Cat

It's interesting what you point out about Jen and Heather being two sides of the same coin. I definitely believe both Jen and Heather did their homework with regards to the fanbase and what the audience might want to see and hear, harnessing the odd buzzword du jour. Jen Shah's strategy was obvious early on; Heather's only really became apparent going into Reunion. This is not to say that I cannot appreciate aspects of these women's personalities, or take the good with the bad. I like a multifaceted HW. I think this sets up for a more interesting S2, especially with Lisa trying to get in the mix, and Mary just being generally fascinating. I will say that those audio and video leaks of Jen Shah are a shocker, and make it harder for me to find the multifaceted human beneath. The no-neck rage monster screaming at an employee, throwing a phone at them, threatening them, calling them a 'fuckin piece of sh!t' ? And the excuse for that was... reunion was coming up? She is spoiled, entitled brat until she shows otherwise. That Coach Shah could not even intervene was shocking, too. Her reunion 'epiphany' is now looking increasingly hollow. I'm not 'crying a river 'for either woman sitting in their luxury mansions during a pandemic. But I see Bethenny has taken an opportunity to promote her ass and her wretched podcast by blasting another female (of COURSE she gives Harry a pass!). It must really burn her that wellness-podcaster-in-all-but-name Meghan probably couldn't pick Bethenny out of a line-up. Nobody is associating Oprah's newest buddy with 'Bethenny from the Real Housewives'. Nobody, except delusional Bethenny, that is, who appears to be experiencing severe withdrawal symptoms from the lack of attention ever since she threw Bravo's contract in their face.

This week has been full of British Royal Family gossip, deflection and shenanigans in anticipation of Oprah's interview with Meghan & Harry. This interview has the BRF running scared, I think. The View weighs in on it:

Thanks for the tea! First of all, I wish there was a lowkey Kathy mention LOL because I am slightly obsessed with her being back on the show and Kyle being a little afraid of her. I wish Kim were coming back too -- 3 for the price of 1. Plus it would make Rinna's head spin! Garcelle sounds like she put everything on the table right away. Apparently Rinna is going to be biggest pot-stirrer this year. Given that Sutton has been lumbered with the 'Let's talk about The Husband' script, I am guessing that Rinna's pot-stirring is a deflection tactic away from Erika, and maybe herself. I would love it if Erika 'went there' but will there be talk of burn victims and crippling criminal law-suits? Or will it be 'Tom had an affair with [redacted Judge's name] I am stoic but hurt' ? Apparently, according to G, Crystal holds grudges. Oooooo! Garcelle, I find Dorit annoying too sometimes. I hope it's not a season of micro-aggressions directed as Garcelle, because that sh*t on RHOD is not a good look. SLC: There is video to go with audio now. Something is not right with Jen, and it's way more than just mourning her dad or being a WOC in Utah. The way Coach Shah wearily picked up the phone she had thrown off the floor and asked if the guy was ok, tells me that he has seen this before. And he has been trying to manage it for a while.

Oooo the Bassett Hound! I never thought of Brown Dick.... I did wonder if it was Eddie for a second. Juan is still a strong contender, and like you, I don't think it is Papa Smurf or crinkly ass Michael. IA that Michael is done being a sexually frustrated mess and has tired of the spotlight. He will be a rarely seen husband from here on in. Ashley has secured the rights to her post-nupt otherwise. RHOD: If Brandi chases Tiffany off the show with all her passive-aggressive bullsh!t, I will be so mad! We had a good episode with D'Andra and Kary sweetly reconciling, and Tiffany opening up to Kameron and Stephanie about wanting to have more time with her kids. But Brandi couldn't stand there being no discord. So she had to gaslight DTM, acting like its her fault Brandi feels guilty for being a racist fool. When Tiffany has never brought up the Instagram BS or held it against her. Honestly, good riddance to that bag of trash.

