Cat

TBH -- enough of Kenya stirring the pot on the periphery! Porsha vs Falyn OF COURSE we would need to see, but IMO Porsha vs Kenya is also the linchpin feud that has long been denied to me. After Megaphone Wig-Snatchgate, these two have been tiptoeing around each other, and Porsha in particular has studiously avoided giving Kenya any oxygen. This past season she practically ignored her, and TBH I feel robbed lol! If it is chaos BTS on Atlanta and Porsha is refusing to film the show, then I think Drew will be back and the show will try and make Drew vs Kenya a thing. At this point, maybe ATL should do what NYC and Dallas are doing and rest for an extra 4 months while they figure out the casting which has LONG been a hot mess! (And also bring back Carlos King for some cohesion and control BTS. Also, Carlos could always sweet-talk Porsha into doing what he wanted. He was her Protector!). Porsha and Carlos, before she got deified:

Porsha apparently has a massive fanbase on social media. They are now calling for RHOA to be completely cancelled if she goes. In a way, she can call the shots here. Bravo have made her their special little star, and she probably feels she is bigger than the show and ready for better things. I'm not sure that confidence is entirely warranted LOL but there it is. Her departure will be a loss, though, because of her humor, and also because of this Simon Scandal which, my God, I wanted to see played out on my screen so bad! I wanted Falyn involved and I wanted Kenya to spill the dirt. Spill it! However, ATL imo is more than just Porsha and I'm not ready for it to be cancelled! I'm not certain what the solution is given that the newbies haven't worked since Kim Fields' season (if not before). Bringing Nene back? Only if we got the old, vibrant Nene, and not Rehearsed-Reads-Bad-Hair Nene. When Nene's hair started to go to pot, so did her persona on the show. Drew demoted? Now, I am surprised about that. I thought Bravo wuvved her ass too.

Or the Brooks house entranceway, which was capacious, but where someone steps out of the pitch-black night-time outside into a dimly-lit lobby. It was literally like Dark Shadows in there! The whole point of the dim lighting and spotlight was to highlight the close-ups and reaction shots which dominated every scene. Weirdly, I never found them OTT or out of place. John Conboy who was EP at the time really used them to great advantage because they fit Bill Bell's writing perfectly. When Wes Kenney came in in 1982 and the budget got bigger, he tended to flood those big sets with light and do more wide-shots sweeping over an office or living room. And Edward J. Scott tt too. Man, what I would give to see a visual genius like Ed Scott back at the helm! He made even the Days sets look lush. Alternatively (if budgets are low) -- let's get the creepy background music back in and go the extreme-close-up Conboy/EON route. Of course, what Y&R really needs is to zhuzh up the writing to make those reaction shots pop!

I didn't realise RHONY cast was the most calculated with the press! (Although I did know they have strong ties with Page Six, et al). In the Daily Mail article, one quote which struck me was how Leah is on good terms with all the HWs and she just wants peace cuz she loves them, blah blah. Straight from the mouth of a certain Meah Lucksweeney! UM THAT RHOA TEA! Porsha cannot take the heat! She knows people will be asking about her and Simon so she just wants a nice ole Don't Be Tarty spinoff where she can control the narrative and no embarrassing questions are asked. What a shame! I was so ready for the scandal! Those Potomac live numbers are incredible! Also considering Bravo posted the full episode on YouTube at the same time (which I watched and which already had ~300K views 15 hours in). Kelly Dodd is so thirstay and SO desperate to get back on RHOC, lol. She is posting on everything RH-related. There is an element of karma -- Ramona said similar things when Bethenny left, like 'we'll take it from here, we don't need her.' The problem is that, just like Bethenny solo, Ramona cannot carry a show. She's a passivist reactor, not a bringer of content like she was back in the early days. And now she's seeing trouble brewing for her Bravo paycheck. So I know this won't happen, but what if the escándalo content was Ramona bringing the cameras to Mar-a-Lago and hanging with Donnie Jr and superspreader Kimberly Guilfoyle? 💀

Back in Y&R's first decade, this was exactly what was going on over there, too. Sure, Y&R had a bigger budget than EON for clothes and furnishings, but that set was lit so dark with one spotlight that they might as well stuck a table against a wall and put on a background soundtrack of diners talking and clinking their silverware! And not for one moment were the viewers side-tracked from the story that was occurring on-screen.

