The Week in 'Wives: A RHOBH mass text and RHONY microaggression
Last week was a tense one in the Bravoverse, but that doesn't mean the Housewives went easy in the follow-up. First, The Real Housewives of New York City had to deal with the fallout from Luann calling Eboni "angry," which meant scenes of Eboni telling Leah, who screamed, intercut with Luann pacing furiously around her dining room while her daughter, niece, and the nude model Kurt looked on. Next up, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills finished off their Tahoe trip with a boat ride and a night in their Airbnb game room - which is where they should have spent their whole Tahoe trip if you ask me - before heading back to home sweet L.A. County, where the real drama hit. Here are the best, worst, and wildest moments from this week in 'wives!
HIGH POINT: Women of high worth, RHONY
Before this season aired, Eboni told EW that she "spiritually connected" with Sonja over the course of filming, and this week's episode began to show how the two women, different though they are, truly see each other. Throughout the "angry" fiasco and its aftermath, Sonja was the only one of the longtime 'wives who seemed to grasp the moment. "The burden's on us; we're white privileged ladies," she said in her confessional. "Nobody's turning the page and moving forward. We have to read the page! Feel the pain, be a little bit awkward, and then we can turn some more pages." After Eboni explains to the group why "angry" was so offensive, she and Sonja share a moment wherein Ms. Morgan tipsily echoes what she more elegantly said in her confessional. But Eboni has a message for her new friend, too. "Sonja has allowed her group of friends to classify her as a less-than-valuable woman," she observes in her confessional. So she tells Sonja to her face: "You are high-worth, no matter what anybody f---ing tells you." Someone cue the fog machine, because I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
LOW POINT: Not very nice, RHOBH
Sutton and Crystal seemed to tentatively clear up their conflict around episode's end, but as a whole it was uglier than ever this week. The worst moment had to be on the boat, when Sutton once again lectured Crystal like a disappointed babysitter, telling her that yet another harmless thing Crystal did "wasn't very nice." I tend to think character is more important than manners, so I really don't care about whether Crystal's specific behavior was perfectly nice, because Sutton has been entirely in the wrong throughout this whole argument and seemed to be trying to gain some ground by policing Crystal's methods of engagement rather than directly addressing the actual issues. (Though I must say, words do matter, so it's worth noting that Crystal's overreliance on the word "crazy" in this conversation was frustrating, flustered though she clearly was.) On the whole, I would say the whole moment was not the nicest.
John Tsiavis/Bravo
WILDEST MOMENT: Very articulate, RHONY
You truly could never write the breathtaking irony that we sometimes witness on The Real Housewives. Throughout the conflict over Luann calling Eboni "angry," Heather positioned herself as a woke mediator, which was basically fine when she was telling Luann to apologize but got cringey when she informed Eboni and Leah that she knows Black America. She served the actual wildest moment of the night, however, when she stopped upstairs to say goodnight after the evening of heavy but productive conversation. "You're very articulate, I don't know if anyone ever told you that," she told Eboni. Leah's eyes nearly popped out of her head and reader, so did mine. It's true that Eboni is highly intelligent and that she showed great poise under pressure when explaining the weight of the word "angry" to the group (probably in part because, as she pointed out, she has spent her life learning poise so as to never be "angry"). But for Heather to acknowledge it by dropping yet another loaded adjective came across like the ending of a provocative short story. "Thank you," Eboni replied, not missing a beat. "I heard it a couple times."
?? QUEEN OF THE WEEK ?? Eboni, RHONY
Bravo
TODAY'S HOROSCOPE: "I'm a Sagittarius, I always catch a fish" - Sonja, RHONY
ASKING THE TOUGH QUESTIONS: Garcelle, casually prompting the horrified RHOBH ladies to share who in the room had gotten their nose done. (Neither Kyle nor our friends the Bravo editors seem to believe Dorit's claim that her current nose is the original.)
BEST FORESHADOWING: RHOBH leading up to Erika's end-of-episode shocker. First on the boat, she tells Garcelle about how Tom is devoted to his career; later in the house, when Garcelle responds to a compliment by saying it's "smoke and mirrors," Erika ominously replies, "The whole f---ing life is smoke and mirrors."
FIND ME A FIND, CATCH ME A CATCH: I am ready for Eboni's matchmaker friend Devyn to find a man worthy of our beloved Sonja! I hope Eboni remembered to flag with her that Sonja likes a dad bod. (RHONY)
AND NOW, THE MASS TEXT WE'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR: "Ladies, I truly consider you my close friends and this is why I'm reaching out to tell you that I filed for divorce this morning. Thank you for supporting me. This will be tough." - Erika, RHOBH
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