Thank goodness. At least the Kardashians back in their heyday offered drama and personality. Rinna keeps trying to make those two eye-rolling mouthbreathers happen. Rinna never had an original idea in her life -- she stays copying what other people (Yolanda, Kris Jenner) originated. SLC: Anyone heard the audio of Jen Shah in a long screaming rant at the designer who did her fashions? It reminded me of some of the showbiz types I worked for as a literary agency assistant back in the day. That kind of verbal excoriation (nicknamed 'the hairdryer' lol) was... not fun. The addition of a pointy fingernail in the face would have made it worse. Even though Jen said some things at reunion about learning to do better, this audio isn't a good look. Perhaps she feels this is how 'queens' act -- it's not. Potomac keeps bringing it and bringing it! Is this the new HW Mia Thornton? I doubt it's Wendy somehow. And the husband? You know everybody's mind goes straight to Juan on these things! Though it could be anybody -- even Michael. Speaking of the Darbys.... Ashley had her bebe!

Stop. No. Nobody is asking for this. Mary is the gift that keeps on giving. We have Jen Shah, Heather and Lisa fighting for top spot, and LOL over here is Mary stealing the show from under them! She's got a little Kim Richards/Katie Rost about her, and also the church side which is a whoooole other (perhaps unsettling) dimension to her. The thing about Kim/Katie/Mary, though, is that they have this fragility which makes me worried that Bravo is going to gobble them up and spit them out. All seem to have dealt/be dealing with unspoken trauma, including Mary. I love the unique way she sees and expresses things, and the clear way she got everyone together; I just hope she's strong enough to handle the show and keep it calm and collected as she did in Reunion. Mary stayed composed even when deeply emotional. Her vulnerability came across as authentic to me because I don't think it was planned/targeted to get the audience on-side.

I am probably biased, but I find the relationships between a lot of the NJ women authentic? Dolores and Margaret are close outside of the show (one of the more unexpected but welcome friendships IMO, given that the show has essentially separated the cast into Team Teresa and Team Melissa). Melissa, Jackie and Margaret apparently hang off-season too. Dolores is, of course, close with Caroline Manzo and no longer close with Dina. And then we have the husbands who seem to love hanging with each other. Even David is in on some action. Jennifer is a little isolated in Paramus but nevertheless, I loooove Jennifer. Her calling Melissa out on her fake SLs gives me big joy. MeHo is the luckiest 'wench' (S3 reference ) in RH history. Because what has Budget JLo contributed to the show? On Display? Milania took over and destroyed that meme. 'WE ARE BEGGIN YOU TO PLEASE. STAHP. HURTIN. US" ? Sadly overshadowed by the two Joes and Joe Gorga's spray-on hair. Melissa has become a lot smarter about keeping her hands clean while still in the mix, but truthfully, Bravo loves Joe Gorga and Melissa stays by default. Which is why I am shocked that she would foolishly come after Jennifuh about her SLs. Girl, everyone knows the illegitimate sister does not exist. The baby SL was fake AF. The marriage trouble SL is likely fake. Jennifuh is wielding the truth like a whip and you are not going to win this one. "Wow, Melissa. Maybe if I was a mirror, you would greet me." Never remove that foot from MeHo's neck, Jennifuh! @Gray Bunny you hit on something: Teresa is completely islanded. In the past, she at least had soldiers like Danielle and her family to fall back on. Her family was everything. But now that Papa Gorga has passed, Joe is selling sex toys out of a car boot in Italy, and Gia is at college, she really is an outsider. Added to this strange dichotomy is that fact that the cast still treat her as Queen Bee. Margaret calls Teresa a damn idiot in her VTs, but at Lake George she is easy, breezy, let's talk about something else, Tre. The cast are cowtowing to her power, but Team Melissa is quietly ready for her to go. Especially Jackie, the henchwoman who thinks she's a star. Given Teresa's innate boneheadedness, they may get their wish this year. Or they may not, as Teresa no longer minds being production's stooge. You're right about Marge. It's a Picasso puzzle of old and new Marge attributes, and the sum of their parts have not coalesced yet. BH: IA. I hate this sex doll look with the fire of a thousand suns. Erika, Dorit and Rinna are constantly copying each other, getting the same surgery/procedures, and it is jeopardising their uniqueness in the process.

