Soaplovers

I actually found myself laughing out loud numerous times during the new girl Lydia's segments. There was something whimsical about her, like she is young at heart. Though I do kind of view her as a burnette Gretchen in personality, only less grating thus far! Awhile back, Tamra was interviewed and she said that Lydia was very sweet.. but if you crossed her then watch out.. then concluded by saying she is a little scared of her... hmmm.

That said, I can see why she was hired due to the fact that she seemed goofy and comedic (international and unintentional) thus far.. and provides a nice balance to the toxic that is the other 4.. though I did like Alexis and Jim featured alone since it harkened back to the early years of the franchise.

From what I could see, it looks like the housewife who dropped out at the last second was at Heather's clambake since they showed her husband briefly. I think she had dropped out right before filming was to start, but she still came to the party due to her friendship with Heather.. only wasn't featured. It could explain why Alexis didn't go since maybe the other women didn't know about Alexis coming back at that time hence the speeches from heather/Tamra about not wanting Alexis in their lives anymore.

Hence why the scripted Vicki/Alexis meeting.. and Vicki asking to bring her to Tamra's gym opening... a scripted way to bring Alexis back into the mix.

At least Lydia's introduction made sense, even if scripted.. since she does help run a magazine and Heather is the type that hungers for her home to be showcased in those types of magazines.

Not like last year where Heather was looking for a new home and tamra happened to be her agent LOL

lol Cheap! That's ridiculous!

But let Kandi tell it, after she uses the name, it should be retired? Idiot! I guess she was trying to look slightly more relevant at the reunion than Porsha. Fail!

It seems like Kandi wasn't very relevant this season, nor really at the reunion. Makes me wonder what the reasoning was for inviting her back for season 6? I can understand Nene, Cynthia, Pheadra, Kenya, and even Porsha now (given the pending divorce, the show could showcase her starting over again.. trying to work.. all the comedic potential of her living on her own.).. but why Kandi? She doesn't bring the drama, and doesn't really have major beef with anyone on the show anyway.

I doubt very much that the lawsuit goings on can be broadcast anyway so why?

Well Miami ought to be interesting again... Dennis Rodman showed up at Lea Black's annual gala. Also, half the cast instead went to the gay polo tournament at Wellington (I'm assuming Ana, Alexia, and Marysol went to this instead of Lea's gala since Marysol/Ana are on the outs with Lea).

http://blogs.herald.com/scene_in_the_tropics/2013/04/n-korean-ambassador-dennis-rodman-steals-the-real-housewives-of-miamis-thunder-at-blacks-gala.html

I love that some of the shows seem to have events that carry over from season to season.

Beverily Hills seem to have Kyle's White Party

OC for a long time had a huge party in the last episode of the season (Vicki's house most of the time, this past season at Heathers).

Miami seems to have Lea's annual gala.

NJ seems to have an annual gathering at the Porsche establishment since season 2.. not sure if season 1 had anything or not.

I'm not sure if NY or Atlanta have anything of that sort. I know NY has the Hamptons, but they haven't really been filming in the Hamptons for the last two seasons.

I agree that Lisa not engaging would infuriate Nene.. and if Nene uses one of her classic put downs then Lisa would match her with her own put down. Sadly, I think the two would be unstoppable if they joined forces.

If Nene being fired in season 3 would have caused the show to eventually be cancelled then so be it because there are lines that shouldn't ever be crossed. In fact, Kenya threatening to beat up a pregnant woman has me raising my eye brow a bit to be honest.

I do wonder if Lisa dislikes Nene as much as Nene appears to dislike Lisa? I remember one time Nene was asked if she watched BH, and she said she didn't have time but did see some scenes where Lisa was being served. She had this look of pure glory at the though. She was referring to the scenes that appeared as if Camille was going after Lisa in Vegas. What is even funnier is that if Miss Nene bothered to watch that episode, it was the other way around.

