LibertarianSlut

I absolutely hate how Andy has to make a big opening statement, and then exchange individual greetings with each Housewife, even though he already greeted them in their dressing rooms. It’s increasingly obvious that these reunions cannot fill three parts. That’s what I thought the retrospective of the entire franchise was about too. Why would we go over the past five seasons when seasons 1-4 already had their reunions, if not in an effort to fill time? Isn’t Bravo embarrassed? Isn’t Andy embarrassed to fan-girl about Kamala? Twenty bucks he cannot name one Mary J. Bilge song off the top of his head. OMG, Gizelle’s fashion faux pas have been “very therapeutic in quarantine.” I am dead. Though I can’t stand Karen, and she was caught in two lies straight out the gate—whether her nose had been done and whether she was wearing fake Fendi, Karen was very good against Gizelle, and Gizelle didn’t go so well against Karen. Karen scored points by pointing out that Gizelle is 50, because that’s Gizelle’s Achilles Heel, even though she looks no more than 45. Gizelle was also very weak in calling out Karen’s opinion as “your opinion!” Yes, Gizelle, Andy asked Karen her opinion and she’s giving it. This is year five. Does Gizelle not understand the format? I think Karen was absolutely telling the truth about Gizelle’s makeup line—I think it is defunct and in liquidation like Karen said, and not just that production has halted because of COVID, as Gizelle said. Robyn is going to hold Ashley (and probably Monique) to account for every single word they say, and I’m here for that. Andy is already kissing Monique’s ass like she’s not a thug in an ice skating dress (TM Alex McCord). So thank God someone is stepping up to the plate. Wendy lost a lot of points with me when she blamed Ashley’s use of the word “aggressive” for racist messages she received, instead of blaming...the racists. Additional loss of points for having four degrees, but being unable to answer Andy’s question about what word someone should use in place of “ferocious,” and only using an example that you shouldn’t call your son who is misbehaving a “bad boy.” I noticed Candiace actually physically dodged the colorist question, which was probably smart, because I couldn’t imagine her making a good argument about it. I think Candiace is slowly realizing that not everything requires a response. Her strongest argument against Monique and Ashley is that Monique beat her ass, expressed no remorse, and engaged in a smear campaign, and Ashley enabled it every step of the way. Credit to Candiace for not picking every battle. Yes, let’s talk about Wendy’s degrees and Candiace’s song and Gizelle’s house that she can’t afford to complete...because that’s what the hell we tune in for. Karen spilling the tea about Jamal was everything, and I completely believe her and I disbelieve Gizelle and all that yarn that she was spinning about it being good for her kids to watch the show back and blah, blah, blah. Everything Monique said about Jamal was true, because Gizelle had no reaction, because there was nothing to deny. This was not Candiace’s issue. I want to hear more about what is the binder and Michael’s and Chris Samuels’s horrible words/behavior and, of course, the fight. What they did in this installation is what they do on the show: keep it slow and boring until the very end in order to tease us to tune in next week. And yet...I watch. I think I’m going to go eat a whole thing of gummy bears and drown in self-loathing... At least I don’t keep a binder on people. But just because Monique is a bitch and a psycho doesn’t mean I have any doubts that her receipts about Jamal were 100% true. Watching Gizelle squirm and be forced to admit that Jamal wouldn’t be appearing at the reunion made me much happier than I had a right to be. I think Monique is despicable and she should probably be fired for the way she laid hands on Candiace, but this is fair game to me. This is what I was looking for all season—real accusations with receipts about extramarital affairs and secrets. So Monique delivered on that front, even though I loathe her. As strange as it feels to be Team Monique/Karen on any damn thing, two things can be true at once, and I think here it is true that Monique is mentally ill and it’s true that everything she said about Jamal was derived from a real source. And I don’t think it’s beyond the pale to report about that. I think that’s her job description. Laying hands is not in the job description.