Oh yeah, there were some direct Luann quotes in that DM article! And the "Ramona ain't leaving" quote is from Ms. Singer herself, I'll wager. Daily Mail does have some pretty good Bravo production sources as a rule, though. I imagine Bravo is perturbed by the ratings situation. Like @Faulknersaid, though, I hope they don't pull an OC and gut the cast. If anything, the cast has already been gutted by unexpected departures the past two years and this is its 'OC S16' moment. Honestly, I don't even mind Eboni or Leah that much (actually, I like Eboni), but this tiny cast feels incomplete. and needs additions, not necessarily subtractions. Interesting inference that Eboni wants Ramona out and the show rebuilt around her. Thoughts? Is that Lu, too? For sure they want Bethenny back, and if she comes back, so will Dorinda. And if I were Ramona, I'd be a little worried about both of them coming for her.

Over a decade on RHONY, I do think Ramona deserves better than being unceremoniously fired HALFWAY through this season being screened. Hopefully this is just Leah spreading rumors.

The sets issue lowkey reminds me of GL, just before the show went rogue in Peapack. They had literally two sets up and one of them was the third-floor landing of the Beacon where all the characters would run into each other. Y&R is a corporate intrigue kind of show, and the fact that people are conducting business in the lobby of whichever new hotel Y&R is 'launching' this week says to me that CBS/Sony must have slashed Y&R's budget much more seriously than realized.

I thought you liked Ramona, Cheap! So now they're saying the All-Stars cast is cursed! Two (allegedly) down... Speaking of All-Stars, much as I enjoy most in this cast, the true All-Stars cast should have been: Nene. Kenya. Jill Zarin. Bethenny. Teresa. Caroline Manzo. LVP. Brandi.

Or a reunion implosion à la Dorinda.

He's not wrong. That doesn't necessarily mean she's going anywhere, though. 🤔 Oh, there will likely be more GDW to come from me, just so you know! I think she's ace entertainment. ☺️ And while Karen does fall back on the 'I'm above you' quips when she is feeling threatened, she is also very good at landing an A+ read (as many a reunion has also shown). "Ejaculate. Pro Cree Ate."

This is sitting on my timeline and I hope it is just an unsubstantiated rumor. One reason I think it might be is... Radar Online. The other is that Bravo really makes no decision until they see how Reunion pans out and how the audience takes it. Not sure firing Ramona solves RHONY's problems. People want Leah gone, not her.

Mutually assured destruction. Both women feel if the share ANYTHNG with the other, if they allow even a moment of vulnerability to shine through the chink in their Armor, the other will run with it. Use it against them. BTW everything you wrote about Gizelle, I feel relates 100% to Karen. She is still deeply hurt by the #FreeUncleBen stuff and the Ray insinuations (why else would the Hugers be renewing their vows on national TV?). They really are two sides of the same coin sometimes. Totally. The Robyn/Juan stuff is the most relatable impact of Covid I have seen on the RH shows thus far. It's incredible how lockdown can do a number on your mental state without you fully realising it. And the serious problems the Dixons had in their marriage a few years back (money taken by a best friend who later committed suicide, her shutting down emotionally, his affairs) were a previous manifestation of this for Robyn.

