are. Now all it needs is a narrator, commenting dryly on their misdeeds. That is my early Christmas wish.

Oh ok, I actually googled this before I posted about it, and almanac.com gave an answer about Yom when I googled Rosh, so the mistake is mine, and I could have read more carefully, but this was really more of a metaphor—or an analogy—about Christianity and Catholicism and how the First Commandment is a very important part of Christianity, and if Dolores, who doesn’t believe in premarital sex, as a Catholic, cannot understand why listening to a psychic is wrong, I think she is, to put it lightly, quite ignorant. So while I used the wrong Jewish holiday, and that was my mistake alone, I stand by my point that Dolores sounds foolish. Teresa and Melissa strike me as quite foolish for this reason as well, but not as bad—they didn’t do a talking head in the episode, hypothetically asking what they could be doing wrong; they have just gone on the record as Catholics. I never thought I’d say this, but...do we need Amber back on this show to be Catholic? She is the only one I can remember who lived her faith. Teresa actually sounded smart once, when, in a Bravo blog, she responded to (I think) Jacqueline’s claim that what happened to her was karma. Teresa said, as a Catholic, she doesn’t believe in karma. But, as a Catholic, a psychic is ok? I will never get there from here. Same goes for horoscopes. Jackie and Margaret get a pass from me, because I don’t know exactly what Jackie’s religion dictates, and Margaret keeps her religion (or lack thereof) off the show. Jennifer, I know she said she is Orthodox (Syrian Orthodox, I believe), at least didn’t vacillate about the psychic. Maybe she is non-practicing. More likely, she probably knew it was unchristian and didn’t care. When Jennifer does a talking head about how she doesn’t see a problem with the psychic, and in the same talking head says that it’s against her religion, I will say she is ignorant as well. I would far prefer hypocrisy (acknowledging that one is falling short of their own standard) to ignorance. I think we’re all hypocrites at some points. I can work with that. I saw anyone who is getting paid to do the episode working. I just did a lot of learning really quickly about Judaism, and, at least according to Chabad.org, on Rosh, specifically, “it’s a mitzvah to refrain from work.” They say doing work is a transgression that essentially undoes the mitzvah, and the only work that can be done is “work for food,” and since this definition can be stretched into anything, it is restricted to the work that requires putting food on the table for that meal. I didn’t see anything about putting on a mic and setting up a camera crew in one’s home as an exception. Even though I’m not Jewish (clearly, as I don’t know the rules very well), I grew up with a Jewish grandma, and a lot of Jewish people in my communities, and it’s starting to come back to me how much work is frowned upon during Rosh. I always took note of the lawyers who would sneak into the office to do work anyway. Again, I don’t mind hypocrisy—I don’t mind someone who is Jewish working through Rosh—but it is a sticking point to me when someone claims that they are following the rules and then they just do something else because it’s expedient. Not to get too meta, but I think that’s the point at which society begins to decay, but then again, this show is probably doing a lot more to decay human civilization than some covert lawyering, and I still watch and comment, so maybe I should judge myself (more than I already do). 🤷‍♀️

My husband and I think Evan looks exactly like Shtisel:

