It's Good to Be A Reality TV Fan Right Now
On Kim vs. Kourtney, Nene & Bethenny and the "RHOC" finale
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Reality TV fans are eating well right now: Between the messy new season of “Love Is Blind” (I’ll write something about that for next week’s newsletter, once we’re deeper into the journey), “Big Brother” and “Survivor” being on at the same time, “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” having its best season yet, “Real Housewives of Orange County” closing out its best season in years, having multiple reality mashup shows like “The Challenge: USA” and “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test” on… there’s no shortage of entertainment for us right now.
There’s also the season premiere of “The Kardashians,” which continued to lean into the Kim and Kourtney feud that resulted in such good TV last season (“the dolce vita lifestyle” 4eva). The episode, which premiered on Thursday, opened with a scathing two-minute phone call between the two oldest sisters that instantly went viral. During the call, Kim and Kourtney say some of the meaning things they’ve ever said to one another on camera, with Kourtney calling Kim a “witch” and Kim telling Kourtney all of her friends have a group chat without her called “Not Kourtney” and that her kids have come to her with concerns about her. It’s the kind of scene where you think, “I can’t believe they’re letting us see this.” I’m sure some people react to it and think that it’s totally fake and staged, but those people have no idea what they’re talking about. In my mind, the tension between Kim and Kourtney is natural and makes sense, so much so that it became unavoidable for the show. I’m guessing there’s much more to it that we’re actually not seeing.
While they both make valid points about the other, ultimately I think that Kourtney is projecting a lot of her insecurities onto Kim and am pretty firmly on Kim’s side of this argument. She can be cold and cut to the bone with her words, but all in all she’s a fairly rational person. Interspersed in the episode are dual Kim/Kourtney confessionals, which tell us that they’ve gotten past a lot of this — and good! You don’t want to see two sisters fighting to the point where it tears their family apart, but that doesn’t make it any less enthralling and intriguing to watch them go back and forth with one another. I’ll be thinking about this phone call for a long time.
Read
A thought-provoking long read on “Real Housewives” and the evolution of the expectations and career trajectories that Housewives have gone through over the years. (Jennifer Wilson for The New Yorker)
The creator of “Love Is Blind” responded to a former contestant’s allegations about the brutal conditions on the show for the first time, and he had a solid response to pretty much every claim. (Emily Longeretta for Variety)
The 45th season (!!!) of “Survivor” premiered this week, and I found this corresponding profile of host/showrunner/executive-producer Jeff Probst to be a nice companion read. (Matthew Roberson for GQ)
This isn’t pop culture-related, but I found this feature about what it’s like being 13 this day in age to be fascinating and super well-done. It really made me appreciate that I came of age when I did. (Jessica Bennett for the New York Times)
Did Instagram ruin personal style? This writer makes a good case for it. (Chris Black for GQ)
Listen
NeNe Leakes on “Just B with Bethenny Frankel”
This morning we all woke up to the surprise that Bethenny had recorded a nearly three-hour interview with fellow former OG Real Housewife, NeNe Leakes. If you were going to pick two women who impacted “Real Housewives” the most, more likely than not you’d pick these two. So, kind of objectively — without taking into consideration everything else going on — this conversation would feel compelling. It’s not that simple, as we know. The added context here is that both women have been openly critical about the franchise, the network, Andy Cohen and more, albeit for different reasons. In NeNe’s case, she’s not just been critical but she’s also sued the above parties.
I listened to both parts of their interview this morning. I actually found part one, which focuses mostly on NeNe’s life and what led her to “Housewives” to be super informative and provided for some much appreciated backstory from NeNe herself. Part two of the interview is where the women really get into it: Bethenny’s so-called “reality reckoning,” where things went sour for NeNe and her subsequent lawsuit against Bravo, both of them criticizing Andy specifically, NeNe comparing her experience as a Black OG Housewife to that of other long-standing white OG Housewives and more. Parts of the conversation were genuinely illuminating and made you think deeply about the entire “Housewives” apparatus and its evolution over time, but my issue with some of their chat is that there’s a good amount of revisionist history happening here, as well. Not only that, but Bethenny also talked over NeNe quite a lot throughout their conversation and tried a little too hard to relate their experiences, to the point where it felt at times as though she was (unintentionally, but still) discounting NeNe’s specific experience in order to push forward the narrative she’s building to bolster her “reckoning.”
