Over the last couple of years, newcomers to the Housewives franchise have had mixed results getting integrated with the cast and building their own fanbases. There are the ones who studied the franchise, came on with a bang and flamed out just as quickly, such as Monica Garcia’s infamously ill-fated run on Salt Lake City; the ones who have also studied the show, yet overproduced themselves out of showing anything compelling about their lives, such as Nneka’s stint on last season’s Potomac; and the ones who are not committed to the source material but so obsessed with being liked that they can’t bring themselves to do anything interesting, brave, or new (think half the cast of the new RHONY). It’s a frustrating position to be in as a viewer — it feels like you can visibly watch the gears turning as a newbie tries to make a first impression that lands well enough to garner a proper television contract. While most fans have a good grasp on how the sausage is made, just like American wrestling, it takes a little magic out of the program if the participants can’t sell the fantasy.
With this season of Potomac, the cast is stacked to the brim as the show goes through a much-needed soft reboot. Interestingly enough, most of the new additions don’t seem to fall neatly into any of the above boxes save for Jacqueline, whose sense of desperation wafts off the screen as if I’m watching using Smell-O-Vision. While the women are coming in oozing with persona and charisma, there is still a sense of hesitation in trying to mark their territory. Part of that may be in the fact that the women’s roles were in flux as casting was ongoing — Jassi and Keiarna, for example, had no idea who would get the formal flute versus who would be a friend of until the end of filming. The other part, however, is that the women are trying their best to play politics. Instead of making their mark by immediately going against one of the legacy girls, they are trying to gain favor and be protected by them, namely Karen, leading to moments of nearly comic tension on the screen. When Jacqueline mutters at the table, “I feel there’s a lot of ass kissing around here,†she might be bitter at Karen turning against her, but she isn’t wrong. The women choose to play to Karen’s ego, which leaves them paralyzed when the Grand Dame is obviously wrong.
Take today’s episode. Stacey confronts Karen with Mia’s clearly orchestrated claims that Karen needs to go to rehab. Knowing how the game is played, Karen takes it in stride, but not before dropping a few massive bombs in response, reminding the viewers and the cast that Mia has dealt with opioid addiction herself. The women, especially Stacey, are shocked into silence that Karen would go that low, not knowing her vindictive streak that we haven’t seen since the early seasons. As soon as they try to bounce back, however, Karen is already pivoting to asking for support for her court case in two weeks.
While the women may be skittish around Karen and try not to disturb the deferential hierarchy, there is no such grace being offered to Ashley or Mia, who have been the main ones to go up against the newbies time and again. Keiarna can barely contain her disdain for the woman. She won’t even let a playful moment in the pool pass by without letting Mia know that she still has issues with the woman, and they resume their war of words while out to eat. Mia sees her opening and tries to snatch the torch while she can, cajoling the girls over to her side of the yard, plying them with shots, joking about the chaos of her personal life, and joking about her lipo at every possible moment. Despite her devil-may-care nature about the tenor of the drama she brings, it is clear that the women are unconvinced she has a real shot at the throne and is leaving her to flounder in her personal fiascos, which I find understandable. Even when Mia attempted to generate another story arc with the suggestion that she and Keiarna potentially dated the same NFL star, Keiarna refused to bite, forcing Mia to move on to the next topic.
Now that the Eileen Davidson accords are up, let’s lift the veil up and talk about the new additions to the cast.
Keiarna: We were technically introduced to Keiarna last season, and she felt like a breath of fresh air in a cast desperately in need of transition. She left an impression with an unexpected fight with former friend of the cast and public menace, Deborah, which has left her with a lingering scar for her troubles. This season, however, she is mixing and tussling with the rest of the cast, especially Mia. In some ways, Mia and Keiarna represent fascinating counters of each other: they are both local DMV girls who built their own lives, but Mia likes to revel in the gutter, while Keiarna is doing her best to move onward and upward. I do think it’s telling that she hasn’t outright denied that she had previously dated a drug dealer, but as she rightfully said to Mia, she is the last one to sit and make moral judgments of anyone about their past.
