LibertarianSlut

I don’t know “exactly” what the New York taxpayers would do about it, the same way I don’t know “exactly” what would happen if any specific set of hypothetical circumstances were put before me and someone asked me how the future would unfold. Debates rage about these kind of things. I think this is a straw question. The NY AG is an elected member of the executive branch, so she is accountable to the people. While I don’t know the exact procedure for recalling her power, I can say with confidence that it would be entirely undemocratic for her to be immune to impeachment. She is elected and paid by the taxpayers of New York and if the fictional version was collecting a paycheck from Yale, a private university in a different state, it would be nixed. Chuck has a lot of enemies. This could/would be stopped immediately. Perhaps a person who went to law school in New York could advise “exactly” how it could happen; I went to law school in Florida so though I can’t speak intelligently about the executive functions of the provisions of the New York State Constitution, it is my position that this would never fly, not with New York, not with Yale, not with the media, not with the citizens, etc. The NY AG’s office has so many departments under it that it’s positively Byzantine. The current NY AG, Letitia James, is working on the corona virus. They’ve taken over everything. All it would take would be for one whistleblower to be “wrongfully” ousted from their home in a foreclosure (the AG oversees banking activity) and people would be tweeting “where was the AG?” And people would tweet back that he was teaching con law at Yale and his career (along with a bunch of other careers) would be over. Ah, I think this is where the real disagreement is located. I think it’s supposed to be a show that is based in reality. It is based on a hedge fund that grew out of a real crisis (9/11) which conducts real hedge fund activity that is supervised by real banking regs, the real SEC, a real US Attorney’s Office, and a real AG’s office. Axe and Chuck are based on real people. To the extent that this show departs from reality, whether through laziness or lack of imagination, that is just a failure of the show, but I would certainly categorize it as a “reality based show” as opposed to a fantasy show, like Lost. It is my opinion as a viewer that as long as a dinosaur may not wander onto the set, or a fairy, or a hobbit, then it is a fictional show that is set in the real world in the current era, and they show may not operate outside of those rules. To the extent that it does, I am not going to hand-wave it anymore, because the show is not good anymore. When it was good, I was willing to hand-wave a little this or that here or there. Chuck as AG throwing the Russian out of the US only got an “eh” for me, because the rest of the show was compelling and plausible. Hard to believe that was exactly one season ago. How far it’s fallen. I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that this show’s plot and dialogue fell off at the same time that its relation to realism did.

I agree with 95% of this, and love and support the name of this thread. Just to nitpick with regard to my POV: I think Ariana is with Sandoval because she’s not going to get a richer/more famous boyfriend at this point, and he’s not going to pressure her into having sex as much as the average guy. And I know where you were going, but Lisa didn’t “give” Schwartz a bar, she rarely gives anyone on this show anything. And she never gives anything without taking full credit and acknowledgement. Lisa allowed the Toms to invest in her bar to the tune of $50k each, and then jerked them around for a year and then made up a fake storyline that in the bar’s first year it made the profit that allowed them to each recoup their exact investment amount in profit, which would be uncanny if it were true. I’ve been looking for an anti-Lisa thread here for a long time. There is one in Beverly Hills, but she is so much worse here, so I joyfully anticipate discussion of peeling back the mask (although she’s so transparent on this show, that it’s not even fair to characterize it as a mask. It’s more like those clear peel-off masks you can get at the drugstore). I wish she would tuck away the drooping cleavage, and leave with her creepy husband forever.

Me too. I really only try to watch the four corners of any show and then read comments by viewers. Nothing the show runners have to say have any bearing on the show to me. It should come across on the screen or not at all. Show runners and writers are going to go down with their ship, they are going to champion their show to the end, and I feel like the show can get white-washed by the viewers if we put too much faith in what they say (not that I never listen to the show runners’ input; I have done it with Boardwalk Empire). But if I disagree with the show runner about how a scene was depicted, I am going to go with my own interpretation. They don’t get the last word. If they intended to convey something and they didn’t get the job done, I am completely disinterested in their spin and cover up in the aftermath. The only exception I can think is when Breaking Bad aired Fly, which was what I thought to be a really boring bottle episode, and Vince Gilligan came right out and said they did the episode that way because they were plum out of money. The fact that he had humility and admitted this caused me shrug and say, “eh, it wasn’t that bad.” Billions ain’t Breaking Bad though, lol.