Ultimately, it’s definitely a worthwhile listen if you can still stomach Bethenny, but you have to keep in mind some of the facts that neither of them addressed in order for their truths to come across more strongly. NeNe did the same thing in her interview with Carlos King, and Bethenny did the same thing in her interview with Rachel Leviss.
Watch
Cardi B on “Hot Ones”
This is essential viewing. Not only is it the perfect environment to showcase Cardi’s infectious personality, but it also resulted in some unique soundbites as a result of host Sean Evans’ great questions. Between her calling one of the hot sauces a “scammer” for hitting her with some delayed heat, joking about rapping about “peaches and plums” on the clean versions of her songs, saying one of the hot sauces “looks like poison from Spongebob” or her getting almost emotional talking about her love of FDR, it’s hard to pick a favorite moment from this one.
“What Not to Wear” Hosts Reunite After 10-Year Feud (TODAY Show)
I don’t think I realized the extent of Stacy London and Clinton Kelly’s feud, but as someone who grew up watching OG TLC (I’m talking about the holy trinity of “Trading Spaces,” “While You Were Out” and “What Not to Wear), seeing this video pop up on my timeline this week resulted in an immediate click.
“Never Let Him Go” (Hulu)
I’m halfway through this four-part docu-series that follows a man whose brother was found dead at the bottom of a cliff in Australia over 30 years ago. While it was ruled a suicide at the time, details that surfaced later changed everything.
Bravo, Bravo, Fucking Bravo
“The Real Housewives of Potomac” Season 8 Trailer
The trailer for the next season of “RHOP” dropped this week and truly thank god these women are coming back to our screens in a month (season 8 premieres on Nov. 5, the final day of BravoCon). I saw mixed reactions to the trailer, which I found to be a total breath of fresh. Last season got a little dark, so I thought it was nice to see humor dominate much of this trailer! There’s still drama to be had, obviously — looks like Ashley vs. Candiace will continue, Karen and Mia have a moment of tension, the new ‘Wife Nneka comes for Wendy (and her mom?) and Gizelle seemingly takes Robyn to task a bit over the Juan of it all. At the end of the day, though, I love laughing with these women, and it looks like we’re going to be getting a lot of that this season. The photo shoot for this season was also absolutely GIVING — the solo shots were all stunning, and the cast photo is one of the best we’ve ever gotten.
“The Real Housewives of Orange County” Finale
The season finale of “RHOC” — or should I say, “The Real Housewives of Ganging Up on Heather Dubrow” — aired this week, and it was a very telling cap to this season. Even after Heather vindicated herself by playing audio from Tamra’s podcast with T*ddi where she admitted to being the one to call the cast “losers,” Gina’s circus party was just that — a circus. It was actually almost hilarious watching the women one-by-one confront Heather over their own personal gripes with her, which she always had an answer for. While I think that Shannon and Gina have somewhat valid points to make, the others just seemed to want to have a problem with Heather. It read like a group effort to try to end the season on a takedown, and it didn’t work. Very curious to see how this reunion goes. We all know that trailer didn’t give us any clues!
Self-Promotion
Guest Appearance on “So Bad It’s Good with Ryan Bailey”
My friend Ryan Bailey’s podcast “So Bad It’s Good” recently joined the Betches family, and he welcomed me on this week to talk about all things Bravo, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Bethenny Frankel, reality TV fandom and more. Listen to it here!
“We Should Talk” feat. Drew Afualo
This week on “We Should Talk” was an interview with TikTok creator and host of Spotify’s “The Comment Section” podcast, Drew Afualo. Watch it above or listen to it below!
Currently
Will it ever stop raining in New York? At least it’s giving me an excuse to stay inside and watch the new episodes of “Love Is Blind” and finally dig into the last season of “Sex Education,” which dropped last weekend.