Friends of the Bravoverse, welcome! After a nearly yearlong delay and public fallout between two of the cast favorites, the women of RHODubai are back!
I am always nervous about shows that premiere so long after filming. In the 24/7 social media era of engagement between the cast, blogs, and fans, so much can happen in the downtime that the season can end up feeling incomplete and unsatisfactory to the audience’s lingering questions. In this case, however, I don’t think we have to worry too much about that — one of the big arcs of the season seems to be the burgeoning feud between Ayan and Lesa, which continues to be the most salient topic among the cast in the years since. (Well, that and Sergio crying as Caroline recovers from her facelift.) And in the time it took for Bravo to figure out their programming, I went on my own weeklong trip to the Emirates, which I feel offers me additional insight on the bizarre ins and outs of the place they all call home. Let’s check in to see where the women are since we’ve last seen them.
Caroline Brooks has successfully launched her new beauty spa — in six months, too, which has to be some sort of Bravo record — and it genuinely looks lovely. The project seems to have been facilitated by her ex-husband’s financial support, which is perfectly fine, but considering they just got back on speaking terms, it also seems rife with potential for issues. We already get a peek at their banter, but to be fair, testy seems to be Brooks’ baseline. After all, she starts out this season by making a point to say she extended invites to her grand opening to the “who’s who†of Dubai, which did not include Lesa and Ayan. Caroline is not shy to provoke this group of women, including her bestie Caroline Stanbury, which is what makes her good for reality TV.
Lesa and Ayan didn’t seem fazed by the slight, however. At the start of the season, the duo are still thick as thieves, engaging in the tried and true Bravo tradition of obscure sports activities. This time, it’s Padel, a sport that is somehow different from pickleball but looks just as silly. It’s appropriate for the pair, however; when Ayan pulls up in white leather riding gloves, a 30-inch wig, and a cropped leather jacket, athletics are clearly not in the equation for the day. Instead, it’s a setting for gossiping about the event of the moment: Beyoncé’s Dubai performance at the unveiling of the new Atlantis Royal Hotel.
I remember exactly where I was when I heard Beyoncé’s viral new “Drunk in Love†riff in the “Arab Scaleâ€: at home on my couch, chromecasting a devoted Hivemember’s Instagram Live stream to my computer. All of the women, however, were in attendance, with varying levels of access. Lesa and Ayan were in the “VVIP†suites, hanging out with Kendall Jenner, Sabrina Elba, Tina Knowles, and other celebrities. The other women, while not hobnobbing as much with the A-lister, had floor seats and were very defensive about that level of access. Brooks claims she was so close to Beyoncé she could smell her conditioner; Stanbury claims that she was so close to Beyoncé that she literally got wet from being splashed by the water on stage. Is this debate silly? Absolutely, but given the state of the Bravo world right now, I am eager for nothing more than rich women arguing over inconsequential bullshit.
Despite this shade, Ayan and Stanbury make it clear that they are on the road to reconciliation. This doesn’t come as a surprise. Ayan has previously expressed that she actually liked Stanbury and wanted to get to know her better, but she kept lashing out because of Stanbury’s resistance to the idea. They’re both parents of older kids about to head to college, and both have a similar grasp of how to make their personalities shine on camera. Understandably, Lesa does not take to this very well — she and Stanbury exchanged some very brutal barbs about each other in the previous reunion — and this triangle will inevitably lead to conflict as the season progresses. For now, however, there is an uneasy détente.
Lesa reads Stanbury correctly: “Deep down, I don’t think she’s a witch. I just think that sometimes she’s a bitch.†Stanbury has Lisa Vanderpump syndrome. She thinks she is delivering a quick quip with trademark “British humourâ€, but it lands with a thud and sounds like she’s just being mean. We already see it with new castmate, Taleen. What seems to have meant to be a brief aside about how Taleen was drunk at the Beyoncé show and fell over at the concert quickly escalates into claiming that Sergio saw her vagina at the first all-cast sitdown. That said, Stanbury is approaching the show with a much more expressive approach to showing her life after being knocked off her high horse last season. She may have had her wedding, but she is firmly out of the honeymoon era — the newlyweds are currently crashing with a friend who is fed up with their constant lovemaking while they struggle to build her dream home. All of these frustrations have not stopped Sergio from desperately trying to put a baby in her uterus, and considering the fact that she still doesn’t seem to be pregnant, I am sure this tension will linger.
Sara Al-Madani comes back to the show as vague and esoteric as ever — this team, with a healer in tow, extending the Bravo trend of white people with obscurely ethnic tattoos getting a platform to promote their “spirituality†enterprise. I am empathetic to Sara’s journey — she clearly is seeking to mend the lingering wounds from her history of abuse and infidelity — and can understand her desire to better herself and her son by any means possible. That said, it is hard to see a white man conducting a “cord-cutting ceremonyâ€Â and take it seriously. Sara’s dogged approach to healing, as well, explains why she continues to bump heads with Ayan. Ayan is a lot, and she fully leans into that, but her traumas are also deep and lengthy, from xenophobia, to the FGM, to the cultural and religious trauma she is re-experiencing as she is discussing this on an international stage. It does not rationalize when she lashes out, but it does explain that a lot of her boisterous personality is rooted in feeling unsafe and not being able to trust many people. Therefore, it’s natural for someone like her to take Sara commenting on Ayan’s traumas to the press as a betrayal. (Even if those comments are relatively mild, such as saying that traumas are no excuse for bad behavior.) They are on different tracks in their healing journeys; Ayan is bound to stumble a lot as she works to reconcile all she struggles with, and Sara is not equipped to support her in that path.
All in all, it is a solid start to a new Bravo season and a needed palette cleanser as the rest of the Bravo franchise is embroiled in scandal-chasing hysterics. The drama is as inconsequential as ever, the locations are fantastic, and Ayan’s outfits are only getting more and more ostentatious (the transparent magenta chiffon dress with matching platform pumps was especially egregious). I’m looking forward to this season with you all. Until next week!