I wonder if they had Lisa and Nene on the stage, who would serve who? I think they are both evenly matched so I think it would be a draw.

Personally, I can't stand Nene and it is blatant how much Andy Cohen favors her. If it were anyone else, she would have been kicked off the show after she tried to choke Kim on the tour bus. It doesn't matter what Kim did, or said, the fact that Nene tried to choke her should be grounds for automatic dismissal from the show. Same with Theresa on NJ when she lunged for Danielle in the season 2 reunion and pushed Andy out of the way.

If all the women are back for season 6 for Atlanta, then they need to add an additional housewife so the show doesn't become stale. Hopefully, next season we can see Kenya act more like herself.. but sadly maybe her antics this season are really her LOL

Season 3 of NYC is my favorite Housewife season of any franchise. Just perfect all around.

It is one of my favorite seasons ever as well! It left me waiting to see how season 4 would fare, but secretly I knew that it wouldn't be able to top it. but had no idea how quickly season 4 dissolved. I was so happy/surprised when season 5 was gutted though it seemed to reset the show in a way and now am waiting to see if season 6 builds upon season 5 with hopefully one new addition to add more layers to the current cast.

Isn't it funny how irrelevant Paris Hilton is nowadays? Ironic how Perez Hilton has outlasted Paris in being culturally relevant.

I was visiting my mom one weekend and she decided to watch an episode so she selected the most recent episode from On Demand. It happened to be the episode where Paris made an appearance and she wondered out loud how desperate she was to appear on a Housewife show. Then it dawned on her that she is related to Kyle and Kim then remarked how irrelevant Paris is when Kim and Kyle have become more famous then Paris LOL

Of course, my mom also told me that she has a soft spot for Kim and admitted it's due to her being the Disney darling from the 1970s. She told me that in the 1970's/early 1980's, that Kim was everywhere.. she told me that Kim was the Lindsay lohan/Miley Cyrus of the 70s. I asked about Kyle and my mom said she didn't really remember her except that she was Kim's baby sister. I asked if she ever watched Little House on the P. and she said yes.. but didn't realize that Kyle had a recurring role as Mr. Edwards adopted daughter though she remembered Kim's one time guest shot as Olga.. the cute blonde haired girl with the shorter leg.

I like when the shows add and subtract housewives... something Jersey should have been doing since season 4. I understand the power 5 had to return yet again, but why not add a newbie that isn't related to either families.

Watching the final episode of LOL, I was struck at how much the show seemed to still be in transition. Granted, the show was not allowed to tie up loose ends due to the short notice given to them by the network.. but I still think the show was changing.

When I saw Betsy collapse on the witness stand, I was hoping that she was going to end up dying cause I couldn't take one more second of her whining and acting so fragile. I'm interested to see if Ann Marcus would have written out her character, or at least given Betsy some backbone after all the crap she had to endure.

It is interesting to read about Betsy being raped by her husband, ending up pregnant, and just keeping quiet about it. Realistically, a lot of women didn't come forward in 1979 especially if their husband was the one who raped them. I see LOL and GL telling the same story except they wrote the story to fit the character, not vice versa. From what I can tell, Betsy seems to be the type who would be too afraid of reporting it while Holly on GL was the type of character that wouldn't be quite as afraid given her personality.

With that said, I did like the brief scenes of Dr. Lianne.. she seemed like the type who would stand up for herself. Am I mistaken to assume this?

I'm curious about the Ray/Arlene marriage, because he seems like a controlling SOB though the final scene with her walking away from him and up the stairs after it comes out that she was telling the truth gives me hope that she would divorce him. I liked how that ended because you could come up with your own conclusion on how they would end up.

I liked watching the other brief youtube of Dana Delaney. She didn't seem like a pushover like Betsy and it makes me think that if Ann Marcus had continued writing the show longer then several months that perhaps she would have bought on more stronger women characters.