I think it should be a virtual requirement for former spouses to make an appearance on the show to spill tea, especially if the new spouse in question is acting like their marriage is made of spun gold. Not only would I like to see Whitney’s husband’s first wife, but I’d really like to get the backstory from Allison Edmonds and Shane Simpson’s first wife over on OC. I realized on rewatch that Whitney’s father totally had a relapse. That was what that whole part of the episode was about, and the drive to his sober living. Things didn’t just “get difficult” without the resources of rehab—the dude who is like 60 with jet-black hair and not one touch of grey—was likely using drugs from the time we met him at the vow renewal in episode one. There would have been no reason for the dad to go back to rehab and say to his former counselors that they’re ready to start the hard work all over again if the dad hadn’t picked up. I resent a half-assed storyline. If it was too private to share, keep it off TV, and if it’s fit for our consumption, then just tell us the damned story without creating room for plausible deniability. I am not a fan of euphemisms, such as “struggling.” Was the guy hitting the crackpot again or not? Whitney was caught in another big lie this episode with regard to her dad and his drug addiction. At the beginning of the season, she told us that every single person dropped her dad except her when his drug abuse became apparent (I remember posting that I didn’t believe her), and now we have the brother-straddling scene, where Whitney’s brother is offering all kinds of support to the guy, asking whether he should keep texting her dad and stuff, and what does the father need, etc. So now I have Whitney pegged as a confirmed liar, not just a suspected one, which was what I thought from jump. Is there any kind of moral compass to this show?

@MrsWitter, I’m just going to stick to your points, and not how you made them. What you decided is your opinion; it’s not gospel. If you take offense to the word ghetto, that is your preference, but it’s hardly axiomatic. I don’t take offense to the word “ghetto” so...there ya go. I think “Grandpa Fucker” is a little worse. I don’t need to do research on that one. I also said from the get-go that I wasn’t going to bring extrinsic evidence into this. Libraries are good, learning can be fun, but I don’t need to dust off a book to call out racism as I see fit. I want to talk about the show and what it means when a woman shouts to a black woman “you’re black!” I have my opinion on that. If you wish to sway my opinion—something in which you have not managed to succeed—the emotional component of the argument would have to be ratcheted down pretty significantly, because I’m not swayed by emotion. What generally tends to make people’s lives better is to live by a system that benefits them and their neighbors. I am in favor of that type of behavior, and I’m against behavior that is confusing, condescending, and pushy, so Jen loses the day for me on that one alone. I make and receive arguments based on logic and observation, and I’m not interested in coalition building. Everyone made their points precisely the way they chose to make them, and yours was not the most persuasive. I disagree that suggesting one should make decisions as a member of a race when it flies in the face of their individual experience is “generally” agreed upon, and to the extent that it is agreed upon amongst various people, I think it’s wrong. If someone wants to disagree with me, I’m all for a well-intentioned debate, but as one knows, both sides need to have some common understanding of the terms of the discussion. That’s why I made the analogy of asking for the placement of goal posts up thread, and if I am going to face off in a healthy way with a person, I will continue to ask for and relay goal posts as far as setting the terms. Thank you. If you think Jen is in a position to preach to Mary what is good and what is not good for Mary’s family based on Mary’s race, I am afraid I am simply going to have to disagree with you again. My advice is to let Jen be Jen, and let Mary be Mary, and until the day one goes to the other and asks “how can I live better?” this type of racial profiling crosses a boundary that I reject. I dunno, except that if someone yelled across a table to someone else “you’re white!” it wouldn’t be taken as well. Things that make you go “hmm”... It’s interesting that you use the term “subjugation,” because I think that is exactly what Jen is attempting with Mary—she’s trying to bring Mary under her dominion and control through race-baiting and race-shaming. In summation, “live by the dictates of your race and not your conscience” doesn’t sit well with me. As I pointed out, this is tribalism. This is the exact thing people have been fighting against in this country—some for centuries—so I’m not going to stand for it when I see it on my screen. Unless anyone has anything to add that is new and thought-provoking, I’ll leave it there. I’m not sure how they’re scheduling this thing going forward, so I wish everyone to whom I don’t speak a blessed holiday. 🎄

This is all I can think of when I see Jen social justice warrioring: 😀

I’m pretty sure they all live in Newport Beach at the moment, except Gina lives in Irvine, and IIRC, Emily lives in Laguna Niguel. I wish they would be more specific about where they live too—it’s helpful in allowing me to draw a picture of their lives in my mind.

