Many themes make a franchise hum. On Potomac specifically, all the women are trapped by the triad of patriarchy, respectability, and desirability. All shows, however, are united by a common thread determining success: the ability to seize power, wield camera time, and work the narrative to your advantage. After the dust has cleared and Gizelle has seemingly accepted defeat and decided to play the background, the first few episodes this season suggest that the major power clash in the Potomac soft reboot is between Karen and Mia.
Mia has been a controversial figure her entire tenure in Potomac. She makes claims with about as much accuracy as a Snapple fact, is constantly rewriting her narrative at her convenience, and has a propensity for chaos that would find a perfect home in a Game of Thrones spinoff. Put all together, her behavior can form a potent cocktail that, when taken at the wrong time, can give you a severe headache, but there’s that magic moment when Mia’s destructive tendencies can give you all of the sensations you ever thought you needed. It is no surprise that Potomac is giving her a real shot at anchoring the franchise this season. After all, her being so brazenly transparent about the demise of her marriage and rekindled young love salvaged an unbearable season eight.
Despite her breakout moment last season, Mia’s jump from powerful character actor to lead bill has been unclear. Incomprehensible high jinks make for good comic relief as a B- or C-plot, but what happens when it takes center stage and the inmates start to run the asylum? We get a small taste of that in this episode, and I think it is fair to say that Mia is not up to the challenge just yet.
When we pick back up, Mia is attempting to run a classic Housewives play on the Grande Dame: bringing in backup to corner a cast member into admitting to an embarrassing incident on camera. This time around, it is attempt number five to get Karen to admit that she has cheated on Ray on camera, bringing a friend to dinner who was out with them both three years ago to corroborate her version of events. Deflecting claims of infidelity is old hat for Karen, and so she breezes past the indictment, but not as smoothly as she has in previous years. She feigns that she does not remember the call or the night in question, then claims she was in the car and that they must have heard her pulling over to get car service. It’s a flimsy cover-up, as Mia points out: Why would you admit to being behind the wheel? Nevertheless, Mia backs off from pressing on the story.
As Mia freely admits, she struck back because she didn’t like how Jacqueline was getting harangued for her thoughts about Karen’s behavior. Morally, Mia has the high ground in the conversation. Still, tactically, it is poorly executed, which comes as no surprise once we realize the master brain trust behind this pushback is composed of the bright minds of Ashley, Mia, and Jacqueline making breakout huddles behind the lake house. Karen is already off to the races constructing her narrative: Jacqueline and Mia were implanting drunk rumors at her birthday brunch before Karen even got there, and someone (likely Wendy or Keiarna) reported as much back to her, meaning they declared war. Any further attempts at conversation will be treated as such, which is why Karen has maintained combative energy with them both. A poor look if you are interested in expressing remorse for your actions to viewers, but a massive power play if you are interested in maintaining the hierarchy of the cast
Karen, for better or worse, works best when she is on the defense and feels cornered. All of a sudden, the conversation is no longer about newfound infidelity rumors but about how Mia waited three years to play that card. Instead of successfully returning fire, Mia and Jacqueline defend their actions to Keiarna, Wendy, and Stacey as a low blow. Mia attempts to deflect and point out that she is only doing what Karen has trained her to do — remain aggressive and put the newbies through boot camp — but that claim is dismissed, which leads her to turn Keiarna into a new target. All of a sudden, now we have to talk about how Keiarna has an alleged drug dealer ex-boyfriend — a claim shockingly corroborated by Ashley as the “word on the street†— and sought to remind Keiarna of her position in the group by stating, “I got my flute, we’re working on yours.†It’s strikingly ironic. In an attempt to single out Karen as someone who can’t let things go without being bitter, nasty, and mean, they only exposed themselves as carrying those traits.
Keiarna, to her credit, takes on the planned attack quite well and is largely unfazed by whatever they say about her. Once the conversation pivots to her scar and the fight at GnA, however, she completely loses control of her emotions, demanding that Ashley not ask her about her scar. Now, I don’t want to be accused of making light of someone’s trauma, but I did feel that Keiarna was laying on her frustrations a little thick, and I think Ashley was asking her about the scar on camera to imply that Keiarna had been sensationalizing the issue. Still, I also don’t know if it was enough to send her into screaming tears.
In the middle of this, Wendy feebly attempts to celebrate her birthday, her monologue speeches going into the void as the women take up arms against each other at the breakfast table. The women can barely humor Wendy’s desire to go skydiving and travel before returning back to battle. Defeated, Wendy eventually foregoes the birthday festivity to designate herself the referee and arbitrator of the two feuding camps.
Not one to let lying dogs lie, Karen eventually strikes back, calling out allegations about Jacqueline’s on-again-off-again partner and his previous convictions and investigations as a police officer. Jacqueline attempts to claim it was racist targeting, but given how hard it is for a cop to lose their job, we’re gonna need a bit more than that to chalk it up to administrative misunderstandings. What really surprises me is how hard Jacqueline is taking this. Moral high ground or not, Karen is right to make the rules of housewives clear: you start to stir up mess about me and sow doubt, I am in full rights to blast back at you. That is certainly the code that Mia runs by when she attempts and fails to box Karen in. Jacqueline is playing the faithful sidekick by feeding into the drama, so why is she surprised and offended that Karen is making her personal business fodder as well? I’m not shocked by her indignation as much as I am that she seems so utterly unprepared for it, even though this has been how these shows have worked since time immemorial.
After taking all these blows, Mia and Jacqueline resort to pulling the nuclear codes: reading out the charges Karen was accused of and publicly suggesting that she needed to go to rehab, going so far as to try to rope Stacey into the drama. It feels a bit early in the season to be going this hard — Karen seems far from wanting to acknowledge any guilt in the matter, and the other women are ill-equipped to go toe-to-toe with her without reinforcements. It was a bold play by Mia, but one that ultimately showcases that she is not quite ready to take up the mantle of this show for the next generation. Perhaps in the coming weeks, they will get Gizelle back in their ranks and can stand a fighting chance of slowing down Karen’s reign. Next week, the drama at Lake Norman continues, and we finally rate the newcomers. See you all then!
Cherry Blossoms
• I am reserving my full thoughts on Stacey and TJ for next week, but for now, let’s just say that this dynamic is giving strong shades of Walter and Kenya in her first season.
• I want to know what talking to Gizelle got her to say that she was compelled to go to her twin daughter’s cap and gown ceremony and fly back to North Carolina on the same day. There’s no way she wanted to celebrate Wendy’s birthday that bad. Maybe she got her first tuition bills or something.
• In every confessional, poor Stacey is confused as hell. This time, she was trying to make heads or tails of why people were arguing about drug dealers versus strippers. Her being constantly out of the loop in the show may become a gimmick that works.
• I understand what Mia is trying to do by being this open about the issues she is dealing with with Gordon, but I would caution her against speaking so openly about someone else’s struggles with bipolar disorder. I know that she wants it to be clear that there were serious issues in the marriage beyond her meeting someone new. Still, she should be wary of being so invested in making clear that Gordon is not innocent in the situation that she does more harm than good for her family.