As I embark on day 2 of the cabbage soup diet I have very very few things bringing me pleasure right now. One, or possibly the only, thing giving me even a crumb of serotonin currently is The Real Housewives of Potomac. I’m going to give my reader(s) the advice that I give my friends, my family, the teenage cashier with the wonky eye at Grade A. Don’t. Sleep. On. Potomac. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. It’s five star television deserving an Emmy, a SAG award, and a Nobel Peace Prize.
Once a die hard RHONY fan, I too slept on Potomac. But as we entered season 12 we lost our queen, icon, legend / overall pillar of the community Bethenny Robyn Frankel and from there, it was Murphys Law in it’s purest form. Rising star and personal favorite Tinsley Mortimer left New York (and the show) to move to Chicago with her bloated prince charming Scott. It seems all upper east side princesses get their fairytale ending after all. Then, we slowly but surely watched Dorinda Medley transform from making it nice to making it unbearable to watch. As we moved further along into the season Dorinda appeared to embark on a rage spiral reminiscent of my own when I discovered the calories in a single glass of Pino Noir. Not to mention Sonja, also known as the single greatest housewife of all time (this is not up for debate, argue with your momma) Morgan’s lifestyle of mixing booze and certain unidentified prescription pills has appeared to catch up with her both mentally and physically. Anyway, a combination of all of the aforementioned things left a hole in my heart desperate to be filled. Enter Potomac.
I wont give you a long detailed account of the events which has transpired over the past five seasons that has gotten us to this point (perfection), you’ll just have to go back and watch. I personally recommend starting with Season 3 and skipping over the first two. Season 2 is decent but Season 1 was definitely struggling to find it’s rhythm. Anyway, if you have watched RHOP and are wondering my thoughts on it here you go. Also before I begin just know three things I stand by. 1. I’m team Monique. 2. Michael Darby is a balding aussie sociopath. 3. Justice for Katie Rost. What the fuck happened to her?
And so we begin. The reunion got off to a slow start. My notes for the first five minutes consisted of this-
“How do you look good at 7 a.m” asked Karen while looking FLAWLESS
“Full of anxiety but that’s notcovid related” Candiace already draaaaggggggggiiinnngg it for sympathy
I like Ashleys red tinted hair
STOP TRYING TO MAKE PONCHA HAPPEN THAT TRIP TO PORTUGAL WAS ONE OF THE MOST BORING HOUSEWIVES TRIPS OF ALL TIME. — I can’t emphasize this enough. We had to suffer through a multi episode arc already. Enough.
I will say that I think Candiace was the best dressed at the reunion and I loved her canary fan. As for Robyn.. the wig. It looks as though it flew out of the window on the car ride over to the sound stage and was run over by an eighteen wheeler.
Anyhoo we started off from the jump with some amazing Gizelle v Karen banter which has always been my favorite. I will say I had no idea there was this much contention between the two of them prior to this. They always had their problems but I thought there was a genuine friendship beneath all that shade. Guess I was wrong.
“Your style sucks”
“That’s your opinion, Karen.” No, that’s everyone’s opinion Gizelle. Hire a stylist.
Another honorable mention of this convo was Gizelle, “IT SAID ENDIIIIIIIIIIIIII”. Not much of what my former favorite Gizelle says these days amuses me but this absolutely did. Also, the whole blaming her style on “Pretty girl syndrome”? Yes, I agree Gizelle is flawlessly gorgeous, but Monique is easily the most beautiful on the stage lets stop paying her dust and pay her the respect she deserves.
Moving on to the next segment, I’m just going to come out and say it. I Dooonnntttt like Wendy on the show. I’m sure she’s a great person and I listened to her on one of my favorite podcasts Everything Iconic with Danny Pellegrino and she was definitely so likeable and sweet. But honestly I don’t care about her plotlines and I want to take a bathroom break whenever its one of her solo scenes. And it goes without saying I cant hear about the degrees anymore. No one is “putting you in the position” to defend your degrees, you continuously bring it up because it’s your only narrative on the show. I don’t like how quick she was to choose up and pick sides to gang up on Monique. You don’t know her, it was just beneficial to you. I will say when she said “Now we’ve said it” it was an amazing call back to early season RHOB Camille and I luuved it.