This is an excellent summation of the problem with the episode from my POV as well. Ten years ago this was a show, and Bravo was a network, that exhibited vapid, empty shells of people who lived on credit and argued with their husbands about whether to get Raquel rhinoplasty after the Curtin family got evicted. I remember the exact moment that record scratched off and was substituted by another—in season six, when Alexis expressed mainstream Christian views on the show, and apparently did a 180 overnight and fell all over herself apologizing in her blog, at the reunion, etc. Alexis wasn’t following the doctrine, so she had to fall in line or get out. Nine seasons later it is progressively getting worse to the point that it’s more trouble than it’s worth to watch for me. Since 2005, a lot of “stuff” happened “out there” that didn’t get coverage, because this was an entertainment show, not a news show, and that was how I preferred it. Bravo and RHOC has to make up its mind about what kind of show it is—I don’t want “news” in my entertainment any more than I want urine in my tea. The sources from which I derive my news are as selective as it gets—it has taken me my entire adult life to put my news through its paces, and as soon as I reject an outlet or a person for lack of honesty or integrity in its reporting, it’s dead to me, and I move on to something else. Having Bravo attempt to cover current events for me is like showing up to a personal training session only to find the fat friend I used to pig out with holding a bag of Utz and some Twinkies and saying, “let’s do this instead.” Erm...no. No thank you. It’s like a Baader-Meinhof thing—you either see it or you don’t. I’ll speak in the first person—once I began to see the agenda, and the hypocrisy, I couldn’t unsee it. The subtle—and then not-so-subtle—suggestion that there was only one way to approach things, one way to look at things on this network became stifling and not something I wish to indulge. Not to mention that Bravo’s, and thus, RHOC’s, medium for delivering news is 25 years out of date—people haven’t been “getting” news since the mid-nineties. For the last quarter century, there has been a democratic shift in media wherein the people can give feedback, and I can’t with Bravo and it’s closed circuit system, where the only time the viewers get to have a collective voice is during the reunion, when “Monty from McGootville” gets to submit a question that is censored and restated by Andy Cohen so that the Housewife to whom the question is posed knows how to answer—she can either hit on the pre-determined talking points or she will find herself persona non grata. It’s dishonest and Orwellian and not fit for independent thinkers, which I maintain are the hallmark of our society. If this show would get back to basics, I would watch it happily, but you can’t unring a bell and nothing is “going back” anytime soon IMO. If the show runners think they’re going to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes, it is perhaps a worthy exercise to see how that is working. Maybe not today, but I predict a major shakeup in the industry in the next two years. It would be ironic, but not highly surprising, if Bravo became increasingly irrelevant, as it is not making an effort to keep up with the times, and is instead taking the position of the woke-scold great grandmother. There is a growing number of people who are increasingly tired of being treated like their IQ is at a temperature so dim that it can only lightly toast a piece of bread, so I anticipate a pushback on the cultural milieu sooner than later. The format of the show that I loved used to be that the Housewives were the jokes and the audience passed judgment on them. Now that formula has been turned on its head and suddenly Botox-addicted women soaked in bleach are—subtly or unsubtly—suggesting how I should live my life and arrange my values? Naw, that’s not gonna fly. Bottom line: it’s a truism that people don’t want to be lectured to in general, but especially by authority they don’t recognize. To attempt this in this episode was a big mistake—huge—and I predict a major backlash that Bravo will be unable to absorb, because it does not have its pulse on the zeitgeist.