Shinee's back @Cheap21 ! Lol kpop has perfected thirst trapping! They want no less than fans for life!

Thank you for this. While Buffy and Angel's stars largely declined to comment, this was a pretty solid article about what it must have been like behind the scenes on both shows.

Weirdly, with D'Andra, I'm not doing the double-take as much? It's almost like my mind has made peace with the fact that every year D'Andra will have copious amounts of plastic surgery to look like a LeeAnne-Mama Dee hybrid. I've had so much work that when I got home yesterday, I started SLC and I wanted to finish the episode so bad! But I was beyond tired and couldn't enjoy it the way it should be enjoyed. So I've left that and NJ for the next couple of days. What picture of Whitney/Heather? You mean filming? I don't think Leah is all that bad but we will see. There are more overrated newbies out there imo. P.S.: Dorit looks fierce but she also looks like Blonde Era Kim K. I wish she hadn't effed with her gorgeous nose! It now looks slightly too small for her face (like Kelly Dodd's).

So I'm not finished with the latest NJ and SLC episodes, but is anybody finding Marge's new face a little bit unrecognizable? I'm doing a double-take because some aspect of her face has changed fundamentally and my eyes haven't adapted yet. Admittedly, this isn't as hardcore as the work Dorit had done: In RHONY news, Ramona has been named in a deposition of Don Jr, WHAT ETA: Now it looks like it is actually Jill Zarin, not Ramona, they were referring to in the deposition. Potomac just started filming for a possible Fall 2021 return too. And with SLC around, they could afford to put OC on ice for a bit while they settle on casting and tell Kelly Dodd to stop bothering them for a contract. I have a question for RHONY fans. Do you think Dorinda was fired too hastily and we will miss her this coming season? And do you think Leah will have the second season curse? Judging by the generally negative news swirling around Ramona (see above), I have to imagine Pinot Singer is going to have the 13th season curse! I am surprised that, for someone who is so expert at self-preservation and social-climbing, Ramona hasn't abandoned the sinking Trump ship yet.

The Agnes Nixon shows were hard for me to get into, although Loving was bite-size and easy to dip in and out of. I imagine it was like a mini-AMC in its early days.

The fact that McCain continues to be chief apologist/spokesperson on behalf of the very people who despised her father until the day he died and decided he was a 'republican in name only' boggles my mind. I'm assuming she adopts these talking points solely to stand out and stay on the show. If she spoke more moderate viewpoints, she wouldn't be that different from many of the other women on the panel, and there would be no arguments, no ratings, no social media memes, etc. And that hair, oy. Way too young for her and distracting in a bad way.

Yeah, I hesitate to speak really badly of Cynthia because I think she is an ok person. Even though she's a little too lowkey for an All-Stars concept. Most of the other picks are definitely straight from an Andy Cohen internal memo. I was actually surprised Gizelle wasn't mentioned because he looooves her. Honestly, Karen and Gizelle should be included. I'm not bummed about Sonja as a choice because I love her, and I guess they figured 'Ramonja' are a pair even though they haven't been for years and people are over Ramona Singer generally. Ramona is going do absolutely ZIP in this spin-off except tan her ass in a macramé bikini. And still... Melissa and Kyle.