So, on my re-watch, I just finished the episodes where Lisa has a party for breast cancer (no, that’s not a typo) at her house and I have some thoughts: I am so sick of Joanna, Marta and Romain’s dynamic of just constantly bickering all the time. I’m not so sure how much of this I believe. Romain cheated on Joanna, and they just keep going without missing a beat? I hate Joanna this time around. She is a foul-mouthed, stupid, inarticulate, angry drunk. Now I understand the divorce. The only newbie I like is Ana. She fits right in, the way Dorinda fit right in when she joined RHNYC. I think she’s funny and light, and I enjoy her young adult daughters. They’re all funny together. Even Robert, Ana’s estranged husband, is very funny and the family is fun to watch. I saw Ana in the background in season one, so she knew at least some of the old cast coming in, and it shows. I love the dynamic of Ana, Marysol, and Alexia. They feel like the old guard to me for some reason. Marysol doesn’t bring enough to the show to have her own mojito in the opening. She is just there for her mom, who is not at all that funny or interesting this time around. I like the fact that they upgrade Alexia to full-time and make Marysol a friend-of in season three, but I wish Ana hadn’t been cut. She belonged. Lea is not bothering me so much this time. She’s staying out of the fray. The way I see the alliances building are like Adriana, Marysol and Ana on one side and Lisa, Karent and Joanna on the other, with Lea straddling the middle. I just don’t love the Blacks period. I find them strange. I do not believe Lea’s story that she met Roy by being on one of his juries and later on they just started talking. How does that happen exactly? They are strangely old parents to a ten year old. I’m also not thrilled with Roy Black and his defense of clearly guilty criminals, and Lea passing on their propaganda to their son. Roy came back from a trial that he lost up in Palm Beach County, and their son said the judge was corrupt. Nah, I think the defendant was just guilty as sin. Karent is such an inarticulate shit-stirrer. I didn’t understand why they didn’t like her last time, and now it’s crystal clear to me. She undermined Adriana’s picture with the artist by tweeting her picture with the artist first, and then she was quoted in print as to saying these women have Botox for brains, and she just smiles right through it all. I think she gets off on the idea that other women want her pudgy, pasty fiancé Rodolfo, and if other women ceased to be interested, so would she. She is awful telling people that her quotes were misquoted in the interview she gave, and wondering if she has rights. Yes, if that were the case, she could demand a retraction, but I don’t believe her at all that she didn’t say those things about “Botox for brains,” etc. Very few reporters will just make up quotes. They’d be ruined in no time flat. Lisa is just a vapid bitch. I never wanted to think that about her in the past, because I thought it was too much of a cliche. I thought there had to be more to her than being her plastic surgeon husband’s “greatest creation.” But she’s not. I wish she had more of a backstory. Where is she from? Yes, she brings the real estate, but so what? All she ever does is shop and drink. She thinks she looks so great, but that face is straight out of that Twilight Zone episode with the pig people. She freaked out that people got in a fight at her “breast cancer party” that she was going around screaming at everyone, all the while with her aureola hanging out. I just really didn’t like how she said that she was having a lingerie party for breast cancer, because lingerie and breast cancer went hand in hand, and then she looked at the camera like she said something really cute. Lingerie has nothing to do with breast cancer, you dolt. She is also size-ist. When Alexia kicked Karent out of her magazine party, Lisa said, “Why don’t they pick on someone their own size? Oh wait, I forgot, not too many people are their size.” First of all, you’re only talking about Alexia, as she is the one who threw Karent out of the Venue party. If you want to call her fat, have the balls enough to say “Alexia” and not “they.” And Alexia is thin, she’s not fat. Alexia is not as thin as Lisa—no one is—but then again, Alexia was able to have children. I know Lisa went on after this show ended to have two children via IVF, but at the time, she had been trying to have a child for three years and it wasn’t happening, and she speculated it could be because of her weight. Ya think? Adriana is picking up for me this season. It’s mostly due to the fact that she has a brain in her head. I love that she can speak five languages. I don’t think Adriana is beautiful. She has a great figure and nice long dark hair, but there’s something strange going on with her face. Last season she was late to her own event because it takes her two hours to put on her makeup. I don’t think Adriana should have hit on Romain at all. I like Adriana and Frederic on my screen so much more than Joanna and Romain. Adriana and Frederic actually have meaningful conversations. With Joanna and Romain, Romain is always making a facial expression like he has indigestion and Joanna just yells in her incredibly shrill voice. In the fight between Joanna and Adriana, I am 100% on Adriana’s side. Joanna was drunk (what else is new) and looking for a fight. Adriana was trying to talk to Karent about the interview Karent gave and Joanna just butted in, as she seems to think is her right as a supermodel (she’s not a supermodel), Adriana walked away, Joanna chased her, so Adriana decked her. Awesome. It shut Joanna’s ugly mouth up for 10 goddamn seconds. Her own fiancé can’t stand her. He left as soon as Joanna started being a crazy drunken bitch again. Joanna had one of those interstitials where she told Marta that she hated Kim Kardashian and if she met her, she’d tell her she had a big ass or something. I couldn’t help but wish that Larsa, who is Kim K’s best friend, was still on the show. Larsa (and her extremely fast-talking sidekick Kristi, who actually made good points) would have eaten Joanna alive verbally. I keep watching this show and trying to pinpoint why it was cancelled. The only franchises that have locations where I have spent a significant amount of time is this one and NYC. On RHNYC, the women live a lot closer to each other, so maybe it was easier for them to get together. I know that Kristi and Larsa didn’t just get kicked off the show—I think Larsa moved to Chicago or something—but I don’t think it was a good idea to replace them with Lisa and Joanna. The former were flawed and messy, but authentic. Lisa just has a great body and great real estate, and Joanna is a gorgeous model (although at this point she’s getting a bit long in the tooth to be a model and she has horrible skin), but they don’t bring anything of value to the show through their personalities. They’re just an unfortunate combination of violent and caustic. Sometimes it feels like Joanna is filming her own show. I think she’s the only one who lives on Miami Beach. I never mind a big cast. I think this show could have stayed around if Marysol had been demoted to friend-of, if Lea stuck around but had a diminished role, and the rest of the cast was comprised of Alexia, Ana, Adriana, Kristi, Larsa, Joanna in a diminished role (so that she could fight with Larsa) and perhaps Karent in a diminished role as the shit-stirrer (although I doubt they’d need that, with all the other craziness that would have gone on). Lisa should never have been cast. This season has been unbearably slow. It’s a lot more boring than I remember. Hopefully it’ll pick up. I know that the reunion is crazy good, when Ana just loses her shit on Lea out of nowhere and calls her old. Hopefully there’ll be something of note to write about between now and then!

So the plot thickens. Mack is always traveling. I still don’t think the kids should be in the marital bed, but I think there’s trouble in paradise. On both ends. I don’t think their daughter is acting up because of puberty. What problem did Shanique have with Lia? I must have tuned out last episode and missed it. I guess I have four more episodes to figure it out. Does Lia have a storyline? Have we seen her home? The season is half over. Imani did not sound like a professional in that small part of the interview they showed her doing. She sounded like a lay person, like a man on the street. I was surprised she couldn’t even pronounce the condition in her talking head if she did an interview about it. Did Dr Robert get the same memo as Dr Aydin on the other show that a physician is supposed to wear his stethoscope home from the office? I find that so hokey; we get it, they’re doctors. The doctor’s coat with the ID badge over scrubs and a stethoscope is overkill. Imani seems really preoccupied with her sex appeal. She keeps telling us how sexy she is. I’m not seeing it. Aggressive? Yes. Full of herself? Yes. Sexy? I don’t think she’s sexy. People who are sexy do not try this hard. This episode picked up a little bit with the group Halloween outing, but they didn’t click without Britten. Kendra is probably the next “star” of this franchise, but she’s not able to carry the show yet. I think this show would be better if it were just a half hour. It’s not like the other show, which is fine, and until it can find its footing, maybe we should just see a truncated version. I’m never really going to find Shanique compelling by herself. Twenty-two minutes of these women would be just fine.

I couldn’t help but notice that the Cookie Lady’s store is called A Haute Cookie? Given that “h” in “haute” is silent (contrary to Marlo’s emcee’s pronunciation), isn’t that awkward to pronounce? “A oat cookie”? That sounds...rather strange. I feel like the Cookie Lady is exactly like The Snake. The only thing that interests me about either is the substance. Was Paul hooking up with/trying to hook up with Cookie Lady? Who knows, they won’t talk about that part. Did Cynthia talk shit about Nene (while Nene was talking shit about her)? Yes. I don’t care about the hows, just the whys. I feel like they have nothing left to talk about on this show anymore, so they are just talking about the mechanics of stuff, and it’s insanely boring. Cookie Lady’s presence on this show is ridiculous. Let’s think about it—she is a woman who alleged that the fiancé of a friend-of followed her around a restaurant to the bar. The friend-of in question is mute about it, and no one is even asking her to comment on it. So why the fuck are we spending so much time delving into whether Cynthia met her first or invited her to a party or shook hands with her on camera?? Who the hell cares? Does Paul cheat or not? We’re not going to talk about that on camera? Ok, fine, it shouldn’t have been a topic that spanned two parts of the reunion, damn. If there’s not enough footage for three parts, even though there were like 30 episodes, why not make it two parts or one part? Is it an ego thing? I was surprised that Porsha was drawing attention to the fact that Kenya left the show of her own volition, given that Porsha was downgraded in season six. Nene left the reunion, she should be fired. End of story. But they’ll never fire her. I wonder why. Is there anyone who watches to see Nene?? The reunion was much, much easier to watch without her. People could get their points across, boring as they were. I don’t care at all about Andy’s kid. I think it’s actually really insulting to the viewers and the cast to have him come on like that. It’s basically like, none of this is important, so I’m just gonna put my kid onscreen. If it’s not important to Andy, they can get another host. I cannot believe how long they talked about something that happened offscreen at the finale with Shamea. It was thoroughly boring. If it was important, it should have made it to air, or at least the Secrets Revealed episode. If it’s not important, I don’t need Porsha recounting what happened between Kenya and Shamea secondhand. I can listen to secondhand gossip at work, when I’m getting paid. If they had time for Yovanna, they had time for Shamea. I think it’s all bullshit. Yovanna looked crooked. Her eyes were uneven. A “ceased and desist,” hmm. Ugh, Yovanna said that her attorney, Eva’s husband, “responded back,” which is one of my pet peeves. “Responded back” is redundant. Then Tanya jumped in and asked if it was because someone had someone else’s “PIN number.” Another redundancy. “PIN” stands for “personal identification number,” so saying “PIN number” is the same as saying “personal identification number number.” Geniuses, all of them. This is all I hear, because the rest of it is noise. I explained above why I don’t care about Yovanna. I believe everything she said, and I just don’t care. The Real Housewives of New Jersey started in early November and concluded by mid March, and it was a pretty decent season. This show started the same week as RHNJ and it’s still going on Memorial Day weekend. That’s flabbergasting to me. This wasn’t even a mediocre season, let alone good. Nothing happened. They’re airing Porsha negotiating Nene’s return over the phone. Really? Potomac was pushed back twice for this? I am not looking forward to a season 13 anytime soon. Kandi said it best: “I am over it dot com.” Indeed.