That’s her prerogative. I’m not sure why it’s being given a pejorative spin. Strikes me as quite disempowering. As far as the cast goes, I only go by what’s on the show. I’m not bringing extrinsic evidence of what they have allegedly done in the past into my argument. Ok, then if I interpreted it incorrectly, and it wasn’t Jen reminding Mary that Mary was black in an effort to get Mary to conform to Jen’s version of the correct words or behavior of the black race, what did it mean? I would imagine that one who strongly disagreed with my interpretation would have an interpretation of one’s own. This implies that there is a set of expectations for Mary’s behavior, by virtue of her being black, something with which I disagree. Yet you are asserting Jen meant something other than this idea you’re advancing for black behavior when she told Mary “you’re black!” and I’m not sure what it was, in your opinion. Can you explain the small minded, bigoted words to which you’re referring? Nothing was said on the show that I can gauge on my own—but I think we have a fundamental disagreement as to whether there is a prescription for how “any” person should act by virtue of their race, or their ties to a given race. That is the definition of tribalism. I need to know exactly where you’re placing the goal posts before I can form a proper response.

At the end of the episode, Mary said something to Heather that Jen is not used to her color, and I think Mary is at least partially right. I think Jen has a major issue with Mary’s race. Jen expects Mary to act in lockstep with Jen’s expectations of what a minority should be. By barking at Mary, “you’re black!” Jen meant “act black!” which is racist. There is no other way that it could reasonably be interpreted in the context in which it was used IMO. It doesn’t even matter if Jen doesn’t like Mary the person; then attack Mary the person, don’t go for her race. On Real Housewives of Dallas, one white cast member was raked over the coals and ultimately lost her job because she said “chirpy Mexican” and some other non sequiturs about another white cast member of Mexican descent. Here we have a woman who is Asian telling a woman who is black that she ought to act a certain way and she somehow has moral authority to do this? I have no idea why. Because Jen’s husband is black? No dice. How about...each individual gets to act in the way their conscience dictates, and if someone is opposed to someone else’s actions, or the content of their character, take it up with the individual and not their entire race to advance an argument? I realized Jen is the biggest race-baiter and colorist that’s come around reality TV in a long time. I forgot all about this until now, but last episode she said she was going to eat because “I’m brown; we eat.” That’s a slippery slope to start down. Why bring billions of people into it? In referring to herself as “brown,” I suspect she is referring to her Tongan background (as I have never heard a Chinese person called “brown”) so why not just say that if she really feels there’s a cultural component to her appetite? Or say that she eats because she’s hungry? Why bring background into it at all? Who made her the arbiter of all people who are brown? I get it that Mary isn’t a popular cast member, but that doesn’t excuse or offset Jen’s stereotyping and racism. I wonder if Jen will be called on this at all at the reunion, or if she’s going to get a pass for it. I have a strong prediction that nothing will be made of it. Or Andy will just grin and let her out of it, because he picks winners and losers on these shows. I’d be happy to be wrong, but similar shit recently happened—or didn’t happen, rather—on RHNYC, so the writing is pretty much on the wall.