I’m glad that, nine episodes into the season, we get the backstory as to why Jennifer’s mom is mad at her dad. That historical shit actually interested me a lot more than whatever else is going on in this season (what is going on in this season again?). A sad, separated pair of elderly parents with no real explanation just wasn’t doing it for me. I wonder why Jen and her mom were ambivalent about Jen’s daughter eating breakfast before she went to school, only for the girl not to get a breakfast. People who skip breakfast tend to be more obese. Jen just lost so much weight. She should know these things. Especially, as we know, Jennifer is a full-time mother. She can’t fix a healthy breakfast for someone who needs one? It’s time for someone qualified to write an article in judgment of that, I say. Not about how many toys they have. Two totally different issues. It was the seventies and the times were different when Margaret was sleeping around? And, so? What about the 1870s when her great-grandmother was sleeping around? Why are we supposed to care about this shit again? She’s not famous for anything other than being famous. Who gives a fig who she had consensual sex with in the 1970s?? Was there an adult in the seventies who didn’t have consensual sex? Margaret, Melissa and Jackie team up as the Boring Triplets as per usual. Margaret tells us about the seventies and how she traded on her looks 🤮 and then pivots to how horrible Joe Go is to Melissa and then they pivot in concert to Teresa. These Hoes know which side their bread is buttered. It’s sad and boring. Melissa, you are the worst liar on the face of the planet—remember when Andy asked you point blank if you got your nose done and you told him it was makeup, leaned into him, and asked him to look at your face closely so that he could see the “contour”? Contorted with a chisel, four times, thank you for pointing that out, Jacqueline Laurita! Why did Dolores take so much time to get her own mammogram when she won an award for urging other women to get mammograms? Because she is a “do as I say, not as I do” person. Move over, Caroline. Dolores...Frank isn’t your husband and the fact that you refer to yourself as his “wife” is disturbing. Like, it’s actually really disturbing. This is me repeating the idea that there is something more going on between them than business. What is so gross is that they previewed Dolores crying to look like it was over a medical issue, and it was from Boo. The producers are really swinging and missing here. Where did Teresa’s three oldest daughters get such deep voices from? Neither of their parents have particularly deep voices. Melissa doesn’t know about psychics, but she’s confident about mediums. Long way from season three “thank you Jes-us” Melissa. Next time Teresa professes to be “a devout Catholic”—a phrase she trots out fairly often, along with Ramona from RHNYC—I am calling bullshit. What’s tone-deaf to Margaret about Jennifer wanting a housekeeper? If Teresa took to Instagram to look for a housekeeper, Margaret would think it was hilarious! She is in such bitch-eating-crackers territory with Jen. Jennifer has five children and she wants one housekeeper. Margaret has no kids that live at home, and she has Marleny heating up her coffee and Lexi...well, Lexi has been absent since Lake George, and I’d like to keep it that way, so I’m not going to invoke her name any further, in case it’s some type of Bettlejuice thing. 🙏 Margaret looked so pretty at the psychic bullshit (but I repeat myself) second episode in a row. What’s gong on? The makeup was perfection. Jackie looked pretty too. I loved the high-wasted pants and the turtleneck was so chic and so much more flattering to her figure than anything else she’s worn this season. Melissa, coming in at a 10, drunk, with 1,000 questions and thinking she is so cute for asking them of the “psychic” in a sweatshirt that had Versace pasted over the front was so bad on so many levels. Did she get that at Envy or the flea market, two for $20 shoved in a black plastic bag? I know where I would rather shop... ”Ocean of the motion refers to sex” -Melissa. Keep up with the pearls of wisdom, my friend. This is the second time this season that Teresa has worn a romper type thing in a print, and I don’t find it flattering to her body type. The wide belt gives her a waist, yes, but the ensemble makes her look more bottom-heavy than she is. Maybe something more fitted would slim her down. She’s not fat at all, but she’s not super-lithe either. A nice cocktail dress would have worked out well too. Jennifer and Dolores have roughly the same figure, and they both looked better, even though, Dolores, your girls are in their fifties. Do you think it’s time, as Jill Zarin would say, to “put on a brar”? Second episode in a row Dolores somehow thought this was a good aesthetic. “Housekeeper is degrading”? Oh shit, we went there. Someone call Leah from RHNYC so that she can weigh in with the woke police! I hate everything about psychics, and the only thing I hate more are psychics on reality TV who come on to move the story along (like RHOC, when the psychic joined some of the ladies at a restaurant to say that he “[didn’t] see” Brooks’s cancer and that drove three seasons of storyline). Yeah, I’m not here for that. Dolores, you answered your own question when you asked what is wrong with going to a psychic because you’re a Catholic and she said it’s against her religion. That’s like Jackie saying it’s Rosh Hashanah, but what is wrong with eating during the day...um, it’s a violation of your religion. What needs to be hashed out? I am remembering when Kyle Richards said to the psychic in season one of RHBH, “Excuse me, you’re boring me.” That applies here on so many levels! All the shit about Boo dying, oh my fucking God. That was a minor plot line on Dolores’s original season, and now we’re revisiting it because this show cannot fill a 44 minute time slot. So fucking stupid. I don’t believe in psychics—at all—so this is a rhetorical question, but if the bitch knows so much, why does she feel the need to ask so many questions, like whether Jackie has an “E” connected to her. Shouldn’t the damn psychic know? I thought last week was bad, but this week is worse—they used a psychic in order to go down memory lane to grandparents and the Armenian Genocide because there is nothing to fill an episode! Have these people (cast and crew) no shame whatsoever?? Never mind, I think I know. Since this episode was so thoroughly boring, does anyone remember when Jackie’s mom got that fabulous makeover that took 15 years off her age, and she immediately reverted to the same ugly, old white hair? This is where my mind goes during the episode, though I did appreciate seeing Jackie’s family celebrate the Jewish new year, although...aren’t Jewish adults supposed to refrain from work during this time? 🤔 (rhetorical question; my mind is made up). Melissa and Joe on a date...back to boring. Holy shit, Antonia knows about the birds and the bees, she told them about sex last season! If Melissa is specifically referring to talking to Antonia about the values that her parents hold dear for her as a child, such as no sex before marriage, a.) huge parenting fail, and that discussion should have occurred way, way before 15 and having a boyfriend and; b.) you assholes are really continuing to put that on camera to embarrass her like that? At least when Britney Spears put out to the media when she was in her teens that she was going to wait until marriage to have sex, that was ostensibly her decision (and how did that one turn out 😆?) I think Melissa was a freak in the sheets before Tarzan came along and she gradually lost all interest in anything carnal. Remember last season, she was at the restaurant and said without quite saying, that she swam in the lady pond and she said on one reunion, emphatically, that she has lived, which accounted for her child-rearing tactics? They are just rehashing this because they have nothing else, nor did they ever have much. Yes, Joe and Melissa met when Melissa was 24, about four faces ago, and she was wearing a leopard bikini in Cancun and Joe said he had to have that girl and, lo and behold, he got her, and we got them. We get it. We hear you loud and clear. Can we please go back to Jen’s mom not wanting to move to the US with her dad and the tumult that festered therefrom? I may be the sole person on the planet who doesn’t care about Teresa’s love life. Just how long are they going to tease us about it? Unless she is dating the Man on the Moon-cum Elvis Presley (skinny Elvis, not jumpsuit Elvis), the tease has rendered it officially boring to me. The best part of the episode was Evan shutting down the psychic bullshit by saying all Jewish people have a grandparent named Esther.