So Chuck is teaching a full semester’s course in New Haven while he is also acting NY AG? Yeah, not gonna happen. Ever. The New York taxpayers would never go for that, nor should they, nor could they. Also, some judges require you to stand when you address them, some don’t, and standing before those latter judges would be met with a weird stare from the judge (this has happened to me). If someone with a law background proofread this script, they would have omitted that line from Chuck that a law student stands for his professor the way he’d stand before a judge. What, is Juliana Margulies the new Wendy, standing up and telling Chuck’s class to get balls? Vomit. And suddenly every single person in the class had briefed the case that Chuck wanted to discuss? Was her lecture somehow retroactive? Ugh. The truth is that the better the law school, the easier time the students have it. Visiting professors are even easier on the students. There is no fucking way in hell that Chuck would say that anyone who hadn’t briefed two cases—when there are sometimes upwards of a dozen cases assigned per class—would fail, that was a nonstarter of an idea. I’m confident that no one who has actually been to law school approved any of this. Maybe a bunch of people who’ve watched The Paper Chase too many times. I hate when this show has people from Shark Tank on. Wasn’t Mark Cuban on once before? I don’t get it; what’s the point? Why don’t they just tell a story, rather than have us chuckle with recognition? That seems like a cheap way to entertain. Did Axe actually refer to Yonkers as a “town” to Daymond John? It’s a city, but I’ve never heard anyone from New York refer to it as either. People refer to it by neighborhood. I noticed Sacker’s dad did finally say “neighborhood.” When Axe was leaving his office to go to Yonkers, he’s said he was “going out there.” Anyone from New York would say “I’m going up there.” I didn’t understand how Yonkers would suddenly seem like this lucrative opportunity for both Axe and Prince. The place has been in economic decline for decades; why now? Because the writers wanted to show Axe going home again? It seems random. What happened to that waterfront property that Chuck and his dad were fighting to the death to develop last season, on which the government put a freeze, and then it became unfrozen? Are we just not talking about that anymore? I don’t understand this stuff about fossil fuel for the second episode in a row now. There is talking fast on TV, in the name of not dumbing things down for the audience, and there is rapid-fire inside baseball dialogue that is just not amusing to hear and doesn’t seem to make much sense no matter how closely I listen. It’s so unrealistic that Wendy would say, “you’re going to make so much money” and the executive says, “well, I like the way that that sounds,” Wendy throws out a bunch of vague terms about “green” and a “motherfucking” and suddenly they’re in business? Yeah, because that’s how it works. Wags doesn’t even make an attempt with his daughter because she’s a stripper, and he abandons his son because he’s Christian? Doesn’t that seem a bit immature and unrealistic, even for Wags? Axe, you are such an alternative, novel billionaire that you dress like you’re going to the basketball court at a city counsel meeting! You would be so conventional and boring if you stooped to put on a collared shirt and a tie, we get it. Oh, and since he has a rough accent (that is gettin more cartoonish each week) and he knows some of the stores in Yonkers, he must be the right horse for the citizens to back! This is like Taylor giving the pitch to the firefighter’s pension board last season—all heart, no facts. I am the first one to say that voters are dumb, but they’re not that dumb. They would need numbers. And not one person knew enough about Sandicott to know that was Axe’s, not Chuck Sr’s, doing? There is not one fact checker in the media or as a citizen? They just want to back the guy who could get odds on the Giants in the old neighborhood? Yawn. How would Prince be turned into a monster by trying to get the Yonkers opportunity? Was he more afraid that Axe was going to play the race card, which was laughable? This makes Axe a bully, not Prince a monster. I didn’t get this episode. Last week’s episode was bad, but it wasn’t a failure, because it told stories. This week just felt like the writer’s room saying, “ok, we’re a third of the way through the season and we have done nothing so far, so let’s use this episode to set up for the rest of the season.” Better writing and they could do that without essentially depriving us of an episode with an internal story for a week. It was boring and I’m tired of every single one of the characters. Right now I’m rooting for Prince.

You have most of it down already. I don’t know why James’s mom is American. She was a model, so maybe that’s how she met his dad. I know James grew up in the UK. James’s dad was on George Michael’s payroll at one time, as a manager, I think, and James seems to think of him like a godfather. His parents split up last season (season 7). We never really got a good grasp as to why. I can read between the lines and assume it’s because his father was a an alcoholic and his mom was an alcoholic bitch. Last season, the deal was that James was supporting his entire family—his parents and teenaged brothers. Jacqueline would cry to Lisa that Lisa was James’s mother figure and she’d ask for his job back, and then she asked her for a job for her other son, and he seemed to work out just fine (and James was crying). When James’s brother graduated from high school, the whole family + Raquel went out to an expensive dinner, and James picked up the check, and it felt very expected, even though his dad, at the very least, was drinking, but he didn’t even make a gesture to get the tip or something. So James, who is trying to get sober his damned self, had to subsidize his father’s alcohol consumption. Wonderful. James also gave his brother a check for $5,000 at that dinner. After it was revealed that James was giving his family hundreds of dollars like every few days, James, fresh off a therapy session, called his mom and said he had two boundaries: she can’t talk about “dad” anymore (apparently Jacqueline was called James to complain to him about his own father) and he needed to know where his money was going. That is when Jacqueline flipped out on James in front of Raquel (she also tried to do it in front of Tom and Ariana, but they ducked out) that she spent all kinds of money on him his whole life and he owed her to pay it back now. That’s where the now-infamous “you took your first steps at fucking Tiffany’s” line came from. Another part of her guilt trip was to report to anyone who would listen—James or Lisa—about her sobriety and how many days she had. It was all so disturbing. I dunno, writing it out like that doesn’t make it seem so bad, but it was ugly, to me. James was really struggling. He had no steady job outside of the show, no one wanted to be his friend at that point, and when it turned out his parents had been shaking him down (and apparently belittling each other to him), it took such a nasty turn. What was also nasty was that, when this came up at the reunion, everyone attacked James, wondering why they got no camera time for helping out their families (as if this is James’s problem how their stories got edited) and Katie even went at some point, all sarcastically, “so your parents got divorced. Aw!” It was really gross. This is why I’ve been rooting for James this season. In addition to having to face his own substance abuse demons at 26, he was saddled with awful parents (his brothers seem fine though). That is why, as soon as I saw Jacqueline back at James’s home with her damned shoes on the couch, I was just filled with utter disgust. I didn’t want to hear about her cancer or how long she’s been sober. I just never want to see her again in any capacity, because she is an awful, completely selfish person for placing James in the middle like that and getting Exorcist-ugly as soon as she thought she might be losing her meal ticket or if her son asserted his needs not to hear his parents disrespect each other. Even Kristen said at the last reunion that she feels horrible for James having the shitty parents that he does, and Kristen has not had a sympathetic word for James since they’ve broken up. It all makes me sad. I hope James can extricate himself and move on from his parents. They’re beyond redemption at this point IMO. At the very least, let them both be sober for five years and hand him a giant check that equals all the money he was guilted into giving them, plus interest, and we can see where it would go from there. Knowing James’s family situation not only explains to me why he is so fucked up, it makes me wonder how he is not more fucked up.