My theory on how the Meg/Tom/Lianne story would have ended is that Meg would probably have gotten use of her legs back but decided to fake it in order to keep Tom and Lianne apart. I bet good sister Van would have found out thus insuring a confrontation between the two sisters then forced her sister tell the truth or she would herself. I bet Tom would have broken up with Meg, tried to get together with Lianne while Meg decides to just leave town again especially if her son Ben was found guilty due to her trying to pay off Mia.

I didn't see enough of Mia to form a clear opinion of her, but from what I read in past posts.. she was created to replace Arlene as the spoiler to Ben/Betsy. Though I did read some of the write ups from 1976 where Ray and arlene meet right after the bigamy story was exposed and it looks like it was written during the Depriest era.. but I have a feeling she would have gradually changed the landscape instead of doing a knee jerk change like Gabrielle Union did, imho.

I guess the Bambi story had been resolved thus she was just support in the final episode. Even though she seemed nice and kind of passive, I didn't gag watching her as I did watching Betsy so that's a plus. Would be interested to see the Bambi Brewster story with the blonde wig wearing woman to see how it resembles the old school radio dramas.

I was actually surprised that Porsha was able to google the first african american Miss USA carole Gist from Detroit and throw that up in Kenya's face.. then asked why she was never mentioned along with Vanessa Williams for paving the way for her win. When Kenya had no response to that, I was like "honey, you just let Prosha own you..how low have you gone!?!?"

With that said, Kenya had to know her antics would be thrown up in her face and I'm guessing she didn't count on the fact that Phaedra would own her ass without any effort. My mouth dropped when she threatened to physically fight and assault a pregnant woman. There are some things that should never be done.. and one of those things is threatening to beat up a pregnant woman.

Of course, Andy won't fire Kenya for that since he didn't fire Teresa for throwing/pushing him out of her way when she went to attack Danielle at the season 2 reunion.

Though I will say that the first part of the reunion was not toxic at all. The most toxic reunion by far was season 4 NY reunion where everyone was yelling and screaming at each other all at the same time. I almost turned on the subtitles but was afraid that even the subtitles wouldn't have been able to pick up all the over talking going since all seven of those housewives were going at it.

Which brings me to RHONY, I'm happy with the three that agreed to come back.. though i do think Luann and Sonya should get a slight pay increase.. Luann because she is an original cast member and Sonya because her life fascinates me (i.e. her grey garden existence on the one hand, and then the moments where she is with it such as when she nicely told Aviva that she would never forget what she said but would always be polite to her in public). Aviva is still a rookie and shouldn't even be holding out for more money... she can easily be replaced, imho.

I actually liked the last season of the show much more then season 4, 5, and especially season 6. I think paring the cast down helped, and helped reestablish the close knit community feeling that was very big season 1 through 3.

While it wasn't perfect, the last season helped the show go out with some fight and strength in it which I was afraid was impossible due to the disaster that was season 6.

Reading about the performance of Deshawn and Lisa at the season 1 reunion, I wonder if the reunions are now thought of as an audition for next season?

The reason i ask that is because Brandi was just a friend of housewives in season 2, but she basically hijacked the reunion last year and became a full time housewife in season 3.

Plus, during the season 2 Miami reunion... Karent was being too nice and not engaging in too much confrontation with the other women while Ana went guns blazing for Lea at the reunion. Now, Karent is not coming back (probably her choice, but I'm sure they would have let her go if she didn't leave herself)..and it appears as if Ana is back again even though it was thought that she would be gone after her lackluster season 2 stint.

Whatever happened to just casting interesting women to be on these franchises? Women that had interesting personalities, interesting lives, etc? Why the need to determine casting if a woman is shady, bitchy, etc? Shouldn't there be more of a balance?

Awww! Y'all are so mean to Kathy. I agree about Ritchie though - he's desparate and his comments last season were nasty. I liked him on their first season though. The kids are awesome though - I cried when they went through Victoria's struggles and childhood story.