We moved on to Candiace and I drew in a deep guttural sigh. I like Candiace. I truly do. I lie awake at night trying to decide who I like least of the cast and she is nowhere near my bottom two. But when they started discussing her “music” the hairs I missed in the shower on my labia stood up. I dooont knooow whaaaat heaaaaaaaaaaaaaallls a heaaaarrt. That song is just. Its just not good. Stop trying to make it happen its not going to happen.
I also want to take a moment to say that I love Ashley. I think she’s my favorite cast member, and no Ashley slander will be tolerated. It’s not her fault she’s married to a rapey crocodile dundee. But, when she said she performed her hit (in my mind) Coffee and Love “live without issue”. Hmmmmmm, that’s one way to look at it. I wont say anything else but If you haven’t listened to the unhinged ADarbs single I urge you to drop what you’re doing and go listen. Also my single handed favorite line from the entire reunion is when Ashley said, “Shut the fuck up talking about my husband itching”. I really love when Ashley gets a little hood. Ugh. A sister after my own heart.
Also, the face Robyn made when Ashley implied it was rude to say the baby looked like Michael was hilarious and the only thing she has contributed to this entire reunion. We don’t say that, but now we’ve said it. I also don’t like how Monique was excluded from the colorism conversation and it was aimed at Wendy and Candiace. She is also a black woman not traditionally considered to be “lightskinned” and wasn’t given a chance to talk about how she felt about it, despite also being called aggressive amongst other (worse) things. by viewers Also they’ve ALLLLL definitely been called aggressive at one time or another with the exception of probably Robyn who’s asleep half the time.
“So you can use ghetto or hoodrat but you’re not supposed to use aggressive” EXACTLY MONIQUE. EXACTLY.
Then. We get. To. The. Binder. The last five minutes of this reunion were honestly my favorite five minutes of television in recent history. I could not pick my jaw up off the floor, and I honestly found myself feeling bad for Gizelle. First of all, was I the only one completely blindsided by the whole Jamal thing being a fake plotline? Like I had no idea. Why would he ever agree to that? What does he possibly get out of that? He’s a pastor.
Monique starts reading her receipts – despite several attempted interruptions- to Andy who was clearly struggling to hide his delight. At one point Monique turns to him and says something along the lines of do you want to see this and he goes yeah I wanna see it. DON’T WE ALLLLLL. Basically the conversations were between Jamal Bryant skeevy perve scum bag pastor extraordinaire and his side chick/ possible actual girlfriend during a time period which he was believed to be with Gizelle. Candiace’s little side comments throughout this entire reveal really killed me. First she commented to Wendy that Monique has been “waiting to drop these receipts for a while” which leads me to believe she’s had this information for some time and has been sitting on it until she felt attacked enough to bring it to light. ASSSS YOUUUU SHOOOUUUUULLLLLLLLLLDDDDDD. Then, after Gizelle confirming that it is in fact Jamal’s phone number and subsequently he is the sender behind these illicit messages, Candaice remarks, “Thats unfortunate”. Yes Candeegal. It is.
Giz kept a stoic face throughout all of this which I take to mean she either knew of this all along and was, in fact, fabricating a relationship with her ex husband for a television plotline OR was genuinely hurt and startled by this information and just trying to save face. Hopefully, we’ll find out more on the second part of the reunion because I hear she gets visibly upset and it would be nice for some genuine show of emotion from her. Anyway, we end the episode on a zoom in of the binder and ugh. **chefs kiss**. I also saw an episode of WWHL where Andy says that the binders going in the Housewives Museum. Is there really a housewives Museum? Where is it? Where can I purchase a ticket? CAN I LOOK IN THE BINDER?
#RHOP #potomac #housewives #RHONY #bravo #skinnygirl #teammonique #girls #fromzerotohero #ashleydarby
Wine and Zoloft 