I finally watched that clip of the tour of their apartments. Dorinda’s apartment looked so much nicer since last season. She never should have let them film it when she first moved in, because it’s like night and day now that it’s touched up and the wires are hidden. The only thing about it that I really didn’t like were the big columns running through her living room. I loved her pastels. The funniest part was when Dorinda said she gets out of the bathtub and sits in a chair and watches the river every day. It was like the tiniest bathroom, and with the chair at that angle, she’d have to crane her neck to see the river through her tiny window. And I imagine she does that naked, because she said she watches the river when she dries off. Have fun with that Dorinda! Tinsley did not seem sober at all in her video. I almost skipped it because I’m not really curious about her life in a hotel. But I was roped in when she said twice that her decoration was inspired by her former marriage. I mean, Topper is remarried, and we know he and his wife have been unhappy with some of the things she’s said in the past on the show, so why would she say that? Oh yeah, I mentioned she seemed not exactly sober... Tinsley also has this way of communicating that I have noticed in Sonja that would make it hard for me to be around either of them. They use words, such as pronouns and verbs, very loosely, so you never know exactly what they’re talking about. Like, recently in her talking head, Sonja said she will do this or that when she is entertaining “the Saudi prince.” It is like, “which Saudi prince, Sonja? I need to be able to check out the veracity of your claims.” You can’t just say shit and expect people to take it at face value. I’m not saying this made it ok, but I think this is why Bethenny screamed in Sonja’s face so many times in the past. You can’t get a bead on what she’s saying and I can only imagine how frustrating it would make communication. When Tinsley went on at quite some length about having Goldfish in her fridge—geez, why did I wait so long to watch this!—she said, “I love them so much...I-I-I don’t know what it is...maybe it’s just when you’re a child you hold them in your hand, they’re comforting...this is what I eat.” Like, is that a sentence? It was stuttered, it was mumbled, it was rushed, she was speaking in the second person, I didn’t quite get what she was trying to convey. I mean, when I was a child, did I hold Goldfish in my hand? No. With all this fancy education, I would think she would know how to speak in the first person. The insecure, immature speech makes me kind of understand why Luann lost patience with Tinsley at the dinner in Miami last season when everyone was piling on and Tinsley started drunkenly stuttering at her. It’s like, if you don’t know how to choose your words, what are you doing coming after someone? And they have every right to call you on it. If Tinsley really graduated from Columbia and the degree wasn’t granted with a wink and a nod, then something happened to her cognitive function between then and now. In this video, the talk about the Goldfish was just one long jagged spoken line, but it bothered me so much, because this is how she is on the show, and this is how she’s always been on the show, and I see why people become impatient with her (not abusive, but impatient, such as my example with Luann above). Luann’s apartment was so much nicer than Leah’s, no question!! It was not big. It was small, but it was kind of perfect. The floors were gorgeous. I liked the kitchen. It was much nicer than I expected it to be. It looked very expensive. If Luann actually has a lease on this place and she’s not just subleasing for filming, Luann has a lot more money than I thought she did. That place cost a pretty penny to decorate and it made all the difference. I understand what she meant about Leah’s coffee table. If Leah had a decent coffee table and she had a nice coat of paint on the walls and she just upgraded two or three other things, her apartment would be a hell of a lot nicer. If she doesn’t care, and Luann puts all this effort in, then I guess she gets to say something in her talking head. And she said very little. She didn’t go on and on. She kind of just rolled her eyes. Watching all three of them, it’s strange to think how different they are “in real life” aka when we see them on the show. It would be hard to explain to anyone that Tinsley is the least drunk out of the three of them. Then again, I am not sure Luann is a bigger drunk than Tinsley at this point. Dorinda’s definitely got them both beat. If Lu is still a huge lush, she’s hiding it really well, so respect for that at least. Luann is not bright at all, but she speaks well. I’m sure it wasn’t easy to learn, as she didn’t come from class, manners and etiquette, but she did learn how to sound like a lady somehow and now she comes across like an educated woman even though she’s not terribly educated, and she’s definitely not from the Ivy League. I think for that reason alone, I’d rather spend time with Luann than Tinsley. I wouldn’t constantly trying to figure out what she was saying. I’d probably figure out she was putting me down the first time around. 😉

