Photo: Bravo
I know I might be in the minority, but I really liked the first season of the RHONY reboot. Still, I knew that the show would really start poppin’ in season two. The women will have seen themselves on television, they’ll start to make adjustments, and then, like every other franchise, they’ll have show things to fight about. That has all come true, and the way that the women are presenting themselves in this episode seems like it might spell out what to expect from the rest of the season.
Based on the episode’s opening moments, which were filmed five days after filming wrapped at the shoot for the opening credits, there is about to be a huge rift between Brynn and Ubah, which isn’t even hinted at during the premiere. But based on the reactions we get from Erin, Jessel, Sai, and Jenna, it seems like they don’t even know which side to take, like there is about to be some mutually assured destruction between the two in the final days of filming. I can’t freakin’ wait.
The episode starts out going around the horn and catching up with all of the women. Brynn said, “Oh, you all complained you didn’t see my apartment last season; well, this season is going to open on my brand-new pad in Gramercy Park.” It’s pretty cute and has the chicest thing that any Manhattan apartment can have: an elevator that opens directly into the apartment. I would cut off my (husband’s) pinkie toe for an elevator that opens right into the apartment. Yeah, Brynn is trying to show off her life this time around, and it’s working.
Jessel seems to be doing just like she did last season. I was worried she would lean into the “terrible twos,” as I like to call them, and start playing into what fans responded to last time, branding everything up-and-coming and trying to make reality moments. Instead, she’s taking a subway ride with her husband, Pavit, to go to some nasty-looking Chinese joint that probably has the best bao buns outside of Shanghai. Jessel says she’s spending $900 a month on Ubers and never taking the subway. How does this lady get anywhere? Do you know how long an Uber in Manhattan takes? It’s not even the waste of money that galls me, but the waste of time. I’m sorry, but the subway is always the easiest way to get somewhere, and pretending like you’re above it is about as cute as Pavit saying he doesn’t want the next Beyoncé; he wants the next Elon Musk. That man better be joking, or I swear I will go to Vietnam and back to beat his ass.
Jenna goes through all of the shoes in her closet and tries to decide what to get rid of. She’s with Nancy, her girlfriend’s mother, who she has just met for the first time. Okay, I’m a little bit confused here. Jenna Lyons said very publicly that we won’t see her girlfriend on the show, but here she is showing her mother-in-law the first time she ever met her? What exactly are the rules here, what are the boundaries? I don’t seem to get it, and I don’t think that Jenna does either.
In the scene we also meet Racquel, the newest Housewife, who is an art advisor, model, and all-around cool lady. Much like Jenna, she also divorced her husband and started dating women. What I love about Racquel is that she is not just queer she is a lesssssssssssssbian with 13 S-es. We’ve had lesbians on Housewives before, but it was Jenna, Braunwyn on RHOC, and Julia on RHOM. These are pretty, femme lesbians who wear gowns and get into glam. Racquel is in braids, wearing leather, and on the back of a motorcycle with her even butcher girlfriend. It’s like the previous lesbians were just warming America up for something a little bit more left-field, and I couldn’t be happier about that. Judging the rest of Racquel will have to wait a few episodes due to the Eileen Davidson Accord, but I’m glad our lesbians are trending even more lesbianic.
The other newbie is Rebecca Minkoff, who is only a friend of, so we can judge her immediately. I reflexively hate her for a number of reasons, but mostly because she’s introduced to the crew by Erin who, of course, calls her “Becky Minkoff.” It’s giving Kelly Killoren Bensimon on Scary Island. “You know my friend Gwyneth … Paltrow.”
I’m so excited to talk shit about Erin, a woman so basic that she will never be pH-balanced. I find my hatred of her so energizing, like I just took three Viagras and snorted an Adderall, that’s how aroused I am to explore my loathing. It really came out in her scene at Serendipity with her husband, Abe. She’s telling him about a townhouse she might buy for their family with a mural of cherubs on the ceiling. He responds, “We can take some mushrooms and stare at it for hours.”
She says, “Stop. You can’t say that. Why did you go there? You shouldn’t joke about drugs. What are you? Dumb?” I love that the editors treated us to a flashback from last season when Erin talked about mushrooms to show that she did it, too. However, what Erin is trying to say in this scene, which she makes clear in her confessional, is that she doesn’t want him to say it on camera. This is the correction that Erin has made. She watched every shitty thing she did last season and her one takeaway is that her husband should censor himself from talking about drugs.
This annoys me for many reasons. First of all, it was a joke, and we all know it was. A stupid joke, yes, but a joke. Also, if Erin and her husband did mushrooms it would be the coolest thing about them. Why not let us think you do mushrooms, Erin? That’s the one thing that might make me want to hang out with you. But the real reason I hate it is because Erin is instructing her husband to be fake on camera. She’s making plain the fact that we are not getting the real Erin or the real Abe, but the versions of themselves she thinks are fit for public consumption. That is the opposite of what the show should be. The only thing that works on Housewives is authenticity.