Like @Taoboi said -- RHOP was Bravo's best-kept secret which only the cool kids (well, us obvs ) knew about. When last season aired, the network kind of woke up and realised that Potomac is its best show. Bravo is now holding RHOP ever closer to its breast & whispering "Precious, Precious." We are already starting to see a glow-up. Candiace got a big new house in the boondocks. Gizelle threw off her fur jacket to reveal a shimmery, boss-lady new look. Wendy dined with Karen, a fur stole thrown over her shoulder like this is 1940s film noir. Physically, Wendy is borderline unrecognisable to me, and it's not just the bubbies. Something changed on the face and I can't tell what it is, if it was plastic surgery or just fancy contouring. As a 'person,' this didn't feel like the Wendy I had known either. She was performing a script at the dinner party. I think production put pressure on her to 'relaunch' herself. Eddie is as sweet as ever and their two boys are so cute and pure. ☺️ Robyn IMO has been struggling with latent depression for years. With the pandemic she has leaned into some old coping habits. People may feel she is a bore, but I appreciate that Potomac shows that middle-class experiences can be precarious and change on a dime. I was actually gripped by Robyn and Juan's conversation. Hi! I am K Anon, and that IS an act of petty sacrilege. How dare you side-track us from our plot to have La Dame installed as the new host of WWHL. 💀 J/k! ☺️ Look, everyone is entitled to their opinion and surely they can express it on here. With this episode, I didn't need to call Karen out because Gizelle was already doing the work for me! And for the rest of the season, if I'm to understand her correctly. However, if it's anything like she said in the episode, much of this was raised in S3. (Incidentally, the season I really started liking Karen. Not because I am blind to her faults or her fakery, but because I couldn't bear seeing 3-4 people rejoicing in her misfortune. If Gizelle wants to know why Karen wasn't a friend at reunion, that is why. The animosity all stems from S3). So let's see what Gizelle said about Karen's dirt: 1. Ray's ding-dong is broken. NEW. Unconfirmed (and Ray is not going to pull out a doctor's report on this). Therefore, verdict: hard to verify. May Bravo never try. 2. There's some cheatin' goin on. REPEAT. In S3 Gizelle said Ray had heart-eyes for Giz's business partner Erika Lyles (if the ding-dong is broken tho... 💀). That same season, Ashley said that Karen was having an affair with Blue Eyes, who may or may not have been Ray's chauffeur? Verdict: we will see if Gizelle continues to ride this horse, but a good ole cheatin' rumor worked before (Michael Darby, Karen, Monique, Jamal). This always has potential to be a stinger. 3. The Hugers are Broke. REPEAT from S3 and S4. We all saw the empty house in Great Falls rented for filming. I do think the Hs squared up with the IRS (as anyone with a braincell would), and now Karen is jumping on every business opportunity to (as they say) Maximise Revenue Streams. Verdict: Potomac's portrayal of middle-class existence is financially precarious. Robyn has had tough times, Wendy has student debt, Candiace has Ms. Dorothy, Ashley is reliant on Michael. This may not be the big scandal Gizelle thinks it is, unless Karen maintains a tangled web of lies around it. Conclusion: If Gizelle is serious about exposing Karen's truth and nothing but -- this may not be enough. Also, two can play that game, and Gizelle is deluding herself if she thinks Karen will quake with fear and take this lying down. Karen has exceptionally quick comebacks, and she's got a lot in the vault on Gizelle, too -- starting with Jamal and whether that relationship is even real. So... 💀 evenly matched.

I have loved 👑 Kari since S1, and she still has Toya's back after all these years. I knew she was worth bringing back, because the moment she dipped a toe back in the group, Heavenly was v dismissive of her and desperately wanted her gone! Her shade is subtle here and she stays calm and to the point even while Contessa tries to grandstand on an issue that doesn't concern her. I'm actually surprised Quad didn't succumb to her usual OTT hysterics so I'm assuming she heard this comment before, lol.

Potomac coming in hot!

I mentioned this before but Eboni's line "I want to know if you are aligned with white supremacy" seemed like a rather formal line taken from Twitter. I'm not sure how each woman would have answered the implied question here. Maybe I am reading too much in the statement. Maybe it was just rhetorical. In which case... was it meant to lead anywhere? Eboni's mom and her own work at Faux News add complexity and something personal to Eboni, which I think makes the issue more layered and interesting. But production had (up until this episode when the problem of what this season has become got laid out on the table and debated by the women) initially kept talking points to more general pronouncements. Also Taoboi hit the nail on the head: IA. They're not The Coven, and Ramona is slippery enough to deserve it. However, Eboni, Leah and Sonja knew what they were setting up here -- a confrontation (mainly because Ramona has actively pursued a close relationship with That Fam'bly and that is probably unconscionable, a step too far, for many). After using the language of social justice to back up Eboni, Leah's mask slipped and she screamed at Ramona that she was the worst person ever... that's when I knew she was hiding behind the issue to go after Ramona personally.

