Last week, I ended my recap by laying out how irresponsible I thought Potomac was getting this season by lumping together discussions of all forms of sexual indiscretion with equal severity. As time progresses — both in the episodes and in real life — I only become more convinced of this fact. Listen, I fully understand that there need to be central conflicts to drive the story forward. But at what point does everyone involved in a production look around and wonder if things have gone too far?
Ashley couldn’t even pretend to offer Wendy a sensible reason as to why she launched her event into chaos, other than “I am Gizelle’s minion and so I felt like it.†We now have Candiace lobbing homophobic jabs as a retaliatory insult to Ashley’s implication that Chris may be cheating, or leering with the intent of cheating (which, again, I don’t feel like we should all start suddenly pretending these husbands are above doing just because Gizelle has taken this conversation to a dark place). In the long-awaited standoff between Gizelle and Candiace, the Lady Bryant resumes her little Mike Pence act about being in rooms with married men, with a dash of convenient amnesia. (“If he said that then he knew this was inappropriate.â€) The conversation quickly devolves from Candiace fairly pointing out that Gizelle is going out of her way to humiliate her to hysterically claiming that she is the reason why people cannot come forward with sexual-assault allegations.
It is also completely preposterous for Gizelle to rebut this in a confessional by calling herself an “advocate†while continuing to reiterate slightly varying versions of the story around her issue with Chris. Is it advocacy when almost none of the cast — except for Candiace, who was surprisingly dismissive — seems to have acknowledged the gravity of the complaints lobbied by one of Juan Dixon’s former players at Coppin State, who is alleging sexual assault, blackmail, and extortion by Dixon’s assistant coach, with minimal support from Juan? In short, this winery trip was one big embarrassment, and I have no idea why Wendy let Ashley instigate behind her back in her car instead of forcing her to swap with Candiace, but apparently the winery is where sense goes out the window for that gaggle of women.
Ashley is finally hipping to the fact that she is not going to get a sympathetic arc out of being loyal to her ex-husband, and so she sets up a scene to see a lawyer to say on camera what she full well knows already: that she needs to get a forensic accountant and not trust the random paperwork that Michael draws up and tells her to sign. Ashley is not nearly as dim as she is pretending when it comes to the finances; this is the same woman who made sure to get Michael to agree to drafting a post-nup and renegotiated marriage terms on camera. I am certain that while she is trying to stall on spending legal fees out of her own pocket, she is intentionally sending a signal to Mr. Darby that she will pull that trigger if needed; her talents for strategic mess are not exclusive to causing chaos amongst her co-workers. This episode is also not the first time she heard allegations of Darby with men, if not that specific escort by name.
Mia is coordinating the trip to Miami, which we already know is going to end in disaster from the previews of Mia throwing a drink in Wendy’s face. Getting a little more insight into Mia and Jacqueline’s relationship history — Jacqueline’s mom fostered her and the two went together to see Mia’s father in the hospital when he passed in prison — it truly is tragic that whatever happened in the last year led to them not being on speaking terms at all now. That said, it’s hard to sustain a soft spot for Mia when she is about as consistent as my workout schedule. Despite all her alleged opulence, she is going to intentionally create a mismatched bedroom situation. Mia doesn’t like Wendy, which is fine, but her seeming need to legitimize that lands flat to me. Wendy is just a bit corny and that’s okay; she’s not uniquely more condescending than Mia, who lords her class status over everyone and is constantly scoffing over mediocre accommodations or wardrobe.
I find most of the criticisms of Wendy to fall flat, both within the cast and among viewers; she is not any more or less all over the place than Robyn, who went from flipping houses to selling hats and podcasts, or Gizelle, who was writing books and selling perfumes and hiding her personal life from the public so that she could play holy roller. Ashley is out here doing TikToks in an airport lounge so that she doesn’t hop back on top of that sentient cadaver she calls a spouse; Karen is doing tourism videos and promoting peanuts at the same time she is pushing candles and perfumes. Someone can just not click for people, you don’t have to have a reason for it; but you’re not going to pretend that Charrisse is a ham of a time all because you can’t stand Wendy. Not in my America.
Speaking of all over the place, now that Chris is taking his grievances against Gizelle and Ashley to social media and Candiace has decided not to discourage his reactions, Robyn has concluded that she privately agrees with her bestie that the Bassetts are going too far, and has disclosed as much on a shopping outing with Ashley and Gizelle. Gizelle has now decided that she came to Candiace in peace at the winery and that Candiace is exaggerating the situation to her husband, which is a unbalanced representation of the actual sequence of events — but facts have clearly become irrelevant, since we are also pretending that Gizelle and Robyn know how to dress themselves for a girls’ trip.
To Mia’s credit, she is taking the women to someplace beyond the Maryland and Virginia area, because I had feared that they were just going to push into Delaware and rent out a house on Rehoboth this year, and I would have had to march to 30 Rock myself and demand answers. (Well, I would have just taken the train.) Karen is peeved that she was conned into coming on this all-cast trip that is not exclusively a celebration of her 59th birthday (are we sure about that number?), although Mia only promised her that she would be taken care of, which really just means a nice birthday dinner. Charisse is peeved that she got stuck with a bedroom with no private bathroom, but that’s just what she gets for trying to play coy about the room accommodations, knowing that some people would be shafted. Ashley is still smarting from having her own personal business aired out by Candiace, and so she decides to retaliate by playing an unbelievably childish prank over room assignments that I am sure will end terribly for her. Robyn and Gizelle can’t complain about the size of their joint room, and so instead they respectively complain about (1) the location, which is further north on the harbor and not on South Beach directly, and (2) that they only have one toilet. In which case, do like Charrisse and secure your own hotel accommodations, but we both know that Bravo won’t offer them money for that.
Next week, the women all go to dinner and Peter Thomas is involved, and Mia both throws a drink at Wendy and hits her with a purse — yet somehow, I don’t think we’re going to end up spending the rest of the season talking about how she’s a danger, thug, and unsafe to the group. I truly wonder how long viewers want to pretend that colorism is not a major factor in the show’s dynamics. Until then.
Cherry Blossoms:
• Karen’s new confessional look is like if Tina Turner got run through a deep fryer. Bless her heart with all that bronzing and bleaching; the least the producers could have done is pull her wig a little forward, though.
• Mia making fun of Charrisse’s faux pretentiousness made me piss myself laughing, because they are truly the same kind of tacky in different fonts. That said, “I love that her eyelashes are sliding off her face half the time and she don’t care†made me yell.
• Why were all these people saying this escort’s name so freely if they knew they would have to bleep it out?
• Wendy sounded so ridiculous insisting that “the professor in her†knows that a tip could only refer to the northern end. It literally just means the edge of something, there is no cardinal orientation required.
• Gizelle loves to do like Erika Jayne on RHOBH and allude to a personal life that she will never show us on camera. I get that Sherman embarrassed her, but respectfully: If you are not going to work these men into your storyline, stop bringing them up. At least Ashley is out here doing TikToks in Luke’s house and committing to the bit.