Many moons ago, NBC Universal tried and failed to make a show based in Washington, D.C., courtesy of the infamous Salahis and their willingness to flout national-security protocol to chase celebrity. A few years later, the network tried to start again in the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area, choosing the established upper-class African American social groups in Montgomery County, home of Jack and Jill of America chapters, cotillion classes, and debutante balls galore. Originally called Potomac Ensemble, NBC got to work casting, but no one with real money and influence wanted to be involved. Then Charrisse Jackson Jordan, former NBA Wives Association vice-president and then the wife of NBA player and coach Eddie Jordan, gamely stepped up and reached out to her network of board members and charity participants in the greater Maryland and Washington area to help Bravo put together a cast that would make good television.
This has always been the story behind how Real Housewives of Potomac came to be. Charrisse was the original center, like Mariah on Married to Medicine, helping to select cast members and identifying the rhythms of the community. Different from Mariah, however: She never secured producer credit, nor did she ever make for good television. Charrisse never wanted to detail her personal life, knowing Eddie wasn’t a big fan of the show. Her marriage fell apart, and she didn’t want to play out the particulars on-camera. As a result, she was effectively written off the show without much of a fight from her end.
In her absence, Karen has been elevated to “grande dame†status, an honorific that means absolutely nothing yet still manages to irk Robyn, Gizelle, and Ashley to no end. They seem to feel it needs to be associated with something tangible, but here’s the thing: Reality TV is all about creating the facsimile of a real-life dynamic. Everyone knows this is a fantasy. Hammering in that this is a delusion of Karen’s own making doesn’t do much when part of the reason Karen has been able to lock in the “Auntie Karen†niche is that the rest of the cast has gone so far to emphasize that she is the elder of the group (despite many of them being in the same generation). You cannot have it both ways — you can’t insist that Charrisse is a good friend to Karen but then turn around and claim they were relative strangers. If that is the case, why wouldn’t Karen feel justified thinking Charrisse showing up at the funeral is just for show?
The problem, however, is that Karen is checked out of this season. The pile-on is silly, and Charrisse generally looks pathetic insisting that Karen hates her for no reason while Gizelle and Robyn back her up with the allegation that they are assassinating a friend of’s character. Let’s not forget that Charrisse once tossed out that Karen was in rehab and was sleeping with married men without so much as a rebuke from the group. But it is everyone else who has to make the rebuttal arguments for Karen because she is uninterested in engaging in a back-and-forth. It is not unreasonable to claim Charrisse attacked people’s families when Monique had the same allegation about her spreading unfounded rumors about Chris. As Candiace points out, it is completely absurd for the collective to act as if Charisse were uniquely entitled to an apology when the group didn’t take a stand between Mia and Wendy; their grievances are very unbecoming. Of all the people to hammer Karen on deflecting — which Karen certainly does — Robyn is not the one to hold that card.
All in all, it is a shameless attempt to put Charrisse in her place. Not because Karen put up a good fight but largely because of how shameless they are in their execution. Just one measly clip from the season where Potomac was still obsessed with etiquette as evidence of Charrisse’s character? Production had to have been going through film for days to find something to offer up in her favor, and it is pathetically ridiculous.
In comparison, the other two conflicts of the episode go over swimmingly. Ashley and Candiace come to yet another uneasy détente: Ashley knows when it’s time to apologize and move a story forward, so it’s tough for things to stick to her. She acknowledges that bringing Deborah to Karen’s event was poor form and that she harbored resentment toward Candiace, which facilitated her handling things in pettier ways than she should have. Candiace, to her credit, gives her grace and says she needs to learn how to heal from her toxic partnerships and not expect the same behavior and demands from others. It is about as healthy an exchange as you can expect from the duo for the time being, but I don’t think we can expect the two to be friends anytime soon.
On the other hand, Mia and Wendy remain at odds. Mia continues to live in a land of delusion that she wasn’t in the wrong in their Miami debacle. Wendy proceeds to disabuse her of that conviction, clarifying what assault and defamation of character mean. I find it fascinating that Mia claims offense that Wendy was talking about her and G having sex when all Gizelle does is keep a flashlight up the pocketbook between her legs and report back to the audience whenever she has a chance, but I digress. There’s a lot of back-and-forth as to whether tossing drinks is assault (it is), and the semantics around group sex and implied homoerotic behavior and suggested homophobia start to veer into the absurd. Mia claims defamation because Wendy claimed G is homosexual; Wendy points out she didn’t; Mia says that, if he is, what is the problem … so then what is the problem? Gizelle and Robyn, of course, are silent about their blatant hypocrisy over the behavior because they don’t want to admit they were flat-out wrong in the situation. But Wendy pries the apology out of Mia’s reluctant hands sometime after acknowledging that there was some drama with Peter’s girlfriend, and they all move on with their night.
Next week, Robyn and Karen declare war on each other by bringing out old-school gossip. Now this will certainly get interesting.
Cherry Blossoms
• I have nothing to offer this Mia-Jacqueline fallout. Jacqueline is finally getting deprogrammed, and I hope it sticks and manifests into something interesting. Otherwise, this weird, quasi-sapphic, passive-aggressive tension we see playing out is uninteresting. I need them both in therapy yesterday.
• I could care even less about Robyn and this wedding. My only real comment is that she claims the family is going to do the wedding in Jamaica while in town for a family wedding but keep it a secret so that they don’t take attention away. Do they think her parents won’t be upset if they’re there and don’t know they could stay back and enjoy their wedding? Or is it just Juan’s side of the family that will be in attendance? They give me a headache, and those two are way too miserable for me to care.
• Ashley might be a devil bride, but I do appreciate that she is committed to having fun on vacation and getting her little Dora the Explorer on. The Kundalini yoga was ridiculous (and a little bit culturally insensitive). Still, there always needs to be one person in the group who is down for the adventure rather than constantly doing glam shots and Instagram moments. I respect that she was willing to dive straight into the cenote, mosquitoes and all, and appreciate the experience they were in. That’s what you’re there for! The glam resort will be waiting for you when you return to the hotel.