Sweet-tea

I’m totally confused by the timing of this show’s return. I saw ads advertising it as back on May 25, but it wasn’t. If they pushed it back to November, why are they running ads saying May 25? I even saw it posted on the app. They have hurt this show by taking too long between seasons, splitting up the season and delaying the last part. I don’t even remember what happened before the break. This is a good way to lose your audience.

Me too! I’ve had family drama and angst with my sister, so I don’t want to see it on this show. I’m exhausted by the ongoing battle between the Gorgas and the Guidices. I’d like see it end. I don’t like Melissa or Teresa, but Teresa strikes me as one of the most narcissistic women on the franchise. That’s saying a lot given the company LOL. I do think Teresa’s hair looked the best I’ve ever seen it. I hope she leaves it shorter and more natural. The wedding hair was ridiculous. RHONJ needs a reset. I recently binged the Miami show and enjoyed it.

I'm so uncomfortable watching Meredith and Seth in their supposed "sexy" scenes, because I don't think they have any chemistry. It seems forced. I don't buy them as in love. Not a bit. Also, Meredith looks horrible in that TH. Her face looks overblown with filler. It's weird because at times she looks really good and others times she looks strange and off-putting to me. It reminds me of the woman from the Seinfeld episode. I've noticed Meredith's daughter is almost never mentioned or seen. I didn't even realize she had another child until last season, because everything is about the super annoying Brooks. Maybe the daughter is smart and doesn't want much to do with this show.

I’m late watching this but I agree with you. Whitney is drunk most of the time and all over the place. It’s frustrating to hear the cryptic conversations about the abuse. I don’t think this show is the right forum to explore this, and making veiled comments isn’t really any better. It’s frustrating to viewers because we don’t know what she’s talking about. I don’t want to start speculating and filing in the gaps. Talk about it privately! Whitney really needs therapy, and not with a reality show therapist who wants to be on TV! I’m not saying she didn’t have trauma, but I don’t remember much of my childhood outside of big events. My husband doesn’t either, nor do several of my friends. Memories can fade as time goes on. I also think she exaggerated when she said she remembered nothing until 17, because in another scene with her half siblings she talked about the “memories” they shared.

Yes! The most obvious are the nose job(s) and the lips. If she keeps following Megan Fox, she’ll need to keep getting her face tweaked. (Megan doesn’t seem to stop. She has had too much work done to me. She was so much prettier several years ago when she didn’t look like a porn star.) Nicole is full or herself and irritating. I also find her face masculine-looking. She’s the least attractive of all of them IMO. Weird how she’s been at OG the longest but I’ve never seen her. Was she in an earlier season and I missed her? Mary has beautiful eyes. She looked pretty in the scene with Nicole by the pool (episode 2). It still strikes me how Brett hardly ever talks. I can only tell Brett and Jason apart because 95% of the time, Jason is the one speaking. Is it me or are their outfits getting even more revealing? How do they get taken seriously as realtors dressing this way? I wish this show had it’s own thread. I just finished E2 of S6.

I was thinking Dorinda should be added.

Bre strikes me as Christina 2.0, brunette version. Her nose looks like it’s been tweaked to a pencil. Jason still seems hung up on Chrishelle. Not sure what is going on with Chrishelle and G. Maybe it didn’t translate well on TV, but their exchange seemed a little “we’re on camera, let’s make it good!’ to me. Emma is gorgeous but that black dress/swimsuit cover-up was ridiculous. This is how real estate agents dress? Seriously? No guy is going to take her seriously. They are going to be gawking at her breasts, which I admit looked spectacular. I like the new opening with them all merging into each other. I couldn’t believe how expensive that fire insurance was! Wow! I would’ve pulled out of that deal too!

Yep. I noticed this too. He gave her a glimpse, but I think it will get much worse. He’s still trying to give her a lot of attention and affirm her most of the time. If he’s who I think he is, that will change.

I don’t get all the male attention for Alison. It seems over the top to me based on the casting. The actress is attractive enough but not some goddess to warrant men stepping over each other to get to her. JMI. I’m having a hard time picking up all the dialogue between the Edwin and Gogo. I had to turn on the subtitles. I keep thinking of the Natalie Holloway murder watching this. She vanished in Aruba. I wonder why they don’t identify the Caribbean island this is on.

I can’t stand the way she talks. It sounds like a combination of having marbles in her mouth and talking out of one side of her mouth. And her affect is flat and low energy. I don’t know if this is normal for her or she’s medicated, but she comes across like she’s on downers (except when she’s screaming). Meanwhile Whitney is a chirping little bird. Mary is so horrible and strange. Not strange as being fun to watch. I just want her off this show.