Kathy's job is to be in Teresa's business and continue this family storyline. I doubt she went to Bravo trolling for a job (like Melissa). I'm sure Bravo wanted more from Teresa's family (since that's the theme of this series)... and they found Kathy that was close enough in location and was actually a housewife. Rosie got popular (especially with Andy), so they're keeping Kathy in. Simple. If they keep her in, she has to be involved and do something. I think it shows just how nice and wonderful Kathy really is when we see her try to create drama - bc it's a tad awkward and she's not used to really doing that stuff in the 'real life'.

Plus - I'm 100% behind her on the canoli/dessert thing. Her remark was not an attack, and I bet you anything her desserts (and her mother's desserts) are FAR superior to Teresa's.

I can't wait to catch up on my ladies this weekend! I have a reunion, a finale, and a premiere all waiting for me on my DVR!

I agree! I think season 3 Kathy is more like the real kathy then what season 4 was! I bet that she and family were told to create more drama if they wanted to have jobs beyond that season.

In a way, I think Kathy and family in season 3 was a throwback to old school Real Housewives that was more a peek into families then all the toxic feuds and fights that the franchise has evolved into.

If the ratings for season 5 of New Jersey drop, then you can bet that Mr. Cohan will be rebooting the Jersey franchise.

I remember reading that Dina wanted out after season 1, not just because of Danielle and her antics.. but because she thought it would showcase more of the friendships and family. I recall the unused scene special from season 1 had a lot of Dina in it (i.e. talking about her little girl growing up and wishing she were just a little girl, Dina and family going to a fair, Dina and Theresa dress shopping, and seeing Dina at her job with the very ornate table displays that could decorate ten tables!).

I also read that when the show refused to let her out of her contract, she didn't want her daughter filmed... filming had to be adjusted so that her daughter couldn't be filmed, nor while she was on jobs.. and became very zen and 'boring' so that the show finally agreed to let her out mid-filming. If you think about it, it is very genius because she was able to wiggle out of being a housewife and still be in Andy's good graces.

Actually from reading the synopsis of the show, it reminds me a lot of Upstairs/Downstairs from the 1970's. An awesome show that gave equal screen time to the wealthy patrons and the staff itself. It was a hybrid of self-contained episodes/continuing episodes as well.

If I didn't know Tyler Perry was doing this, i would swear this was an old school nighttime soap, but I have a feeling that it might become very preachy and heavy handed.

Though I did enjoy the Family that Prey's, so I might actually enjoy this show as well. Plus, nice to see a few daytime soap actors in the cast as well so it is made of win!

Glad Oprah is introducing some scripted programs on the show and if they take off, maybe she can employ an unknown black creator/producer for future scripted shows since Tyler Perry is kind of played out, imho.

I am disappointed that Andy Cohen doesn't see the opportunities Faye Resnick brings to the franchise, though. Cutting any mention of her out of Reunion seems kind of... personal, no?

Actually, there was talk that the producers did offer Faye a chance to be a full time cast member for season 4, but that she turned them down to all the negative feedback she is getting (including threats to her life, etc) plus claiming her decorating business was being affected due to her presence on the show. Whether this is true or not, I guess if she had agreed.. it shows that the producers don't listen to viewer feedback since it appears that with the focus on Faye and the toxic Adrienne/Brandi feud that the ratings were dropping. Not sure if they are connected, or if just the fact that Monday night is a busy night tv wise.

I admit I watch RHOBH for the house porn.. and when Brandi/Taylor lack nice houses, it kind of disappoints. What I loved about season 1 through 2 was while there was drama/fights, they still showcased some fun episodes as well. Season 3 did have a few nice episodes including Oahi and Paris.. but it would be nice to have one vacation where there isn't fighting.. just one episode or two would be nice... sort of like a breather to the drama.