Weirdly, I had the opposite experience when I first got into soaps as a kid -- the California-set soaps (or even the ones filmed in LA) were the bright and glossy ones that drew me in quickly. I could not get into AMC, OLTL, AW or GL at first, because they seemed to be dark and shadowy, with so much layered history that I did not know and could not penetrate. ATWT was an exception --for some reason, Julianne Moore as Frannie and Sabrina drew me in. It was only as I got older, and became really interested in the soap genre as a whole, that I dipped into these other shows and realized that my initial view of them as impenetrable was completely wrong! In fact, the beauty of a great many soap operas was that you could literally tune in one day, cold, in the middle of some big climatic SL, not understanding what led up to this moment, but something indefinable draws you in. It could be an actress, an actor, or the set-up of the SL, or the drama itself, the sense of place and people, and suddenly... you are hooked. This soap you have just discovered has you intrigued and it is all you can think about for a while. YouTube and other sites in more recent years allowed me to discover eras on these shows that I had foolishly missed. I did not discover the glory of Another World until after its cancellation! I could kick myself for that.

Oh, and Bravo 'All-Stars,' you also include the thirstiest HW of all time (only in your wildest dreams, Rinna):

It's a really good show! It has the cosiness of classic British whodunnits like Miss Marple and Poirot, but with an edge.

Cynthia, Melissa, Kyle? Rinna? These peeps are 'all-stars' in nobody's mind but their own! Ugh. Why are they casting bores This cast should have been LVP, Nene, Vicki, Tamra and Bethenny (though she would never), to start. And you build from there. But they fired so many OGs in the last year that we are left with Melissa [!@#$%^&*] Gorga -- without her husband -- and Kyle doing the splits/helicopter ponytail.

Its a shame ATL didn't hit 2mn viewers because this was its best episode in about 5 years. MVPs were Marlo, Porsha and, I hate to say it, bitter ass Kenya doing the digging. Even though I hate that she is trying to catch Tanya in a lie. If Bravo has to pivot, where does it go from here? It is tied to these reality soaps. I am really enjoying the RH shows at the moment, I must admit. SLC, Dallas, NJ, and ATL, and M2M around the corner.... that's just my personal opinion. I'm not ready to say goodbye. But it's true that RH has lively passed the zeitgeist.

Karen & Ashley kiki-ing is a MOOD. And just like that, I am missing Potomac and hoping for a friendship to flourish between these two! With Monique gone (and Gizelle, Robyn and Candiace now allied together in hatred of Monique and Karen), it makes too much sense for KAshley not to have an alliance. Ashley was giving La Dame the compliments and turning on the charm.

That's a very moving article. Though I am not Japanese, nor do I live there, I can relate to living alone and having to manage anxiety tied to the pandemic and my job, my parents' welfare, and all that. I have found that having regular appointments on Zoom with friends has really helped, but I can see how in Japan, nobody wants to burden others with their feelings of depression. So they are less likely to confide in people. There is a stigma in talking about one's problems or worries openly.

Welp. Brandi certainly couched her goodbye statement in a whole lot of religiosity! Wonder if she's leaving because someone brought up the Bryan + affair = Bruin rumor, or whether this was always the plan and production just wanted to give her time to wrap up her story. Nothing in the last two episodes say to me that she is ready to leave and move on. If anything, she seems increasingly keen to participate in group dynamics.

Totally missed this.

