I hate tell-alls but this season was so blah that I watched. I found it worth it.
I basically love Yara.
Rebecca is a mess. Zied and his pizza is hilarious. Natalie and Mike are woof. Brandon is a man-child and Julia is not much better.
I read that Amira was detained in Mexico City because she didn’t have her passport. Is that true? Their whole story has a lot of holes. I think Andrew is scary but I don’t think that makes Amira a saint. There are degrees of bad and when no one has a straight story then the truth is probably bad. So be it. Amira, go live a happy life!
Post by sunshine608 on Apr 19, 2021 10:31:50 GMT -5
RHOA: Agree cuadrado, very underwhelmed. The Prophet storyline was even stupider than dragging out the BOLO storyline for 500 episodes. This season was a bore.
I hate tell-alls but this season was so blah that I watched. I found it worth it.
I basically love Yara.
Rebecca is a mess. Zied and his pizza is hilarious. Natalie and Mike are woof. Brandon is a man-child and Julia is not much better.
I read that Amira was detained in Mexico City because she didn’t have her passport. Is that true? Their whole story has a lot of holes. I think Andrew is scary but I don’t think that makes Amira a saint. There are degrees of bad and when no one has a straight story then the truth is probably bad. So be it. Amira, go live a happy life!
The most irritating thing was the white men saying that people don't get detained in the airport without any explanation. YES THEY DO. (I have no idea if this is what happened or not in this case)
I was also not impressed with the RHOA finale. I did laugh at the 1K gift limit and would be mad with Drew when Cynthia was trying to make it and do something nice for everyone.
And yep, the profit storyline was ridiculous. I appreciated Kandi trying to explain to Drew the rational side of things.
I hate tell-alls but this season was so blah that I watched. I found it worth it.
I basically love Yara.
Rebecca is a mess. Zied and his pizza is hilarious. Natalie and Mike are woof. Brandon is a man-child and Julia is not much better.
I read that Amira was detained in Mexico City because she didn’t have her passport. Is that true? Their whole story has a lot of holes. I think Andrew is scary but I don’t think that makes Amira a saint. There are degrees of bad and when no one has a straight story then the truth is probably bad. So be it. Amira, go live a happy life!
The most irritating thing was the white men saying that people don't get detained in the airport without any explanation. YES THEY DO. (I have no idea if this is what happened or not in this case)
Oh god, right? They were also speaking as authorities on Mexican immigration. “Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don’t they?” The scarecrow was wise.
Post by yourmother on Apr 19, 2021 11:37:30 GMT -5
I watched Sister Wives last night and cannot believe the way Kody was pushing back on Ysabel's surgery. W.T.F. Those x-ray images of her spine are so crazy. The pain she must be in! The hurt in her eyes when they were done talking made me tear up. Wow.
I haven't followed this show in years, but can definitely see all the resentment in Christine's heart. Must be so tough to constantly compete with other women (or woman - Robyn) for your voice to be heard. After watching a few episodes lately, I now understand her position.
RHOA - What a boring final show.
90DF - Boring part 2 of the reunion. Also, not sure why everyone was ganging up on Amira.
I watched Sister Wives last night and cannot believe the way Kody was pushing back on Ysabel's surgery. W.T.F. Those x-ray images of her spine are so crazy. The pain she must be in! The hurt in her eyes when they were done talking made me tear up. Wow.
I haven't followed this show in years, but can definitely see all the resentment in Christine's heart. Must be so tough to constantly compete with other women (or woman - Robyn) for your voice to be heard. After watching a few episodes lately, I now understand her position.
RHOA - What a boring final show.
90DF - Boring part 2 of the reunion. Also, not sure why everyone was ganging up on Amira.
Christine was very pro flagstaff before. I do think some of this change of heart has to do with the law changing but also having two, I think, of her children living there. I am not discounting the rest, I think the family dynamic has been in trouble for a while now, but I don't think her reasons for wanting to move are solely her love for Utah.
I just think this show is showing how when the kids start leaving the nest, you can no longer ignore the issues between the adults. Janelle is angry at the separation, but is in no way putting any limits on sons, well son. The one working gets a bit of a pass. The one who sees his girlfriend, does not.
Kody can still go with Ysabel. He quarantines when he comes home. Why is that so hard?
Even if there are holes in the story, I am still team Amira. He said he learned from her parents that she was detained. He never tried going to the airport nor does he mention reaching out to her, I don't think. And then he is so flippant about Serbia. He is an asshole.