I looove Mary’s calm “Bye Jen, Jen bye” in response to Jen’s finger-poking and swearing and standing up at Mary’s lunch. That is the way Jen needs to be handled if one chooses to interact with her, which is an interesting choice. Heather sucks by enabling Jen. “I don’t want this around Valter. He’s very upset.” Camera pans to a completely stoic Valter. So unintentionally funny. The words “ghetto” and “hood rat” aren’t used by Jen because they make people feel bad?? So “grandpa fucker” is uplifting?!? Heather’s daughter with the boyfriend is so pretty. I hope she doesn’t inherit her mom’s plastic surgery. OMG, Meredith was so pretty in the pictures they showed of her when her kids were young! It’s annoying to listen to her bicker with her husband about where they’re going to live though. That sort of big picture stuff should be worked out long in advance. For instance, in my marriage, there is an agreement to just follow the money (aka we live where either of us can earn the most money). If that used to be their agreement and having kids changed the equation or something, ok, then that should have been hashed out maybe at the first sonogram. I don’t think this is about living in Ohio vs. Utah. I think they’re incompatible assholes. I finally figured out why Jen is so pissed off all the time—she has a spouse who lives in the phone! But if Mary would call Jen an “iPhone fucker,” she would tear the whole place down. Coach Shah’s face spoke a thousand words. Jen is saying that if someone left the 7-11 where one of her relatives was standing in front of, she’d “beat their ass”? What does that look like? Would she chase down their car as it drove away or something? I would hate to be the person who rolled up, realized I forgot my wallet at home, and had my tire punctured by the stiletto of a crazy woman. Why does Jen assume that her relatives would give a shit if people didn’t want to go to the 7-11 where people or any race, color or creed were loitering? When I was a young teen, I used to hang outside 7-11 with my friends, and if someone pulled up and pulled away, not only would we not want someone to beat their ass...we wouldn’t care. Unless the people in question were over 21 and were willing to buy us beer illegally. Then we would greatly desire their presence. Jen is just always so outraged and offended at everything. When something comes along to actually care about, no one is going to listen to her, because she is the boy who cried wolf. I find it amusing that Whitney and her husband broke up two families (hers and her future husband’s) and her storyline is that she’s in her feelings because it took some people some time to come around. Why does she think everyone needs to rubber stamp her choices? I think she’s re-living that through her dad’s struggle. Maybe not all of those people support her dad. When you break up marriages and abuse drugs, there are consequences. Some people are quicker to forgive than others. I think it’s actually a little judgmental to judge how long it takes for someone to accept antisocial choices. I’m not sure why Lisa is so integral to Sundance. Has anyone ever been to an upscale event and said, “well, given that the top-shelf vodka brand doesn’t have a representative here in the flesh, I guess that’ll be Smirnoff and soda all night for me”?

Bravo getting political and one-sided has succeeded in getting me to quit this show after 14+ seasons. Not even weaning off, I’m just done. That’s two in one week. If they keep this up, I’ll have enough time to get another degree online or something. If my income skyrockets in about four years, I’ll have Andy Cohen to thank! 💋

This show has a lot of hubris to think that watching them “self-film” is interesting. Emily looks horrible without a ton of professional makeup, and her house is not as nice as I thought. That bathroom was looking mighty dated. There is a cognitive dissonance for me for Rick to be on TV acting like a serious person and then being on reality, pretending he didn’t know his fiancée has fake breasts and Kelly joking about his “dick implant.” Shudder. Everything is a trigger for Braunwyn. “Sean belittled me over the vacuum cleaner” made me laugh out loud, though, as well as them all wearing masks in their opening shot. Kelly finally got the puppet/puppet master analogy right. Way back in seasons of yore, she said Heather is the puppet and everyone else is the master, when she meant the exact opposite. I hate Elizabeth. I’m too weary to list the reasons. However, she did say that Jimmy left Palm Springs early to work multiple times. Shannon is getting out over her skis yet again. She is looking very bloated in her feelings. Tamra has become the Bethenny of this franchise: she’s off the show and she’s still driving stories. I don’t believe Gina is actually friends with Gizelle Bryant. I don’t know what that was, other than virtue signaling.