Jacqueline: For someone who is technically making a return to the franchise, I am stunned by how she remains uncomfortable with the process of making a TV show. Tonight’s episode perfectly exemplifies the cringe factor she adds to the cast. There are numerous moments where she desperately tries to stick in a one liner or snarky witticism, only to be summarily ignored or for the jab to land with a thud. She made the ill-advised choice, clearly influenced by Mia, to take a stand against Karen, only for Karen to return fire Jacqueline wasn’t ready for. She seems to be the type to anxiously fill a space with humor, only to find out the hard way that no one is laughing with her. It comes out in the worst ways when she lays claim over her vaguely sapphic relationship with Mia. In this episode alone, we watched her (1) sniff Mia’s vagina to let her know that she was, indeed, minty fresh, and (2) blurt out that she and Mia had hooked up before, which was probably the world’s worst-kept secret. I don’t know if Jacqueline is just generally in an unsettled phase of her life, but she is coming off clingy, anxious, and rattled. The issue isn’t her lingering erotic fantasies about her supposed best friend; it’s that her embarrassment is simply uncomfortable to watch.
Stacey: I’m still getting a read on Stacey, but in general, her sense of whimsy and goofy is a welcome foil to the other women. When she said she was transferring her sexual energy into “working out†and “going to the zoo,†I genuinely screamed out loud. Her relationship with TJ leaves many open questions, for sure: “I’m in a committed celibate relationship with a television actor who lives full time in L.A.†sounds a lot like “my girlfriend lives in Canada,†but he has, at the very least, been willing to show face on camera, to give him some credit. The cast being agog about her celibacy will get old quickly. Still, I do find it compelling that she just gets under Mia’s skin simply for existing, simply because she clearly represents a veneer of “respectability†that Mia will never be able to attain. So far, she’s done a good job of rolling with the punches, so we will keep a close eye as it develops.
Jassi: Jassi’s personality shone early in the fracas over Karen and Gizelle’s competing events. As we get more into her personal life, however, we learn that all that glitters aren’t diamonds. She was unceremoniously thrown into the fire by Stacey, who was fed up with being interrogated about her personal life, and the more we heard about the circumstances of her engagement, the less the timeline added up. As best as I can understand it, Jassi is trying to play a semantic game of “my man and I weren’t official when he got someone else pregnant, so it doesn’t count as cheating,†but I did the math and 2+2=infidelity. I wish her the best with that situation, but I am sure this group of ladies will, at some point, make her regret being so open about a situation that she is clearly still insecure about.
Vivien: Unfortunately, she has barely been on camera to leave any mark.
Cherry Blossoms
• We’re six episodes in, and Ashley has struggled to find something compelling for viewers to pay attention to. Since she is not the main driver of mess and chaos this season, it is becoming hard to ignore. She’s so low on material that she is playing a poorly-made EDM mix of her song “Healing and Thriving,†a song no one was thinking about. I am sure some 19-year-old in Lithuania really appreciated the $250 she sent across to remix the track in ProTools in under an hour, but without the lingering drama of discussing the troll under the bridge that she is still married to, she seems to be flailing. At the very least, her current attempt at a personal story led to Gizelle making her own remix in the confessional chair, which made me laugh until my sides hurt.
• Mia taking the girls on a field trip to a joint chiropractic branch she does not own on Wendy’s birthday was hilariously ill-executed. The staff there clearly did not know her, and she walked into the offices with the smug face of a recent high school grad who kept coming back to visit their school after their first homecoming. They didn’t even get adjustments! I also need to understand how Mia can allegedly still own all these branches and still have her finances clearly in flux — are the sales giving her cash infusions, or is she having to split the returns with Gordon’s former partners? The legal structure behind this is very murky.
• What the hell was that white getup that Wendy was wearing at the rooftop dinner? She looked like the wife of a riverboat captain. That said, her speech and the subsequent toasts at the birthday dinner were probably the most open and gentle she has ever been on screen. It was lovely to watch the women (except Jacqueline) pour into her and for her to share her transparency about struggling to find her footing and really land on her passion — something that has been painfully obvious as viewers as we watched her jump from hobby to hobby, but a great moment of introspection to catch on camera.
• Keiarna is beautiful, but that blonde confessional look is an absolute no. She looked like a member of the Lollipop guild.
• Despite the emerging tensions in the group, what is keeping this enjoyable is that all the women are committed to having fun as much as possible. The scene of the women playing fuck, marry, kill with one another was amusing to watch, and garnered some genuinely surprising answers. Celibate Stacey would fuck Mia Thornton? Maybe there’s more to Stacey that we just haven’t seen yet.