Faulkner

What happened with the last season of RHONY was a mix of lot of things, but I think Bravo misjudged the moment. They thought the show needed a “reckoning,” as if RHONY was *that* important. They also didn’t anticipate how much the conversation would change from when they filmed S13 and when it aired. It felt very much 2020, a really traumatic year for most people, and it aired in the middle of 2021. But at the end of the day, the OGs had gotten really stale. Like how many times can we watch them get sh*tfaced, get naked and hump each other, and fight over the same stuff? It wasn’t going anywhere.

Arturo in NYC 🇺🇸 Thighs like peanut butter: Thick and easy to spread.

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Definitely not the same. And while folks have had this argument many times on this board, let’s be real: Eileen is Ashley. That hardness/harshness/almost-masculine vibe is who she is, and no one could thread that needle like her. Brenda could summon Ashley’s inner strength but, as an actress, she couldn’t cool her natural warmth. Bad writing really hurt Ashley when ED returned and a lot of people had gotten used to BE’s less abrasive portrayal even though who she was playing wasn’t really “Ashley” as we knew her to be.

Totally. It’s very confusing, but I wonder if they feel torn and know it would be a bad look in 2022-23 to not feature Sprina, so they’re a touch half-hearted about it. Playing both sides. Unless there’s some BTS issue we’re not privy to. They’ve really promoted Spencer’s relationships with his family and Ava, which is not a bad thing. But, for so long, Spencer and Trina barely had scenes, and they kept having reasons to not show them together. Very different from, say, the traditional tortured lovers who would share desperate glances across a room but know they can’t be together à la Craig/Sierra on ATWT (which happened constantly for months and months). Things have improved for Sprina more recently, I know, but it’s still odd. Even the most cautious writer would have had them kiss a lot sooner, if only to tease the audience. Still they went through the trouble of recasting Trina and continuing Sprina when Sydney Mikayla leaving for college could have given them an easy out.

The world has gone absolutely mad. I hope she pulls through.

That’s the thing. You can tell by the way they treat Portia/Curtis/Jordan that they prefer That Black Storyline vs. characters who can mingle and potentially become romantically involved with other non-black characters. (TJ/Willow feels very odd too.) But they put themselves in this mess by introducing Spencer to the canvas through Trina and having them flirt. Maybe they thought they’d pivot and make them besties, so that Trina could know her “place” on the canvas, but they continue to fuel the fire by keeping them connected yet… not. It’s absolutely clear that they’ve gone well beyond the Agnes Nixon ethos of “make ‘em wait.” There’s more going on. I guess they know they’ve created a monster, and they’re trying to kill it (death by a thousand cuts). Yeah, I started watching AW long after AH left and I thought PMV and Jensen were really good together. It’s interesting to watch AH and PMV in scenes. Ryan felt like a much looser, funnier character back then.

I totally agree that TA is much more seasoned whereas SM could feel like she was reading a bit (although when they asked her to step up, I felt like she really did). That said—and agree that writing is having an impact, as the show’s investment in Sprina feels unusually noncommittal vs. literally EVERY other pairing on GH for reasons we’ve discussed—there was something that really stopped me in my tracks about NC/SM where NC/TA feels… really sweet and they’ve found a nice rhythm. But nothing that wows me. More of a comment on their couple energy than a diss on TA, and I know I’m in the minority on the topic. NC has grown a lot in the role, and I wonder if SM would have kept up with him under different circumstances.

Shemar Moore had great sexual chemistry with all three Phyllises as well. In their little interaction at Neil’s funeral, I saw a spark with Malcolm and GT’s Phyllis.

Those are really good ones too. ED helped Eileen show a softer side that she wasn’t quite able to do with many others while it came more naturally to Brenda. And PB had equally volcanic chemistry with Stafford and Tognoni (the latter of which was ruined with all of the Billy stupidity—JT and Stafford feel so weird together in scenes).

It’s true: they maintained some chemistry, albeit a very different kind than before. NC and Sydney had chemistry off the charts to me, partially because Sydney projected such strength and fire while TA is softer and more traditional “heroine” to me.

How would you describe her with JdP? From my experience with him (post-Blair), DePaiva wears his hunger and vulnerability on his sleeve, like he’s all consumed with love. (Not that he wasn’t also deadpan a lot of time, but Max was placed in a lot of vulnerable places in the ‘90s with his gambling addiction and love story with Luna.) The little I’ve seen of NW, seems like he wore his cards a bit closer to his vest as a baseline.

That’s an interesting, possibly controversial pick. I’d like to know more of your thoughts on that one. For ‘80s/early ‘90s OLTL fans, this scene has always struck me as uncomfortably rapey viewed through a more modern lens, but it seems that Fiona and Nicholas Walker had undeniable chemistry as Gabrielle/Max in a similar way to Fiona/JdP. Is that the case, or is this just out of context?

That’s a really good one. Definitely wasn’t instantaneous and they didn’t have the same spark (I suppose that makes since they started as an affair under Sherry and evolved into a loving married couple with Liz). The writing definitely didn’t do them any favors. I’m not the hugest Jason fan, but I think Burton maintained an ease with all of the main Carlys.

The talk of Mason/Julia in the SaBa thread made me think of this: what are some couples whose chemistry survived a recast (or at least evolved into a different kind of chemistry instead of petering out altogether)? I can think of many whose chemistry didn’t survive, of course, partially because the recast was a flop in general. Obviously, Tom/Margo on ATWT is up there (with the caveat that they’ve become most memorable as distinct pairs—Colin/Deas, HBS/Marx, Dolan/Holmes), but what others can you think of?

Some “alleged” tea from the Queens of Bravo Twitter:

One thing about Nick and Sharon is that the show has really worked to destroy them over the years. Or rather make them seem blah. They’ve been in so many different all-consuming love stories, yet they’ve had very tepid, unenthusiastic reunions (like their short-lived “romance” leading up to the aborted wedding a few years back) and have stayed in each other’s orbits, so we’ve never really had a chance to “miss” them as a couple (in the way that fans might rally around Bo/Hope since Peter Reckell has been off DAYS’s canvas for so long). And I don’t feel like JM and SC are playing any subtext of the other being the “love of their lives” in their scenes IMO. If their characters have evolved at all, it’s been away from each other. Over the past 30 years, neither SC nor JM have left to pursue bigger opportunities in their careers. We’ve never had a real break from them, and they feel really stale to me.

Jay 🇺🇸

Oh. Lord.

People are leaving left and right.

Sofia Kenin, your turn.