That was 95% snooze and bullshit, 5% other. No reason under the sun for an extended finale. Michael, what can I say? All night he was cruising to get laid and beaten up (perhaps at the same time?), he finally got a finger-poke in the chest, and he reacted like someone who’d gotten his head slammed against a table repeatedly. He can fuck all the way off. Karen is the biggest liar who lies. It was the finale party, and her job to be there. Contrary to her assertions, no one owed her shit. If she hadn’t showed up, I think she should have been fired. I think she should be fired now. She adds nothing to the show because I don’t believe a word that is coming out of her mouth. I think she was trying to be funny discussing how she had to eat a few pieces of chicken because of the demands of the reality show she’s filming. Not working for me. If there was “mechanical failure” on a plane and a real grande dame had to be somewhere, she would have chartered something, or jumped on a private plane, instead of bitching that she changed at Charlotte for them. She wasn’t doing shit for anyone but herself, because she knew she had to be at Robyn’s holiday party as a job requirement. I realized I may have been mixing up Karen’s excuses for leaving her wig party early with Karen’s excuses for getting to Robyn’s party late, and I don’t care, because it’s all bullshit. She set Candiace up to have a showdown with Monique, which is really fucked up, it didn’t work out, and she’s ducking for cover again, and how many times are people expected to buy it? Why is anyone even speaking to her in any capacity? When Karen tried to talk to Candiace outside at the end, I felt like I was watching a horror movie on Netflix—I was all, “don’t do it Candiace! Don’t talk to Karen! She’s the murderer; run for your life!” Monique has officially turned into mustache-twirling villain. If she’s back, I likely won’t be. Nothing else happened. Gizelle wore a fugly as shit necklace. Juan took an inordinately long time to get down on one knee to propose marriage to someone to whom he wants to get remarried...but he has a remarkable inability to articulate anything about what went wrong with their first marriage, so why would anyone think they second one—if it happens—is going to be any better/different? Candiace sounded better before the auto tune kicked in. The reunion looks halfway decent. I’ll probably watch that and move on. Although my opinion of Candiace has been highly elevated, I’m still not sure I like her and I started to see shades of the old Candiace again tonight with her pretentious manner when driving to the party with Chris, I have absolutely no respect for Ashley, Karen or Gizelle, Monique is a fucking psychopath, and Robyn had a good season, but there’s nothing about her to suggest she’s a front-runner. Charrisse and Katie both tried and failed to make their comebacks. Wendy did emerge as a dark horse, when I originally thought I would not be able to stand her, but if history is any indication, she’s probably headed for the second-season blues. I’m not really sure where this franchise can go. I’m excited about the reunion, just because of the clothes, and it’s the closest Candiace is going to get to having her day in court against Monique, so to speak, but I don’t have high hopes. I am willing to hear Monique, even though her disgusting song kind of says it all. I am really curious as to what is in her binder. Reasons not to watch the reunion though: Michael and Ashley are repulsive. I am also really suspicious about the timeline of this episode. Last episode Wendy and her mom were in a pumpkin patch, which suggested it was around Halloween, and then this episode Dean turned five months when he had been three months old when the season started in August 2019, which would also suggest this episode filmed in October, but Gizelle was putting up a Christmas tree and Robyn was having a holiday party, yet when Candiace and her mom got their nails done, there were people walking around on the sidewalk dressed in shorts and short sleeves. I feel like I get lied to by Karen enough; I’m not really interested in getting my chain yanked with the timeline. Really just a C season; a fabulous reunion could bump it up to a B. I won’t hold my breath.

I’m quite sure you’re right. And that’s where we lose the honesty of a candid reality show, which I find unappealing. I’m not trying to equalize a Calhoun statue with anything. This was a radical, unique guy. He was rare. I’m not going to touch that. I’m only advancing the idea that it is a fact that there are statues and monuments to all kinds of people—not just the “good” (whoever they are, and whatever that means)—a fact which was in dispute. Leva said that the issue was black and white and I think she’s wrong. I think this is important with regard to whether to remove a statue of a man who may not have come out on “the right side of history,” as was debated on the show. At that lunch they filmed on the show, the women were agreeing we need to be more like Germany, where German citizens are not allowed to fly certain flags. My opinion is that would be a huge step backwards to ban certain symbols, as I value freedom of expression and speech. And I think I’ll leave it there. I think this is a show that is sort of collapsing in on itself, and just as a slight uptick occurred, it went downhill. I’m not that interested in these people, I think I said all I need to say on the topic, I’m not going to “watch what happens” with them, I’ve opined, and it’s all good.

I think this is a good question, and at the heart of the problem with the way this issue presented. I think it is more likely than not that at least one regular cast member was not adverse to taking down the statue of Calhoun. I think attitudes could have manifested across the spectrum from apathy to “leave it up” or some offshoot of the famous “I’m not going to waste my time worrying about these...statues,” but Bravo only included the opinions that fit their narrative, even if they had to go outside the pool of cast members to obtain views that were in lockstep with one another. It’s curious to me that over half of the cast did not give so much as a talking head regarding their opinion on a matter that dominated the episode.