To make it even worse, Abe says in his confessional that Erin isn’t really mad about the mushroom joke, she’s mad about other issues that have going on at home. Then in her confessional she says, “I’m not going there. I don’t know that I’m ready to talk about all this stuff between Abe and I.” Okay, first she espouses being fake on camera (just like her buddy Becky Minkoff did) and now she’s actively trying not to talk about her personal life? Okay, if that’s the case, then Erin needs to give back her check and apple. This is what the show is about: being yourself and sharing your life. Erin seems to think she doesn’t have to, that she’s too good for it. God, I hate this woman so much. I also couldn’t be happier to have her back.
Of course, when all the women get together at Brynn’s big cocktail party to kick off the season, Erin is at the center of the drama. She’s mad that Brynn has been telling the rest of the women that she called Jenna “poor.” The way we hear it is that Erin and Jenna went out to lunch in the Hamptons, and Jenna’s vintage Mercedes broke down. (If you want to ride in her Mercedes, boy, tough luck cause that shit is busted.) Erin got her an Uber, but Jenna never paid her back. Erin told this story to Brynn and Jessel, and then Brynn went and told Jenna that Erin had said she was “poor” or “having money troubles.” Erin says she “100 percent” did not say it and Brynn says she totally did.
What I think happened is that Erin told them the story and was like, “And she didn’t even pay me back. What is she? Poor?” Erin meant it as a joke, but the problem is Erin is about as funny as pancreatic cancer. Erin is as funny as rising sea levels. Erin is as funny as a fart in yoga class. Wait, I take it back. Farts in yoga are hilarious. It did not come off as a joke. (As we established earlier, Erin is not a suitable judge for what is funny.) But I also think that Brynn took it and intentionally twisted it. She knew it was a (terrible) joke, but she wanted to create strife between Erin and Jenna, so she purposefully misconstrued it. So, yes, Erin did say it, but not in the spirit that Brynn recounted it.
This seems to be an emerging pattern with Brynn. Erin recounts the cheese incident that started off last season. We also see her pull up a text from Sai calling Jessel’s husband, Dory from Finding Nemo. (That’s mean, but, honestly, I see it.) Even though Sai and Jessel are good now and even going for cold plunges together, Brynn is deploying an old text to get Sai and Jessel fighting. But the real way that she did Sai dirty was telling Jenna that Sai hated her.
Again, this is a true thing that is taken out of context. Sai was telling people, including Erin, that she couldn’t stand Jenna last season. Even though she was over it once filming stopped, Brynn had to bring it back around to make sure that everyone in the group loves her the most. Sai and (ugh) Erin are right, Brynn wants to be the favorite, so she pits everyone against each other. This might work in a normal group of friends, but when you see all sides on this show it’s almost impossible to pull off.
The difference between Erin and the all-new Sai, who is now going to therapy, is that Erin takes Brynn’s bait, and Sai doesn’t. At the party, Sai sidles up to Jenna and admits her part in it. She says that, yes, she didn’t initially like Jenna because she didn’t feel like she was being authentic and, yes, she told a lot of people that. Sai admits she judged Jenna and was wrong. “At the end of the day you’re cool,” Sai tells her, “and I just want to say I’m sorry.” Sai owns it, she apologizes, and she means it. Erin is so worried about being right and moral that she can’t admit to her part in the misunderstanding, and that is why it leads to a much bigger fight.
Jenna apparently told Erin about the conversation she had with Brynn and Jessel in the furniture store about Erin calling Jenna poor. Erin then texts Jessel and says, “So disappointed.” When Jessel tries to just have a light conversation with Erin, she says Jessel is being mean to her. Sister, maybe ask Jessel what went down before just assuming things and accusing her. Though Jessel didn’t entirely shut the story down, she did say she thought Erin was trying to make a joke, which is like having her back. Chill out, Erin.
But now, sadly, I have to defend Erin against Brynn. Apparently, Brynn is mad because she says that Erin agreed with Jeff Lewis on his radio show when he asked questions about Brynn and where she gets her money. Jeff insinuates that someone is “helping support her,” meaning a man of some sort. Erin firmly denies it. Jeff continues speculating, but Erin did her part and said that Brynn wasn’t getting money from a man. Brynn twists this story to say that Erin agreed that she is a “call girl” or “fucks men for money,” but no one ever said that. There was a sugar baby insinuation, but that was as bad as it got.
The women are all together fighting about this and their husbands are at the other end of the bar fighting about who can hold their breath the longest. This is why there will never be a Real Househusbands show.
When Sai tells Brynn she’s wrong and that Jeff never said what she says he did and that Erin didn’t back it, that is when Brynn goes for Sai with the thing about Pavit. Sai freaks out, and Bianca Del Rio’s out, saying, “Not today, Satan.” Brynn is very upset at that, saying she did nothing wrong, she doesn’t wreak havoc on the group like Sai accused her off. “I just laugh and giggle all day,” Brynn says. That’s her ultimate defense, that’s why she’s all smiles and unicorns all the time. She stirs the shit, starts drama with everyone, and then just giggles like Marily Monroe doing Whip-Its as if there’s no way she could ever be malicious. But that’s the problem with a second season. While many of the women have changed, some have stayed the same, and we’re starting to figure out just what the hell is wrong with them.