The thing I’ve noticed from watching this show for years is there are issues on both sides. Teresa has been nasty to Melissa and Joe for years (shown in the clips), and they have also been underhanded and mean to her. The relationship is toxic. I don’t like any of them, but I find Teresa hardest to stomach. She strikes me as a narcissist.

Yes it’s weird how she looks haggard in some scenes and good in others. In the THs, she looks much better, but they were probably filmed after her latest facelift. I read a story about it. I think Delores is attractive but sometimes her makeup gives her a harsh look. I like when her makeup is more understated. And Teresa seriously needs a makeunder and a hair-under! Louie is a controlling drama queen. I pity Teresa when the love-bombing stage ends and she begins to experience Louie’s true nature. And this is saying a lot because I’m not a fan of Teresa. It would be a relief to see an end to the Teresa/Joe drama that has gone on for years. I’m exhausted by it. Just give up and stop talking to teach other. They keep saying “enough” and then going back for more. As someone who has experienced toxic relationships with family members, I have learned that it’s not always possible to heal them. Sometimes you just have to walk way for your own mental well being. Danielle is not adding anything good to this show IMO.

One of the saddest things about this documentary to me was how Anna spoke about her mother. She made up a horrible story about being abused by her mother, when people who knew Anna well said her mother was loving and kind. The part where the mother is describing the conversation she had with Anna about the stories and how Anna said she made more money if the story was bad… wow. She didn’t even consider how much was hurting her mother and her family. I’ve never understood Daniel’s death. When I heard it was methadone combined with two anti-depressants, I assumed he had a problem with drugs or was recovering from drug addiction. Why else would someone take methadone? (My sister was on it for years trying to get off opiods.) But after reading lovesnark’s post I’m wondering about the rest of the story. It’s tragic how he died. I remember when the newly slim (Trimspa) Anna was on that award show. She was higher than a kite. It got a lot of press. It’s yet another sad story of a celebrity being supplied with multiple addictive drugs by doctors who have no ethics. I don’t know what was going on with her and Howard K. Stern, but he looks like a big-time enabler at the very least. I also recall what a train wreck her reality show was and how much damage it did to her reputation. It was a poor decision on her part. It reminds me of Whitney Houston’s documentary with Bobby Brown, which was also not well received. Another part of this that made me sad was watching Anna and Howard Marshall, especially when he was calling her and she wasn’t answered. I felt sorry for this elderly man. In his wheelchair looking so frail, he reminded me of my dear father who passed away in 2021. I know it was just a snippet and for a long time he was a powerful man, but in that moment I sensed she was taking advantage of an old man in the last moments of his life. It just got to me. I wish they had explained more about her relationship with Larry Birkhead. I don’t have a clear understanding of how they got together, how long they were together or what happened to cause such a rift. Interestingly some of the reviews, including ones from Primetimer, don’t like this documentary and think it is too hard on Anna and deprived her of having a voice. Perhaps that is true, because I had a hard time sympathizing with her.

I’m afraid one of them is going to have a heart attack! Gosh, Louie’s face especially was beet red. Tacky, unnecessary move by Danielle. Not sure I’m buying that Teresa had nothing to do with Louie calling Joe over to their house though.

Wonder if this was inspired by the Natalie Holloway murder.

Thanks. I meant that. I don’t now why I said defense.

I agree. I don’t like that they’ve made Alex off the charts nuts. In the original film, there was some sympathy (mostly from women) towards Alex. I think they could relate to being used and then dumped without a word. We didn’t see Alex’s back story as we have here, so maybe she was already out there too. I don’t know. But in this portrayal, Alex seems psychotic and like she’s been that way for a long time. She didn’t just snap. What was the point of killing Beth’s mother? It seemed random. What was Alex even doing there? Was she breaking in to destroy something and then just decided, “Well, I’m caught now so I’ll hang out with the old lady and then knock her off”? I guess they decided to spare the bunny and swap it out for something even worse. The back and forth between time periods is clunky. I have a hard time detecting what period they’re in at first, because Dan and Beth look that different. Still not understanding Beth’s underwhelming reaction to her mother’s death. I don’t find the adult daughter’s storyline interesting at all. I have no idea what is going on with her friend but there is something up or they wouldn’t show it. The scene where the younger Dan got called to his boss’s office about the letter didn’t ring true to me. A normal reaction would’ve been to ask for more details. Even if it was refused, a person who is innocent and is accused of something like that is going to react more strongly. Was it because he knew it was from Alex? Probably, but it still seems like he would’ve tried to defend himself more. He’s a prosecutor. He knows how to make a sound argument. The pace in this episode was slow. I had difficulty staying focused.

