I am loathe to be prescriptive about a season of television at the second episode, but as a studied protégé of the Reality Television Arts and Sciences in the Brian Moylan School of Housewifery and Hooligans, I would be lying if I didn’t say I had early concerns about the direction of this season of Potomac. Out of all of the franchises in the Real Housewives universe that are struggling — I am looking at you, Atlanta — one of the most refreshing outposts of Bravo’s massive tentpole product seems stuck in an inescapable ouroboros of its own creation.
Ever since season five (honestly, even earlier), the seasons have trodded down the same beaten paths for their OG cast members. Robyn is in a miserable partnership and unwilling to come to terms with it; Gizelle is seeking to drive as much story as possible without giving up similar aspects of her personal life in return; Ashley is attempting to create as much chaos as possible with external parties to distract from the nebulous state of her personal life; Karen has a new version of “her truth,†and she is sticking to it with zingers to match. While that is all well and good, it does not make for propulsive television, especially as the divisions in the cast become more entrenched: Candiace and Wendy are still on the outside looking in — which means limited ensemble filming opportunities — newcomer Nneka is entering the collective looking to make her stamp, which means getting in with the core four at the outsider’s expense, and Mia is a pinch hitter constantly looking out for herself. It is an untenable, wash, rinse, repeat situation, which no level of reality gimmicks from the editing team can quite remedy, although they are trying their damnedest. A season will not survive if Candiace spends the majority of it planning her City Winery national tour, as happy as that seems to be making her.
But let’s start from the beginning. We get the season’s taglines in this episode. Shall we?
- Gizelle: “I’m no Angel, but give me some Grace, and you’ll learn to Adore me.†Whenever Gizelle is in a pickle, she runs to her daughters as an escape hatch, but blatantly using it in her tagline is a new level of shamelessness I cannot abide. 5/10
- Ashley: “You don’t have to dig for gold when you shine this bright.†Can anyone tell me what Ashley does besides run an unintentional comedy series with her dancing TikToks? 4/10
- Robyn: “I just took a DNA test, and it turns out I 100 percent don’t care.†It’s probably not the best time to be making a Lizzo reference, but also, it’s just try hard and not believable. If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t spend every second on screen discussing how unbothered you were. 4/10
- Wendy: “If you’re going to test this professor, be prepared to fail.†I wish Wendy would lean on something besides her credentials, but I need to focus on more achievable things, like finally shedding the last 20 pounts of my COVID-19 weight gain. 6/10
- Nneka: “Nigeria raised me, L.A. made me, and Potomac will remember me.†It’s very 2015 Instagram Bio, but it’s otherwise fine. 6/10
- Mia: “It doesn’t matter the size of our home; I’m always the queen of this castle.†No real notes. I just find it a bit boring. 6/10
The main event of the episode is Ashley’s big nautically themed housewarming — an ensemble event that excludes Candiace from filming. This is an early red flag that continues to make me nervous this season — the fact that the OGs think they can still create an entertaining show while refusing to film with one another. It’s not amusing; it’s unprofessional and childish. I am far from Candiace’s biggest fan, but Ashley needs to take Candiace’s anger on the chin for taking part in the negative storylines targeting Candiace’s husband. If Ashley is supposed to be forgiven for all of the mess she intentionally stirs up for the plot, she cannot insist on holding a grudge against Candiace for letting her lips go loose about her alleged soon-to-be ex-husband — especially since she claims to know nothing about the lawsuit outside of what is public.
Candiace being excluded also means that Wendy shows up to the housewarming with no real allies in the cast — Gizelle physically shifts as Wendy goes to hug Karen as if the professor is just recovering from COVID.
Before the event, however, a few girls get together to reestablish their baselines for the season. Karen and Mia meet to come to an uneasy reset after their fallout last season, but the Grand Dame is not giving any leeway to Mia. Karen’s logic is fairly straightforward: She’s not quite troubled by allegations of infidelity; she’s batted them down for nearly five seasons straight at this point, but the fact that Mia participated has her irate. Karen spent last season warning Mia of scenes where she was about to be set up for a confrontation by Gizelle and Robyn, as well as publicly defending her in the setup around health conversations, only to be repaid with an abrupt allegation that seemed to be for no other reason than on-screen drama. Mia broke the unspoken rule of housewifery — don’t stab an OG in the back unless you are certain the long-term payoff is worth it. As a result, she has to endure comically hamfisted handshakes until she genuflects to La Dame’s satisfaction (which will never come to be).
Robyn and Juan continue to circle the drain on the seemingly miserable state of their newlywed partnership. Robyn pulls the standard stunt many people in tired partnerships pull: sharing the opinions of “her friends†and gauging his reaction. That way, any anger is redirected toward her friends’ legitimate concerns. “My friends said it was just bad optics and disrespectful for you to continue to publicly associate with women after everything that was going on in the press and your reputation with infidelity. Isn’t that crazy?†Juan’s predictable response is a defiant “I don’t care,†which is exactly the problem. Juan seems to be quickly regressing to the version of him we originally met — unemployed and unengaged — but now he has vows he is supposed to uphold.
We meet Nneka and her husband, Ikenna, in this episode. I will adhere to the Eileen Davidson accords (waiting five episodes before rendering my full verdict on her), but I must admit that my first impression is one of confusion. It is clear that the objective is to show off that they are finally bringing a cast member with wealth onto the show, but why is her first scene an HGTV project? Where are they staying? Also, why would you brag about omitting properties in your mortgage application? Listing assets is a basic part of an application, especially in assessing your debt-to-income ratio; it was a very perplexing flex.
If I am being honest, I am nervous about how they are handling Nneka’s arrival on the show. I am fine with the general Nigerian bravado that is being highlighted early — chest-thumping over excellence, ostentatious, highlighting accomplishments, mildly tacky designer fashions — but the show is setting up very early on a dynamic between Wendy and Nneka that has the potential to enter very dangerous waters if not handled correctly. We are already addressing very harmful rumors instigated by none other than Ashley Darby about Wendy’s alleged affiliation to a caste system that would involve her ostracization and inability to properly socialize with her own Igbo ethnic group. By the way, I can personally confirm Wendy took early pains to address these rumors with the African demographic of Bravo watchers when she first got cast on the show — remember the fever dream that was Clubhouse, everyone? Moving from that to hints of discussing witchcraft in the upcoming episode, I fear we are not going to be given much space to know Nneka as a person as much as she will serve as a public antagonist for Wendy this season based on very sensitive and stigmatized conversations within the greater Black diaspora. I’m all for Wendy being pushed out of her professional comfort zone this season. Still, considering this show’s history of properly navigating complicated intraracial issues in seasons past, I will have a hand on the emergency brake as the season unfolds.
Cherry Blossoms
• Candiace is planning her tour and alludes to some unexplained tension with Drew Sidora. What is going on there, and why wasn’t she more forthcoming?
• Karen Huger referring to her 60th birthday as her “triple 20†is objectively hilarious. I respect her commitment to creating her own reality.
• Wendy is exploring the idea of a talk show to shop to a network, which really means she’s launching a YouTube series and can’t so much as nail down a budget. I don’t mind if Wendy wants to go ten toes down on the girl boss “multi-hyphenate†lane, but how does this reconcile with her admitted need to slow down last season because she was neglecting her health? Make it make sense.
• Watching that Pilates class made me relieved that I never followed through on joining the Solidcore cult. Those contraptions seem to make for a phenomenal core workout, but I will stick to my boxing classes on ClassPass.
• Just a brief observation, but Mia’s style and glam budget have taken a serious nosedive this season. She was not playing when she said they had to cut back.