I just finished the regular episodes of season six—I still have the reunion—and I think it might have been the second best RHNYC season of all time (second to season three), if not the most underrated one for sure. I think the problem with the season is that the more recent seasons tend to be remembered for their vacations, and the vacations totally sucked, both the visit to the Berkshires and Montana. But there were hidden gems all over the rest of the season! There was stuff I had no idea that had ever been on the show. They went to Saratoga and Kristen, Carole, Luann and Heather won $3,000 when Sonja was to cheap to pitch in (oh, and also because “old money” doesn’t bet that way, according to Sonja). So she got really drunk and cursed everyone out over and over, packed her shit in the car, said she was going to the Hamptons (from Saratoga! Which would take like eight hours) and then as soon as the women assured her they weren’t cursing at her, Sonja shrugged it off and went to the bars with them and made a drunken ass out of herself. Then there was this crazy Sonja and Harry relationship which was completely faked. They were pretending to be this serious couple and he even got her a ring until he left Carole’s birthday party in a cab with Luann and the next thing we knew, the relationship was just off, never to be spoken of again. Sonja also had this fake 23 year old boyfriend Brian that stopped calling her after Ramona called his mother. Where was Tom, Sonja’s “lover” of ten years through this? It’s so interesting that Tom never shows up for Sonja. The only time we hear of him prior to Luann is in season one with Ramona. That is so interesting for a lover of 10 years. Sonja couldn’t even keep a lover of one night (the pirate) off the show. And I completely forgot the facialist said Sonja slept with Russ in LA when Carole was with him and she didn’t deny it. The other thing that shocked me was that Luann and Aviva got into a pretty big fight, because a former Miss USA showed up at Luann’s charity luncheon and Aviva saw her and told the women that this same former Miss USA had shown up to her house to have a threesome with George and his fiancé, so by Luann’s magical deduction (she wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer back then either) Aviva must have invited Miss USA to the luncheon to cause a stir, and Luann started yelling at Aviva in Aviva’s home while she was drinking Aviva’s wine. Who does that? Luann went so low. She was such a bitch. She realized she had no traction on the issue and just started telling Aviva that Aviva should call her father a pedophile, and what is he doing sleeping with all these women, so Aviva asked what Luann’s daughter was doing making art about sex, lol. It jogged my memory that Luann would call Carole a pedophile for going out with Adam in season seven. Luann, you nut case, “pedophile” has a specific meaning. It’s a person sexually attracted to children. If “pedophile” just meant sleeping around like crazy, Luann herself would be a pedophile. The thing that was most puzzling to me of all was that final party when Aviva threw her leg. The first time I saw it, all I could think was the obvious, “oh my God, she threw her leg.” This time around, I realized something the women were saying didn’t square up. Everyone agreed that Aviva had lost 10 or 15 lbs since she’d seen them last. And she truly did look gaunt. Aviva said she was eating really carefully, because she was trying to stop the reflux that caused her asthma. She brought x-rays and doctor’s notes to show the women. But no one wanted to look at those things. They just wanted to make fun of Aviva and I didn’t really understand their argument. Kristen just did a talking head that Aviva looked “like shit” because of her weight loss and Ramona said she thought it was because Aviva couldn’t be away from Reid. First of all, Kristen, sorry not everyone can be as prettty as you. Second of all, Ramona, why would Aviva have lost all this weight if her problem was that she couldn’t be away from Reid, if she hadn’t been away from Reid because she didn’t go to Montana? No one could account for the weight loss. Carole and Heather just kept saying it was Munchausen’s. I think if it was psychosomatic, it was probably hypochondria, but, let’s say they’re right and it was Munchausen’s. Why be cruel to her? Isn’t that a mental illness? Why does that involve shouting in someone’s face? Why not just ignore her? It was just really gross. Aviva was clearly ill. Her weight alone made her anorexic (I’m not saying she had the mental disease of anorexia nervosa, I’m saying her weight was so low that she had the health condition of anorexia). The only one showing any compassion was Sonja. Kirsten was leading the charge and just being the biggest bitch. So Aviva threw her prosthesis across the room. It was actually really funny to me. She didn’t throw it at anyone. That would have not been funny. I don’t know what the reunion is going to bring, but I do respect a woman who can sit with five women who are against her and hold her own. I still wish her tenure could have overlapped with Bethenny’s, although I think it was a good idea for Aviva to go after two seasons. She was entertaining, but exhausting. I know I start liking Kristen in season seven as soon as she lets Bethenny know in no uncertain terms that she isn’t buying Bethenny’s bullshit, but this season was hard for me to get through with Kristen. She got a ton of screen time, and it seemed like she used three quarters of it bitching at Josh for more time with him, and to be a priority. Bitching, especially in such an ugly goofy way, is never going to get a person to want to come home. I think it was very clear that Kristen was really unhappy and unfulfilled being a mom, and she was jealous that Josh got to escape it all day, every day. What killed me was when the physical therapist came over to help teach their daughter to walk, Kristen wasn’t paying attention, she was too busy bitching at Josh, who said he got up at 5 every day to help the kid walk. I wonder how much he had to buy her when the whole Ashley Madison scandal broke and it turned out Josh was not spending all that time at work by a long shot! As of 2020, they were still married. I wonder if he upgraded their shitty apartment. That’s about the only thing I could think that would stave off a divorce after this monstrosity of a marriage that played out on TV.

There was a reunion, and it was two parts! Stacie got stuck sitting next to Michaele lol, and they brought out the husbands, which was good. I’m sorry we both missed it! If I can find it streaming anywhere, I’ll post it. As far as the politics, I was glad they got into some intense discussions, but I was overall put off by how there seemed to be only one “correct” viewpoint and it appeared that Stacie and Jason got railroaded into toeing the party line, which is everything I’m against. Wow, I just watched the finale, and I have such a different perspective of what I thought I was going to have! The Salahis didn’t crash the White House, OMG. They were allowed into the party at every step of the way. If someone was to be blamed, it was the security, Secret Service, whomever’s job it was to keep people without invitations out. They were never a threat to the country. The threat to the country was the fact that the White House was just letting people in, good golly! I don’t know who leaked it to the press that this happened (Bravo?), but the Salahis may have done the White House a favor by showing them how woefully inadequate its security was. They were like secret shoppers. The fact that they weren’t charged with anything, but just scolded in front of Congress was probably the most disgusting thing. If they committed a crime, put them before a jury. If the government can’t sort its shit out, that’s on the government IMO. This all felt very un-American; like it was happening in a banana republic of some sort. The other women (save Stacie) appeared very jealous and ugly. They were gleefully cackling when Tareq and Michaela were being questioned on C-SPAN, and Lynda said that Michaele needed to take out her extensions, wipe off her makeup and get a job. Why can’t a woman have hair extensions and wear makeup and have a job? I think this was a case of a shorter, pear-shaped woman in her fifties who had her sights set on a tall, thin, beautiful blonde in her forties. Michaela was crazy; I said this in my first post, but I just don’t see how Michaela was hurting Lynda. Screw Lynda. Freaking busybody. And screw Cat for being awful to the Salahis in Stacie and Jason’s home when they specifically asked her not to. I think Stacie and Jason were very good and very kind to the Salahis in their home, and managed to ask pointed questions. They didn’t get anywhere, but they also came away from the show looking very dignified and like people who don’t kick you when you’re down. I would want to be their friends. After this last episode, I can’t really say that about too many other people on the show. I still think there should have had subsequent seasons. I still would have watched (and probably enjoyed) the women. Maybe they should have just fired everyone and built up a new franchise around Stacie. I just think that, as crazy as Michaela was, the mistake of Lynda, Cat, and Mary was to stoop to her level in various ways. Mary made sure it never left our collective consciousness that Michaela had been working at a Trish McEvoy at sometime in the nineties. Is that somehow scandalous? She said it like Michaela had been hooking on the corner. The fact that Mary “I don’t make money, I spend money” Amons thought this was something to share at every turn says more to me about Mary than it does Michaela or anyone else. I love their tag-teaming bullshit. If Michaela has a job, she is ridiculed by Mary. If Michaela doesn’t have a job, she is ridiculed by Lynda. With friends like these... Last time I watched this, when it first aired, I felt the same way I do now, but in the ten years that have passed, I told myself that I had gotten it mixed up. But ten years later, I’m still not quite sure what happened, but there is no evidence that the Salahis crashed any gates and I think they made for a really strange target (not by their co-stars, in this instance, but by the government). I would have liked to see more of the hearings on C-SPAN, and not just the people who held what appeared to be Bravo’s viewpoint. I have a feeling there was a lot more to that story. I love Mary’s outrage that people who hadn’t been doing their jobs may have lost their jobs. That tends to be how it works, Mare.

I recently re-watched season one and the season finale of season two. Xfinity has all three seasons available for free for Bravo subscribers right now, so I’m going to start my re-watch of season two (one of my favorite seasons of reality history ever) tomorrow. I thought season one was boring, though it was still better than some of the best seasons on other franchises. I don’t like Lea and her singsong voice where it appears everything she is saying is the butt of a joke and iT sOuNdS LiKe ShE’s TaLkInG LiKe ThIS all of the time. I find it passive-aggressive. I’m also not big on Marysol. I also find her boring and tortured and a little phony. I like Alexia a lot. I like her Barbie look and her confidence and some of the ways she looks at life. Her lack of self awareness is funny. I loved Kristi and Larsa, I couldn’t help it. They were just everything I wanted in Housewives—super talkative and fun and light and if not smart, not dumb. They brought the perfect amount of drama IMO. Adriana came off as a mixed bag to me in season one. I didn’t love the way she seemed to be playing games with Frederick, but I guess if he wanted to participate, that’s his business. It can never be said that Adriana let an opportunity go to waste. I kind of rooted for her against Joanna in season two, but it was so good because it was such an even match, which I appreciated. I remember liking all of the additions—Karent, Ana, Lisa and Joanna—to the cast. I lived for season two. I used to live in Coral Gables. I’m pretty familiar with the places they go. Their fights were epic. I’m obviously going to watch season three as soon as I’m done with season two. All I remember from season three is that it was really good. Usually I’m not a fan of a small cast—season three only had five full-time cast members, as opposed to seven for season two—but I like who they chose to keep, and I just wish we could see more of them. I’m so excited I can watch this again. I’m going to get to it, before the free deal is over!