BH Always nice to see Harry Hamlin in an apron with his face on it. His presence makes Rinna a more relatable person, but she does seem a bit... distant with him. When he leaves, Rinna's personality goes into Life of the Party Mode and she does (as Danny Pellegrino terms it) "a lot of 'ACK! ACK!' work." Everyone adores Kathy Hilton, and I enjoy her, too. But "Who is Hunky Dory?" C'mon. She knows what that means! Kathy is amping up the kooky FOH bit. As @FrenchBug82 points out, FOH is the sweet spot. All the positive attention without the full-time work and negative scrutiny. Kathy's Hunky Dory work (!) suggests to me that production is closely and carefully rebuilding BH line by line. Keeping it light and fun with just enough drama, and all the women know what to contribute. That doesn't take away from my enjoyment of BH's most improved season in a long time, but I am aware that things are carefully calibrated and curated, and that includes the image Kathy may want to project of herself. Oh, I saw! Did you see the blue (not green or clay) tennis court? And her blue-and-white living room? The concept was full Wedgwood china, after the blue-and-white 18th century porcelain. Even her PJs matched the theme! Sutton gifts things to people in order to secure friendship (peak Beverly Hills). She wants very much to be seen as thoughtful and generous. Which is why her forgetting to get Garcelle a gift was completely OOC. When it turned out Kathy, Kyle and Crystal went in on a gift together, Sutton got full FOMO, and in her mind probably thinks they excluded her on purpose (which, judging by Kyle's smirk and pot-stirring, may be correct). Sutton also fears that Garcelle will pick Crystal over her because of the gift and because they share a connection. Hence the full high-school meltdown. Speaking of High School, remember those TV shows in the 90s/00s set in SoCal's hyper-bitchy teenage world (Buffy, Laguna Beach, etc) ? I feel like Teenage Crystal may have been honed in that kind of environment. She hit the nail on the head when she said Sutton was jealous, but truthfully Sutton imploded even before she said or did anything.

I've watched the episode now and ITA. It was much, much better than the last 3 episodes, and that's because it feels like it is finally going somewhere. Yes, we had the teaching (and something about the "I want to know if you are aligned with white supremacy" declaration felt stiff and scripted). However, the cast, in their different ways and for different (probably selfish) reasons, actually talked about some of the issues affecting the show that we have mentioned here. I found that refreshing when the show almost broke the fourth wall, for example when talking about the press saying that RHONY will be Eboni's platform. I feel like the Eboni's mom who voted Trump story will be brought up again. Meanwhile, Sonja remains a cool breeze blowing through a stale room, and Bershan's dynamic with Luann and Sonja felt comfortable and unforced.

As Kelly Dodd herself once screamed, "People who lie get sued!" That's right, Kelly.

I assumed, after the way Garcelle swept into BH and breathed fresh air into that stale franchise, that Eboni would effortlessly do the same. That was too much expectation to put on Eboni -- she is her own person. I like Eboni and think she can contribute something unique to RHONY (not least via her burgeoning friendship with Sonja which has the potential to loosen her up). But it is clear, like Gray Bunny said, that Eboni has been hired to be the Teacher of Lessons (as opposed to Garcelle, who slipped seamlessly into typical petty BS blown way out of proportion). EKW is, as Wendy Williams said last week, the 'science experiment.' And I feel for her, because production usually handles RHONY so well with a less-is-more approach. However, they effed up here by being so heavy-handed and she will be blamed for it. Bershan showing up as a potential frenemy might actually be a lifesaver, because that is a true-blue RH plotline right there (as opposed to "Tonight... on a Very Special Blossom"). The franchise is rudderless, 1. because they are repeating the same talking point for the past 5 episodes. And 2. because the OGs have not established themselves as the show's leading Alpha. That role was once Bethenny's and then Dorinda's for a time, but Ramona, Luann and Sonja don't quite have the Cujo in them. They are more snipers from the side, to coin a phrase. Leah wants to take the Alpha mantle but the audience isn't feeling it. RHONY lost two Alphas / 3 HWs total in the space of a year and has not (yet) recovered. That is why I wished Heather Thomson had stuck around because she has those polarising Alpha chops to somewhat right the ship.