Post by notsopicky on Apr 19, 2021 11:53:38 GMT -5
I accidentally spoiled Hell's Kitchen for myself. I was reading wiki re: past winners and since this particular season was filmed so long ago, the winner is posted at the bottom of the season recap chart. I am SO MAD AT MYSELF.
SW Does anything ever happen on this show? Its the same shit for the last 10 years. NOTHING has changed, nothing. I don't usually watch but watched it after 90 day last night. It's literally the same thing every season.
Amira's whole story is shady. And she already has another American! Andrew is a total dick, but she is way over the top with "im scared, I cant be on TV with him, something doesn't =
Natalie's lipstick is god awful, she needs a new color! It looks like baby poop.
Why wasnt the Belize lady on the show? The older one?
SW Does anything ever happen on this show? Its the same shit for the last 10 years. NOTHING has changed, nothing. I don't usually watch but watched it after 90 day last night. It's literally the same thing every season.
Amira's whole story is shady. And she already has another American! Andrew is a total dick, but she is way over the top with "im scared, I cant be on TV with him, something doesn't =
Natalie's lipstick is god awful, she needs a new color! It looks like baby poop.
Why wasnt the Belize lady on the show? The older one?
I read somewhere that she is suing the show.
It's been almost a year since the filming, so I don't think her dating someone else in that time frame is shocking. Also, those texts he wrote her were really disgusting, and if constantly berated her, I would get why she wouldn't want to share a stage with him.
Vanity Fair covered Jen Shah's arrest and the franchise in general. Here's the link and also the text below.
On March 30, Real Housewife of Salt Lake City Jen Shah was arrested on two counts for allegedly running a national telemarketing scheme that targeted the elderly and computer-illiterate people. With her arrest, Shah became the newest addition to a specific echelon of Real Housewife: the one made up of those who’re fraught with legal woes.
For the women of Bravo’s flagship franchise, a level of duplicity and, well, messiness, is not only expected but encouraged. In a recent story for Vulture probing the racial reckoning currently occurring at Bravo, writer Anna Peele elucidates what the figurehead and face of the network, Andy Cohen, calls “the Bravo wink”—i.e. how producers signal to the audience that they know these women are “behaving terribly.” It’s “not an explicit rebuke,” she writes, “but editing that lets viewers know the producers understand that what’s happening is ridiculous.”
For the millions of us that deeply enjoy watching outrageous women acting on their worst impulses, the “Bravo wink” is a necessary part of the formula—a moral safety net that allows us to tell ourselves we’re still “good people” even as we gleefully tune in to watch women hurl insults and beverages at each other. But Shah’s recent arrest—and the specifics of the alleged crimes she’s been charged with—prompts an uncomfortable question: How bad should we feel, exactly, for being entertained by this woman? For supporting a franchise that, in its efforts to feed our unquenchable hunger for drama and high stakes, may be not only finding but actively creating monsters? Are we still “Bravo winking”—or are our eyes fully closed?
It’s always been a delicate balance—a tightrope walk of sorts—to calibrate the opposing reactions that the Housewives inspire: empathy and derision, delight and disgust. Bravo has attempted to change with the times, deciding in the past year that at least some kinds of bad behavior should no longer be tolerated from its stars: In 2020, the network fired several members of the Vanderpump Rules cast for racist infractions; earlier that year, Real Housewife of Dallas LeeAnne Locken stepped down from the show after coming under fire for racist remarks she made on the program in 2019.
Allegations of fraud, however, seem to be approached differently. Table-flipping Real Housewives of New Jersey O.G. Teresa Giudice, who pleaded guilty to multiple counts of fraud with her now ex-husband, Joe Giudice, in 2014, remains a star of said franchise, returning to the show after spending 11 months in prison. Shah, prosecutors argued, was involved at the “highest level” of the alleged telemarketing scheme, and could spend as many as 50 years behind bars if convicted on all charges. Yet her legal battle reportedly may play a role in season two of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. (Shah has pleaded not guilty to both charges.)
In an article for NBC News about Shah’s arrest, preeminent Housewives scholar Brian Moylan wonders why Bravo’s flagship franchise seems to be such a breeding ground for fraudsters. Does the show merely draw con artists, he asks—or “does its dedication to conspicuous consumption lead people to a life of crime so they can afford to stay on the show?”