NJ was 🔥 !!!! I am so glad it is back. As with RHONY, I feel a real affection for this cast, maybe because I grew up in MA and NY and they remind me of people I know. Danny Pellegrino's most recent podcast interviewed both Marge and Dolores, and they said that they loved pretty much everybody in the cast, despite everything that goes down on the show, and their husbands too. They have a tight circle (Dolores once worked for Bill Aydin way before Jennifer and he joined the show!) and, as Dolores put it, she would 'sit down with any of these women at Reunion' any day of the week. RHONJ has been very watchable since S8. It pivoted from the toxic family stuff and weird S6 transition, and found a good balance and cast mix. It struck me that everything we saw go down in this most recent episode has been building over the course of two prior seasons. The Teresa-Jackie rivalry in particular. Teresa was always going to be biding her time to get Jackie! I have a theory that Bravo gave Teresa Siggy's and Danielle's salaries on top of her own if she agreed to play villain this year. Teresa (who is in a good mood because she is getting the good D) said "No problem!" Teresa is all in on being the villain, and that, too, has been building the last year or two to this moment. The interesting thing is that, while Teresa is clearly in the wrong, and letting her hatred dictate her actions, Jackie's chance to play innocent victim went left. When she did that Gia analogy (and poor Gia's Twitter is now inundated with the most awful Tweets, SMH) and said "I WIN," it wasn't great. Anyhoo, this looks like a great rivalry, unfortunately with a shocking, damaging rumor at its heart. Oh, and this Tweet ETA: I haven't finished the SLC reunion Part 2 episode yet, so Fabulous Ice has yet to melt. However, I did watch the first 25 minutes, which featured Mary, including her admitting that she and her husband sleep in separate bedrooms. She got emotional at that point and her emotionality was authentic -- partly because she herself seemed shocked that she had admitted it on-air. I think the other women empathized with her at that moment. Mary is a master at moving the narrative where she wants it to go, and it is fun to see her outwit Jen, Lisa, Heather, Whitney, etc, at this reunion. Whitney and Meredith are lowkey nodding their heads and smiling at the way she got Jen and Lisa spinning. At the same time, she has this very disarming quality of admitting raw and truthful stuff, even if it doesn't present her in the best light. Unlike some of the other women who are hellbent on presenting themselves in the rosiest (though often most contrived) way. It is for this reason that Mary is my favourite on SLC.

Larsa was a flop in S1 of Miami, and she will be a flop again. In part because the Kardashians will have an NDA muzzling her by the time she films, but mainly because this Lost Kardashian Sister is SO dull, Kris Jenner didn't want to claim her at birth. She brought literally zero to RHOM the first time around and is so unpleasant that even Kourtney Kardashian wants nothing more to do with her. I am thrilled about Alexia. Adriana... eh. The fake marriage SL turned me off. Lisa was a bore. I'm bummed Lea Black wasn't asked back, but honestly Miami really needs to cast all new HWs. Most of the cast cannot see past Tiffany's face. If they stopped to listen to her, Kameron would realise that Tiffany has a quirky sense of humor that meshes really well with her own. Brandi and Stephanie would appreciate her jokes, too. But all they see is "CHINESE" and that makes them look down on her. They aren't directly dismissive to her face (with the exception of Kary) but they are smug and disdainful in their VTs. It is making them very unlikeable, and the more they carry on, the more I think there won't be a next season of this franchise. RHOA: So after dissing the last three seasons of Atlanta, I am changing my tune. The Isle of Palms episodes have been fun and involving! It's so funny seeing the frankly empty opening credits with only 5 RHs, but then on the Isle of Palms trip for every HW you also have a FOH! Marlo and Shamea and Tanya and Drew and Latoya and this pretty Falyn lady who says absolutely nothing. Drew should be holding a peach, btw. She is stirring it up and definitely wants to get in there. Some of these FOHs are more interesting than Eva Marcille, that's for sure. MVP has been Kandi. Kandi is not only organising the Porno Party Featuring Bolo's Big D!ck, but she is the voice of reason with all the women, and especially Kenya. Kenya has literally nobody who likes her, except for Kandi, who like a real friend, tells her the truth and not just what Kenya wants to hear. Kenya is the villain this season again and, honestly, it's like old times! I am comfortable with not being forced by either production or Kenya herself to sympathise with her, but I do enjoy that she keeps people riled up. She had me feeling bad for MARLO of all people! In conclusion: the chemistry of this show works best when they are all together and in a big group. The way they expressed their shock and anger after the Breonna Taylor verdict also felt real and present. I like that RHOA acknowledges that BLM and the pandemic exist and is part of their (and our) lives. I'm not sure Nene would have worked on this trip (and I say this as someone who was on the fence about Nene leaving). I think she would have been grumpy and stomping off and people would be running to try and beg Nene to participate. It would have been exhausting to watch.