There are two immutable laws of Housewives: (1) every fight in Housewives is not about the conflict we see on-screen but really a behind-the-scenes power play spilling over to the cameras, as has been decreed many times by Brian Moylan; (2) never involve the kids, or speculate on parenting. A few franchises play a little fast and loose with the second one, like New Jersey, where the cast seems on the brink of cursing each other’s family lines at the drop of a hat, but it is commonly understood that interfering in parenting is tantamount to declaring war. As this season of Potomac progresses, however, the cast seems to be slipping further and further away from this boundary — and judging from this episode and future previews alone, the DMV ladies are getting dangerously close to throwing the proverbial baby out with Mia’s bathwater.
There is arguably no cast of women who feel so bound to perform respectability and domesticity as the Potomac wives. Take this episode: Wendy has spent four episodes in a row celebrating her 40th birthday, and yet is shaking in her boots to let her mom know that she is opting to take a break from academia (that ultimately lasted less than a year, as she is right back at Wesleyan now). Is it a bit embarrassing to be approaching middle age and still terrified of how your mother will react to bucking her expectations? Absolutely. Do I deeply identify with the feeling? Absolutely, my mom still has no real concept of how I pay my rent since I left the corporate world, and she doesn’t hesitate to let me know that she considers me unemployed, as internet words don’t matter to her. Luckily for Wendy, her mom took the news well, realizing that her daughter and her four degrees offer her plenty of options, but this remains a perfect example of how Wendy, like the rest of the cast, has been paralyzed by the need to present a certain image.
If there’s anyone who can relate to this impulse, it is Gizelle Bryant, a woman who has spent her entire life striving to meet an artificial standard of Black bourgeoisie, as both the child of an elected politician and former First Lady of the Church. Gizelle struggles to escape the trap that these experiences have provided her. Despite being the foundation and arguable necessary evil that keeps the show running, her insistence on adhering to this arbitrary standard of Black polite society is exactly why her singledom and failed marriage to Jamal Bryant continue to be cannon fodder — it is attacking her on some of the values that she clearly holds close, based on how she has historically interfered with the other women on the show. What has always been striking to me, however, is that despite how Gizelle continues to subject herself to such an unwinnable standard, she seems to genuinely want her daughters to move past that, having open and honest conversations with them about dating and finances so that they don’t end up like the rest of her castmates who are 40 and clueless on how to pay their mortgage. Handling finances after a family member passes is often a testy proposition. Gizelle is generally smart in bringing her daughters into the conversation of how her issues with resolving the will of her recently deceased father — which I highly suspect is in part due to disputes with his wife that Gizelle conveniently never names or speaks about publicly — has inspired her to make sure that none of Jamal’s possible future indiscretions threatens the financial future she has wanted for her daughters. Too often, family members (especially women) are clued into these conversations at a point that is too late for anyone to do anything about it; Gizelle continuously models examples of how to break these patterns for her kids, even if she struggles to apply them to herself.
Watching these specific approaches to family planning and parental conversations only reinforces how confounding it is that Mia insists on taking us through her melodrama without a hint of self-awareness of how it all comes off. Mia seems determined to rope as many people into her chaos as much as possible, consequences be damned. This week, the target of the day is Keiarna, who she just mocked for being partnered with a social worker. Now that speaking about mental health is relevant to her story, she is reaching out to Keiarna, a woman with no formal training in mental-health counseling or diagnoses, to help validate the story she is trying to paint. It is a bizarre choice amongst the litany of decisions Mia has made this season that defy logic. Keiarna has barely been on the show for four weeks; in what capacity could she corroborate your husband’s mental health, dangerous behavior, and impact on your family? And why is she the only one to get verbal confirmation this season that this paternity debacle is sensationalized, and you don’t believe Inc is the father of your child?
Keiarna smartly advised Mia that she needs to get her house in order before trying to develop a new romance, but that’s not what Mia is there for — she simply wanted ammo to bring back to Gordon on-camera, and she struck gold with the mention of an Open Arms’ checklist for manic episodes that Keiarna likely scanned off of Greg’s desk. Poised with her supporting arguments, she returned to film at her house, pressing Gordon with this information while simultaneously having a frustrating conversation with her children about her personal life on-camera for what seems like the first time, as her son responds to her discussions around divorce with marked confusion. Her daughter plaintively whispering her reservations about the new man in her life is jarring, and absolutely indicative that despite any claims to the contrary, Mia has completely mishandled protecting her children’s innocence in favor of “living in her truth†on-camera. It is astonishing to watch Mia fail at every turn to establish that she is putting her children first or operating in the best interests of her family, and I am beyond ready to watch Gizelle orchestrate a takedown for the ages the longer we see this fiasco go on. See you all next week!
Cherry Blossoms
• Gizelle and Ashley did some speed dating in this episode. These gimmicks rarely work for me, as you can almost feel the bright bulb of a camera lens and hovering boom mic as the suitors fumble their way through a sweaty-palmed pitch where they insist they have simply never Googled the person in front of them and have no personal aspirations of being an actor, influencer, and eternal plus-one to D-list red carpets sponsored by vanity alcohol brands. Sure, you live in the DMV and landed in front of a production camera, but you have no idea what you have gotten yourself into. That said, both Gizelle and Ashley landed on men who align pretty closely with the type we have seen them with over the years. Gizelle snagged herself a Black D.C. stereotype, slim-fit suit and all; I guarantee there isn’t an unofficial Congressional Black Caucus after-party that he has missed in the last four years. Ashley selected Napoleon Dynamite, and I think we should just take the win that her chosen suitor is under the age of 50.
• I try my best to veer away from turning every recap into an episode of Nancy Grace, but Karen Huger is making it quite difficult. We have now moved from grieving her parents to having Ray get on-camera to corroborate that their marriage was going through real struggles at the time of the incident and that he has been stepping up for her since — a fact that has been obvious since Ray has had to be her personal butler throughout the season. I don’t doubt that Ray is resentful that he doesn’t have the financial freedom to jet off to whatever older folks’ social club on Delray Beach he had fantasized about lining up for post-retirement — it has been obvious to anyone who has watched the show in the last three years. But these conversations feel shockingly forced — Karen is scrambling to squeeze in a sympathy play and runs out of Housewives to help entertain these antics. It is getting more and more awkward to watch, and I am fully ready for us to move past this.
• The longer we get scenes of Stacey and TJ on our screens, the more frustrated I get. I don’t care if TJ sat before God and made a commitment of chastity for this life and the next one. Where is the desire? The courtship? The romance? A woman who claims to have never seen a bill this century is really sitting around and pretending to be entranced by frozen DiGiorno’s pizza and a Squirt soda in a wine glass? I am appalled by what I am watching. TJ is right that sex does not fix anyone’s problems, but the core problem is that Stacey clearly wants to have sex, and he barely seems like he wants to touch her as much as he wants to be her spiritual life coach. Whatever the case is, I am getting deeply embarrassed by proxy.