A place to discuss seasons 1-3

Why didn’t anyone want to talk to Michaele about anything, is what I’m wondering. Is she crazy? Yes. Is she dangerous? Highly doubtful. They agreed to film with her, so...it sucks because no one will ever know if this franchise could have survived if the ladies were willing to interact. I’m so glad there’s a place to talk about this! This was a really good franchise, and I’m so sad it died. It’s so much better than Potomac! The women seem smarter than the women on other franchises, and more proper. They’re sort of what Potomac wishes it was. I understand that Michaele was completely off her rocker and fake. I never really minded her from the safety of my TV screen, but I see where that might take a toll on her co-stars. I mean, I’m not going to say I don’t take joy in the fake Redskins cheerleader saying, “I’m the prettiest, I’m the hottest, I’m Miss D.C.” That’s kind of awesome in the balls it takes to say that and mean it, and I’m here for that on my Housewife shows. Then I understand that Cat’s marriage imploded pretty much as the season wrapped, and it seemed like she had a lot of problems, so maybe she wouldn’t have wanted to return to the show either. She was hard to understand and she didn’t bring a great home, and she was kind of a delusional bitch too. At one point she said that her husband “Charles has bored Obama senseless with chat about me,” so Michaele wasn’t the only one on the cast who talked what was in all likelihood bullshit. But, regardless of those two, why couldn’t it go on with Stacie, Mary and Lynda and then just cast some women they know? They had such better real estate than the ladies of Potomac. They’re more interesting, there were more connections, etc. It is like a city mouse vs country mouse kind of thing. I only caught the end of the season, and Bravo generally doesn’t rebroadcast the reunions for some reason, so I’m bummed, but for the three episodes I have, it’s really fun. Maybe it was too good to be true. Women this high profile (I’m speaking mostly about Stacie and Lynda) probably don’t want to be on reality TV, and maybe it was too much to ask for Bravo to do a major cast shake-up after only one season. The only franchise that did that was Miami, and look what happened to Miami. Although I loved Miami. The next time they play a marathon of that, hopefully I’ll be home from work and we can chat about that too. I might need y’all’s help starting a thread about Miami. I am so impressed and happy that this is here. Hopefully it’ll catch on. I still have the finale to watch, so if anything hits me, I’ll be back to yak about the impressions they made on me lol.

I watched WWHL, and apparently I was wrong in my theory that Sonja asked if she had gained weight and Ramona assented. Ramona said Sonja was struggling to her into her jeans and Ramona suggested as a friend that Sonja might want to lose some weight. Rude! Not her business! But Sonja brought a gun to a knife fight when she showed up to Ramona’s party with the dress that Ramona couldn’t zip up, and Sonja must have said three times that she brought in the large, because Ramona couldn’t fit into the medium. And Ramona handled her with grace and ease when she said, “oh, you could have brought an extra large.” I could tell Ramona’s non-reaction really ruffled Sonja’s feathers, because she then took pains to say that she could fit into the medium, and Ramona didn’t miss a beat. That’s how you handle people. Are you listening, Tinsley? But, to quote Ramona, “in all sincerity” I understand why she wants to have her own friends and her own parties and distance herself from these women when she’s not filming, like she did last season. More than anyone else on the show, Ramona has been able to get women together for bone fide social events. When was the last time Luann or Sonja had a party full of people that are not on the show? Sonja in season four with the opera singer? Luann maybe in season two? I feel like Ramona does it every season, or a few times a season. These people aren’t rude assholes to her, so she wants to be around them, it’s kind of simple. Who comes to someone’s party and insults them right out the gate and right in front of their friends? Sonja and Dorinda, that’s who. And that’s why they have no friends. Ramona, with all her social ticks and foibles, has managed to keep and maintain relationships, even her ex-husband. Sonja’s ex-husband won’t even be in the same room as her. Does Dorinda have any kind of relationship with Ralph? Not that we’ve heard about. They’re so jealous it’s ugly. And they both have schadenfreude big time. Apparently Dorinda and Sonja planned to bum rush Ramona in her own home at her own party the night before, when Sonja allegedly called up Dorinda and was “crying all night” because Ramona “fat-shamed” Sonja. Dorinda makes me laugh. In this scene, she reminded me a little of Charlotte in the Sex and the City movie, when she told her friends that if she saw Big, she was going to say to him, “I curse the day you were born.” And Carrie, nonplussed, said Charlotte might want to work a hand gesture in there. Dorinda’s big line that she took 24 hours to work up? “Are you jealous that I’m back with Luann?” Yes, Dorinda, that is the key. You just unlocked it all. Ramona confronted you on your terrible behavior, not because you have terrible behavior, but because she is jealous. You cracked the case. I think the reason Ramona has so much staying power is because she can dish it out, and she can take it. That is pretty rare on these shows. Dorinda said to Ramona that she feels sorry for Ramona for all the men that have come and gone from her life, and Ramona stood there without batting an eyelash. This is why, out of 150 or so Housewives across the franchises, Ramona is the only one still standing on the show and she is in her twelfth season. It’s very hard for the women to be able to handle someone who can turn the chaos off and drama off and right back on, like that stupid hugging and lack of self-awareness at the end. Dorinda actually said to Ramona, “in a way, I’m glad it’s just the three of us here tonight,” when she was surrounded by a room full of women. So self-absorbed! Dorinda needs to have an adversary or a target or she’s not happy. She needs to feel like she has some camp that will rally around her and storm the enemy at dawn. It’s not really normal and it’s making her look pathetic.

I can’t believe how much Dorinda deflects, as Luann’s said. Leah wanted to acknowledge the “shit show” that was the apple orchard. Ramona tried to go in first, and Dorinda just retorted that Ramona has the same bad behavior. Ok, so then, they can talk about Ramona and her behavior when it’s time to talk about Ramona. The topic was Dorinda’s bad behavior, and she had nothing to say to defend her own behavior, and she couldn’t even listen. She could only take shots at Ramona. Then Leah went in and said that she really likes Dorinda, but she’s scared that Dorinda is gong to turn on her, and Ramona chimed in “it’s scary.” So what does Dorinda do? She turns to Ramona and tells Ramona that she’s scary. Zilch in response to Leah’s valid concern. Then Tinsley comes in and says she has respect, but she doesn’t want to fight, and Dorinda puts her head down and starts mumbling about how she doesn’t want to have any more discussions and she’s going “to go take a pee now.” Three attempts, three deflections. Where do you go from there with someone? Dorinda keeps attacking people, she doesn’t get her own help (‘cept from the alkaline guy who just yesses her to death) and she won’t listen to reason. It’s time for the cast to ice her out for awhile, like they did with Aviva back in the day. If she has any ability or willingness to access her uncrazy side, she’ll shape up and they can let her back in, which is what happened with Aviva. She shaped up with the quickness. No one was willing to do that with/for Bethenny, and she just became a bigger buyer into her own bullshit and delusion every year until she seemed to have her own mental break. I think the best thing for the show as far as how it plays for the viewers and how comfortable Dorinda’s co-stars feel around filming with her is to interrupt her behavior. No weak links either (looking at you, Luann!)