I was thinking the same thing. I don’t know when the Barbra Streisand story happened, but I got the feeling it was a long time ago. Before cell phones, people didn’t carry cameras with them everywhere. I remember just bringing out the camera at special events. If Barbra was singing at people’s houses, maybe it was decades ago. We don’t know. I don’t believe you need pictures for things to be true. The idea seems to be from our selfie-obsessed culture. Also Jen didn’t say Barbra was a best friend. She just said she was at the house singing. Maybe she was a one-time guest.

I agree. I really dislike the changing time periods. It stops the momentum of the show. I’m not interested in the present day scenes at all. I don’t find the adult daughter interesting, nor do I care about her relationship with her father. I wish they would’ve just told the story in a linear fashion from start to finish. They could’ve tacked on an epilogue at the end if they wanted to bring us to the present. I see these back and forth time periods in shows a lot these days. I guess directors find them artistic or maybe it’s trendy now. I rarely like it. I found JJ attractive in The Affair, but I don’t think he looks good on this show. He looks puffy. It’s odd how little Beth has reacted to her mother’s sudden death.

This was my take on it too. I think they were trying to show Alex’s pattern of latching onto these guys and freaking them out.

After watching this, I decided to watch the 1992 film again. I remembered it vaguely. I was surprised how similar the story was, but they managed to drag it out to several episodes vs. one movie that was less than two hours. It’s also interesting that the name Anna Barton was the same, but the others were different. The son was Martin in the movie. I had a hard time relating to Anna in this show and the movie. The Juliet Binoche version wasn’t any more sympathetic to me. She still just walked away immediately after her fiance died tragically after seeing her screwing his dad. Jeremy Irons has made a career at playing rather unusual and sometimes sketchy characters, so I think he was better cast in the role of the obsessed cheater. The sex scenes in the Louis Malle film threw me. I remembered them as being erotic from my first watch many years ago. But from my second watch, they seemed clunky, desperate and awkward. I don’t know.. maybe that was what the director was going for. I didn’t like the scene of Miranda Richardson topless asking her husband if this wasn’t good enough for him. It seemed gratuitous to me and made me think the director was a creep. He directed 11 year-old Brooke Shields playing a prostitute in Pretty Baby, so maybe nothing this influenced me. Miranda Richardson was good but I also think Indira was good. I found her just as effective in the scene where she’s learned of her son’s death and is reacting to it. JMI. I thought the ending in the film was better than the ending in the series. It showed how pathetic the man was, sitting in his little hovel in front of a giant picture of Anna and still fixated on her. I didn’t like the scene of Miranda Richardson topless asking her husband if this was enough for him. It seemed gratuitous and made me think the director was a creep. He directed 11 year-old Brooke Shields playing a prostitute in Pretty Baby, so perhaps this influenced my thinking. The first thing I thought when I saw Anna with her therapist at the end was, why on earth didn’t she get a female therapist? If you’re a woman who has been through sexual trauma with a male, do you really want to choose a male therapist?

Agree! It bothered me then and still does now.

I remember the original getting flack because some people were saying Dan’s wife (Anne Archer) was prettier than Alex (Glenn Close). In interviews, Glenn Close said she almost wasn’t cast because she wasn’t considered “hot” enough. His hair is a mess but I don’t see a beer belly.

It doesn’t look modern to me either. If it weren’t for the cell phones and the cars, I’d think it was set decades ago. His hair contributes to the ‘80s throwback look of the movie. I’ve also been trying to figure out were they were. I don’t like the current scenes. They ruin it for me. I like watching the flashbacks though. In the original, his wife and daughter were out of town. Alex comes onto his when they were having drinks after a work event. He takes her up on it and then she invites him over to her place for dinner the next night. His wife is still gone so he thinks, why not another romp? But he’s pretty much done with her after that. It all unravels from there. It does look like they’re leading to the original ending of the movie that was changed because it didn’t test well. I guess we will see. I loved the shout out to the bunny!

I’m old enough to remember seeing the original film in the theater. While I’m interested in this series, I don’t like the plot device of moving from present day to past. They gave away the ending in the first episode, which makes no sense to me. It’s different than the movie ending, so I wouldn’t have known if they weren’t using this stupid, overdone device. Every time they move to the present, it takes me out of the show. I’m also distracted by how awful Joshua Jackson’s hair looks. It’s worse in the present but still not great in the flashbacks. Does he own a good brush? The style looks retro. He needs a haircut. Kiss my mutt, agree! I almost didn’t recognize Amanda Peet.