IDA. LuAnn was by far the most toxic housewife in season 4. She was downright awful and worst than Kelly or Jill at that point. Nothing she said or did last season compared to how vile she was the year before. That vileness wasn't ignored by the viewers and she did receive hate for it in spite of having Kelly and Jill around. LuAnn last season was rahwr tame and quite frankly boring

I do agree, but I think the reason she was rather tame and kind of boring was because her sidekicks Kelly and Jill were not there. So she couldn't be at her most toxic and evil because no one was there to encourage and back it up. Anytime she did (i.e. telling Aviva about Ramona & Sonya wishing her hubby Reid didn't come though she also said the same thing) usually was twarted by someone (usually Heather).]

So it was actually refreshing to see Luann not being so vile and anytime she was creeping back to that, she was usually stopped in her tracks.

Yes, Season 5 was kind of boring.. but at least it wasn't the toxic train wreck of season 4.

RHOC:

After watching the premiere, I can see why the show decided to cast another housewife Lydia. Not sure if she will have an intro at the start, or be a friend of housewife as of yet.

RHONY:

I admit that I was intrigued when Bravo fired Jill and Kelly but kept Luann on the show. I was wondering why this was done and after watching season 5, I understood why. Before, Luann could stir the pot but because Jill and Kelly were so toxic.. the viewer could kind of forget about Luann's toxic ways. However, in season 5, Carole totally would knock her.. Ramona would annoy her, and heather would nicely call out Luann's pot stirring tendencies. I think Luann tried to allign with aviva, but I think even she saw how nuts the girl was and distanced herself in a way.

I wonder if the pushing back of filming season 6 is more then just waiting till summer and that the show is looking to cast some new women? I haven't heard if Carole and/or Heather are returning and it is possible that maybe they didnt agree to come back.. We shall see

RHONJ:

I think Bravo didn't change up the cast due to the high ratings of the franchise. I think that this show needs to mix it up every season like all the other franchises. Heck, even Miami seems to have tweaked their cast for their upcoming season 3.

Vicki looks AWFUL.

Her face is too tight and bloated..

She's like an elderly porcelain doll now!

So where's Wig's album?

LOL...IA with Brandi. The show or any of them could really do well to add an Asian as well bc there hasnt been any here in the US

I was telling my friend the exact same thing yesterday.. that they should add an asian housewife to the show. Doesn't California have a pretty big asian population as well?

RHOV Tidbit

Mary Zilba's music video for "Hero" is now up on Vevo so everyone can see it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmEBreD-LeQ

Wow.. a housewife who actually has vocal abilities and talent! Who knew we'd have to go to Canada to find it, but find it we have!

I agree that waiting till summer to film is because of the Hamptons. To me, going to the Hamptons is as much of a character to the franchise as is the city of New York itself. I think the hot Hampton sun will provide ample amounts of drama to the show.

I hope they keep last season's cast and add one additional housewife to the show. I'm one of those that likes shows to add or subtract cast members in order to prevent the show from getting stale. Plus, if they only add one new housewife then it is less time to focus on getting to know her. Part of the problem last season was that they added three new women and didnt really introduce them.. they were shown as if they were always part of the show.

I think Faye did have one talking head during the scene where she and Kyle are purchasing the mannequins for Kyle's store. She was talking about her business and the people she decorated for. I believe that was shown an episode or two after the dinner confrontation, but that is the only one. I bet further talking heads were edited out.. or it was just a lone talking head.

When her blog was removed, that was pretty telling.. Even Marisa's blog is still up and she has talking heads on occasion as well. Though none of the friends of housewives were invited to the reunion this year.

I know Brandi was invited last year to the reunion and hijiked it LOL Was Dana invited last year to the reunion?

Just watched last weeks episode of Beverly Hills.. Just wondering when Faye will start acting like a lady? If someone politely states that they are having a conversation that doesn't involve her and asks her to leave, wouldn't a lady just walk away and not refuse to go? Just saying

Was wrong about everyone returning to RHOM, Karent is leaving RHOM

http://www.allabouttrh.com/karent-sierra-quits-the-real-housewives-of-miami/

Probably for the best.. wonder who will be the new scapegoat of RHOM?