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If Dorinda is going to complain to her “life coach” that she “can’t take the noise right now,” then what is she doing on a reality show about women who screech at each other for 44 minutes each week? If she can’t “take the noise” of a relationship with John, she’s in a really fragile place. I didn’t realize upon first watching that Dorinda had to throw a lot of her stuff with Richard away when it got destroyed when Blue Stone Manor flooded. That may have been the last string that was tying her to sanity. She said it happened in January. I’m not sure why she didn’t seek intense treatment, possibly even a stay in an emotional health facility like Mariah Carey once did? She’d have been out well before filming began around Labor Day. If Tinsley needs to take responsibility, Dorinda also needs to take responsibility. I’m not saying they need to do this or the world will stop spinning on its axis, but I think a big reason this season feels so depressing to many of us is that they are not enjoying good mental health, and it doesn’t make for good TV. I can’t believe Tinsley sleeps in her gold jewelry. I thought it was a stretch last season when she said she sleeps in her lashes (and she got the one good zinger of all of her tenure against Ramona: “if you can sleep with your boobs, I can sleep with my lashes”), but why sleep in your jewelry? Are you that afraid of being without material possessions and/or insecure about being without aesthetic accoutrements when you’re asleep? I feel like, if any other woman on any other franchise said she sleeps in her lashes and her jewelry, we’d never stop hounding her about how shallow that is, but somehow, with Tinsley, it’s part of her charm? Eh. Tinsley, with a full face of makeup and hoops, reusing to participate in the leaf dusting thing, made her seems old and stodgy. It is exactly the kind of shit Ramona would have refused in seasons past, and she rightfully would have gotten tons of shit for it. Just participate in your own show, damn.

I get the impression that viewers root for Tinsley. I might be wrong. I guess the better way to phrase it is that Tinsley seems to get a protected status. At last season’s reunion, Andy actually took the time to exit Bethenny’s ass to go against Bethenny to protect Tinsley and make her argument for her that, because she’s southern she’s inherently different, and neither Bethenny nor anyone else should expect Tinsley to defend herself for that reason. I’m not even going to get into the northern elitism that was exhibited there. I’ll just say it was one of the only times from last season that I agreed with Bethenny when she said Atlanta is in the south, and being southern in and of itself is not an excuse. I don’t tend to think someone is cut out for a show if the host of the reunion has to argue on their behalf. I think it’s a chicken-egg type of thing, as Tinsley came on in season nine, which I haven’t seen since it aired, so I don’t know if Tinsley gave off the vibe of being weak and then Sonja attacked, or whether Sonja attacked, which rendered Tinsley weak. I’m pretty sure it’s the former, because Sonja is...Sonja. She’s a crazy lady. If you can’t hold your own against Sonja, I don’t know if there’s help for you. I just think Tinsley needs to show more of a backbone before I will get behind her other than to object to the very obvious below the belt insult. And she really shouldn’t need other people to fight her battles as a fully grown woman. Ironically enough, what I have found in life is that people only rally around you and take your side when they know you’re willing to defend yourself. I was into my thirties before I realized this, and it was difficult for me, but I finally realized that I had to start taking affirmative steps not to get walked on, and I took them and it was hard and I sweated a lot and I’m still doing it and still feeling self-doubt but persevering every time I go to my office. If I can do it, I’m not going to have any respect (I may have pity, but I don’t have respect) for a woman who is a lot further along in life who can’t or won’t do this. If Tinsley’s “nice,” if she seems good-hearted or kind-hearted, it’s like I wrote a few weeks ago: I think Tinsley would have to be bordering on pathological her own damned self to live such a pampered life and not at least give off the veneer of being “nice.” That’s not going to get my attention. She’d either have to do something heroic like try to stamp out the ten most preventable diseases like Bill and Melinda Gates or I’d have to see her walk in the shoes of someone who doesn’t have all of this natural financial wealth and access and see where her character goes from there. Just being on this show seems to retard her growth. I don’t know if all the charity work played a part in Bethenny’s decision to leave the show, but I think one might reach the point where they don’t want to talk about fashions and lashes 24/7 and move on. If she’s going to stick around for the squabbling, I don’t see her as a victim of domestic violence, I see her as someone taking the easier path. She might be a victim of workplace intimidation, and, again, like I said, I have been a “victim” of that to varying degrees in my twenties, and if I did something about it, I’m not too sympathetic toward someone who doesn’t. ————————————————————————- I just wanted to say, as far as the “uptown” vs “downtown” thing, in case doesn’t know New York that well, it’s not like “uptown” is rich and “downtown” is poor. The wealthiest zip code on the island of Manhattan is TriBeCa (which stands for “triangle below canal”) so it’s most definitely below Canal. The people who still think downtown = poor are living 50 years behind the times. And “50 years behind the times” is probably a pretty fitting description for half this cast!

I feel very similarly. For the sake of argument, let’s say Dorinda is the most horrible bully who’s ever bullied. Her behavior is terrible, yes. But what about Tinsley’s behavior? She is constantly being bullied and victimized by people since she signed on to this show—first Sonja, then Bethenny, now Dorinda. And yet she keeps re-upping her contract for this show and hasn’t learned a better coping mechanism than screaming, or, as they say, screeching and/or crying and/or taking cheap shots when she’s drunk. I can’t really rally around that. It’s not an example of good character either. When Dorinda is acting sick toward Tinsley, I do feel bad for her, or when Sonja makes jokes about sucking small dicks for jewelry, it’s disgusting. But Tinsley is really wearing thin as the person for whom to root. I don’t feel positive energy from her. I think if, after four seasons, one just hasn’t gained traction with a social group, and she doesn’t need the money, it may be time to exit stage left. The pile-on is not just an example of maladaptive behavior, it’s boring. If Tinsley is not making an effort at mastering the coping skills of life, I only have so much patience. I’m within about one episode of not caring any longer. When they piled on Luann, at least she summoned her tiny brain power and had fortitude and held strong though it was very difficult for her. That was something I could get behind and support, even if I didn’t agree with all of Luann’s choices. I was at least convinced that she was willing to stand up for herself. She had moxie, and it made me want her to win.

No, if I thought that women should only socialize with women of similar ages, I would have said exactly that. What I think that it is much more likely for women of similar ages to have common ground and reason to socialize. If these women had a common interest, such as dogs or horses, it would be much more believable. But all they seem to have in common is drinking, and usually women day-drink with other women around their age and experience level. It’s an observation, not a value judgment. I don’t remember age always being such a hot button issue. There are patterns amongst age groups, and as long as there are patterns, I will cheerfully point them out.