There’s evidence to suggest Moylan’s question has merit. Erika Jayne, who filed for divorce from her husband of more than 20 years, lawyer Tom Girardi, not long before he was accused of misappropriating funds from families of the victims of the 2018 Lion Air Flight 610 plane crash to support their lavish lifestyle, is prominently featured in the trailer for the upcoming season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. (Girardi, 81, has been formally charged by the California State Bar for misappropriating millions in client funds, with the Lion Air case cited in the filing. In February, Girardi was placed in a temporary conservatorship due to what his family claimed was dementia and subsequently was moved to inactive status by the bar.) Also featured in the new Real Housewives of Beverly Hills trailer is Jayne’s castmate Dorit Kemsley, who often wore stunning, high-fashion outfits and raved about her $6.5 million Encino mansion, only to put the house up for sale less than a year after she and her husband, Paul “PK” Kemsley, settled two lawsuits filed against them for an undisclosed amount. One lawsuit alleged that PK owed creditor Nicos Kirzis approximately $1.2 million in loan repayment, while the other claimed the Kemsleys owed business partner Ryan Horne $205,000 for a loan used to start Dorit’s swimwear collection, Beverly Beach, which was featured on the show.
It’s impossible to answer definitively, of course. But Moylan maintains that being successful on this franchise requires a certain set of skills: “performativity, narcissism, a comfortability with risk, charisma, self-mythologizing, and often a little bit of aggression. Those are, I assume, some of the very same qualities it takes to lead a life of financial crimes.”
These alleged financial crimes and legal issues provide a salient reminder of what, exactly, we’re watching when we watch The Real Housewives of [Insert City Here]. It’s a franchise built upon the twin pillars of envy and excess, one that rests on the dichotomy that these women are somehow simultaneously better and worse than us. They live in a zip code we can’t live in. They wear clothes we can’t afford. They vacation in places many of us have never heard of, let alone visited. But they're also prone to hurling inanimate objects and leaking stories about one another to Radar Online. That’s why they’re on television, day drinking on a yacht in a Prada caftan and screaming about a perceived slight at a recent charity function, while we’re sitting on a secondhand couch wearing yesterday’s sweatpants and watching them.
Sure, the average viewer is intelligent enough to know there is a distinct difference between having material goods and being a good person. That knowledge alone is often enough to soften the blow of the material chasm between us and the Housewives. Yet those of us who have been tuning in to Housewives for the past 15-odd years have been conditioned to believe that these women are fundamentally different: They have. We have not.
So as Shah’s troubles with the law spill over into the real world, a fundamental pillar of the franchise has begun to crumble. What happens when the Housewives don’t actually have—or when they only do because they’ve broken rules to get to the top? In the epoch of the influencer, it’s sometimes easy to overlook the ways those at the top amass their wealth, power, and influence—and the people they may have hurt along the way. “There must be garish luxury juxtaposed with base behavior,” writes Peele of the central appeal of the Housewives. Yet when that base behavior is the means to that luxury, the whole exercise is rendered somewhat futile— a gorgeous snake eating its own Givenchy-clad tail.
The fraud allegedly committed by Real Housewives and the Housewives-adjacent may be “real” in the most basic definition of the word—as in, having actually occurred. But a proximity to “realness,” of course, is no longer the main thing that we look for in these shows. Almost two decades into the charade, we’re well aware of the artifice that belies “reality” television—the producers pulling the strings, the cast members angling for screen time any given season, the labor that goes into creating something that feels “authentic” but never can be. Most of the time we don’t care. We’re happy to be entertained, to escape into a fun-house-mirror version of real life that’s been distorted and manipulated for our viewing pleasure. But if our escapism comes at the cost of elderly people losing their life savings or widows and orphans getting robbed of their settlement payments, maybe it’s not worth it.
Perhaps Bravo is providing a vital service, revealing these women for who they really are by following them through their criminal trials, letting us into Oz to meet the wizard and unveiling the man behind the curtain at the same time. Yet while there’s definitely “Shah”-denfreude in that revelation, there’s also a certain amount of shame.
SW Does anything ever happen on this show? Its the same shit for the last 10 years. NOTHING has changed, nothing. I don't usually watch but watched it after 90 day last night. It's literally the same thing every season.
Amira's whole story is shady. And she already has another American! Andrew is a total dick, but she is way over the top with "im scared, I cant be on TV with him, something doesn't =
Natalie's lipstick is god awful, she needs a new color! It looks like baby poop.
Why wasnt the Belize lady on the show? The older one?
I read somewhere that she is suing the show.