I felt the show did a poor job of explaining the outcry against John C Calhoun. I’m not sure what the evidence is that he was a traitor with regard to the Civil War. He died over a decade before it began. I got the feeling the network wasn’t even concerned with that part, which is troubling. I think my point stands about honoring the potential good done by those who have also committed bad acts, though I will be the first to admit the area is not black and white, but instead fraught with idiosyncrasies that can become learning opportunities. The fact that there is a monument for Benedict Arnold in New York speaks to that notion. Maybe this sounds naive, but I want to learn everything I can firsthand—not through someone else’s lens—and make my mind up when all the facts are in. I’ve been very surprised as to where I came out on issues in the past after getting the full story.

It’s interesting the amount of coverage that went toward the protesting and rioting that happened in Charleston.

I object to this show’s intellectual dishonesty vis a vis the Calhoun statue. Sure, show the meeting about whether to take it down if that is what is going on in Charleston at the time. If the citizens get together and agree to move a statue to a museum, I could see the argument in favor of that, even though I think it should stay up, whether one agrees with the man or not. Maybe especially if one disagrees with the man. One of the things that I realized when studying for my BA in History, is that history is there. It can’t be changed. We can learn from it. When my husband and I went to the other Charleston—Charleston, WV—we sought out the statue at the capitol of a famous Confederate general, as well as African Zion Baptist Church, the church of one of the earliest black leaders in the US. If either of them had been taken away, I would be less educated. And I believe in education. Presenting just one side of this subject matter is so objectionable to me. I see exactly what Bravo is up to. Giving us the Reader’s Digest version and only one side so that our minds are made up for us. I certainly don’t tune in to get schooled...by Andy Cohen and his proxy, Whitney Sudler-Smith. That lunch was appalling to me. Everyone at the table was so self-righteous about Kathryn’s great-great-(however many greats) grandfather. How do they know what their ancestors have done and what they have stood for? Kathryn is no more responsible for people who said and did things before she was born than they are. I learned this from the law: judge the act, not the man. And I think it’s absurd to equate 170 year old stances with today’s. If we go back 500 years, there was slavery on the Barbary Coast. Thousands of years ago, the Jews were enslaved. Why aren’t they talking about that? It’s insulting and rather pointless to me to boil civil rights and slavery down to not just one episode of a reality show, but a few minutes of one.

What I find interesting is that this episode shows that none of the cast—those who quarantined and those who didn’t—got the virus by the time this was filmed in June. ETA: Approximately three months passed, and one cast member got it

I have to disagree with Leva and Danni—I find nothing racist about the monkey emoji. I do think it’s incredibly racist to look at that emoji and equate it with a certain race of people though.

Craig’s new girlfriend seems pretty. My only question is whether Craig and Shep get a discount by only hiring one babysitter for both girls when they leave them home alone.

So true. Yet which side does she get the looks from? Kroy has a giant mouth with giant teeth and puffy eyes, and Kim is just fucking scary looking whenever she’s not shown in fully beat-on makeup from the best angles. The season they went jet-skiing in Destin, when they showed her from a Go Pro cam without all the makeup, she looked like a damned man, and an ugly one at that, with a tremendous jaw, crossed eyes and a cro magnum brow. Oh, I simply don’t believe their current home is 17,000 square feet. There’s nothing from the footage in past seasons to indicate it is even 7,000 square feet. Kim’s landlord kicked them out of the home that was actually big and beautiful right before she quit RHOA, I think, and they had to move into this Olive Garden bullshit, which doesn’t strike me as even particularly roomy, let alone four times the size of a very big home. On Real Housewives of New Jersey, Melissa Gorga came on the show and said her home was 15,000 square feet. Fast forward to the season that the Gorgas put their home on the market, and suddenly the realtor is saying it’s just below 10,000 square feet. So the bitch simply lied about the size of her home by over 50%. I don’t put this past Kim at all. What I do have to say in favor of this show a little tiny bit is that it’s positive. These people are so stupid and gross, but them dressing like hookers to go horseback riding and thinking they’re in the house of a haunted doll is so much less toxic than a lot of what reality TV is descending into—COVID panic. I also thought the homes they looked at in Scottsdale were so nice, but they’ll never move to anything like that. I don’t think they can afford it, and Kim is so averse to change. She is actually starting to get really weird with all of her phobias, which I think started after she had a stroke. She should vag up for the sake of her kids, at least. Because—like Brielle—once they see Mama is scared, they’re going to think there’s something lurking behind every rock, and they’re never going to want to do anything, except stand around the damn kitchen island in bathrobes the rest of their lives. Which is probably what Kim ultimately wants anyway.