Dorinda sounded so old when she was riding to the Turkish Bath and saying how seldom she goes below Canal Street. She’s really sort of taking Ramona’s place as the Upper East Side snob who doth protest too much. And where does Luann rent in the city again? On the corner of First and First, the nexus of the universe? I appreciate the fact that Leah doesn’t have that rough, unrefined New York accent that Sonja and Ramona have, but it is hard for me to understand her. I think she’s trying to enunciate, which is more than I can say for nine tenths of these women, but she seems lo have a case of lockjaw or something. I had no idea what she was saying about the pita guy, and whether he was real, except that she took a nude photo with a pita covering her privates, which sounded like a recipe for a yeast infection. I think she’s trying too hard, and it’s irresponsible to send nude pics to guys with her face showing. Ramona’s apartment is a lot nicer than Leah’s and Dorinda’s. By a long shot. I just couldn’t stand that one of the cornerS of her living room was rounded and not perpendicular. That bothers me about real estate to no end. I could never spend any time in Luann’s round house, needless to say. Sonja is so funny to come to Ramona’s home and insult her weight after Ramona insulted Sonja’s weight at the spa. Can’t they just agree they both gained weight and they’re not as young as they once were and move on? Sonja is certainly not “fat” by any means, but she put on a noticeable amount of weight since last season. I would have liked to hear that conversation between Sonja and Ramona play out rather than hearing about it secondhand, because I have a feeling Sonja may have asked how she can improve her looks, and if you ask, you run the risk that people are going to respond honestly. I also thought it was funny that Dorinda played “schadenfreude” on her phone, like it was this brand new foreign word that she discovered and it’s not in everyday American parlance. I’m not sure I agree with Dorinda that Ramona has schadenfreude though. I think Ramona brought up Dorinda’s behavior at the spa with good intentions, and Dorinda went low first and Ramona retaliated with Cartagena. That cocktail party at the end was sad and embarrassing. One good thing I have to say about it is that it looked like women of similar ages were socializing, which seemed a lot more normal to me than women in their thirties, forties, fifties and sixties just hanging around and shooting the breeze. On the other hand, there is something very unnerving and frozen about Elyse and looking at her makes me uncomfortable. The three drunken biddies (Sonja, Ramona and Dorinda) running into the corridor (you can tell a lot about a building by its corridors, holla at Luann) and yelling and crying and hugging was just appalling and not fun. This episode was better than last week, but these women continue to be remarkably tone-deaf and embarrassing. I’d really like to see less drinking, so they could argue smarter. Looks like I’m not going to get my way anytime soon. At least this episode gave us some breathing room between the boiling to the surface tension between Dorinda and Tinsley. I wasn’t sure how much more of that I could take. At least this week Dorinda picked on someone her own size in Ramona. I didn’t come away feeling like anyone had been battered this episode. That is the best thing I can say! 😄

Leah is right that Tinsley should respond more strongly to Dorinda, and Luann is right that she shouldn’t be screeching. When Tinsley felt the need to stand up at the table at the sidewalk cafe with just Leah and Luann, I started thinking this isn’t going to bode well. Tinsley needs to find a style. She is not going to be able to have the same exact style of confrontation as Luann or Leah, but she needs to find a way to have a way to be assertive with other adult woman. I don’t care about Dorinda. She can fall off the face of the earth tomorrow. There will always be a “Dorinda” in Tinsley’s life if she doesn’t learn this skill. Does she want Dale to still boss her around in her fifties? Because Dale is absolutely not going to change. Tinsley has to do this if she wants things to be different. Tinsley should be in serious therapy, because she could stand to gain a lot from it. The rest seem a little too set in their ways or pickled in the brain to be affected by someone’s advice. And Dorinda and that yes-man? No words. All I learned from that exchange was that Richard was not a good looking man. So when Sonja was saying that she realized that she couldn’t be drunk in public at the orchard, but she could be drunk on a girls’ trip and usually they would be on a girls’ trip, I realized this is right around the time of the season that they would have gone to Blue Stone Manor, except it fell apart and Dorinda couldn’t afford to keep it up. So...Sonja thinks her behavior at BSM was ok in the past? What part? Raising and lowering Ramona’s 17 year old dog over her head repeatedly? Or threatening Barbara with a beating if she made out with Sonja’s girlfriend, Bethenny? Maybe Dorinda really doesn’t know who Mao Zhedong was. She compared the spa to a “Hamas,” which is a terrorist group. What was this globe-trotting Richard even doing with her?

Noooo, unfortunately, not at all. After Bethenny departed RHNYC for the first time, they spent basically an entire season talking about her. There were arguments about who said/did what in preventing people from getting along with Bethenny, how Bethenny treated Kelly, and she was a point of conversation at the season four reunion, when she wasn’t a participant in the show whatsoever for that season...and then they cut four of the seven cast members after that season. Probably because the assholes were so preoccupied with Bethenny, they weren’t building storylines for themselves. Whether I love or loathe a Housewife, I think that once she exits stage left, the remaining Housewives should not speak about her. It makes them look like they have nothing else going on. I am actually pleasantly surprised that RHBH aren’t discussing former cast members more. Have lives. Do interesting things. Don’t talk about Yolanda.

I guess that’s why it felt contrived to me then. Rehashing info that has already been disseminated is one of my Housewife pet peeves. Saying things that wouldn’t normally be part of the conversation, such as, “you know, I dated Will” when a friend is already well aware of that fact is what I don’t like about these shows. It’s like when they come back from a vacation where there was a huge fight and one of the “Wives films an elaborate scene in her bedroom where she “reports” to her husband that she is no longer speaking to her bestie like two days later. As if they haven’t discussed it already! Somehow I knew that Aaron and Harry Hamlin had both been married to Nicolette Sheridan before (I am ashamed that I knew that), and I was impressed with the way Lisa Rinna and Denise handled it last season. They both spoke about it as if they were all completely aware of the situation, as opposed to Lisa being all, “Denise, baby! Do you know what we have in common! We are Eskimo sisters and we should own it!” In general, I like it when they treat the audience as sophisticated participants (even when we sometimes aren’t).

It’s not a question of what I require; it’s a question of the amount of info that I think is relevant to disclose. I get from the tone of your inquiry that you probably don’t agree with me and that’s totally ok; I respect all sincerely held opinions. To answer your question, if someone was telling me their backstory and about their family, I would find it extremely helpful and informative if they were breaking down their family to me and explained that this person was their half-brother or sister. After establishing it once, I wouldn’t see why they would need to repeat it. It is like knowing that Porsha and Lauren are half-sisters through their father, so I am not confused when Lauren doesn’t call Porsha’s mom “mom,” etc.. It’s not a value judgment; it’s a description. If anyone doesn’t agree with me that this is important to understanding the narrative, I’m good with that. I would say that, based on the info presented, it is a fact that you have a biological sister. If her existence has no bearing on yours, I wouldn’t think it was something you needed to inform anyone about, unless you wanted to. Yes, this is a restatement of my point. Andy’s son is his son. It would be a mischaracterization for someone to call him a stepson. It is similarly a mischaracterization for Andy to ask Cynthia how she feels about having two new stepdaughters when she does not have stepdaughters, as she is not married to Mike. Maybe they don’t want to be called her stepdaughters. Maybe they don’t even like her. I don’t think Andy should take liberties with familial relationships if he doesn’t want others taking liberties with his. Might this be a disagree to agree situation? 😃 To paraphrase Ramona from RHNYC, in all sincerity, I think we have beaten this topic to death. It’s my position that there are correct and incorrect labels for things. I generally think it’s more helpful than unhelpful to use the correct labels to facilitate understanding and communication. To the extent that this is contrary to anyone else’s opinion, that is totally fine. Nobody is changing anyone’s minds here, so I’m moving on. Namaste to all. I’m going to go watch a horror movie on Netflix. 🙏