It's been almost a year since the filming, so I don't think her dating someone else in that time frame is shocking. Also, those texts he wrote her were really disgusting, and if constantly berated her, I would get why she wouldn't want to share a stage with him.
yes and what she was saying was that she was afraid of him trying to gaslight her again. That anything she would say he would try to discredit or change. not fearing her life, but simply how the interaction would go for her and how she would feel afterwards. By his own words and behavior, I think those feelings are justified.
Also, how had I not been listening to the Watch What Crappens recaps of Top Chef? I listen for the Housewives shows I watch and died at the VPR recaps, but for some reason didn't listen to the Top Chef ones. The Top Chef recaps are amazing.
Post by freshsqueezed on Apr 20, 2021 10:49:29 GMT -5
Sister Wives - he actually asked Ysabella if she wants to have surgery alone? It’s getting to the point where not only does he care about Robyn but he also only cares about her children.
Teen Mom - between the cluelessness about Broncs and Amber thinking her daughters issues aren’t actually about Amber I may be getting to the point where I stop watching.
Sister Wives - he actually asked Ysabella if she wants to have surgery alone? It’s getting to the point where not only does he care about Robyn but he also only cares about her children.
Teen Mom - between the cluelessness about Broncs and Amber thinking her daughters issues aren’t actually about Amber I may be getting to the point where I stop watching.
I'm with you on both accounts. I cannot get over Amber thinking nothing is her fault. Apparently, she thinks her daughter is stupid.
Post by thelurkylulu on Apr 20, 2021 12:16:43 GMT -5
I love Yara and I’m really glad she’s going to be on Happily Ever After. I also enjoy watching Brandon and Julia. I think they’re both super immature and have a lot to learn. The sooner they leave the parents, the better. Her gym/plastic surgery comments were disappointing though.
Sister wives sucks and like PP said, it’s the same thing every season. Idk why TLC keeps renewing it.
I love Yara and I’m really glad she’s going to be on Happily Ever After. I also enjoy watching Brandon and Julia. I think they’re both super immature and have a lot to learn. The sooner they leave the parents, the better. Her gym/plastic surgery comments were disappointing though.
Sister wives sucks and like PP said, it’s the same thing every season. Idk why TLC keeps renewing it.
Probably because fools like me keep watching it LOL
Sister Wives - he actually asked Ysabella if she wants to have surgery alone? It’s getting to the point where not only does he care about Robyn but he also only cares about her children.
Teen Mom - between the cluelessness about Broncs and Amber thinking her daughters issues aren’t actually about Amber I may be getting to the point where I stop watching.
I'm with you on both accounts. I cannot get over Amber thinking nothing is her fault. Apparently, she thinks her daughter is stupid.
She told that therapist it’s not even about her. Now come on. Even her brother told her this is very much about her. Kick her off and replace with Kristina.
Also, how had I not been listening to the Watch What Crappens recaps of Top Chef? I listen for the Housewives shows I watch and died at the VPR recaps, but for some reason didn't listen to the Top Chef ones. The Top Chef recaps are amazing.
I absolutely love watch what crappens. I speak to myself in my head in their Ramona voice so often. It cracks me up.
Post by 1confused1 on Apr 20, 2021 13:57:36 GMT -5
RHNJ: I felt so bad for Jennifer's daughter witnessing her grandparents argue. I clearly remember when my grandparents divorced after 48 years of marriage and it was devastating for me as a child.
RHNJ: I felt so bad for Jennifer's daughter witnessing her grandparents argue. I clearly remember when my grandparents divorced after 48 years of marriage and it was devastating for me as a child.
I felt for her and it was heartbreaking to watch.
I don't love Jennifer but her storyline is very real.
I love Yara and I’m really glad she’s going to be on Happily Ever After. I also enjoy watching Brandon and Julia. I think they’re both super immature and have a lot to learn. The sooner they leave the parents, the better. Her gym/plastic surgery comments were disappointing though.
Sister wives sucks and like PP said, it’s the same thing every season. Idk why TLC keeps renewing it.
It’s easy to be judge mental about plastic surgery when you’re 23. But I guarantee when Julia gets stretch marks from pregnancy or a double chin from old age, she’ll be the first to hop on the plastic surgery train.
For the Peloton people in here, are you guys taking Cody's Drag Race ride tonight and/or Matty's run tomorrow? I am so excited for both of these!
Watch what crappens has peloton rides. I’m waiting for my bike and can’t wait to join
I heard! I was going to try to do the ride this past weekend but the timing didn't work. I added the hashtag to my profile so I'm hoping to catch some folks on the leaderboard in the interim.