I agree that Gina is doing the best she can with these lackeys, and that she’s not enough to be the anchor, nor can one woman save an ensemble cast. I’ll take it even one step further with regard to Vicki and Tamra—I hope they are at home drinking tequila and laughing their asses off at how poorly this franchise is doing without them. They both said something very true last season and no one listened: Vicki warned us that Braunwyn brought down the caliber of the show, and Tamra warned us in Miami that sucking dicks for money is all that Kelly is good at. I was one who wanted to move on without them, and from now on I am going to be careful what I wish for.

Earth to Heather—the Met Gala is not a location, it’s a gala. I find her so dumb and grating. And she’s seething beneath the surface. Heather gets along so well with Jen because they both get pleasure out of other people’s misfortunes; Heather just manages to keep it hidden better. Heather is very bitter about her divorce and misery loves company. Mary is the polar opposite of Jen from what I’ve seen so far. Jen reacts to everything, even things that don’t exist anywhere but her brain. Mary is sedate and deliberative. When Mary had Lisa over at her house and she just dryly dropped the line that Whitney loves the pole with no irony or emotion whatsoever, my interest was actually piqued for the first time all episode. Mary played Jen this episode. I think that it was purposeful to make it look like Jen was interrupting her long prayer and getting Jen to open up at the table by “opening up” first. When someone doesn’t scream for attention, it makes me want to lean in a little closer to hear what they’re saying. I think Mary may be the smartest one, and she has an agenda. She was pretty much the only thing redeeming about this snooze of an episode. Lisa also gives off a bit of a still waters run deep vibe to me too. I don’t think either Mary or Lisa can split the atom by a long shot, but at least you can’t read them right off the bat. I feel like these two are the only ones coming onto the franchise with any sort of guile, and I appreciate that in a reality TV personality.

Alright, so why is Meredith separated from her husband? She never said, except giving a vague explanation about life wearing on them. That’s not a reason. If you’re going to go on reality TV, share it. Because, honey, the default opinion is going to be that he’s got hoes in different area codes. IRL, Mary would not have invited Jennifer to her lunch. So why just not invite her and make this one iota realistic or invite her to film the television show, but then don’t literally spend a scene debating it? Not inviting someone is not “negativity”; it’s maturity actually. It’s called having boundaries. Wouldn’t a minister know about that? (Rhetorical question). What worries me is that we’re a handful of episodes in and they’re already reaching to fill 44 mins with “should I or shouldn’t I invite her?”

Jen had someone carrying her train into the party last episode, and that person couldn’t alert her to the fact that she had major back fat rolls going on? She reminds me a little of Henry VIII in that none of their people wants to fuck with dems, or it could be death. I am with Brooks in that I saw a part of her I never need to see again—her flab. Oh, and let me not get started on her nails. Jen is a bigger bitch than Nene Leakes, but Nene took 12 seasons to get this bad—Jen has eclipsed Nene in just over three episodes. And Jen is still screaming that Mary “fucks her grandpa”? I’m sure the Mormon Church found her departure a huge loss. I figured out how to tell the brunettes apart—Lisa has brown eyes and Meredith has blue eyes. I know it’s not much to go on, but as soon as I realized it, I never really got them confused again. They’re friends with Jen because they’re afraid of her? That’s the underpinning of a healthy relationship, if I’ve ever heard one.