Last season, the drinking was unchecked and the show was reliant on alcohol to move things. Once upon a time, Bethenny was that check -- she would publicly shame some of these women straight (when she wasn't mainlining them with Skinnycrack, of course). This season I am happy with less booze (and with Sonja, I actively wish it). But because the discussion cannot evolve organically against the usual backdrop of fast-paced NY life, and because the women are trapped in this filming bubble, there is no story progression. The season is not starting at Point A and ending at Point B; instead it seems to be circling Point A. Haven't watched this latest episode, though so -- I am prepared to eat my words if we've got new stuff going on. I SAW!! It was GLORIOUS seeing Kelly spit out that legally-sanctioned apology through gritted teeth! Couldn't happen to a more deserving loudmouth. Let's not forget: Kelly spent the better part of 15 months screaming 'SHEEP!' at mask-wearers and "Covid is NBD, losers!" Until her family got Covid, and then it's "Guys, my mom's in ICU, pray 4 her!" She has been photographed all over the bars/restaurants of Newport partying maskless, and suddenly we are supposed to believe that a 5-second "Hey There" with one of Heather Dubrow's kids gave her the corona? What a tool. An icon in an iconic season! T'Challa made Wendy happen. And this is why I rate the Potomac HWs -- because something unplanned happens in two seconds and we get: Robyn doing the drop & roll. Candiace forking food in her mouth as she runs. Wendy protecting the hair: "OMG my wig." Ashley showing up after the fact. Gizelle: "T'Challa has spoken. We cannot get to know you on a deeper level." Wendy: "No, you WILL get to know me on a deeper level." T'Challa was more than just a pet -- he was Monique's support animal when she was going through travails. She really identified with that bird and must be devastated.

I, too, am waiting to see how Teresa's man comes across on the show, but yeah, ITA. He's everywhere at once and it's all a little too much too soon. The Gorgas embraced this person two seconds after meeting him, mainly because he keeps Teresa 'satisfied' and happy. But what if Teresa starts lavishing him with expensive gifts? What if he, and not Joe, becomes Teresa's main go-to? Trust and believe that Joe and Melissa will have feelings about that. And then we could have another Joey vs Juicy 2.0 situation. Joey and Evan, lol. I don't know what's going on there (somewhere Frank is crying), but doesn't it seem like Melissa and Jackie are closer friends than Melissa and Marge are? Interesting tea about RHOA. The last few seasons all the ATL leaks sucked what few surprises there were out of the show. Will be interesting to see how Potomac's production team handles Atlanta which has become slow and stale. That's great that Kandi and Porsha got some spin-offs, but Bravo had an opportunity to have Falynn on the show -- and they swept that opportunity under the rug. A failed attempt to cover for Porsha and keep her rep pristine? Viewers are already MUCH more interested in what the real story is with Simon. And speaking of Brooks vibes.... I am getting A LOT of those from Simon.

Thanks! I'd forgotten the tea about The Joven (Jersey Coven) trying to exclude Jennifer and Hot Bill from events. Joey Gorga was also getting in on that mess and not inviting Bill to da guyz events. Seems like they started filming right after reunion wrapped. And I remember you posting about the new HW addition and her hubby. We also have Teresa and her new man who has a whiff of Brooks about him. RHONJ last year kept it locked tight, only leaking the tidbit about Jackie refusing to film because of infidelity allegations. As you say, just enough to whet our appetites, but no details. Jersey batted one of its most entertaining seasons in years as a result.

Oh Elyse! If only we'd known you were this messy! Ramona is going to go nuts! And Elyse needs another chance on RHONY.